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En la última década se ha producido una excelente historiografía sobre el impacto de la revolución haitiana en la política esclavista y antiesclavista de Cuba y el Caribe; la importancia militar, económica y cultural de los africanos para la construcción del Atlántico ibérico; y el uso por parte de los esclavizados de las leyes coloniales para procurar la libertad. Lo mismo, sin embargo, no se puede decir del campo de estudios literarios, que, en los quince años transcurridos desde el imponente libro Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution de Sibylle Fischer, no ha producido semejante innovación.

Introduction Ocean Worlds, and their subsurface oceans, are prime targets in the search for exobiology. Access to these sub-ice oceans presents many engineering challenges. THOR (Thermal High-voltage Ocean-penetrator Research platform) is a prototype for a new class of Ocean World exploration vehicle which combines elements of an ice-penetrator (cryobot) and an ocean-profiler (sonde). This ice/ocean profiler (IOP) will carry a sampling subsystem and spatial, environmental, and life-detection sensors to characterize the ice and water column. Using the THOR platform and sensor suite, we are developing test strategies and behaviors for autonomous exploration and sampling as the vehicle descends through an ice column and into and through a subglacial lake. THOR is funded through the NASA PSTAR program (Grant 80NSSC18K1738). THOR builds upon three breakthroughs in cryobot technology achieved in the NASA-funded VALKYRIE and SPINDLE projects: Onboard closed-cycle hot-water drilling (CCHWD); small-diameter high-voltage, high-power tether technology; and high voltage fluid-resistor water heating. These concepts were tested as sub-scale assemblies in the lab or in limited field tests. THOR scales up and integrates these approaches into a high-efficiency cryobot that is sized to incorporate the Kilopower fission reactor as its thermal power source. With hot water jets in the nose and tail, THOR can melt its way both downwards through ice as well as upwards through the refrozen ice behind it. The vehicle concept is the first to incorporate a Vertical Motion Control System (VMCS) that includes onboard servo spoolers to pay out or retrieve power, communications, and strength tethers as the vehicle descends or ascends. Our goal with THOR is to conduct the first cryobot descent into a terrestrial subglacial lake. Here we present the Phase I vehicle final design, key features of the operational core CCHWD system, and the recent results of lab testing of a simulated 700 m continuous descent in temperate glacier ice conditions and penetration tests through ice containing tephra deposits. Vehicle Architecture THOR is a flight-scale cryobot based on closed-cycle hot water drill technology. CCHWD has been demonstrated to achieve a melting metric (kWH/m3 of melted ice) of approximately twice that of passive thermal probes and can penetrate glacial debris in polar regions on Earth. THOR is sized to carry the NASA 40 kWth Kilopower reactor as the thermal and electrical power source for future sub-ice missions to Europa and other Ocean World targets. THOR Phase I work focused on the design and performance of the CCHWD melt head. Currently, the Kilopower reactor is not available for terrestrial cryobot testing, so we needed to emulate the Kilopower geometry and thermal output with a nuclear surrogate. There are three key components to the THOR power transmission approach. To create a nuclear surrogate, surface power is currently provided by a diesel generator (50 kW single phase 240 AC; the system is designed to handle up to 100 kW). Power is then routed to an up-converter that raises the voltage to 10 kV AC. Finally, a small fraction of power is converted for use by the onboard pumps, computers, sensors, and valves. The full 10 kV is used directly in the thermal power conversion module, known as HOTSHOT. The estimated descent performance in temperate ice is approximately 10 m/hour at 50 kW input power. Figure 1. THOR Phase I and Phase II Vehicle Architecture In general the cryobot descent speed will be inversely proportional to the square of the vehicle diameter and directly proportional to the ice temperature (which varies with depth) and the input power. On the basis of a kWH/m3 performance metric, THOR will compete with traditional terrestrial hot water drills in terms of speed. Its logistics footprint, however, is substantially smaller. Furthermore, bi-directional cryobots like THOR enable persistent subglacial science. Larger diameter cryobots can be used to transport, release, and retrieve science payloads as well as autonomous vehicles to subglacial aqueous environments. HOTSHOT: Turning Lightning Bolts into Heat The CCHWD system forms the core of the THOR technologies developed for Phase I. The goal of the system is to enable THOR to achieve high penetration rates by using high-pressure water jets to rapidly transfer heat into the ice from a novel direct high voltage heater system called HOTSHOT. The HOTSHOT technology is a critical enabler for terrestrial cryobot missions which are not able to use nuclear power sources. The HOTSHOT heater developed for THOR passes high-voltage (10 kV), low current, AC power through a moving conducting fluid. This creates resistive heating in the fluid with 100% efficiency without inducing electrolysis. Power densities as high as 600 kW/liter have been achieved with the HOTSHOT design. The overall system consists of two loops: a completely internal fully-closed process loop to allow for tight control of the fluid resistivity in HOTSHOT, and the environmental loop which heats the surrounding ice via jetting. The HOTSHOT concept has been extensively tested at Stone Aerospace and was used during the full power 72 hour burn test. Figure 2. HOTSHOT, a novel direct high voltage heater system Long Duration Testing: Simulating an Antarctic Mission Due to the Covid-19 pandemic we were not able to perform field tests of THOR at the Matanuska Glacier (Alaska, USA) as we originally planned. Instead we tested the integrated THOR CCHWD melt head at full power in a simulated long duration mission. This Long Duration Test (LDT) simulated a 700 m ice penetrating mission by operating THOR in an insulated subzero (-0.5 C) water bath with a field-realistic power supply and high voltage (9.2 kV avg) delivery system. The vehicle achieved a peak thermal power of 45 kW and the HOTSHOT nuclear surrogate and sustained an average power of 37 kW over 72 hours of operation. The Closed Cycle Hot Water Drill (CCHWD) design delivered a 30 L/min flow from the nose jet at an average temperature 14C above the surrounding water. Optimizing the thermal distribution along the length of the cryobot is planned for Phase 2. Figure 3. Underwater still image capture in the test tank during THOR jet firing

