Snail Mail Research Articles

Bilingual Texting in the Age of Emoji: Spanish–English Code-Switching in SMS

Technology and computer-mediated communication (CMC) have quickly transformed the means of interaction among monolingual and bilingual individuals alike, especially in the younger generations. While e-mail once replaced traditional “snail mail”, today’s youth networks mainly via social media and short message services (SMS). Digital communication has thus become a fertile ground for sociolinguistic research. The present study aims to contribute to the field of “electronic” code-switching, specifically in the emerging area of text messaging. To this end, I analyze The Bilingual Youth Texts Corpus, a collection of text messages among urban emergent Spanish–English bilinguals in New York City. The main findings indicate that (1) although it is not the most common practice, participants do engage in code-switching when texting each other; (2) their language mixing obeys most of the socio-pragmatic and communicative patterns attested in oral production (such as emphasis, elaboration, lexical need and, especially, tag switches) along with other functions (textisms) which are idiosyncratic to CMC; and (3) the language choices made by these bilinguals reveal a linguistic and a cultural belonging to two worlds where they may and must use both languages to fully express themselves online just like in real life.

Tennessee Academy of ScienceDistinguished Secondary School Science Teacher Award 2022

Tennessee Academy of ScienceDistinguished Secondary School Science Teacher Award 2022

Dateline 1977: The LHRT as Connective Tissue

Dateline 1977: The LHRT as Connective Tissue

Handwritten letters and photo albums linking geoscientists with school classes

Abstract. Was something lost as society moved away from “traditional” media such as handwritten letters and photography and into the digital age? Some of the authors remember this age fondly, and we wanted to see if this fondness could be translated into a science dialogue project with school classes. We designed and carried out a communication process with four classes at different schools across Europe. During this process, each class would interact with a single scientist primarily via handwritten questions, letters, and a Polaroid photo album. The scientists would make this unique, one-of-a-kind album whilst on board a research expedition in the Barents Sea. We asked whether this process might show any benefits to the school students involved. To answer this, we asked the students to write up their thoughts on communicating with a scientist in this way. We analysed the texts and found that most students thought that the letters and Polaroid albums were a “beautiful experience”. Others commented on how important it is to actually put pen to paper and write since they (almost) only use digital media these days. Most importantly, the students learnt different elements of the science connected to the research expedition but also about the scientific process in general. And, equally important, some of the students were surprised and thankful that the scientists took the time to communicate with them in such a personal way. These results could possibly have been achieved using other media; however, the handwritten letters and Polaroids worked very well. They also seemed to conjure up some of the personal memories that we have about communication not so long ago. Maybe there is something to be said for slowing things down with our science communication projects and making them more personal and unique. This is something that snail mail and making photo albums forces us to do.

Forensic Analysis of Electronic Mail Messages

E-mail has revolutionized business, academic, and personal communication. The advantages of e-mail include speedy delivery, ease of communication, cost effectiveness, geographical independence, and the portability of mailboxes. The last two are the biggest advantages over snail mail. However, with e-mail comes the threat of a genuine user being compromised through key loggers, social engineering, shoulder surfing, password guessing and other similar, though less technical, methods. This passive espionage can have a direct impact on the genuine user in terms of denial of information, loss of money, loss of time, mental harassment and an attack of personal privacy. To enable digital forensic analysis of e-mails, we propose behavioral biometric based authentication, which is analogous to a signature in paper documents. Keyword: E-mail, forensics, threats, digital analysis, security cyber crimes

