The legal life of objects : speaking evidence and mute subjects in Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson

textIn this paper, I argue that legal authorities assign speaking power to objects and evidence in the courtroom in order to deny speaking power to racialized subjects and police racial identities. Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894) demonstrates how the law transverses the human/object boundary in order to regulate legal definitions of identity. I examine the legal animation of the textual document, as exemplified by the last will and testament; the knife, a material object that as a murder weapon is responsible for condemning the accused; and the fingerprint, a unique form of bodily evidence that merges the textual and the material, in order to understand how these objects blur the line between the living and the deceased, between human and nonhuman agency, and between body and text. My methodology brings object studies into conversation with a literature and the law approach in order to show not only how the nineteenth-century American literary imagination was concerned with testing and regulating racial boundaries, but also how fictions employed by the law produce subjects and objects. My investigation reminds us that when evidence appears to “speak for itself,” this speech act has been carefully orchestrated by human legal authorities who determine what the evidence can be understood to mean and for whom it speaks.Englis

Computer 30 Models of Pulmonary Epithelium and Endothelium Cross Sections and Alveoli Across a Septum

The first portion of the project deals with creating three-dimensional computer generated models for the use in lung/particle studies. The models are to be proportional, to scale, and representative of the real structures. The models were created using Autodesk Maya 2008. The structures created are cross-sections of an alveolar epithelium and a capillary endothelium as they are found on either side of the respiratory basement membrane, and two alveoli with the septa! wall between. The models of the cellular cross-section include the cytoskeletal components, vesicles, and cellular membrane. The filaments of the cytoskeleton (microfilament, intermediate filament, microtubule) have been made using protein models retrieved from the Protein Data Bank and linked into protein filaments and weaved into the network that represents the cytoskeleton. The alveolar model was created from various images (SEM and TEM) and researched values. The second portion of the project deals with creating an instructional animation with the structures used in the lung research. The animation is designed to show the movement of the particles as they pass through the human airway down to the cellular level and into the blood stream. As the particles progress through the system, I have animated their deposition based on research. Particle dynamics was used in Maya to animate the deposition. The animation will be used to visually illustrate the findings from Dr. Risa Robinson\u27s research team and will be a helpful tool when presenting the data to their peers, either in a conference or for grant proposals

The divergence of private from social costs in rural-urban migration: a case study of Nairobi, Kenya

In Developing Economies the level of urban wages tends to induce more people to seek employment in the towns than can be employed at this wage level. The existence of these urban unemployed causes the private costs of migration to diverge from the social costs. The individual rural resident decides to remain or migrate on the basis of perceived private costs of migration. The effect of a decision to migrate on the economy is the social cost of migration. In our study we consider the determinants of different levels of private and social costs associated with different stocks of urban unemployed. In addition, utilizing survey data on Nairobi, Kenya, an attempt is made to quantify, the major private and social costs of migration to determine whether they diverge significantly. On the basis of these estimates some policy options for limiting urban unemployment caused by urban in-migration are considered

Technology Acceptance and Performance: A Field Study of Broker Workstations

We develop a model to predict 1) the use of a multifunctional, broker workstation with a windowed interface and 2) the relationship between workstation use and performance. Brokers and sales assistants in the private client group of a major investment bank use this workstation as an integral part of their jobs. Our model explains some of the variance in their usage, intended usage and performance, but the variables that are most salient in the model differ between brokers and sales assistants. There is evidence that low performing brokers use the workstation more than higher performing brokers; the results also suggest that a different type of training may be needed for sophisticated workstations for professionals than for clerical personnel learning to use transactions processing systems. We believe it is important to understand the acceptance of technology and the relationship between system use and performance if firms are to obtain a return from investing in information technology.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Valerie Willcott, voice; Leslee Heys, piano

Valerie Willcott, voice; Leslee Heys, pianoPresented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for Music 440B

Extending the Technology Acceptance Model: A Field Study of Broker Workstations

This paper presents a field study of the Technology Acceptance Model. We extended this model to predict the acceptance of a multifinctional, broker workstation with a windowed interface. Brokers and sales assistants in the private client group of a major investment bank use this workstation as an integral part of their jobs. The extended model explains a significant percentage of the variance in usage, but the variables that are most salient in the model differ between brokers and sales assistants. There is evidence that low performing brokers use the workstation more than higher performing brokers; the results also suggest that more training may be needed for sophisticated workstations for professionals than for clerical personnel learning to use transactions processing systems. We believe it is important to predict and understand the acceptance of technology like the workstation in this study if firms are to obtain a return from investing in information technology.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Validation of a consumer-grade activity monitor for continuous daily activity monitoring in individuals with multiple sclerosis.

