How “woke” became weaponized in the culture wars

The term “woke” has its roots in Black culture but has since been removed from this origin and been co-opted a symbol by those who push back against social justice progress. Staci M. Zavattaro writes that for policymakers and activists to affect change, it is important to understand how the social constructions of “woke” and Critical Race Theory, more specifically, have changed

Relating Session Types and Behavioural Contracts: The Asynchronous Case

We discuss the relationship between session types and behavioural contracts under the assumption that processes communicate asynchronously. We show the existence of a fully abstract interpretation of session types into a fragment of contracts, that maps session subtyping into binary compliance-preserving contract refinement. In this way, the recent undecidability result for asynchronous session subtyping can be used to obtain an original undecidability result for asynchronous contract refinement

Erectile dysfunction in men with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Erectile dysfunction (ED) seems to be a widespread sexual issue in men affected by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Multiple causes appear to be involved such as hormonal imbalance, smoking habit, chronic inflammation, endothelial dysfunction, chronic hypoxia, psychiatric disorders (depression and anxiety), and medications. ED can have a significant impact on COPD men and consequently on their quality of life, which is usually already compromised. Given this situation, however, pneumologists usually do not properly care for the sexuality of COPD patients especially because men can be reluctant to talk about their intimate issues. The aim of this narrative review is to briefly summarize the evidence emerging from literature and to provide a wide point of view about sexual dysfunction in COPD men

Batalin-Vilkovisky Integrals in Finite Dimensions

The Batalin-Vilkovisky method (BV) is the most powerful method to analyze functional integrals with (infinite-dimensional) gauge symmetries presently known. It has been invented to fix gauges associated with symmetries that do not close off-shell. Homological Perturbation Theory is introduced and used to develop the integration theory behind BV and to describe the BV quantization of a Lagrangian system with symmetries. Localization (illustrated in terms of Duistermaat-Heckman localization) as well as anomalous symmetries are discussed in the framework of BV.Comment: 35 page

Bench-Study of Green-Wall Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Reduction

Potted-plants have the potential for improving indoor air quality (IAQ), however there has been little research on the performance of green-walls as indoor biofilters. The aim of this investigation was to compare rates of air pollutant reduction with two commonly used indoor species, and to assess the effects of added substrate airflows on the capacity of green-wall modules to remove two prevalent indoor airborne contaminants - particulate matter (PM), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), using benzene as model. The species tested were Chlorophytum comosum (Spider Plant) and Epipremnum aureum (Pothos). The results showed that each species could significantly reduce increasing doses of PM, with or without augmented substrate airflow, however benzene removal rates decreased with increasing aeration. The findings provide a first assessment of the ability of green-wall plants to reduce indoor air pollution, and responses to two types of pollutant, particulate and gaseous