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Imaginary Autopsee, The (2011)
No full textPromotional materials produced for The Imaginary Autopsee, performed by the UMBC Theatre Department in April, 2011. Contains a playbill, theater program, and publicity photographs.Additional photographs can be found in UARC 2011-021April 27-30, 201
[EB 2011, A.J. Ladman Award Recipient]
No full text[Title supplied by cataloger]AAA Awards Banquet at the 2011 Experimental Biology conference. L-R Outgoing President Kathy Jones, Past President David Burr, A.J. Ladman Award Recipient Gary Schoenwolf and A.J. Ladman
Yellow Brick Philosophy
No full textChildren, LiteratureYellow Brick Philosophy
Ellen Handler Spitz
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum
Harper Collins, 272 pp., $9.95
ALTHOUGH DETAILS HAVE NOT yet been released, The Los Angeles Times reported last year that preliminary plans are in the works for an upcoming movie of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. By midsummer this year, the Harry Potter film series will have run its course, and what better way to fill the gap than by taking up Baum’s set of Oz books (this is the first), with its cast of zany characters including a princess who undergoes a sex change and a legion of splendidly garbed humanoids whose limbs end in wheels instead of hands and feet? I disagree with Salman Rushdie’s elevation of the iconic and justly well-loved 1939 film, the Judy Garland one, over the original Baum text. This text—literary, philosophical, and brilliant—merits priority.
Notwithstanding the whirlwind of adaptations, adulterations, dramatizations, spin-offs, ad-ons, pop-ups, memorabilia, and kitsch that have spiraled throughout the century since its original publication by George M. Hill in 1900 (with illustrations by W.W. Denslow), the original masterpiece survives and defies its would-be re-fashioners. Do we know why? Reading it again and trying to recall how turning its pages felt to me years ago as a child growing up in New York, I realized one would need a cloak of invisibility so as to slink past that angel with the flaming sword.
The book drops you, rubbing your eyes, into a mysterious ether—onto shifting sands (recall the “Deadly Desert”)—into oneiric realms, where you lose yourself and wander, enchanted: “The cyclone had set the house down, very gently… in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty….” “The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow brick…” “I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?” Charmed sentences follow one another like dance steps along the winding road itself. Yet few readers have focused on the book’s prodigious mental adventures.
But first: Dorothy, whose shoes, in the pages of Baum’s story, are silver, not ruby-red, appears before us not as a puppet but as a believable child. Denslow’s line drawings make her out to be no more than six. Who can fail to admire her for slapping the roaring lion’s nose while telling him to be ashamed of himself for trying to bite Toto? And for chastising the Wicked Witch who trips her and steals one of her silver shoes? And for steadfastly denouncing the less-than-candid Wizard and calling his bluff? Kind, gentle, honest, and loyal to her friends, Dorothy is endowed with Aristotelian virtue, with genuine heroism. Some interpreters pretend she grows up along the way so that, by the end, she comes to accept her dull Kansas home with aplomb. But Baum keeps her a little girl from start to finish. Aunt Em asks her on the last page where she has come from. One adverb reveals all: “‘From the Land of Oz,’ said Dorothy gravely.”
Beyond this—beyond magic, fantasy, and psychological verisimilitude—Baum brings to his pages a plenitude of intellectual puzzles. Subtly and with great charm, he explores in children’s terms the realms of ontology, epistemology, and ethics. He actually helps children learn to think. The philosopher Gareth Matthews, in Philosophy and the Young Child, points especially to the Tin Woodman. This character may trouble children, who cringe inwardly at the thought of limbs being chopped off and cannot help wondering whether they could still be themselves if their parts were replaced. In a similar way, Matthews observed, Plutarch recounted the ancient paradox of the ship of Theseus, which, on display at Athens, had its planks supplanted when, one after another, they rotted away, until the entire ship was replaced, whereupon, the question arose as to whether what was now on display could still be deemed the ship of Theseus. Even a young child can thus grasp the power of Baum’s metaphor. A welter of complex emotions arises when we cannot hold fast to a stable and continuous identity.
Dorothy and her readers learn similarly from encounters with the Lion. After she slaps his nose and he withdraws weeping (and, in Denslow’s illustration, wiping his tears away with his tail), she asks him what makes him a coward: this is a child’s quintessentially philosophical question. The Lion answers that it is a mystery: he was born that way. But when the Tin Woodman intervenes to suppose that, since the Lion’s heart beats so fast when he is afraid, maybe he is suffering from a heart disease, the Lion responds meditatively: “Perhaps … if I had no heart I should not be a coward.” It is easy to miss the gravity of this line.
