Larger Movement Research Articles

Re-defining Sustainability: Living in Harmony with Life on Earth

The increasing frequency of extreme weather events, urban air pollution, and contamination of oceans by plastic waste have dramatically increased awareness that human civilization faces an existential environmental crisis. Here, we argue that the way humankind views its place on planet Earth is the cause of this crisis and of the reluctance to take meaningful and urgent action. This view gives humans the right to exploit everything on Earth for their own benefit and a belief that sustainability can be delivered through exploiting nature in a smarter way and controlling it better. We propose that humankind rejects this view and instead learns to live in harmony with life on Earth by respecting the land, the oceans, and the atmosphere from which everything derives. We show how knowledge, creativity, and innovation can drive transformation in all sectors of society to enable this new relationship to develop, re-defining sustainability in terms of all life on Earth.

Demonstration of Respiratory Movements of Inferior Vena Cava Filters Using 4D-CT

We applied 4-dimensional computed tomography (4D-CT) to investigate the respiratory movement of inferior vena cava filters related to complications. Filters without complications demonstrated smooth craniocaudal movement (Video 1 [available online on the article’s Supplemental Material page at www.jvir.org]). The suprarenal filters showed relatively larger movements from the cranial posterior to the caudal anterior direction than the infrarenal filters (Video 2 [available online on the article’s Supplemental Material page at www.jvir.org]).

Daily Ritual, Mission, and the Transformation of the Self: the Case of Tablighi Jamaat

AbstractTablighi Jamaat (TJ) is Islam’s largest movement, with estimates of up to 80 million Muslims taking part in its activities. Having originated on the Indian subcontinent, TJ has expanded to have a strong presence across the globe. Traditionally, TJ is known for bringing lapsed Muslims back to a stricter understanding of Islam and the recommendation that its male (and to an increasing extent also its female) members spend a certain portion of time each year working on the “path of Allah” — that is, on missionary activities. Tablighi leaders are conscious that participation in the movement impacts not only those who are the targets of missionary activity but also those who are doing the missionizing, having a powerful effect upon the formation of selfhoods. TJ also emphasizes the importance of imitating the Prophet Muhammad, and members are encouraged to ritualize every aspect of their life in accordance with the Prophet’s example. The ritualization of everyday practices, a focus on purity and mission, combined with textual (re)interpretation, contribute to individual and collective identity construction among members of TJ. For TJ, the formation of modern Muslim selfhoods is of vital importance, as they believe that an identity centered on an authentic form of Islam can protect Muslims in a fast-changing world.

Democratizing knowledge of teaching and learning through student leadership projects

ABSTRACT The central focus of this multilayered educational action research project was three-fold: (1) to provide opportunities for public school student leadership activities grounded in participatory and youth participatory action research; (2) to support a group of teacher-researchers in practicing and innovating in participatory action research frameworks; (3) to practice linking an educational action research project in a local region to the larger movement for democratizing education knowledge production and dissemination. Project participants included 11 teacher-researchers, a staff-developer, a consultant, a university-based faculty member, and students in K-8 schools in the Lehigh Valley region of Eastern Pennsylvania USA. To move from a traditional top-down administrative and curricular decision- making model to a distributed and more democratic model of leadership, the team argues that (1) children must be permitted to play a leading role in their own learning, leading, and researching; (2) teacher offers significant advantages over traditional in-service based professional development models; and (3) in an era of increased deskilling and deprofessionalization, teachers must have the opportunity to reclaim their profession as they conduct research, create new knowledge, and share their findings publicly.

The Politics of Vernacular Activism: Hmong Americans Organizing for Social Justice in Minnesota

ABSTRACTIn 2012, queer Hmong Americans in Minnesota organized to defeat a state-wide ballot initiative that sought to constitutionally amended the definition of marriage in Minnesota to being a union solely between one man and one woman. This article examines a collective called Midwest Solidarity Movement and their strategies of employing a “vernacular activism” to defeat this ballot initiative. I also utilize personal reflections and participant observation conducted during various Midwest Solidarity Movement activities to demonstrate how queer Hmong Americans engaged their own ethnic communities within the political atmosphere of same-sex marriage. This article makes the argument that queer Hmong Americans actively used intersectional and race-conscious strategies to involve their own communities around queer issues, which ultimately helped the cause of the larger movement to legalize same-sex marriage in the United States.

