1983 research outputs found
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What, Why, and How: Teachers as Makers of Peace in South Sudan
No full textWithin post-conflict and conflict-affected settings, as a national identity is contested, shaped, negotiated, and re-negotiated, history and social studies education can serve to develop a sense of unity among a nation's citizens and a shared vision for the future (Bekerman & Zembylas, 2011; Korostelina, 2019). At the same time, history and social studies education can maintain or exacerbate existing inequalities (Bellino, 2016; Bentrovato et al., 2016; King; 2014; Vanner et al., 2017). Contestation and efforts to control the historical narratives are especially important in South Sudan, a new country that endured decades of civil war. How the narrative of South Sudan’s violent past is communicated to young people will profoundly impact political and cultural attitudes and the country’s emerging nationhood. South Sudan is in the process of reconciling and establishing spaces for peacebuilding and the Government of South Sudan has named history and social studies classrooms as an important space for peace education.
In considering curriculum, scholarship demonstrates that there is an explicit and implicit curriculum (Eisner, 1985; Bickmore, 2004; Bickmore, 2005). The formal curriculum is visible through written textbooks and learning materials; however, the implicit curriculum, the lived curriculum, including pedagogy, school context, and systems of governance, is equally important for understanding what students are learning from schools about their civic and national identity. Teachers play a fundamental role in enacting both implicit and explicit curricula to students and thus are the focus of this dissertation.
This dissertation analyzes the explicit and implicit history and social studies curricula in South Sudan across three papers. It explores the written history curricula, the classroom practices and activities teachers use to teach the social studies curriculum, and the influence of teachers’ values, beliefs, school policies, and the overall school environment on their ability to build peace in the classroom. Throughout the dissertation, I explore how the history and social studies classrooms at two schools serve as a platform for promoting peacebuilding with the overarching research question: How and why do teachers at two schools in South Sudan teach the history of conflicts in the ways they do? To answer this research question, this dissertation draws on 101 qualitative interviews with government staff, education stakeholders, school leaders, and teachers, as well as 67 classroom observations, and over 350 general observation hours
Universality class of a spinor Bose–Einstein condensate far from equilibrium
No full textThe manuscript is accepted and being prepared for publication. The journal has asked that a waiver be submitted.
Thank you,Scale invariance and self-similarity in physics provide a unified framework to classify phases of matter and dynamical properties near equilibrium in both classical and quantum systems. This paradigm has been further extended to isolated many-body quantum systems driven far from equilibrium, where phys- ical observables exhibit dynamical scaling with universal scaling exponents. Universal dynamics appear in a wide range of scenarios, including cosmol- ogy, quark-gluon matter, ultracold atoms, and quantum spin magnets. However, how universal dynamics depend on the symmetry of the underlying Hamil- tonian in nonequilibrium systems remain an outstanding challenge. Here, we report on the classification of universal coarsening dynamics in a quenched two-dimensional ferromagnetic spinor Bose gas. We observe spatiotemporal scal- ing of spin correlation functions with distinguishable scaling exponents that characterize binary and diffusive fluids. The universality class of the coarsening dynamics is determined by the symmetry of the order parameter and the dynamics of the topological defects, such as domain walls and vortices. Our results provide a categorization of the universality classes of far from equilibrium quantum dynamics based on symmetry properties of the system.Accepted Manuscrip
Espectros de parentesco Crisis de pertenencia en la literatura y el cine argentino contemporáneo (2001 – 2020)
No full textWhat are art’s affordances after a crisis? How does art process its relation to the nation-state after its near dissolution? In my dissertation, I grapple with these questions by exploring literary and cinematographic works that reflect on the withering of the nation as a locus for identity. In my work, Argentina’s 2001 socioeconomic meltdown is a catalyst for an ongoing crisis of signification that writers and filmmakers interrogate by tracing the contours of what I call “specters of kinship.” I conceptualize specters of kinship as the cultural deployment of family narratives that explore the intersections of political crisis and history through haunted figures —ruins, archives, repertoires, and cartographies. While scholarship on the 2001 crisis focuses on presentist forms of epistemological resistance, my work produces a new understanding of this period. My dissertation shows how a constellation of cultural objects opens a temporality after the crisis of the nation where its material and symbolic remains –bourgeois industrial ruins, formerly stable cultural belonging, and national monolingualism– are at once dislocated and reimagined in terms akin to what Freud called “family romance.” Thus, my research turns the crisis into a productive site by reading in these narratives an affective politics of mourning in overlapping senses of belonging. I begin my manuscript by reading Andrés Di Tella’s documentaries through the category of patrimonial ruins in order to analyze the nostalgic drive behind his rendition of the declining Argentine industrial bourgeoisie. Then, I examine how public and private archives intersect with family narratives of migration and dislocate monolithic notions of ethnic and cultural identity in Edgardo Cozarinsky’s cinematic and literary work. Lastly, in chapter three, I analyze the links between family, motherhood and language in the late literary work of Sylvia Molloy. Specifically, I interrogate how a repertoire of multilingual practices dislocates institutionalized monolingualism
Repairing Modern First Edition Dust Jackets Without Fills or Inpainting: A Conservative Approach
No full textThe dust jacket of a modern first edition—often discarded when new—has become the most historically and commercially valuable component of a book. Despite this elevated status, many important dust jackets undergo extensive cosmetic restoration that is often disproportionate to their rarity and significance.
