I\u27m Proud to Know What I Know : Oral Narratives of Travis and Hays Counties, Texas

This book was created as part of a multi-year historic archeological project sponsored by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and under the direction of Dr. Scott Pletka and Jon Budd. The project was initiated because of federal and state laws that require consideration of cultural resources that may be impacted by development. The project involved archival research, oral history, and archeological investigations at a site called the Ransom and Sarah Williams farmstead in southern Travis County, Texas. An African American family occupied the farmstead beginning in 1871, and perhaps earlier, through about 1905. This book is a collection of oral histories gathered through interviews with people who grew up in the rural vicinity of the Williams farmstead, and also in East Austin; their recollections pertain to Travis and Hays Counties mainly during the first half of the twentieth century. The memories are primarily those of African Americans who are descendants of slaves—people whose lives were impacted by the legacy of slavery and who lived through the Jim Crow and civil rights eras. The story of how and why this book came into existence is important because it demonstrates the viability of community-based research in publicly funded cultural resources management archeological projects

Book Review: Race and Affluence: An Archaeology of African America and Consumer Culture (Contributions to Global historical Archaeology) by Paul R. Mullins

Book Review: Race and Affluence: An Archaeology of African America and Consumer Culture (Contributions to Global historical Archaeology) by Paul R. Mullins, 1999, Kluwer/Plenum Academic Publishers, New York. 217 pages, $59.95 (cloth)

Review of \u3ci\u3eAnd Grace Will Lead Me Home: African American Freedmen Communities of Austin, Texas, 1865-1928\u3c/i\u3e by Michelle M. Mears

Michelle Mears\u27s book on the rural and urban freedmen settlements of Austin is a welcome contribution to the social history of African Americans in Texas. By considering postemancipation black lifeways at such a small scale, as few existing works do, it offers readers a more comprehensive view of the experiences, struggles, and accomplishments of African Americans within a specific historical context. Mears also achieves a good balance between discussing Austin\u27s historic black communities and situating them within the social, economic, and political processes occurring more broadly within the state and the greater South. Her research is meticulous, and scholars will appreciate her introduction, with its review of the literature and sources on Texas freedmen. The book then unfolds with a solid demographic analysis and historical synopsis of the fifteen documented freedmen settlements in and around Austin, noting their origins and characteristics. Mears makes frequent use of historic maps, allowing readers to locate and visualize spatially the layout of each community

Legislative Constitutional Interpretation

The standard method of estimating the value of travel time variability for use in policy appraisal is to estimate the parameters of a reduced-form utility function, where some measure of travel time variability (such as the standard deviation) is included. A problem with this approach is that the obtained valuation will in general depend on the standardized travel time distribution, and hence cannot be transferred from one context to another. A recently suggested remedy for this problem has been to estimate a scheduling model, which in theory is transferrable, and use the implied reduced-form to derive valuations for use in appraisal. In this paper we estimate both a scheduling model and the implied reduced-form model, using stated choice data. The valuation of travel time variability implied by the scheduling model turns out to be substantially smaller than what is obtained from a reduced-form model estimated on the same sample. The results suggest that the scheduling model does not capture all of the disutility arising from travel time variability. Hence, although it can be shown that scheduling and reduced-form models are theoretically equivalent, that hypothesized equivalence is not reflected in the empirical evidence. We speculate that the derivation of reduced-form models from an underlying scheduling model omits two essential features: first, the notion of an exogenously fixed “preferred arrival time” neglects the fact that most activities can be rescheduled given full information about the travel times in advance, and second, disutility may be derived from uncertainty as such, in the form of anxiety, decisions costs or costs for having contingency plans. We also report our estimates of the valuation of travel time variability for public transit trips, for use in applied appraisal

