Dislocating Camps: On State Power, Queer Aesthetics & Asian/Americanist Critique

My dissertation argues that the history of Asian racialization in the United States requires us to grapple with the seemingly counterintuitive entanglement between “the camp” as exceptional space of biopolitical management and “camp” as a performative practice of queer excess. While each practice of camp has been theorized as exemplary of modernity, these considerations have been largely separated into studies of political economy on the one hand, and queer aesthetics on the other. Taken up predominantly in political philosophy and the social sciences, the former centers the death camps in Europe during World War II as epitomizing state violence within modern politics. Meanwhile, celebratory narratives in queer studies champion camp aesthetics as a crucial survival strategy against widespread homophobia. Yet, these accounts neglect to consider how camps have sustained longer histories of racial violence. Examining camps organized around labor, internment, resettlement, and counterinsurgency, I consider how camps proliferated in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century onward alongside exclusionary measures against Asian migrants as a means of policing the parameters of citizenship and expanding the state’s capacities for managing space and bodies. My project establishes how these camps stage states of provisionality wherein populations are configured as provisional to national belonging along the axes of race and sexuality. That provisional state, in other words, affords the improvisation of the meaningfulness of legal citizenship. Camp aesthetics play a pivotal yet understudied role in the processes of racialization that produce confinement as well as embodied practices that challenge them. This project traces a genealogy of camps that have mediated the entry of Asians into the United States, including Chinese railroad work camps, Japanese internment camps, resettlement camps for Southeast Asian refugees during the Cold War, and the counterinsurgency camps in the Philippines. Juxtaposing the governmental archives of these camps in relation to a set of literatures and performances, each chapter focuses on a figure central to (Asian) American Studies—the coolie, the internee, the refugee, the diva, and the Asian American—and attends to how they articulate and are mediated by these multiple forms of camp. Analyzing legal texts and government reports alongside cultural productions by David Henry Hwang, Maxine Hong Kingston, Miné Okubo, Karen Tei Yamashita, Chay Yew and others, I explore how these works use camp aesthetics to locate and dislocate the various logics of encampment that provide the conditions of possibility for juridico-political decisions to construct and sustain sites of encampments. Tracing the contestation of encampment through campiness in Asian/American history, I elucidate the creative modes of solidarities that such cultural works envision. In this way, this project deepens understandings about not only the interconnections between state power and sexuality, but also the processes by which militarized violence and rightlessness are rationalized, negotiated, and challenged

Production of tetra-methylpyrazine using engineered Corynebacterium glutamicum.

Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 13032 is an established and industrially-relevant microbial host that has been utilized for the expression of many desirable bioproducts. Tetra-methylpyrazine (TMP) is a naturally occurring alkylpyrazine with broad applications spanning fragrances to resins. We identified an engineered strain of C. glutamicum which produces 5 ​g/L TMP and separately, a strain which can co-produce both TMP and the biofuel compound isopentenol. Ionic liquids also stimulate TMP production in engineered strains. Using a fed batch-mode feeding strategy, ionic liquid stimulated strains produced 2.2 ​g/L of tetra-methylpyrazine. We show that feedback from a specific heterologous gene pathway on host physiology leads to acetoin accumulation and the production of TMP

Closing the gap: Designing computer games to reduce the difference in how players treat their human and their AI team-mates

Master'sMASTER OF ART

Type three secretion system-mediated escape of Burkholderia pseudomallei into the host cytosol is critical for the activation of NFκB.