This essay examines the histories of two enslaved Africans living in Cuba and sent to prison in the mid-nineteenth century, to consider the ways in which prison represented a path to freedom within...

The objective of this study was to compare the pick-up rate of pathogenic BRCA variants in those with a high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSOC) undergoing oncology-led testing with the traditio...

We describe the implementation of the Athletic Injury Database (AID), a mobile device-based tool for documenting sideline encounters with athletes. Primary measures of the implementation process were: 1) patterns of AID use, 2) nature of sideline encounters captured, and 3) providers' reported satisfaction. Over 2 yr, the AID captured 6237 sideline encounters by athletic trainers and physicians. Most encounters were among athletes participating in football (51%), soccer (15%), and basketball (12%). Knee and ankle injuries were most common. A total of 77% of sports medicine providers were satisfied with the AID. Providers can use information gleaned from a tool like the AID to improve documentation of care provided to athletes.

Dolores (Lolo) Soldevilla (1901-1971) was among the first Cuban artists to work in geometric abstraction, a member of the short-lived Grupo de Diez Pintores Concretos, and someone who continued working in abstraction until her death. In 1957 she also made an important trip to exhibit her art in Caracas, Venezuela, where local aesthetic and political debates would inform the founding of her own gallery in Havana that same year, Galeria Color-Luz. After the 1959 Cuban Revolution, however, Soldevilla also penned articles and an experimental novel, and briefly designed toys for the Instituto Nacional de Industrias Turisticas (INIT), an institution that in the early years of the Revolution fostered and oversaw artistic production in a number of unlikely spaces. This article examines Soldevilla's oeuvre from the late 1950s through the mid-1960s to reveal how her foundation in abstraction came to be inflected by three connected pressures: a revolutionary ideology of realizing immediate change and production, debates about the merits of figuration versus abstraction, and mid-century energy-driven developmentalism in an era of petroleum exploration. National plans for energy extraction and tourism in Cuba, philosophical understandings of energy as both actualized and potential, and period debates among Latin American artists and critics over figuration and abstraction all informed both ruptures and continuities in Soldevilla's work during these critical years, manifest in her painting, her novel El farol, her sculptures and in a design for a toy.

