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Context Facilitates Decoding of Lexically Ambiguous Words for Adults with Low Literacy
No full textIn this study, reading behavior and eye movement data were collected from adults with low literacy while they read sentences with varying levels of lexical ambiguity, context strength, and context location. The role of vocabulary breadth, depth, and working memory capacity in processing of biased lexically ambiguous words was also examined. Consistent with previous hypotheses, adult learners spent more total reading time on ambiguous than control words. Additionally, readers spent less time reading target words when contextual regions were more supportive than when they were impoverished, suggesting readers could retrieve the meaning for the target words when the disambiguating region provided richer cues. Vocabulary breadth and depth were not significantly correlated with processing of lexically ambiguous words; however, working memory capacity was significantly correlated. When more informative context preceded target words, readers with higher working memory capacity spent less time reading ambiguous words suggesting their ability to access and maintain multiple interpretations of the biased ambiguous target words compared to readers with lower working memory. Overall, there was evidence to demonstrate the benefits of context use in processing and a reader’s sensitivity to changes in lexical ambiguity.Neuroscience and Behavio
Space Telescope Observations of Warm Dust in Low Surface Brightness Galaxies
No full textBlue in color, a low star formation rate, dark matter dominated, and low in metallicity, low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies questions the current understanding of galactic formation by representing an alternative to the classical Hubble sequence. LSB galaxies are proposed to be the result of galactic overfeeding as high velocity clouds (HVC) weaken the metal content in gas, hindering the process of forming more stars. Although HVCs can dilute the metallicity content, it cannot destroy dust grains. Without HVC dilution, it is expected that there is a correlation between metallicity and dust. To get the dust content, we created warm dust maps using the Independent Component Analysis, first introduced by Meidt et al. (2012), on the Spitzer IRAC 3.6 and 4.5μm images on 10 LSB galaxies: UGC 628, UGC 731, UGC 11748, UGC 11820, UGC 1230, F415-3, F583-5, F584-2, UGC 5709, F563-V2. The images were decomposed to trace either the old stellar population or the contaminant sources of emission, which included Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, warm dust, intermediate-age asymptotic giant branch stars and red supergiant stars. We find that in our sample, warm dust is present in all the galaxies, old stellar populations reside in the center and unlike their high surface brightness (HSB) galaxy counterparts, there are a small number of larger HII regions that do not show preference to the center. In the future, we hope to refine our methods, increase our sample size, and convert our contaminant images into dust maps to compare with the metallicity content of each galaxy. Such studies will determine if low surface brightness galaxies are the outcome of galactic overfeeding and provide insight into the evolutionary path of these galaxies.Astronom
Stratigraphy and Geochemistry of a Fond St. Jean Cinder Cone, Dominica
No full textDominica is an independent island nation located in the central portion of the Lesser Antilles Island arc, a magmatic arc that results from subduction of the South American Plate beneath the Caribbean Plate (Smith et al. 2013). Subduction in this setting promotes partial melting of the mantle, producing magma that ultimately rises to the surface of the earth and erupts through variable styles of volcanism. Magmas may pond and differentiate on the way to the surface of the earth, resulting in deposition of chemically distinct rocks. Dominica is primarily composed of the intermediate rocks andesite and dacite, though an eruptive center in the southeast, Foundland Center, is composed predominantly of mafic basalts. Previous work (Smith et al., 2013; Wills, 1976) indicates that air fall samples collected at Fond St. Jean, a town within Foundland Center, are the most mafic samples collected on the island, and therefore potentially represent the islands least evolved rocks on record.
This study analyses additional basaltic samples from a partially eroded cinder cone in Fond St. Jean. Techniques including inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), as well as petrographic analyses and solid-melt modeling are used to analyze the mineralogy and textures of these samples and the styles of volcanism that erupted them, as well as determine a potential composition of the mantle from which these rocks were derived. Additionally, field observations, elevation measurements, and measurements of the thickness of units composing the cinder cone are used to construct a stratigraphic section through the volcano.
