Multiscale Home: Shifting Landscapes and Living-in-Movement in Haiti

In January 2010, a catastrophic earthquake ravaged Haiti. In areas such as Port-au-Prince, the tragedy was compounded by an ensuing cholera outbreak. Here, conditions of prolonged crisis illuminate people’s resilient house-ing responses at the intersection of two dynamics: the vital relational character of Haitian houses and the necessity of mobility for producing new life. Rooted in the Haitian post-plantation world, the house (kay) does not constitute a bounded space but is rather realized conceptually and materially at diverse scales: people belong to many interdependent houses and houses belong to many interrelated people, sutured across space and time and between the living and the dead. In the wake of the 2010 disaster, and now amid the COVID-19 pandemic, new challenges and opportunities have arisen for diasporic families as they craft ways to enact and secure multiscale forms of livelihood. Rezime Nan mwa janvye ane 2010, yon tranbleman tè vyolan te frape Ayiti. Nan kèlke zòn tankou Pòtoprens, kapital la, trajedi a te vin agrave akòz yon epidemi kolera. Kriz pwolonje sa a montre detèminasyon moun yo nan yon entèseksyon ki gen ladan l de dinamik: 1) youn ki montre karaktè relasyonèl ak vital kay ayisien yo; 2) lòt la ki konsantre l sou mouvman pou bay lavi a sans. Kay, ki gen rasin li nan mond apre peryòd plantasyon an, li pa sèlman yon espas ki separe ak yon fwontyè fizik, men konseptyèlman e materyèlman nan plizyè echèl: moun yo fè pati plizyè kay entèdepandan, epi tou kay yo apateni ak plizyè moun ki entèrelasyone, gras a lyen ke yo genyen ki limite nan espas ak nan tan, ant moun vivan yo ak sila ki mouri yo. Nan dezas 2010 la ak nan moman pandemi Kovid-19 la, fanmi yo gen nouvo defi ak opòtinite pandan y ap kreye nouvo mwayen nan plizyè dimansyon pou lavi ka kontinie. Resumen En enero de 2010 un violento terremoto devastó Haití. En zonas como la capital, Port-au-Prince, la tragedia se vio agravada por una epidemia de cólera. La crisis prolongada ilumina la resiliencia de las personas en la intersección de dos dinámicas: una, que señala el carácter relacional y vital de los hogares haitianos y, otra, que tematiza la movilidad para producir vida. Enraizada en el mundo de la post-plantación, la casa (kay) no es sólo un espacio delimitado por fronteras físicas, sino que se realiza conceptual y materialmente en escalas múltiples: las personas pertenecen a varias casas interdependientes y las casas pertenecen a varias personas interrelacionadas, en vínculos suturados a través del espacio y del tiempo, entre los vivos y los muertos. Entre la catástrofe de 2010 y la pandemia de Covid-19 surgen nuevos desafíos y oportunidades para las familias diaspóricas que encuentran nuevas formas de asegurar la vida en múltiples escalas. Resumo Em janeiro de 2010 um violento terremoto devastou o Haiti. Em áreas como a capital, Port-au-Prince, a tragédia foi agravada por uma epidemia de cólera. A crise prolongada ilumina a resiliência das pessoas na interseção de duas dinâmicas: a que aponta o caráter relacional e vital das casas haitianas e a que tematiza a mobilidade para produzir vida. Enraizada no mundo pós-plantação, a casa (kay) não é só um espaço limitado por fronteiras físicas, mas realizada conceitual e materialmente em diversas escalas: as pessoas pertencem a muitas casas interdependentes e as casas pertencem a muitas pessoas inter-relacionadas, através de vínculos suturados no espaço e no tempo e entre vivos e mortos. Na esteira do desastre de 2010, e em meio à pandemia de Covid-19, novos desafios e oportunidades surgem para as famílias diaspóricas à medida que criam novas maneiras de assegurar formas vitais em múltiplas escalas.

Time-varying Bose–Einstein condensates

Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs), a state of matter formed when a low-density gas of bosons is cooled to near absolute zero, continue to motivate novel work in theoretical and experimental physics. Although BECs are most commonly studied in stationary ground states, time-varying BECs arise when some aspect of the physics governing the condensate varies as a function of time. We study the evolution of time-varying BECs under non-autonomous Gross–Pitaevskii equations (GPEs) through a mix of theory and numerical experiments. We separately derive a perturbation theory (in the small-parameter limit) and a variational approximation for non-autonomous GPEs on generic bounded space domains. We then explore various routes to obtain time-varying BECs, starting with the more standard techniques of varying the potential, scattering length, or dispersion, and then moving on to more advanced control mechanisms such as moving the external potential well over time to move or even split the BEC cloud. We also describe how to modify a BEC cloud through evolution of the size or curvature of the space domain. Our results highlight a variety of interesting theoretical routes for studying and controlling time-varying BECs, lending a stronger theoretical formulation for existing experiments and suggesting new directions for future investigation.

