Hasil untuk "American literature"

Trevor Incerti, Jonathan Elkobi, Daniel Mattingly

How do authoritarian regimes strengthen global support for nondemocratic political systems? Roughly half of the users of the social media platform TikTok report getting news from social media influencers. Against this backdrop, authoritarian regimes have increasingly outsourced content creation to these influencers. To gain understanding of the extent of this phenomenon and the persuasive capabilities of these influencers, we collect comprehensive data on pro-China influencers on TikTok. We show that pro-China influencers have more engagement than state media. We then create a realistic clone of the TikTok app, and conduct a randomized experiment in which over 8,500 Americans are recruited to use this app and view a random sample of actual TikTok content. We show that pro-China foreign influencers are strikingly effective at increasing favorability toward China, while traditional Chinese state media causes backlash. The findings highlight the importance of influencers in shaping global public opinion.

Mingyu Huang, Shasha Zhou, Yuxuan Chen et al.

We are living in an era of "big literature", where the volume of digital scientific publications is growing exponentially. While offering new opportunities, this also poses challenges for understanding literature landscapes, as traditional manual reviewing is no longer feasible. Recent large language models (LLMs) have shown strong capabilities for literature comprehension, yet they are incapable of offering "comprehensive, objective, open and transparent" views desired by systematic reviews due to their limited context windows and trust issues like hallucinations. Here we present LitChat, an end-to-end, interactive and conversational literature agent that augments LLM agents with data-driven discovery tools to facilitate literature exploration. LitChat automatically interprets user queries, retrieves relevant sources, constructs knowledge graphs, and employs diverse data-mining techniques to generate evidence-based insights addressing user needs. We illustrate the effectiveness of LitChat via a case study on AI4Health, highlighting its capacity to quickly navigate the users through large-scale literature landscape with data-based evidence that is otherwise infeasible with traditional means.

Joel Mire, Zubin Trivadi Aysola, Daniel Chechelnitsky et al.

Preference alignment via reward models helps build safe, helpful, and reliable large language models (LLMs). However, subjectivity in preference judgments and the lack of representative sampling in preference data collection can introduce new biases, hindering reward models' fairness and equity. In this work, we introduce a framework for evaluating dialect biases in reward models and conduct a case study on biases against African American Language (AAL) through several experiments comparing reward model preferences and behavior on paired White Mainstream English (WME) and both machine-translated and human-written AAL corpora. We show that reward models are less aligned with human preferences when processing AAL texts vs. WME ones (-4\% accuracy on average), frequently disprefer AAL-aligned texts vs. WME-aligned ones, and steer conversations toward WME, even when prompted with AAL texts. Our findings provide a targeted analysis of anti-AAL biases at a relatively understudied stage in LLM development, highlighting representational harms and ethical questions about the desired behavior of LLMs concerning AAL.

Panneer Selvam Santhalingam, Swann Thantsin, Ahmad Kamari et al.

In recent years, video conferencing applications have become increasingly prevalent, relying heavily on high-speed internet connectivity. When such connectivity is lacking, users often default to audio-only communication, a mode that significantly disadvantages American Sign Language (ASL) users, whose communication relies on hand gestures, body movement, and facial expressions. In this work, we introduce VC4ASL, a system designed to enable ASL communication over the audio channel of existing video conferencing applications, even in the absence of reliable video. VC4ASL integrates seamlessly with current platforms without requiring any modifications. Our approach establishes a communication channel through audio by encoding and transmitting human pose information, which is then rendered to reconstruct signed content. We propose novel receive-side error detection and correction mechanisms that exploit the inherent structural constraints of human pose data. To evaluate the system, we simulate network-degraded environments, generate pose-based ASL video sequences, and conduct user studies to assess comprehension among ASL users. Experimental results demonstrate that VC4ASL effectively facilitates intelligible ASL communication over audio in low-bandwidth scenarios where video transmission is impaired.

Olga Yu. Panova, Sergey I. Pano

The paper concentrates on the reception of American Nobel prize winner Sinclair Lewis in Soviet literary criticism of the 1920s–1930s. The interpretation of Lewis’ work by a prominent Americanist, literary critic, Party functionary, and editor- in-chief of the International Literature magazine Sergei Dinamov is in the focus of attention. The article traces the publication history of Lewis’s political novel It Can’t Happen Here (1935) in the USSR, its editing, censoring, cutting and translating, as well as its critical analysis and evaluation. In his critical reviews and articles Dinamov sought to give the Soviet reader a “correct” and “up-to-date” interpretation of the novel, and tried, though unsuccessfully, to influence the author, convincing Lewis to reconsider the images of communists in his work. The paper is based on the publications in the 1930s Soviet press as well as archived materials — Dinamov’s correspondence with Lewis, Soviet readers’ reviews from the 1930s of the American writer’s novels, and a transcript of Dinamov’s 1936 lecture at the Institute of Red Professors, that contains a critical survey of Lewis’s work.

