White Dog Research Articles

Black Dog Bias in the Courtroom: A Potential Disadvantage?

ABSTRACT Because facility dogs can provide comfort to vulnerable testifying witnesses, they are beginning to become commonplace in some courtrooms. However, certain dogs (and by extension the witness they testify with) might be discriminated against because of their coat color. Known as “Black Dog Bias” (BDB), black dogs are often reported to be discriminated against in animal adoption centers, resulting in higher rates of euthanasia. Black dogs are often viewed as less friendly, less emotionally stable, and more aggressive than their other-colored counterparts. Other research, however, argues that BDB does not exist; rather, bias against certain dogs is associated with phenotypic traits or breed. With the proliferation of facility dog employment in courtrooms, there is a possibility that BDB also could manifest in this setting. This study investigated whether BDB occurs in the courtroom and affects perceptions of the witness through the social psychological process of transference. A child witness, as they were testifying about a sexual assault, was either comforted by a black dog, a white dog, or no dog. Counterintuitively, community-member participants (n = 133) believed that the witnesses appeared less sad, less emotional, and happier when comforted by a black dog compared with a white dog. Furthermore, perceptions of the witness were not affected by the facility dog, suggesting that transference did not occur. A potential explanation for the findings posits that a stereotype violation occurs when a black dog serves as a facility dog, allowing the animal to be perceived positively. This finding adds a new caveat to BDB – that when a black dog fulfills a positive role, this might cause a stereotype violation that leads to positive evaluations of that dog. These findings also contribute to existing literature that the presence of facility dogs is more beneficial than harmful to courtroom settings, suggesting that they do not seem to unfairly sway juries.

Elf Dog & Owl Head by M.T. Anderson

Reviewed by: Elf Dog & Owl Head by M.T. Anderson Kate Quealy-Gainer, Editor Anderson, M.T. Elf Dog & Owl Head; illus. by Junyi Wu. Candlewick, 2023 [240p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781536222814 $18.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 4-6 In an experience that will likely be familiar to many young readers, Clay and his sisters are stuck at home after a global illness shut down the world and forced the tween boy online for school, crushing any sort of developing social life. On a walk through the woods, Clay encounters a strange little white dog, who offers the lonely kid companionship and then a bit of adventure, taking Clay off the forest path and into a world inhabited by owl-headed creatures. Despite it becoming clear quite quickly that the magical land holds potentially fatal danger, Clay is still drawn to it, especially when his real-world life only continues to feel more and more suffocating. Invited by owl-headed Amos to a celebration that brings various realms together, he returns, but unfortunately, the dog’s previous owners—the haughty People Under the Mountain—show up. They want their animal back, and they’ll resort to drastic measures if necessary. This is a charming, fantastical spin on the familiar kid/dog story, right down to their tragic separation being quickly followed by a heartwarming reunion. The third-person narration expands the story, though, shifting focus among the boy, the dog, and the boy’s family, giving secondary characters nuance and roles beyond merely supporting Clay. There’s a lot for contemporary kids to relate to here: Clay’s loneliness, his sister’s anger at being forced to stay home, his parents’ constant worry, and the general unfairness of the entire situation. Holding all that chaotic emotion together and framing it with a well-developed fantasy [End Page 183] world is an impressive feat, and Anderson, as usual, does it with aplomb. Final illustrations not seen. Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

"The same way as there are black and white dogs": an analysis of the intersections between race and health.

This paper reflects on the Family Health Strategy (ESF) workers' understanding of racial relationships and health intersections. We conducted semi-structured interviews with ESF teams' professionals in the State of Pernambuco, Brazil, whose data were analyzed in light of the discussions that focused on the racial theme. The results point to discrepancies between different health models in the daily routine, race/skin color invisibility in training and professional work, and whiteness as a structuring element of race relationships. The study reaffirms the need for Public Health to focus on the intersection between the issue of race/skin color and healthcare relationships and invest in the training of professionals regarding race discussions.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF DESPAIR TO HOPE AS ASSERTED ON RYUNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA’S SHIRO

Psychology in literature is how characters move through relation of body and mind. Shiro is Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story about white dog who ignores his friend, Kuro, that being caught. That ignorant deed haunts and makes him try to kill himself but actually he helps many people. One night, he speaks to the moon how he apologizes for everything. Then, how is transformation from despair to hope be asserted on Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Shiro? Through qualitative method, this writing underlines changing condition of Shiro from having despair to being hopeful. Supported by theory of Randolph M. Nesse, the transformation is reflected when Shiro sees others beside himself. He leaves his loneliness and joins others for happiness. He has paid his debt by supporting others’ lives. In conclusion, Shiro’s denial for not helping Kuro changes when experiencing hope from otherness rather than selfness.