BackgroundBurkholderia pseudomallei is the causative agent of melioidosis, a potentially fatal disease endemic in Southeast Asia and Northern Australia. This Gram-negative pathogen possesses numerous virulence factors including three "injection type" type three secretion systems (T3SSs). B. pseudomallei has been shown to activate NFκB in HEK293T cells in a Toll-like receptor and MyD88 independent manner that requires T3SS gene cluster 3 (T3SS3 or T3SSBsa). However, the mechanism of how T3SS3 contributes to NFκB activation is unknown.ResultsKnown T3SS3 effectors are not responsible for NFκB activation. Furthermore, T3SS3-null mutants are able to activate NFκB almost to the same extent as wildtype bacteria at late time points of infection, corresponding to delayed escape into the cytosol. NFκB activation also occurs when bacteria are delivered directly into the cytosol by photothermal nanoblade injection.ConclusionsT3SS3 does not directly activate NFκB but facilitates bacterial escape into the cytosol where the host is able to sense the presence of the pathogen through cytosolic sensors leading to NFκB activation

In Situ Transmission X-Ray Microscopy of the Lead Sulfate Film Formation on Lead in Sulfuric Acid

Transmission X-ray microscopy is utilized to monitor, in real time, the behavior of the PbSO4 film that is formed on Pb in H2SO4. Images collected from the synchrotron x-rays are coupled with voltammetric data to study the initial formation, the resulting passivation, and the subsequent reduction of the film. It is concluded with support from quartz-crystal-microbalance experiments that the initial formation of PbSO4 crystals occurs as a result of acidic corrosion. In addition, the film is shown to coalesce during the early stages of galvanostatic oxidation and to passivate as a result of morphological changes in the existing film. Finally, it is observed that the passivation process results in the formation of large PbSO4 crystals with low area-to-volume ratios, which are difficult to reduce under both galvanostatic and potentiostatic conditions

Kid's Survey Network : teaching data literacy with multiplayer online games

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2009.Includes bibliographical references (p. 66).Current advancements in technology have permeated modern society, especially among the younger generations of computer users. Today's youth have grown up accustomed to video games and online social networking as standard elements of life. In contrast, many people of all ages today do not have a good grasp of data literacy. Many people simply do not understand statistics, charts, graphs and other survey data, which are all very commonly used in all aspects of everyday life. Kids' Survey Network is a large project that aims to focus the comfort and proficiency that middle school students have with web technology into an effective education tool to teach data literacy. This thesis project entails the creation of a suite of multiplayer learning games that reinforce the various other components of Kids' Survey Network.by Christopher Wong.M.Eng

Pendidikan kesihatan dan jasmani: satu pernyataan konsensus sejagat baru / Christopher R. Edginton, Ming-kai Chin and Eng Hoe Wee

Perubahan yang ketara di dalam pendidikan jasmani telah berlaku dalam masa 40 tahun dengan transisi daripada orentasi tradisional kemahiran sukan kepada penekanan yang lebih luas ke atas kecergasan berasaskan kesihatan dan aktiviti fizikal sepanjang hayat. (Bocarro et al., 2008; Jago et al., 2009; McKenzie & Kahan, 2008). Namun, di merata dunia, program-program pendidikan jasmani sedang dikurangkan, dihadkan dan/atau sewenang-wenangnya dihapuskan daripada kurikulum sekolah rendah dan menengah (Hardman & Marshall, 2009; Puhse & Gerber, 2005). Adalah bertambah jelas bahawa nilai program-program pendidikan jasmani sedang diuji di seluruh dunia

