Blackbody Research Articles

"We are mothers, sisters, and lovers too": Examining young Black women's experiences navigating sex and sexual health.

In Canada, there is a lack of research that addresses the sexual health and well-being of African, Caribbean, and Blackyoung women. This paper aims to gather perspectives of young Black women to address the social contexts of how young Black women navigate issues related to sex and sexual health. Young Black women experience unique dynamics in navigating their sexualities and sexual healthcare. The nuanced experiences stem from social contexts with historical underpinnings, such as the perception of Black women's bodies, Black identity, gender roles, and sexual double standards. This Community-Based Participatory Researchstudy (N = 24) utilized focus groups to examine young Black women's experiences navigating sexual health. Employing a thematic analysis, participants identified four themes representing their narratives of navigating sexual health. The themes included the perceptions and hypersexuality of Black women's bodies, navigating sexual double standards and gender roles as Black women, diverse Blackness, and migration experiences concerning sexual health and surveillance of Black women's bodies. This paper is intended to add to scholarly discourse and will include practical strategies for use by researchers and community practitioners in sexual health within the Black community.

Black Male Bodies in White Female Spaces: Power, Dominance, and Myth in Social Work Education

ABSTRACT In 2008, the Council for Social Work Education re-envisioned its accreditation framework. The primary intent was to advance more equitable social work educational environments, which required highlighting curriculum content, and the culture of human interchange. Still, little has been provided regarding their intersectional effects on classroom culture, or students’ educational experiences. To respond to this gap, this study explores the realities of 17 African-American male social work students attending predominantly White collegiate institutions. Interpretive phenomenological analysis, social dominance theory, and Foucauldian power were used to explore and contextualize participants’ experiences. Major findings highlight the nuanced ways gender and race intersect with power, curriculum, and pedagogical practices to protect and promote historically normative structures of racial dominance within social work education.

Two new species of genus Imachra Pascoe, 1874 (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) from Vietnam

Two new species of the genus Imachra Pascoe, 1874 are described from the Hòa Bình Province, Vietnam. Imachra (Orchestoides) zinchenkoi sp. n. differs from Imachra shirozui (Morimoto, 1964) in the wide pronotum, more robust elytra, black tibiae, femora and rostrum, densely punctate elytral interstriae, pronotum without three stripes of scales, elytra without postscutellar patch of scales and subbasal patches. Imachra (Orchestoides) colonnellii sp. n. differs from Imachra nipponica (Morimoto, 1964) in the black body, pronotum and elytra without patches and stripes of scales, longer rostrum and distinctly laterally curved apex of the aedeagus. It is the first record of the genus Imachra for Vietnam.

Ozark matters: implications about Black lives

By referring to the White settler post-racial imaginary of the USA, this article examines the slippage, transferability, and political interplay of racial representations into an analysis of the character of Ruth Langmore, a White adolescent woman portrayed in the Netflix series Ozark (2017–2022). Establishing the history of popular culture in the USA as emergent from Blackface, I argue that Ruth is coded, through an eschatological association, fashion styling, and ambient sound, as Black at various points throughout the series. I analyse screengrabs from pop culture and quotes from the showrunner, executive directors, and musical director to demonstrate that the destruction of the Black body is inherited, restricting the survival of Black and Indigenous peoples. Readers are advised that this article contains spoilers about the series Ozark (2017–2022).

“Yes, I Use Sunscreen,” and Other Takeaways from a Black Girl at Sleepaway Camp

Summary Have you ever been curious about what it is like to be a speck of pepper in a sea of salt, or the only Black or brown body in a sea of white bodies? Speaking from experience, there are times when your body will experience a sudden shock of recognition or understanding. Things you had not fully grasped before become clear–you feel your differences in your body even before it registers in your mind. My story is about the unique arc of trauma my body experienced at predominately white summer camps simply because it was different from the other bodies. One goal of this piece is to impress upon you, the need to create a sense of belonging for bodies of non-dominate campers. To achieve this, it is critical to seek to understand and gain knowledge about the trauma Black and brown bodies experience because they are different and to create emotionally safe environments for all bodies. Information © CAB International 2024