Field relationships and alternating textures of volcanic material imply changes in volcanic styles through time. Petrographic textural analyses indicate that both explosive and effusive volcanism contributed to the cinder cones formation. Additional petrographic analyses indicate that while mineralogy is consistent throughout the cinder done, minor zoning implies slight crystal fractionation within a magma chamber. Discrimination diagrams show major and trace elements for these samples are consistent with the expected chemistry of island arc basalts, making them good candidates for modeling mantle melting. 5-15% melting of a garnet free lherzolite mantle fits the data for these samples best, and trace element ratios indicate that sediment incorporated into the subduction zone contributed to the chemistry of the mantle melt.GeologyGeograph
Corridors of Power: Assembling US Environmental Foreign Aid
No full textUsing the US Agency for International Development’s environmental program
in Madagascar as a lens, I offer a historically grounded, relational, and multi-sited
methodology for understanding the transnational processes that constitute political forests
in the contemporary era. Neoliberal reforms conditioned the emergence of a public–
private–non-profit alliance, which promoted biodiversity conservation as a US foreign
aid priority. As these reforms weakened state capacity and liberalised economies, the
downsized Madagascar and US governments became reliant on conservation actors to
mobilise political support for their programs. This reinforced the need to maintain strategic
relationships with capital-city actors, undermining prior efforts to devolve forest
management to local communities. By isolating deforestation as a peasant problem
“over there” and by expanding protected areas to meet global biodiversity targets, the
conservation alliance created an avenue to be green that did not threaten extractive
industries or key constituents. In this manner, saving the environment via protected
areas expansion offered politicians a pathway through the inherent contradictions of
green neoliberalism
Boundless Summer: Multiple Interests, Multiple Possibilities
No full textA college student’s senior year is a bittersweet one. One would love to embrace the last moments as an undergraduate student while lining up the stepping stones to one’s career path. As a senior Biochemistry major, the progresses in science and technology are as important as my personal development progress. In embracing the last year of my student life and preparing myself to venture into the working world, I took a Mount Holyoke College online film studies course while working full time in Professor Wei Chen’s laboratory to improve the surface properties of a promising polymer in the biomedical field, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Since learning is not simply confined within the gates of Mount Holyoke College, my summer learning experience branched to University of Sussex in England where I studied Medicinal Chemistry while traveling the south of England and London. For home is where the heart of the learner lies, prior to returning to campus for my senior year, I went back to my family and friends in Malaysia. The thousands of miles that I traveled this summer are only a chip of my whole summer experience for I have learned more than those mere numbers.Historically, liberal arts are defined as subjects or skills that are essential for a free person. As liberal arts college students, we are privileged to study an array of courses that feed our different interests. This interdisciplinary approach allows us to understand multiple subject areas and how they are tied to one another. Even so, we often have the impression that we can only choose one area as our ultimate career. This summer, four students challenged the true meaning of liberal arts by making the most out of their summers. They planned and created their own summer experiences in search for their career paths while feeding their varied interests. From museums to corporations, from China to England, these students exemplified the ideals of liberal arts and showed how summers can be rich and fulfilling, yet informational. The summer is your oyster. Let this panel show you the pearls that they made in summer 2015
The Metamorphosis of M. Butterfly: Reflecting Varying Ideas of Positionality & Intersectional Identity from the 1980s to the Present
No full textWhen considering literary text and visual media as cultural artifacts rather than productions propagating a singular objective or floating in isolation, we see that they have the power to comment, unveil, and expose. As products of time shaped by the very purveyors of culture and thought, they step into and make a home in the great web of unstable and expanding discourses. This project examines three iterations of David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly—the original Broadway production, the film adaptation, and the recent Broadway revival—produced between the years of 1988 and 2017. As three productions with similar foundational backbones, these iterations of M. Butterfly show the ways in which one production can be recreated and reinterpreted over the course of time as concepts of identity are redefined, reevaluated, and better articulated within American society. My study is an attempt to evaluate the ways identity discourse in America informs and is informed by these three productions.
