scholarly journals Precarity is a Feminist Issue: Gender and Contingent Labor in the Academy

Hypatia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Zheng

Feminist philosophers have challenged a wide range of gender injustices in professional philosophy. However, the problem of precarity, that is, the increasing numbers of contingent faculty who cannot find permanent employment, has received scarcely any attention. What explains this oversight? In this article, I argue, first, that academics are held in the grips of an ideology that diverts attention away from the structural conditions of precarity, and second, that the gendered dimensions of such an ideology have been overlooked. To do so, I identify two myths: the myth of meritocracy and the myth of work as its own reward. I demonstrate that these myths—and the two‐tier system itself—manifest an unmistakably gendered logic, such that gender and precarity are mutually reinforcing and co‐constitutive. I conclude that feminist philosophers have particular reason to organize against the casualization of academic work.

Photonics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 255
Author(s):  
Marie Tahon ◽  
Silvio Montresor ◽  
Pascal Picart

Digital holography is a very efficient technique for 3D imaging and the characterization of changes at the surfaces of objects. However, during the process of holographic interferometry, the reconstructed phase images suffer from speckle noise. In this paper, de-noising is addressed with phase images corrupted with speckle noise. To do so, DnCNN residual networks with different depths were built and trained with various holographic noisy phase data. The possibility of using a network pre-trained on natural images with Gaussian noise is also investigated. All models are evaluated in terms of phase error with HOLODEEP benchmark data and with three unseen images corresponding to different experimental conditions. The best results are obtained using a network with only four convolutional blocks and trained with a wide range of noisy phase patterns.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-169
Author(s):  
Roghayeh Farsi

AbstractThe academic field of Qurʾānic Studies employs a wide range of approaches, each one of which helps to open up a new perspective on the Qurʾānic text. The Holy Book was revealed to guide people; it is thus of relevance to all aspects of people’s lives. This article focuses on the way social actors are represented in one Meccansūra, entitled “Ya-Sin”, and employs a case-study approach to do so. The analysis carried out includes the socio-semantic processes that thesūrauses in order to represent social actors either by behavior (action) or meaning (reflection), and it also analyzes the actors as they are represented in processes such as activation and passivation. The methodology adopted is eclectic and analytic. It is a hybrid of Swales’ move analysis, El-Awa’s identification of shift-markers, and Halliday’s and Van Leeuwen’s theories of social actor representation. This study shows how such an analysis can contribute to understanding the apparently fragmented and non-linear nature of “Ya-Sin”.


Cells ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgia Schena ◽  
Michael J. Caplan

The beta-3 adrenergic receptor (β3-AR) is by far the least studied isotype of the beta-adrenergic sub-family. Despite its study being long hampered by the lack of suitable animal and cellular models and inter-species differences, a substantial body of literature on the subject has built up in the last three decades and the physiology of β3-AR is unraveling quickly. As will become evident in this work, β3-AR is emerging as an appealing target for novel pharmacological approaches in several clinical areas involving metabolic, cardiovascular, urinary, and ocular disease. In this review, we will discuss the most recent advances regarding β3-AR signaling and function and summarize how these findings translate, or may do so, into current clinical practice highlighting β3-AR’s great potential as a novel therapeutic target in a wide range of human conditions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 183 ◽  
pp. 02049
Author(s):  
Pascal Forquin ◽  
Reem Abdul-Rahman ◽  
Dominique Saletti

Mode II shear fracture process can be observed in plain-concrete structures exposed to intensive loadings such as shock, blasting or projectile-impact. It is the reason why the quasi-static and dynamic shear fracturing properties of concrete need to be investigated. In previous works performed by Forquin and coauthors a passive confining cell was applied to PTS (Punch-Through-Shear) specimens in a similar way than in quasi-oedometric compression tests where metallic ring are used as passive confinement. However the change of confining level during the sample loading constitutes a main drawback of this technique. In the present work a novel testing method is proposed based on a pre-stressing of the sample. To do so, the concrete specimen is inserted into pre-stressed metallic cell. During the unloading stage confining stresses are transferred to the ligament of the sample. In a second stage, a differential displacement applied to the central part of the sample toward the side parts produces a shearing of the ligament. The experiments performed in static and dynamic conditions (SHPB testing) allow the shear response of concrete to be determined over a wide range of strain-rates. In the present communication, the testing technique and obtained results are compared to the obtained data with the previous experimental method.


