3,703 research outputs found
Autoworker and acclaimed author Ben Hamper speaks at the Michigan Writers Series
No full textIn an appearance at the Michigan State University Main Library, autoworker and acclaimed author Ben Hamper talks about his career at the General Motors Truck and Bus Plant in Flint, Michigan and reads from various works, including his forward to the book "Working words: punching the clock and kicking out the jams" by M. L. Liebler and from his most famous work, "Rivethead", a cynical and humorous view of life in an auto plant. A question and answer session follows. Hamper is introduced by Michigan State University Professor John P. Beck for the Michigan State University Libraries' Michigan Writers Series
"The Twilight Years of our Founder" by Ben W. Miller
No full textA three-page document titled "The Twilight Years of our Founder" and was written by Ben W. Miller. The article talks about William G. Anderson and his last years of life and his relationship with the author and the American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (AAHPER).William Gilbert Anderson, born September 9, 1860, was an American pioneer of physical education, physician, and writer. Anderson was an organizer for the American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education, founded in 1885
From Ad Hoc to Universal: The International Refugee Regime from Fragmentation to Unity 1922-1954
No full textThis article examines the scope of international instruments providing refugee protection, from the League of Nations, through the 1951 Refugee Convention, up to the 1954 Convention Relating to Stateless Persons. While the nature of the early instruments was ad hoc and tailored for specific refugee groups in geographically limited areas, the creation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees marked a shift towards a global refugee regime, applicable the world over. The fundamental caveat in the Refugee Convention being the exclusion of Stateless Persons from its scope, was rejected by France in its 1952 creation of the Office franc ̧ais de protection des re ́fugie ́s et apatrides as she opted to include stateless persons under her purview. Using hitherto unpublished sources from Belgian, British, Israeli, and French archives, the author argues that the Eurocentric vision of the delegates at the League of Nations corresponded to the ad hoc nature of the refugee instruments they designed. The United Nations’ notion of Universalism corresponded to the lifting of the geographical and ethnic boundaries of refugee protections. France, wishing to shift the debate to the Council of Europe, opted for her own Universalist vision, voluntarily extending the scope of refugee protections so as to include stateless persons
Breaking into the Boundaries of World Literature: Tahar Ben Jelloun's "L'enfant de sable"
No full textThe essay aims to analyze the novel "L’enfant de sable" (1985) – the first bestseller by the French-Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun – in the perspective of World Literature as underpinned by the theories of David Damrosch and Pascale Casanova. This theoretical approach illustrates to what extent the success of a literary work is the product of the intersection between its aesthetic value and the socio-economic dynamics governing the literary market. A global writer on the threshold of two worlds, Ben Jelloun concocts a hybrid work in which Persian-Arabic literary and cultural traditions melt together with their Western counterparts. In particular, L’enfant de sable is characterized by a multilayered hybridity for a strategy of negotiation between the two cultures is employed at many levels: narratological, intertextual and linguistic. This strategy of hybridity/negotiation may be deemed as a mere compromise to reach a larger readership. Indeed, analyzing the novel within this theoretical framework highlights its ambiguities: remarkably, the author has been accused of commodifying his own culture to create a product palatable to the Euro-American market and compliant with Westerners’ expectations about the Arabic world – the topic appealing to French readers being the evidence of it. Yet, this reading also points out the novel’s undeniable aesthetic value: Ben Jelloun succeeds in merging two traditions artfully while opening a window into recondite aspects of Moroccan culture
Breaking into the Boundaries of World Literature: Tahar Ben Jelloun's "L'enfant de sable"
No full textIl presente articolo propone una lettura in prospettiva World Literature del primo romanzo di successo dell’autore franco-marocchino Tahar Ben Jelloun, "L’enfant de sable" (1985). Il ricorso a tale approccio teorico, che si avvale delle intuizioni di Bourdieu e di alcuni studi di Casanova e Damrosch, permette di illustrare in che misura il successo di un lavoro letterario sia il prodotto di intersezioni tra il suo valore estetico e le dinamiche socioeconomiche che regolano il mercato editoriale. Nell’opera di Ben Jelloun, collocata come il suo autore sulla soglia tra due mondi, confluiscono elementi di due sistemi letterari e culturali: quello occidentale e quello arabo-persiano. Ne "L’enfant de sable" è riscontrabile un’ibridità su più livelli – narratologico, intertestuale e linguistico – che può essere interpretata, nel quadro teorico della World Literature, come una strategia di negoziazione tra due culture per incontrare il favore di un pubblico più ampio. Dalla lettura del romanzo in questa prospettiva emergono ambiguità e criticità riguardanti l’opera di Ben Jelloun: da un lato l’accusa di orientalismo forzato per vendere un prodotto conforme alle aspettative dell’Occidente sul Mondo Arabo, dall’altro l’apprezzamento per un’opera in cui l’autore combina magistralmente due culture in una costruzione linguistica e narratologica di innegabile valore estetico, che ha il merito di aprire una finestra di contatto tra due culture.The essay aims to analyze the novel "L’enfant de sable" (1985) – the first bestseller by the French-Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun – in the perspective of World Literature as underpinned by the theories of David Damrosch and Pascale Casanova. This theoretical approach illustrates to what extent the success of a literary work is the product of the intersection between its aesthetic value and the socio-economic dynamics governing the literary market. A global writer on the threshold of two worlds, Ben Jelloun concocts a hybrid work in which Persian-Arabic literary and cultural traditions melt together with their Western counterparts. In particular, L’enfant de sable is characterized by a multilayered hybridity for a strategy of negotiation between the two cultures is employed at many levels: narratological, intertextual and linguistic. This strategy of hybridity/negotiation may be deemed as a mere compromise to reach a larger readership. Indeed, analyzing the novel within this theoretical framework highlights its ambiguities: remarkably, the author has been accused of commodifying his own culture to create a product palatable to the Euro-American market and compliant with Westerners’ expectations about the Arabic world – the topic appealing to French readers being the evidence of it. Yet, this reading also points out the novel’s undeniable aesthetic value: Ben Jelloun succeeds in merging two traditions artfully while opening a window into recondite aspects of Moroccan culture