Background:Technological advancements of remote-monitoring used in clinical-care and research require validation of model updates. Objectives:To compare the output of a newer consumer-grade accelerometer to a previous model in people with multiple sclerosis (MS) and to the ActiGraph, a waist-worn device widely used in MS research. Methods:Thirty-one individuals with MS participated in a 7-day validation by the Fitbit Flex (Flex), Fitbit Flex-2 (Flex2) and ActiGraph GT3X. Primary outcome was step count. Valid epochs of 5-min block increments, where there was overlap of ≥1 step/min for both devices were compared and summed to give a daily total for analysis. Results:Bland-Altman plots showed no systematic difference between the Flex and Flex2; mean step-count difference of 25 more steps-per-day more recorded by Flex2 (95% confidence intervals (CI) = 2, 48; p = 0.04),interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = 1.00. Compared to the ActiGraph, Flex2 (and Flex) tended to record more steps (808 steps-per-day more than the ActiGraph (95% CI= -2380, 765; p < 0.01), although the ICC was high (0.98) indicating that the devices were likely measuring the same kind of activity. Conclusions:Steps from Flex and Flex2 can be used interchangeably. Differences in total step count between ActiGraph and Flex devices can make cross-device comparisons of numerical step-counts challenging particularly for faster walkers

Low dose inflammatory potential of silica particles in human-derived THP-1 macrophage cell culture studies - Mechanism and effects of particle size and iron.

Silica and iron are major constituents in ambient particulate matter, and iron is a common impurity in many engineered nanomaterials. The purpose of this work was to determine the pro-inflammatory and other biological effects and mechanism of particle size and iron presence under low dose, non-cytotoxic conditions that are likely to approximate actual exposure levels, in contrast with higher dose studies in which cytotoxicity occurs. Specifically, human-derived THP-1 macrophages were exposed to 1 μg/ml of pristine and iron-coated 50 nm and 2 μm engineered silica nanoparticles. Particles were first characterized for size, size distribution, surface area, iron concentration, phase and aggregation in cell culture media. Then, biological assays were conducted to determine a non-lethal dose used in subsequent experiments. Superoxide production, lipid peroxidation, and increased pro-inflammatory cytokine (TNF-α and IL-1β) mRNA expression were measured as a function of particle size and iron presence. Smaller particle size and the presence of iron increased superoxide production, lipid peroxidation, and the induction of pro-inflammatory cytokine mRNA expression. Separate addition of an iron-chelator, a scavenger of superoxide and hydrogen peroxide, and an inhibitor of phosphatidylcholine specific phospholipase C (PC-PLC), suppressed the increase in cytokine mRNA expression. Furthermore, free iron itself showed none of the aforementioned effects. The results highlight the importance of particle size and iron in lung inflammation for both natural and engineered nanomaterials, under low dose, non-toxic conditions, and support the role of an oxidant, lipid peroxidation and PC-PLC dependent inflammatory mechanism

Characterization of Antibiotic Susceptibility Profiles of Extensively- and Pan-Drug Resistant Acinetobacter Baumannii Clinical Isolates

Acinetobacter baumannii is an opportunistic pathogen common in intensive care units (ICUs), particularly among immunocompromised individuals. Nosocomial A. baumannii infections have become increasingly problematic in recent years, as these bacteria rapidly acquire antibiotic resistance, leading to the emergence of multidrug, extensively drug and pan drug-resistant (MDR, XDR, and PDR, respectively) isolates. Recently, Cooper University Hospital (CUH) experienced a large increase in highly drug-resistant A. baumannii infections, which had a mortality rate of 60%. Oftentimes, physicians had to turn to combinations of drugs with no experimental verification or historically shelved antibiotics, such as the polymyxins, in a desperate attempt to save lives. This highlights the critical need for more research to identify new, effective treatment options for these difficult-to-treat infections. Here, we determined the susceptibility of 22 patient isolates from CUH against 22 standard-of-care drugs and three newly released antibiotics (eravacycline, omadacycline and plazomicin) by the standard broth microdilution technique. We found that the isolates in this collection were 70% XDR and 30% PDR, meaning there were few to no treatment options available. Overall, the collection was most susceptible to minocycline (77.3%), followed by rifampin (55%) and amikacin (40.9%). While official breakpoint data is not available from the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute for the new tetracycline-class drugs, a number of strains had low minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) to eravacycline and omadacycline, suggesting that these new drugs may be effective in treatment of highly drug-resistant strains. The drug plazomicin was largely ineffective against these strains, with high MICs. We plan to explore novel combinations of eravacycline and omadacycline with the standard-of-care drugs and to search for synergistic combinatorial effects using checkerboard assays. This information can ultimately be used to design new Therapeutics against drug-resistant A. baumannii infections