Terms of engagement: The collaborative representation of Alutiiq identity

Le livre et l’exposition Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People (Regards croisés: patrimoine et identité du peuple alutiiq) présentent une perspective à la fois alutiiq et anthropologique d’une société autochtone d’Alaska. Ce projet, fondé sur un partenariat communautaire et mené par la Smithsonian Institution et le Musée alutiiq de Kodiak, est considéré sous plusieurs angles: identité culturelle et revitalisation de la région alutiiq, nouveau paradigme de l’anthropologie en collaboration et opposition des modèles essentialistes et constructivistes du changement culturel. On propose l’existence d’une «logique culturelle» alutiiq de liens ancestraux, de parenté, de lieu et d’un milieu riche qui agissent comme fondements de la permanence de l’identité à travers deux siècles de transformations culturelles. L’entente de collaboration dans le cadre de projets sur le patrimoine autochtone est présentée comme un engagement complexe mais indispensable à l’anthropologie contemporaine.The book and exhibition Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People present both Alutiiq and anthropological perspectives on a complex Alaska Native ethnicity. This community-based project, produced by the Smithsonian Institution and Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, is considered within several frames: cultural identity and revitalization in the Alutiiq region, the new paradigm of collaborative anthropology, and contrasting essentialist and constructivist models of cultural change. An Alutiiq “cultural logic” of connection to ancestors, kin, place and a provident natural environment is proposed as the basis for continuity of identity through two centuries of cultural transformation. Collaborative engagement in Indigenous heritage projects is discussed as a complex but indispensable commitment for contemporary anthropology

Argon resonance line lamp for vacuum ultraviolet photochemistry

The use of rare gas resonance line lamps as sources of monochromatic radiation for photochemical studies is well known.(1-5) Argon is ideally suited for photoionization studies of the simpler hydrocarbons which have ionization potentials below 11.6 eV. It has resonance lines at 1048 Å (11.83 eV) and 1067 Å (11.62 eV), with no other emission lines between 1050 and 2000 Å when pressures less than 1 Torr are used

Quasinormal modes and Strong Cosmic Censorship

The fate of Cauchy horizons, such as those found inside charged black holes, is intrinsically connected to the decay of small perturbations exterior to the event horizon. As such, the validity of the strong cosmic censorship (SCC) conjecture is tied to how effectively the exterior damps fluctuations. Here, we study massless scalar fields in the exterior of Reissner--Nordstrom--de Sitter black holes. Their decay rates are governed by quasinormal modes of the black hole. We identify three families of modes in these spacetimes: one directly linked to the photon sphere, well described by standard WKB-type tools; another family whose existence and timescale is closely related to the de Sitter horizon. Finally, a third family which dominates for near-extremally-charged black holes and which is also present in asymptotically flat spacetimes. The last two families of modes seem to have gone unnoticed in the literature. We give a detailed description of linear scalar perturbations of such black holes, and conjecture that SCC is violated in the near extremal regime.Comment: To appear in Physical Review Letters, as an Editors' Suggestio

Electron-Impact Spectroscopy

A spectrometer has been devised for determining electronic energy levels of molecules by inelastic scattering of low-energy electrons. It permits the detection of optically forbidden electronic transitions as clearly as optically allowed ones in a routine manner. The spectrometer has been used to obtain excitation spectra for helium, argon, hydrogen and ethylene. For the first three of these substances, the spectra agree with previous experiments. For ethylene, in addition to optically allowed transitions, two forbidden ones occur at about 4-6 and 6-5eV. Variation of peak heights with incident electron beam energy suggest that the first corresponds to a triplet state but that the second does not

Atomistic origins of the phase transition mechanism in Ge2Sb2Te5

Combined static and molecular dynamics first-principles calculations are used to identify a direct structural link between the metastable crystalline and amorphous phases of Ge2Sb2Te5. We find that the phase transition is driven by the displacement of Ge atoms along the rocksalt [111] direction from the stable-octahedron to high-energy-unstable tetrahedron sites close to the intrinsic vacancy regions, which give rise to the formation of local 4-fold coordinated motifs. Our analyses suggest that the high figures of merit of Ge2Sb2Te5 are achieved from the optimal combination of intrinsic vacancies provided by Sb2Te3 and the instability of the tetrahedron sites provided by GeTe

Hazard Rating of Parks Trees and Establishment of Adopt-A-Tree Program, Nacogdoches, Texas

The purpose of this project is to inventory parks and recreation trees in the city of Nacogdoches, Texas, using a Trimble Pro XRS GPS unit to establish location; and to construct a geographic information system (GIS) database for forest health that can be updated as forest health conditions change in the future. Tree health data collected will include structure of the main bole and branches; insect and disease pests; life expectancy; and shape of the crown and cultural history. An Adopt-a-Tree program, developed in the Arthur Temple College of Forestry at Stephen F. Austin State University, will be established to document planting and maintenance of the urban forest. Each tree planted will have the person planting the tree, a digital picture and the tree species entered into a GIS database for later retrieval, spatial analysis and visual/map display. The project follows the constructs of landscape ecology for documenting structure, function and change of the urban forest

Posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorders in neuronal xenotransplanted macaques

Posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorders (PTLDs) are a heterogeneous group of lymphoid proliferations that occur in the setting of depressed T-cell function due to immunosuppressive therapy used following solid organ transplantation, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and also xenotransplantation. In the present study, 28 immunosuppressed parkinsonian Macaca fascicularis were intracerebrally injected with wild-type or CTLA4-Ig transgenic porcine xenografts to identify a suitable strategy to enable long-term cell survival, maturation, and differentiation. Nine of 28 (32%) immunosuppressed primates developed masses compatible with PTLD, located mainly in the gastrointestinal tract and/or nasal cavity. The masses were classified as monomorphic PTLD according to the World Health Organization classification. Immunohistochemistry and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analyses revealed that the PTLDs were associated with macaca lymphocryptovirus as confirmed by double-labeling immunohistochemistry for CD20 and Epstein-Barr nuclear antigen 2 (EBNA-2), where the viral protein was located within the CD20+ neoplastic B cells. In sera from 3 distinct phases of the experimental life of the primates, testing by quantitative PCR revealed a progression of the viral load that paralleled the PTLD progression and no evidence of zoonotic transmission of porcine lymphotropic herpesvirus through xenoneuronal grafts. These data suggest that monitoring the variation of macaca lymphocryptovirus DNA in primates could be used as a possible early diagnostic tool for PTLD progression, allowing preemptive treatment such as immunosuppression therapy reduction