'Confounding closed systems': transforming the boundaries of jewish identity in Rebecca Goldstein's novel mazel

In contemporary Jewish American fiction, the themes of immigration and resettlement take on a renewed significance. In various short stories and novels, a threefold composition – (prewar) life in Europe, the transatlantic journey and settlement in America – serves as a starting point for the contemplation of postwar Jewish American identity. Rebecca Goldstein’s novel Mazel is an excellent example of this. The novel reconstructs the lives of three generations of women in a setting that covers both prewar Europe and postwar suburban America. It portrays the complex mother-daughter relationships and depicts the different worlds that each woman inhabits – worlds that are unknown to the others. But this novel also deals with the notions of origin, belonging and not belonging, the possible continuity of tradition, and different definitions of Jewish identity. This essay suggests that Goldstein portrays a constant struggle with ethnic or communal identity – a struggle structured around inclusiveness and exclusiveness – that results in a broadening of the concept of Jewish identity. The novel attains this by challenging and undermining fixed or predetermined ideas and dichotomies (man/woman, shtetl/outside world, tradition/modernity, Europe/America, past/present, descent/consent). Instead, Mazel eventually offers the idea of a more hybrid and flexible definition of Jewish identity that favors the fusion of a strong communal identity with the possibility of multiple affiliations. These ideas are specifically rendered through the character of Fraydel, the sister of one of the main protagonists

Assessing the solid protocol in relation to security and privacy obligations

The Solid specification aims to empower data subjects by giving them direct access control over their data across multiple applications. As governments are manifesting their interest in this framework for citizen empowerment and e-government services, security and privacy represent pivotal issues to be addressed. By analysing the relevant legislation, with an emphasis on GDPR and officially approved documents such as codes of conduct and relevant security ISO standards, we formulate the primary security and privacy requirements for such a framework. The legislation places some obligations on pod providers, much like cloud services. However, what is more interesting is that Solid has the potential to support GDPR compliance of Solid apps and data users that connect, via the protocol, to Solid pods containing personal data. A Solid-based healthcare use case is illustrated where identifying such controllers responsible for apps and data users is essential for the system to be deployed. Furthermore, we survey the current Solid protocol specifications regarding how they cover the highlighted requirements, and draw attention to potential gaps between the specifications and requirements. We also point out the contribution of recent academic work presenting novel approaches to increase the security and privacy degree provided by the Solid project. This paper has a twofold contribution to improve user awareness of how Solid can help protect their data and to present possible future research lines on Solid security and privacy enhancements

Multivariate landscape analysis of honey bee winter mortality in Wallonia, Belgium

The European honey bee species (Apis mellifera L.) is under increasing pressure from anthropogenic and other stressors. Winter mortality of entire colonies is generally attributed to biological, environmental, and management conditions. The rates of winter mortality can vary extremely from place to place. A landscape approach is used here to examine the dependency between spatially distributed winter mortality rates, environmental and biological conditions, and apiary management. The analysis was applied to data for the region of Wallonia in Belgium with winter mortality rates obtained from the European project EPILOBEE. Potential explanatory variables were spatially allocated based on GIS analysis, and subjected to binomial linear regression to identify the most predominant variables related to bee winter mortality. The results point to infestation with Varroa, the number of frost days, the potential flying hours, the connectivity of the natural landscape, and the use of plant protection products as most dominant causes for the region of Wallonia. The outcomes of this study will help focus beekeeping and environmental management to improve bee health and the effectiveness of apiary practices. The approach surpasses application to the problem of bee mortality and could be used to compare and rank the causes of other environmental problems by their significance, particularly when these are interdependent and spatially differentiated

Negen muzen, tien geboden. Historische en methodologische gevalstudies over de interactie tussen literatuur en ethiek

Literature traditionally holds a special place in society. This fact can be ascribed especially to literature’s unique capability to urge its audience and readers to allow a voice other than their own to resound within. And yet, literature’s role raises questions regarding one’s responsibility and engagement – questions that nearly every generation asks itself time and again with an ever changing urgency. Eight literary scholars from the research group ‘Literature – Ethics – Law’ (Ghent University) focus on this complex dialogue between literature and ethics. In the process, they arrive at answers that tease out crucial historical developments (from Plato to HIV/AIDS-prose), while also attending to the impact of methodological reevaluations during the search for such answers

Exploratory analysis of PDR-1 of the VIPERS galaxy redshift survey

<p>Buelens, B. (2014). Exploratory analysis of PDR-1 of the VIPERS galaxy redshift survey. Astrostatistics.org Working Paper 2014BB01.</p