Protease-activated receptors (PARs) are a class of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) with a unique mechanism of activation, prompted by a proteolytic cleavage in their N-terminal domain that uncovers a tethered ligand, which binds and stimulates the same receptor. PARs subtypes (PAR1-4) have well-documented roles in coagulation, hemostasis, and inflammation, and have been deeply investigated for their function in cellular survival/degeneration, while their roles in the brain in physiological conditions remain less appreciated. Here, we describe PARs’ effects in the modulation of neurotransmission and synaptic plasticity. Available evidence, mainly concerning PAR1-mediated and PAR2-mediated regulation of glutamatergic and GABAergic transmission, supports that PARs are important modulators of synaptic efficacy and plasticity in normal conditions.

To identify risk factors, in 12 patients with junctional breakdown (JBD) after thoraco-sacral fusions and to test a software locating maximal bending moment on full spine EOS images. Twelve patients underwent long fusions for lumbar degenerative pathologies. Preop EOS images were compared to first postop EOS showing JBD. Parameters analyzed were: spinopelvic parameters [pelvic incidence (PI), pelvic tilt (PT), sacral slope (SS), sagittal vertical axis (SVA), spinosacral angle (SSA), lordosis, and kyphosis], proximal junctional angle (PJA), odontoid-hip axis angle (ODHA), and CIA. A new software estimated the location of maximum bending moment (M max) before and after JBD. All patients except one had a JBD located between T10 and L1, diagnosed at average follow-up of 18.58 months. JBD was a fracture in six patients, severe adjacent disc degeneration in the remaining. Average PI was 52°. PT increased, SS decreased after JBD versus preop (p > 0.05). Average PJA was 34.5°. Global lordosis (GLL), upper lordosis (ULL), L4–S1 lordosis, and thoracic kyphosis (TK) were increased (p 0.05). CIA average value decreased by 7.5% after JBD. T1–T5 alignment was correlated to C7 slope before (R 2 = 0.77075) and after JBD (R 2 = 0.85409). ODHA decreased after JBD (p > 0.05). Most JBD occurred at or one level away from preoperative M max location. This study confirms the importance of harmonious distribution of lumbar (GLL, ULL, and ILL) and thoracic curves (TK, T1–T5 segment) in thoraco-sacral fusions. All patients showed an exaggerated ULL, resulting in a posterior shift and increased lever arm at the thoraco-lumbar junction, leading to JBD.

This article explores a trend in contemporary Cuban art that takes the book as its subject and object. It attributes the renewed interest to factors ranging from a changing textual environment in public spaces to the rise of digital content to newly re-discovered traditions from historic and neo-avant-gardes, among others. It first maps out a number of new artworks about books, then turns in the second half to focus on two book-based art projects of particular note : La Maleza, an editorial project by Lester Alvarez, and a series of 2015 interventions into Havana's Fayad Jamis bookstore organized by Yornel Martinez, whose own artworks are also analyzed .

The adsorption of organic molecules on solid substrates is important to applications in fields such as catalysis, photovoltaics, corrosion inhibition, adhesion, and sensors. The molecular level description of the surface-molecule interaction and of the adsorption structures in these complex systems is crucial to understand their properties and function. Here we present the investigation of one such system, benzotriazole (BTAH) on single crystal Cu(111) in vacuum conditions. BTAH is the most widely used corrosion\ud inhibitor for copper and thus a molecule of great industrial relevance. We show that the co-application of a wide range of spectroscopic techniques with theoretical methods provides unique insight in the description of the atomistic details of the adsorbed structures. Specifically, spectroscopic photoemission, absorption and standing wave experiments combined with ab initio computational modeling allowed us to identify that benzotriazole forms overlayers of intact BTAH when deposited at low temperature and it dissociates into BTA and H at room temperature and above. The dissociated molecule then forms complex structures of mixed chains and dimers of BTA bound to copper adatoms. Our work also reveals that copper adatoms at low concentrations, such as the theoretically predicted superstructures cannot be be resolved by means of current X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) as the modelled Cu 2p spectra are practically indistinguishable from those for a Cu surface without adatoms. Overall this study significantly deepens understanding of BTAH on Cu - a system studied for more than 50 years - and it highlights the benefits of combining spectroscopic and computational methods in order to obtain a complete picture of a complex adsorption system.

