496 research outputs found
Ep. #183 - Solar Power, Solar Justice (feat. Dustin Mulvaney)
No full textThis recording and transcript form part of a collection of podcasts conducted by the Cultures of Energy at Rice University. Cultures of Energy brings writers, artists and scholars together to talk, think and feel their way into the Anthropocene. We cover serious issues like climate change, species extinction and energy transition. But we also try to confront seemingly huge and insurmountable problems with insight, creativity and laughter.Cymene and Dominic cover the stress (and joy!) of center directorships and sandwich-making on this week’s podcast. Then (13:53) Dustin Mulvaney (http://www.dustinmulvaney.com) visits the pod to tell us all the things we need to know about solar energy but were afraid to ask. He’s the author of the excellent new book, Solar Power: Innovation, Sustainability and Environmental Justice(U California Press, 2019). We start by talking about whether it’s possible to make a solar power revolution both rapid and just. That gets us to the toxic externalities of solar cell manufacture and his work with the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (http://svtc.org) to create a Solar Scorecard system that helps pressure manufacturers to clean up their production processes. Dustin breaks down for us the environmental advantages and disadvantages of both photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar (CSP) systems and then we turn to what he calls the “Green Civil War” brewing between animal rights activists and renewable energy activists over land use changes especially in the American Southwest. In closing we discuss whether a radically decentralized energy ecology could help advance environmental justice goals and what lessons should be learned from Obama era ARRA solar investments in terms of improving energy justice in the future
Jonesin': the life and music of Philly Joe Jones
No full textThis thesis explores the life of drummer “Philly” Joseph Rudolf Jones, one of jazz’s most renowned, unknown figures. As the drummer for the Miles Davis Quintet/Sextet and a later incarnation of the Bill Evans Trio, Joe achieved worldwide fame and success. Yet, his life story has always been told in the footnotes of the towering figures he performed with: John Coltrane, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, etc. Jazz history books recognize Joe’s contributions and nearly all provide a space, albeit a small one, to recognize his accomplishments. Leonard Feather’s The Encyclopedia of Jazz has an entry for Joe, Lewis Porter’s An Historical Survey of Jazz Drumming Styles lists Joe as an important figure in the evolution of jazz drumming, and The Oxford Companion to Jazz states that “just about anyone of consequence worked with Jones.” These texts and many others put Joe in a place of prominence for a handful of sentences. However, footnoting Joe’s success overlooks the fact that he recorded on more than one-hundred albums from 1955-1960 and was probably the most recorded American drummer in any genre during that time period. Despite his popularity and critical acclaim, no published author has delved into Joe’s complex life with any depth. This thesis explores Joe’s musical biography and seeks to illuminate the paradoxes therin. Joe’s story contains drug use, prison time, and abrasive behavior. On the other hand, he was an excellent musician and a generous man who mentored many young musicians. Joe’s life is intertwined in a web of circumstantial experiences: a fatherless upbringing, military service during World War II, integrating the Philadelphia Transit Company, and working to survive as a musician in New York. There are also lesser-known parts of his life including his roots as a Rhythm and blues drummer, his love for big band music, and his associations with the avant-garde. Joe overcame the obstacles of socioeconomic status, racism, evolving musical styles, and the drug culture to become a superb musician who still found time to educate the next generation.M.A.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Dustin E. MalloryIncludes discograph
Golden, Oregon cultural landscape report
No full textby Susan Johnson and Dustin Welch ; prepared in collaboration with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department and the University of Oregon.Title from PDF title page (viewed on September 4, 2020).This archived document is maintained by the State Library of Oregon as part of the Oregon Documents Depository Program. It is for informational purposes and may not be suitable for legal purposes.Includes bibliographical references.Mode of access: Internet from the Oregon Government Publications Collection.Text in English
High-resolution trace element geochemistry and sequence stratigraphy of the Middle-Late Devonian (Givetian-Frasnian) Frasnes crisis
No full textThe Middle–Late Devonian (Givetian–Frasnian) ‘Frasnes’ event is marked by a second order mass extinction approximately coeval with the deposition of black shale on a global scale and the ‘falsiovalis’ positive δ13C isotope excursion. These characteristics are also hallmarks of extensively studied mass extinction events such as the Late Devonian Kellwasser (Frasnian-Famennian) and the end-Devonian Hangenberg crises. However, the relative timing of black shale intervals, eustatic sea-level fluctuations, and the carbon isotope excursion is unknown, and any possible causative relationships cannot be determined. This research provides a high-resolution integrated geochemical dataset to evaluate the paleoenvironmental condition of the rocks deposited during the Frasnes interval in central Nevada and compares those results to the better understood Kellwasser and Hangenberg events. Geochemical data from the Frasnes event is tied to lithostratigraphic sections and used to build a sequence stratigraphic framework from which eustatic changes are identified and linked directly to elemental abundance data. These data, in conjunction with new biostratigraphic and carbon isotope data collected from the same samples, places these events within a chronostratigraphic framework and helps to further our understanding of this significant Earth history event.Restricted until 06/2023. To request the author grant access, click on the PDF link to the left
The Malleability of the Past: "Íslendingabók" as Narrative History
No full text"Íslendingabók" (Book of Icelanders) is the earliest surviving history of Iceland, written by the priest Ari Þorgilsson sometime between 1122 and 1133. Despite spanning the period from the Settlement in the ninth century to 1118, the work is concise, which suggests that a specific selection of information was made by the author during the composition process. This hypothesis is supported by the quality of the information conveyed, which seems to favour Ari himself and his patrons, and by Ari’s omission of material that would compromise his view, evidence of which is nevertheless present in other sources.
