“Hear What You Want”: Sonic Politics, Blackness, and Racism-Canceling Headphones

Beginning in 2013, Beats Electronics launched the first in an ongoing series of commercials and internet advertisements promoting their product—Beats Studio Headphones with Adaptive Noise Canceling. Beats Electronics, originally known as Beats By Dre, is an audio company founded in 2006 by Interscope Records chairman Jimmy Iovine and iconic rapper/entrepreneur Andre Young, better known as Dr. Dre. The addition of noise-canceling headphones to the Beats product line is relatively recent, as the company had primarily focused on studio headphones, earbuds, and speakers; noise-canceling headphones from Bose, Sony, Sennheiser, and other popular audio companies had been on the market for years. As Beats entered this market, their website displayed an impressive collection of endorsements by prominent black male athletes including Lebron James, Richard Sherman, and Kevin Garnett. The use of black bodies to sell products has a problematic history, beginning with black people being sold as products, transitioning into a fascination with black bodies as other, primitive, and natural that allowed white advertisers to to market their products as natural and authentic (Bristor, Lee, and Hunt 1995). In particular, there is an overwhelming legacy of white fascination with black male bodies as athletic, black men as sexually virile, and black culture as fun that has strong roots in blackface minstrelsy—America’s first widely-popular entertainment form (Lott 1992). The use of black male athletes to sell headphones can be seen as an extension of this legacy. The website also promised consumers the ability to “cancel out the haters,” and implored them to “join the #BeatsArmy,” positioning Beats headphones as some sort of subversive, anti establishment, righteous weapon in a world full of enemy combatants. In this article, I focus on these advertisements and examine their portrayed use of noise-canceling headphones as a means of investigating a vast matrix containing intersections and collisions between black subjectivity, sound, technology, space, and the neutral consumer. I also challenge the trope of blackness as inherently resistant, offering an alternate interpretation of the advertisements that rests on the ideas of interiority, inwardness, and quiet

Self-vapor cooled targets for production of I-123 at high current accelerators

The basic elements of the vapor cooled target system are shown. This system can be operated as a heat pipe or as a conventional condenser. The choice of target fluid is based on the specific nuclear reaction chosen to produce Xe-123. The reaction using I-127 was studied and shown to have a significant yield for bombarding energies from 47 to 63 MeV. The Cs-133 reaction is also included. Xenon-123 is applied to I-123 production in a purer form for thyroid studies

Promoting Interprofessional Collaboration Through the Co-Curricular Environment

Interprofessional (IP) experiences are increasing in frequency and scope in health professions education, though little is known about the role of the co-curricular environment in fostering students’ attitudes towards IP collaboration. We examined if participants in IP co-curricular activities of substantive duration held attitudes toward IP learning and collaboration differently than students who did not participate in such activities. We distributed a questionnaire composed of the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) and the Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale (IEPS) to the 2008, 2009, and 2010 graduates of an academic health center. Respondents indicated if they participated in any of the six substantive IP co-curricular activities offered by the institution. Respondents were grouped by participation in “one or more IP activity” or “no participation.” Independent sample T-tests were performed for each of the RIPLS and IEPS scales to assess differences between those groups. 997 (58.1%) of the graduates completed the survey; 52.9% of the respondents reporting participation in at least one IP activity. Of the seven scales from the two instruments, the mean scores of one scale were significantly different between the two groups: IEPS “perceived need for cooperation” (

A target for production of radioxenons

A liquid cesium target has been developed which allows the production and separate identification of the neutron deficient isotopes of xenon. The present report describes irradiations utilizing 34 to 41 MeV protons to produce millicurie quantities of Xe-127 and Xe-129m. At higher energies, however, the target could be used without modification to produce xenon isotopes as light as 119

Decay of the Maxwell field on the Schwarzschild manifold

We study solutions of the decoupled Maxwell equations in the exterior region of a Schwarzschild black hole. In stationary regions, where the Schwarzschild coordinate $r$ ranges over $2M < r_1 < r < r_2$, we obtain a decay rate of $t^{-1}$ for all components of the Maxwell field. We use vector field methods and do not require a spherical harmonic decomposition. In outgoing regions, where the Regge-Wheeler tortoise coordinate is large, $r_*>\epsilon t$, we obtain decay for the null components with rates of $|\phi_+| \sim |\alpha| < C r^{-5/2}$, $|\phi_0| \sim |\rho| + |\sigma| < C r^{-2} |t-r_*|^{-1/2}$, and $|\phi_{-1}| \sim |\underline{\alpha}| < C r^{-1} |t-r_*|^{-1}$. Along the event horizon and in ingoing regions, where $r_*<0$, and when $t+r_*1$, all components (normalized with respect to an ingoing null basis) decay at a rate of C \uout^{-1} with \uout=t+r_* in the exterior region.Comment: 37 pages, 5 figure

