Towards a Heterotopic Turn: A Selected Analysis of Glück's A Village Life

“Heterotopia” is a minor concept within Foucault’s oeuvre, but one that has caught the attention of writers across a number of disciplines, particularly within Fine Arts and Geography. The concept appears three times within Foucault’s works: in the preface to The Order of Things ([1966] 2002); in Different Spaces ([1967] 1998); and in a radio recording Le Corps Utopique, Les Hétérotopies ([1966] 2009).  “According to Foucault, heterotopias are spaces that operate to make existing orders legible. By doing so they unsettle received knowledge that is common sense – both revealing and destabilizing the foundations of knowledge. This destabilization renders knowledge opens to critique, introducing contingency into the present and demonstrating that if the order of things is socially produced, then it can be made differently” (Beckett et al. 2016, 4). Though the poetry of Louise Glück (1943- ) is an exploration of the nuanced relationation between subject and context, there is little doubt on the fact that her texts have earned a spate of critical responses. Drawing from a theoretical apparatus, the Foucauldian concept of heterotopia, this paper focuses on the spatial analysis of Glück's poetry in her collection A Village Life (2009) which is replete with fields, thresholds, windows, with a major focus on her imaginative repertoire of heterotopic spaces including riverside, darkness, lonely fields, cemeteries

Evaluation of key factors in transportation risk analysis

Pursuant to the enactment of federal legislation, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is presently evaluating Yucca Mountain as a candidate site for a repository to store spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLRW). Risk analyses could be used to support transportation decisions (such as route and mode selection) pertaining to the repository program; The purpose of this study is to develop a procedure to facilitate comparative transportation risk assessment. A case study of Lincoln County, Nevada is used to discuss the significance of key input data required to support such risk analysis. A methodology was developed to estimate the population density along the transport corridors using a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) program, ARC/INFO. Accident data pertinent to individual segments of highway route for the years 1987 through 1993 were used to develop accident rates the distribution of Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) volumes. Accident data for the rail route were obtained directly from the Union Pacific Railroad Company; In 1984, the Department of Energy conducted a preliminary cost and risk analysis for transporting spent fuel and high level wastes to potential repository sites nationwide. This study presents a comparison of the results of the 1994 DOE study with estimates of risks obtained for Lincoln County using RADTRAN 4, the current version of the code. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Effects of Age and Retinal Degeneration on the Expression of Subtilisin-like Proprotein Convertases in the Visual Cortex of Mice

Postnatal development of the visual cortex is a complex process that involves a number of molecules like growth factors, neuropeptides and cholesterol. Neurotrophins, like NGF, BDNF, NT-3, and NT-4, which are synthesized as precursors, also play a very important role in visual cortex development. Subtilisin-like proprotein convertases (SPCs) play a vital role in the limited endoproteolysis of precursors of secretory proteins that participate in development, homeostasis and in numerous pathologies. SPCs also process pro-neurotrophins into mature forms which facilitates neuron survival and differentiation through binding of the neurotrophins Trk receptors. In contrast, unprocessed forms of neurotrophins bind to the p75NTR death receptor and cause apoptosis. We studied the expression pattern of SPCs during postnatal development of the visual cortex in wild type mice (wt) and retinal degeneration mice (rd) using quantitative real-time PCR. The widely expressed SPCs showed a similar pattern of expression during development with high levels of mRNA early in postnatal development. The expression pattern of SPCs was total different in rd mice. Lower levels of expression of both widely expressed adn tissue-specific SPCs were seen at week 1. PCSK9 also showed a significant difference in expression. PCSK9 might play an important role in synaptic formation by regulating the uptake of cholesterol. This difference in expression pattern of SPCs during development and retinal degeneration support the hypothesis that SPCs play a critical role duirng brain development and nuerodegenerative diseases. Understanding the potential role of SPCs in neurdegenerative diseases may lead to new targets for treating such diseases.Master'sCollege of Arts and Sciences: BiologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/117684/1/Chinnaswamy.pd

