Numerical simulation of mesoscopic mechanical behaviors of gradual multi-fiber-reinforced polymer matrix composites

To simulate the deformation and the fracture of gradual multi-fiber-reinforced matrix composites, a numerical simulation method for the mesoscopic mechanical behaviors was developed on the basis of the finite element and the Monte Carlo methods. The results indicate that the strength of a composite increases if the variability of statistical fiber strengths is decreased.

Singing Through Struggle: Music as a Mode of Cultural Exchange in African American Border City Churches After Emancipation, 1862-1890

This project investigates how religious music, invested with symbolic and cultural meaning, provided African Americans in border city churches with a way to negotiate conflict, assert individual values, and establish a collective identity in the post- emancipation era. In order to focus on the encounter between former slaves and free Blacks, the dissertation examines black churches that received large numbers of southern migrants during and after the Civil War. Primarily a work of history, the study also employs insights and conceptual frameworks from other disciplines including anthropology and ritual studies, African American studies, aesthetic theory, and musicology. It is a work of historical reconstruction in the tradition of scholarship that some have called "lived religion." Chapter 1 introduces the dissertation topic and explains how it contributes to scholarship. Chapter 2 examines social and religious conditions African Americans faced in Baltimore, MD, Philadelphia, PA, and Washington, DC to show why the Black Church played a key role in African Americans' adjustment to post-emancipation life. Chapter 3 compares religious slave music and free black church music to identify differences and continuities between them, as well as their functions in religious settings. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 present case studies on Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (Baltimore), Zoar Methodist Episcopal Church (Philadelphia), and St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church (Washington, DC), respectively. Informed by fresh archival materials, the dissertation shows how each congregation used its musical life to uphold values like education and community, to come to terms with a shared experience, and to confront or avert authority when cultural priorities were threatened. By arguing over musical choices or performance practices, or agreeing on mutually appealing musical forms like the gospel songs of the Sunday school movement, African Americans forged lively faith communities and distinctive cultures in otherwise adverse environments. The study concludes that religious music was a crucial form of African American discourse and expression in the post-emancipation era. In the Black Church, it nurtured an atmosphere of exchange, gave structure and voice to conflict, helped create a public sphere, and upheld the values of black people.

From the demise of theory to its resurgence. A retrospective on the postmodern turn to rethink the 'desire for narrative' and the sublime untimeliness of emancipation

Cultural Marxist Theory, commonly known as theory, enjoyed a moment of extraordinary success in the 1970s, when the works of leading post-war French philosophers were published in English. After relocating to Anglophone academia, however, theory disavowed its original concerns and lost its ambition to understand the world as a whole, becoming the play of heterogeneities associated with postcolonialism, multiculturalism and identity politics, commonly referred to as postmodern theory. This turn, which took place during a period that seemed to have spelt the death of Marxism, the 1990s, induced many of its supporters to engage in an ongoing funeral wake designating the merits of theory and dreaming its resurgence. According to them, had theory been resurrected in historical circumstances completely different from those which had led to its rise, it would have never reacquired the significance that had originally connoted it. This thesis demonstrates how theory has survived its demise and entirely regained its prominence in our socio-political context marked by the effects of the latest crisis of capitalism and by the global threat of terrorisms rooted in messianic eschatologies. In its current form theory does no longer need to show allegiance to certain intellectual stances or political groupings in order to produce important reformulations of the projects it once gave life to. Though less overtly radical and epistemologically bounded, theory remains a necessary form of enquiry justified by the political commitment which originated it in the first place. Its voice continues to speak to us about justice ‘where it is not yet, not yet there, where it is no longer’ (Derrida, 1993, XVIII).

Different Mechanisms Confer Gradual Control and Memory at Nutrient- and Stress-Regulated Genes in Yeast.

Cells respond to environmental stimuli by fine-tuned regulation of gene expression. Here we investigated the dose-dependent modulation of gene expression at high temporal resolution in response to nutrient and stress signals in yeast. The GAL1 activity in cell populations is modulated in a well-defined range of galactose concentrations, correlating with a dynamic change of histone remodeling and RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) association. This behavior is the result of a heterogeneous induction delay caused by decreasing inducer concentrations across the population. Chromatin remodeling appears to be the basis for the dynamic GAL1 expression, because mutants with impaired histone dynamics show severely truncated dose-response profiles. In contrast, the GRE2 promoter operates like a rapid off/on switch in response to increasing osmotic stress, with almost constant expression rates and exclusively temporal regulation of histone remodeling and RNAPII occupancy. The Gal3 inducer and the Hog1 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase seem to determine the different dose-response strategies at the two promoters. Accordingly, GAL1 becomes highly sensitive and dose independent if previously stimulated because of residual Gal3 levels, whereas GRE2 expression diminishes upon repeated stimulation due to acquired stress resistance. Our analysis reveals important differences in the way dynamic signals create dose-sensitive gene expression outputs.

Beyond the United States and Japan: Testing Yamagishi's emancipation theory of trust across 31 nations

We examined the relationship between Individualism/Collectivism and generalized social trust across 31 European nations participating in the European Social Survey. Using multi-level regression analyses, the current study provides the first empirical investigation of the effects of cultural norms of Individualism/Collectivism on generalized social trust while accounting for individuals' own cultural orientations within the same analysis. The results provide clear support for Yamagishi and Yamagishi (1994) emancipation theory of trust, showing a significant and positive relationship between Individualism/Collectivism and generalized social trust, over and above the effect of a country political history of communism and ethnic heterogeneity. Having controlled for individual effects of Individualism/Collectivism it is clear that the results of the current analysis cannot be reduced to an individual-level explanation, but must be interpreted within the context Of macrosocial processes. We conclude by discussing potential mechanisms that could explain why national individualism is more likely to foster trust among people than collectivism.

The After Slavery Website: A New Online Resource for Teaching U. S. Slave Emancipation

Historiographical essay and evaluation of textbooks and web-based resource for teaching slave emancipation. Published to coincide with re-launch of After Slavery website (www.afterslavery.com) in partnership with Lowcountry Digital Library, College of Charleston, SC.