Big Feelings

Hi everyone, thanks for tuning in. My paper is too long, so I’m going to get right to it. The purpose of this paper and its broader idea is to formulate one of many possible responses to the question, What happened to feminism in indie rock after riot grrrl?1 In both mainstream criticism and in music scholarship, the conventional and to a large degree accurate narrative about feminism in popular music usually pivots away from rock around 1995, when The Spice Girls heralded the coming postfeminist turn.2 But while postfeminist pop music—from The Spice Girls to Avril Lavigne all the way to Taylor Swift—has clearly constituted the dominant articulation of feminism in popular music since that time, feminist indie rock has continued to exist, and more recently, to thrive.Here, I am not concerned with describing the state of indie rock generally, nor do I want to limit the question to women performers per-se. Within the increasingly heterogeneous indie rock space, I want to focus on a particular, limited affect that I hear as indicative of some of the aesthetic and political shifts that indie rock has undergone in the past decade, and which continues to bind together certain sensibilities in our contemporary moment. Big Feelings attempts to name and trace this affect.3In trying to understand this change, I’ve compiled a working list of what seem to me the essential characteristics of the music I’m trying to identify. Together, these characteristics produce a feminist affect that is irreducible to any one component, but is perceptible nonetheless.4 We have almost no time for a sampling, but I’ll play a bit of music from Snail Mail and Land of Talk to give us an idea of the aesthetic I’m trying to get a handle on.[Play “Heat Wave” (:50-1:45), “This Time” (23:35-24:40)]How do we begin to talk about music like this? It certainly presents some common characteristics, but at the same time, I don’t know if these characteristics constitute a genre, because not all of them are present in all of indie rock, or even, as we’ll see, in feminist indie rock from the post-2000s period. This is what makes Big Feelings more of a tendency or an orientation than a genre. I’ll spend the rest of the paper outlining what seem to me the key elements of this approach.Together, these are the five elements that at least right now seem central to producing the kind of affect that I hear in Big Feelings, a too-much sound that puts feelings first, using them as a vehicle to explore other themes. This affect is in my view inherently feminist, because of the historical effeminization and therefore de-valuing of feelings and emotionality, the traditional segregation that as Lauren Berlant puts it, keeps women “the default managers of the intimate.”11 This is obviously not the only music that deals with feelings in the umbrella of indie-rock, which is itself difficult to define. But it does seem to me a distinct, 90s-based and feminist-inflected approach to playing that is not shared by other groups. I hope that it could prove promising for future research: if the aesthetic that I have sketched here is coherent, then the next step would be to trace its origins and its effects, both socio-politically and musically. It is also critical to caution that—as a concept that relies on affect—all of the dynamics outlined in this paper, especially the political reading, must be understood as singular and relational. That is to say, if these characteristics hold across several bands, they nevertheless manifest and function in different ways for every case. This is another reason I am eager to explore these dynamics and musicians further in the future. Thanks so much for listening, and I hope to see you out there in the real world someday.

In Memoriam

It is with great sadness that I wish to inform readers of The Journal of Emergency Medicine that longtime member of the editorial staff, Marty Martell, recently passed away. Marty was well known to editors and reviewers of JEM. She was an integral part of the JEM family for longer than I can remember. She started with the Journal when Peter Rosen, our founding editor, came to San Diego, back in 1989. Back in those days, all journal operations were by hand and snail mail. Marty would actually receive paper manuscripts, photocopy them, assign them to reviewers and associate editors, mail them out, and track their reviews. Reviewers could accept or decline reviews by mail or telephone, would handwrite and later type/print out their reviews and send them back to Marty, who would compile them and send them to the associate editor for initial decision. Once an initial decision was made, it was sent back to the authors for revision by mail, and then when, finally, it was returned to the associate editor and a decision was made, it was then sent back to JEM and Peter would confirm the final decision of acceptance or rejection. As you might imagine, this process could take months, and Marty would track it all for each manuscript submitted.

ACSM's Health & Fitness Journal® Turns 25

ACSM's Health & Fitness Journal® Turns 25

Professor Martin Ritzén on his time as co-editor: 'I went back on my promise and never took over after Rolf'.