Tracy Evans-Gilbert, Karen Broome, Beryl Irons et al.

This study searched grey literature and PubMed for strategies to sustain the elimination of measles, rubella, and congenital rubella syndrome and prevent their reintroduction in the Caribbean. Strategies were categorized at the macro, meso, and micro health levels. Macro strategies include: strong, clear, unified political and technical leadership and support; country ownership and subregional coordination of resources, policies, and programs; government investment in national immunization programs; and timely payment to the Pan American Health Organization Revolving Fund for affordable, good-quality vaccines. Including the private health sector and health workers in the tourism industry to identify and manage suspected imported cases, and finding and vaccinating every unvaccinated child, university student or frontline worker are key meso strategies. Strong social and communication programs are the key micro strategies needed to promote vaccine confidence and gain public trust. Priority macro strategies include a strengthened legislative framework supporting immunization, and policies to ring-fence the immunization budget, mitigate the rapid turnover of staff, and train new immunization managers. Establishing infrastructure to vaccinate adolescents and adults, including through the private sector, increasing the capacity to test for measles and rubella, and updating digital surveillance systems for timely decision-making are also critical meso strategies to prevent the reintroduction of these diseases. Partnerships, commitment, and collaborative efforts that contribute to elimination must be sustained, and health strategies strengthened to keep the Caribbean free of endemic transmission of measles, rubella, and congenital rubella syndrome.

Elena Savoia, Evelyn Masterson, David R. Olander et al.

Despite the crucial role the COVID-19 vaccine played in curbing the pandemic, a significant portion of Black and African American individuals expressed hesitancy toward being vaccinated. This review aimed to identify the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Black and African American individuals in the U.S. The literature search was conducted in December 2022 according to the PRISMA criteria focusing on empirical studies. Data extraction methods, critical appraisal, and secondary thematic analysis were conducted on both quantitative and qualitative studies. Sixteen quantitative studies identified the key factors associated with vaccine hesitancy, such as confidence in vaccine effectiveness, safety, and trust in the healthcare system. Fourteen qualitative studies revealed major themes of mistrust, fear, and information needs, including historical mistrust, concerns about the vaccine development process, and contemporary institutional mistrust. The synthesis of quantitative and qualitative findings derived from this review provides a nuanced understanding of the determinants of vaccine hesitancy in Black and African American communities in the U.S., offering a foundation for the development of evidence-based interventions. Mistrust in the healthcare system, fear, and informational gaps on vaccine safety and effectiveness were identified as significant barriers to vaccination, demanding targeted interventions.

Nataliya Krynytska

The US national mythology, one of the components of which is the Puritan cultural heritage, has recently increasingly attracted the attention of researchers of contemporary American literature. The attention often focuses on the problem of the consequences (destructive or beneficial) of postmodern deconstruction regarding the fundamental US myths. The article shows that Kurt Vonnegut in his anti-war postmodernist novel Slaughterhouse-Five manages to create a double code that allows to deconstruct John Bunyan’s important allegorical work The Pilgrim’s Progress, which at one time was an effective means of Protestant religious propaganda, and at the same time to urge readers to return to Christian humanism. The purpose of the article is to study the deconstruction of Bunyan’s work in Vonnegut’s novel through the lens of jeremiad as the Puritan rhetorical form. The author emphasizes that historically the jeremiad was a sermon for the salvation of the souls of the flock, because it lamented the current state of affairs in society, called to come to its senses and embark on the path of correction. Despite the satire and absurdity of the world in Slaughterhouse-Five, it contains the features of the jeremiad: “an Elect” is Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut’s alter ego, “an exodus” is his service in the US Army during World War II, “an errand into the wilderness” is Billy’s move to Europe and participation in the Battle of the Bulge, then his capture, and the punishment of sinners – the Dresden tragedy. Fortunately, Billy survives, as if he has “a covenant” with God, and then he fulfils his will and brings to the people – whether from God or from the Tralfamadorian aliens – “providential historical thinking”. The paper considers the connection of the concept of time in the novel with the concept of the triple synthesis of time by Gilles Deleuze, the understanding of time in the works of Saint Augustine, and in the Bible. The use of a SF concept of non-linear time allows Vonnegut to reach a new level of understanding the problems of destination, choice, and responsibility. He creates an alternative to the pilgrim’s progress in Bunyan’s novel, since the linearity of the development of civilization and Protestant ethics lead to catastrophes like World War II. The author concludes that, despite all the irony, Vonnegut’s novel is not only humanistic, but also deeply Christian, and develops, but already at a modern level, the educational mission that is characteristic of the US literature.

