1% left of 100: Taino History and Puerto Rican Identity

1% left of 100 is a documentary poetics research project exploring the confluence of identity, family, and language. Crafted in a hybrid format that mixes Spanish and English according to my personal idiolect, which is itself a product of my heritage as a Puerto Rican, Africa, native Taino American, this poem engages with exciting new approaches to thinking about race which liberate us from talking about physical features and takes us instead toward race as a social fact, a product of culture, history, and family. I seek to intervene in a narrative of American history that, though it teaches about first contact for Africans, and Spanish and Carribean peoples, seldom offers the voices of the natives who have occupied the islands before their arrival. I ask: who were those who self-identified as Taino? Where are the Taino? Can a people be erased? In similarity to Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee, a memoir-poem about the Japanese occupation of Korea, I see to claim a feminist genealogy. I argue that language is part of going back to mother and grandmother and generations farther back. How have my mothers and their mothers spoken Spanish---the third most spoken language in the world. There are 90,000 words in its vocabulary, yet only 300 words originate from Taino’s native speech. Again, I argue against the outsized lament for purity, for Pure Taino people who are “extinct.” Instead, with my project I try to demonstrate that no one person can truly claim to be purely indigenously Taino. To hold a part of history isn’t only for DNA to choose for us. Who we are can be a cultural claim in body and soul. This project draws on historical archives as well as personal familial archives to tell a new kind of historical race narrative. 1% left of 100 integrates Taino and Puerto Rican history with my family language and history. I present early memories woven with digital images from family photo albums as I also integrate critical sources and historical documents. Telling my ancestors’ story as well as my own offers up a poetics of witness. The war of the Taino existence is stuck to repeat itself within me now. Connecting life to picture to archive is the linkage to making 1% left of 100

Non-parallel articulatory-to-acoustic conversion using multiview-based time warping

In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm called multiview temporal alignment by dependence maximisation in the latent space (TRANSIENCE) for the alignment of time series consisting of sequences of feature vectors with different length and dimensionality of the feature vectors. The proposed algorithm, which is based on the theory of multiview learning, can be seen as an extension of the well-known dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm but, as mentioned, it allows the sequences to have different dimensionalities. Our algorithm attempts to find an optimal temporal alignment between pairs of nonaligned sequences by first projecting their feature vectors into a common latent space where both views are maximally similar. To do this, powerful, nonlinear deep neural network (DNN) models are employed. Then, the resulting sequences of embedding vectors are aligned using DTW. Finally, the alignment paths obtained in the previous step are applied to the original sequences to align them. In the paper, we explore several variants of the algorithm that mainly differ in the way the DNNs are trained. We evaluated the proposed algorithm on a articulatory-to-acoustic (A2A) synthesis task involving the generation of audible speech from motion data captured from the lips and tongue of healthy speakers using a technique known as permanent magnet articulography (PMA). In this task, our algorithm is applied during the training stage to align pairs of nonaligned speech and PMA recordings that are later used to train DNNs able to synthesis speech from PMA data. Our results show the quality of speech generated in the nonaligned scenario is comparable to that obtained in the parallel scenario

Dignidad, Poder, Resistencia // Dignity, Power, Resistance

First To Go Abroad is a partnership between the Loyola Marymount University First To Go Program, LMU Study Abroad, and the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), which seeks to increase study abroad opportunities for first-generation college students. In May 2017, fifteen first-gen students and two first-gen faculty mentors traveled together to Santiago, Dominican Republic, where they spent ten days exploring the country and learning about the local cultures, customs, and histories of the people who call the DR home. Travel is a privilege not all students have the same access to; for some students, this trip was the first time out of the United States. Like the first-generation college experience, the experience of international travel is marked by daily encounters with new spaces, people, and cultural practices that can be at once overwhelming and inspiring. This was a topic of exploration throughout the trip and the subject of the pages contained in this volume. The narratives published here are the product of a cross-institutional writing workshop, where students from LMU and the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra worked together to draft essays documenting their encounters with change that have pushed boundaries, broken down borders, and generated personal growth. We hope our readers around the world will appreciate these works, which showcase the transformative power of creative and collaborative global encounters

Epithelial HMGB1 delays skin wound healing and drives tumor initiation by priming neutrophils for NET formation

Regenerative responses predispose tissues to tumor formation by largely unknown mechanisms. High-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) is a danger-associated molecular pattern contributing to inflammatory pathologies. We show that HMGB1 derived from keratinocytes, but not myeloid cells, delays cutaneous wound healing and drives tumor formation. In wounds of mice lacking HMGB1 selectively in keratinocytes, a marked reduction in neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation is observed. Pharmacological targeting of HMGB1 or NETs prevents skin tumorigenesis and accelerates wound regeneration. HMGB1-dependent NET formation and skin tumorigenesis is orchestrated by tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and requires RIPK1 kinase activity. NETs are present in the microenvironment of keratinocyte-derived tumors in mice and lesional and tumor skin of patients suffering from recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, a disease in which skin blistering predisposes to tumorigenesis. We conclude that tumorigenicity of the wound microenvironment depends on epithelial-derived HMGB1 regulating NET formation, thereby establishing a mechanism linking reparative inflammation to tumor initiation

Desarrollo municipal. Una visión contemporánea

Para los estudiosos y el público interesado en los asuntos municipales, 2013 fue un año emblemático porque se cumplieron tres décadas de la reforma al artículo 115 constitucional, precepto que sustancia la vida institucional de los municipios mexicanos. La vida municipal, merced a este periodo, se ha revitalizado, aunque de manera diferenciada entre caso y caso, pues la heterogeneidad económica, política y social persiste, así como sus efectos adversos, sobre los municipios más rezagados; ello es recordatorio de las deudas pendientes del Estado con esta expresión local. Tal revitalización ha alcanzado a la discusión académica con un resultado exuberante en producción editorial que da cuenta de significativos cambios en la vida asociada

Desafíos de las metrópolis: Efectos ambientales y sociales. Tendencias geográficas II

El libro está conformado de estudios realizados por profesores-investigadores de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, de la Universidad de Varsovia, así como de la Universidad Pedagógica Comisión de Educación Nacional de Cracovia. En esta obra se exponen algunas investigaciones sobre los cambios en los factores sociales, naturales, económicos y ambientales como principales desafios que presentan las zonas de México, Polonia y de contextos de Sudamérica, tales como Sao Paulo, Quito y Bogotá y ciudades medias y pequeñas.Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Méxic

Characterization of individuals at high risk of developing melanoma in Latin America: bases for genetic counseling in melanoma

PURPOSE: CDKN2A is the main high-risk melanoma-susceptibility gene, but it has been poorly assessed in Latin America. We sought to analyze CDKN2A and MC1R in patients from Latin America with familial and sporadic multiple primary melanoma (SMP) and compare the data with those for patients from Spain to establish bases for melanoma genetic counseling in Latin America. METHODS: CDKN2A and MC1R were sequenced in 186 Latin American patients from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay, and in 904 Spanish patients. Clinical and phenotypic data were obtained. RESULTS: Overall, 24 and 14% of melanoma-prone families in Latin America and Spain, respectively, had mutations in CDKN2A. Latin American families had CDKN2A mutations more frequently (P = 0.014) than Spanish ones. Of patients with SMP, 10% of those from Latin America and 8.5% of those from Spain had mutations in CDKN2A (P = 0.623). The most recurrent CDKN2A mutations were c.-34G>T and p.G101W. Latin American patients had fairer hair (P = 0.016) and skin (P < 0.001) and a higher prevalence of MC1R variants (P = 0.003) compared with Spanish patients. CONCLUSION: The inclusion criteria for genetic counseling of melanoma in Latin America may be the same criteria used in Spain, as suggested in areas with low to medium incidence, SMP with at least two melanomas, or families with at least two cases among first- or second-degree relatives.Genet Med 18 7, 727-736

The antimicrobial effects of the alginate oligomer OligoG CF-5/20 are independent of direct bacterial cell membrane disruption

Concerns about acquisition of antibiotic resistance have led to increasing demand for new antimicrobial therapies. OligoG CF-5/20 is an alginate oligosaccharide previously shown to have antimicrobial and antibiotic potentiating activity. We investigated the structural modification of the bacterial cell wall by OligoG CF-5/20 and its effect on membrane permeability. Binding of OligoG CF-5/20 to the bacterial cell surface was demonstrated in Gram-negative bacteria. Permeability assays revealed that OligoG CF-5/20 had virtually no membrane-perturbing effects. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) surface charge and aggregation were unaltered in the presence of OligoG CF-5/20. Small angle neutron scattering and circular dichroism spectroscopy showed no substantial change to the structure of LPS in the presence of OligoG CF-5/20, however, isothermal titration calorimetry demonstrated a weak calcium-mediated interaction. Metabolomic analysis confirmed no change in cellular metabolic response to a range of osmolytes when treated with OligoG CF-5/20. This data shows that, although weak interactions occur between LPS and OligoG CF-5/20 in the presence of calcium, the antimicrobial effects of OligoG CF-5/20 are not related to the induction of structural alterations in the LPS or cell permeability. These results suggest a novel mechanism of action that may avoid the common route in acquisition of resistance via LPS structural modification