Professor Martin Ritzén has been engaged with Acta Paediatrica since the 1980s (Figure 1). It was then that he was published for the first time in the journal. Since then, he has followed its development from paper manuscripts with corrections in red pen, all the way to the transition to ‘online’. His involvement nearly led to a position as editor-in-chief. In 1970 I came home after a year as a fellow at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where I had quickly learned the fundamentals of clinical paediatric endocrinology and made valuable contacts. A lab in the newly built Clinical Research Laboratory was then there waiting for me. My research at that time was more preclinical and was published in other journals. My first publication in Acta wasn’t until 1980. Associate professor -- later professor -- Carl Gustaf (C.G.) Bergstrand at that time took care of the basic work at the journal as associate editor and presented all suggestions to Rolf. Bergstrand did thorough work -- one got paper manuscripts returned with his handwritten notes in the margins. Like a corrected school report! I think it was 1988. Rolf Zetterström, editor-in-chief since a long time back, recruited me as associate editor when Bergstrand resigned and instead became an honorary editor. The chairman of the foundation, Stig Sjölin, a few years later wanted me to promise that I would take over as editor-in-chief when Rolf would one day decide to end his editorship. He didn’t do that for a very long time. I went back on my promise and never took over after Rolf. During my first year, Almqvist & Wiksell was Acta’s publisher. It had an office on Old Bridge Street, in the Stockholm city centre, where I went for some time each week. Manuscripts were presented to me in folders, which became thicker with every revision. All correspondence happened through ‘snail mail’. Later, Rolf and I came to sit in neighboring offices, and I often got the honor of participating in sandwich lunches with Rolf and four other senior professors. At those lunches, many unofficial glimpses into Karolinska Institute’s history were exchanged. Rolf was familiar with it all! Without doubt it is the transition to digital manuscripts and the correspondence between the editorial office, authors and reviewers. The paper bundles vanished. Because it has kept its character as a journal of general paediatrics, primarily aimed at clinical paediatricians. Many other paediatric journals have chosen to focus on narrow subspecialties.

Evidence-Based Facebook Recruitment of Study Participants.

Traditional methods for research study recruitment such as snail mail lists and posting flyers may fail to reach the tech-savvy participants needed for today's healthcare studies. Word of mouth can be effective for recruiting a few participants but can rarely accomplish the numbers needed for a representative sample. Social media can be a viable avenue to reach increased numbers of sample participants; however, a good understanding of the risks and benefits of using social media is needed before embarking on active recruitment. A recent study developed an evidence-based participant recruitment plan for the use of Facebook. Potential participant misrepresentation was addressed with clear inclusion criteria, no incentives, and open-ended questions. The Facebook ads to recruit study participation targeted licensed nurses who worked in the prior 2-year period living in the United States based on information in Facebook user profiles. A total of 536 participants responded to all questions on the survey at a cost of $1.78 per completed survey. Daily activity and cost for ads were closely monitored and adjusted to maintain cost control. Facebook can be an effective tool for study participant recruitment across all age ranges for completion of online surveys.

In remembrance of: Scott A. Mori (1941–2020), Tropical Botanist Extraordinaire

In remembrance of: Scott A. Mori (1941–2020), Tropical Botanist Extraordinaire

Integrating Wikis into Open and Distance Learning

In the past, Open and Distance Learning (ODL) was primarily conducted through snail mail where institutions sent reading and other materials to learners. With the advent of Internet and related digital technologies, this has gradually changed. This paper explores how a free and open digital technology like MediaWiki, and Wikimedia open knowledge projects can be used as pedagogical tools to access content online, collaboratively create and share learning resources with participants, thereby facilitating and integrating wikis into ODL. The paper also discusses how MediaWiki and Wikimedia projects are currently being used by IT for Change (ITfC) to promote open, collaborative and distance learning, to illustrate how these technologies can support and promote ODL at individual, institutional and systemic levels. Not only does the use of MediaWiki enhances the availability of learning resources for ODL programs, it also enables the participation of teachers and learners as co-constructors of knowledge, in line with constructivist approaches to learning

Some parting words.

Some parting words.

Letters to a Pre-Scientist?

Students cannot aspire to careers they don’t know exist. Letters to a Pre-Scientist connects U.S. based 4th–12th grade student ‘pre-scientists’ with STEM professionals allowing them to correspond as pen pals by snail mail. Letters to a Pre-Scientist aims to break down stereotypes that many students in low-income communities have about scientists, demystify STEM careers, and empower all students to see themselves as future scientists.

Henry Stapp’s Influence on My Post-Quantum Mechanics of Consciousness Via Locally Decodable Keyless Entanglement Signaling

