7,271 research outputs found
Christopher Hilliard. To Exercise Our Talents: The Democratization of Writing in Britain. Harvard Historical Studies, 150. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. Pp. 390. $29.95 (cloth)
Performance Models for Data Transfers: A Case Study with Molecular Chemistry Kernels
With increasing complexity of hardwares, systems with different memory nodes
are ubiquitous in High Performance Computing (HPC). It is paramount to develop
strategies to overlap the data transfers between memory nodes with computations
in order to exploit the full potential of these systems. In this article, we
consider the problem of deciding the order of data transfers between two memory
nodes for a set of independent tasks with the objective to minimize the
makespan. We prove that with limited memory capacity, obtaining the optimal
order of data transfers is a NP-complete problem. We propose several heuristics
for this problem and provide details about their favorable situations. We
present an analysis of our heuristics on traces, obtained by running 2
molecular chemistry kernels, namely, Hartree-Fock (HF) and Coupled Cluster
Single Double (CCSD) on 10 nodes of an HPC system. Our results show that some
of our heuristics achieve significant overlap for moderate memory capacities
and are very close to the lower bound of makespan
In the beginning was the big toe: Bataille, base materialism, bipedalism
This article goes back to Georges Bataille's ruminations on the big toe, published in Documents in 1929, in order to make a materialist case for the claim that this digit is, above all for evolutionary reasons, definitive of human beings humanity. It explores the contradiction whereby the big toe, in spite of its anatomical importance in distinguishing human beings from their ancestors and their genetic cousins, that is, from other hominids and other primates, has been systematically demeaned or denigrated in representations of the body. Following an introduction, the argument unfolds in two main sections. The first of these is anthropological or palaeo-anatomical in focus, and reconstructs the determining role of the big toe in the evolution of human beings as bipedal as opposed to quadrupedal creatures. The second shifts attention to the iconography of the big toe, and uses the Italian novelist Carlo Emilio Gadda to propose a reorganisation of the history of representations of the human body in terms of this digit; it looks at several Renaissance paintings in this light. Finally, in a polemical concluding section, this article returns to Bataille's reflections on the big toe and argues again for its central importance for a materialist philosophy
Polyform Film: Peter Watkins and the Paris Commune
In the roughly 125-year history of cinema, no more than five narrative films seem to have been made about the Paris Commune. In their very different ways, all of them represent an attempt to avoid what Grigory Kozintsev, the co-director of one of them, referred to as âthe detestable historical filmâ (Starr 2006, 176).1 Kozintsev was referring to the âhistorical picturesâ produced by the âLeningrad cinema factory,â which âshot the costumes,â as he put it in a delightful formulation, âwith the actors inside themâ (quoted in Leyda 1973, 202). But the phrase âdetestable historical filmâ might also be adapted to describe the prim, corseted style of what is today called âperiod dramaâ or âcostume drama.â Here, I characterize this generally conservative, nostalgic genre, which has been synonymous in Britain over several decades with BBC adaptations of canonical nineteenth-century novels, as Uniform filmâboth because of its commitment to superficially scrupulous depictions of the past, which might be called merely costume-deep; and because of the stylistic uniformity of its mise-en-scĂšne. Kozintzev, in contrast to this static, superficially respectful approach to the events of the past, hoped âprimarily to replace this parade of historical costumes across the surface of the film by a feeling of the epoch, in other words purposively to replace it with a general style, and not the naturalism of detailsâ (Leyda 1973). As the first proletarian revolution in history, seminal in its importance both to contemporary and later radical movements, the Paris Commune seems to have demanded a cinema that replaces the parade of historical costumes and that refuses the naturalism of details
Socially empty space and dystopian utopianism in the late Nineteenth Century
In âThe Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaireâ, Walter Benjamin refers at one point to âsocially empty spaceâ, an idea that he claims to have found in Marx. I have been unable to locate this concept in Marxâs writings, but this might not matter, for the formulation in any case seems more Benjaminian than Marxian. Benjamin himself, however, uses it rather enigmatically. He invokes it in relation to some lines from Baudelaire about an old woman who, because she is excluded from âthe large, closed parksâ of Paris, sits alone and pensive on a bench in a public garden, âat that hour when the setting sun / Bloodies the sky with bright red woundsâ (pp. 101â2). Even in this context, where it appears to refer to those zones of the metropolis that are deliberately designed to exclude the people that inhabit it, the idea of âsocially empty spaceâ remains abstract and undeveloped. So in this chapter I want to exploit precisely the emptiness of the phrase, its elusive suggestiveness, in order to think about the utopian and dystopian aspects of depopulated space for capitalist modernity; that is, for a society archetypally defined by the sheer populousness of its metropolitan cities, which Raymond Williams once characterized in terms of âan unprecedented â crowding and rushing â human and social organizationâ (p. 29).1 Socially empty space is a species of space in which, because one expects it to be filled, densely populated, like the emblematic spaces of metropolitan modernity, the absence of people is perceived almost as a presence
Standing upright, unsleeping: sleeplessness, wakefulness and watchfulness in Prometheus Bound
This article reinterprets Prometheus as an archetype of wakefulness and watchfulness. In the Aeschylean version, this mythical hero, is a victim of what might be characterised as sleep deprivation. The article begins by situating Prometheus in mythographic terms, arguing that scholars have overlooked the importance of sleeplessness to Zeus's punishment of him. It proceeds to trace the changes between Hesiod's and the Aeschylean account, paying attention to matters of crime and punishment. The article then offers a detailed rereading of Prometheus Bound, focusing first on Hermes's threats at the end of the play, an important context for thinking about penal torture; and, second, on the torture to which he is subjected at the start of the play. After outlining the role of sleep deprivation in medieval and early modern torture practices, the article returns to the classical period and the part that remaining awake plays in an episode in the Odyssey. Finally, it argues that Prometheus's sleeplessness, though the result of torture, acquires a positive, even heroic value in the Aeschylean play because it is associated with a state of political vigilance that resists the panoptic surveillance of tyrants. Here, wakefulness is redeemed as watchfulness
Rochester City School District Charter Schools: Decreasing the Achievement Gap?
The demographics and socioeconomic status of the students attending the Rochester City School District (RCSD) are significantly different than the average student in New York State. The average student in the RCSD is African American and considered economically disadvantaged. These two characteristics and Rochester being an urban location are the perfect combination for a charter school. Most educators create charter schools in urban districts to target students from low-socioeconomic families. This paper focuses on the requirements and logistics that differ a charter school from a traditional charter school to determine whether or not charter schools are decreasing the achievement gap
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