Laurie Anderson’s Transmedia Storytelling

Laurie Anderson’s Transmedia Storytelling

A Cross-Species Examination of Pro-White Color Bias Using a Novel Implicit Association Test

ABSTRACT There is abundant evidence for pro-White color bias across the social psychology literature. In human–animal interaction work, black dog syndrome (BDS) refers to preference toward lighter-colored dogs over black dogs, leading to differences in rates of euthanasia and adoption. BDS has received mixed support in prior studies. Results from studies examining explicit color preference toward animals are also inconsistent. Numerous studies report strong support for implicit pro-White bias toward humans, but no studies have examined implicit pro-White bias toward animals. Thus, the primary aim of the current research was to test for implicit pro-White bias across various stimuli and species, using both novel and well-established Implicit Association Tests (IATs). In study 1 (n = 127) and study 2 (n = 141), IATs assessed pro-White bias across five different stimuli: objects, rabbits, dogs, skin tone, and race, using data collected from college students. Participants were categorized into three groups based on race and ethnicity (non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and all other racial/ethnic participants). In both studies, there was evidence of pro-White bias across all five IATs. However, both studies also revealed significant racial differences. In both studies, pro-White bias was significant among White and other racial/ethnic participants but not among Black participants. Racial/ethnic differences were also found in prevalence of pet ownership and attitudes toward pets, but neither ownership nor attitudes were significantly associated with pro-White bias. Results from this study provide indirect support for BDS, in that individuals showed an implicit bias toward White dogs, although this bias is not present among Black individuals.

SCULPTURAL TRADITIONALISM AND INNOVATION IN THE CLASSIC MAYA KINGDOM OF SAK TZ'I', MEXICO

AbstractIn this article we analyze the content and form of 58 stone monuments at the archaeological site of Lacanjá Tzeltal, Chiapas, Mexico, which recent research confirms was a capital of the Classic Maya polity Sak Tz'i' (“White Dog”). Sak Tz'i' kings carried the title ajaw (“lord”) rather than the epithet k'uhul ajaw (“holy lord”) claimed by regional powers, implying that Sak Tz'i' was a lesser kingdom in terms of political authority. Lacanjá Tzeltal's corpus of sculptured stone, however, is explicitly divergent and indicates the community's marked cultural autonomy from other western Maya kingdoms. The sculptures demonstrate similarities with their neighbors in terms of form and iconographic and hieroglyphic content, underscoring Lacanjá Tzeltal artisans’ participation in the region's broader culture of monumental production. Nevertheless, sculptural experimentations demonstrate not only that lesser courts like Lacanjá Tzeltal were centers of innovation, but that the lords of Sak Tz'i' may have fostered such cultural distinction to underscore their independent political character. This study has broader implications for understanding interactions between major and secondary polities, artistic innovation, and the development of community identity in the Classic Maya world.

Common animal models lack a distinct glenoid labrum: a comparative anatomy study

PurposeDevelopment and validation of an animal model of labral healing would facilitate translation of novel surgical and biological strategies to improve glenolabral healing. The purpose of this study was to characterize the anatomic and histological properties of the shoulder labrum in rat, rabbit, dog, pig, goat, and humans. Given the demonstrated similarities in size and structural morphology in other joints, it was hypothesized that the goat glenoid with surrounding capsulolabral complex would most closely resemble that of humans in terms of dimensions and structure, as observed grossly and histologically.MethodsCadaveric glenohumeral joints from rats (n = 8), New Zealand white rabbits (n = 13), Mongrel dogs (n = 9), Spanish goats (n = 10), Yorkshire pigs (n = 10), and humans (n = 9) were freshly harvested. Photographs were taken of the glenoid with its surrounding capsulolabral complex. Linear dimensions of the glenoid articular surface were measured. It was determined where the capsulolabral complex was continuous with, or recessed from, the articular glenoid surface. The glenoid was divided into 6 equal segments radiating out toward 12, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 o’clock positions. Samples were sectioned and stained with Safranin O/Fast green and Mallory Trichrome. Insertion of the capsulolabral tissue onto the glenoid was qualitatively assessed and compared with gross morphology.ResultsDimensions of the goat glenoid most closely paralleled dimensions of the human glenoid. A capsulolabral complex was continuous with the glenoid surface from ~ 9 to 12 o’clock in the rats, 7 to 12 o’clock in rabbits, 5 to 12 o’clock in the dogs, and 9 to 12 o’clock in goats, 6 to 12 o’clock in pigs, and 2 to 8 o’clock in humans. In contrast to humans, no other species demonstrated an organized fibrocartilaginous labrum either macroscopically or histologically.ConclusionThe animals in the present study did not possess a discrete fibrocartilaginous labrum by gross or histological evaluation, as directly compared to humans. While models using these animals may be acceptable for examining other shoulder pathologies, they are not adequate to evaluate labral pathology.Level of evidenceBasic Science Study; Anatomy and Histology; Cadaveric Animal Model.

Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question

Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question

Імпресіоністична поетика новел В. Вулф „Королівський сад” та М. Коцюбинського „Intermezzo”

The article compares two examples of modernist short stories of the early twentieth century – „Kew Gardens” by the British writer W. Woolf and „Intermezzo” by the Ukrainian writer M. Kotsyubynsky. Such a comparative study has been carried out for the first time. Most researchers associate Woolfe with „stream of consciousness” literature, but in the short story „Kew Gardens” we see signs of impressionist poetics. “Intermezzo” by M. Kotsiubynsky is traditionally regarded as an example of impressionism. In both texts, the narration is in the first person, there are elements of the „stream of consciousness”; the opposition of social and natural worlds is shown. The narrators in both short stories enjoy the contemplation of nature. The English literary writing contains a fragmentary composition, combining disparate, unrelated episodes. In the Ukrainian text, we observe the internal evolution of the main character-narrator, who is internally reborn in the bosom of nature, filled with new forces. Differences between short stories: Virginia Woolf depicts several visitors to London’s Kew Gardens; Kotsyubinsky creates an autobiographical image of the writer, who is reborn under the influence of nature. In both literary writings, sound, visual, tactile images play an important role, in particular, images of flowers, a snail (W. Woolf), summer fields, the sun, larks, three white shepherd dogs (M. Kotsyubinsky). Both literary writings are examples of the psychological mood of the modernist novella. A comparative analysis of the two texts allows us to compare the Ukrainian literary process with world trends.

Dear Frances Crockett

Dear Frances Crockett Chris Arvidson (bio) Just about every dayI walk around the ballparkWhere flags with the pictures of pastBallplayers, owners, and managers wave to meThe legends of Charlotte baseball. Yours is my favorite—the only woman.You look so serious and businesslikeSo smart and professionalYour blond hair stylish and smoothIt's not how I remember you. I see you decades ago out at the old ballparkThe wooden one that sometimes burnedThat sat in the middle of a middle-class neighborhoodThrough the open door of the rickety trailer near the front gateThat served as your general manager's office. You're sitting at a beat-up old deskA huge fluffy white dog at your feetAnd do I recall a cigarette in one waving hand?The other holding a phone to your earAs you conducted the team's business. [End Page 1] Chris Arvidson chris arvidson is a writer living in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she frequented the Charlotte O's (Orioles) minor league games decades ago. She coedited The Love of Baseball: Essays by Lifelong Fans (McFarland). Chris holds an MFA from Goucher College and teaches at UNC Charlotte. Her poetry chapbook The House Inside My Head was released by Finishing Line Press in May 2021. Copyright © 2022 University of Nebraska Press

Impact of a Film on Student Pharmacists’ Views on Quality of Life and Aging

Objective. To assess the effectiveness of film in providing health and quality-of-life experiences of aging to student pharmacists. Methods. Third professional year student pharmacists enrolled in an elective course in geriatric pharmacy were shown a made-for-television movie, To Dance With the White Dog, which portrays elderly people experiencing health and quality-of-life issues. The student pharmacists were surveyed before and after viewing. The survey contained Likert-scale items as well as open-ended directed reflection questions. Responses to pre- and post-intervention surveys were compared using descriptive statistics and the Student t test for paired data. Qualitative content analysis was used to evaluate the directed reflection data. Results. Of the 69 students surveyed, 97% completed the pre- and post-intervention survey instruments. Comparison of pre- and post-survey data revealed non-significant increases in the strength of student pharmacists' agreement with statements on film as a useful resource. Students' self-reported understanding of geriatric health and quality-of-life experiences improved significantly from pre- to post-intervention. Agreement that film was a valid alternative to a lecture decreased slightly on the post-intervention survey. Through qualitative analysis of student reflections on the film activity, the themes of meaningful experience, opportunity to consider an approach to practice, and opportunity to experience the patient perspectives of autonomy, death, self-image of aging, and medication burden were identified. Conclusion. In pharmacy education, the combination of viewing a film followed by class discussion and written reflection was perceived by student pharmacists as a valuable method of learning about age-related health and quality-of-life experiences.