A Clustering Framework for Monitoring Circadian Rhythm in Structural Dynamics in Plants From Terrestrial Laser Scanning Time Series.

Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) can be used to monitor plant dynamics with a frequency of several times per hour and with sub-centimeter accuracy, regardless of external lighting conditions. TLS point cloud time series measured at short intervals produce large quantities of data requiring fast processing techniques. These must be robust to the noise inherent in point clouds. This study presents a general framework for monitoring circadian rhythm in plant movements from TLS time series. Framework performance was evaluated using TLS time series collected from two Norway maples (Acer platanoides) and a control target, a lamppost. The results showed that the processing framework presented can capture a plant's circadian rhythm in crown and branches down to a spatial resolution of 1 cm. The largest movements in both Norway maples were observed before sunrise and at their crowns' outer edges. The individual cluster movements were up to 0.17 m (99th percentile) for the taller Norway maple and up to 0.11 m (99th percentile) for the smaller tree from their initial positions before sunset.

Mindfulness and its relevance for sports coaches adopting nonlinear pedagogy

Nonlinear pedagogy is an approach for structuring skills acquisition that is underpinned by dynamical systems theory and ecological psychology approach of appreciating motor behavior. Given that nonlinear pedagogy calls for a different set of coaching strategies that departs from the traditional prescriptive approach, a heightened level of mindfulness—underpinned by attention/awareness and acceptance (Bishop et al., Mindfulness: a proposed operational definition. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 2004; 11(3): 230–241)—on coaches’ part may be particularly pertinent for facilitating this creativity-based and learner-centered approach. In this paper, the relevance of the mindfulness construct is discussed with reference to the need for coaches implementing nonlinear pedagogy to (a) develop sensitivity towards the dynamics of the movement system, (b) be open about impending variability and creativity in learner’s behavior, and (c) be accepting towards learners for who they are. The case for how coaches with heightened mindfulness might be better apt to accomplish the above is put forth. Some suggestions for future work in this area are also suggested. In line with the complex systems perspective in skills acquisition, perhaps it is not too far-fetched to consider a coach’s level of mindfulness during the coaching session as an important control parameter within a larger movement system that has a role in determining learner’s success in skill acquisition.

Arizona: #RedforEd -- Governor Ducey Forced to Invest in Education

The FY2019 budget saw the country’s largest movement of teachers descend on the state capital and force Governor Doug Ducey to scramble to save his re-election prospects. Gradually growing through social media, the #RedforEd movement culminated with 50,000 teachers and supporters walking out of classrooms and descending onto the Capitol grounds. Gov. Ducey deftly rose to the occasion from his initial one percent raise to a 20 percent raise by FY2021 before the walkout commenced, moving the pressure to legislators to seal the deal, which they did on May 3, 2018. Stronger revenue growth than prior years enabled the governor and Legislature to find the necessary funds.

Spatiality and Subjecthood in Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Maeterlinck, and Jarry: Between Page and Stage by Leo Shtutin

