Formerly an Indian: Social Distance in Dutch New York

When the Dutch first settled New York in 1621, they maintained a notable social distance\ud from their Native neighbors. I believe this distance was at least in part caused by events in the Netherlands. The colonists arrived in the New World in the midst of the Dutch Revolt (1568-1648.) The War resulted in both establishing the United Provinces' independence from the Hapsburg Empire and a newly defined Dutch identity. In an\ud attempt to unify the disparate, autonomous provinces, revolutionary propagandists dug deep into the Netherlands' history to create an imagined, immemorial cultural bond between the Provinces. One of the strategies the propagandists relied on was to cast themselves, subjects of the tyrannical Hapsburg Empire, as another marginalized group under the thumbs of the Spanish: Amerindians. So when the first New Netherlanders arrived in the New World, they brought their recently created, amorphous identity with them. Colonial figures defined Dutch identity in relation to the Indians of New York, but also expressed concern that, when the colonists did not live up to these standards, they could not be considered Dutchman. The social distance between the Dutch and the Indians worked as a means of reifying Dutch identity, but its inevitable failure in the face of constant daily interaction meant that the Dutch ran the risk of becoming like the Indians they held at arm's length. The thesis will conclude with a case study of two Dutch-Indian siblings, Hilletie and Jacques Van Slyck, who attempted to join their father's community in Schenectady to varying degrees of\ud success. Neither sibling was fully accepted into the community. Through putting effort into modeling themselves after those sketchy definitions of Dutch identity, the siblings\ud pointed to the chimerical nature of Dutch identity. And so the Dutch colonists could\ud never see past the siblings' maternal heritage: they would always be former Indians

Elastic stretchable optical fibers

Thesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2016.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 23-24).The utilization of soft materials in the design of optical systems provides opportunities for imparting these optical systems with completely unprecedented properties. This will enhance performance of systems, such as optical fibers, and enable new application scenarios. Here, we report the design, manufacture and characterization of elastic stretchable optical fibers. Analogous to conventional optical fibers, the elastic fibers consist of a high index core, made from a polystyrene-polyisoprene triblock copolymer, and a low refractive index cladding, formed by a fluorinated thermoplastic elastomer. The fibers are manufactured by co-extrusion of their constituent materials. They can be stretched to 300% strain repeatedly. Axial deformation of the fibers results in a variation of their light guiding properties. The fibers' attenuation coefficient was determined to be 0.021 ± 0.003 dB/mm, which is 2 orders of magnitude higher than for standard optical glass fibers. The high attenuation coefficient is likely due to scattering of light by air inclusions incorporated during manufacturing at the core-cladding interface. The fibers elastic modulus is 960 ± 280 kPA and their yield strength lies in the range of 2150 ± 480 kPA. The variation in intensity of guided light as a function of strain applied axially to the fibers was measured with a customized optical setup. Our experiments show that elastic optical fibers have properties that make them desirable as mechanical sensors and components in a range of other applications, provided current manufacturing shortcomings are addressed. The fibers could be used for light delivery to individual pixels of flexible deformable displays. They could be incorporated into clothing for delivery of light for display purposes or textile-integrated photonic circuits to create functional textiles. Because the fibers can stretch, the textiles or displays will be able to undergo deformation without damage or loss in performance.by Beth Cholst.S.B

Effects of exposure to cadmium on calcium metabolism : a population study

The objective was to investigate the hypothesis that environmental exposure to cadmium may affect calcium metabolism in the population at large. The 1987 participants (965 men and 1022 women), from 20 to 80 years old, constituted a random sample of the population of four Belgian districts. The urinary excretion of cadmium, a mesure of lifetime exposure, averaged 9.3 nmo/24h in men (range 0.4-324 nmol/24h) and 7.1 nmol/24h (range 0.1-71 nmol/24h) in women. Serum alkaline phosphatase activity and the urinary excretion of calcium correlated significantly and positively with urinary cadmium excretion in both men and women, and serum total calcium concentration negatively with urinary cadmium excretion in men only. The regression coefficients obtained after adjustment for significant covariates indicated that when urinary cadmium excretion increased twofold, serum alkaline phosphatase activity and urinary calcim excretion rose by 3-4% and 0.25 mmol/24h respectively, whereas in men serum total calcium concentration fell by 6 µmol/l. After adjustment for significant covariates the relation between serum total calcium concentration and urinary cadmium excretion was not significant in women. The findings suggest that even at environmental exposure levels calcium metabolism is gadually affected, as cadmium accumulates in the body. The morbidity associated with this phenomenon in industrialised countries remains presently unknown and requires further investigation