An economical method for the continuous production of iodine-123

Simple and inexpensive method produces iodine 123, in a conventional cyclotron. Tellurium 122, a stable isotope available in enrichments exceeding 95 percent, is held on a porous metal plate by a flowing stream of helium and bombarded with either alpha particles or helium 3

Spatial Patterns in Mass Balance of the Siple Coast and Amundsen Sea Sectors, West Antarctica

Local rates of change in ice-sheet thickness were calculated at IS sites in West Antarctica using the submergence velocity technique. This method entails a comparison of the vertical velocity of the ice sheet, measured using repeat global positioning system surveys of markers, and local long-term rates of snow accumulation obtained using firn-core stratigraphy. Any significant difference between these two quantities represents a thickness change with time. Measurements were conducted at sites located similar to 100-200 km apart along US ITASE traverse routes, and at several isolated locations. All but one of the sites are distributed in the Siple Coast and the Amundsen Sea basin along contours of constant elevation, along flowlines, across ice divides and close to regions of enhanced flow. Calculated rates of thickness change are different from site to site. Most of the large rates of change in ice thickness (similar to 10 cm a(-1) or larger) are observed in or close to regions of rapid flow, and are probably related to ice-dynamics effects. Near-steady-state conditions are calculated mostly at sites in the slow-moving ice-sheet interior and near the main West Antarctic ice divide. These results are consistent with regional estimates of ice-sheet change derived from remote-sensing measurements at similar locations in West Antarctica

Fast simulation of crowd collision avoidance

Real-time large-scale crowd simulations with realistic behavior, are important for many application areas. On CPUs, the ORCA pedestrian steering model is often used for agent-based pedestrian simulations. This paper introduces a technique for running the ORCA pedestrian steering model on the GPU. Performance improvements of up to 30 times greater than a multi-core CPU model are demonstrated. This improvement is achieved through a specialized linear program solver on the GPU and spatial partitioning of information sharing. This allows over 100,000 people to be simulated in real time (60 frames per second)

Water-soluble cranberry extract inhibits \u3ci\u3eVibrio cholerae\u3c/i\u3e biofilm formation possibly through modulating the second messenger 3’, 5’ - Cyclic diguanylate level

Quorum sensing (QS) and nucleotide-based second messengers are vital signaling systems that regulate bacterial physiology in response to changing environments. Disrupting bacterial signal transduction is a promising direction to combat infectious diseases, and QS and the second messengers are undoubtedly potential targets. In Vibrio cholerae, both QS and the second messenger 3’, 5’—cyclic diguanylate (c-di-GMP) play a central role in controlling motility, motile-to-sessile life transition, and virulence. In this study, we found that water-soluble extract from the North American cranberry could significantly inhibit V. cholerae biofilm formation during the development/maturation stage by reducing the biofilm matrix production and secretion. The anti-biofilm effect by water-soluble cranberry extract was possibly through modulating the intracellular c-di-GMP level and was independent of QS and the QS master regulator HapR. Our results suggest an opportunity to explore more functional foods to fight stubborn infections through interference with the bacterial signaling systems

Edge pixel response studies of edgeless silicon sensor technology for pixellated imaging detectors

Silicon sensor technologies with reduced dead area at the sensor's perimeter are under development at a number of institutes. Several fabrication methods for sensors which are sensitive close to the physical edge of the device are under investigation utilising techniques such as active-edges, passivated edges and current-terminating rings. Such technologies offer the goal of a seamlessly tiled detection surface with minimum dead space between the individual modules. In order to quantify the performance of different geometries and different bulk and implant types, characterisation of several sensors fabricated using active-edge technology were performed at the B16 beam line of the Diamond Light Source. The sensors were fabricated by VTT and bump-bonded to Timepix ROICs. They were 100 and 200 μ m thick sensors, with the last pixel-to-edge distance of either 50 or 100 μ m. The sensors were fabricated as either n-on-n or n-on-p type devices. Using 15 keV monochromatic X-rays with a beam spot of 2.5 μ m, the performance at the outer edge and corners pixels of the sensors was evaluated at three bias voltages. The results indicate a significant change in the charge collection properties between the edge and 5th (up to 275 μ m) from edge pixel for the 200 μ m thick n-on-n sensor. The edge pixel performance of the 100 μ m thick n-on-p sensors is affected only for the last two pixels (up to 110 μ m) subject to biasing conditions. Imaging characteristics of all sensor types investigated are stable over time and the non-uniformities can be minimised by flat-field corrections. The results from the synchrotron tests combined with lab measurements are presented along with an explanation of the observed effects