This article presents a minimally invasive method for repairing damaged modern first edition dust jackets. The technique uses lightweight kozo tissue precoated with Klucel G (hydroxypropylcellulose) adhesive, and visually fills losses by placing a toned or printed secondary jacket beneath the original. This approach preserves the dust jacket’s authenticity, while allowing it to appear complete from a short viewing distance during exhibition. Depending on curatorial needs, the jacket’s condition can be either visually improved or its wear emphasized.
Developed for a curatorial brief at Harvard’s Houghton Library in early 2023, this reversible strategy was used to reunite and stabilize the dust jacket for E.E. Cummings’s The Enormous Room (1922), enabling its display and subsequent storage with the book. The aim was to create the illusion of completeness without invasive or time-consuming fills, preserving the original material as much as possible.
The core of this article is an illustrated, step-by-step review of the Enormous Room treatment, including the rationale for avoiding aqueous techniques. Additional case studies are provided where more extensive compensation of design or text was needed through the secondary jacket. Practical guidelines for sourcing, scaling, and color-correcting digital files to match original jackets are also included.
By sharing this method in the Book and Paper Group Annual, I hope to highlight a conservative yet visually satisfying alternative to the widespread use of in-painting and invasive fills in dust jacket restoration.Version of Recor
Predictive Models for Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Outcomes
No full textThis project outlines several iterative attempts to create a predictive model for postoperative outcomes subsequent to Pediatric Cardiac surgery. My analysis is based on a dataset comprised of several lab and observational metrics from the operative hospital stays of 1016 cardiac surgery patients at Boston Children's Hospital. Outlined first is our work to preoperatively predict two intraoperative indicators, the sum of all weight normalized intraoperative transfusions (Category 1), as well as the Thromboelastography reading of Maximum Amplitude at rewarming, which is near the end of surgery. Using a more comprehensive data frame of pre- and intraoperative variables, I then fine tuned models to predict the binary outcome variables Bleeding and Thrombosis. Accurate predictions on the test set were difficult to procure because of the low frequency of these complications within the population. Various regression models, stratification techniques, data augmentation mechanisms, and validation procedures were attempted to bolster the effectiveness of the model. Many of these techniques proved useful in helping the model identify the most likely indicators in the dataset for these complications. Finally, we discussed a set of clinically relevant potential continuous surrogates for these outcomes based on their proven relation to post operative morbidity and complications and their relevance over numerous readings within time stratified blocks. Initial predictions on these features within the first twenty-four hours were made, with an acknowledgement of their potential power within a pediatric cardiac surgery predictor. Overall, this work accurately identifies key features that can indicate postoperative complications, and works to apply these findings towards strong predictions. The methodology described, especially if bolstered by additional data in the future, outlines a hopeful process for contributing information towards physicians' decision making processes
Essays on Social Media Content Delivery and Engagement
No full textThis dissertation studies how social media content delivery across channels and formats affects user engagement. The first chapter investigates the effects of transience on content creation and consumption and how social media influencers can use permanent and transient channels to maximize follower engagement. Using computer vision and deep learning methods, we extract image quality and embeddings from a novel dataset of Instagram content to compare transient and permanent content and investigate how such differences affect follower engagement. The findings reveal that influencers can increase engagement by publishing more professional content in permanent channels and more personal and authentic content in transient channels.
The second chapter studies how consumers perceive time when watching long-form videos vs. short-form videos. We find that viewers who successively watch a series of short-form video clips underestimate total time spent watching videos, compared to viewers who viewed the same video content and length presented as one long-form video. This time underestimation effect occurs because shorter videos naturally induce more viewer action to continue video consumption, i.e., clicking or swiping to the next video. These content-unrelated actions divert viewer attention from the actual video content, leading to lower perceptions of time spent on watching videos. Together, the findings demonstrate one explanation for the increased consumption of short-form videos in recent years: when watching short-form videos, consumers are more prone to losing track of time and spend more time than they anticipate.