Hybrid Feature Selection with Chaotic Rat Swarm Optimization-Based Convolutional Neural

Introduction: Early diagnosis of Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) is vital in reducing mortality rates. Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms have increased the CVD prediction capability of clinical decision support systems. However, the shallow feature learning in machine learning and incompetent feature selection methods still pose a greater challenge. Consequently, deep learning algorithms are needed to improvise the CVD prediction frameworks. Methods: This paper proposes an advanced CDSS for CVD detection using a hybrid DL method. Initially, the Improved Hierarchical Density-based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (IHDBSCAN), Adaptive Class Median-based Missing Value Imputation (ACMMVI) and Clustering Using Representatives-Adaptive Synthetic Sampling (CURE-ADASYN) approaches are introduced in the pre-processing stage for enhancing the input quality by solving the problems of outliers, missing values and class imbalance, respectively. Then, the features are extracted, and optimal feature subsets are selected using the hybrid model of Information gain with Improved Owl Optimization algorithm (IG-IOOA), where OOA is improved by enhancing the search functions of the local search process. These selected features are fed to the proposed Chaotic Rat Swarm Optimization-based Convolutional Neural Networks (CRSO-CNN) classifier model for detecting heart disease. Results: Four UCI datasets are used to validate the proposed framework, and the results showed that the OOA-DLSO-ELM-based approach provides better heart disease prediction with high accuracy of 97,57 %, 97,32 %, 96,254 % and 97,37 % for the four datasets. Conclusions: Therefore, this proposed CRSO-CNN model improves the heart disease classification with reduced time complexity for all four UCI dataset

The eastern ghats belt..a polycyclic granulite terrain

The Eastern Ghats Belt is a polycyclic granulite terrain along the east coast of India whose western boundary is marked by a shear zone along which the granulites are thrusted over the cratonic units of the Indian shield, and its northern margin is marked by the presence of a number of fault-bounded blocks. Recent work has convincingly brought out that there are domains within the belt having different evolutionary histories. The segment south of the Godavari Rift went through a high grade thermo-tectonic event at ~1.6-1.7 Ga. North of the Godavari Rift in a narrow zone along the western boundary the last high-grade metamorphic event is of late Archaean age. A series of alkaline plutons along the western boundary zone testifies to a rifting episode at ~1.3-1.5 Ga. In the major part of the EGB the metamorphism is broadly of Grenvillian age, with two major thermo-tectonic pulses at ~1.1-1.2 Ga and ~0.95-1.0 Ga. But high grade conditions persisted for a long period and younger thermal events of ~0.65 Ga to ~0.80 Ga are locally recorded. There are differences in the tectonometamorphic histories of different domains, but the tectonic significance of these differences remains uncertain. Pan-African (0.50-0.55) thermal overprints are common and become conspicuous along the western boundary zone. The thrusting of the Eastern Ghats granulites in a hot state over the cratons to the west is of Pan-African age. In the Rodinia assembly (~0.9 Ga) the Eastern Ghats and the Rayner-Napier Complexes of Antarctica were contiguous, but the pre-Rodinia configuration of these terrains remains unclear. At ~0.8 Ga during the Rodinia break up Greater India rifted apart from East Antarctica, and only later it docked with Australia-East Antarctica at 530-550 Ma. The continuation of the East Antarctic Pan-African orogenic belts into the Eastern Ghats is yet to be ascertained

DOSE-DEPENDENT CHRONIC TOXICITY SCREENING OF HINOKITIOL IN ZEBRAFISHES: BEHAVIORAL AND HISTOLOGICAL APPROACH

Objectives: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is categorized as a movement disorder symptomized by weakening the motor skills of the patients. The root cause of the disease is the neurodegenerative dopaminergic loss in the substantia nigra of the patient’s brain. This havoc disease majorly affects the people above the age of 60 years. Moreover, PD incidences strike almost 70% of the neurological disorders of the aged population worldwide. There are no perfect curative drugs in the medical world for the disease. Since the past few decades, several plant secondary compounds were in preclinical trials to treat this disease. Hinokitiol (HIN), a monoterpenoid from the heartwood of cupressaceous plants, is widely used in hair tonics, toothpaste, cosmetics, and food as an antimicrobial agent. It is well reported as an anti-stroke agent as well. Methods: In the present study, the dose-dependent (5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 mg/kg) chronic toxicity of HIN was studied for 28 days using zebrafishes. The toxicity was analyzed in vital organs such as brain, liver, kidney, spleen, heart, and blood count followed by behavioral toxicity to target the drug against parkinsonism. Results: The study revealed that the higher doses of 20 and 25 mg/kg HIN treatment were toxic to the fish brain, spleen, as well as cardiomyocytes. It showed a variation in blood count as well at 10 mg/kg dose itself. Conclusion: Hence, the study revealed the protective efficacy of the HIN at its therapeutic dosage of 5 mg/kg as a neuroprotective drug, with minimal vital organ toxicities

PrioriNet: An Energy-Efficient Emergency Priority Protocol for Sustainable Communication in Disaster Scenarios

During disaster scenarios, effective communication systems are essential for coordinating emergency response efforts and ensuring the safety of affected individuals. However, existing communication protocols often face challenges in providing reliable and efficient communication in these highly dynamic and resource-constrained environments. To overcome these challenges a novel energy-efficient emergency priority protocol namely PrioriNet technique which specifically tailored for urban earthquake scenarios. The protocol focuses on prioritizing the transmission of emergency data packets to ensure their prompt and reliable delivery, while appropriately managing normal data packets. The PrioriNet prioritizes the emergency messages as high and low priority messages and allocate them to energy efficient nodes efficiently. The experimental results indicates that the suggested protocol performs better than the existing LEACH technique in terms of energy consumption, network coverage, packet delivery ratio, and throughput. In emergency data scenarios, the LEACH protocol demonstrates throughputs between 0.3 Mbps and 1.2 Mbps, whereas the proposed method consistently outperforms the LEACH protocol with throughputs ranging from 0.7 Mbps to 1.8 Mbps respectively

Electronic Travel Aid for Visually Impaired People Along with a Panic Alert System

There are many issues over which humans have no control. Blindness is one of such issues. It snatches the vivid visual beauty of the world from an individual’s life.But missing the beauty of nature becomes one of the last worries of such people as they have to face numerous difficulties in order to perform even the most basics of tasks in their day to day life. One of their most important problems is of transport, such as crossing roads, traveling in trains, or in any other public places. A visually impaired person to survive the fittest in this world, the person must go through all the obstacles without the guidance of others. One of the most important measures to avoid the obstacle by the blind is to provide an assistive implementation, which can help to wander on their own. The main aim of this project is to provide an assistive technology used for the purpose of enhancing the mobility of the blind pedestrian which is commonly referred to as Electronic Travel Aid (ETA) and to motivate the blind without having the inferior feeling of their problem and pay away the blind to move on their own . In this project, a smart guiding ETA is used to guide the user to sense the obstacle before them. This device eliminates the requirement of human assistance for blind while traveling outside. It will identify all obstacles in the path with the help of various sensors installed in it. The microcontroller will retrieve data and pass it on as vibrations which will notify the user about hurdles

Concerns in Reshaping Media Regulatory Environment

Evolution of media and communication policies and regulations are an important area of inquiry in policy research. There have been several shifts in policies and regulations with globalisation and emergence of new digital technologies. In this background, the paper outlines the key areas of state intervention in media, including nationalisation, liberalisation and privatisation of media. The paper attempts to identify the milestones in the development of communication policies and regulatory measures, including telecommunications. Further, the paper will track the internationalisation of policies, facilitated by convergent digital technologies in the communication sector