Foundation stone of empire: the role of Portland stone in ‘heritage’, commemoration, and identity.

In 2013, Portland Stone, a creamy white limestone from the Isle of Portland in Dorset, was named the world’s first ‘Global Heritage Stone Resource’ (GSHR) by the Heritage Stone Task Group, a sub-commission of the International Union of Geological Sciences. The criteria for GSHR designation are ambiguous, with the Task Group championing Portland Stone’s ‘cultural value’ and ‘heritage’, neither of which are critically interrogated. In this paper we undertake a detailed critical discourse analysis of Hansard entries mentioning Portland Stone between 1803 and 2020. We reveal that the use of Portland Stone is intertwined with colonial oppression, class subjugation, empire politics, structural racism, and a mythologised, England-centric vision of British national identity. In celebrating the use of Portland Stone as part of Britain’s ‘heritage’, we are condoning a narrative of Britishness that is exclusionary and whitewashed, and that supports an elite rewriting of national and international history. Drawing on critical heritage literature, we argue that the Heritage Stone Task Group must urgently reconsider their uncritical appraisal of ‘heritage’ and ‘culture’ and consult with social science colleagues to ensure that all voices are heard. Our study shows that through the history and nature of their usage, the rocks beneath our feet, our natural foundation, can become imbued with notions of regional and national identity, belonging and exclusion, memory and loss – they can become a powerful manifestation of symbolic and unequal power structures. While British society’s attention is turned to the imprint of colonialism, empire, and race on our geographies, we urge further consideration of the built environment: the very stones that construct our towns and cities, the plinths on which statues are erected, tell stories of oppression and domination that are an important part of British history, culture, and heritage

Segmentation and Counting of People Through Collaborative Augmented Environment

People counting system have wide potential application including video surveillance and public resources management. Also with rapid development of economic society, crowd flowing in varies public places and facility is more and more frequent. Effectively managing and controlling crowd in public places become an important issue. People counting system based on this kind of demand arises, which can be used in commercial domain such as market survey, traffic management as well as architectural design domain. For example suppose there is a crowd gathering at specific place then it indicates an unusual situation and second one if counting of people is done in shopping mall then it provides valuable information for optimizing trading hours, as well as evaluating the attractiveness of some shopping areas

Removal of Hydrogen and Solid Particles from Molten Aluminum Alloys in the Rotating Impeller Degasser: Mathematical Models and Computer Simulations

Aluminum alloy cleanliness has been in the limelight during the last three decades and still remains as one of the top concerns in the aluminum casting industry. In general, cleaning an aluminum alloy refers to minimizing the following contaminants: 1) dissolved gases, especially hydrogen, 2) alkaline elements, such as sodium, lithium, and calcium, and 3) unwanted solid particles, such as oxides, carbides, and a variety of intermetallic compounds. Extensive research has resulted in significant improvements in our understanding of the various aspects of these contaminants, and in many foundries, melt-cleansing practices have been established and are routinely used. However, with the ever-increasing demands for improved casting properties, requirements for molten metal cleanliness has become extremely stringent. Rotary degassing is one of the most efficient ways of cleansing molten metals, thus removal of unwanted particles and dissolved hydrogen from molten aluminum alloys by rotary degassing has become a widely used foundry practice. Rotary degassing involves purging a gas into the molten alloy through holes in a rotating impeller. Monatomic dissolved hydrogen either diffuses into these gas bubbles or it forms diatomic hydrogen gas at the bubbles’ surface; in any case, it is removed from the melt with the rising bubbles. Simultaneously, solid particles in the melt collide with one another due to turbulence created by the impeller and form aggregates. These aggregates either settle to the furnace floor, or are captured by the rising gas bubbles and are also removed from the melt. The objective of this work is to understand the physical mechanisms underlying the removal of dissolved hydrogen and unwanted solid particles from molten aluminum alloys by the rotating impeller degasser, and to develop a methodology for the effective use of the degassing process by providing mathematical models and computer simulations of the process. The models and simulations can be used to optimize the process, design new equipment and determine the cause of specific operational problems

An AR Enhancement of Printed Educational Resources: Keeping printed educational materials competitive in a digital age

Digital resources have begun to take over our educational system and overshadow traditional printed resources. While these digital resources are becoming increasingly popular research has shown that printed resources have notable benefits that should not be dismissed. Enhancing these printed resources with augmented reality (AR) technology will allow them to be competitive with digital resources while preserving their academic benefits. The readily available smart devices carried in the pockets of most students have already prepared many classrooms for the use of AR. The interactive and visual potential of AR makes it an appealing educational tool that can dramatically improve the experience of learning with printed resources. This project will utilize 3D and animation graphics to simulate the use of AR on a selected set of existing texts