Atypical centromeres in plants—what they can tell us

The centromere, visible as the primary constriction of condensed metaphase chromosomes, is a defined chromosomal locus essential for genome stability. It mediates transient assembly of a multi-protein complex, the kinetochore, which enables interaction with spindle fibers and thus faithful segregation of the genetic information during nuclear divisions. Centromeric DNA varies in extent and sequence composition among organisms, but a common feature of almost all active eukaryotic centromeres is the presence of the centromeric histone H3 variant cenH3 (a.k.a. CENP-A).These typical centromere features apply to most studied species. However, a number of species display atypical centromeres, such as holocentromeres (centromere extension along almost the entire chromatid length) or neocentromeres (ectopic centromere activity).In this review, we provide an overview of different atypical centromere types found in plants including holocentromeres, de novo formed centromeres and terminal neocentromeres as well as di-, tri- and metapolycentromeres (more than one centromere per chromosomes). We discuss their specific and common features and compare them to centromere types found in other eukaryotic species. We also highlight new insights into centromere biology gained in plants with atypical centromeres such as distinct mechanisms to define a holocentromere, specific adaptations in species with holocentromeres during meiosis or various scenarios leading to neocentromere formation

Portrait of an act: Aesthetics and ethics in The 'Portrait of a Lady' (Henry James)

Five tetrahydrofuran lignans and two known flavones were isolated from the aerial parts of Peperomia blanda. The structures of the isolated lignans were elucidated by interpretation of their spectroscopic data, including by gHMQC and gHMBC. The relative and absolute configurations of the isolates were determined from NOESY interactions and optical properties, respectively. Four of the lignans were diastercomeric whilst one was of mixed biosynthetic origin. All but one of the lignans exhibited high in vitro trypanocidal activity when assayed against epimastigotes of Trypanosoma cruzi strain Y. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Evaluation of the mobility of 123CS in soil profiles of the pantanal region

Radioactive pollutants can cause impact on the environmental quality of soils and represent a risk to human health. Radioecological studies have shown that soils with low pH, low organic matter content and low fertility are more vulnerable to contamination by 137Cs, since the transfer to plants is high. In this study, some surface horizons of soils from Jaraguari, situated at Brazilian Pantanal were assessed in order to map their vulnerability to contamination by 137Cs. It was also proposed some mitigation measures adapted to the regional scenario in order to optimize radiological protection for rural areas. A conceptual model established to detect the vulnerability of radioactively contaminated soils was applied for soils located in the municipality of Jaraguari (Mato Grosso do Sul). This conceptual model was established based on the relationship between reference values of the soil-to-plant transfer factor (TF) for 137Cs and critical pedological parameters for each radiovulnerability category (pH, CTC and exchangeable K). The application of this conceptual model to a soil databank using Geographic Information System (GIS) tools generated vulnerability soils maps. This result identified that most of Pantanal soils presented very low radiovulnerability, but it was possible to detect some small areas presenting extreme radiovulnerability. It was possible to conclude that these small areas is not indicated for activities that presents a potential risk for 137Cs contamination and also it must receive priority actions for remediation in the case of accident, since a superficial contamination with 137Cs in these areas can lead to a contamination of subsoil and to a significant spread of contamination via groundwater

One-dimensional termohidraulic model of the nucleus and lower and upper pool regions of the reactor RMB

The computer codes used in construction of nuclear reactors projects, specifically with regard to the thermo-hydraulics concepts part of your core, whose main goal reproduce actual operating conditions in order to predict quantitatively the limiting conditions of operation so that the safety limit is not exceeded. Computational methods for studies of fluid flow are developed around the world, including Brazil. With the evolution of computers application of numerical methods greatly reduced response time results, and tends to further decrease the extent that the computers and processors develop, making it feasible to use programming accident simulations of heat transfer reactors. The software developed in this paper presents a method for analyzing the thermo-hydraulic behavior of the Brazilian Multipurpose Reactor (RMB) after its shutdown. The software solves the conservations equations applied to the core and also the lower and upper regions of the RMB. The thermo-hydraulics characteristics studied are: the temperatures of the core, cladding and refrigerant, the mass flow and the heat transfer. The numerical resolution was performed using the Matlab language and the outputs are presented in graphs and tables forms