[Review of] Eric Wertheimer. Imagined Empires: Incas, Aztecs, and the New World of American Literature

Eric Wertheimer convincingly argues that inaccuracy and omission in historical narratives made an indelible mark on American identity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The ethnic diversity of America, even though sparingly portrayed in the historical writing of the time, also had an important effect on American identity. Wertheimer concludes that while American identity has a public concept, individuals determine the real meaning in private spheres. He examines five Anglo, male authors (Philip Freneau, Joel Barlow, William Prescott, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman) to ascertain what they thought of as American history and who should be represented in it. These authors incorporated the glorious civilizations of the Incas and Aztecs to draw upon their republican precepts and counterbalance the United States against the imperial nations of Great Britain and Spain; however they erased these indigenous groups when the problem of race crept into the American identity and when the United States began pursuing its own expansionist doctrines of Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine (which resulted in the less than justifiable Mexican American War and annexation of Texas). Wertheimer argues that Melville was only one among the five to highlight the humanity of the vanquished, although Whitman should be included as well. Melville included the subaltern perspective through the use of silence as a means of their resistance. Melville along with Whitman did not allow glorification of the past to eclipse the reality of the agents and specifically the suffering of the victims

Star Formation in the Milky Way. The Infrared View

I present a brief review of some of the most recent and active topics of star formation process in the Milky Way using mid and far infrared observations, and motivated by the research being carried out by our science group using data gathered by the Spitzer and Herschel space telescopes. These topics include bringing together the scaling relationships found in extragalactic systems with that of the local nearby molecular clouds, the synthetic modeling of the Milky Way and estimates of its star formation rate.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures. To apper in "Cosmic-ray induced phenomenology in star-forming environments: Proceedings of the 2nd Session of the Sant Cugat Forum of Astrophysics" (April 16-19, 2012), Olaf Reimer and Diego F. Torres (eds.

Aeroservoelastic wind-tunnel investigations using the Active Flexible Wing Model: Status and recent accomplishments

The status of the joint NASA/Rockwell Active Flexible Wing Wind-Tunnel Test Program is described. The objectives are to develop and validate the analysis, design, and test methodologies required to apply multifunction active control technology for improving aircraft performance and stability. Major tasks include designing digital multi-input/multi-output flutter-suppression and rolling-maneuver-load alleviation concepts for a flexible full-span wind-tunnel model, obtaining an experimental data base for the basic model and each control concept and providing comparisons between experimental and analytical results to validate the methodologies. The opportunity is provided to improve real-time simulation techniques and to gain practical experience with digital control law implementation procedures

Development and evaluation of a novel, semiautomated Clostridium difficile typing platform

We describe a novel, semiautomated Clostridium difficile typing platform that is based on PCR-ribotyping in conjunction with a semiautomated molecular typing system. The platform is reproducible with minimal intra- or interassay variability. This method exhibited a discriminatory index of 0.954 and is therefore comparable to more arduous typing systems, such as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis

Children's age influences their use of biological and mechanical questions towards a humanoid

Complex autonomous interactions, biomimetic appearances, and responsive behaviours are increasingly seen in social robots. These features, by design or otherwise, may substantially influence young children’s beliefs of a robot’s animacy. Young children are believed to hold naive theories of animacy, and can miscategorise objects as living agents with intentions; however, this develops with age to a biological understanding. Prior research indicates that children frequently categorise a responsive humanoid as being a hybrid of person and machine; although, with age, children tend towards classifying the humanoid as being more machine-like. Our current research explores this phenomenon, using an unobtrusive method: recording childrens conversational interaction with the humanoid and classifying indications of animacy beliefs in childrens questions asked. Our results indicate that established findings are not an artefact of prior research methods: young children tend to converse with the humanoid as if it is more animate than older children do

APOLLO: the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation: Instrument Description and First Detections

A next-generation lunar laser ranging apparatus using the 3.5 m telescope at the Apache Point Observatory in southern New Mexico has begun science operation. APOLLO (the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation) has achieved one-millimeter range precision to the moon which should lead to approximately one-order-of-magnitude improvements in the precision of several tests of fundamental properties of gravity. We briefly motivate the scientific goals, and then give a detailed discussion of the APOLLO instrumentation.Comment: 37 pages; 10 figures; 1 table: accepted for publication in PAS

Computational Fluid Dynamics Applied to the Analysis of Blood Flow Through Central Aortic to Pulmonary Artery Shunts

This research utilizes CFD to analyze blood flow through pathways representative of central shunts, commonly used as part of the Fontan procedure to treat cyanotic heart disease. In the first part of this research, a parametric study of steady, Newtonian blood flow through parabolic pathways was performed to demonstrate the effect that flow pathway curvature has on wall shear stress distribution and flow energy losses. In the second part, blood flow through two shunts obtained via biplane angiograms is simulated. Pressure boundary conditions were obtained via catheterization. Results showed that wall shear stresses were of sufficient magnitude to initiate platelet activation, a precursor for thrombus formation. Steady results utilizing time-averaged boundary conditions showed excellent agreement with the time-averaged results obtained from pulsatile simulations. For the points of interest in this research, namely wall shear stress distribution and flow energy loss, the Newtonian viscosity model was found to yield acceptable results