Genius in Bondage: Literature of the Early Black Atlantic

Until fairly recently, critical studies and anthologies of African American literature generally began with the 1830s and 1840s. Yet there was an active and lively transatlantic black literary tradition as early as the 1760s. Genius in Bondage situates this literature in its own historical terms, rather than treating it as a sort of prologue to later African American writings. The contributors address the shifting meanings of race and gender during this period, explore how black identity was cultivated within a capitalist economy, discuss the impact of Christian religion and the Enlightenment on definitions of freedom and liberty, and identify ways in which black literature both engaged with and rebelled against Anglo-American culture. This is an excellent, indeed a monumental collection of essays, one that will set the standard for scholarship in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Black Atlantic studies for years to come. —Adam Potkay A reminder that literature is a complex language because, regardless of condition, circumstance, class, or colour, people are endowed with genuine feelings and complicated thoughts that make up the human experience. —Dalhousie Review By introducing new texts and offering new perspectives on early Black writers, Genius in Bondage confirms the vigor of early Black Atlantic studies and the genius of the literature it represents. —Early American Literature Moves us back in time and significantly beyond the constraints of analysis rooted in the search for the origins of a unique African American literary tradition. Students will ignore eighteenth-century black autobiography at their peril. —Journal of American History This superb collection on the range of early black literary activity constitutes cutting-edge scholarship. . . . A work of enormous significance. —Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodalahttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature_british_isles/1075/thumbnail.jp

Rationality and Behavior Feedback in a Model of Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication

Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication is intended to improve road safety through distributed information sharing; however, this type of system faces a design challenge: it is difficult to predict and optimize how human agents will respond to the introduction of this information. Bayesian games are a standard approach for modeling such scenarios; in a Bayesian game, agents probabilistically adopt various types on the basis of a fixed, known distribution. Agents in such models ostensibly perform Bayesian inference, which may not be a reasonable cognitive demand for most humans. To complicate matters, the information provided to agents is often implicitly dependent on agent behavior, meaning that the distribution of agent types is a function of the behavior of agents (i.e., the type distribution is endogenous). In this paper, we study an existing model of V2V communication, but relax it along two dimensions: first, we pose a behavior model which does not require human agents to perform Bayesian inference; second, we pose an equilibrium model which avoids the challenging endogenous recursion. Surprisingly, we show that the simplified non-Bayesian behavior model yields the exact same equilibrium behavior as the original Bayesian model, which may lend credibility to Bayesian models. However, we also show that the original endogenous equilibrium model is strictly necessary to obtain certain informational paradoxes; these paradoxes do not appear in the simpler exogenous model. This suggests that standard Bayesian game models with fixed type distributions are not sufficient to express certain important phenomena.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

Briefing: UK Ministry of Defence Force Protection Engineering Programme

The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory sponsored, QinetiQ-led Force Protection Engineering Research Programme has two main strands, applied and underpinning research. The underpinning strand is led by Blastech Ltd. One focus of this research is into the response of geomaterials to threat loading. The programme on locally won fill is split into four main characterisation strands: high-stress (GPa) static pressure–volume; medium-rate pressure–volume (split Hopkinson bar); high-rate (flyer plate) pressure–volume; and unifying modelling research at the University of Sheffield, which has focused on developing a high-quality dataset for locally won fill in low and medium strain rates. With the test apparatus at Sheffield well-controlled tests can be conducted at both high strain rate and pseudo-static rates up to stress levels of 1 GPa. The University of Cambridge has focused on using one-dimensional shock experiments to examine high-rate pressure–volume relationships. Both establishments are examining the effect of moisture content and starting density on emergent rate effects. Blastech Ltd has been undertaking carefully controlled fragment impact experiments, within the dataspace developed by the Universities of Sheffield and Cambridge. The data from experiments are unified by the QinetiQ-led modelling team, to predict material behaviour and to derive a scalable locally won fill model for use in any situation

Androgen-dependent mammary carcinogenesis in rats transgenic for the Neu proto-oncogene

AbstractTransgenic rats were created with overexpression of the Neu proto-oncogene in the mammary gland of both sexes, yet only males developed mammary cancer in an androgen-dependent fashion. Transgenic females only developed mammary cancer if treated with androgens. These tumors were positive for androgen receptor (AR), but negative for estrogen and progesterone receptors. Extensive analysis failed to detect mutations anywhere within the neu transgene from mammary carcinomas. Established mammary carcinomas eventually escaped their dependency on androgens. Transgenic long-term gonadectomized rats did not develop mammary cancer, but Neu overexpression stimulated the growth of their mammary glands. Our results suggest crosstalk between the Neu proto-oncogene and AR signaling pathways in the growth of both the normal and cancerous mammary epithelium

Particles driven to diffraction

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62723/1/413117a0.pd

Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine contains Substantial and Unexpected Amounts of Defective Viral Genomic RNA

The live attenuated influenza vaccine FluMist® was withdrawn in the USA by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after its failure to provide adequate protective immunity during 2013–2016. The vaccine uses attenuated core type A and type B viruses, reconfigured each year to express the two major surface antigens of the currently circulating viruses. Here Fluenz™ Tetra, the European version of this vaccine, was examined directly for defective-interfering (DI) viral RNAs. DI RNAs are deleted versions of the infectious virus genome, and have powerful biological properties including attenuation of infection, reduction of infectious virus yield, and stimulation of some immune responses. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction followed by cloning and sequencing showed that Fluenz™ vaccine contains unexpected and substantial amounts of DI RNA arising from both its influenza A and influenza B components, with 87 different DI RNA sequences identified. Flu A DI RNAs from segment 3 replaced the majority of the genomic full-length segment 3, thus compromising its infectivity. DI RNAs arise during vaccine production and non-infectious DI virus replaces infectious virus pro rata so that fewer doses of the vaccine can be made. Instead the vaccine carries a large amount of non-infectious but biologically active DI virus. The presence of DI RNAs could significantly reduce the multiplication in the respiratory tract of the vaccine leading to reduced immunizing efficacy and could also stimulate the host antiviral responses, further depressing vaccine multiplication. The role of DI viruses in the performance of this and other vaccines requires further investigation

Photometric Catalogue of Quasars and Other Point Sources in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We present a catalogue of about 6 million unresolved photometric detections in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Seventh Data Release classifying them into stars, galaxies and quasars. We use a machine learning classifier trained on a subset of spectroscopically confirmed objects from 14th to 22nd magnitude in the SDSS {\it i}-band. Our catalogue consists of 2,430,625 quasars, 3,544,036 stars and 63,586 unresolved galaxies from 14th to 24th magnitude in the SDSS {\it i}-band. Our algorithm recovers 99.96% of spectroscopically confirmed quasars and 99.51% of stars to i $\sim$21.3 in the colour window that we study. The level of contamination due to data artefacts for objects beyond $i=21.3$ is highly uncertain and all mention of completeness and contamination in the paper are valid only for objects brighter than this magnitude. However, a comparison of the predicted number of quasars with the theoretical number counts shows reasonable agreement.Comment: 16 pages, Ref. No. MN-10-2382-MJ.R2, accepted for publication in MNRAS Main Journal, April 201

Prison-Based Dog Training Programs: Standard Protocol

Across the United States, the number of prison-based dog training programs (PDPs) has increased substantially over the past several years. Currently, there are approximately 255 PDPs across 47 states that operate in a variety of correctional settings; however, there is little information available on how to successfully develop and implement a PDP. As a result, the research team from the Institute for Human-Animal Connection (IHAC) has developed a standard protocol to help guide PDP development and implementation. This report identifies common practices of PDPs and incorporates both general and context-specific recommendations that were gathered from interviews with PDP staff, relevant literature, and content experts. In total, 21 interviews with 20 programs were conducted. PDPs were asked about several program features, including policies and procedures, key personnel, funding, materials, physical spaces, supervision and monitoring, safety considerations, animal welfare, handler selection and training, and program benefits. This report highlights the benefits of PDPs to dogs, humans, prisons, local communities, and society as a whole and identifies challenges related to funding, staffing, and operating in a correctional setting. Findings from the protocol point to the importance of planning, staffing, communication, internal support, and training curriculum in successful program implementation

The brown dwarf desert as a consequence of orbital migration

We show that the dearth of brown dwarfs in short-period orbits around Solar-mass stars - the brown dwarf desert - can be understood as a consequence of inward migration within an evolving protoplanetary disc. Brown dwarf secondaries forming at the same time as the primary star have masses which are comparable to the initial mass of the protoplanetary disc. Subsequent disc evolution leads to inward migration, and destruction of the brown dwarf, via merger with the star. This is in contrast with massive planets, which avoid this fate by forming at a later epoch when the disc is close to being dispersed. Within this model, a brown dwarf desert arises because the mass at the hydrogen burning limit is coincidentally comparable to the initial disc mass for a Solar mass star. Brown dwarfs should be found in close binaries around very low mass stars, around other brown dwarfs, and around Solar-type stars during the earliest phases of star formation.Comment: MNRAS (Letters), in pres