Normal spino-pelvic values for patients with lumbarization of S1 have not been described in the literature. Presented are the normal values for this population group, the prevalence of S1 lumbarization, and the correlation between pelvic incidence (PI) and lumbar lordosis (LL) in this group. Two databases of asymptomatic patients were combined to identify 11 patients with the lumbarization of S1. The whole spine images were used to measure the true prevalence rate. Lumbar 3D EOS models were built to measure spino-pelvic parameters for the lumbarization group compared to the asymptomatic population. Seven patients appeared at first to have six lumbar vertebrae, but counting caudally from C2 showed this was not the case. 11/268 patients demonstrated the lumbarization of S1 to give a true prevalence rate of 4.1 %. The lumbarization group demonstrated a statistically significant difference with regard to PI, PT, and SS, and total lordosis measured from superior endplate of L1 to the superior endplate of the first fixed sacral segment. L6I was not significantly correlated to lordosis; however, PI did have a significant correlation with lordosis. Lordosis could be estimated in this group by the equation: $$ {\text{LL }} = 1.16 \times {\text{PI}} - 19.39 $$ . Incomplete imaging of the spine may lead to false estimation of the prevalence of lumbarization. Patients with lumbarization have higher lordosis values and lordosis can now be estimated during pre-operative planning for this group.

Cytokines produced in the tumour microenvironment exert an important role in cancer pathogenesis and in the inhibition of disease progression. Cancer of the cartilage is termed metastatic chondrosarcoma; however, the signaling events resulting in mesenchymal cell transformation to sarcoma have yet to be fully elucidated. The present study aimed to characterize the cytokine expression profile in the human JJ012 chondrosarcoma cell line, as well as the effect of cytostatic proline-rich polypeptide-1 (PRP-1). Western blot experiments demonstrated that the levels of suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS3) were upregulated in chondrocytes compared with chondrosarcoma cells. Addition of PRP-1 restored the expression of the tumor suppressors, SOCS3 and ten-eleven-translocation methylcytosine dioxygenase 1 and 2 (TET1/2), in a dose-responsive manner. It is known that methylation of histone H3K9 was eliminated from the promoters of the inflammation-associated genes. PRP-1 inhibited H3K9 demethylase activity with an IC50 (concentration required to give half-maximal inhibition) value of 3.72 µg/ml in the chondrosarcoma cell line. Data obtained from ELISA experiments indicated that the expression of interleukin-6 (IL-6) in chondrosarcoma cells was 86-fold lower compared with that in C28 chondrocytes. In the present study, a 53-fold downregulation of IL-6 expression in co-culture of chondrosarcoma cells and C28 chondrocytes was identified as well. Downregulation of IL-6 expression has been documented in numerous other tumor types, although the reasons for this have not been fully established. In chondrosarcoma, IL-6 manifests itself as an anti-inflammatory agent and, possibly, as an anti-tumorigenic factor. To explore protein-DNA interactions leading to such differences, a gel-shift chemiluminescent assay was performed. Gel shifts were observed for chondrosarcoma and chondrocytes in the lanes that contained nuclear cell extract and oligo-IL-6 DNA. Notably, the DNA-protein complexes in C28 chondrocytes were markedly larger compared with those in chondrosarcoma cells. The mechanisms that underpin such differences, and characterization of the interacting proteins, remain to be fully elucidated.

Near ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (NAP-XPS) is used to study the chemical state of methane oxidation catalysts in-situ. Al2O3–supported Pd catalysts are prepared with different particle sizes ranging from 4 to 10 nm. These catalysts were exposed to conditions similar to those used in the partial oxidation of methane (POM) to syn-gas and simultaneously monitored by NAP-XPS and mass spectrometry. NAP-XPS data show changes in the oxidation state of the palladium as the temperature increases, from metallic Pd0 to PdO, and back to Pd0. Mass spectrometry shows an increase in CO production whilst the Pd is in the oxide phase, and the metal is reduced back under presence of newly formed H2. A particle size effect is observed, such that CH4 conversion starts at lower temperatures with larger sized particles from 6 to 10 nm. We find that all nanoparticles begin CH4 conversion at lower temperatures than polycrystalline Pd foil.