InSync

Version 1.0 ====================================== Abstract: ====================================== The InSync data set was collected at the Pervasive Computing lab at Ulster University. It consists of subjects performing activities of daily living (ADLs) in an atmosphere that mimics a real-life environment while data is collected using three different sensing technologies: inertial, image, and audio. The data set can be used to research human activity recognition algorithms to tackle problems on classification, transfer learning, data fusion, data segmentation, feature extraction, so on and so forth. Number of instances: ====================================== 16,959 (inertial data points) + 650 (thermal images) + 16,986 (audio files) Relevant information: ====================================== InSync contains 12 hours of data from ten subjects, consisting of 78 runs (times that a subject performed the scripted protocol). Sensor data from three different technologies (inertial, images and audio) captured the performance (not simulation) of the subjects performing ADLs. All the activities were annotated a posteriori using a video stream. ***** ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIVING As the data set aimed at recording the subject's physical activity performance. The tasks consisted of ADLs and well-known scenarios. Three general scenarios were chosen, a bedroom-related scenario in which the subjects performed two of the ADLs, namely, personal hygiene and dressing, a breakfast-related scenario was chosen to embrace the ADL of feeding as it has extensively been used in literature, and free of obstacle scenario in which the subjects can walk alongside to demonstrate their transferring capabilities. The script was designed with nine high-level activities: Bedroom: (1) Napping (2) Wearing joggers (3) Combing hair (4) Brushing teeth Corridor: (5) Operating door Kitchen: (6) Drinking water (7) Eating cereal Livingroom: (8) Transporting (i.e. walking) (9) Resting (i.e. sitting in a chair) Details of the room's dimensions and sensor locations are available in the Relevant Papers. ***** SENSING TECHNOLOGY The deployed sensing technology included thirteen shimmer devices enabled with 3-axis accelerometers, four Matrix Voice ESP32 consisting of eight embedded microphones and four Thermal Vision Sensor (TVS). The sensing technology was placed as described next: Shimmers wore by the subject: - Right wrist - Left wrist - Lower back - Upper back - Right shoe Shimmers mounted on everyday items: - Comb - Toothbrush - Glass - Spoon - Jogger - Belt - Strap to mimic a watch - Strap to mimic smart shoe Matrix Voice ESP32 (one located in each room): - Bedroom - Corridor - Kitchen - Livingroom Thermal sensor (one located in each room): - Bedroom - Corridor - Kitchen - Livingroom Attribute information: ====================================== The data set comprises the readings of inertial sensors, thermal images, and audio files to recorded performed ADLs. There is a total of 60 attributes for the inertial data which includes the mean value and root-mean-square (RMS) from x, y, and z-axis. The thermal data consists of grayscale images in 32x32 pixels, and the audio data consists of 44.1 kHz waveform audio files. A list of videos of the experiment can be seen in the following links. Bedroom: (1) napping: https://youtu.be/IqWLKsgch6A (2) wearing joggers: https://youtu.be/FJBjO9C4Q4U (3) combing hair: https://youtu.be/bYKrKbVBNos (4) brushing teeth: https://youtu.be/wuVkrWlsmSs Corridor: (5) operating door: https://youtu.be/pWJjx3TH6Q4 Kitchen: (6) drinking water: https://youtu.be/wS9OBKK_LFY (7) eating cereal: https://youtu.be/nOK8TuyCXBA Livingroom: (8) transporting (i.e. walking): https://youtu.be/45MGsYS9cYg (9) resting (i.e. sitting in a chair): https://youtu.be/45MGsYS9cYg IMPORTANT: The videos previously provided were recorded using conventional webcams. The videos were used as ground truth; they were not used for training nor testing purposes. Note that the participant's identity has been considered by blurring their face. The speed of the videos varies as different sampling rates were used when recording the videos

Population History and Gene Divergence in Native Mexicans Inferred from 76 Human Exomes.

Native American genetic variation remains underrepresented in most catalogs of human genome sequencing data. Previous genotyping efforts have revealed that Mexico's Indigenous population is highly differentiated and substructured, thus potentially harboring higher proportions of private genetic variants of functional and biomedical relevance. Here we have targeted the coding fraction of the genome and characterized its full site frequency spectrum by sequencing 76 exomes from five Indigenous populations across Mexico. Using diffusion approximations, we modeled the demographic history of Indigenous populations from Mexico with northern and southern ethnic groups splitting 7.2 KYA and subsequently diverging locally 6.5 and 5.7 KYA, respectively. Selection scans for positive selection revealed BCL2L13 and KBTBD8 genes as potential candidates for adaptive evolution in Rarámuris and Triquis, respectively. BCL2L13 is highly expressed in skeletal muscle and could be related to physical endurance, a well-known phenotype of the northern Mexico Rarámuri. The KBTBD8 gene has been associated with idiopathic short stature and we found it to be highly differentiated in Triqui, a southern Indigenous group from Oaxaca whose height is extremely low compared to other Native populations