28266 research outputs found
Sort by
Does Ageism Exist in the Western World of Employment? Does our Growing and Aging Populations Impact the Future of the Job Market?
No full textErron Johnson, for the Master of Science degree in Economics, presented on November 7, 2024, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: DOES AGEISM EXIST IN THE WESTERN WORLD OF EMPLOYMENT? DOES OUR GROWING AND AGING POPULATIONS IMPACT THE FUTURE OF THE JOB MARKET?MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Alison Watts This document investigates the relationship between the wages of older and young workers in western societies as variables for employment, unemployment, and labor force participation. The primary question this essay wants to address is what the future look should look like for employment opportunities as nations are continuing to have an aging population. This research used fixed effects, bar plots, and summary statistics method over a 23-year period (1990-2023) for 10 countries in North America, Europe, and Australia. Based on the evidence and consistency observed, I can say there is a positive correlation between young workers’ presence in the labor force in relation to wage gaps, unemployment and labor force participation rates for both young and old workers.Keywords: Wage gap, Employment, Unemployment, Labor force participation rat
EXPERIMENTAL TESTING AND ANALYSIS OF MOVING INFRARED THERMOGRAPHY FOR RAIL BASE INSPECTION
No full textMonitoring internal rail anomalies and defects regularly is vital for ensuring the safety of train operations. Although numerous nondestructive testing (NDT) methods exist for evaluating track infrastructure, there is still a high demand to effectively and efficiently inspect the rail base area. This study focuses on enhancing the understanding of infrared thermography (IRT), particularly line-scanning thermography (LST), as a non-contact inspection technique for identifying defects in the rail base. An inspection cart was developed to accommodate a thermal camera and line heaters, allowing for the examination of the effects of LST on carbon steel samples as well as actual rail base samples with various internal and external defects. The thermal contrasts in the captured infrared images were analyzed to identify the defects and differentiate them from areas without defects. Basic post-processing algorithms were integrated that enhanced the original infrared (IR) images and improved signal to noise ratio (SNR). The experiments demonstrated that operating the system at a speed of 1.34 m/s while applying 6000 W effectively detected bottom drilled holes (BDH) with an aspect ratio of diameter to the remaining thickness of two or higher. Likewise, the tests successfully identified surface-breaking defects, such as hairline cracks, even at 2.24 m/s. Consequently, the findings from this study serve as an essential reference for the future development of a commercial line-scanning thermography (LST) inspection system designed for in-service inspections, ultimately improving rail safety and maintenance procedures
Investigating Adaptors of the Chlamydial Clp Unfoldase ClpX and Initial Characterization of the Chlamydial Single-Stranded DNA Binding Protein
No full textThe obligate intracellular bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis is the causative agent of chlamydia, the most reported bacterial sexually-transmitted infection in the United States. Currently, there is no commercially-available vaccine. Infection with C. trachomatis is treatable with broad-spectrum antibiotics; however, these treatments can cause dysbiosis in patients and contribute to antibiotic resistance in other bacterial species. Improvements to drug therapies would reduce side-effects of treatment and increase efficacy. The developmental cycle of C. trachomatis involves a transition between two forms, the infectious elementary body (EB) and the replicative reticulate body (RB). As these two forms have unique protein profiles, we posit that significant remodeling of the proteome occurs during differentiation. We speculate that proteases promote chlamydial development through proteomic turnover and thus, we reason that these protease systems would make appealing drug targets that could be chlamydial specific. One of the proteases that C. trachomatis possesses is the caseinolytic protease (Clp) system, comprised of two proteolytic heptamers, ClpP1 and ClpP2, as well as two adaptors: ClpC and ClpX. Our prior research supports a role for ClpX in development, and we seek to define the molecular mechanism(s) by which ClpX enables EB production. To this end, our goal was to identify ClpX adaptors and substrates. To enable a screen for substrates/adaptors, we attempted to develop a medium throughput in vivo GFP-degradation based assay using Escherichia coli that expressed the chlamydial ClpP2/P1/X. When the screening assay failed, we switched to a targeted approach focusing on potential adaptors and substrates including: the histidine kinase and cognate response regulator AtoS/AtoC, the transcriptional regulator ChxR, and CTL0300, a putative Single-Stranded DNA Binding protein (SSB). We established a variety of targeted in vitro assays for probing ClpX-adaptor/substrate interactions including ATPase, immunoprecipitation, protein cross-linking, Native-PAGE, and electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSA). We also validated the annotated function of CTL0300 as an SSB through EMSA and tryptophan quenching assays. Collectively, the stage is now set to rigorously evaluate ClpX substrates and adaptors allowing for molecular insights into the role of ClpX in chlamydial development
Infinitely many solutions of a critical nonlinear Choquard equation on R^n.
