The National Council of Negro Women and South Africa: Black Internationalism, Motherhood, and the Cold War

This article examines the black international organizing of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). Focusing predominantly on the NCNW’s work in South Africa, it explores the changing nature of black internationalism during the early Cold War. Faced with the destabilizing effects of anticommunism, many moderate African American organizations worked with the US government when pushing for decolonization in Africa. Engaging in recent historical debates concerning the global outlook of black liberal organizations, the article will examine both the limitations and possibilities of this kind of political strategy. By documenting the NCNW’s work with the African Children’s Feeding Scheme (ACFS) – a church based programme that aimed to tackle the widespread malnourishment of African children in Johannesburg in the 1950s – this piece goes on to explore the ways in which African American women used maternalist ideas to engage with the struggles of black women in Africa. The activities of the ACFS mirrored many of the historical race concerns of African American NCNW members. By adopting a transnational framework, the NCNW’s efforts to provide food and care for black South African children were based around a global understanding of black motherhood and the desire to secure the wellbeing of black children both at home and abroad

The Negro Digest: Race, Exceptionalism and the Second World War

This article examines the border-crossing journalism of the Negro Digest, a leading African American periodical, published from 1942 to 1951. The first title produced by the Johnson Publishing Company, the Digest had an international focus that connected Jim Crow to racial oppression around the world. However, while the magazine challenged white supremacy on a local and global level, its patriotic tone and faith in American democracy occasionally restricted its global analysis of racism. Ultimately, the internationalism of the Negro Digest was quintessentially American – wedded to the exceptional status of American freedom and an overriding belief that the US could change the world for the better

Automated sample preparation using adaptive digital microfluidics for lab-on-chip devices

2018 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.There have been many technological advances in the medical industry over the years giving doctors and researchers more information than ever before. Technology has allowed more sensitive and accurate sensors and has also driven the size of many sensor devices smaller while increasing sensitivity. However, while many aspects of technology have seen improvements, the sample preparation of biological tests has seen lagging development. The sample preparation stage is defined here as the extracting of required features from a given sample for the purpose of measurement. A simple example of this is the solid phase extraction of DNA from a blood sample to detect blood borne pathogens. While this process is common in laboratories, and has even been automated by large and expensive equipment, it is a difficult process to mimic in lab-on-chip (LoC) devices. Nucleic Acid isolation requires common bench top equipment such as pipettes, vortexers, and centrifuges. Current lab based methods also use relatively large amounts of reagents to perform the extraction adding to the cost of each test. There has been a lot of research improving sensing techniques proposed for Lab on Chip devices, but many sensing methods still require a sample preparation stage to extract desired features. Without a complimentary LoC sample preparation system, the diversity of LoC device remains limited. The results presented in this thesis demonstrate the general principle of digital microfluidic device and the use of such device in a small hand-held platform capable of performing many sample preparation tasks automatically, such as the extraction and isolation of DNA. Liquids are transported using a technique called Eletro-wetting on Dielectric (EWOD) and controlled via a programmable microprocessor. The programmable nature of the device allows it to be configured for a variety of tests for different industries. The device also requires a fraction of the liquids lab based methods use, which greatly reduces the cost per test. The results of this thesis show a promising step forward to more capable LoC devices

An investigation of the heterogeneity of isolates of Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae using restriction endonuclease analysis : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Microbiology at Massey University

Previous studies of Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae by Restriction Endonuclease Analysis (REA) (Mew, 1982) indicated that the species shows exceptional heterogeneity as compared to other species of pathogenic Mycoplasmas. This thesis further investigates this heterogeneity. To get confirmation of the heterogeneity of M. ovipneumoniae, sixty isolates derived from three sheep on each of twenty farms, were examined by REA. All twenty independant isolates (i.e. isolates originating from sheep on different farms) gave REA patterns that were markedly different, with at most, only 5% of bands in common. Isolates from sheep on the same farm were found to be either indistinguishable, similar (i.e. at least 95% of bands in common) or markedly different (i.e. less than 5% of bands in common). Having confirmed the heterogeneity of M. ovipneumoniae isolates from sheep on different farms further study was directed at providing an explanation for this heterogeneity. The stability of the M. ovipneumoniae genome was investigated by serial passage of a multiply cloned isolate in vitro. Three REA patterns, A, B and C (pattern A was the original pattern) were observed. These pattern changes were non-random in that they were reversible. Thus it appears that an internal rearrangement system is present in M. ovipneumoniae. No non-reversed REA pattern changes were seen. It was concluded that the pattern changes seen after serial in vitro passage were minimal, and that genomic instability could not explain the heterogeneity seen in M. ovipneumoniae. Changed REA patterns must represent DNA changes which in turn may mean changes in proteins. To attempt to detect protein changes, 3 clones which showed patterns A, B and C respectively were examined by SDS-Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of total cellular proteins. No differences were detected. There remains the possibility that antigenic changes occurred which might not be demonstrable by this method. A second possible explanation for the heterogeneity seen in M. ovipneumoniae is that frequent genetic interchange between initially distinct REA strains might result in the generation of many new REA types that differ markedly from both parental strains. Three approaches were taken to investigate this possibility: 1. "Classical crosses" detected by antibiotic resistance markers. 2. Mixtures of two cultures of M. ovipneumoniae with different REA patterns were mixed and propagated together. (a) Clones were selected from a mixed culture after it had been passaged for about 30 generations and examined by REA. (b) "Presumptive recombinants", i.e. clones of M. ovipneumoniae which were resistant to two antibiotics, recovered from mixtures of singly resistant clones were examined by REA. 3. M. ovipneumoniae was examined for the presence of extrachromosomal DNA which, if present, could facilitate genetic interchange. Using these three approaches, we were unable to demonstrate genetic interchange in M. ovipneumoniae so it is unlikely that genetic interchange accounts for the considerable heterogeneity seen in the species. It was concluded that the heterogeneity seen in the species is due to the presence of a large number of strains that are genetically stable with respect to REA, which have evolved over a long time period and which are independantly maintained. We estimated the minimum number of strains of M. ovipneumoniae that must exist in a population so that when 29 independent isolates are examined, all will be different. With 95% certainty, this minimum number is 150. The possibility that at least 150 M. ovipneumoniae strains could be maintained in New Zealand was discussed. By applying general epidemiological principles to M. ovipneumoniae, we concluded that many more than 150 could be independently maintained

Review of: The Myth of Normal-Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture, by Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté

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The Body Dysmorphic

The Body Dysmorphic is a book of poetry situated around the absurdity of the human body in a world of fast advancing technologies, or around the body as a machine, a pump primed for sexual exertion in a cycle of life and death that is shit across the following pages while the poet grimaces and writhes in an overwhelming fit of laughter-induced vomiting. The whole gimmick is really to inspire a revolution. In the vain effort to become another scab on the aging dermis of poetics, the poet here reconstructs life from the dismembered parts of ideologies, memories, and language fractioned and then haphazardly arrayed within the boundaries of language. The poet has sought inspiration in the continual attempt to direct the torrenting circulatory symbolism of the written and spoken word into containers that are as complex and interesting as the pathogens inexorably simultaneously conveyed via the pulse of the at once interesting and disgusting human creature. Poetry is the distillation of language. Here are poems. Get drunk