“Abandoned Secrets”. The Question of the Holocaust Narratives in Ukrainian Literature

The reportage Ukraine without Jews (1943) by the Soviet writer Vasilij Grossman is one of the earliest public reports on the Holocaust. Although Ukraine had been in the centre of the Nazi mass murder and single voices like the ones of Grossman or Il’ja Ėrenburg even called betimes attention to the ongoing genocide of Ukrainian Jews, any tradition of Ukrainian Holocaust narratives has not been developed yet. Since its independency in 1991, there are attempts to participate in the Western memory discourse, but by now, they have rather no broader impact. The reception of the debate on the Holocaust serves more likely as a backdrop for its own discourse of victimization, the Holodomor, which is used for developing a national identification within the current Ukrainian nation-building process. Since the Orange Revolution, as the Ukraine has found itself in a critical phase of a socio-political upheaval, some texts of leading Ukrainian writers (Marija Matios, Oksana Zabužko, Jurij Vynnyčuk) have occurred that carefully raise the subject of the Holocaust, or rather the gap in the Ukrainian consciousness. This paper gives an overview about the texts and works out the narrative strategies, whereby only the coming years will show, if these texts constitute the beginning of a Ukrainian Holocaust literature.The reportage Ukraine without Jews (1943) by the Soviet writer Vasilij Grossman is one of the earliest public reports on the Holocaust. Although Ukraine had been in the centre of the Nazi mass murder and single voices like the ones of Grossman or Il’ja Ėrenburg even called betimes attention to the ongoing genocide of Ukrainian Jews, any tradition of Ukrainian Holocaust narratives has not been developed yet. Since its independency in 1991, there are attempts to participate in the Western memory discourse, but by now, they have rather no broader impact. The reception of the debate on the Holocaust serves more likely as a backdrop for its own discourse of victimization, the Holodomor, which is used for developing a national identification within the current Ukrainian nation-building process. Since the Orange Revolution, as the Ukraine has found itself in a critical phase of a socio-political upheaval, some texts of leading Ukrainian writers (Marija Matios, Oksana Zabužko, Jurij Vynnyčuk) have occurred that carefully raise the subject of the Holocaust, or rather the gap in the Ukrainian consciousness. This paper gives an overview about the texts and works out the narrative strategies, whereby only the coming years will show, if these texts constitute the beginning of a Ukrainian Holocaust literature

PLP - A Package for Parametric Programming

This paper is one of the series of 11 Working Papers presenting the software for interactive decision support and software tools for developing decision support system. These products constitute the outcome of the contracted study agreement between the System and Decision Sciences Program at IIASA and several Polish scientific institutions. The theoretical part of these results is presented in the IIASA Working Paper WP-88-071 entitled "Theory, Software and Testing Examples in Decision Support Systems" which contains the theoretical and methodological backgrounds of the software systems developed within the project. This paper presents the PLP package for parametric linear programming. This package constitutes the extension to MINOS, the well known linear and nonlinear programming code developed at Stanford University, and uses the MINOS as the solver of optimization problems. The PLP gives a complete parametric programming analysis for one, or more, of the following vectors: cost, rhs and bounds. In the same run several problems of this kind can be solved and for each, the starting point may be the original optimal solution obtained in the last problem. This property makes the PLP especially interesting for multiple criteria analysis using the reference point approach

Rammed Earth Architecture\u27s Journey to the High Hills of the Santee

Rammed earth, a form of earthen architecture and construction that has been used for thousands of years, has gone through periods of resurgence and decline. Its modern era rediscovery through practice and publications during the late 18th and early 19th century was fueled by writers and practitioners who disseminated the ideas of pisé starting in France extending to England and eventually to other European countries and the United States. Once these ideas reached America, farmers and intellectuals alike were interested in this simple yet durable means of construction. Rammed earth ideas, while intellectualized in Europe, originated from practice in Africa and the West Indies where enslaved and free Africans used their traditional methods of earth walling and wattle and daub construction. These traditions transferred to America through slave trade and immigration of free blacks and can be found in many southern states including Louisiana and South Carolina. Pisé and other forms of earthen architecture, tabby and bousillage, are examined to better understand earthen construction, its origins, methodology, influences, and position as an ancient and emerging construction technique. In South Carolina, Dr. William Wallace Anderson of Stateburg built wings on his house out of pisé, seven outbuildings, and a nearby church of the material. These rammed earth structures in the High Hills of the Santee, the Borough House (c. 1821) and the Church of the Holy Cross (c. 1850 – 1852) are studied as exceptional examples of surviving rammed earth in the United States. Their histories are explored, current conditions assessed, and conservation efforts discussed. The physical composition of rammed earth, strong and hard to penetrate, is analyzed and broken down into material components. Based on the analysis, methods of repair are specified. Finally, the long standing question of preservationists and engineers is addressed: is pisé an early form of concrete that evolved just before the invention of Portland cement in the early 19th century

Meta-Calibration Regularized Neural Networks

Miscalibration-the mismatch between predicted probability and the true correctness likelihood-has been frequently identified in modern deep neural networks. Recent work in the field aims to address this problem by training calibrated models directly by optimizing a proxy of the calibration error alongside the conventional objective. Recently, Meta-Calibration (MC) showed the effectiveness of using meta-learning for learning better calibrated models. In this work, we extend MC with two main components: (1) gamma network (gamma-net), a meta network to learn a sample-wise gamma at a continuous space for focal loss for optimizing backbone network; (2) smooth expected calibration error (SECE), a Gaussian-kernel based unbiased and differentiable ECE which aims to smoothly optimizing gamma-net. The proposed method regularizes neural network towards better calibration meanwhile retain predictive performance. Our experiments show that (a) learning sample-wise gamma at continuous space can effectively perform calibration; (b) SECE smoothly optimise gamma-net towards better robustness to binning schemes; (c) the combination of gamma-net and SECE achieve the best calibration performance across various calibration metrics and retain very competitive predictive performance as compared to multiple recently proposed methods on three datasets.Comment: 15 page