Protease-activated receptor 1 (PAR1) is a G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR), whose activation requires a proteolytic cleavage in the extracellular domain exposing a tethered ligand, which binds to the same receptor thus stimulating Gαq/11-, Gαi/o- and Gα12-13 proteins. PAR1, activated by serine proteases and matrix metalloproteases, plays multifaceted roles in neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration, in stroke, brain trauma, Alzheimer's diseases, and Parkinson's disease (PD). Substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) is among areas with highest PAR1 expression, but current evidence on its roles herein is restricted to mechanisms controlling dopaminergic (DAergic) neurons survival, with controversial data showing PAR1 either fostering or counteracting degeneration in PD models. Since PAR1 functions on SNpc DAergic neurons activity are unknown, we investigated if PAR1 affects glutamatergic transmission in this neuronal population. We analyzed PAR1's effects on NMDARs and AMPARs by patch-clamp recordings from DAergic neurons from mouse midbrain slices. Then, we explored subunit composition of PAR1-sensitive NMDARs, with selective antagonists, and mechanisms underlying PAR1-induced NMDARs modulation, by quantifying NMDARs surface expression. PAR1 activation inhibits synaptic NMDARs in SNpc DAergic neurons, without affecting AMPARs. PAR1-sensitive NMDARs contain GluN2B/GluN2D subunits. Moreover, PAR1-mediated NMDARs hypofunction is reliant on NMDARs internalization, as PAR1 stimulation increases NMDARs intracellular levels and pharmacological limitation of NMDARs endocytosis prevents PAR1-induced NMDARs inhibition. We reveal that PAR1 regulates glutamatergic transmission in midbrain DAergic cells. This might have implications in brain's DA-dependent functions and in neurological/psychiatric diseases linked to DAergic dysfunctions.

The music information retrieval MIR community has long understood the role of evaluation as a critical component for successful information retrieval systems. Over the past several years, it has also become evident that user-centered evaluation based on realistic tasks is essential for creating systems that are commercially marketable. Although user-oriented research has been increasing, the MIR field is still lacking in holistic, user-centered approaches to evaluating music services beyond measuring the performance of search or classification algorithms. In light of this need, we conducted a user study exploring how users evaluate their overall experience with existing popular commercial music services, asking about their interactions with the system as well as situational and personal characteristics. In this paper, we present a qualitative heuristic evaluation of commercial music services based on Jakob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics for user interface design, and also discuss 8 additional criteria that may be used for the holistic evaluation of user experience in MIR systems. Finally, we recommend areas of future user research raised by trends and patterns that surfaced from this user study.

The purpose of the study is to describe the biomechanical theory explaining junctional breakdowns in thoraco-lumbar fusions, by taking the example of vertebral compression fractures. Also, a new angle, the cervical inclination angle (CIA), describing the relative position of the head at each vertebral level, is presented. For the CIA, the data were collected from 137 asymptomatic subjects of a prospective database, containing clinical and radiologic informations. All the 137 subjects have an Oswestry score less than 15% and a pain score less than 2/10 and were part of a previously published study describing the Odontoid-hip axis angle (ODHA). For each vertebral level from T1 to T12, the CIA as well as the vertical and horizontal distances was measured in reference to the sella turcica (ST), and a vertical line drawn from the ST. Average values and correlation coefficients were calculated. The CIA is an angle whose average value varies very little between T1 and T5 (74.9°–76.85°), and then increases progressively from T6 to T12. T1–T5 vertebra are always in line within the thoracic spine for each subject and can be considered as a straight T1–T5 segment. In addition, it was found that the vertical inclination of T1–T5 segment is correlated with the C7 slope (R 2 = 0.6383). The T1–T5 segment inclination is correlated with the C7 slope, and because the latter defines the cervical curve as previously shown, the T1–T5 segment can be considered as the base from which the cervical spine originates. Its role is, thus, similar to the pelvis and its sacral slope, which is the base from which the lumbar spine originates. The CIA along with the ODHA, which describes the adequacy of the global balance in young and elderly asymptomatic populations, are two important parameters that could help us to better understand junctional breakdowns in thoraco-lumbar fusion surgeries.