No full textWe establish the existence of infinitely many entire solutions to a conformally invariant partial differential equation on R^n with a nonlocal nonlinearity term. Under suitable assumptions on the dimension and the nonlocality, we show that these solutions must be sign-changing. The primary obstacle in finding a solution lies in the fact that standard variational methods do not apply easily due to the lack of compactness, which results from invariance under certain transformations, such as dilations. Our approach involves using stereographic projection to lift our problem to an equivalent problem on the unit sphere. By leveraging the symmetries of the sphere, we are able to overcome the lack of compactness
Role of Social Support in the Adjustment of International Student during the Process of Acculturation
No full textUniversities in the United States of America host a significant number of international students. These students come from a multitude of culture and bring a range of their own cultural values and norms. However, due to encountering different cultural norms and values, the choice to studying overseas may present many challenges, including difficulties with adjustment to the environment of the host country and experiences acculturative stress. This study considers problems arising during the students’ initial transition period, as they acculturate into the American culture and educational system. The present paper provides a review of current acculturation, adjustment, and social support models as applied to international students. While using a qualitative research method, sixteen South Asian graduate students from two distinct countries, India and Nepal, were interviewed to present their personal experience with acculturation and adjustment in the academic settings in a Mid Western University. This study used an Interpretative Phenomenology approach to obtain an applicable and common understanding of the meaning of participants’ experiences through the transcribed interviews. Data analysis was emphasized to understand the meaning of the text by reading individual parts and comparing the meanings of parts as a whole. Working through the phases of IPA, the researcher developed a descriptive account of phenomena through the eyes of participants. The focus was to understand what matters to the participants, with attention to specific events, particular relationships, and core values. The researcher recorded participants’ objective comments and emotional expressions. Further analysis then helped the researcher in interpreting and exploring the meaning participants gave to aspects of their stories. Participants reported their experiences encountered during their initial transition into the US. They experiences were a reflection of their initial and ongoing adjustment to the U.S. environment, including how they made sense of their experiences and how their ways of thinking and behaving changed. The participants also shared their strategies they perceived as helpful in specific situations. Based on an analysis of participants’ interviews, themes that arose from the interviews included (a) challenges they encountered in respect to their homeland and the new environment, including language/communication, culture, academic study and learning, living in the US, and psychological adjustments; (b) recognizing strengths and positive growth from facing challenges and adapting to their new environment; and (c) acknowledging the need to accept help and how to more proactively seek and receive help as needed. Recommendations and Implications for more actively assisting and including South Asian international students are also discusse
ON THE GENERALIZATION AND ROBUSTNESS OF ML-BASED NETWORK INTRUSION DETECTION SYSTEMS
No full textMachine Learning (ML)-based Network Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS) hold great promise for enhancing network security. As a security application, concerns persist regarding the generalization and robustness of ML-based NIDS. To facilitate real-world deployment, it is crucial to ensure the generalization and robustness of ML-based NIDS to attain a certain level of effectiveness. The current practices for ML-based NIDS are investigated, revealing challenges to generalization posed by tabular data representations and the need for tailored models in diverse network scenarios that reflect the lack of robustness. The unique characteristics of NIDS scenarios pose challenges to ML but also bring opportunities to solve them. Given ML-based NIDSs are data-driven methods, the unique network traffic data, which needs to be reconstructed representation, plays a pivotal role. This dissertation focuses on flexible network traffic representation to investigate its impact on the generalization and robustness of ML-based NIDS. This dissertation starts by delving into NIDS’s unique characteristics and challenges. Further, this dissertation introduces a comprehensive data augmentation framework for current ML-based NIDSs. In addition, this dissertation proposes a novel heterogeneous temporal graph network traffic representation and corresponding graph neural network NIDS model. This dissertation also studies adversarial attacks on NIDS, proposing a projecting-based traffic-space adversarial evasion attack generation method with a basic feature sequence traffic representation
Nowhere People: Working-Class Academics and the Changing Financial Landscape of Higher Education
