Measurement of the primordial abundances of the lightest elements is one of the three decisive tests of Big Bang cosmology minutes after the Big Bang, and how their abundances vary with cosmological parameters. The predicted range in the He/H abundance ratio is not large, so it must be measured with a precision approaching 1% if a definitive cosmological test is to be made. The abundance ratio is measured in low-metallicity H II regions by using H I and He I recombination lines. Both H I and He I radiative recombination effective rate coefficients must be known to at least this 1% precision. Between the various uncertainties of the theoretical data, rate coefficients for collisions are the most uncertain. One of the most prominent uncertainties is on l-changing slow heavy impact collisions. Different l-changing data differ about a dex. We have use Cloudy to simulate He I and H I emissivities using the different data and found differences up to 10% in emission line intensities. Solid arguments take us to recommend one set of data over the others.

The Dean’s Distinguished Lecture with guest speaker Sam Brooke from the Southern Poverty Law Center will take place January 22, 2016, at Singletary Center in the President’s Room from 2:00 to 3:30pm.

Comparing ethnographic and agricultural data collected from two neighboring Biangai villages (Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea), one engaged in a small-scale conservation effort and the other stakeholders in a large industrial gold mine, this paper analyzes the linkages between alternative development regimes, agricultural transformation and human-environmental relations. Working the land is not simply about production, but also about knowing the landscape and its products as nodes in human social relations. Mining regimes disentangle the multi-species networks experienced in the garden, and reassemble them into other spaces. Thus, in the mining inspired transformations of agricultural practices, Biangai are also transforming how they experience their own multi-species community – its past, present and future.

Dr. Jamon Halvaksz is Associate Professor of Anthropology at University of Texas San Antonio, and a 1994 graduate of our very own department. http://colfa.utsa.edu/ant/people/full-time-faculty/bios/jamon-a-halvaksz-ii/. 

The Health, Society, and Populations Program is thrilled to be the primary sponsor for Dr. Carroll's visit. In the last decade, significant global health resources have been allocated to contain the emergent and frequently co-occurring epidemics of HIV, TB, and drug use in Ukraine. A substantial portion of available treatment services for these diseases is supplied  by international donors. As a consequence, integrated TB, HIV, and addiction treatment programs for 'high-risk' individuals have become quasi-experimental staging areas for standardized, directly observed treatment protocols such as monitored methadone therapy and DOTS. Based on 18 months of fieldwork throughout Ukraine, this paper explores the trajectory of opiate users through internationally funded treatment efforts and the roles they are forced to play in the morally-charged social and political distinctions at the heart of the geopolitical conflict in this region. https://health.as.uky.edu/power-struggles-addiction-war-and-other-forms…

Dr. Jennifer J. Carroll is a postdoctoral NIH research fellow at the Miriam Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, and an affiliated researcher at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University:http://jenniferjcarroll.net/

Co-Sponsors: UKY College of Public Health Health Behavior Department, UKY College of A&S Departments of Anthropology and Sociology, UKY College of Medicine Center for Drug and Alcohol Research (CDAR). 

Photo Credit: Jennifer J. Carroll

Dr. Miriam Ticktin. Associate Professor of Anthropology and Co-Director of Zolberg Center on Global Migration, the New School.  This talk is part of the Committee on Social Theory Spring Lecture Series.  http://www.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty/?id=4d54-6379-4e44-4d35

Please come join us for coffee, tea, snacks, and pleasant conversation!