Recent experimental data have revealed that vortex-induced vibrations of long flexible cylinders are characterized by time intervals of chaotic response, followed or preceded by periods of statistically stationary response. A chaotic response is characterized by a broad-band PSD, while the steady response can have large higher harmonic stress components. Regions of chaotic response and the steady regions with large higher harmonic stress components contain distinctly different response features and have significant implications on the fatigue analysis. To quantify the effect of the higher harmonic force components and chaotic oscillations on fatigue damage of long flexible structures, we generate stress time series such that we can include or remove the higher harmonics, and also use either a narrow-band or broad-band PSD. This approach enables us to conduct a systematic study on the influence of each of these phenomena on the resulting fatigue damage. We show a dramatic increase in fatigue damage for signals containing higher harmonics. On the other hand, for chaotic stress signals, the fatigue damage is increased moderately, relative to a stress signal with a narrow-band PSD with the same total power.

Este artículo rescata, desde la esclavitud, un contradiscurso del romanticismo. Se enfoca en cómo la poesía de Juan Francisco Manzano, escritor cubano y ex-esclavo, reescribe el afecto típico del romanticismo cubano. Para Manzano, es la esclavitud la que se interpone entre los amantes y la que engendra, lejos de una patria anhelada desde afuera, la fantasía de escaparse de la isla y de los terrores asociados con el terreno cubano. Por ende, este ensayo reflexiona más detenidamente sobre la figura - poética, jurídica y ecológica - del “suelo” en varias obras. En particular, se compara un poema de José María Heredia de 1835 con otro de Manzano, publicado en 1838, en el que éste parece retomar y resignificar unas palabras del primero:la frase de Heredia “Huyamos pues, este suelo delicioso” deviene en Manzano “Huyamos pues, ... nuestro enemigo suelo”. Como conclusión, el ensayo destaca las implicaciones de tal reescritura para repensar la ecología y el afecto durante el apogeo de la esclavitud cubana.

Este artigo examina um curta de 2002, intitulado Como se morre no cinema e dirigido por Luelane Loiola Correa, que toma como ponto de partida o filme Vidas secas (1963) de Nelson Pereira dos Santos. Como se morre no cinema focaliza nossa atencao em temas centrais tanto ao filme de Pereira dos Santos como ao romance eponimo de Graciliano Ramos, mas que sao frequentemente eclipsados por leituras que tomam ambas as producoes como ilustracoes de uma familia pobre de retirantes. Em particular, Como se morre no cinema chama a atencao sobre a importância de uma filosofia extra-humanista e bicho-centrica presente em ambas as versoes de Vidas secas . Eu argumento que a presenca dos animais -e, mais precisamente, da morte dos animais- no romance e no filme resulta imprescindivel para entender tambem as suas preocupacoes formais e genericas, e e o que tem levado a ambas as versoes de Vidas secas a ser classificadas como obras sem genero fixo: ao mesmo tempo experimental (ou modernista) e realista. Concluo que a preocupacao sobre a representacao da morte da cachorra Baleia -central ao romance, ao filme e ao curta- demonstra como os desafios filosoficos de representar a subjetividade e a consciencia animal estao na raiz da estetica ocidental, fazendo central a questao de "como se morre no cinema" para se imaginar uma estetica extra- ou pos-humanista.

This article analyzes the history and cultural significance of the Cuban Coney Island Park. It argues that the park both allegorizes a series of geopolitical and urbanistic trends true for Havana more generally throughout the twentieth century, and figures as a significant reference for Cuban film, literature, and philosophies of history. It begins by reading Marti and Meza's chronicles about the Brooklyn park, analyzes a 1906 film about El Parque Palatino, ‘el Coney Island cubano’, and considers the Republican-era development of both parks and the suburbs of Marianao and Playa, designed to include amusement parks. The article then unearths the history of the Coney Island built in Havana in the 1950s, owned by a US businessman executed in 1961 for conducting counterrevolutionary activities within the park itself. Even as a cold war skirmish unfolded in the real park, in literature Jose Lezama Lima moved away from such ideologies to introduce amusement parks in his 1966 Paradiso as spaces for reflection on...

Structured observation is one way to assess how public transport passengers actually use their travel time. This study reports on 812 adult passengers in Wellington, New Zealand. Researchers recorded passenger characteristics and behavior over a 4-minute period, on a range of routes and times, using 12 pre-set codes. Most passengers (65.3%) were “looking ahead/out the window” at some point in the observation period, more on buses than on trains. About one-fifth of all passengers observed were seen reading, more on trains. Other activities included listening on headphones, talking, texting, and sleeping/eyes closed. Activities were compared on the basis of gender, age group, mode, and time of day. Comparisons are made with recent observational and survey studies, with discussion of both methods and results.