Later in the same scene, Dorothy makes an observation to the Lion that all the other beasts in the forest must be more cowardly than he, since they allow him to scare them so easily. To which, the Lion replies: “They really are … but that doesn’t make me any braver.” Thus Baum asks to us to consider whether virtue may be a matter of absolute rather than relative standards: a sophisticated idea for a children’s book. His Lion wants to feel his bravery on his own terms.
Toward the story’s end, the Wizard’s actions raise serious questions in the domain of ethics. Dorothy, now bitterly disappointed and justifiably angry at the apparently fierce, chameleon-like Wizard for his failure to keep his promises to her and her friends (even though they have fulfilled his demand and have destroyed the Wicked Witch of the West) tells him he is “a very bad man.” He answers her by saying that in fact he is really a very good man but a very bad wizard. This answer, as the British philosopher Gilbert Ryle might have pointed out, is a category mistake. Whereas, Dorothy is speaking of goodness in a moral sense, the Wizard is referring to badness or incompetence in a purely technical sense.
Later in the story, after the hot air balloon has burst its strings and ascended, leaving Dorothy stranded in Oz with Toto, and the Wizard has vanished beyond the clouds, Dorothy, despite her disillusionment and remorse, absolves the Wizard and forgives him. She says that, after all, he was a good man, even though he was truly a bad Wizard. She does this with the thoughtful justification that “he had done his best.” Thus, Dorothy—wise child—helps sort out the category confusion by intuitively grasping that, whereas, in ethics, intention is central to our judgment of what is good and what is not and must be taken into account, in the realm of action we weigh results, quite apart from intention. Wanting to do well does not carry the same weight as wanting to do good.
Another philosophical theme: Dorothy’s three friends, as we realize almost from the start of their journey, possess unawares the boons they seek from Oz. By employing this conceit—the “brainless” Scarecrow, for example, turns out to be the one who conceives the ingenious idea of chopping down a tree to make a bridge across the gulf they must cross in order to escape the ferocious Kalidahs—Baum asks us to ponder the value of self-knowledge and self-awareness. He makes us reflect on the relevance of these capacities in education and in other spheres of life and, indeed, in any pilgrimage that can be conceived as an adventure along a yellow brick road. He treats here, in his way, the theme made famous by Eliot’s luminous lines from The Four Quartets, penned over forty years later: “We shall not cease from exploration/ And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time.”
Dorothy’s direct interactions with the Wicked Witch also prove highly instructive. Seeing the mark made by the protective kiss on her forehead, the Witch backs off, for, as Baum writes, the Power of Good is greater than the Power of Evil. But, undaunted in her malevolence, the Witch persists with her scheming and cleverly concludes that, since Dorothy does not know how to use her power, or even understand that she has power, she can still be enslaved. Once again Baum opens our eyes to the tremendous value of self-knowledge. The narrative circles back again and again to the ancient Greek adage, thought to have been inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi: “Know thyself.” And reflecting on that, we perceive its intimate connection with the problem of identity and with, therefore, the ship of Theseus.
The question of merit, and the meaning of merit, also echoes throughout Oz. After the friends reach the Emerald City at last, the Wizard asks Dorothy why he should help her, and she answers touchingly: “Because you are strong and I am weak; because you are a Great Wizard and I am only a helpless little girl.” These words ring with the logic of youth—a small child, by virtue of her being, deserves nurturance, protection, and gratification. Babies are unconditionally loved. We ask nothing of them. Yet as they grow older, rules ensue, and merit rears its head. “In this country,” the Wizard replies to Dorothy, “everyone must pay for everything he gets.” Similarly, to the Scarecrow, he repeats, “I never grant favors without some return.” These interviews occur, moreover, at the precise midpoint of the book. They highlight a significant milestone in the learning process.
It may be too much to hope that a new movie of Oz directed by Sam Raimi will try to convey any of this intellectual richness. Yet beyond spreading color, invention, and enchantment, L. Frank Baum’s masterpiece remains a literary work that inspires children to think; its well-worn printed pages and its quaint pictures open onto serious and expansive vistas of mental excursion.
