3,119 research outputs found
The Fragmented Vision of Claude McKay: A Study of His Works
Claude McKay, born in Jamaica in 1890, played a
significant role in the development of Black American
literature. His search for a Black aesthetic and his poems
of defiance gave inspiration to young Black artists hungry to
explore new ideas. Their creative spirit flowered into the
Harlem Renaissance. But, McKay, whose themes helped to
stimulate this movement, was plagued by the very concepts
that helped to define it. Throughout his life, he was
ambivalent about three things: his Afrocentric universe, his
role as rebel spokesman, and his relationship to Jamaica.
Already a poet of some consequence in Jamaica, McKay
thought of America as a grander arena for his voice, but
when he arrived in Charleston, South Carolina in 1912, he
was shaken by the intense racism of America. His upbringing
in rural Clarendon Hills had not prepared him for what he
witnessed. By nature, a proud man, McKay turned his lyrical
expression into an instrument that would change the arrogance
of the Whites.
"Harlem Dancer" and "Invocation" (1917) implied the
nobility of African roots and affirmed the superiority of
primitivistic value system over Western cultural standards.
But in McKay's psyche lay the germ of ambivalence that
rejected the code of any "world" not sanctioned by the West.
During the years following World War I, when relations
between Whites and Blacks were strained, McKay became a rebel
spokesman for the masses with his defiant poem "If We Must
Die" (1919). It urged oppressed people to stand valiant in
the face of defeat. But McKay later denied that the poem
spoke for Blacks and further questioned the artistic worth of
his other "militant" poems.
McKay was also ambivalent about his homeland.
Throughout most of his life, he ignored in his writing the
political, social, and economic realities of Jamaica and
evoked instead the image of an Edenic island that offered him
refuge from the complexities of the twentieth century
An analysis of critical thinking skills for students with learning disabilities in the fourth through sixth grades
Astrometric orbits of SB9 stars
Hipparcos Intermediate Astrometric Data (IAD) have been used to derive
astrometric orbital elements for spectroscopic binaries from the newly released
Ninth Catalogue of Spectroscopic Binary Orbits (SB9). Among the 1374 binaries
from SB9 which have an HIP entry, 282 have detectable orbital astrometric
motion (at the 5% significance level). Among those, only 70 have astrometric
orbital elements that are reliably determined (according to specific
statistical tests discussed in the paper), and for the first time for 20
systems, representing a 10% increase relative to the 235 DMSA/O systems already
present in the Hipparcos Double and Multiple Systems Annex.
The detection of the astrometric orbital motion when the Hipparcos IAD are
supplemented by the spectroscopic orbital elements is close to 100% for
binaries with only one visible component, provided that the period is in the 50
- 1000 d range and the parallax is larger than 5 mas. This result is an
interesting testbed to guide the choice of algorithms and statistical tests to
be used in the search for astrometric binaries during the forthcoming ESA Gaia
mission.