Reviewed by: Spatiality and Subjecthood in Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Maeterlinck, and Jarry: Between Page and Stage by Leo Shtutin Colin Foss Shtutin, Leo. Spatiality and Subjecthood in Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Maeterlinck, and Jarry: Between Page and Stage. Oxford UP, 2019. ISBN 978-0-1988-2185-4. Pp. 240. I have just emerged from an engrossing reading. The very idea of losing oneself in a text is also coincidentally one of the topics of Shtutin's meditation on space and self in theater and poetry of the fin-de-siècle. His premise is as straightforward as it is ambitious: to explore the "profound epistemological shift" (1) of 1890–1920, a period that witnessed a breakdown, we are told, of both abstract Newtonian space and the disembodied Cartesian ego. Shtutin relies on a vast array of disciplinary traditions—from cognitive poetry to cultural history, film theory to robotics—crafting them into surprising and original literary insights that, while sometimes straying from the book's central epistemological premise, make a convincing case that the four authors under study created new configurations of subjecthood and spatiality in opposition to naturalist and realist representational strategies. The body, this cumbersome object that centuries of European art tried to efface, made a comeback. Alternating and often [End Page 267] combining analysis of poetry and theater, this book argues that the four authors radically reversed the centuries-long "alienation and disembodiment" (32) of the spectator/reader. This shift occurred in Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Maeterlinck, and Jarry in different ways. For the poets, Shtutin focuses on the use of page space as creating or frustrating meaning, in direct opposition to the rationalizing of typographical practices of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. The book's material reality thus disrupted any possibility of a disembodied, engrossing reading experience, bringing the reader's body into the act of reading. In theater, a similar spatial disturbance made spectators aware of the bodies on the stage, giving materiality to the spectatorial body in the process. Alongside these material matters Shtutin places what he terms the subjectification of space, a process involving allegory and personification. A final chapter brings up a new concept—"spatialized subjects"—by putting these authors through the narratological wringer and locating the distorted pronouns that emerge. While the overall scope is interdisciplinary, engaged with questions of space and subject as understood in a number of fields, the rigor of this book is in the details, as each section constructs a new and unexpected universe of cultural and academic references. An analysis of liminality in Les aveugles leans on Victor Turner's cultural anthropology just as naturally as a discussion of Ubu roi leads to Sacha Baron-Cohen's Borat. Shtutin's refusal to place any one of these authors within a larger movement (such as Symbolism) allows each section of this book to explore such untrodden paths without having to return, disruptively, to a map. These analytical garden paths, much like Apollinaire's Caligrammes as Shtutin argues, should be read for the challenges and ultimate pleasures of interpretation that Spatiality and Subjecthood delights in laying before the reader. Colin Foss Austin College (TX) Copyright © 2019 American Association of Teachers of French

Highly sensitive detection of subtle movement using a flexible strain sensor from helically wrapped carbon yarns

A carbon fiber yarn with a helical wrapping structure could be used as a transducer to detect both subtle and larger movements.

Dr. Eureka: a humanoid robot manipulation case study

Abstract To this day, manipulation still stands as one of the hardest challenges in robotics. In this work, we examine the board game Dr. Eureka as a benchmark to encourage further development in the field. The game consists of a race to solve a manipulation puzzle: reordering colored balls in transparent tubes, in which the solution requires planning, dexterity and agility. In this work, we present a robot (Tactical Hazardous Operations Robot 3) that can solve this problem, nicely integrating several classical and state-of-the-art techniques. We represent the puzzle states as graph and solve it as a shortest path problem, in addition to applying computer vision combined with precise motions to perform the manipulation. In this paper, we also present a customized implementation of YOLO (called YOLO-Dr. Eureka) and we implement an original neural network (NN)-based incremental solution to the inverse kinematics problem. We show that this NN outperforms the inverse of the Jacobian method for large step sizes. Albeit requiring more computation per control cycle, the larger steps allow for much larger movements per cycle. To evaluate the experiment, we perform trials against a human using the same set of initial conditions.

Postural control in healthy young adults using a double seesaw device

Postural control on single and double seesaws was investigated in young healthy adults required to stand as still as possible on two side-by-side seesaws favoring pitch motion and lying on two separate force platforms. The device offers the possibility to get associated or dissociated seesaws and, if dissociated, to induce asymmetric patterns for the centers-of-pressure (CP) under both left and right feet by using different radii for the two seesaws. Substituting a parallelepiped volume to one seesaw offering a firm contact to one foot is also possible. The results indicated that dissociating the two seesaws led to increased resultant CP (CPRes) and vertically projected center-of-gravity movements (CGv) only along the mediolateral axis, whereas a slight decreasing tendency characterized these movements along the antero-posterior axis. When standing on two independent seesaws with different radii, significantly larger CP displacements were seen along the antero-posterior axis under the foot lying on the more stable support, i.e., the seesaw with the longer radius or the parallelepiped volume. In these two asymmetrical conditions, the CPRes output results from a compensatory mechanism, i.e. larger movements under one foot to compensate for the decreased movements occurring under the opposite foot. This postural control strategy is aimed at allowing sufficient CPRes displacements in order to appropriately secure balance. Because of the complex sensorimotor coordination induced, involving differentially in certain cases both legs, the double seesaw device can be viewed as a possible tool for challenging postural control by inducing asymmetrical patterns between left and right feet CP movements.

Rural and urban differences in orthognathic surgical patients in the north east of Scotland

We have previously identified differences in the presentation and treatment of cancer between patients who live in rural compared with urban areas, but have not yet seen differences in those treated by orthognathic surgery. We hypothesised that patients from areas further away from the hospital face higher costs to attend and may not present with minor problems as often as those who live nearby. We therefore retrospectively reviewed all those (n=216) who had presented for orthognathic surgery over a six-year period (May 2011 to May 2017). The severity of malocclusion and facial asymmetry was established by combining measurements of intraoperative movements. Rurality was measured as the distance from home to the hospital at the time of operation. Those with smaller intraoperative movements (less than 7mm combined movement) lived significantly closer to the hospital as the crow flies (mean difference 15.13 miles, 95% CI 0.20 to 30.48, p=0.05) and could travel there more quickly (mean difference 65minutes 95% CI 9.8 to 121.7, p=0.02) than those with larger movements. Our results suggest that patients with small malocclusions and slight facial asymmetry who live further away from the hospital, may be less likely to present for operation than those who live closer. We explain why socioeconomic class is unlikely to confound our results, and suggest potential ways to minimise the effect observed.

A Hybrid Motion Estimation for Video Stabilization Based on an IMU Sensor.

Recorded video data must be clear for accuracy and faster analysis during post-processing, which often requires video stabilization systems to remove undesired motion. In this paper, we proposed a hybrid method to estimate the motion and to stabilize videos by the switching function. This method switched the estimated motion between a Kanade–Lucus–Tomasi (KLT) tracker and an IMU-aided motion estimator. It facilitated the best function to stabilize the video in real-time as those methods had numerous advantages in estimating the motion. To achieve this, we used a KLT tracker to correct the motion for low rotations and an IMU-aided motion estimator for high rotation, owing to the poor performance of the KLT tracker during larger movements. Furthermore, a Kalman filter was used to remove the undesired motion and hence smoothen the trajectory. To increase the frame rate, a multi-threaded approach was applied to execute the algorithm in the array. Irrespective of the situations exposed to the experimental results of the moving camera from five video sequences revealed that the proposed algorithm stabilized the video efficiently.

4D Time Density of Trajectories: Discovering Spatiotemporal Patterns in Movement Data

Modern positioning and sensor technology enable the acquisition of movement positions and attributes on an unprecedented scale. Therefore, a large amount of trajectory data can be used to analyze various movement phenomena. In cartography, a common way to visualize and explore trajectory data is to use the 3D cube (e.g., space-time cube), where trajectories are presented as a tilted 3D polyline. As larger movement datasets become available, this type of display can easily become confusing and illegible. In addition, movement datasets are often unprecedentedly massive, high-dimensional, and complex (e.g., implicit spatial and temporal relations and interactions), making it challenging to explore and analyze the spatiotemporal movement patterns in space. In this paper, we propose 4D time density as a visualization method for identifying and analyzing spatiotemporal movement patterns in large trajectory datasets. The movement range of the objects is regarded as a 3D geographical space, into which the fourth dimension, 4D time density, is incorporated. The 4D time density is derived by modeling the movement path and velocity separately. We present a time density algorithm, and demonstrate it on the simulated trajectory and a real dataset representing the movement data of aircrafts in the Hong Kong International and the Macau International Airports. Finally, we consider wider applications and further developments of time density.

Size Doesn’t Matter—What Can Handwriting Tell Us About the Brain?

When you write on the blackboard, you use much larger movements than when you write in a notebook. Yet, the large letters written on the blackboard will appear very similar to the small letters written in the notebook. How does your brain generate these different writing movements? Does it use a single set of commands for both the notebook and blackboard—or multiple commands? In this article, we will present an experiment in which we measured brain activations of people while they were writing letters of different sizes and discuss what we can learn from this experiment about the brain commands that generate these movements.

