The Sugi Sakit Ritual Storytelling in a Saribas Iban Rite of Healing

This paper describes a Saribas Iban rite of healing called the Sugi sakit. What distinguished this rite from other forms of Saribas Iban healing was that it incorporated within its performance a long narrative epic concerned with the adventures and love affairs of an Iban culture hero named Bujang Sugi. Here I explore the language used by Iban priest bards both in telling the Sugi epic and in performing the larger ritual drama in which it was set, and look, in particular, at how the Sugi epic, which was otherwise told for entertainment, was integrated into this drama and recast by the priest bards as they performed the ritual, so that it not only entertained their listeners, but also served as a serious instrument of healing

Documentation of Two- and Three-Dimensional Hypersonic Shock Wave/Turbulent Boundary Layer Interaction Flows

Experimental data for a series of two- and three-dimensional shock wave/turbulent boundary layer interaction flows at Mach 7 are presented. Test bodies, composed of simple geometric shapes, were designed to generate flows with varying degrees of pressure gradient, boundary-layer separation, and turning angle. The data include surface-pressure and heat-transfer distributions as well as limited mean-flow-field surveys in both the undisturbed and the interaction regimes. The data are presented in a convenient form for use in validating existing or future computational models of these generic hypersonic flows

Method and apparatus for positioning a robotic end effector

A robotic end effector and operation protocol for a reliable grasp of a target object irrespective of the target's contours is disclosed. A robotic hand includes a plurality of jointed fingers, one of which, like a thumb, is in opposed relation to the other. Each finger is comprised of at least two jointed sections, and provided with reflective proximity sensors, one on the inner surface of each finger section. Each proximity sensor comprises a transmitter of a beam of radiant energy and means for receiving reflections of the transmitted energy when reflected by a target object and for generating electrical signals responsive thereto. On the fingers opposed to the thumb, the proximity sensors on the outermost finger sections are aligned in an outer sensor array and the sensors on the intermediate finger sections and sensors on the innermost finger sections are similarly arranged to form an intermediate sensor array and an inner sensor array, respectively. The invention includes a computer system with software and/or circuitry for a protocol comprising the steps in sequence of: (1) approach axis alignment to maximize the number of outer layer sensors which detect the target; (2) non-contact contour following the target by the robot fingers to minimize target escape potential; and (3) closing to rigidize the target including dynamically re-adjusting the end effector finger alignment to compensate for target motion. A signal conditioning circuit and gain adjustment means are included to maintain the dynamic range of low power reflection signals

Post-Newtonian constraints on f(R) cosmologies in metric formalism

We compute the complete post-Newtonian limit of the metric form of f(R) gravities using a scalar-tensor representation. By comparing the predictions of these theories with laboratory and solar system experiments, we find a set of inequalities that any lagrangian f(R) must satisfy. The constraints imposed by those inequalities allow us to find explicit bounds to the possible nonlinear terms of the lagrangian. We conclude that the lagrangian f(R) must be almost linear in R and that corrections that grow at low curvatures are incompatible with observations. This result shows that modifications of gravity at very low cosmic densities cannot be responsible for the observed cosmic speed-up.Comment: 10 pages, no figures, revtex

Finally, results from Gravity Probe-B

Nearly fifty years after its inception, the Gravity Probe B satellite mission delivers the first measurements of how a spinning gyroscope precesses in the gravitational warping of spacetime.Comment: A Viewpoint article, published in Physics 4, 43 (2011), available at http://physics.aps.org/articles/v4/43 Submitted to the arXiv by permission of the American Physical Societ

Smart hands for the EVA retriever

Dexterous, robotic hands are required for the extravehicular activity retriever (EVAR) system being developed by the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC). These hands, as part of the EVAR system, must be able to grasp objects autonomously and securely which inadvertently separate from the Space Station. Development of the required hands was initiated in 1987. Outlined here are the hand development activities, including design considerations, progress to date, and future plans. Several types of dexterous hands that were evaluated, along with a proximity-sensing capability that was developed to initiate a reflexive, adaptive grasp, are described. The evaluations resulted in the design and fabrication of a 6-degree-of-freedom (DOF) hand that has two fingers and a thumb arranged in an anthropomorphic configuration. Finger joint force and position sensors are included in the design, as well as infrared proximity sensors which allow initiation of the grasp sequence when an object is detected within the grasp envelope

Mothering at a distance and disclosure of maternal HIV to children in Kingston, Jamaica

Accepted for publication in a forthcoming issue of Population Horizons, an open access peer-reviewed journal by The Oxford Institute of Population Ageing.Existing guidelines (WHO, 2011) advise caretakers and professionals to disclose children’s and their caretakers’ HIV status to children, despite a lack of evidence concerning the potential implications in resource-constrained settings. Our research uses feminist Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore the experiences of HIV positive mothers in Kingston, Jamaica, focusing on their lived experiences of talking to their children about maternal HIV. This paper will focus on the concept of mothering at a distance and how this presents additional challenges for HIV positive mothers who are trying to establish emotional closeness in relation to talking to their children about their HIV. Using Hochschild’s concept of emotion work and examples from the interviews, we highlight the difficult contexts informing women’s decisions when negotiating discussions about their HIV. Women may choose full, partial or differential disclosure or children may be told their mother’s HIV status by others. Disclosure policy, we argue, reflects Anglo-Northern constructions of the family and parenting which may not adequately reflect the experiences of poor urban mothers in low and middle income countries. We argue that policy needs to recognise culturally-specific family formations, which, in Jamaica includes absent fathers, mothering at a distance and mothering non-biological children. This article reflects on the experiences of an under-researched group, poor urban Jamaican women practising mothering at a distance, using a novel methodological approach (IPA) to bring into relief unique insights into their lived experiences and will contribute to the global policy and research literature on HIV disclosure. Keywords: Feminist IPA, HIV disclosure, mothering, emotion workPeer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Constraining Lorentz-violating, Modified Dispersion Relations with Gravitational Waves

Modified gravity theories generically predict a violation of Lorentz invariance, which may lead to a modified dispersion relation for propagating modes of gravitational waves. We construct a parametrized dispersion relation that can reproduce a range of known Lorentz-violating predictions and investigate their impact on the propagation of gravitational waves. A modified dispersion relation forces different wavelengths of the gravitational wave train to travel at slightly different velocities, leading to a modified phase evolution observed at a gravitational-wave detector. We show how such corrections map to the waveform observable and to the parametrized post-Einsteinian framework, proposed to model a range of deviations from General Relativity. Given a gravitational-wave detection, the lack of evidence for such corrections could then be used to place a constraint on Lorentz violation. The constraints we obtain are tightest for dispersion relations that scale with small power of the graviton's momentum and deteriorate for a steeper scaling.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables: title changed slightly, published versio