Overcoming Toxicity from Transgene Overexpression Through Vector Design in AAV Gene Therapy for GM2 Gangliosidoses

GM2 gangliosidoses are a family of lysosomal storage disorders that include both Tay-Sachs and Sandhoff diseases. These disorders result from deficiencies in the lysosomal enzyme β-N-acetylhexosaminidase (HexA). Impairment of HexA leads to accumulation of its substrate, GM2 ganglioside, in cells resulting in cellular dysfunction and death. There is currently no treatment for GM2 gangliosidoses. Patients primarily present with neurological dysfunction and degeneration. Here we developed a central nervous system gene therapy through direct injection that leads to long-term survival in the Sandhoff disease mouse model. We deliver an equal mixture of AAVrh8 vectors that encode for the two subunits (α and β) of HexA into the thalami and lateral ventricle. This strategy has also been shown to be safe and effective in treating the cat model of Sandhoff disease. We tested the feasibility and safety of this therapy in non-human primates, which unexpectedly lead to neurotoxicity in the thalami. We hypothesized that toxicity was due to high overexpression of HexA, which dose reduction of vector could not compensate for. In order to maintain AAV dose, and therefore widespread HexA distribution in the brain, six new vector designs were screened for toxicity in nude mice. The top three vectors that showed reduction of HexA expression with low toxicity were chosen and tested for safety in non-human primates. A final formulation was chosen from the primate screen that showed overexpression of HexA with minimal to no toxicity. Therapeutic efficacy studies were performed in Sandhoff disease mice to define the minimum effective dose

Is whole-body trauma MDCT justified in patients in good clinical condition but with dangerous trauma mechanism?

Background: To assess whether whole body MDCT is justified in patients in good clinical condition yet with dangerous trauma mechanism. Material/Methods: The study included 81 patients who were examined between January and July 2008 with wholebody trauma CT protocol. Inclusion into the study was based on a dangerous trauma mechanism and the possibility of an unbiased calculation of the weighted revised trauma score (RTSw). All examinations were performed with 16 row MDCT scanner located in emergency department. The cut off of the RTSw over 6.0 was used to separate the patients in good clinical condition. The CT examinations and medical records of patients were reviewed to assess the number of significant injuries, the need for emergency surgery and other types of medical treatment, the number of negative CT examinations, the number of patients admitted to hospital, and mortality. Results: 28 life-threatening injuries were found in 21 of 61 patients with RTS over 6.0 (34.4%). Only two of those patients required emergency surgery (laparotomy). CT studies were negative for traumatic injuries in 22 patients from this group (36.0%). Conclusions: Whole-body MDCT may detect injuries in patients in good clinical condition, with some of them demanding medical treatment. Still, further studies are required to balance the advantages of MDCT and potentially harmful effects of radiation dose, especially better triage systems and lowdose protocols are needed

Reconfigurable Two-Current Source Supplied Signal Conditioner for Resistive Sensors

The principle of operation, its practical realization and measurement research of a reconfigured system of a signal conditioner are presented. A two-sourced conditioner supplied by direct current with four resistance sensors and four switching keys was experimentally tested. In the example application the resistance of sensors in the function of the same point load, caused by perpendicular force, was measured. In order to compare the results achieved with the use of a conditioning circuit, similar tests were carried out for a four-channel Wheatstone's bridge-based commercial acquisition card. The research aimed at confirming the possibility of implementing the constructed signal conditioner in cheap measurement equipment

Comparative Evaluation of the Two Current Source Supplied Strain Gauge Bridge

Metrological properties of a two-current-source bridge circuit were tested with the use of the method of measuring resistance increments of strain gauges. An unconventional system was investigated in comparison with the commonly used Wheatstone's half-bridge, quarter-bridge and Anderson's loop. Input-output characteristics of the systems tested with a current supply were examined experimentally.Error values of offset and gain of the characteristics in relation to the characteristics of reference were taken as the criterion of comparison. Moreover, standard uncertainties of y-intercept and slope coefficients (of the straight lines) were analysed. The coefficients with their uncertainties are presented in tables. Errors for three tested systems with two metal strain gauges or with one semiconductor are presented on graphs. Additionally, the errors change, resulted from the spread of initial resistances as the quantity influencing the uncertainties of offset and gain coefficients, was defined for the bridge circuits

Vehicle Dynamics and Green Electronic Differential for eKart

Today, electric vehicles are becoming increasingly popular in our lives. In motorsport, however, they are not as widely used. Formula E, which was created to boost electric motorsport, is not enough to popularize it. Every driver who wants to advance to F1 (highest rank racing series) has to start from karting between the ages of 5 and 8. But, today, gokarts are only powered by combustion engines. In order to provide young drivers with the possibility of racing small green electric vehicles, the so-called eKarts, combustion engines have to be replaced with electric motors. eKarts should offer similar performance to combustion engine go-karts. Therefore, to determine the required power of the electric motors and the capacity of the batteries in eKarts for different age categories, the technical parameters of the different age categories of combustion engine racing go-karts were analyzed. In this chapter, the present Li-ion battery technology makes it possible to construct eKarts for children and junior categories. With the current technology, it is not possible to create an eKart for senior categories (15 and over) in line with the current regulations for go-karts. Chance such green electronics solution with torque vectoring will provide better efficiency of energy consumption and lover impact on natural environment in reduced emission of both noise and greenhouse gases