Community Service-Learning in Canada: Emerging Conversations

This special issue invites engaged learning practitioners and scholars, both established and emerging, to take stock of the history of CSL, assess current practices, and consider how to move forward in the future. Is CSL the biggest thing to hit Canadian campuses since the late 1990s? With approximately fifty CSL programs or units across the country (Dorow et al., 2013), annual gatherings of scholars and practitioners, and a network of individuals who remain devoted to CSL despite challenges in funding and logistics, CSL in Canada has certainly made its mark, embedded in the context of a larger movement of engaged scholarship on campuses across the country—a movement exemplified in this very Engaged Scholar Journal, the first of its kind in Canada to focus on publishing community-engaged work.

#MeToo, Timees Up, and Theories of Justice

Allegations against movie-mogul Harvey Weinstein and the ensuing #MeToo movement opened the floodgates to a modern day reckoning with sex discrimination in the workplace. High level and high profile individuals across industries have been fired, suspended, and resigned. At the same time, serious concerns have been raised about useful processes for non-privileged women, due process for those accused of misconduct, and the need for proportionate consequences. And there have been calls for both restorative and transitional justice in addressing this problem. But these calls have not been explicit about what sort of restoration or transformation is envisioned. This article explores the meaning, utility, and complexities of restorative and transitional justice for dealing with sexual misconduct in the workplace. We begin by documenting the restorative origins of #MeToo as well as exploring steps taken, most prominently by Time’s Up, to amplify and credit survivors’ voices, seek accountability, change workplace practices, and encourage access to the legal system. We then take up the call for restorative justice by exploring its key components — including acknowledgement, responsibility-taking, harm repair, non-repetition, and reintegration — with an eye toward how these components might apply in the context of addressing sexual harassment in the workplace. We conclude by looking more broadly to the insights of transitional justice. We identify some shared features of transitional societies and the #MeToo setting, including structural inequalities, a history of denial and the normalization of wrongful behavior, and uncertainty about the way forward. We then provide guidance for ongoing reform efforts. First, we emphasize the vital importance of including and addressing the interests of marginalized groups within the larger movement both because we need to know and acknowledge specific intersectional harms and also because doing so helps model the kinds of equal relationships that marginalized groups seek across other dimensions such as race, sexual orientation, gender orientation, and disability. Second, we highlight the need for holism and mixed types of responses in trying to spur societal change.

Dopamine-dependent scaling of subthalamic gamma bursts with movement velocity in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Gamma synchronization increases during movement and scales with kinematic parameters. Here, disease-specific characteristics of this synchronization and the dopamine-dependence of its scaling in Parkinson's disease are investigated. In 16 patients undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery, movements of different velocities revealed that subthalamic gamma power peaked in the sensorimotor part of the subthalamic nucleus, correlated positively with maximal velocity and negatively with symptom severity. These effects relied on movement-related bursts of transient synchrony in the gamma band. The gamma burst rate highly correlated with averaged power, increased gradually with larger movements and correlated with symptom severity. In the dopamine-depleted state, gamma power and burst rate significantly decreased, particularly when peak velocity was slower than ON medication. Burst amplitude and duration were unaffected by the medication state. We propose that insufficient recruitment of fast gamma bursts during movement may underlie bradykinesia as one of the cardinal symptoms in Parkinson's disease.

Community Organizing and the Detroit Water Struggle: Report from the Front Lines

ABSTRACTAt this moment in history, both the need for macro social work approaches and interest in macro social practice among social workers are growing. One macro approach that is particularly well-suited to confronting current political and economic conditions is grassroots community organizing. Some authors have suggested that most successful efforts at community organizing are those which can link the lived experiences of grassroots community members to larger movements for social justice. The struggle for access to affordable water in Detroit is a prime example of such an effort. In 2014, indignation at the announcement that the city would be shutting off the water of all those who could not afford to pay their water bills, combined with resistance to the imposition of emergency management on the city, galvanized a movement that brought together a wide variety of community members, activists, and organizers. As a participant-observer in this struggle, I conducted videotaped interviews with 15 organizers and activists concerning their views on the successes and challenges they have witnessed and the crucial “next steps” for community activists in Detroit. This article reports on these interviews and examines the lessons for community organizers that emerged from them.