Existential freedom and bad faith : exploring the infinite possibilities in Ralph Ellison\u27s Invisible man and Jean-Paul Sartre\u27s Being and nothingness

J. Saunders Redding comments that Existentialism is no philosophy to accommodate the reality of Negro life (209). However, Ralph Ellison\u27s concern in Invisible Man to explore his protagonist\u27s freedom and the ways in which he deceives himself about his freedom invites a comparison with the ontological premises of Jean-Paul Sartre\u27s Being and Nothingness, particularly his concept of bad faith, in which individuals accept the identities that existing power structures force upon them. Both writers articulate the nature of selfhood in the modern world, and how easily one\u27s true identity is lost when faced with absolute existential freedom. While Ellison was not a student of existential philosophy, the preoccupation of both writers with the freedom of the individual consciousness and the inability to maintain that freedom suggests that the two were responding to the same historical and cultural milieu

Warren County\u27s Legacy for Healthy Parks, Schools and Communities: From the Cornfield to El Congreso and Beyond

This Article traces the impact of the struggle for the Cornfield on the creation of other great urban parks, resource bonds, the greening of the Los Angeles River, and evolving efforts to achieve equity in the distribution of public resources. Part II presents a vision for a comprehensive and coherent web of public spaces, including parks, school fields, rivers, beaches, mountains, and forests, that will enhance human health and economic vitality for all the people of the Southern California region, with lessons for regions across the country. Part III describes lessons learned from raising funds for parks through resource bonds. Part IV describes great urban park victories in Los Angeles and struggles to keep public lands public for all in beaches, mountains, and forests. Part V presents original demographic research and analyses of park, school, and health disparities and related equal access issues. Part VII explores the history and pattern of discriminatory land use, housing patterns, and access to parks, beaches, and forests. Part VIII presents policy and legal justifications for equal access to public lands. Part IX presents principles and recommendations for equitable infrastructure investments in natural public places

Warren County\u27s Legacy for Healthy Parks, Schools and Communities: From the Cornfield to El Congreso and Beyond

This Article traces the impact of the struggle for the Cornfield on the creation of other great urban parks, resource bonds, the greening of the Los Angeles River, and evolving efforts to achieve equity in the distribution of public resources. Part II presents a vision for a comprehensive and coherent web of public spaces, including parks, school fields, rivers, beaches, mountains, and forests, that will enhance human health and economic vitality for all the people of the Southern California region, with lessons for regions across the country. Part III describes lessons learned from raising funds for parks through resource bonds. Part IV describes great urban park victories in Los Angeles and struggles to keep public lands public for all in beaches, mountains, and forests. Part V presents original demographic research and analyses of park, school, and health disparities and related equal access issues. Part VII explores the history and pattern of discriminatory land use, housing patterns, and access to parks, beaches, and forests. Part VIII presents policy and legal justifications for equal access to public lands. Part IX presents principles and recommendations for equitable infrastructure investments in natural public places

Effectors of Haemophilus ducreyi pathogenesis

Chancroid is a sexually-transmitted infection (STI) prevalent in impoverished regions of the developing world. Caused by the gram-negative bacterium Haemophilus ducreyi (Hd), an obligate human pathogen, chancroid is characterized by purulent genital skin ulceration and increased risk of acquiring other STI including HIV. Chancroid is treatable with antibiotic therapy but does not elicit protective immunity to subsequent Hd infection. To further explore Hd-host interactions, we examined two targets: an Hd surface protein targeted by the host's modest anti-Hd humoral response, and a secreted Hd toxin implicated in pathogenesis and immune modulation. We identified Hd outer-membrane protein NcaA as an Oca-family bacterial adhesin. We demonstrated that NcaA mediated Hd binding to the host skin protein collagen. Furthermore, we found that NcaA was essential for virulence in human and swine models of chancroid, suggesting an important link between skin colonization and survival in the host. Most Hd isolates secrete cytolethal distending toxin (CDT), a trimeric complex that intoxicates many eukaryotic cell types, including some found in skin (fibroblasts, keratinocytes) and others relevant to immunity (macrophages, lymphocytes). We therefore investigated CDT as a contributor to Hd pathogenesis and host immune modulation. Two independent Hd CDT-deletion ([delta]CDT) mutants were attenuated in the swine chancroid model, but neither could be complemented, showing that CDT deletion selected for cryptic attenuating mutations. These results support but cannot confirm the importance of CDT to Hd pathogenesis. Additionally, pigs inoculated twice with [delta]CDT Hd were as susceptible to wild type Hd challenge as pigs previously inoculated twice with CDT+ Hd. Though this finding did not illustrate CDT-mediated immune alteration, [delta]CDT strains may not persist sufficiently in vivo to elicit immunity regardless of any CDT effect. Following published findings attributing CDT toxicity to nuclease activity of subunit CdtB, we generated an Hd mutant with minimal amino acid variations mapping to the CdtB active site, attempting to circumvent compensatory mutation. This mutant retained CDT toxicity; furthermore, purified mutant CdtB protein retained in vitro nuclease activity. Further studies are warranted to address the importance of CdtB nuclease activity and CDT toxicity to Hd host-pathogen interaction

Organizational effectiveness, executive leadership and organization culture: A study of selected provincial sport organizations.