Verification of SD/MMC Controller IP Using UVM

Wide spread IP reuse in SoC Designs has enabled meteoric development of derivative designs. Several hardware block IPs are integrated together to reduce production costs, time-to-fab/timeto- market and achieve higher levels of productivity. These block IPs must be verified independently before shipping to ensure proper working and conformance to protocols that they are implementing. But, since the application of these IPs will vary from SoC to SoC, the verification environment must consider the important features and functions that are critical for that application. This may mean, revamping the entire testbench to verify the application critical features. Verification takes a major chunk of the total time of the manufacturing cycle. Thus, Verification IPs are created that can be re-used by making minor modifications to the existing test bench. In this project, an Open Cores IP – “SD/MMC Card Controller” (written in Verilog) is re-used by adding an interrupt line and card-detect feature and is verified using Universal Verification Methodology (UVM). The SD/MMC Card Controller has Wishbone as the Host Controller and SPI Master as the Core Controller. The test environment is layered and can be reused. This means, if this IP is re-designed to be controlled by another Host Controller (AXI for example), the verification environment can be re-used by inserting the BFM of that host controller. This paper discusses SD/MMC, Wishbone bus and SPI protocols, along with SD/MMC Controller and UVM based test-bench architecture

Geographies of violence.

Through Geographies of Violence, Marcus Doel, Professor of Human Geography at Swansea University, allows us to delve into a ‘carnival of cannibalism’. His monograph is a veritable curiosity cabinet of violence and terror that permits readers to explore tales of horror in a lineage that ‘is neither logical, nor causal, nor geographical, nor historical’. It is this montage approach that is the book's strength and weakness

Kelly Bogue: the divisive state of social policy.

This is a book review of Kelly Bogue's The divisive state of social policy. Divided into seven chapters and an appendix with participant information and demographics, the book weaves together several theoretical and empirical strands. Chapters 1 and 2 set the stage for the subsequent empirical chapters, describing the genesis of the Bedroom Tax and outlining the history of social housing in the UK, neatly guiding the reader to understand the politics inherent in social housing. While these chapters are the least fervent of the book, Bogue’s concise definitions and particularly her description of how the ‘age of austerity’ came to define current British politics, are exceptional

"Fowl" play: reverse place-branding of Toxteth, Liverpool through the celebrity discourse of Robbie Fowler.

In the past two decades, there has been a rise in literature - within the disciplines of human geography, urban studies and sociology - that focuses on place-branding or the highlighting of a place's unique attribute for commercial, competitive or reputational gain (Andrews and Jackson, 2001; Crawford, 2004; Wise and Harris, 2010). Place-branding can focus on the national scale where postmodern forms of 'soft power' are exercised in order to promote state foreign policy (van Ham, 2008), or it can scale down to the individual town or city (Ashworth, 2009). Regardless of scale, through place-branding places are marketized and 'branded' to improve image, tourism, investment and other forms of profit-making. Often, the notion of celebrity is connected to place in the process of place-branding in the hope that the symbolic and cultural capital of the celebrity will transfer to place and improve the area's reputation. Celebrity place-branding is usually seen to be unidirectional, with the positive social, cultural and economic capital of the celebrity transferring to place. What happens when, rather than the discourse of celebrity being fed into the discourse of place, the discourse of place is fed into the discourse of celebrity? What happens when the symbolic value being transferred is not positive? Ultimately, I ask what happens when a symbolically stigmatized place is entered into the discourse of the celebrity? What happens to both place and celebrity in this role reversal? This paper examines these questions by using the case study of Liverpool Football Club (LFC) striker Robbie Fowler and his hometown of Toxteth in Liverpool. Fowler experienced a chequered career in British football, marred by several high-profile political and cultural faux pas (Tanner, 1997; Burton, 1999), while remaining an icon for LFC supporters