In 19941, Cuban poet and critic Victor Fowler visited Brown University, then a leading center for hypertext literature and virtual reality research. Fowler was intrigued by digital literature and n...

To facilitate the evaluation of the current status of tidal and wave technologies, several characteristics that would be required for them to become attractive as alternative sources of energy are defined and identified. Tidal technologies, including barrages, fences, and turbines; and wave technologies, including the oscillating water columns, Pelamis, tapered channel, Salter Duck, and the Clam, are explained and evaluated in terms of their operating complexity, economic concerns, and environmental impact. Current implementations of each technology are discussed. The current cost per kilowatt-hour for each technology is compared to that for coal and nuclear energy. The environmental impacts of the technologies are compared and evaluated. Finally, the technologies are compared with respect to the desirable features that were initially identified.

[U]no de los dilemas irresolubles del futuro de Cuba es, pressamente, la extranjeria de su pasado.- Rafael Rojas, Tumbas sin sosiegoJose Marti's ubiquity in Cuban literature, culture, and the entire spectrum of politics challenges us to parse and contextualize his myriad appropriations, when it doesn't thwart productive engagement with his thought altogether.' Recently scholarship on Marti has even specialized to include studies devoted to the various political ends to which he has been marshaled.2 But how do these recuperations of Marti dialogue with Marti's literary and philosophical preoccupations, such as nation, temporality, poetics? This essay tracks how Republican era (1902-1958) afterlives of Marti - repeated literary references to both his bones and spirit - serve as a barometer for shifting concerns. Early in the century, the spirit or remains of Marti crowd a stage on which authors reproduce a quite Martian messianic discourse of jeopardized sovereignty. But these themes morph, during what is sometimes called the "pseudo-Republic," into depictions of economic dependence and consumption as the Spanish colony becomes a US neocolony.Common to both phases is an engagement with Marti's philosophy, particularly of time and of nation. Specifically, post-1902 literature continues Marti's attempt to imagine a temporality outside of the transfer of empire, implied in both Spanish and US imperial teleologies, and highlighted in the moment of transition between the two. Ultimately, however, Marti's ecstatic utopia - ecstatic in the etymological sense Heidegger recuperated of "outside place and time" - freezes into an obsessive, vicious circling around his ruins.The ruminative tone of Republican literature has deep roots. Rafael Rojas's magisterial study of intellectuals' engagement with the Cuban Revolution, Tumbas sin sosiego: revolucion, disidencia y exilio del intelectual cubano, makes a convincing case for the importance of nineteenth-century myths and aborted emancipatory projects to the course that the 1959 Revolution would take. Rojas claims nineteenth-century frustrations of the Republic paved the way for two foundational myths of Cuban political culture: that of the "Revolucion Inconclusa" and that of the "Regreso del Mesias" (52). The two concepts mystify history, Rojas contends, insofar as they dissolve the distinct aims of at least four different struggles - 1868, 1895, 1933, 1959 - into a single one with its own teleology (66-67). In fact, one could extend the "sensacion de cementerio" traced so exhaustively by Rojas well beyond the twentieth century on which he focuses and deep into the nineteenth. The sense of foreclosed possibilities which characterize a significant portion of twentiethcentury Cuban letters and political thought might, then, be seen as a repetition, albeit with a difference, of a nineteenth-century melancholic nationalism partially produced by the ideological double-bind of a slave-holding elite unable to press for national independence so long as it was linked to the abolition of slavery.But such a genealogy is the subject for a longer study. In what follows I examine a more delimited prevalence of ghosts and relics in Republican letters. Analyzing works by authors Bonifacio Byrne and Jose Antonio Ramos in which Marti appears as a specter, an immaterial being rebuking the neocolonial state, I argue that Marti haunts Republican literature for discrete but interrelated and cumulative reasons: (1) Marti's prophetic measures have been stymied in neocolonial Cuba; (2) despite Marti's efforts to write into existence a new kind of nation and temporality, the nation as such is necessarily haunted by what it excludes; and (3) Marti's status as specter - a material form of the immaterial - inversely mirrors a widespread, cultural nationalism that, as critic Emma Alvarez-Tabio Albo has suggested, compensates a Cuba whose sovereignty and territory were "dematerializing" before foreign capital (146). …