This study was undertaken to analyze the concepts of organizational effectiveness, executive leadership and organizational culture within the Ontario Sport and Recreation Centre (O.S.R.C.). Organizational effectiveness was measured by the Survey of Provincial Sport Organizations (SPSO) instrument, modified from Chelladurai and Haggerty (1991), executive leadership by the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), developed by Bass and Avolio (1990), and organizational culture by the Organizational Culture Assessment Questionnaire (OCAQ), developed by Sashkin (1990). No significant differences in either transformational or transactional leadership behaviours were uncovered between Executive Directors of effective PSO\u27s and Executive Directors of ineffective PSO\u27s. This finding aligns with the conclusions of Bryman (1986a), Pettigrew (1987) and Pfeffer (1977), who have questioned the importance of executive leadership to organizational effectiveness. While no significant difference between self and other leadership assessments existed within effective PSO\u27s, a significant difference between self and other leadership assessments was uncovered in the ineffective PSO\u27s. This finding supports the conclusions of Atwater & Yammarino (1992), Bass & Avolio (1989), Weese (1994b) and Yammarino & Atwater (1993), who suggested that congruence of the perceptions of leadership style (between leaders and followers) provides a better indication of the true leadership situation. It was also concluded that a significant difference existed between the organizational culture of effective PSO\u27s and the organizational culture of ineffective PSO\u27s. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)Dept. of Kinesiology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1995 .K46. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 34-06, page: 2490. Adviser: Jim Weese. Thesis (M.H.K.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1995

Building grounded abstractions for artificial intelligence programming

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-58).Most Artificial Intelligence (AI) work can be characterized as either "high-level" (e.g., logical, symbolic) or "low-level" (e.g., connectionist, behavior-based robotics). Each approach suffers from particular drawbacks. High-level Al uses abstractions that often have no relation to the way real, biological brains work. Low-level Al, on the other hand, tends to lack the powerful abstractions that are needed to express complex structures and relationships. I have tried to combine the best features of both approaches, by building a set of programming abstractions defined in terms of simple, biologically plausible components. At the "ground level", I define a primitive, perceptron-like computational unit. I then show how more abstract computational units may be implemented in terms of the primitive units, and show the utility of the abstract units in sample networks. The new units make it possible to build networks using concepts such as long-term memories, short-term memories, and frames. As a demonstration of these abstractions, I have implemented a simulator for "creatures" controlled by a network of abstract units. The creatures exist in a simple 2D world, and exhibit behaviors such as catching mobile prey and sorting colored blocks into matching boxes. This program demonstrates that it is possible to build systems that can interact effectively with a dynamic physical environment, yet use symbolic representations to control aspects of their behavior.by Robert A. Hearn.S.M

Games, puzzles, and computation

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 147-153).There is a fundamental connection between the notions of game and of computation. At its most basic level, this is implied by any game complexity result, but the connection is deeper than this. One example is the concept of alternating nondeterminism, which is intimately connected with two-player games. In the first half of this thesis, I develop the idea of game as computation to a greater degree than has been done previously. I present a general family of games, called Constraint Logic, which is both mathematically simple and ideally suited for reductions to many actual board games. A deterministic version of Constraint Logic corresponds to a novel kind of logic circuit which is monotone and reversible. At the other end of the spectrum, I show that a multiplayer version of Constraint Logic is undecidable. That there are undecidable games using finite physical resources is philosophically important, and raises issues related to the Church-Turing thesis. In the second half of this thesis, I apply the Constraint Logic formalism to many actual games and puzzles, providing new hardness proofs. These applications include sliding-block puzzles, sliding-coin puzzles, plank puzzles, hinged polygon dissections, Amazons, Kohane, Cross Purposes, Tip over, and others.(cont.) Some of these have been well-known open problems for some time. For other games, including Minesweeper, the Warehouseman's Problem, Sokoban, and Rush Hour, I either strengthen existing results, or provide new, simpler hardness proofs than the original proofs.by Robert Aubrey Hearn.Ph.D

Fused particle fabrication 3-D printing: Recycled materials’ optimization and mechanical properties

Fused particle fabrication (FPF) (or fused granular fabrication (FGF)) has potential for increasing recycled polymers in 3-D printing. Here, the open source Gigabot X is used to develop a new method to optimize FPF/FGF for recycled materials. Virgin polylactic acid (PLA) pellets and prints were analyzed and were then compared to four recycled polymers including the two most popular printing materials (PLA and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS)) as well as the two most common waste plastics (polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polypropylene (PP)). The size characteristics of the various materials were quantified using digital image processing. Then, power and nozzle velocity matrices were used to optimize the print speed, and a print test was used to maximize the output for a two-temperature stage extruder for a given polymer feedstock. ASTM type 4 tensile tests were used to determine the mechanical properties of each plastic when they were printed with a particle drive extruder system and were compared with filament printing. The results showed that the Gigabot X can print materials 6.5× to 13× faster than conventional printers depending on the material, with no significant reduction in the mechanical properties. It was concluded that the Gigabot X and similar FPF/FGF printers can utilize a wide range of recycled polymer materials with minimal post processing