Andrei Shelopugin, Alexander Sirotkin

One of the key problems in the field of soccer analytics is predicting how a player performance changes when transitioning from one league to another. One potential solution to address this issue lies in the evaluation of the respective league strength. This article endeavors to compute club ratings of the first and second European and South American leagues. In order to calculate these ratings, the authors have designed the Glicko-2 rating system-based approach, which overcomes some Glicko-2 limitations. Particularly, the authors took into consideration the probability of the draw, the home-field advantage, and the property of teams to become stronger or weaker following their league transitions. Furthermore, authors have constructed a predictive model for forecasting match results based on the number of goals scored in previous matches. The metrics utilized in the analysis reveal that the Glicko-2 based approach exhibits a marginally superior level of accuracy when compared to the commonly used Poisson regression-based approach. In addition, Glicko-2 based ratings offer greater interpretability and can find application in various analytics tasks, such as predicting soccer player metrics for forthcoming seasons or the detailed analysis of a player performance in preceding matches. The implementation of the approach is available on github.com/andreyshelopugin/GlickoSoccer.

Ірина Качур

The article considers McCarthy’s novel No Country for Old Men from the perspective of the existentialist motif of despair in the characters’ network. Being philosophical in nature, the book raises existential questions of the value of human life and the purpose of human existence. The subject of the study is the existentialist motif of despair. The problem is the peculiarities of representation of this existentialist motif in modern literature. The aim of the study is to explore the literary representation of the existentialist motif of despair in No Country for Old Men. The applied methods include close reading, which serves for the identification of the motif of despair in the novel, and character analysis, which helps examine the main characters’ experiences of despair and reveal their psychological and emotional responses to the existential challenges they face. The novelty of the study lies in offering a fresh perspective on the analysis of the novel in the context of existentialist motifs, especially the motif of despair. The results of the study show that in No Country for Old Men the existentialist motif of despair arises from the awareness of the inherent meaninglessness and absurdity of existence. The main characters constantly experience despair because the society they live in is devoid of meaning and is ruled by cruelty, which reveals profound changes of modern civilization. The protagonists belong to diverse generations and differ in their positions and ways of thinking, but they share a common experience of descending into the depths of despair at some point of their lives. The despair that they feel is caused by the changes that society undergoes. These transformations, also on the global scale, provoke alteration in the ethical norms engendering a pervasive sense of dissonance and moral ambiguity. The characters seem to assume that violence becomes necessary for survival, since justice proves its insufficiency, money and drugs take a leading place and substitute religion, and the value of human life deteriorates. The world seems absurd and devoid of meaning; however, the protagonists desperately try to find their path through the darkness and struggle to uncover meaning and authenticity in a seemingly indifferent and chaotic world.

Maria Wiegel, Alexander Rüter

Starting from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s critique of paranoid reading and her call for reparative reading, this article proposes two experimental readings of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho“ (1991). Drawing on the writings of Roland Barthes and Eugenie Brinkema, we consider the text’s affective possibilities and potentialities as well as moments when it may surprise its readers, in order to ask what a reparative reading can look like in the case of American Psycho“. First, we read the novel for its potentialities of different affective modes—in this case, boredom and disgust—by looking closely at its syntactic structure. Second, we impose formal constraints on our reading itself, reading the novel as if it was a comedy. Through these modes of reading, our approach opens up new possibilities for parallel interpretations, instead of positing another master reading of the text.

Chinonso Nwankwo, Nneka Umeorah, Tony Ware et al.

We propose a deep learning method for solving the American options model with a free boundary feature. To extract the free boundary known as the early exercise boundary from our proposed method, we introduce the Landau transformation. For efficient implementation of our proposed method, we further construct a dual solution framework consisting of a novel auxiliary function and free boundary equations. The auxiliary function is formulated to include the feed forward deep neural network (DNN) output and further mimic the far boundary behaviour, smooth pasting condition, and remaining boundary conditions due to the second-order space derivative and first-order time derivative. Because the early exercise boundary and its derivative are not a priori known, the boundary values mimicked by the auxiliary function are in approximate form. Concurrently, we then establish equations that approximate the early exercise boundary and its derivative directly from the DNN output based on some linear relationships at the left boundary. Furthermore, the option Greeks are obtained from the derivatives of this auxiliary function. We test our implementation with several examples and compare them with the existing numerical methods. All indicators show that our proposed deep learning method presents an efficient and alternative way of pricing options with early exercise features.