I present my argument using the theoretical framework of cultural criticism, which evaluates culture as a changing product of “interactive cultures, … each of which is constituted at any given moment in time by the intersection of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, occupation, and similar factors that contribute to the experience of its members.” Each production, I argue, privileges one of three axes—race, sexuality, or gender— over other elements of intersectional identity in response to the discourse of its time. I first and foremost evaluate the 1988 production of M. Butterfly as an intended subversion of the feminized weakness associated with Asian cultures that in turn perpetuates anti-feminist and homophobic ideologies amid the Cold War era. I then evaluate the 1993 film adaptation of M. Butterfly as a lamentation of a cisgender and heteronormative society at the cost of Asianness and womanhood in response to queer critiques of the 1988 play and the shifting visibility and audibility of homosexual communities in America. Finally, I evaluate the 2017 revival of M. Butterfly as a focused portrayal of non-binary Asian identity in a moment where transgender and feminist issues and the fight for acknowledgement and justice are at the fore. By closely investigating the way discourse, whether propagated or subverted, seeps into the fissures of these productions, this thesis proposes that the M. Butterfly canon acts as a timekeeper and snapshot of the historical and present-day sociopolitical contexts between the 1980s and 2010s.Englis
Mer Bleue fertilization CH4 flux data 2005
No full textMethane flux data from May-August 2005 at the Mer Bleue fertilization experiment.Data have been published in the following:
Juutinen, S.,T.R. Moore, J.L. Bubier, S. Arnkil, E. Humphreys, B. Marincak, C. Roy, T. Larmola. 2018. Long-term nutrient addition increased CH4 emission from a bog through direct and indirect effects. Nature Scientific Reports 8:3838; DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-22210-2.May-August 200
Project Stream Vegetation Data
No full textVegetation cover -
Vegetation cover data have been collected at Project Stream consistently each summer from 2014-2016. Data were collected using a quadrat system, as laid out on the attached diagram. The dataset includes cover class data, assigned using the Braun-Blanquet Cover Estimate Scale. For each quadrat, researchers estimated cover of features (grasses, forbs, ferns, shrubs, trees, rocks, bare soil, water, logs/stumps, lichens, and bryophytes) as well as cover of individual species of grass, forbs, ferns, shrubs, and trees. The data are organized in two formats. The “Vegetation Cover by Quadrat” tab treats each combination of year and quadrat as a line of data and records cover data for all species within the quadrat in that year. The “Vegetation data by Species” tab treats each combination of year and species as a line of data and indicates everywhere a particular species was found in a given year.
Vegetation species presence/absence -
Species presence/absence data have been collected at Project Stream consistently each summer from 2014-2016. Data were collected along transects that run through the quadrats referred to above and used for vegetation cover data. Each transect is further divided into sections that lie between each set of quadrats. For each of these sections, the dataset includes presence/absence data for grass, forb, fern, shrub, and tree species. The data are organized in two formats. The “Vegetation Transect Data” tab treats each combination of year and transect as a line of data and records presence/absence data for all species found along the transect in that year. The “Vegetation data by Species” tab treats each combination of year and species as a line of data and indicates everywhere a particular species was found in a given year.
Tree data -
Tree data have been collected at Project Stream consistently each summer from 2015-2016. Along transects, individual tree data were recorded, including transect location, species, height class, DBH, and stem count. The data are located in the “Tree Data” tab of the file.Annual data 2014-201
2018 Building Square Footage
No full textData compiled with assistance from Facilities Management and is up to date with renovations occurring in 2017 and earlier.201
How Much Can You Learn in Five Minutes?
No full textFinance is a driving force in social advancement, and sometimes it has a bad reputation. But what does finance really mean?
With the ultimate goal of maximizing economic efficiency, financial institutions allocate capital to the most innovative and marketable ideas. In healthcare, this takes on a unique form. Therapies, cures, and broad medical technology undergo decades of development to achieve regulatory approval and launch. With support from institutions such as hedge funds and private equity, companies can access the capital that is necessary in developing these innovations. This panel seeks to explore how finance fits into the healthcare engine and showcase the life of a buy-side analyst from an intern’s perspective.Internships can sometimes be a tricky, overwhelming experience filled with new and scary responsibilities. Oftentimes students walk into a new internship opportunity either knowing little about their responsibilities or are placed in an environment that forces them to learn on the spot. This panel walks you through four unique, but rich and deeply hands-on internship experiences that were adventures just like this. All four of us were thrown into a new environment with little, if any, time to acclimate. We were all expected to perform incredibly important work and to self-manage in an area we were still trying to know more about. Each of our internship stories is unique and within our panel, there are a wide range of different, but equally challenging responsibilities to discuss, such as research in a neuroscience lab, work that blends finance and healthcare, a project that specially focus on affordable housing in Boston, and social service work at a Minnesota domestic violence shelter. With our strikingly different internship experiences, this panel seeks to demonstrate how to go about navigating a successful and rich internship within a new and demanding space