Resistance on the Imperial Terrain: Constructing a counter-Empire in Paul Beatty’s The White Boy Shuffle

Paul Beatty’s The White Boy Shuffle ostensibly proffers a new model for black leadership, a role filled by the protagonist, Gunnar Kaufman. Yet the cheeky tone with which Gunnar as frame narrator characterizes such a leader, likening his position as leader of black America to that of a Negro Demagogue and Ebon Pied Piper, immediately casts into doubt the ability of and desirability for a single person to represent such a wide spectrum of particular entities. Instead, what becomes clear is that such a reductive form of representation serves only to stifle the multivalent reality of postmodern life. As Gunnar matures throughout the novel, he begins to recognize that he as an individual becomes co-opted, molded and exploited by an extensive array of mechanisms and institutions. The forces that Gunnar begins to recognize correspond with the dispotifs and apparatuses that Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri diagnose in their book, Empire. To Hardt and Negri, the disciplinary society, that society in which the state exercises control over the population through direct juridical intervention, has evolved into a society of control. The society control relies not on outside imposition but rather the self-policing of the body politic to craft normative behavior. In this model, the people being repressed have internalized and propagate the expectations of the dominant caste, a phenomenon Hardt and Negri call biopower. As Gunnar becomes aware of the insidious methodologies that seek to circumscribe or direct his thoughts and actions, he visualizes these controls as strings with himself as the puppet. This awareness leads to a form of fatalism that reveals itself in Gunnar’s impromptu call for suicide. After Gunnar’s epiphany, he returns to his Hillside community and focuses on granting a forum to the dispossessed, one in which no one is marginalized and the gritty reality of urban life is celebrated. Gunnar calls these sessions of communal catharsis the MiseryFests, and they embody the essence of what Hardt and Negri claim is necessary to combat the society of control. The MiseryFests make use of the imperial terrain, the flows of information that biopower relies on to police one another, and construct a counter-Empire that truly celebrates diversity

Of Trees, Space, Time, and Knots

MANY people are enthusiastic advocates of having forest landowners grow high-quality timber. They feel that short-sightedness and ignorance are the principal reasons why silviculture aimed at such timber is not more popular. The purpose of this paper is to point out that timber quality is not a variable measured on a single scale ranging from low to high, but instead is a collective term for numerous attributes and variables affecting either end-product serviceability or manufacturing cost. An attribute of timber considered desirable by manufacturers of certain end-products may be considered unimportant or even undesirable by manufacturers of others. Before landowners incur the added silvicultural costs required to produce timber with certain attributes, they naturally wish to be assured that these costs will be repaid with .interest when stumpage is sold or manufactured. Such repayment depends on whether cheaper processing of more costly wood produces a more serviceable or a cheaper end-product than can be produced by more costly processing of cheaper wood, or by using materials other than wood

Status Epilepticus Induced Alterations in Hippocampal Anatomy and Neurotransmission

Status epilepticus (SE) is a life-threatening neurologic emergency occurring when the brain is in an unrelenting state of seizure activity. Approximately 40% of people who encounter a single event of SE go on to develop epilepsy, characterized by spontaneously occurring seizures. While the exact mechanisms underlying seizure origin are not understood, at a fundamental level seizures initiate due to an imbalance between inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmission. We explored the impact of SE and the development of epilepsy on GABAA receptor mediated inhibitory neurotransmission and kainate receptor (KAR) mediated excitatory neurotransmission. Stiripentol (STP), a positive allosteric modulator of the GABAA receptor, was found to terminate both brief and prolonged SE with the development of less pharmacoresistance than is observed with the benzodiazepine (BZD), diazepam (DZP). In addition STP, but not DZP, retained its ability to potentiate both phasic and tonic GABAergic transmission post-SE. These findings are supported by previous studies demonstrating that the actions of STP do not require the BZD-sensitive γ2-containing GABAARs which are internalized during prolonged SE. These data demonstrate that prolonged SE significantly impacts the pharmacological profile of GABAA receptors and potential therapeutics. x KARs densely populate the hippocampal mossy fiber – CA3 pathway where they mediate a portion of excitatory neurotransmission. Significant alterations in KAR subunit expression in the dentate gyrus and CA3 regions were observed in animals at 5, 60 and 200 day post-SE. These changes were dynamic and region specific. In agreement with observed alterations in subunit expression, KAR-mediated neurotransmission was significantly reduced at mossy fiber – CA3 synapses in epileptic animals. In addition, synaptic integration by KARs during repetitive stimulation was also significantly impaired. These data demonstrate that SE significantly impacts KAR-mediated excitatory neurotransmission. Together these studies provide new insight into the impact of SE and the development of epilepsy on both GABAA and KAR-mediated neurotransmission. The observed alterations following SE may contribute to the generation of seizures or may be compensatory mechanisms to reduce the likelihood of seizure initiation. Furthermore, these findings demonstrate the dramatic alterations observed in the diseased brain and emphasize the importance of acknowledging these differences for the development of effective therapeutics

