A survey of energies from pure metals to multi-principal element alloys

In materials science, a wide range of properties of materials are governed by various types of energies, including thermal, physicochemical, structural, and mechanical energies. In 2005, Dr. Frans Spaepen used crystalline face-centered-cubic (fcc) copper as an example to discuss a variety of phenomena that are associated with energies. Inspired by his pioneering work, we broaden our analysis to include a selection of representative pure metals with fcc, hexagonal close-packed (hcp), and body-centered cubic (bcc) structures. Additionally, we extend our comparison to energies between pure metals and equiatomic binary, ternary, and multi-principal element alloys (sometimes also known as high-entropy alloys). Through an extensive collection of data and calculations, we compile energy tables that provide a comprehensive view of how structure and alloying influence the energy profiles of these metals and alloys. We highlight the significant impact of constituent elements on the energies of alloys compared to pure metals and reveal a notable disparity in mechanical energies among materials in fcc-, hcp- and bcc-structured metals and alloys. Furthermore, we discuss the underlying mechanisms behind these patterns and discuss the implications for structural transformations, providing insights into the broader context of these energy variations

Contact Hypersensitivity to Oxazolone Provokes Vulvar Mechanical Hyperalgesia in Mice

The interplay among pain, allergy and dysregulated inflammation promises to yield significant conceptual advances in immunology and chronic pain. Hapten-mediated contact hypersensitivity reactions are used to model skin allergies in rodents but have not been utilized to study associated changes in pain perception in the affected skin. Here we characterized changes in mechanical hyperalgesia in oxazolone-sensitized female mice challenged with single and repeated labiar skin exposure to oxazolone. Female mice were sensitized with topical oxazolone on their flanks and challenged 1-3 times on the labia. We then measured mechanical sensitivity of the vulvar region with an electronic pressure meter and evaluated expression of inflammatory genes, leukocyte influx and levels of innervation in the labiar tissue. Oxazolone-sensitized mice developed vulvar mechanical hyperalgesia after a single labiar oxazolone challenge. Hyperalgesia lasted up to 24 hours along with local influx of neutrophils, upregulation of inflammatory cytokine gene expression, and increased density of cutaneous labiar nerve fibers. Three daily oxazolone challenges produced vulvar mechanical hyperalgesic responses and increases in nerve density that were detectable up to 5 days post-challenge even after overt inflammation resolved. This persistent vulvar hyperalgesia is resonant with vulvodynia, an understudied chronic pain condition that is remarkably prevalent in 18-60 year-old women. An elevated risk for vulvodynia has been associated with a history of environmental allergies. Our pre-clinical model can be readily adapted to regimens of chronic exposures and long-term assessment of vulvar pain with and without concurrent inflammation to improve our understanding of mechanisms underlying subsets of vulvodynia and to develop new therapeutics for this condition

Feminist Reflections on the Scope of Labour Law: Domestic Work, Social Reproduction and Jurisdiction

Drawing on feminist labour law and political economy literature, I argue that it is crucial to interrogate the personal and territorial scope of labour. After discussing the “commodification” of care, global care chains, and body work, I claim that the territorial scope of labour law must be expanded beyond that nation state to include transnational processes. I use the idea of social reproduction both to illustrate and to examine some of the recurring regulatory dilemmas that plague labour markets. I argue that unpaid care and domestic work performed in the household, typically by women, troubles the personal scope of labour law. I use the example of this specific type of personal service relation to illustrate my claim that the jurisdiction of labour law is historical and contingent, rather than conceptual and universal. I conclude by identifying some of the implications of redrawing the territorial and personal scope of labour law in light of feminist understandings of social reproduction

Rebuilding the Landscape of the Rural Post Office: A Geo-Spatial Analysis of 19th-century Postal Spaces and Networks

This paper uses Post Office (PO) petitions to uncover the complex spatial relationships that developed through the unique social space of the PO. These petitions were signed by the rural people of Middlesex County, Ontario, and submitted to the Postmaster General in order to request changes in the workings of their postal services. When used in a historical GIS they allow us to recreate and reconstitute postal communities in late-19th-century rural Middlesex. By observing the spatial relationships that surrounded the collective requests for changes in postal services, we show how the space of the post office reinforced and helped form rural community and neighbourhood networks. The participation of the post offices users who signed and conducted the petitions is developed at each level of the paper, showing that rural Ontarians were deeply involved in interpreting and altering their own community and neighbourhood landscapes

“A General Separation of Colored and White”: the WWII riots, military segregation, and racism(s) beyond the White/Nonwhite binary

This article uses archival research to explore important differences in the discursive and institutional positioning of Mexican American and African American men during World War II. Through the focal point of the riots which erupted in Los Angeles and other major cities in the summer of 1943, I examine the ways in which black and Mexican ‘rioters’ were imagined in official and popular discourses. Though both groups of youth were often constructed as deviant and subversive, there were also divergences in the ways in which their supposed racial difference was discursively configured. I also consider the experiences of each group in the WWII military, a subject that has received little attention in previous work on the riots. Though both groups were subject to discrimination and brutality on the home front, only African Americans were segregated in the military - a fact that profoundly influenced the 1943 riots. Examining the very different conditions under which these men served, as well as the distinct ways in which their presence within the military and on the home front was interpreted and given meaning by press, law enforcement and military officials helps to illuminate the uneven and complex workings of racism in America, disrupting the common conceptualization of a definitive white/nonwhite color line