Juxtaposition of Women, Culture, and Nature in Alice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy

The present paper focuses on the tradition of women's circumsicion in the African tribe of Olinkan in Alice Walker's Possesing the Secret of Joy. The Olinkans are asked by the white settlers to stop women's mutilation, but Olinkan men continue this custom stealthily to ensure their patriarchial dominance. This novel is a complicated juxtaposition of two different types of oppression: one by White male colonizers over an African native land, and the other one by the native Olinkan men over native women. In this juxtaposition women and land are both victims exploited and manipulated by men, no matter Black or White. This novel is also seen as a fertile ground to analyze the dual domination of both nature and women by the Olinkan men and White colonizers who are both trying to impose their androcentric rules that are created to dominate women and land, respectively

Juxtaposition of Women, Culture, and Nature in Alice Walker’s Possessing The Secret Of Joy

The present paper focuses on the tradition of women’s circumsicion in the African tribe of Olinkan in Alice Walker’s Possesing the Secret of Joy. The Olinkans are asked by the white settlers to stop women’s mutilation, but Olinkan men continue this custom stealthily to ensure their patriarchial dominance. This novel is a complicated juxtaposition of two different types of oppression: one by White male colonizers over an African native land, and the other one by the native Olinkan men over native women. In this juxtaposition women and land are both victims exploited and manipulated by men, no matter Black or White. This novel is also seen as a fertile ground to analyze the dual domination of both nature and women by the Olinkan men and White colonizers who are both trying to impose their androcentric rules that are created to dominate women and land, respectively

Kate Chopin`s early fiction as a prologue to the emergence of the new woman

Despite the revival of interest in Kate Chopin’s works during the twentieth century, her early fiction has not yet elicited as much critical appreciation as The Awakening has. The aim of this study is to show that Chopin’s first novel, At Fault, and the tale, “Lilacs”, exhibit the same genius and modern forms and features of her later fiction. Chopin’s authorial voice, strongly but covertly, addresses society’s flaws which are rooted in the illogical demands of the Christian religion and male moral philosophy. This study attempts to demonstrate that Chopin’s hidden anti-religious sentiment is one of her earliest attacks on the role of the Church in prescribing religious codes and social mores and that Chopin blames the Church for being indifferent to women’s needs. Although Chopin portrays female characters who feel constrained by the societal definition of their duties and responsibilities, she shows them enjoying various means of satisfaction and fulfillment. In spite of that, however, they experience a decisive transformation in their religious lives and mentality. The protagonists that Chopin depicts share some traits, ideals and visions of the New Woman, but their interests diverge according to their different needs. This study attempts to introduce Chopin’s portrayal of her protagonists as early versions of the New Woman that can promise fuller and a more complex emergence in her later fiction

Orientalism on the margins: inter-subjective space in Edward Granville Browne’s A Year amongst the Persians

The aim of the present study is to analyse the image of Iran, created by E. G. Browne (1862-1926) in his travelogue A Year amongst the Persians. In his representation, Browne vacillates between two poles of Romantic and scientific discourses. On the one hand, he is a Romantic wanderer, who embarks on a quest of Departure, Initiation and Return in the space of the Other (Campbell, 2004, p. 28). Based on such an idealistic perspective, in his one year quest in Iran which is mainly spend among the marginalized believers of the Bahai faith, Browne (1893) seeks for a rebirth of the decaying Iranian nation, “which slumbers, but is not dead”(p. 219). On the other hand, Browne (1893) regards himself as an “inquirer” who in his observations maintains a detached scientific perspective towards Iranian culture and society, and does not hesitate to question the principles which he finds unacceptable (p. 529). In the course of his journey, the tension between these two discourses leads to a subversion of both of them, which finally mirrors in a breakdown of Browne’s conception of Self and the Other. Browne’s recognition of the Self and the Iranian nation, at the end of his journey is through the space of inter-subjectivity. This final state of in-betweenness makes it possible for him to recognize the Other from the perspective of cultural difference, through which a possibility is created in his image of Iran to escape the “urge to possess” that the Orientalist discourse of travel writing entails. (Ashcroft, 2009, p. 230

Darkening Low-Earth Orbit Satellite Constellations: A Review

The proliferation of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites and the LEO satellite internet will be a game-changer for the low-latency high-speed global internet. While this new generation of the satellite internet in conjunction with fifth generation network (5G) and sixth generation network (6G) enabled emerging technologies, such as precision farming and smart cities, it will bring new challenges, such as satellite collision, limited satellite lifespan, security concerns, and satellite brightness. This article discusses the satellite brightness caused by LEO constellations that potentially affect the ongoing astronomical studies. It reviews the underlying contributors to the satellite brightness as well as the state-of-the-art technologies proposed to mitigate this emerging challenge.This work was supported in part by Macquarie University; in part by the Australian Research Council Discovery Grants Scheme; and in part by the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney, Seed Grant