Finally, orbital inclinations provided by the present analysis have been used
to derive several astrophysical quantities. For instance, 29 among the 70
systems with reliable astrometric orbital elements involve main sequence stars
for which the companion mass could be derived. Some interesting conclusions may
be drawn from this new set of stellar masses, like the enigmatic nature of the
companion to the Hyades F dwarf HIP 20935. This system has a mass ratio of 0.98
but the companion remains elusive.Comment: Astronomy & Astrophysics, in press (16 pages, 12 figures); also
available at http://www.astro.ulb.ac.be/Html/ps.html#Astrometr
MEMS 411: Rock Collection Rover, Group
The following report has been prepared for MEMS 411 Mechanical Engineering Design Project and contains information pertaining to the selected project, the Rocker Collecting Rover Contest project. The project required the team to construct a battery-powered, remote-controlled rover that is operated with a first-person camera and can collect “rocks” and hold them off the ground without damaging them. The rover will compete in a competition against all other groups to see which group can collect the most rocks in a five-minute period
Collisionless dynamics of the condensate predicted in the random phase approximation
From the microscopic theory, we derive a number conserving quantum kinetic
equation, valid for a dilute Bose gas at any temperature, in which the binary
collisions between the quasi-particles are mediated by phonon-like excitations
(called ``condenson''). This different approach starts from the many-body
Hamiltonian of a Boson gas and uses, in an appropriate way, the generalized
random phase approximation. As a result, the collision term of the kinetic
equation contains higher order contributions in the expansion in the
interaction parameter. This different expansion shows up that a scattering
involves the emission and the absorption of a phonon-like excitation. The major
interest of this particular mechanism is that, in a regime where the condensate
is stable, the collision process between condensed and non condensed particles
is totally blocked due to a total annihilation of the mutual interaction
potential induced by the condensate itself. As a consequence, the condensate is
not constrained to relax and can be superfluid. Furthermore, a Boltzmann-like
H-theorem for the entropy exists for this equation and allows to distinguish
between dissipative and non dissipative phenomena (like vortices). We also
illustrate the analogy between this approach and the kinetic theory for a
plasma, in which the excitations correspond precisely to a plasmon. Finally, we
show the equivalence of this theory with the non-number conserving Bogoliubov
theory at zero temperature.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figur
The impact of resources on decision making
Decision making is a significant activity within industry and although much attention has been paid to the manner in which goals impact on how decision making is executed, there has been less focus on the impact decision making resources can have. This article describes an experiment that sought to provide greater insight into the impact that resources can have on how decision making is executed. Investigated variables included the experience levels of decision makers and the quality and availability of information resources. The experiment provided insights into the variety of impacts that resources can have upon decision making, manifested through the evolution of the approaches, methods, and processes used within it. The findings illustrated that there could be an impact on the decision-making process but not on the method or approach, the method and process but not the approach, or the approach, method, and process. In addition, resources were observed to have multiple impacts, which can emerge in different timescales. Given these findings, research is suggested into the development of resource-impact models that would describe the relationships existing between the decision-making activity and resources, together with the development of techniques for reasoning using these models. This would enhance the development of systems that could offer improved levels of decision support through managing the impact of resources on decision making
Cutoff in the Bernoulli-Laplace Model With Unequal Colors and Urn Sizes
We consider a generalization of the Bernoulli-Laplace model in which there
are two urns and total balls, of which are red and white, and
where the left urn holds balls. At each time increment, balls are
chosen uniformly at random from each urn and then swapped. This system can be
used to model phenomena such as gas particle interchange between containers or
card shuffling. Under a reasonable set of assumptions, we bound the mixing time
of the resulting Markov chain asymptotically in with cutoff at
and constant window. Among other techniques, we employ the spectral analysis of
arXiv:0906.4242 on the Markov transition kernel and the chain coupling tools of
arXiv:2203.08647 and arXiv:1606.01437
Analysis of clogging in constructed wetlands using magnetic resonance
In this work we demonstrate the potential of permanent magnet based magnetic resonance sensors to monitor and assess the extent of pore clogging in water filtration systems. The performance of the sensor was tested on artificially clogged gravel substrates and on gravel bed samples from constructed wetlands used to treat wastewater. Data indicate that the spin lattice relaxation time is linearly related to the hydraulic conductivity in such systems. In addition, within biologically active filters we demonstrate the ability to determine the relative ratio of biomass to abiotic solids, a measurement which is not possible using alternative techniques
A Smooth, Inductively Coupled Ring Trap for Atoms
We propose and numerically investigate a scalable ring trap for cold atoms
that surmounts problems of roughness of the potential and end--effects of trap
wires. A stable trapping potential is formed about an electrically isolated,
conducting loop in an ac magnetic field by time averaging the superposition of
the external and induced magnetic fields. We investigate the use of additional
fields to eliminate Majorana spin flip losses and to create novel trapping
geometries. The possibility of micro--fabrication of these ring traps offers
the prospect of developing Sagnac atom interferometry in atom--chip devices.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
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