Ellen Handler Spitz is Honors College Professor at the University of Maryland (UMBC). Her latest book is Illuminating Childhood
[Jiří Vávra and Elizabeth W. Davidson in Prague]
No full textJiří Vávra and Elizabeth W. Davidson in Prague.All images created by or supplied to the Society of Invertebrate Pathology for use in publications and promotion. Content in Description field provided by text on verso or accompanying documentation
Estimation of Effective Spectral Dimensionality for Hyperspectral Imagery
No full textDue to its use of hundreds of contiguous spectral channels, a hyperspectral imaging sensor can now uncover many material substances which cannot be identified by prior knowledge or by visual inspection. Therefore, it is very challenging and difficult to determine how many spectral signal sources are present in a hyperspectral image. The research in this dissertation investigates this problem and is directed toward estimation of effective spectral dimensionality (ESD) of hyperspectral imagery, which can be considered as an extension of virtual dimensionality (VD) recently introduced by Chang and Du in hyperspectral imagery. In doing so, the orthogonal subspace projection (OSP) is first introduced to estimate VD, where the spectrally distinct signatures, called virtual endmembers (VE) can be obtained at the same time during the process. A similar concept to OSP is further explored for VD estimation where the maximum orthogonal complement algorithm (MOCA) is developed. It turns out that the MOCA is a variation of automatic target generation process (ATGP) implemented coupled with Neyman-Pearson detector along with super-Gaussian noise assumption. The high-order statistics is the further studied where the Harsany-Farrand-Chang (HFC) algorithm used to estimate the VD is extended to high-order statistics HFC algorithm where the probability distributions under the Neyman-Pearson test are obtained by MOCA. In order to demonstrate the utility of the ESD, endmember extraction is used as an application for experiments. In order to efficiently implement the N-FINDR several fast algorithms of N-FINDR are developed to reduce computational complexity. These include re-derivations of four sequential versions of N-FINDR and three different effective ways to calculate matrix determinants involved in simplex volume computation. Finally, to conclude this dissertation, an FPGA design of N-FINDR is investigated for potential hardware implementation. Since N-FINDR does not have prior knowledge of the number of endmembers, p required to generate, a direct FPGA implementation of the N-FINDR is unrealistic. In this case, the FPGA implementation for a sequential version of N-FINDR, Simplex Growing Algorithm (SGA) is investigated as an alternative to resolve this issue. It turns out that the FPGA of the SGA can be implemented in such a way that the value of the p can vary with different data sets, a task that cannot be accomplished by any FPGA design of N-FINDR
The Relation between Full-Day Kindergarten and Later Reading: The Role of Early Reading Skills
No full textFull-day kindergarten has been implemented in a multitude of school districts nationwide. The initial benefit is evident with full-day children earning higher reading scores than half-day children. Beyond the kindergarten year, however, the full-day benefit quickly diminishes. Previous research compares full- and half-day kindergarten children on reading assessments but fails to consider the role of kindergarten reading skills when examining the relation between full-day attendance and later reading. The present study examined full- and half-day children's early word reading attainment (a composite consisting of letter knowledge, beginning sounds, ending sounds, and sight words) and its relation to reading scores in the elementary grades for full-day children. Full-day children were more likely to attain early word reading. Further, the benefit of full-day kindergarten was sustained in first, third, and fifth grades, via children's early word reading attainment at the end of kindergarten
Implementation Intentions as a Means of Promoting Voluntary Reading Behavior
No full textSetting goals and planning for their attainment increases the likelihood that goals will be realized. This is true whether the individual sets his or her own goals or the goals have been set by a teacher or parent. This study explored the role of implementation intentions in setting and achieving voluntary reading goals. Reading motivation, prior reading, and reading ability were examined as predictors of reading behavior. Prior research has primarily used implementation intentions to impact health behavior. The few studies that have addressed academics have demonstrated positive outcomes, although most have involved adult participants. Fourth-grade students were randomly assigned by classroom to test condition: a) Implementation Intentions and Choice of Reading Material; b) Implementation Intentions and No Choice; c) No Implementation Intentions and Choice; d) No Implementation Intentions and No Choice. The ethnically diverse sample of students (N=175) attended five public schools from widely varying socioeconomic areas. Reading motivation, self-reported voluntary reading, and print exposure were assessed. Students were provided with a magazine and were asked to read it over a five-day period and provide feedback. Students who formed implementation intentions specifying when and where they would read, obstacles they might face, and what plan they had for overcoming obstacles did not complete more reading than students who did not form implementation intentions, contrary to expectations. The choice of which magazine to read did not result in more magazine reading overall, with exception of girls who formed implementation intentions. Students with a history of reading nonfiction read more of the nonfiction magazine, as did students who read fiction text on their own time. Implementation intentions and prior reading interacted such that students with a history of reading nonfiction text read more of the fiction magazine when they formed implementation intentions than when they did not. The quality of implementation intentions and the extent to which the plan matched actual behavior were also related to the amount of reading completed. Prior reading was a stronger predictor of reading behavior than reading ability or reading motivation. Results indicated that students can be prompted to read by forming implementation intentions, but the results depend upon the quality of the plan and students' history of prior reading
