Newswise — Videos featuring a song, a mathematical principle and a rehabilitation professor can be found at the Research Frontiers Web site, along with articles from the fall 2008 issue of the magazine.
"We continue to seek the compelling stories that researchers on campus have to tell," said Melissa Lutz Blouin, editor of the magazine. "With each issue, we are working to tell the stories in different ways."
Thus a story about author Donald Harington, which appears in the magazine, is accompanied online by a video recording of the song that inspired the title for his latest novel, Farther Along. Music education major Chelsey Pianalto from Greenbrier, Ark., sings the piece in the online video.
Video also allowed the science and research team to communicate a mathematical concept, thanks to mathematics professor Chaim Goodman-Strauss. He is featured in "When Nature and Math Collide," explaining the concept of symmetry.
"Because symmetry is such a visual concept, it is difficult to describe with words," Blouin said. "Watching Goodman-Strauss fold paper and create snowflakes and other shapes makes it clear how symmetry works."
The third video online features the legacy of rehabilitation professor Rick Roessler. In addition to being one of the best-known researchers in the field of disability and employment, Roessler has mentored many of the people who currently work to help keep persons with disabilities employed day in and day out. Two of these graduates " Lisa Mathis and Keith Vire " are featured in the video online.
This fall's print issue of Research Frontiers takes readers from the international plight of street children to the political process at home. It helps them see the challenges that face people with multiple sclerosis in the workplace and provides them with a portrait both in image and in words of an author and art historian.
The cover story addresses the plight of some of the world's most vulnerable inhabitants " street children. Uche Ewelukwa, a professor of law, examines how the rights of street children are upheld " or not upheld " in the international court system.
The next story brings the reader closer to home. In "As Elections Go, So Goes Democracy," political scientists and communications specialists discuss that ever-elusive yet always important creature, the voter. They talk about money, communication, the Internet, wedge issues and, finally, non-voters.
Next, readers will read about the challenges that people with multiple sclerosis face when trying to remain employed and how rehabilitation professor Rick Roessler tackles these issues. Roessler, who has focused on this area for 15 years, says often simple accommodations can make the difference between gainful employment or its opposite.
The final feature story offers a portrait of author and art historian Donald Harington. Harington, the author of 14 novels, has garnered several awards for his writing over the years, including the Oxford American Lifetime Award for Contributions to Southern Literature. He also taught art history at the university for the past 22 years. Here he talks about both aspects of his life.
Also in this issue of the magazine: Junior and senior engineering students traveled to the Dominican Republic and designed low-cost, simple prosthetic legs for amputees who cannot afford them. The students talked with amputees and created new low-cost prosthetics based on their feedback.
The magazine ends with a trip to another foreign locale. French professor Nancy Arenberg talks about identity and culture in the lives of Jewish Tunisian women authors who speak both Arabic and French. She focuses in this article on author Nina Moati and her first novel, Mon Enfant, Ma Mère, written in 1974, which examines the mother-daughter relationship.
Please visit http://researchfrontiers.uark.edu to see more of the book reviews, briefs and UA Q&As, a weekly feature on the Web site. Visit http://researchfrontiers.uark.edu/11778.php to submit questions.
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