Rice University Research Repository
The Rice Research Repository (R-3) provides access to research produced at Rice University, including theses and dissertations, journal articles, research center publications, datasets, and academic journals. Managed by Fondren Library, R-3 is indexed by Google and Google Scholar, follows best practices for preservation, and provides DOIs to facilitate citation. Woodson Research Center collections, including Rice Images and Documents and the Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice, have moved here.
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Recent Submissions
Investigating Equity in Art Course Taking Across HISD High Schools
(Rice University Kinder Institute for Urban Research, 2024) Freeman, Daniel Mackin; Bowen, Daniel H.
This study assesses the extent to which national trends in inequitable arts learning opportunity (in terms of secondary school course offerings and enrollment) occur in the Houston Independent School District (HISD).
Campus variation in grade retention and course failure rates after attending summer school in HISD
(Rice University Kinder Institute for Urban Research, 2024) Thrash, Courtney; Pham, Annie; Hood, Stacey
This brief examines summer school retention and course failure rates at schools throughout the district to determine which schools have higher rates relative to other schools in the district. It also looks at what characteristics are associated with a student being retained after summer school and failing a course in summer school.
Action of the Mazur pattern up to topological concordance
(arXiv, 2024) Manchester, Alex
In the '80s, Freedman showed that the Whitehead doubling operator acts trivally up to topological concordance. On the other hand, Akbulut showed that the Whitehead doubling operator acts nontrivially up to smooth concordance. The Mazur pattern is a natural candidate for a satellite operator which acts by the identity up to topological concordance but not up to smooth concordance. Recently there has been a resurgence of study of the action of the Mazur pattern up to concordance in the smooth and topological categories. Examples showing that the Mazur pattern does not act by the identity up to smooth concordance have been given by Cochran--Franklin--Hedden--Horn and Collins. In this paper, we give evidence that the Mazur pattern acts by the identity up to topological concordance. In particular, we show that two satellite operators $P_{K_0,\eta_0}$ and $P_{K_1,\eta_1}$ with $\eta_0$ and $\eta_1$ freely homotopic have the same action on the topological concordance group modulo the subgroup of $(1)$-solvable knots, which gives evidence that they act in the same way up to topological concordance. In particular, the Mazur pattern and the identity operator are related in this way, and so this is evidence for the topological side of the analogy to the Whitehead doubling operator. We give additional evidence that they have the same action on the full topological concordance group by showing that up to topological concordance they cannot be distinguished by Casson-Gordon invariants or metabelian $\rho$-invariants.
Reporting Exposure: The Midwives of Nagasaki
(2024-03) Wilson, Clint
Between June 1950 and January 1954, the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) piloted a novel program partnering with midwives’ associations in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, branding the enterprise the “Genetics Registration Program.” This short-lived collaboration aimed to surface firsthand reports of pre- or neonatal death and even physical corpses for autopsies, for which midwives were remunerated at a set scale by the American scientists in charge. So detailed were these largely financial records that reporting within “12 hrs. of death” was worth double the rate of reporting “later than 24 hrs. after death,” according to memos contained within William “Jack” Schull Collection at the McGovern Historical Center in Houston, Texas. This article, “Reporting Exposure: The Midwives of Nagasaki,” interrogates how the “Early Termination Program,” a branch of the Genetics program defined “exposure” and how the “exposed” were determined to be “profitable objects for study,” as one memo articulated. At stake in this project is more than historical analysis; these ABCC documents illustrate paradigmatic responses to the scalar and social logics of toxicity, particular with reference to the measurement of distance and time. These archival documents reveal invaluable insights about first-of-its-kind statistical collation and confirmation biases, to say nothing of how they animate conversations about life, death, and the sociopolitical tensions this arrangement undoubtedly complicated.
The Value of Interviews in Representing the Long-Term Effects of Radiation in Kazakhstan
(2024-03) Nambiar, Annika
Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan was once the Soviet Union’s carefully concealed testing site for nuclear weapons, unbeknown even to nearby residents. In 1989, information about radioactive contamination became public knowledge, causing outcry. As a result, Semipalatinsk and its surrounding areas have high rates of structural and systemic health issues from nuclear testing, which were exacerbated by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The long-term effects of this testing continue to burden the Kazakhstan healthcare system and its people today. In 1995, the American International Health Alliance (AIHA) formed the Houston-Semipalatinsk Partnership (HSP) to support better outcomes through systemic changes in affected regions following their independence from the former USSR. This paper, “The Value of Interviews in Representing the Long-Term Effects of Radiation in Kazakhstan,” discusses the subset of a collection of interviews about radiation effects and events involving hospital and healthcare administrators from the Texas Medical Center (TMC) Library and Kazakhstan who participated in the HSP. These interviews demonstrate how first-person sources highlight the voice and experience of the individual, conserve nonverbal information, and serve as a dynamic and engaging method to share history with the public. This work draws from interviews that the author and other Rice undergraduates conducted. These interviews are available online through Rice University’s Woodson Research Center and the TMC Library for the public to learn about these efforts in depth.