Álvaro Armando Vasseur's 1912 selection and translation of Walt Whitman's poetry, titled simply Walt Whitman: Poemas, was an extremely influential text for hispanophone readers—the first substantial collection of Whitman poems in Spanish. Scholars have identified Vasseur's translation as instrumental in accelerating Latin American poetry's shedding of its modernista tendencies in favor of franker, often more explicitly socially and politically engaged verse. Republished frequently throughout the period of extraordinary historical and aesthetic change bounded by 1912 and 1951, Poemas played a crucial role in keeping both Whitman and Vasseur in the public eye. Of Vasseur's prefaces to the various editions of the work, that to the sixth edition is the longest and most elaborate declaration of his sense of Whitman's importance to international letters.

This article contends that it is necessary to go beyond the reductionism of certain investments in Ibsen criticism—either feminism or theater history?to perceive that in The Wild Duck it is through his treatment of the animal that Ibsen is able to address, with elegant economy, both an ethics of alterity and aesthetic concerns with theatricality and mediation. Ibsen achieves this through an exploration of the ways that different forms of mediation?theatrical, technological, intersubjective, and occult—all pivot about the same aesthetic questions that plague discussions of animality. In so doing, The Wild Duck also critiques period notions of "the human."

Invited to comment on the critical practices that guide both my es say, "Animal, Magnetism, Theatricality in Ibsen's The Wild Duck," and J0rgen Lorentzen's compelling "Ibsen and Fatherhood," I read the two with an eye to characterizing our approaches and identifying shared concerns or potential debates. NLHs editor had noted a divergence in our views, and thought an exploration of these differences might offer an opportunity for reflection on questions of literary interpretation more generally. At first I found common ground: we both drew on a combination of historical context, close reading, and philosophical reflection in building our respective arguments. True to the genre, we both discussed what we perceived to be hitherto neglected issues in criticism of The Wild Duck (fathers; the animal). Next I detected what seemed a promising affinity, but which turned out to be something of a missed encounter: Lorentzen's discussion of biocentrism and post-Darwinism, and my foregrounding of animality?both antihumanist critiques of a sort, but employed to different ends. Finally I came to what our editor surely must have considered a pro found divergence in our positions: Lorentzen reads Hjalmar Ekdal, a major character in the play, as a loving father; I read Hjalmar as a ne glectful father. More, we interpret Hjalmar's actions through our belief in the presence or absence of illusion or illusionism. Lorentzen reads Hjalmar's depiction in the play as frankly that of a good father, whereas I perceive Hjalmar's character to be fraught with issues of deception, or at least illusion. Yet we adduce some of the same scenes as evidence for our opposing conclusions. How could we arrive at such opposed posi tions? And more importantly, what might this divergence indicate about interpretation more generally? In the limited space below, I would like to explore just two aspects of our essays: the topic of biocentrism and the animal, and the question of interpretation in the context of the family. I am calling these reflec tions "family analysis" because in both cases the question of the family is central to our differing views, and because I want to end up claiming, with some help from psychoanalysis, that it is no coincidence that our

Somatization disorder is a biopsychosocial-based, stress-induced disorder involving multiple physical ailments with no medical explanation. The teaching profession is characterized as very stressful, making teachers at risk of developing somatization disorder. This study examined somatization disorder in a K-12 teacher population. A total of 2,988 teachers from 46 Texas districts responded to a comprehensive online occupational health survey. Somatization disorder was assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire. Univariate analyses were conducted between teachers with and without somatization disorder to identify specific relationships with demographic variables, occupational variables, perceived stress, Axis I psychopathology, and physical health. A logistic regression was developed to identify the variables most strongly associated with the presence of somatization disorder in a teacher population. Analyses showed that female teachers are 3.3 times more likely to develop somatization disorder. Compared to Caucasians, African American teachers are 3.9 times and Hispanic teachers are 2.0 times more likely to develop somatization disorder. Moreover, higher levels of stress, poorer physical quality of life, major depression, panic and anxiety disorder were significantly related with somatization disorder (p