A tight lower bound for the online bounded space hypercube bin packing problem

In the $d$-dimensional hypercube bin packing problem, a given list of $d$-dimensional hypercubes must be packed into the smallest number of hypercube bins. Epstein and van Stee [SIAM J. Comput. 35 (2005)] showed that the asymptotic performance ratio $\rho$ of the online bounded space variant is $\Omega(\log d)$ and $O(d/\log d)$, and conjectured that it is $\Theta(\log d)$. We show that $\rho$ is in fact $\Theta(d/\log d)$, using probabilistic arguments.

Controllability for Fuzzy Fractional Evolution Equations in Credibility Space

This article addresses exact controllability for Caputo fuzzy fractional evolution equations in the credibility space from the perspective of the Liu process. The class or problems considered here are Caputo fuzzy differential equations with Caputo derivatives of order β∈(1,2), 0CDtβu(t,ζ)=Au(t,ζ)+f(t,u(t,ζ))dCt+Bx(t)Cx(t)dt with initial conditions u(0)=u0,u′(0)=u1, where u(t,ζ) takes values from U(⊂EN),V(⊂EN) is the other bounded space, and EN represents the set of all upper semi-continuously convex fuzzy numbers on R. In addition, several numerical solutions have been provided to verify the correctness and effectiveness of the main result. Finally, an example is given, which expresses the fuzzy fractional differential equations.

Application of Digital Image Processing to Determine the Properties of Aggregates and Soil using MATLAB: A Case Study

The vital physical characteristics of aggregates used in engineering and for interpretation of the genesis of naturally occurring sediment are shape and size of rocks. The mineralogical and physical composition of the rock is necessary to cater to the interaction within bounded space and soundings. Several image processing programs are available to measure the size and shape of various types of objects. The accuracy and reproducibility of the results of these imaging methods could be bettered. This paper aims to determine the aggregate dimension and volume to space behaviors through image processing tools. This study is extended investigation of the coarse aggregate shape properties such as area, volume, center of gravity (CG), elongation and flakiness index. Also, this paper discuss the development of an easy to use image processing tool to determine the shrinkage of soils due to lack of moisture content either because of natural ways/artificial ways. Two different types of soils including first sample near the SNU lake and second sample near Business Management School at Shiv Nadar University (SNU), India were collected. The samples were oven-dried over a period and shrinkage values were determined by Digital Image Processing (DIP) using MATLAB. The results are compared to wax-water method (manual method) results of shrinkage. The properties found by DIP method are reasonably agreeable for multiple aggregates and minor percentage differences in the soil shrinkage results.

Challenging Community: Logic or Context?

In their 2012 book The Institutional Logics Perspective, Patricia Thornton, William Ocasio and Michael Lounsbury proposed the addition of community as a logic to more traditional candidates such as religion and family. This article argues that an examination of the wider sociological and historical literature indicates that community is indeed an important category of analysis, but as the context shaping action rather than as a logic. The literature that Thornton, Ocasio and Lounsbury draw on tends to conflate community as a form of informal social structure with community as geographically bounded space. Using Friedland’s characterization of logics as a combination of substance and practices, I argue that community lacks the coherence necessary to function as a logic. While community remains an important part of our conceptual armoury, I argue that as well as being aware of the connotations of the term it may be more productive to consider it as the context in which logics are received, contested and blended. Attention is thus directed to the ways in which a range of organizational forms might foster or negate shared feelings of groupness.

Reconstructing the Intrinsic Statistical Properties of Intermittent Locomotion Through Corrections for Boundary Effects

Locomotion characteristics are often recorded within bounded spaces, a constraint which introduces geometry-specific biases and potentially complicates the inference of behavioural features from empirical observations. We describe how statistical properties of an uncorrelated random walk, namely the steady-state stopping location probability density and the empirical step probability density, are affected by enclosure in a bounded space. The random walk here is considered as a null model for an organism moving intermittently in such a space, that is, the points represent stopping locations and the step is the displacement between them. Closed-form expressions are derived for motion in one dimension and simple two-dimensional geometries, in addition to an implicit expression for arbitrary (convex) geometries. For the particular choice of no-go boundary conditions, we demonstrate that the empirical step distribution is related to the intrinsic step distribution, i.e. the one we would observe in unbounded space, via a multiplicative transformation dependent solely on the boundary geometry. This conclusion allows in practice for the compensation of boundary effects and the reconstruction of the intrinsic step distribution from empirical observations.