PERCIVAL EVERETT’S THE TREES: WITH STILL BLOOD ON THE LEAVES

After the reconstruction era, racism didn’t end but entered a violent phase when the white supremacists began killing African Americans with the fear of losing their power in the South. The era between 19th century and civil rights movement, the South witnessed more than 4700 lynching cases which caused the death of African American victims. The wave of violence and its consequences, injustices against the blacks had been one of the primary topics of literary imagination since then.  It wasn’t only the contemporary writers who witnessed the painful years, but also many artists today still write about the horrors of the past.  Percival Everett’s 2021 novel The Trees is one of the examples which remembers the violence and creates a fictional atmosphere to resist the victimization of African Americans. The novel focuses on a series of homicides in the American South, Mississippi. There is a common situation in all of these homicides: A number of white dead bodies are found with the same African American corpse beside them. However, as the detectives investigate, it is determined that these are not simple crimes. They contain the vengeance of an African American who was lynched years ago. Though, Everett seems to write crime fiction about a small Southern town, the novel focuses on resisting institutionalized racism which still affects today. The remembering of lynching of African American people, writing it in a satirical way and recreating history are all forms of resistance he employs in his novel.

Hybrid gas-metal co-implantation with a modified vacuum arc ion source

Energetic beams of mixed metal and gaseous ion species can be generated with a vacuum arc ion source by adding gas to the arc discharge region. This could be an important tool for ion implantation research by providing a method for forming buried layers of mixed composition such as e.g. metal oxides and nitrides. In work to date, we have formed a number of mixed metal-gas ion beams including Ti+N, Pt+N, Al+O, and Zr+O. The particle current fractions of the metal-gas ion components in the beam ranged from 100% metallic to about 80% gaseous, depending on operational parameters. We have used this new variant of the vacuum arc ion source to carry out some exploratory studies of the effect of Al+O and Zr+O co-implantation on tribology of stainless steel. Here we describe the ion source modifications, species and charge state of the hybrid beams produced, and results of preliminary studies of surface modification of stainless steel by co-implantation of mixed Al/O or Zr/O ion beams. 5 figs, 21 refs

PEDIATRIC HEMATOLOGY AND ONCOLOGY

The present study was designed to evaluate the significance of echocardiography versus cardiac troponin I levels in early detection of anthracycline dependent cardiotoxicity in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients. A total of 276 pediatric ALL patients were included in the study prospectively along 3 phases of data collection lasted from 2002 to 2009; including phase I (March 2002 to February 2003; n = 25; 53.3% females), phase II (September 2003 to April 2004; n = 35; 57.1% females), and phase III (January 2005 to June 2009; n = 216; 52.7% females) with respect to cumulative anthracycline doses applied. Anthracyclinewas administered in accordance with berlin-Franfurt-Munich (BFM)-2000 protocol in doses of 30 to 350 mg/m(2) (in the first phase) and 30 to 240 mg/m(2) (in the following phases). Evaluation of cardiotoxicity was performed via echocardiography and measurement of cardiac troponin I levels. Patients in each phase were homogenous in terms of gender and age. Diastolic dysfunction determined via reduction E/A ratio below the cutoff value was demonstrated to deteriorate earlier than systolic functions and alteration in cardiac enzymes. Being similar between dose groups, cTnI levels were shown to rise in the presence of congestive heart failure. In conclusion, anthracycline cardiotoxicity appears to be detected in an earlier stage by using diastolic parameters compared to systolic parameters and cardiac enzymes

SURFACE & COATINGS TECHNOLOGY

A vacuum arc ion source based metal ion implantation facility is built and in operation at TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey), Izmir, Turkey and a surface modification research and development program is being carried out here. The system is similar to the one in Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, which was first built and developed by Brown et al. The broad-beam ion source can be repetitively pulsed at rates up to similar to 50 pulses per second and the extracted ion beam current can be up to -1 A peak or similar to 10 mA time averaged. The ion source extraction voltage can be increased up to 110 kV. Additionally, mixed metal and gas ion beams were generated by a magnetic field, which was obtained through a magnet coil located in front of anode plate and by adding gas in the discharge region. This modified system was used to form buried layers of mixed metal-gas species such as Ti+N (on 316 SS and Ti alloy samples) and Zr and W (316 SS and Ti alloy samples, respectively) of which their hardness, coefficient of friction and wear volumes were measured and their RBS results were obtained. The anodic electrochemical tests showed that the corrosion resistance of Ti implanted 304 SS samples was increased with the dose. Micro structures of Ti implanted surfaces of 304 SS samples were examined with SEM before and after the corrosion tests and the results showed that the pittings were formed mostly in the areas where implanted Ti concentration was less. Recently, the system is equipped with TOF for measuring the charge state distribution of ions. R&D work is planned for the purpose of forming tribologically enhanced materials for industrial applications by using ion implantation, PVD coating, plasma nitriding and their combinations. The results showed that the hardness and performance of ion implanted (with various metals and N) PVD coated cutting inserts increased remarkably. The use of ion implantation techniques in modifying the properties of textile and other materials and optimising the performance of textile and other industrial machine parts and tools is also being investigated and some of the results are presented in this work. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

ION-BEAM-BASED NANOFABRICATION

Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) samples were implanted with metal and metal-gas hybrid ions (Ag, Ag+N, C+H, C+H+Ar, Ti+O) by using improved MEVVA Ion implantation technique [1,2]. An extraction voltage of 30 kV and influence of 1017 ions/cm2 were attempted in this experiment. to change their surface morphologies in order to understand the effect of ion implantation on the surface properties of UHMWPEs. Characterizations of the implanted samples with RBS, ATR - FTIR, spectra were compared with the un-implanted ones. Implanted and unimplanted samples were also thermally characterized by TGA and DSC. It was generally observed that C-H bond concentration seemed to be decreasing with ion implantation and the results indicated that the chain structure of UHMWPE were changed and crosslink density and polymer crystallinity were increased compared to unimplanted ones resulting in increased hardness. It was also observed that nano size cracks (approx. 10nm) were significantly disappeared after Ag implantation, which also has an improved antibacterial effect. Contact angle measurements showed that wettability of samples increased with ion implantation. Results showed that metal and metal+gas hybrid ion implantation could be an effective way to improve the surface properties of UHMWPE to be used in hip and knee prosthesis

Erratum to "Wear behavior of nitrogen implanted PVD-coated hard metal cutting inserts" [Surface and Coatings Technology 176 (2005) 369-372] (DOI:10.1016/j.surfcoat.2004.08.205)

[No abstract available

Usefulness of Kawasaki disease risk scoring systems to the Turkish population

Objective: Kawasaki disease (KD) is the most common cause of coronary artery aneurysm (CAA) in children. The available risk scores to predict intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) resistance and CAA were developed in Asian populations in whom their effectiveness has been proven, but data on non-Asian children are limited. This study aimed to evaluate the ability of 5 risk scoring systems to predict IVIG resistance and CAA in Turkey patients with KD

NATURAL HISTORY OF CONGENITAL ISOLATED MILD AORTIC VALVE AND MILD PULMONARY VALVE STENOSIS: A SINGLE-CENTER FOLLOW-UP STUDY

Objective: Most of the available information on the natural history of aortic stenosis (AS) and pulmonary stenosis (PS) in children is based on studies carried out over the past 35-40 years using cardiac catheterization. This study aimed to reveal the natural history of congenital isolated mild valvular AS and PS in children using serial Doppler echocardiographic examinations