Author(s):  
Vidhi Shah

Abstract: This research was conducted to gather data and understand the perception what the Indian population holds when it comes to investing in cryptocurrency. To do so, a survey was designed using the UTAUT model and was circulated by the means of google forms. A wide range of parameters were considered to avail the maximum possible accuracy for the data collected. Parameters like, the ease of investing crypto, short term and long term benefits, monetary benefits, social benefits were considered. All of these parameters were supposed to be answered on a scale of 5. After collecting all the data, the results were analyzed and evaluated using which the hypothesis made were proved. Keywords: Cryptocurrency, UTAUT, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, perceived monetary benefits, perceived safety, social influence, adoption intension.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-150
Author(s):  
Silvia Schultermandl

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of this contribution to this forum: The advent of Facebook in 2004, Twitter in 2006, Tumblr in 2007, Instagram and Pinterest in 2010, and Snapchat and Google+ in 2011 facilitated the emergence of “everyday” autobiographies out of keeping with memoir practices of the past.[1] These “quick media” enable constant, instantaneous, and seemingly organic expressions of everyday lives.[2] To read quick media as “autobiographical acts” allows us to analyze how people mobilize online media as representations of their lives and the lives of others.[3] They do so through a wide range of topics including YouTube testimonials posted by asylum seekers (Whitlock 2015) and the life-style oriented content on Pinterest.[4] To be sure, the political content of these different quick media life writing varies greatly. Nevertheless, in line with the feminist credo that the personal is political, these expressions of selfhood are indicative of specific societal and political contexts and thus contribute to the memoir boom long noticed on the literary market.[5]


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole Woolford-Hunt ◽  
Marlene Murray ◽  
Tevni Guerra ◽  
Kristina Beenken-Johnson

We live in a world where awareness of ethnic and cultural diversity is an ever increasing reality. Business and education turn to the social sciences to inform them about how to manage and optimize cross-cultural interactions. Although much research has been done on the impact of cross-cultural interactions on a wide range of variables, one less researched area is the endocrine response to cross-cultural interactions. In this study we set out to investigate the endocrine response to cross cultural interactions and the impact of these interactions on perceived differences. To do so we measured the pre and post levels of the stress hormone cortisol of individuals communicating in dyads for 15 minutes. Results showed a significant impact of ethnic interaction on perceived differences and cortisol levels. Practical implications of these findings could have application in the areas of education, psychology, business and human relations in general. Implications for further research are discussed.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Langsford ◽  
Andrew T Hendrickson ◽  
Amy Perfors ◽  
Lauren Kennedy ◽  
Danielle Navarro

Understanding and measuring sentence acceptability is of fundamental importance for linguists, but although many measures for doing so have been developed, relatively little is known about some of their psychometric properties. In this paper we evaluate within- and between-participant test-retest reliability on a wide range of measures of sentence acceptability. Doing so allows us to estimate how much of the variability within each measure is due to factors including participant-level individual differences, sample size, response styles, and item effects. The measures examined include Likert scales, two versions of forced-choice judgments, magnitude estimation, and a novel measure based on Thurstonian approaches in psychophysics. We reproduce previous findings of high between-participant reliability within and across measures, and extend these results to a generally high reliability within individual items and individual people. Our results indicate that Likert scales and the Thurstonian approach produce the most stable and reliable acceptability measures and do so with smaller sample sizes than the other measures. Moreover, their agreement with each other suggests that the limitation of a discrete Likert scale does not impose a significant degree of structure on the resulting acceptability judgments.


1988 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 955-962 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soong-Hyuck Suh ◽  
Seamus F. O'Shea

Monte Carlo calculations are reported for patches of molecular chlorine adsorbed on the basal plane of graphite. A variety of combinations of intermolecular and molecule–surface potentials have been tested, and the resulting structural predictions cover a wide range of behaviour. None of the combinations employed here can explain the recent experimental observations, but it is clear that at least some could be adjusted to do so. However, the lack of thermodynamic data concerning the interaction between the molecules and the surface presents a major obstacle. Further experiments which give information about the energetics of the system are needed before a definitive account of the structure and dynamics can be given.


Author(s):  
Yannick Hoga

Abstract We develop central limit theory for tail risk forecasts in general location–scale models. We do so for a wide range of risk measures, viz. distortion risk measures (DRMs) and expectiles. Two popular members of the class of DRMs are the Value-at-Risk and the Expected Shortfall. The forecasts we consider are motivated by a Pareto-type tail assumption for the innovations and allow for extrapolation beyond the range of available observations. Simulations reveal adequate coverage of the forecast intervals derived from the limit theory. An empirical application demonstrates that our estimators outperform nonparametric alternatives when forecasting extreme risk in sufficiently large samples.


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