Maya ruins named as ‘missing’ capital of the White Dog kingdom

Maya ruins named as ‘missing’ capital of the White Dog kingdom

Centering the Classic Maya Kingdom of Sak Tz’i’

ABSTRACTIn this article, we provide the results of preliminary archaeological and epigraphic research undertaken at the site of Lacanjá Tzeltal, Chiapas. Field research conducted in 2018, in collaboration with local community members, has allowed us to identify this archaeological site as the capital of a kingdom known from Classic period Maya inscriptions as “Sak Tz’i’” (White Dog). Because all previously known references to the kingdom came from looted monuments or texts found at other Maya centers, the location of the Sak Tz’i’ kingdom’s capital has been the subject of ongoing modeling and debate among scholars. Here we synthesize prior epigraphic and archaeological research concerning Sak Tz’i’, highlighting past efforts to locate the kingdom’s capital. We then discuss the results of preliminary survey, mapping, and excavations of Lacanjá Tzeltal, and present the first drawing and decipherment of Lacanjá Tzeltal Panel 1, the sculpture crucial for centering this “lost” Maya kingdom.

Cargill links with White Dog for fish feed

Agriculture giant Cargill says it has an agreement with White Dog Labs that gives it access to the start-up’s single-cell protein, an alternative to fish meal in diets for farmed fish and shrimp. White Dog manufactures the protein via fermentation from corn. Of the protein’s amino acids, 40% are essential to a fish’s diet. The company will supply Cargill from its demonstration-scale facility in Sutherland, Nebraska, starting in 2020. In June, Cargill announced a partnership with InnovaFeed to jointly market feed for fish made with insect protein.

Identification of a Missense Variant in MFSD12 Involved in Dilution of Phaeomelanin Leading to White or Cream Coat Color in Dogs.

White coat color in mammals has been selected several times during the domestication process. Numerous dog breeds are fixed for one form of white coat color that involves darkly pigmented skin. The genetic basis of this color, due to the absence of pigment in the hairs, was suggested to correspond to extreme dilution of the phaeomelanin, by both the expression of only phaeomelanin (locus E) and its extreme dilution (locus I). To go further, we performed genome-wide association studies (GWAS) using a multiple breed approach. The first GWAS, using 34 white dogs and 128 non-white dogs, including White Shepherds, Poodles, Cotons de Tulear and Bichons allowed us to identify two significantly associated loci on the locus E and a novel locus on chromosome 20. A second GWAS using 15 other breeds presenting extreme phaeomelanin dilution confirmed the position of locus I on the chromosome 20 (position 55 Mb pcorrected = 6 × 10−13). Using whole-genome sequencing, we identified a missense variant in the first exon of MFSD12, a gene recently identified to be involved in human, mouse and horse pigmentation. We confirmed the role of this variant in phaeomelanin dilution of numerous canine breeds, and the conserved role of MFSD12 in mammalian pigmentation.

Retracing Our Steps; or, the Society of Early Americanists Biennial Conference in the Age of Trump