The final chapter concludes with an assessment of social media moving forward, specifically on the implications of GAI on influencer marketing. Incorporating interviews with an influencer and a digital talent agency, I describe AI use cases in influencer marketing as well as benefits and challenges that it poses for influencer marketing. The chapter concludes with suggested directions for future research
Validation of the Acne Core Outcomes Research Network Patient Global Assessment for Acne
No full textAlthough patient-reported outcomes can complement clinician-reported measures and are viewed as critical outcomes by patients with acne, they are underutilized in acne clinical studies. While several validated investigator global assessment scales are available to evaluate acne severity, there is no analogous, validated patient global assessment (PtGA) of acne severity. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the measurement properties of a novel acne PtGA for use in clinical studies to enable better capture of the patient perspective regarding their disease severity.Author's Origina
Spiritual Innovation and Entrepreneurship
No full textIn this yearlong experimental project I built an organization to deliver spiritual care in new ways and facilitated the creation of a community of practice of spiritual care providers. My short thesis submission outlines the experiences and challenges of the work
Precision Examination of Real-World Stress and Behavior Using Deep Digital Phenotyping
No full textLife stress has been consistently linked to poor mental health outcomes, but we know comparatively less about the more proximate impacts of life stress on daily affect and behavior. The current dissertation leverages recent advances in digital technology and analytical approaches to examine real-world life stress and its affective and behavioral correlates in a cohort of first-year college students naturally exposed to multifaceted stressors as they transitioned to college life. For a full academic year, participants provided continuous accelerometer data from an actigraphy wristband for the objective estimation of sleep duration and waketime activity. Additionally, participants used their phones to complete daily self-reports of perceived stress sources, affect, behavior, as well as the main events of their day, and completed periodic web-based assessments of global psychopathology symptoms. Similar data was collected in a timely 3-month follow-up study as the same participants underwent a new, unprecedented life transition: the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following a general review of relevant background literature in Chapter 1, novel insights into real-world life stress drawn from these datasets are offered across three papers presented in Chapters 2 through 4.
Chapter 2 (Paper 1) examines fluctuations in stress, affect, and behavior over the course of the first year of college. Negative emotions, sleep patterns, and academic and social activity varied substantially over the course of the year as well as between individuals. Critically, while academics were a common source of stress for all students, a vulnerable subgroup reporting greater frequency of perceived social stress went on to report the highest global clinical symptoms at the end of the year, suggesting dissociable effects of different stress sources on mental health. Two years later, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the first-year subgroup with highest distress again stood out by frequent social stress and elevated clinical symptoms, suggesting that focus on sustained interpersonal stress, relative to academic stress, may be especially helpful to identify students at heightened risk for psychopathology.
Chapter 3 (Paper 2) introduces a novel individual-level linear model (iLM) to estimate day-to-day associations between perceived stress levels and actigraphy-derived sleep duration within individuals and unbiased by the group. While stress and sleep duration were inversely related in most participants, the iLM revealed that the temporal direction of these associations is person-specific, identifying a variety of individual phenotypes that may account for the diverse group-level findings reported in prior literature: for some, elevated stress in the day was associated with shorter sleep later that night; for others, shorter sleep was associated with elevated stress the next day; others showed both directions of associations, and some showed no association. Paired with intensive longitudinal data, our individual-level model provides a precision framework for the estimation of stable real-world behavioral and psychological dynamics, and may support the personalized prioritization of intervention targets for health and wellbeing.
Chapter 4 (Paper 3) investigates the proximate correlates of academic and social stressful events on daily affect and behavior within individuals. Experiences of stress were characterized from participants’ daily voice diaries narrating the main events of the day, using a combination of human labeling and large language models fine-tuned for sentiment analysis and topic modeling. Multilevel models assessing within-person associations found that days with academic stressful events were characterized by shorter sleep duration and decreased physical activity, as well as by reduced social interaction and increased time spent on schoolwork. Meanwhile, days with social stressful events were not systematically associated to changes in behavior, but they stood out by heightened negative affect, above and beyond the effect of academic events. Our results suggest that academic and social dimensions of life stress may have distinct signatures on daily affect and behavior, which in turn may go on to shape individuals’ long-term wellbeing.
Chapter 5 discusses the main contributions and limitations of this body of work. In all, the current dissertation provides valuable insights into the effects of life stress on real-world emotions, behavior, and overall wellbeing at multiple timescales. Our approach offers a foundation for the characterization of life dynamics at both the individual and the group levels, with potential implications for the development of precision health and wellbeing interventions