No full textHistorically, attending college and pursuing a graduate degree has been associated with greater economic opportunity. However, research reveals that the relationship between higher education and social mobility has shifted over time. The current context of rising student loan debt, the higher cost of education, more tenuous job markets, and stagnating wages diminishes the association between higher education and economic advancement, particularly for students who come from a working-class background. The cost to attend state universities has risen over 200% since the 1980s (Collinge), while graduate assistant salaries and the federal minimum wage remain comparatively unchanged. Additionally, many with a graduate degree are increasingly left to piece together a living wage through multiple adjunct instructor positions or employment in the service industry. While attending graduate school can be seen as a transitional—and sometimes ambiguous—space between student and professor, if PhDs are not able to secure full-time, steady employment post-graduation, then their ambiguous existence becomes prolonged, creating both a financial crisis and crisis of identity. In the context of the shift in the relationship between social mobility and higher education, my research addresses class as an identity while also accounting for the complicated understandings of that identity during this historical shift. Thus, the dissertation responds to the following research questions: (1) How has the relationship between social mobility and higher education shifted over time? (2) How does this change in relationship systemically and philosophically impact those who earn graduate degrees? and (3) How can academics adapt our pedagogical practices and institutional policies to address this historical shift and its impact on graduates? Accounting for socioeconomic class more thoroughly and in a contemporary context, this research develops a theory of class identity that builds toward social justice praxis at the intersection of socioeconomic class and education, contributing both to the field of communication studies and to broader academic and social spheres. I develop and use collaborative autoethnographic interviewing (CAEI) as a dialogic method by which to gather the stories of working-class academics who have not achieved social mobility through attending graduate school. By seeking participants and gathering stories of graduate degree-holders who have experienced the shift in relationship between higher education and social mobility first-hand, this research provides a better understanding of coalitional opportunities that can be forged between upper, middle, and lower-classes; the educated and uneducated; and those invested in social justice who have not yet had the opportunity to expand their work to include economic equity
RECOGNITION AND ANALYSIS OF THE WORKS OF CONTEMPORARY FEMALE PHOTOGRAPHERS IN IRAN (CASE STUDIES: MARYAM ZANDI, RANA JAVADI, SHADI GHADIRIAN, AZADEH AKHLAGHI, NEWSHA TAVAKOLIAN)
Get PDFDuring the Qajar era, photography was exclusively in the hands of the king and the courtiers. After many years, it first made its way into the studios of the capital and then into studios in other major cities. The revolution, the war, and the subsequent years brought about various social and cultural conditions in Iran. Following the emergence of new intellectual and ideological movements, artistic trends also underwent changes, leading to the teaching of various art disciplines, including photography, in art universities and the pursuit of artistic photography in a new form. As a result of these changes, women were also able to participate more extensively in this field. It can be said that Iranian women played a significant role in the growth and flourishing of many social and artistic arenas in the post-revolutionary era. The present research paper aims to recognize the most prominent female photographers in Iran after the revolution and analyze their works. It also seeks to understand the status and direction of photography in today\u27s Iran and to examine the perspective of Iranian female photographers regarding the subject matter. The author aims to answer the question of how post-revolutionary Iranian culture has influenced the works of Iranian female photographers and what characteristics it possesses. This study also examines the evolution of the applications of photography before and after the revolution, considering how political, social, and cultural changes have influenced images, photographers\u27 perspectives, and the choice of subjects. The research method is descriptive, and the statistical population consists of the works of five Iranian female photographers: Maryam Zandi, Rana Javadi, Shadi Ghadirian, Azadeh Akhlaghi, and Newsha Tavakolian, in Iran after the revolution. It can be said that throughout history, photography and its functions have been subject to change and influence in accordance with political, cultural, and social conditions
A Matrixial Museum: Education in Almost-impossible Spaces
Get PDFThis paper is meant to scaffold an imaginary space for what is currently an almost impossible museum. It would reside on a border between Gaza and Israel. Artists and participants would be able to enter from both sides of the border into a circular and cavernous space to make, share and experience art together. In artwork that values its relational capacity to affect another, the move from aesthetics to ethics recalls our mutual place of origin understood in Bracha L. Ettinger’s Matrixial Theory (EMT) as “the matrixial womb.” Griselda Pollock’s Virtual Feminist Museum, Gur-Ze’ev’s counter-education, feminist pedagogy, and Art-care activism provide some strategies of unlearning in order to circumvent traditional institutions of education on either side of the border of Palestine and Israel. A collaborative image between Izhar Patkin and Shirin Neshat created for the human rights group “Witness” in 2005 is evaluated for its matrixial and Art-care potential. People who are Israeli and Palestinian have been coping for too long under oppressive social and political structures that cannot admit the other. As the war wages, and the eye of the storm rages above all our heads, community engagement in creative processes can open a language for liberatory possibilities. The goal is to usher symbols into new narratives that currently remain foreclosed from contemporary political or educational discourses. Nurtured in the matrixial sphere, from the womb born back into the world, could there be a deeper undercurrent that begins to imagine almost-impossible spaces and futures together
She-Hero: A Memoir of the Divine Feminine within a Creation-Centred Paradigm
Get PDFShe-Hero: A Memoir of the Divine Feminine within a Creation-Centred Paradigm explores Ettinger’s matrixial borderspaces through an inter-woven theoretical | artistic | poetic métissage. An example of creation-centred research, this memoir is likened to Ettinger’s concept of metramorphosis—an active restoration of matrixial knowledge(s) and knowing. Embodying a creation-centred curriculum and pedagogy, She-Hero privileges non-dominant epistemologies to attend to the disruption of historical patterns of the hero—inviting readers to submerge and emerge in co-poesis within an intimate and aesthetic kaleidoscopic space of feminine affect and agency