Central Tolerance Regions and Reference Regions for Some Normal Populations
No full textA reference interval represents a range of values that a physician can use in order to interpret a single test result from a patient. A 95% reference interval is simply the interval from the 2.5th to the 97.5th percentiles of the distribution of the test result. Since such an interval will typically depend on unknown parameters, we can use a random sample to compute an interval that will contain the reference interval with a specified confidence level. The interval so computed is referred to as a central tolerance interval. A central tolerance interval captures, with a given confidence level, a specified percentage of the central part of a univariate population. Reference regions and central tolerance regions are similarly defined for a multivariate population. This thesis considers the problem of deriving central tolerance intervals and regions for some normal populations, including multivariate normal distribution, multivariate linear regression model and the one-way and two-way random models. We also numerically investigate the computation of a simultaneous central tolerance interval for simple linear regression. Simultaneous hypotheses testing of two percentiles is a related problem of interest. The test is usually carried out using two one-sided tests which can be quite conservative. We make an attempt to derive a less conservative test by applying the bootstrap methodology. Numerical examples and real data applications are given to illustrate all of the proposed procedures
Vehicular Networking for Intelligent and Autonomous Traffic Management
No full textDespite the push for using mass transit, the number of vehicles on the road is growing at a steady rate and traffic congestion has become a daily problem that most people suffer. This not only impacts the productivity of the population but also poses a safety risk. Most of the technologies for intelligent highways focus on safety measures and increased driver awareness, and expect a centralized management for the traffic flow. We present a new approach for enabling autonomous and adaptive traffic management through vehicular networks. By allowing data exchange between vehicles about route choices, congestion and traffic alerts, a vehicle makes a decision on the best course of action. Unlike centralized schemes that provide recommendations, our VANET-based Autonomous Management (VAM) approach factors in the destination and routes of nearby vehicles in deciding on whether rerouting is advisable. In addition, VAM leverages the presence of smart traffic lights and enables coordination between vehicles and light-controllers in order to ease congestion. The collective effect of all vehicles will be an autonomous reshape of the traffic pattern based on their destinations and road conditions. To validate our approach we have developed a graphical tool that not only enables the collection of performance statistics but also allows visualizing the effect on traffic. The implementation also supports smart traffic lights and configurable roads. The simulation results demonstrate the advantage of VAM and there is up-to 40% increase in overall throughput for fully cooperative drivers
Assessing and Evaluating Mentorship programs affecting student`s retention at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in Mechanical Engineering
No full textThis study was designed to expand the understanding of the undergraduate mechanical engineering experience as it relates to having a formal mentoring program. To assess this relationship, qualitative analysis was used to derive themes and define variables that contribute to the success of the student. Using a 17-item Likert survey, the undergraduate mechanical engineering student population was assessed based on their attitudes and impressions on each of the variables. Using the data acquired from this survey, descriptive and inferential statistics were utilized to identify significant relationships between the formal mentoring groups, Center for Women in Technology (CWIT), Meyerhoff Scholars and non-programmed, and the variables. The data show that factors other than academics play a role in a student`s decision to be involved in mechanical engineering. It is evident that the formal mentoring group has encouraged different attitudes in their students in comparison to non-programmed students. Meryerhoff students are significantly more motivated by mentor influences than CWIT and non-programmed. Non-programmed students feel significantly less inclusive and are more motivated by parent influence. Both the formal mentoring programs have a higher perception of the importance of professional and interpersonal skills in comparison to non-programmed students. Student`s overall impressions of advising were low. It is recommended to the department of mechanical engineering to create clear expectations in advising roles and consider adopting some formal mentoring practices, i.e. peer mentoring