Robust Control For Underwater Vehicle Systems With Time Delays

Presented in this paper is a robust control scheme for controlling systems with time delays. The scheme is based on the Smith controller and the LQG/LTR (Linear Quadratic Gaussian/Loop Transfer Recovery) methodology. The methodology is applicable to undenvater vehicle systems that exhibit time delays, including tethered vehicles that are positioned through the movements of a surface ship and autonomous vehicles that are controlled through an acoustic link. An example, using full-scale data from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s tethered vehicle ARGO, demonstrates the developments

Calculation of Dynamic Motions and Tensions in Towed Underwater Cables

A matrix method for mooring system analysis is extended to address the dynamic response of towed underwater systems. Key tools are equivalent linearization and small perturbation theory, and a pitching towfish model. Two examples of application of the technique are provided. The first studies a fundamental limitation to constrained passive heave compensation, while the second concerns the use of floated tethers as a means for dynamic decoupling

WHOI cable : time domain numerical simulation of moored and towed oceanographic systems

This report presents a numerical framework for analyzing the statics and dynamics of cable strctures commonly encountered in oceanographic engineering practice. The numerical program, WHOI Cable, features a nonlinear solver that includes the effects of geometric and material nonlinearties, bending stiffness for seamless modeling of slack cables, and a model for the interaction of cable segments with the seafoor. The program solves both surface and subsurface single-point mooring problems, systems with both ends anchored on the bottom, and towing and drifter problems. Forcing includes waves, current, ship speed, and pay-out of cable. The programs that make-up WHOI Cable run under Unix, DOS, and Windows. There is a familiar Windows-style interface available for Windows 95 and Windows NT platforms. In the report, the mathematical and numerical framework for WHOI Cable is described, followed by detailed instructions for formulating problem input files and running the codes. Examples are included in an appendix to highlight the range of problems that WHOI Cable can solve.Funding was provided by the Office of Naval Research through grants NOOOl4-92-J-1269 and N00014-95-1-0106 and an Office of Naval Research Graduate Fellowship

The horizontal mooring : a two-dimensional array, description of the array, components, instrumentation, deployment and recovery operations

A moored two-dimensional array with instrumentation distributed both horizontally and vertically was deployed for 27 days in August 1998 at an 85 meter deep site in Massachusetts Bay near Stellwagon basin. The horizontal mooring consisted of a 160- meter long horizontal element positioned at a depth of 20 meters between two subsurface moorings. Suspended below the horizontal member were five 25-meter long vertical strings. The vertical strings had a horizontal separation of 30 meters and each had instruments at depths of 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 and 45 meters. Instrumentation deployed on the two-dimensional array included acoustic current meters, temperature sensors, conductivity measuring instruments, pressure sensors and motion monitoring packages. This report includes a detailed description of the two-dimensional array, the anchoring system and the instrumentation that were deployed. Also included is a description of the deployment and recovery techniques that were employed as well as an assessment of the performance of the array.Funding was provided by the Office of Naval Research under Grant No. N00014-97-1-0158

Mooring design using wave-state estimate from the Southern Ocean

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 28 (2011): 1351–1360, doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-10-05033.1.The Southern Ocean Flux Station was deployed near 47°S, 140°E. The extreme wind and wave conditions at this location require appropriate mooring design, which includes dynamic fatigue analysis and static analysis. An accurate estimate of the wave conditions was essential. A motion reference unit was deployed in a nearby test mooring for 6 months. The motion data provided estimates of significant wave height that agreed well with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology wave model, increasing confidence in the model performance in the Southern Ocean. The results of the dynamic fatigue analysis using three input wave datasets and implications for the mooring design are described. The design analysis predicts the fatigue life for critical mooring components and guided the final selection of links and chain shackles. The three input wave climatologies do not differ greatly, and this is reflected in minimal changes to mooring components for each of the fatigue analyses.Many years of logistic support for these deployments have been provided by the Australian Marine National Facility and the Australian Antarctic Sciences program (Award 1156). IMOS is funded through the Federal Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy and the Super Science Initiative

Comparison of the arterial blood gas, arterial oxyhaemoglobin saturation and end-tidal carbon dioxide tension during sevoflurane or isoflurane anaesthesia in rabbits

The effects of sevoflurane or isoflurane on arterial blood gas, arterial oxyhaemoglobin saturation and end-tidal CO2 tension were monitored during induction and maintenance of anaesthesia in 10 premedicated New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits