Dwelling or duelling in possibilities: how (Ir)relevant are African feminisms?

In its four decades of rebirth, the world has debated (enough) the relevance of feminism, but there is, surprisingly, refreshingly emergent dimensions at the turn of the twenty-first century: feminisms from feminism flowing from Africa. The theories or models of Womanism, Stiwanism, Motherism, and Nego-feminism, with their underlying assumptions and values,were all born at various end times of the twentieth century with a common objective of seeking gender justice. This paper examines the crucial question of how relevant these models are to the global practice of woman as human. What propels their separateness, and why didn‘t they combine to make a more solid stance on the plight of the African woman? In fact, why can‘t they simply identify with the general feminism? Put differently, are they dwelling in the same terrain or are they separable and easily recognisable discourses duelling in possibilities for the woman in Africa in particular and the woman of the globe in general? More specifically, how (ir)relevant are African feminisms?In trying to answer these questions, the paper presents a critical review of the afore-mentioned theories of African feminisms with the goal of providing readers an understanding of what is new in each model, and what is similar or different between the various strands of African feminisms. The paper concludes with the author‘s analysis of the model that holds the best promise or possibilities for African feminism to achieve its seemingly elusive goal of gender equality

Quantifying the Tibiofemoral Joint Space Using X-ray Tomosynthesis

Purpose: Digital x-ray tomosynthesis (DTS) has the potential to provide 3D information about the knee joint in a load-bearing posture, which may improve diagnosis and monitoring of knee osteoarthritis compared with projection radiography, the current standard of care. Manually quantifying and visualizing the joint space width (JSW) from 3D tomosynthesis datasets may be challenging. This work developed a semiautomated algorithm for quantifying the 3D tibiofemoral JSW from reconstructed DTS images. The algorithm was validated through anthropomorphic phantom experiments and applied to three clinical datasets. Methods: A user-selected volume of interest within the reconstructed DTS volume was enhanced with 1D multiscale gradient kernels. The edge-enhanced volumes were divided by polarity into tibial and femoral edge maps and combined across kernel scales. A 2D connected components algorithm was performed to determine candidate tibial and femoral edges. A 2D joint space width map (JSW) was constructed to represent the 3D tibiofemoral joint space. To quantify the algorithm accuracy, an adjustable knee phantom was constructed, and eleven posterior–anterior (PA) and lateral DTS scans were acquired with the medial minimum JSW of the phantom set to 0–5 mm in 0.5 mm increments (VolumeRadTM, GE Healthcare, Chalfont St. Giles, United Kingdom). The accuracy of the algorithm was quantified by comparing the minimum JSW in a region of interest in the medial compartment of the JSW map to the measured phantom setting for each trial. In addition, the algorithm was applied to DTS scans of a static knee phantom and the JSW map compared to values estimated from a manually segmented computed tomography (CT) dataset. The algorithm was also applied to three clinical DTS datasets of osteoarthritic patients. Results: The algorithm segmented the JSW and generated a JSW map for all phantom and clinical datasets. For the adjustable phantom, the estimated minimum JSW values were plotted against the measured values for all trials. A linear fit estimated a slope of 0.887 (R2¼0.962) and a mean error across all trials of 0.34 mm for the PA phantom data. The estimated minimum JSW values for the lateral adjustable phantom acquisitions were found to have low correlation to the measured values (R2¼0.377), with a mean error of 2.13 mm. The error in the lateral adjustable-phantom datasets appeared to be caused by artifacts due to unrealistic features in the phantom bones. JSW maps generated by DTS and CT varied by a mean of 0.6 mm and 0.8 mm across the knee joint, for PA and lateral scans. The tibial and femoral edges were successfully segmented and JSW maps determined for PA and lateral clinical DTS datasets. Conclusions: A semiautomated method is presented for quantifying the 3D joint space in a 2D JSW map using tomosynthesis images. The proposed algorithm quantified the JSW across the knee joint to sub-millimeter accuracy for PA tomosynthesis acquisitions. Overall, the results suggest that x-ray tomosynthesis may be beneficial for diagnosing and monitoring disease progression or treatment of osteoarthritis by providing quantitative images of JSW in the load-bearing knee

Measurement of Linear Stark Interference in 199Hg

We present measurements of Stark interference in the 6$^1S_0$ $\rightarrow$ 6$^3P_1$ transition in $^{199}$Hg, a process whereby a static electric field $E$ mixes magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole couplings into an electric dipole transition, leading to $E$-linear energy shifts similar to those produced by a permanent atomic electric dipole moment (EDM). The measured interference amplitude, $a_{SI}$ = $(a_{M1} + a_{E2})$ = (5.8 $\pm$ 1.5)$\times 10^{-9}$ (kV/cm)$^{-1}$, agrees with relativistic, many-body predictions and confirms that earlier central-field estimates are a factor of 10 too large. More importantly, this study validates the capability of the $^{199}$Hg EDM search apparatus to resolve non-trivial, controlled, and sub-nHz Larmor frequency shifts with EDM-like characteristics.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; revised in response to reviewer comment

Movers and shakers: Granular damping in microgravity

The response of an oscillating granular damper to an initial perturbation is studied using experiments performed in microgravity and granular dynamics mulations. High-speed video and image processing techniques are used to extract experimental data. An inelastic hard sphere model is developed to perform simulations and the results are in excellent agreement with the experiments. The granular damper behaves like a frictional damper and a linear decay of the amplitude is bserved. This is true even for the simulation model, where friction forces are absent. A simple expression is developed which predicts the optimal damping conditions for a given amplitude and is independent of the oscillation frequency and particle inelasticities.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure

Improved limit on the permanent electric dipole moment of 199Hg

We report the results of a new experimental search for a permanent electric dipole moment of 199Hg utilizing a stack of four vapor cells. We find d(199Hg) = (0.49 \pm 1.29_stat \pm 0.76_syst) x 10^{-29} e cm, and interpret this as a new upper bound, |d(199Hg)| < 3.1 x 10^{-29} e cm (95% C.L.). This result improves our previous 199Hg limit by a factor of 7, and can be used to set new constraints on CP violation in physics beyond the standard model.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. additional reference, minor edits in response to reviewer comment

Bounds on Lorentz and CPT Violation from the Earth-Ionosphere Cavity

Electromagnetic resonant cavities form the basis of many tests of Lorentz invariance involving photons. The effects of some forms of Lorentz violation scale with cavity size. We investigate possible signals of violations in the naturally occurring resonances formed in the Earth-ionosphere cavity. Comparison with observed resonances places the first terrestrial constraints on coefficients associated with dimension-three Lorentz-violating operators at the level of 10^{-20} GeV.Comment: 8 pages REVTe

Leveraging Semantic Web Service Descriptions for Validation by Automated Functional Testing

Recent years have seen the utilisation of Semantic Web Service descriptions for automating a wide range of service-related activities, with a primary focus on service discovery, composition, execution and mediation. An important area which so far has received less attention is service validation, whereby advertised services are proven to conform to required behavioural specifications. This paper proposes a method for validation of service-oriented systems through automated functional testing. The method leverages ontology-based and rule-based descriptions of service inputs, outputs, preconditions and effects (IOPE) for constructing a stateful EFSM specification. The specification is subsequently utilised for functional testing and validation using the proven Stream X-machine (SXM) testing methodology. Complete functional test sets are generated automatically at an abstract level and are then applied to concrete Web services, using test drivers created from the Web service descriptions. The testing method comes with completeness guarantees and provides a strong method for validating the behaviour of Web services

Spatial and temporal genetic dynamics of the grasshopper <i>Oedaleus decorus</i> revealed by museum genomics.

Analyzing genetic variation through time and space is important to identify key evolutionary and ecological processes in populations. However, using contemporary genetic data to infer the dynamics of genetic diversity may be at risk of a bias, as inferences are performed from a set of extant populations, setting aside unavailable, rare, or now extinct lineages. Here, we took advantage of new developments in next-generation sequencing to analyze the spatial and temporal genetic dynamics of the grasshopper &lt;i&gt;Oedaleus decorus&lt;/i&gt; , a steppic Southwestern-Palearctic species. We applied a recently developed hybridization capture (hyRAD) protocol that allows retrieving orthologous sequences even from degraded DNA characteristic of museum specimens. We identified single nucleotide polymorphisms in 68 historical and 51 modern samples in order to (i) unravel the spatial genetic structure across part of the species distribution and (ii) assess the loss of genetic diversity over the past century in Swiss populations. Our results revealed (i) the presence of three potential glacial refugia spread across the European continent and converging spatially in the Alpine area. In addition, and despite a limited population sample size, our results indicate (ii) a loss of allelic richness in contemporary Swiss populations compared to historical populations, whereas levels of expected heterozygosities were not significantly different. This observation is compatible with an increase in the bottleneck magnitude experienced by central European populations of &lt;i&gt;O. decorus&lt;/i&gt; following human-mediated land-use change impacting steppic habitats. Our results confirm that application of hyRAD to museum samples produces valuable information to study genetic processes across time and space

Generic Model Refactorings

Many modeling languages share some common concepts and principles. For example, Java, MOF, and UML share some aspects of the concepts\ud of classes, methods, attributes, and inheritance. However, model\ud transformations such as refactorings specified for a given language\ud cannot be readily reused for another language because their related\ud metamodels may be structurally different. Our aim is to enable a\ud flexible reuse of model transformations across various metamodels.\ud Thus, in this paper, we present an approach allowing the specification\ud of generic model transformations, in particular refactorings, so\ud that they can be applied to different metamodels. Our approach relies\ud on two mechanisms: (1) an adaptation based mainly on the weaving\ud of aspects; (2) the notion of model typing, an extension of object\ud typing in the model-oriented context. We validated our approach by\ud performing some experiments that consisted of specifying three well\ud known refactorings (Encapsulate Field, Move Method, and Pull Up Method)\ud and applying each of them onto three different metamodels (Java,\ud MOF, and UML)