7696 research outputs found
Sort by
How does a second language influence native Mandarin speakers\u27 representation of time?
No full textWe use metaphors in everyday communications to describe abstract concepts, and people across cultures rely on spatial metaphors to understand and represent time. Then does learning a second language change the way we think about time and how we talk about time? This current research asks whether and how spatial metaphors for time in Mandarin and English influence native Mandarin speakers’ representation of time. A total of 61 native Mandarin speakers completed a survey that asked about their language experience background and five questions that tested whether they take a time-moving or an ego-moving perspective to represent time. Mandarin monolinguals were only tested in Chinese; Mandarin-English bilinguals were tested in both Chinese and English on the same set of questions. Results indicated that native Mandarin speakers tend to take a time-moving perspective regardless of their English proficiency. A statistically significant amount of ME bilingual participants took a time-moving perspective when tested in Chinese and an ego-moving perspective when tested in English. The results imply that the second language does not have a strong influence on individuals’ temporal reasoning in the context of their native language, and individuals can acquire a new system of time metaphors in their second language and use this knowledge in the context of the target language. Those findings contribute to a better understanding of the time metaphors used in Mandarin and how second language acquisition might influence the way we conceptualize and represent time
Can hyper-localized information on climate impacts and positive action motivate climate mitigation and adaptation behavior?
No full textEncouraging people to reduce carbon emissions and prepare for climatic changes is crucial to addressing the climate crisis. We designed an experiment to assess whether presenting information on local climate change impacts and climate action can decrease psychological distance, increase the saliency of climate threats, enhance efficacy, and ultimately increase motivation for action
Around the Clock: Time as Problem in the Poetry of Bao Zhao
No full textThe Liu-Song writer and official Bao Zhao 鮑照 (414?–466) is perhaps best known as a superlative yuefu poet, but a broader view of his poetic oeuvre reveals an overarching concern that might be obscured were we to remain focused only on the vividly drawn personae of his yuefu poems, namely Bao’s profound anxiety over time. Bao’s poetry on topics of all kinds makes constant reference to personified days and years with whom he must contend, to the menacing predations of the clock, and to his own often-bewildering subjective experience of time’s steady advance. This paper offers an analysis of Bao Zhao’s handling of time as a problem in his poetry, and thereby asks what might be unique about his exploration of that problem—and whether he has a solution
The War In-Between: Indexing a Visual Culture of Survival
No full textAgainst the fabric of suffering that unfolds around more spectacular injuries and deaths, The War In-Between studies visual depictions of the routine and often inscrutable aspects of militarized violence. Visual artifacts ranging from photographs and video to needlework, craft projects, and data visualizations provide different vantage points on militarism, whether it is the banality of everyday violence for non-combatants or the daily struggles of soldiers living with physical and emotional trauma. Three interrelated concepts frame The War In-Between. First, the concept of the in-between attends to those interstitial spaces of war where violence and survival persist side-by-side. Second, this analysis expands the concept of indexicality to consider how images of the in-between rely on a range of indexical traces to produce alternative visualities about survival and endurance. Third, the book develops an asymptotic approach that explores the value of getting close to war in-between’s diverse experiences, even if the horizon line of experience is always just out of reach. Exploring the capaciousness of survival reveals that there is more to feel and engage in war images than just mangled bodies, collapsing buildings, desperation, and industrialized death. The War In-Between offers not a better truth about war but an accounting of visualities that arise at the otherwise unthinkable junction of conflict and survival
Al contar sus propias historias: el rol de compartir experiencias en espacios femeninos para escapar de las torres panópticas
Get PDFDetecting Gravitational Waves with Pulsars: Optimally Correcting for Interstellar Delays
No full textPulsar timing has shown significant potential in detecting gravitational waves in the last decade. Yet, current results are noisy, limiting the effectiveness of pulsar timing. It is well known that interstellar timing delays constitute one important source of these timing errors. However, the current methods meant to correct for interstellar timing delays significantly decrease sensitivity to low-frequency gravitational waves in pulsar timing arrays. In this thesis we show how current interstellar dispersion models can be biased by other timing effects including non-chromatic effects, like gravitational waves (GWs) themselves, and chromatic effects like scattering (§ 3.2.1 and § 4.2). We develop new methods to calculate unbiased estimates of chromatic timing effects to produce “chromatic-adjusted” timing residuals (§ 4.3), as well as introduce new methods that can be used to constrain the size of chromatic models to increase gravitational wave sensitivity (§ 3.3.1). Recent studies have shown limitations for current statistical theories on the timing delay produced by interstellar scattering, which, as a timing effect, has often been ignored in pulsar timing. Through simulations, we investigate path-length variations of radio waves in turbulent plasma, and show that the resulting stochastic behavior may explain these recent observational findings (§ 4.1). Specifically, we find that scattering timescales, τs, and observing radio frequencies, ν, are potentially best understood using a stochastic power law model τs ∝ να(t), compared to current models that assume a constant power law index of -4 to -4.4. This led us to search for potential scattering in the NANOGrav 15-year pulsar timing array using our new chromatic-adjustment method. Initial lower-bound analyses find that half of the pulsars in the PTA may be scattered (§ 5.3). Closer analysis of individual pulsars yields significant (p \u3c 10−4 and much better) detections of scattering in the following pulsars: B1937+21, J1643-1224, J1600-3053, J1903+0327, J1744-1134, and J2145-0750 (§ 5.4). Our findings give evidence for time-correlated scattering, as well as significant bias from scattering in current dispersion solutions. In the case of J1903+0327, we find scattering on the order of 100 μs, strong enough that chromatic-adjusted residuals differ significantly from NANOGrav’s current best-fit model, suggesting a misfit model. Our analyses highlights the limitation of currently used chromatic models in pulsar timing
Understanding flat and skeuomorphic design through the Zune HD
No full textMicrosoft’s Zune HD music player is a snapshot of a design theory in place and time, one that challenged its contemporaries’ design trends and helped to demonstrate the shift from skeuomorphic to flat design, providing a valuable and illustrative example of a design theory in application. This research examines the device in context, looking at the history of the device, its influences, and the designs that were used by devices at the same time. The Zune HD was a commercial failure and the last gasp of the Zune brand, but it allows us to see that skeuomorphism and flat design are approaches to solving similar problems and are valuable for how they make us feel and experience our technology
Mail Myself to You: A Cinematic Journey Through the Oberlin College Mail Art Collection
No full textOberlin College’s Clarence Ward Art Library is the home of the Harley Francis Terra Candella and Reid Wood State of Being mail art archives, a vast collection of art which had been mailed from artist to artist through the postal service. The mail art movement began in the early 1960’s, emerging out of the Fluxus art movement and Ray Johnson’s New York Correspondence School. Mail artists have since desired to forge an artistic community outside of museum and gallery systems, an “eternal network” built on the principles of art being free and collaborative. The over 20,000 works of mail art in the Oberlin College Mail Art Collection– spanning a period of 45 years and 70 countries– have been handled entirely by student workers since their original donation and purchase. Every year, new students are trained on the library’s cataloging practices and history of mail art, able to interact intimately with every postcard, artist stamp, and envelope in the collection. The spring of 2024 marks Reid Wood’s final donation of mail art to the Clarence Ward Art Library, an apt moment to reflect on the history of mail art in Oberlin and beyond. This animated documentary film will explore the legacy and future of this extensive archive, posing questions regarding the ways humans communicate through art and the practices of preserving the memory of art that resists convention