MohammadReza Mohammadi, Peyton Chandarana, James Seekings et al.

In this paper, we develop four spiking neural network (SNN) models for two static American Sign Language (ASL) hand gesture classification tasks, i.e., the ASL Alphabet and ASL Digits. The SNN models are deployed on Intel's neuromorphic platform, Loihi, and then compared against equivalent deep neural network (DNN) models deployed on an edge computing device, the Intel Neural Compute Stick 2 (NCS2). We perform a comprehensive comparison between the two systems in terms of accuracy, latency, power consumption, and energy. The best DNN model achieves an accuracy of 99.93% on the ASL Alphabet dataset, whereas the best performing SNN model has an accuracy of 99.30%. For the ASL-Digits dataset, the best DNN model achieves an accuracy of 99.76% accuracy while the SNN achieves 99.03%. Moreover, our obtained experimental results show that the Loihi neuromorphic hardware implementations achieve up to 20.64x and 4.10x reduction in power consumption and energy, respectively, when compared to NCS2.

Antonio Juan Rubio-Montero, Raúl Pagán-Muñoz, Rafael Mayo-García et al.

LAGO, the Latin American Giant Observatory, is an extended cosmic ray observatory, consisting of a wide network of water Cherenkov detectors located in 10 countries. With different altitudes and geomagnetic rigidity cutoffs, their geographic distribution, combined with the new electronics for control, atmospheric sensing and data acquisition, allows the realisation of diverse astrophysics studies at a regional scale. It is an observatory designed, built and operated by the LAGO Collaboration, a non-centralised alliance of 30 institutions from 11 countries. While LAGO has access to different computational frameworks, it lacks standardised computational mechanisms to fully grasp its cooperative approach. The European Commission is fostering initiatives aligned to LAGO objectives, especially to enable Open Science and its long-term sustainability. This work introduces the adaptation of LAGO to this paradigm within the EOSC-Synergy project, focusing on the simulations of the expected astrophysical signatures at detectors deployed at the LAGO sites around the World.

Tim Sainburg

The National Institute of Health (NIH) sets postdoctoral (postdoc) trainee stipend levels that many American institutions and investigators use as a basis for postdoc salaries. Although salary standards are held constant across universities, the cost of living in those universities' cities and towns vary widely. Across non-postdoc jobs, more expensive cities pay workers higher wages that scale with an increased cost of living. This work investigates the extent to which postdoc wages account for cost-of-living differences. More than 27,000 postdoc salaries across all US universities are analyzed alongside measures of regional differences in cost of living. We find that postdoc salaries do not account for cost-of-living differences, in contrast with the broader labor market in the same cities and towns. Despite a modest increase in income in high cost of living areas, real (cost of living adjusted) postdoc salaries differ by 29% ($15k 2021 USD) between the least and most expensive areas. Cities that produce greater numbers of tenure-track faculty relative to students such as Boston, New York, and San Francisco are among the most impacted by this pay disparity. The postdoc pay gap is growing and is well-positioned to incur a greater financial burden on economically disadvantaged groups and contribute to faculty hiring disparities in women and racial minorities.

Hélène Aji

Many of Vanessa Place’s books proceed from flirting with an end wish: they seem fascinated with the moment of interruption in cycles or processes construed as infinite, like ending an endless sentence (Dies: A Sentence), or navigating the megapolis’s labyrinth (La Medusa). While one can see her work as the manifestation of a retreat from creativity in keeping with her claim that she does not write, but rather, works as a medium to circulate text, one can also approach it as an extreme type of experimentation with expectations, conventions, and the general codes of social order. It is this article’s contention that Vanessa Place systematically appropriates the modes of communication of the digital age to undermine the ideologies at work beneath the surface of all kinds of texts and text formats, through the production of books that re-form and recontextualize these texts to convey their ethical shortcomings.

