Juxtaposition of Women, Culture, and Nature in Alice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy

The present paper focuses on the tradition of women's circumsicion in the African tribe of Olinkan in Alice Walker's Possesing the Secret of Joy. The Olinkans are asked by the white settlers to stop women's mutilation, but Olinkan men continue this custom stealthily to ensure their patriarchial dominance. This novel is a complicated juxtaposition of two different types of oppression: one by White male colonizers over an African native land, and the other one by the native Olinkan men over native women. In this juxtaposition women and land are both victims exploited and manipulated by men, no matter Black or White. This novel is also seen as a fertile ground to analyze the dual domination of both nature and women by the Olinkan men and White colonizers who are both trying to impose their androcentric rules that are created to dominate women and land, respectively

Darkening Low-Earth Orbit Satellite Constellations: A Review

The proliferation of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites and the LEO satellite internet will be a game-changer for the low-latency high-speed global internet. While this new generation of the satellite internet in conjunction with fifth generation network (5G) and sixth generation network (6G) enabled emerging technologies, such as precision farming and smart cities, it will bring new challenges, such as satellite collision, limited satellite lifespan, security concerns, and satellite brightness. This article discusses the satellite brightness caused by LEO constellations that potentially affect the ongoing astronomical studies. It reviews the underlying contributors to the satellite brightness as well as the state-of-the-art technologies proposed to mitigate this emerging challenge.This work was supported in part by Macquarie University; in part by the Australian Research Council Discovery Grants Scheme; and in part by the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney, Seed Grant

Flexible and transparent circularly polarized patch antenna for reliable unobtrusive wearable wireless communications

This paper presents a circularly polarized flexible and transparent circular patch antenna suitable for body-worn wireless-communications. Circular polarization is highly beneficial in wearable wireless communications, where antennas, as a key component of the RF front-end, operate in dynamic environments, such as the human body. The demonstrated antenna is realized with highly flexible, robust and transparent conductive-fabric-polymer composite. The performance of the explored flexible-transparent antenna is also compared with its non-transparent counterpart manufactured with non-transparent conductive fabric. This comparison further demonstrates the suitability of the proposed materials for the target unobtrusive wearable applications. Detailed numerical and experimental investigations are explored in this paper to verify the proposed design. Moreover, the compatibility of the antenna in wearable applications is evaluated by testing the performance on a forearm phantom and calculating the specific absorption rate (SAR)

Reading Jude’s Unbending Character in the Mirror of Foucauldian Power and Normalization

This paper analyses Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure in the light of Foucault’s notion of power relations and normalization. Foucault holds that there is a dynamically productive power in every society that imposes its own ideology on people. Through different strategies and procedures, mainly normalization, he insists, power tries to produce docile subjects that can be best controlled. However, since the existence of power presupposes the existence of resistance, he believes, subjects can have their own alternatives if they try their hand at acquiring an ethical self by practicing the strategies of ‘care of the self.’ Relying on such perspective, the present article tries to study Jude, the semi-protagonist of Thomas Hardy’s novel, and examine the way he is capable of resisting normalization and the extent he is successful in achieving a new self. The findings show that Hardy’s rendering of society is not completely in line with Foucault’s notion of power relations because Jude is incapable of effectively resisting power relations working in his society.Keywords: Foucault, power, normalization, Hardy, Jud

Directivity improvement of a Fabry-Perot cavity antenna by enhancing near field characteristic

This paper presents an effective technique for radiation patterns improvement of a Febry-Perot cavity antenna by improving the near field phase distribution. A printed structure named phase correcting structure (PCS) is placed above the Febry-Perot cavity antenna to enhance phase uniformity along the H-plane by varying the size of metallic patches in the PCS. The achieved phase uniformity also results in 5.6 dBi increase in the peak directivity of the antenna.2 page(s

Multi-objective particle swarm optimization for the realization of a low profile bandpass frequency selective surface

This paper presents a new application of evolutionary optimization algorithm to design an extremely low profile bandpass frequency selective surface (FSS). A particle swarm optimization algorithm is interfaced with a commercial time-domain solver to design and optimize a second-order bandpass FSS at 10 GHz with 20% fractional bandwidth. Four structure variables are defined in the algorithm to be optimized for realization of a grid of capacitive patches and inductive strips, which constitute the bandpass FSS. Optimization led to a FSS with a total thickness of λo/65.4 page(s

Design of dielectric phase-correcting structure for an EBG resonator antenna using particle swarm optimization

This paper presents a novel method to design an all-dielectric phase correcting structure (PCS) to improve phase uniformity on the aperture of a classical electromagnetic band gap resonator antenna (ERA). This PCS has fixed permittivity, but varying thickness in a plane perpendicular to the dominant radiated E-field component. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and a commercial time-domain solver are combined to optimize the PCS thickness. The proposed PCS not only significantly reduces the phase non-uniformity, but also improves the broadside directivity of the ERA by 4.6 dBi.3 page(s