Molecular Dissection of the Cellular Reponse to Dengue Virus Infection

The immune response to viral infection involves a complexity of both innate and adaptive pathways at the cellular and the molecular level. There are many approaches to begin to define the pathways at work to control viral pathogenesis. The approach favored in this thesis was to conduct a broad screen of the innate immune response at the gene expression level of infected cells. The innate immune response is critical to the control of viral infections. Type I interferons (IFN), IFNα and IFNβ, are antiviral proteins that are an integral part of the innate immune response. Furthermore, by virtue of their effects on maturation and activation of antigen-presenting cells, IFNs are a pivotal link between the innate and adaptive immune systems. Most cell types produce type-I IFN when exposed to viruses. However, viruses have evolved multiple strategies to suppress IFN production or signaling. It is imperative to understand the virus-host interaction at the molecular level in order to identify as yet unknown mechanisms of the host antiviral response; these additional pathways may be useful in counteracting the viral suppression of IFN. Type-I IFNs regulate expression of at least five hundred genes, suggesting a complex network of signaling pathways. Depending on the cell type different proteins regulate the induction of IFN or the expression of IFN-inducible genes. Identification of proteins that induce selected IFN-inducible genes may provide synergistic activity with or may have an advantage over type-I IFN for anti-viral therapy in the future. Many diseases are untreatable if identified late in their progression. In resource-limited countries, many diseases are diagnosed clinically, which can lead to incorrect or delayed diagnosis and treatment. The identification of biomarkers of disease has the potential to guide the correct therapy in a timely fashion. The objective of this thesis was to identify novel anti-viral therapies and disease biomarkers for dengue virus (DENV) infection. DENV is a mosquito-borne positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus, which causes an estimated 50 million infections annually. Most DENV infections result in a febrile illness called Dengue fever (DF). Less frequently, infections cause Dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), a potentially fatal vascular leakage syndrome associated with the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. At present patients infected with DENV can only be treated by intravenous fluid support to prevent hypovolemia and hypotensive shock. This treatment is less effective in severe cases if the diagnosis is delayed. Identification of therapeutics with both antiviral and immune-modulatory activity may lower patient mortality and reduce the burden of DENV on society. DENV infection is cleared in most individuals after a short period of viremia {Libraty, 2002 #2225}. Based on in vitro and mouse models, type-I and type-II IFN signaling pathways are thought to be critical in the regulation of DENV infection. Higher serum levels of type I and type II IFNs during acute DENV infection in patients lend support to the above hypothesis {Kurane, 1993 #2152; Libraty, 2002 #2225}. To understand the DENV-human host cell interaction at the molecular level, we performed global gene expression analysis on DENV-infected primary human cells using Affymetrix GeneChips (HG-U133A). We studied dendritic cells (DC), monocytes, B cells and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), all of which are known to be permissive to DENV infection. We first identified genes commonly regulated in multiple cell types in response to DENV infection; we hypothesized that understanding this common gene expression profile would identify signaling pathways involved in regulation of viral spread, activation of immune cells or induction of inflammation. Tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL), one of the 23 common response genes, was identified as a key link between type I and type II interferon response genes. Pretreatment of cells with recombinant TRAIL (rTRAIL) inhibited DENV replication in monocytes, B cells, HUVECs and DCs. Using the DC infection model, we showed that this inhibition of viral replication was apoptosis-independent. Type-I IFN receptor (IFNR) blocking experiments showed that signaling through the type-I IFN receptor played an important role in the antiviral activity of exogenous rTRAIL. Furthermore, TRAIL also significantly reduced the expression of mRNA and protein of pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNFα, MIP-1β and IFNα) and chemokines (MCP-2, IP-10 and IL-6) in response to DENV infection. The data that TRAIL inhibits both viral replication and pro-inflammatory cytokine production suggest that TRAIL has therapeutic value in dengue. The endothelial cell is the site of pathology in DENV infection in vivo (vascular permeability and plasma leakage). To understand the direct effect of DENV infection on endothelial cells and its role in the induction of genes regulating vascular permeability, we compared gene expression in DENV-infected HUVECs to that of uninfected cells and cells infected with other RNA and DNA viruses, including flaviviruses (West Nile, yellow fever, and Japanese encephalitis viruses), bunyaviruses (Sin Nombre and Hantaan viruses), Epstein-Barr virus and vaccinia virus. Among the genes confirmed for their differential expression, ST2 (Interkeukin-1 receptor-like-1 protein-IL1RL1) and indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) were identified to be upregulated specifically in response to DENV infection. Higher serum soluble ST2 (sST2) levels were detected in DENV-infected patients than in patients with other febrile illnesses (OFI) at the end of the febrile stage and at defervescence (p=0.0088 and p=0.0004, respectively). In addition, patients with secondary DENV infections had higher serum sST2 levels compared with patients with primary DENV infections (p=0.047 at the last day of fever and p=0.030 at defervescence). Higher levels of IDO activity (pIn conclusion, global gene expression analysis identified novel proteins with promising characteristics for the treatment and/or diagnosis of DENV infection. Although further studies will be needed to validate the clinical utility of TRAIL, sST2, and IDO, these studies demonstrate the utility of this unbiased genomics approach to identify therapies to currently incurable diseases