It is wonderful that Henry is still creative and active at the age of 90. I first communicated with Henry in 1963 when I was with Fred W. Cummings at Ford Philco Aeronutronics in Newport Beach, CA (I left Cornell where I was working with Leonard Susskind and Johnny Glogower on the problem of time and phase operators in quantum mechanics. I returned to Cornell about 6 months later.). That is also when I first met Richard Feynman at Cal Tech and also when I first communicated by snail mail with Brian Josephson if I recall correctly. David Kaiser recalls my interaction with Henry about quantum entanglement in his book “How the Hippies Saved Physics.” Kaiser also wrote how Nick Herbert and I were key catalysts in the creation of the “billion-dollar” quantum information/cryptography/computer industry. Henry played a key role in Nick’s and my quixotic quest to use orthodox quantum mechanical entanglement as a direct stand-alone keyless locally decodable command-control-communication-channel C4 (On Apr 22, 2018, at 4:52 PM, Robert Addinall wrote: “Actually command-control-communications channel should be C3. For C4, it should be command-control-communications-computing. Although it starts with the letter C, the word “channel” is not usually included in the acronym (C2 for command and control, and C4ISR for command-control-communications-computing-intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance). It’s nice that you are writing some of this up in honor of Henry’s birthday.”). This “failure” led to the modern-day no-go theorems that form the basis of practical quantum cryptographic networks like the Chinese satellite web.

A Rookie’s Guide to the Academic Job Market in Finance: The Labor Market for Lemons

We first wrote and circulated our “Rookie’s Guide” paper about the academic labor market for newly minted finance PhDs twenty years ago. It passed hand-to-hand and via photocopies of photocopies sent using snail mail (or, back then, we just called it ‘mail’). Since then, much has changed in our labor market, and much has not. Logistics are easier now due to technological change. But the basic informational frictions that made it difficult for rookies to learn the ropes 20 years ago are still evident, as are the fundamental market frictions that make the bilateral matching between labor demand (hiring schools) and labor supply (the rookies) awkward and challenging. This manuscript refreshes the advice we have given in the past, adds some more specific suggestions for preparing for the intense interview process at the academic meetings, and offers a brief epilogue discussing what a rookie should do at the successful conclusion of the job market. We incorporate by reference some of the basic advice from previous guides (Butler and Crack, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2012). We begin by offering some truths for the reader to internalize. Then we use an FAQ format to impart additional information. We end with our epilogue and a list of references.

‘Cyberloafing’ in Health Care: A Real Risk to Patient Safety

TODAY'S KNOWLEDGE WORKER has an attention span of 3 minutes, and distractions account for 28% of an average American's workday. 1 Szalados J. Digital distraction and legal risk. in: Papadakos P. Bertman S. Distracted Doctoring. Springer International Publishing, Cham, Switzerland2018 Google Scholar Electronic distraction at work is increasing, and the health care environment is not immune to this. Today's health care environment is equipped with electronic health records, smart pumps, and robotic instruments, and health care team members can interact in real time. Telemedicine is more prominent than ever, and patients can be monitored remotely. We likely do not even remember the work environment of a decade ago, when we relied more on snail mail, pagers, and telephones to relay communication. The speed and efficiency available to us is astounding. Jacqueline Ross, PhD, RN, CPAN, Department of Patient Safety, The Doctors Company, Napa, CA

Postoperative anxiety and its relationship with life quality in patients with Ménière's diseases

To investigate the postoperative anxiety and its relationship with life quality in patients with Ménière's diseases. Methods: A total of 68 patients with Ménière's disease, who received the treatment of endolymphatic sac decompression from 2010 to 2016, were enrolled. They finished two scales (the self-rating anxiety scale and the quality of life questionnaire for endolymphatic sac decompression of Ménière's disease) by snail mail. The patients were divided into different groups based on their preoperative course, postoperative follow-up time, clinic stage and quality of life after endolymphatic sac decompression surgery, and their anxiety was analyzed. In addition, 109 gender and age-matched patients with other diseases of otorhinolaryngology served as the control group, and their anxiety was also analyzed. Results: There was no statistical difference in the postoperative anxiety among the patients with preoperative course for less than 1 year, 1 to 5 years or more than 5 years (all P>0.05). There was no statistical difference in the patients with different duration of follow-up (P>0.05). There was no statistical difference in the patients with the different clinic stages (all P>0.05). There was no statistical difference in the patients with the improved life or non-improved life after surgery (P>0.05). The degree of the anxiety in the Ménière's group was more severe than that in the control group (P<0.01). Conclusion: It needs to keep in mind that a certain degree of postoperative anxiety still keeps in patients with Ménière's disease.

Michael Patrick Stuart Irwin (1925–2017)

Michael Patrick Stuart Irwin (1925–2017)

Ways of Depicting: The Presentation of One’s Self as a Brand

Ways of Depicting: The Presentation of One’s Self as a Brand