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Effects of Wall and Freespace Damping Levels on Virtual Wall Stiffness Classification
Full text linkVirtual damping is often employed to improve stability in virtual environments, but it has previously been found to bias perception of stiffness, with its effects differing when it is introduced locally within a wall/object or globally in both the wall and in freespace. Since many potential applications of haptic rendering involve not only comparisons between two environments, but also the ability to recognize rendered environments as belonging to different categories, it is important to understand the perceptual impacts of freespace and wall damping on stiffness classification ability. This study explores the effects of varying levels of freespace and wall damping on users’ ability to classify virtual walls by their stiffness. Results indicate that freespace damping improves wall classification if the walls are damped, but will impair classification of undamped walls. These findings suggest that, in situations where users are expected to recognize and classify various stiffnesses, freespace damping can be a factor in narrowing or widening gaps in extended rate-hardness between softer and stiffer walls
We will not be saved: a memoir of hope and resistance in the Amazon rainforest
Full text linkReview: We will not be saved: a memoir of hope and resistance in the Amazon rainforest, by Nemonte Nenquimo and Mitch Anderson. London: Wildfire, 2024. 368 pp., plates
Revitalizing while transmitting: conversations around “natural birth”practices with Kichwa midwives in Ecuador’s Napo region
Full text linkDespite its relevance for analyzing many distinctive native imaginaries and societal values, childbirth remains a relatively neglected theme within Amazonianist scholarship. Yet, birthing can be shown to structure contemporary struggles around kinship, politics, economics, and the place of transformation in social life. This article proposes to examine a Kichwa organization (AMUPAKIN) through an experimental anthropological lens. By putting childbirth at the center of its political struggle, AMUPAKIN seeks to keep Kichwa knowledge/power alive. The goal of the organization is that each child born the Kichwa way will be able to live a good life in multicultural contexts. The article documents how AMUPAKIN’s midwives work expertly at transforming childbirth into a myriad of culture-making events. It shows how native Amazonian midwifery facilitates collaborations across internal divisions and external differences. The making and strengthening of a unique biocultural heritage amidst generalized indifference and/or open hostility are explored. The conclusion outlines some of the implications for anthropological approaches to interculturality and ecumenical worldmaking
Indigenous Peoples in the Guianas: Contemporary Ethnographies
Full text linkIn the introduction to this special issue of Tipití, dedicated to recent ethnographies conducted among indigenous peoples in Guianese Amazonia, we offer an overview of the main anthropological traditions that have placed the region at the center of debates in Amazonianist ethnology. Alternatively defined as a linguistic area, cultural area, or ethnographic area, the Guianas region is shared by indigenous collectives of the Cariban family and, to a lesser extent, Arawak, Tupi, Yanomami, Sáliva, and Warao-speaking groups, and is associated with some of the monographs that inaugurated the modern period of ethnological reflection on kinship in Amazonia, as well as influential comparative syntheses on the native regional systems of Lowland South America. Throughout the text, we point out the recent repercussions of classical images regarding the Guianese Indigenous peoples, as well as the awakening of other theoretical concerns and new contexts of disciplinary dialogue and ethnographic work in Amazonia. It is noteworthy that this issue stands as one of the few and possibly the first to include texts authored by indigenous researchers on the ethnology of the indigenous Guianas, themselves belonging to the Wai Wai people. Their articles, written in collaboration with non-indigenous researchers, demonstrate the necessity for diverse authorial and methodological approaches in the context of the increasing Indigenous presence in universities. The articles included in this issue provide a glimpse into contemporary research in the Guianas, covering a wide range of topics including conviviality, gender, kinship, morality, emotions, death, ritual, music, space-time, movement, memory, orality, mythology, partnership, and ethnographic authorship. They not only shed light on the enduring fertility of key debates in regional ethnology but also reveal significant transformations in anthropological paradigms and the lived experiences of Guianese peoples
Temperature Controlled Box
Full text linkThe temperature-controlled box is a project developed in the Spring of 2024. Its main goal is to maintain a setpoint temperature by switching both a heating element on for heating and a fan on for cooling
Fabrication and Characterization of Quad-Component Bioinspired Hydrogels to Model Elevated Fibrin Levels in Central Nervous Tissue Scaffolds
Full text linkMulticomponent interpenetrating polymer network (mIPN) hydrogels are promising tissue-engineering scaffolds that could closely resemble key characteristics of native tissues. The mechanical and biochemical properties of mIPNs can be finely controlled to mimic key features of target cellular microenvironments, regulating cell-matrix interactions. In this work, we fabricated hydrogels made of collagen type I (Col I), fibrin, hyaluronic acid (HA), and poly (ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) using a network-by-network fabrication approach. With these mIPNs, we aimed to develop a biomaterial platform that supports the in vitro culture of human astrocytes and potentially serves to assess the effects of the abnormal deposition of fibrin in cortex tissue and simulate key aspects in the progression of neuroinflammation typically found in human pathologies such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and tissue trauma. Our resulting hydrogels closely resembled the complex modulus of AD human brain cortex tissue (~7.35 kPa), promoting cell spreading while allowing for the modulation of fibrin and hyaluronic acid levels. The individual networks and their microarchitecture were evaluated using confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Human astrocytes were encapsulated in mIPNs, and negligible cytotoxicity was observed 24 h after the cell encapsulation