The singularities and birational geometry of the universal compactified Jacobian
No full textIn this paper we establish that the singularities of the universal compactified Jacobian are canonical if the genus is at least four. As a corollary we determine the Kodaira dimension and the Iitaka fibration of the universal compactified Jacobian for every degree and genus. We also determine the birational automorphism group for every degree if the genus is at least twelve. This extends work of G. Farkas and A. Verra, as well as that of G. Bini, C. Fontanari and the third author
Max Plus Decision Processes in Planning Problems for Unmanned Air Vehicle Teams
No full textMany aspects of unmanned air vehicle (UAV) operations In this paper, we consider some idempotent modifications of stochastic and Bayesian analysis suitable for decision making in mixed initiative and multi-agent systems. Of particular interest are techniques for mixed initiative and highly autonomous operation. We examine certain Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) within the context of max-plus probability, and we discuss their application to problems of control of unmanned air sensing assets
Numerical Analysis and Simulation of Resource-Exploration Models
No full textIn this paper, we examine models for exploration and consumption of resources. The fundamental feature of the models is the jump-process nature of the exploration for and discovery of the resource. Several models have been proposed and analyzed in the literature. Here we provide numerical schemes, convergence properties, and some new models that provide risk-averse policies to avoid depletion of the resource.
The three constitutions in Greek political thought
No full textFull text not available in this repositoryThe theme of leadership played an important role in ancient Israel and its discourse. It was explored time and again through memories of proper, improper and in-between leaders and through memories of particular institutions like monarchy, priesthood, and prophethood. The ways in which this theme was shaped, reflected, and above all explored through social memory and how, in turn, those memories played a socializing role within the community is the focus of this collection of seventeen essays, which grew out of the 2013 research program of the group, Israel and the Production and Reception of Authoritative Books in the Persian and Hellenistic Periods of the European Association of Biblical Studies. The editors were co-chairs of the research group from 2005–2013. Additional papers were invited on selected topics in order to round out the collection and further internal dialogue among the contributions. Although, as anticipated, the nature and limitations of kingship, both native and foreign, is a central theme of many of the essays, the volume includes discussions of both official and unofficial local leadership within an empire setting, alternatives to royal leadership like theocracy, charismatic judgeship, and Greek-style tyrants, as well as considerations of Greek political discourse on the best type of leadership. Authors include the following biblical scholars or historians of ancient Israel: Ehud Ben Zvi, Kåre Berge, Thomas M. Bolin James Bos, Lorenzo DiTomasso, Diana Edelman, Beate Ego, Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley, Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher, Reinhard Müller, Christophe Nihan, Wolfgang Oswald, Anne-Mareike Schol-Wetter, Ian D. Wilson. In addition, there are two contributions from the Stuyvesant P. Comfort Professor of Law at New York University, Geoffrey Parsons Miller, and from a well-known classicist, Lynette Mitchell
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Ecological Energetics of the Dobson Fly, Corydalus Cornutus
No full textRates and energies of consumption (C), egestion (F), assimilation (A), respiration (R), growth (Pg), production of exuviae (Pev), and production of egg masses (Pr) and associated efficiencies, and the effects of seasonal temperature, weight and metamorphic stage upon these factors were examined for a typical individual and cohort of Corydalus cornutus (L.) from a stream in North-Central Texas (330 23'N, 97*5'W). Dobson flies are apparently univoltine in the study area, with 11 larval instars. Emergence, oviposition and hatching occur from late May to August. The typical dobson fly hatches in mid-June, grows rapidly until November, and resumes rapid growth in March, reaching full adult size prior to leaving the stream to pupate in early June. Adult females must feed to provide energy to yolk eggs, produce egg-mass coverings and continue somatic maintenance during their week of reproductive endeavors. Metabolic compensation enables larval dobson flies to maintain preferred and fairly constant rates of R during winter (201-451 pl g-1 h~1; 5-15 C) and summer (985-1173 pl g- h1; 20-30 C); with a seasonal acclimatization change point between 15-20 C. Reduction of rates of R through undercompensation during the winter when food is scarce and through partial compensation at high temperatures during the summer conserves energy which is allocated to P, resulting in high ratios of P/R (1.94) and P/A (66%) for the individual larva and, to a lesser degree, for the cohort (P/R = 1.07, P/A = 52.3%, P/B = 9.96). Rates of C, F, A and R, but not assimilation efficiency, were influenced by temperature and size. The energy budget for a typical dobson fly during the 47 wk as a larva was: C = 4167, A = 3442, F = 725, Pg = 2075, Pev = 198, and R = 1169. Ova respired 0.107 cal wk-1, prepupae 357 cal wk~ 1 , male pupae 509 cal wk~ 1 , female pupae 454 cal wk~1 , male adults 625 cal wk-l1 and female adults 735 cal wk-1 . The prepupa and pupa shed exuviae of 144 cal and 120 cal respectively. The average female produced 667 cal of eggs and 185 cal of egg-case material, which totaled 54% of adult female A. The annual energetics of the cohort of larvae was: C = 39,150, A = 32,642, F = 6876, Pg = 13,052, Pev = 3608, Pr= 359-409 and R = 15,982 cal m-
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