This article explores "Íslendingabók" as a careful reconstruction of the Icelandic past, thus as narrative history; the focus will be on the strategies and aims that lay behind the author’s project, not least on the ideological foundations that shaped Ari’s views. This approach will allow for a better appreciation of the text and its production context, as compared to the influential but often uncritical methods used to study the work that flourished during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and which still reverberate today, within both scholarly discussions of the work and popular contemporary attitudes in Iceland towards the country’s medieval history and culture
Influences of host community characteristics on Borrelia burgdorferi infection prevalence in Blacklegged ticks
No full textLyme disease is a major vector-borne bacterial disease in the USA. The disease is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, and transmitted among hosts and humans, primarily by blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis). The ~25 B. burgdorferi genotypes, based on genotypic variation of their outer surface protein C (ospC), can be phenotypically separated as strains that primarily cause human diseases – human invasive strains (HIS) – or those that rarely do – and are non-randomly associated with host species. The goal of this study was to examine the extent to which phenotypic outcomes of B. burgdorferi could be explained by the host communities fed upon by blacklegged ticks. In 2006 and 2009, we determined the host community composition based on abundance estimates of the vertebrate hosts, and collected host-seeking nymphal ticks in 2007 and 2010 to determine the ospC genotypes within infected ticks. We regressed instances of B. burgdorferi phenotypes on site-specific characteristics of host communities by constructing Bayesian hierarchical models that properly handled missing data. The models provided quantitative support for the relevance of host composition on Lyme disease risk pertaining to B. burgdorferi prevalence (i.e., overall nymphal infection prevalence, or NIPAll) and HIS prevalence among the infected ticks (NIPHIS). In 2006, we found positive associations of the relative abundances of mice, of chipmunks, and of shrews with NIPAll. We also found positive associations of NIPHIS with shrews, and with host community diversity (H’), but negative associations with mice, and with chipmunks. In 2009, the relative abundance of mice showed a positive association with NIPAll, whereas the relative abundance of shrews and of H’ showed a negative association. With NIPHIS, only H’ showed a positive association, whereas the relative abundances of mice, of chipmunks, and of shrews, had negative associations. Our study highlights the variability between two years in the effects of host composition on B. burgdorferi genotypes. More importantly, our results highlight how disease risk inference, based on the role of host community, changes when we examine risk overall or at the phenotypic level. Long-term studies will be necessary to detect any consistent effects of host community composition on genotypic variation in the Lyme disease spirochetes
Toward a Credible Pacifism: Violence and the Possibilities of Politics
No full textAdvocates of pacifism usually stake their position on the moral superiority of nonviolence and have generally been reluctant or unwilling to concede that violence can be an effective means of conducting politics. In this compelling new work, which draws its examples from both everyday experience and the history of Western political thought, author Dustin Ells Howes presents a challenging argument that violence can be an effective and even just form of power in politics. Contrary to its proponents, however, Howes argues that violence is no more reliable than any other means of exercising power. Because of this there is almost always a more responsible alternative. He distinguishes between violent and nonviolent power and demonstrates how the latter can confront physical violence and counter its claims. This brand of pacifism gives up claims to moral superiority but recuperates a political ethic that encourages thoughtfulness about suffering and taking responsibility for our actions.https://repository.lsu.edu/facultybooks/1404/thumbnail.jp
Negative frequency-dependent selection is frequently confounding
No full textAbstractThis preprint has been reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Evolutionary Biology (http://dx.doi.org/10.24072/pci.evolbiol.100024).The existence of persistent genetic variation within natural populations presents an evolutionary problem as natural selection and genetic drift tend to erode genetic diversity. Models of balancing selection were developed to account for the high and sometimes extreme levels of polymorphism found in many natural populations. Negative frequency-dependent selection may be the most powerful selective force maintaining balanced natural polymorphisms but it is also commonly misinterpreted. The aim of this review is to clarify the processes underlying negative frequency-dependent selection, describe classes of natural polymorphisms that can and cannot result from these processes, and discuss observational and experimental data that can aid in accurately identifying the processes that generated or are maintain diversity in nature. Finally, I consider the importance of accurately describing the processes affecting genetic diversity within populations as it relates to research progress.</jats:p
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