The Politics of Race and Class and the Changing Spatial Fortunes of the McCarren Pool in Brooklyn, New York, 1936-2010

This paper explores the changing spatial properties of the McCarren Pool and connects them to the politics of race and class. The pool was a large liberal government project that sought to improve the leisure time of working class Brooklynites and between 1936 and the early 1970s it was a quasi-public functional space. In the 1970s and the early 1980s, the pool became a quasi-public dysfunctional space because the city government reduced its maintenance and staffing levels. Working class whites of the area engaged into neighborhood defense in order to prevent the influx of Latinos and African Americans into parts of Williamsburg and Greenpoint and this included the environs of the McCarren Pool. The pool was shut down in 1983 because of a mechanical failure. Its restoration did not take place because residents and storekeepers near the vicinity of the pool complained that by the 1970s, it was only African Americans and Latinos who patronized the pool and that their presence in the neighborhood undermined white exclusivity. For two decades, the McCarren Pool became a multi-use alternative space frequented by homeless people, graffiti artists, heroin users, teenagers, and drug dealers. Unlike previous decades, during this period, people of various racial and ethnic backgrounds frequented the pool area in a relatively harmonious manner. In the early part of the twenty-first century, a neoliberal city administration allowed a corporation to organize music concerts in the pool premises and promised to restore the facility into an operable swimming pool. The problem with this restoration project is that the history of the pool between the early 1970s and the early 2000s is downplayed and this does not serve well former or future users of the poo

Genome-Wide Patterns of Gene Expression during Aging in the African Malaria Vector Anopheles gambiae

The primary means of reducing malaria transmission is through reduction in longevity in days of the adult female stage of the Anopheles vector. However, assessing chronological age is limited to crude physiologic methods which categorize the females binomially as either very young (nulliparous) or not very young (parous). Yet the epidemiologically relevant reduction in life span falls within the latter category. Age-grading methods that delineate chronological age, using accurate molecular surrogates based upon gene expression profiles, will allow quantification of the longevity-reducing effects of vector control tools aimed at the adult, female mosquito. In this study, microarray analyses of gene expression profiles in the African malaria vector Anopheles gambiae were conducted during natural senescence of females in laboratory conditions. Results showed that detoxification-related and stress-responsive genes were up-regulated as mosquitoes aged. A total of 276 transcripts had age-dependent expression, independently of blood feeding and egg laying events. Expression of 112 (40.6%) of these transcripts increased or decreased monotonically with increasing chronologic age. Seven candidate genes for practical age assessment were tested by quantitative gene amplification in the An. gambiae G3 strain in a laboratory experiment and the Mbita strain in field enclosures set up in western Kenya under conditions closely resembling natural ones. Results were similar between experiments, indicating that senescence is marked by changes in gene expression and that chronological age can be gauged accurately and repeatedly with this method. These results indicate that the method may be suitable for accurate gauging of the age in days of field-caught, female An. gambiae

Parental breeding age effects on descendants' longevity interact over 2 generations in matrilines and patrilines

Individuals within populations vary enormously in mortality risk and longevity, but the causes of this variation remain poorly understood. A potentially important and phylogenetically widespread source of such variation is maternal age at breeding, which typically has negative effects on offspring longevity. Here, we show that paternal age can affect offspring longevity as strongly as maternal age does and that breeding age effects can interact over 2 generations in both matrilines and patrilines. We manipulated maternal and paternal ages at breeding over 2 generations in the neriid fly Telostylinus angusticollis. To determine whether breeding age effects can be modulated by the environment, we also manipulated larval diet and male competitive environment in the first generation. We found separate and interactive effects of parental and grand-parental ages at breeding on descendants' mortality rate and life span in both matrilines and patrilines. These breeding age effects were not modulated by grand-parental larval diet quality or competitive environment. Our findings suggest that variation in maternal and paternal ages at breeding could contribute substantially to intrapopulation variation in mortality and longevity

Bifurcation and Post-Bifurcation of an Inflated and Extended Residually-Stressed Circular Cylindrical Tube with Application to Aneurysms Initiation and Propagation in Arterial Wall Tissue

A numerical procedure to analyze bifurcation and post-bifurcation of a finite deformation boundary-value problem for a residually-stressed elastic body is studied. In particular, the problem is the combined extension and inflation of a circular cylindrical tube subject to radial and circumferential residual stresses. The material model, given by a residual-stress dependent nonlinear elastic constitutive law in terms of invariants, is implemented in a finite element code. A numerical procedure to analyze the bifurcation and post-bifurcation of the finite deformation boundary-value problem at hand is developed based on the modified Riks method. The dependence of bifurcation and post-bifurcation behavior of tubes under the loading at hand on residual stresses is shown and compared with results when there is no residual stress. The finite deformation boundary-value problem is described mainly in terms of the inflation pressure, as well as the axial and azimuthal stretches of the tube. The dependence of these quantities on bifurcation is illustrated graphically for different values of the parameters (in dimensionless form) involved, in particular, the strength of the residual stress. It is found that bulging bifurcation is expected for sufficiently large values of the axial stretch. On the other hand, for small values of the axial stretch (close to the non-extended configuration), the onset of bifurcation is found to be the bending mode. Furthermore, for the latter case in subsequent motion, i.e. post-bifurcation, it is shown that bending triggers bulging as opposed to the situation in which bending is not allowed and the onset of bifurcation is associated with bulging. In addition, the bulge, or the abnormal enlargement, that is formed during post-bifurcation after the onset of bending bifurcation appears on one side of the tube showing an irregular shape which is consistent with the development of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA)

Bifurcation and Post-Bifurcation of an Inflated and Extended Residually-Stressed Circular Cylindrical Tube with Application to Aneurysms Initiation and Propagation in Arterial Wall Tissue

A numerical procedure to analyze bifurcation and post-bifurcation of a finite deformation boundary-value problem for a residually-stressed elastic body is studied. In particular, the problem is the combined extension and inflation of a circular cylindrical tube subject to radial and circumferential residual stresses. The material model, given by a residual-stress dependent nonlinear elastic constitutive law in terms of invariants, is implemented in a finite element code. A numerical procedure to analyze the bifurcation and post-bifurcation of the finite deformation boundary-value problem at hand is developed based on the modified Riks method. The dependence of bifurcation and post-bifurcation behavior of tubes under the loading at hand on residual stresses is shown and compared with results when there is no residual stress. The finite deformation boundary-value problem is described mainly in terms of the inflation pressure, as well as the axial and azimuthal stretches of the tube. The dependence of these quantities on bifurcation is illustrated graphically for different values of the parameters (in dimensionless form) involved, in particular, the strength of the residual stress. It is found that bulging bifurcation is expected for sufficiently large values of the axial stretch. On the other hand, for small values of the axial stretch (close to the non-extended configuration), the onset of bifurcation is found to be the bending mode. Furthermore, for the latter case in subsequent motion, i.e. post-bifurcation, it is shown that bending triggers bulging as opposed to the situation in which bending is not allowed and the onset of bifurcation is associated with bulging. In addition, the bulge, or the abnormal enlargement, that is formed during post-bifurcation after the onset of bending bifurcation appears on one side of the tube showing an irregular shape which is consistent with the development of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA)