The enigmatic black bird’s poem and its performance in William Mkufya’s Ziraili na Zirani

This paper applies a post-structuralist literary framework when looking at the philosophical implications of William’s Mkufya’s novel Ziraili na Zirani. The analysis focuses on a free-verse poem per-formed by a black bird in hell. Moreover, there is a focus on the different genre forms at play, such as free-verse poetry and the novel, and an acknowledgement that an understanding of the text relies upon a consideration of these different genre conventions. Ultimately the paper shows how a reading of the text as it is presented in the novel, as a performance, demonstrates a realisation of the different genre conventions at play, thus taking their significance onto a different plain of analysis. Furthermore, attention is drawn to the application of a post-structuralist framework and the various contributions this theoretical model can make to a reading of the poem, notably an emphasis on the resistance to fixed meaning in favour of instability. This results in an exposition of the relevance of a post-structuralist literary framework to Mkufya’s critical reflection upon epistemology as it is portrayed in the black bird’s enigmatic performance, and the novel as a whole

Decadal to multidecadal variability and the climate change background

Three prominent quasi-global patterns of variability and change are observed using the Met Office's sea surface temperature (SST) analysis and almost independent night marine air temperature analysis. The first is a global warming signal that is very highly correlated with global mean SST. The second is a decadal to multidecadal fluctuation with some geographical similarity to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). It is associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and its Pacific-wide manifestation has been termed the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). We present model investigations of the relationship between the IPO and ENSO. The third mode is an interhemispheric variation on multidecadal timescales which, in view of climate model experiments, is likely to be at least partly due to natural variations in the thermohaline circulation. Observed climatic impacts of this mode also appear in model simulations. Smaller-scale, regional atmospheric phenomena also affect climate on decadal to interdecadal timescales. We concentrate on one such mode, the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). This shows strong decadal to interdecadal variability and a correspondingly strong influence on surface climate variability which is largely additional to the effects of recent regional anthropogenic climate change. The winter NAO is likely influenced by both SST forcing and stratospheric variability. A full understanding of decadal changes in the NAO and European winter climate may require a detailed representation of the stratosphere that is hitherto missing in the major climate models used to study climate change

The enigmatic black bird’s poem and its performance in William Mkufya’s Ziraili na Zirani

This paper applies a post-structuralist literary framework when looking at the philosophical implications of William’s Mkufya’s novel Ziraili na Zirani. The analysis focuses on a free-verse poem per-formed by a black bird in hell. Moreover, there is a focus on the different genre forms at play, such as free-verse poetry and the novel, and an acknowledgement that an understanding of the text relies upon a consideration of these different genre conventions. Ultimately the paper shows how a reading of the text as it is presented in the novel, as a performance, demonstrates a realisation of the different genre conventions at play, thus taking their significance onto a different plain of analysis. Furthermore, attention is drawn to the application of a post-structuralist framework and the various contributions this theoretical model can make to a reading of the poem, notably an emphasis on the resistance to fixed meaning in favour of instability. This results in an exposition of the relevance of a post-structuralist literary framework to Mkufya’s critical reflection upon epistemology as it is portrayed in the black bird’s enigmatic performance, and the novel as a whole

Accountability and ideology: when left looks right and right looks left

Abstract Managers face hard choices between process and outcome systems of accountability in evaluating employees, but little is known about how managers resolve them. Building on the premise that political ideologies serve as uncertainty-reducing heuristics, two studies of working managers show that: (1) conservatives prefer outcome accountability and liberals prefer process accountability in an unspecified policy domain; (2) this split becomes more pronounced in a controversial domain (public schools) in which the foreground value is educational efficiency but reverses direction in a controversial domain (affirmative action) in which the foreground value is demographic equality; (3) managers who discover employees have subverted their preferred system favor tinkering over switching to an alternative system; (4) but bipartisan consensus arises when managers have clear evidence about employee trustworthiness and the tightness of the causal links between employee effort and success. These findings shed light on ideological and contextual factors that shape preferences for accountability systems

Tevatron Combination of Single-Top-Quark Cross Sections and Determination of the Magnitude of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa Matrix Element Vtb\bf V_{tb}

We present the final combination of CDF and D0 measurements of cross sections for single-top-quark production in proton-antiproton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The data correspond to total integrated luminosities of up to 9.7 fb$^{−1}$ per experiment. The t-channel cross section is measured to be σ$_t$=2.25$_{-0.31}^{+0.29}$ pb. We also present the combinations of the two-dimensional measurements of the s- vs t-channel cross section. In addition, we give the combination of the s+t channel cross section measurement resulting in σ$_{s+t}$=3.30$_{-0.40}^{+0.52}$ pb, without assuming the standard model value for the ratio σ$_s$/σ$_t$. The resulting value of the magnitude of the top-to-bottom quark coupling is |V$_{tb}$|=1.02$_{-0.05}^{+0.06}$, corresponding to |V$_{tb}$|>0.92 at the 95% C.L

Combined Forward-Backward Asymmetry Measurements in Top-Antitop Quark Production at the Tevatron

International audienceThe CDF and D0 experiments at the Fermilab Tevatron have measured the asymmetry between yields of forward- and backward-produced top and antitop quarks based on their rapidity difference and the asymmetry between their decay leptons. These measurements use the full data sets collected in proton-antiproton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of s=1.96  TeV. We report the results of combinations of the inclusive asymmetries and their differential dependencies on relevant kinematic quantities. The combined inclusive asymmetry is AFBtt¯=0.128±0.025. The combined inclusive and differential asymmetries are consistent with recent standard model predictions