The Legitimate State: Pride, Compassion, and Self-Representation

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

Wall effects on pressure fluctuations in turbulent channel flow

The purpose of the present paper is to study the influence of wall-echo on pressure fluctuations $p'$, and on statistical correlations containing $p'$, {\em viz} redistribution $\phi_{ij}$, pressure diffusion $d_{ij}^{(p)}$, and velocity/pressure-gradient $\Pi_{ij}$. We extend the usual analysis of turbulent correlations containing pressure fluctuations in wall-bounded \tsc{dns} computations [Kim J.: {\em J. Fluid Mech.} {\bf 205} (1989) 421--451], separating $p'$ not only into rapid $p_{(\mathrm{r})}'$ and slow $p_{(\mathrm{s})}'$ parts [Chou P.Y.: {\em Quart. Appl. Math.} {\bf 3} (1945) 38--54], but further into volume ($p'_{(\mathrm{r};\mathfrak{V})}$ and $p'_{(\mathrm{s};\mathfrak{V})}$) and surface (wall-echo; $p'_{(\mathrm{r};w)}$ and $p'_{(\mathrm{s};w)}$) terms. An algorithm, based on a Green's function approach, is developed to compute the above splittings for various correlations containing pressure fluctuations (redistribution, pressure diffusion, velocity/pressure-gradient), in fully developed turbulent plane channel flow. This exact analysis confirms previous results based on a method-of-images approximation [Manceau R., Wang M., Laurence D.: {\em J. Fluid Mech.} {\bf 438} (2001) 307--338] showing that, at the wall, $p'_{(\mathfrak{V})}$ and $p'_{(w)}$ are usually of the same sign and approximately equal. The above results are then used to study the contribution of each mechanism on the pressure correlations in low Reynolds-number plane channel flow, and to discuss standard second-moment-closure modelling practices

“I Felt Like a Superhero”: The Experience of Responding to Drug Overdose Among Individuals Trained in Overdose Prevention

BACKGROUND: Overdose prevention programs (OPPs) train people who inject drugs and other community members to prevent, recognise and respond to opioid overdose. However, little is known about the experience of taking up the role of an overdose responder for the participants. METHODS: We present findings from qualitative interviews with 30 participants from two OPPs in Los Angeles, CA, USA from 2010 to 2011 who had responded to at least one overdose since being trained in overdose prevention and response. RESULTS: Being trained by an OPP and responding to overdoses had both positive and negative effects for trained responders . Positive effects include an increased sense of control and confidence, feelings of heroism and pride, and a recognition and appreciation of one\u27s expertise. Negative effects include a sense of burden, regret, fear, and anger, which sometimes led to cutting social ties, but might also be mitigated by the increased empowerment associated with the positive effects. CONCLUSION: Findings suggest that becoming an overdose responder can involve taking up a new social role that has positive effects, but also confers some stress that may require additional support. OPPs should provide flexible opportunities for social support to individuals making the transition to this new and critical social role. Equipping individuals with the skills, technology, and support they need to respond to drug overdose has the potential to confer both individual and community-wide benefits

Lifestyle travellers: Backpacking as a way of life

Scholarship on backpackers speculates some individuals may extend backpacking to a way of life. This article empirically explores this proposition using lifestyle consumption as its framing concept and conceptualises individuals who style their lives around the enduring practice of backpacking as ‘lifestyle travellers’. Ethnographic interviews with lifestyle travellers in India and Thailand offer an emic account of the practices, ideologies and social identity that characterise lifestyle travel as a distinctive subtype within backpacking. Departing from the drifter construct, which (re)constitutes this identity as socially deviant, the concept of lifestyle allows for a contemporary appraisal of these individuals’ patterns of meaningful consumption and wider insights into how ongoing mobility can lead to different ways of understanding identities and relating to place. Keywords: lifestyle consumption; backpacker; mobility; drifter; identit

Characterisation of the transcriptome and proteome of SARS-CoV-2 reveals a cell passage induced in-frame deletion of the furin-like cleavage site from the spike glycoprotein

Background SARS-CoV-2 is a recently emerged respiratory pathogen that has significantly impacted global human health. We wanted to rapidly characterise the transcriptomic, proteomic and phosphoproteomic landscape of this novel coronavirus to provide a fundamental description of the virus’s genomic and proteomic potential. Methods We used direct RNA sequencing to determine the transcriptome of SARS-CoV-2 grown in Vero E6 cells which is widely used to propagate the novel coronavirus. The viral transcriptome was analysed using a recently developed ORF-centric pipeline. Allied to this, we used tandem mass spectrometry to investigate the proteome and phosphoproteome of the same virally infected cells. Results Our integrated analysis revealed that the viral transcripts (i.e. subgenomic mRNAs) generally fitted the expected transcription model for coronaviruses. Importantly, a 24 nt in-frame deletion was detected in over half of the subgenomic mRNAs encoding the spike (S) glycoprotein and was predicted to remove a proposed furin cleavage site from the S glycoprotein. Tandem mass spectrometry identified over 500 viral peptides and 44 phosphopeptides in virus-infected cells, covering almost all proteins predicted to be encoded by the SARS-CoV-2 genome, including peptides unique to the deleted variant of the S glycoprotein. Conclusions Detection of an apparently viable deletion in the furin cleavage site of the S glycoprotein, a leading vaccine target, shows that this and other regions of SARS-CoV-2 proteins may readily mutate. The furin site directs cleavage of the S glycoprotein into functional subunits during virus entry or exit and likely contributes strongly to the pathogenesis and zoonosis of this virus. Our data emphasises that the viral genome sequence should be carefully monitored during the growth of viral stocks for research, animal challenge models and, potentially, in clinical samples. Such variations may result in different levels of virulence, morbidity and mortality

Stainless steel made to rust: a robust water-splitting catalyst with benchmark characteristics

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is known as the efficiency-limiting step for the electrochemical cleavage of water mainly due to the large overpotentials commonly used materials on the anode side cause. Since Ni–Fe oxides reduce overpotentials occurring in the OER dramatically they are regarded as anode materials of choice for the electrocatalytically driven water-splitting reaction. We herewith show that a straightforward surface modification carried out with AISI 304, a general purpose austenitic stainless steel, very likely, based upon a dissolution mechanism, to result in the formation of an ultra-thin layer consisting of Ni, Fe oxide with a purity >99%. The Ni enriched thin layer firmly attached to the steel substrate is responsible for the unusual highly efficient anodic conversion of water into oxygen as demonstrated by the low overpotential of 212 mV at 12 mA cm−2 current density in 1 M KOH, 269.2 mV at 10 mA cm−2 current density in 0.1 M KOH respectively. The Ni, Fe-oxide layer formed on the steel creates a stable outer sphere, and the surface oxidized steel samples proved to be inert against longer operating times (>150 ks) in alkaline medium. In addition Faradaic efficiency measurements performed through chronopotentiometry revealed a charge to oxygen conversion close to 100%, thus underpinning the conclusion that no “inner oxidation” based on further oxidation of the metal matrix below the oxide layer occurs. These key figures achieved with an almost unrivalled-inexpensive and unrivalled-accessible material, are among the best ever presented activity characteristics for the anodic water-splitting reaction at pH 13

The First Provenance Challenge

The first Provenance Challenge was set up in order to provide a forum for the community to help understand the capabilities of different provenance systems and the expressiveness of their provenance representations. To this end, a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging workflow was defined, which participants had to either simulate or run in order to produce some provenance representation, from which a set of identified queries had to be implemented and executed. Sixteen teams responded to the challenge, and submitted their inputs. In this paper, we present the challenge workflow and queries, and summarise the participants contributions