Retracing Our Steps; or, the Society of Early Americanists Biennial Conference in the Age of Trump Shelby Johnson (bio) On March 15, 2017, Donald Trump toured the Hermitage and laid a wreath on the tomb of Andrew Jackson in Nashville, Tennessee. Occurring only a few miles from where I was completing my PhD at Vanderbilt University, the incident was of a piece with the grim spectacles of political theater, or what Michael J. Drexler called "residual forms of racist logic," that have shadowed Trump's presidency, as well as so many of our conversations at the Society for Early Americanists' Biennial Conference just the week before. Trump has drawn deeply from Jackson's populist political imaginary throughout the first months of his presidency, leading Politi-Fact's Louis Jacobson and Sarah Waychoff to cheekily describe his fascination [End Page 292] with Jackson as a "bromance across the centuries." While we might find little humor in the performative solemnity of walking the grounds at the Hermitage and laying a wreath on Jackson's grave, or in the historical weight of policy decisions that accompany comparisons of Trump's "bromance" with Jackson, Jacobson and Waychoff's signifier "across the centuries" does reflect a strange temporal recursivity that formed a part of so many of our conversations at the conference: a feeling that we had returned to another location in time or—perhaps more disconcerting—that the past had somehow returned to us. As we all know, Jackson of course presided over Indian Removal, a set of policies that oversaw the mass deportation of southeastern indigenous tribes—the long, overland route of the Trail of Tears—to the territory that now forms the state of Oklahoma. This historical moment echoed in both the geographical location of the conference in Tulsa and the successful vote to extend the time frame of the society's proceedings from 1800 to 1830, the year the Indian Removal Act was signed into law. The accumulation of all of these geographical and temporal points of contact offer a peculiarly tactile element to this sense of temporal recursivity. In a real sense, doing the work of early American scholarship in the Age of Trump (if you will forgive the portentousness of that moniker) seems to entail retracing our steps—within histories of racial violence encoded in policies such as the 1737 Walking Purchase, Indian Removal, and the Trail of Tears. It requires walking. Walking was the central narratological framework explored by Chadwick Allen in his plenary lecture, "Walking the Mounds: Reactivating America's Indigenous Earthworks Cities." Exploring a range of young adult novels about indigenous earthwork cities, especially Cahokia, Allen lingered with Phillip Carroll Morgan's Anompolichi: The Wordmaster (2014; White Dog Press, an imprint of the Chickasaw Nation Press), which initially describes the adventures of Robert Wilson, a fourteenth-century Scottish sailor cast ashore on an undiscovered America after a storm at sea. As the novel unfolds, however, it shifts to other narrators, including Iskifa Ahalopa, an anompolichi, or wordmaster. Allen argued that one of the innovations of this novel is the use of long passages describing characters' approaches to the earthworks, a history of walking tethered to indigenous sovereignty, community building, and trade networks—rather than that of the relatively more well known Jacksonian Removal. As Allen observed, [End Page 293] this tactile technique grounds a "prehistorical" narrative—a narrative that, as the Amazon blurb informs its potential buyers, occurs in "the New World long before history recorded its discovery." Allen's invitation to walk indigenous earthwork cities represented in Anompolichi was echoed more broadly in panels that retraced American performance histories and their racial legacies. Panels, roundtables, and plenaries addressed multiple forms of historical sedimentation, including "Assemblages in Public" (chaired by Kelly Wisecup), where Elizabeth Mad-dock Dillon, Toni Wall Jaudon, and Duncan Faherty explored, respectively, how repetitions in performance and costume, material objects, and print culture shaped configurations of public meaning making. Furthermore, the roundtable "Antiracist Early American Studies" (chaired by Brigitte Fielder), with presentations by Molly Farrell, Jason M. Payton, Jonathan Senchyne, Karen Woods Weierman, and Christine "Xine" Yao, considered the challenges of resisting racist logics that linger within the spaces that form the everyday...

Sonoridades e ambiências nos filmes: Cão branco e A missão

Tendo como fundamento os estudos do teórico alemão Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht1 e seu instigante conceito de Stimmung, nas diversas camadas de significações que o compõem (clima, atmosfera, som, humores, ambiência), esta resenha pretende explorar como essa categoria estética influi na construção e leitura da obra cinematográfica. O foco central de nossas reflexões será a dimensão sonora do filme, especificamente na música ou trilha sonora, e em como ela participa do Stimmung, sugerindo efeitos de intensa presença, que redimensionam a obra. Para realizar esta proposta de leitura, apresentaremos dois filmes: Cão branco (1982), de Samuel Fuller, e A missão (1986), de Roland Joffé; ambos com trilha do compositor italiano Ennio Morricone. Investigaremos também como o Stimmung permeia várias etapas do processo de criação da música, tornando-se parte intrínseca da práxis do compositor, no transcorrer da realização da obra.

An effective fusion model for image retrieval

In the past decade, the popular Bag of Visual Words approach has been applied to many computer vision tasks, including image classification, video search, robot localization, and texture recognition. Unfortunately, most approaches use intensity features and discard color information, an important characteristic of any image that is motivated by human vision. Besides, if background colors are higher than foreground ones, Dominant Color Descriptor (DCD) retrieves images that contain similar background colors correctly. On the other hand, just color feature extraction is not sufficient for similar objects with different color descriptors (e.g. white dog vs. black dog). To solve these problems, a new Salient DCD (SDCD) color descriptor is proposed to extract foreground color and add semantic information into DCD based on the color distances and salient object extraction methods. Besides, a new fusion model is presented to fuse SDCD histogram and PHOW MSDSIFT histogram. Performance evaluation on several datasets proves that the new approach outperforms other existing, state-of-the-art methods.

Salvage Work: U.S. and Caribbean Literatures amid the Debris of Legal Personhood

Salvage Work: U.S. and Caribbean Literatures amid the Debris of Legal Personhood