Motahareh Danaeifar, Zohreh Tafazzoli

Architectural criticism currently encompasses a range of diverse concepts and meanings, indicating uncertainties and difficulties in this field. Despite the wide range of existing literature, one can spot many overlaps and ambiguities that leave the question of architectural criticism unclear. Architectural criticism is not a constant and timeless concept. It changes during history, and these historical changes are neglected in most research. Furthermore, the concepts have emerged from a variety of cultures, schools, and languages with various goals, which renders further inquiries and detailed investigations all the more necessary. In order to show transformations and differences, and based on the secondary sources, this research investigates the history of architectural criticism from its emergence in the 18th century until now, which can be divided into three periods: the emergence of architectural criticism in the 18th century in Jacques- Francois Blondel’s publications and the first architectural magazines in Germany, France, and England; its development in the 19th when first architectural critics, as distinct from art critics, historians, or journalists, appeared gradually professionalising architectural criticism through; and its flourishing and decline in the 20th century in which architectural criticism was expanded and diversified and faced a crisis attributed to the gap between diverse types of architectural criticism, with its death being annpunced.It is clarified here that the function of architectural criticism has fundamentally changed over its history. Its primary function is descriptive, based on a single, personal and subjective critique that was influenced by art criticism in France referring to an edifice. By connecting journalism and criticism, public architectural criticism also grew and flourished and opened a dialogue between architecture and the public. So, the social function prevailed in criticism in this period. With the development of the idea of formalism and design critique in architecture, evaluation of form and design process based on objective criteria was suggested and discussed. Finally, the academic architectural criticism connected to the architectural theory and history departments of American universities has fundamentally changed criticism’s function. This new architectural criticism as a speculative discourse does not endeavour to comment on a singular work. But it is intent on separating architectural criticism from the profession and tends to cover theories of the humanities and social sciences, critical theory, and critical history of architecture.

Guillaume Michel, Durgesh Haribhau Salunkhe, Philippe Bordure et al.

In otolaryngologic surgery, endoscopy is increasingly used to provide a better view of hard-to-reach areas and to promote minimally invasive surgery. However, the need to manipulate the endoscope limits the surgeon's ability to operate with only one instrument at a time. Currently, several robotic systems are being developed, demonstrating the value of robotic assistance in microsurgery. The aim of this literature review is to present and classify current robotic systems that are used for otological and endonasal applications. For these solutions, an analysis of the functionalities in relation to the surgeon's needs will be carried out in order to produce a set of specifications for the creation of new robots.

Carlos Eduardo Maldonado

A strong link between complexity theory and literature is possible, i.e. feasible, under one proviso, namely that total novels be considered. However, neither in literature at large nor in complexity science has been literature seriously taken into consideration. This paper argues that a total novel is most conspicuous example of a complex system. The argument is supported by a clear characterization of what a total novel is and entails. Science and literature can be thus complemented and developed, hand in hand.

Ayyappan V. Nair, D Orth, DNB, MNAMS, Ajit Jangale, MS, MRCS, M. Praveen Kumar, MS et al.

Background: Various arthroscopic portals have been described for repair of superior labrum anterior-posterior (SLAP) lesions. The difficulty in doing repair through the rotator interval and the problems in direction and placement of anchors still persist. Functional outcomes of the patients after treating them using trans-cuff portal are well established in literature, but the actual healing of the portal is not clear. We made a sincere effort to identify healing of the trans-cuff portal with ultrasound guidance and functional outcome using American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons Shoulder Score (ASES score), Constant Shoulder Score, and Oxford Shoulder Score. Material and methods: Twenty-two patients with SLAP or labral tears and normal contralateral shoulders were included. Surgery was performed using the trans-cuff portal as a viewing or working portal for biceps repair and labral repair. Rehabilitation was initiated from day 1 and followed up on 6 weeks, 3 months and, 6 months with a maximum follow-up duration of 2 years. Ultrasound was used to measure the depth of healing and graded at 6 weeks of follow-up postoperatively. Functional outcomes were measured using ASES score, Constant Shoulder Score, and Oxford Shoulder Score measured at 6 months. Results: Seventeen patients were of grade 1 (complete healing); 1 patient was of grade 2 (more than 50% healing); 1 of grade 3 (less than 50% healing), and 3 were lost to follow-up. Fourteen patients out of 19 had excellent ASES scores, 4 patients had good scores, and 1 patient was considered as poor with an average ASES score of 84.51 (range 93-48) and standard deviation of 10.37. The ASES score indicated that healing of the rotator cuff portal is directly related to the functional outcome of the shoulder. The Constant Shoulder Score and Oxford Shoulder Score on the contrary were statistically not significant indicating no relation of the Oxford and Constant scores with healing of the rotator cuff portals. Conclusion: Trans-cuff portal is safe, gives proper angle for insertion of anchors, and can be used for repair of SLAP lesions with ease. Ultrasonography helps in confirming the healing of portal.