Donut-Shaped mmWave Printed Antenna Array for 5G Technology

This article presents compact and novel shape ring-slotted antenna array operating at mmwave band on central frequency of 28 GHz. The proposed structure designed at 0.256 mm thin Roggers 5880 is composed of a ring shape patch with a square slot etched at the top mid-section of partial ground plane. Through optimizing the ring and square slot parameters, a high bandwidth of 8 GHz is achieved, ranging from 26 to 32 GHz, with a simulated gain of 3.95 dBi and total efficiency of 96% for a single element. The proposed structure is further transformed in a 4-element linear array manner. With compact dimensions of 20 mm 22 mm for array, the proposed antenna delivers a high simulated gain of 10.7 dBi and is designed in such a way that it exhibits dual beam response over the entire band of interest and simulated results agree with fabricated prototype measurements

Design of a compact planar transmission line for miniaturized rat-race coupler with harmonics suppression

This paper presents an elegant yet straightforward design procedure for a compact rat-race coupler (RRC) with an extended harmonic suppression. The coupler’s conventional λ /4 transmission lines (TLs) are replaced by a specialized TL that offers significant size reduction and harmonic elimination capabilities in the proposed approach. The design procedure is verified through the theoretical, circuit, and electromagnetic (EM) analyses, showing excellent agreement among different analyses and the measured results. The circuit and EM results show that the proposed TL replicates the same frequency behaviour of the conventional one at the design frequency of 1.8 GHz while enables harmonic suppression up to the 7th harmonic and a size reduction of 74%. According to the measured results, the RRC has a fractional bandwidth of 20%, with input insertion losses of around 0.2 dB and isolation level better than 35 dB. Furthermore, the total footprint of the proposed RRC is only 31.7 mm ×15.9 mm, corresponding to 0.28λ×0.14λ , where λ is the guided wavelength at 1.8 GHz.This work was supported in part by the Icelandic Centre for Research (RANNIS) Grant 206606051, and in part by the National Science Centre of Poland Grant 2017/37/B/ST7/00563

Printed closely spaced antennas loaded by linear stubs in a MIMO style for portable wireless electronic devices

This article belongs to the Special Issue Transmit and Receive Techniques for Next Generation Massive MIMO Systems.An easy-to-manufacture and efficient four-port-printed Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna operating across an ultra-wideband (UWB) region (2.9–13.6 GHz) is proposed and investigated here. The phenomenon of the polarization diversity is used to improve the isolation between MIMO antenna elements by deploying four orthogonal antenna elements. The proposed printed antenna (40 × 40 × 1.524 mm3) is made compact by optimizing the circular-shaped radiating components via vertical stubs on top of the initial design to maximally reduce unwanted interaction while placing them together in proximity. The measurements of the prototype MIMO antennas corroborate the simulation performance. The findings are compared to the recent relevant works presented in the literature to show that the proposed antenna is suitable for UWB MIMO applications. The proposed printed UWB MIMO antenna could be a good fit for compact portable wireless electronic devices.This project received funding from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant 801538. Furthermore, this work was partially supported by the Researchers Supporting Project number (RSP-2021/58), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Printed closely spaced antennas loaded by linear stubs in a mimo style for portable wireless electronic devices

An easy-to-manufacture and efficient four-port-printed Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna operating across an ultra-wideband (UWB) region (2.9-13.6 GHz) is proposed and investigated here. The phenomenon of the polarization diversity is used to improve the isolation between MIMO antenna elements by deploying four orthogonal antenna elements. The proposed printed antenna (40 x 40 x 1.524 mm(3)) is made compact by optimizing the circular-shaped radiating components via vertical stubs on top of the initial design to maximally reduce unwanted interaction while placing them together in proximity. The measurements of the prototype MIMO antennas corroborate the simulation performance. The findings are compared to the recent relevant works presented in the literature to show that the proposed antenna is suitable for UWB MIMO applications. The proposed printed UWB MIMO antenna could be a good fit for compact portable wireless electronic devices

A conformal, dynamic pattern-reconfigurable antenna using conductive textile-polymer composite

A conformal antenna with electronically tuning capability of its radiation pattern between broadside and monopole-like patterns is proposed. The antenna is based on a proximity-fed circular patch, loaded with a ring patch and four rectangular slots. The design is planar without any use of rigid shorting posts or complex feeding network. The reconfigurability is achieved by activating and deactivating the slots using PIN diodes, to switch between TM02 (monopole-like mode) and perturbed TM02 distributions (broadside mode) of the antenna. For conformability, the antenna is fabricated using highly flexible PDMS-conductive fabric composite. All the antenna parts, including the RF switches, wires, and DC biasing circuit are fully encapsulated by PDMS to provide resilience against deformation and harsh environment. Investigations on the RF performance and mechanical stability of the antenna were conducted. Under various bendings, it was demonstrated that all the antenna components, including those for electronic switching, remained intact and in working order even under radius bending of 30 mm, thus maintaining good pattern reconfigurability and overall performance. When bent, the measured results at 5.2 GHz show a stable radiation performance relative to those of the flat case (i.e., maximum gain of 2.9 dBi and efficiency of 64% in broadside mode, corresponding to 1.75 dBi and 52% in monopole-like mode). To the best of our knowledge, all these features have never been demonstrated in previously published pattern reconfigurable antennas