Singing Blackness

In this article I propose the exploration of racial discourse in recent Black Caribbean rap and hip-hop productions. Rap and hip-hop are often used as a sociopolitical tool that—through writing and language—achieve to create activist movements. Specifically, I study the work of the Cuban hip-hop group Obsesión [Obsession] and of Cuban rapper Robe L Ninho and the work of Dominican rappers Circuito Negro and JNoa. I particularly focus on some of their songs that make of the genre an opportunity to approach the racial topic in their communities and a way to celebrate Blackness. This way, these hip-hop and rap songs break the most commercial, common, and expected pattern of lyrics that focus on topics that oversexualize the female (Black) body, that often objectify women, and that reproduce a patriarchal and heteronormative discourse. Instead, these songs, through the topics that they explore, aim to create community and craft a space for social activism. They do so, for example, by singing about hair (Obsesión and Robe L Ninho) and by singing about their Afro-Caribbean communities and their existence as Black people in their neighborhoods (Circuito Negro, JNoa). Among a variety of tracks, I mainly focus on songs that are connected in topic and that represent a continuumin the production of approximately the last decade. So, for example I analyze the songs “Los pelos [Hair]” by Obsesión (2014) and “N.E.G.R.O. [N.E.G.R.O.]” by Robe L Ninho (2022) that focus on Afro hair, celebrate the beauty of it, and denounce the prejudices against it almost a decade apart from each other. Then, I focus on the song “Revolufunk” by Circuito Negro (2011) and the song “Qué fue[What Happened?]” (2022) by JNoa. In this case also there is a generational gap between the artists that symbolize both the evolution of the genre and the consistency of the topics that they cover and that are connected to Blackness. In addition to the racial discourse and the connection of topics across the last decade, these songs also create an inter-Caribbean discourse that transcends the concept of nation and nationality and instead identifies with and shapes a message for Black Spanish-speaking Caribbean people. These songs reveal a poetic that adds urban sounds to a spoken word tradition and that mixes writing, oral tradition, and language in lieu to create a sociopolitical activist movement for Afro-Caribbean people. Also, by focusing on race in countries where the Black communities are often made invisible, they shed light on minorities that usually are relegated to the lowest layers of society. Thus, through their music, these artists raise awareness on their Blackness and on their communities, but they also create a transversal Afro-Caribbean narrative that connects and creates a sense of community among Blacks in the Caribbean in their native Spanish language. This study, so, represents an opportunity to shift a US-centered discourse on Blackness and race and opens new ways of living and understanding the African diaspora in other geographies.

Radiative cooling and indoor light management enabled by a transparent and self-cleaning polymer-based metamaterial

Transparent roofs and walls offer a compelling solution for harnessing natural light. However, traditional glass roofs and walls face challenges such as glare, privacy concerns, and overheating issues. In this study, we present a polymer-based micro-photonic multi-functional metamaterial. The metamaterial diffuses 73% of incident sunlight, creating a more comfortable and private indoor environment. The visible spectral transmittance of the metamaterial (95%) surpasses that of traditional glass (91%). Furthermore, the metamaterial is estimated to enhance photosynthesis efficiency by ~9% compared to glass roofs. With a high emissivity (~0.98) close to that of a mid-infrared black body, the metamaterial is estimated to have a cooling capacity of ~97 W/m2 at ambient temperature. The metamaterial was about 6 °C cooler than the ambient temperature in humid Karlsruhe. The metamaterial exhibits superhydrophobic performance with a contact angle of 152°, significantly higher than that of glass (26°), thus potentially having excellent self-cleaning properties.

Lizzo’s intersectional visibility politics: contesting colonial beauty standards and dismantling the white heteropatriarchal gaze

ABSTRACT The body positive movement—which initially set out to positively represent, humanize, and liberate fat, nonnormative, and multiply marginalized bodies—has been co-opted, commodified, and depoliticized. For the movement to have any chance of returning to its radical fat activist roots, it must shift to center intersectionality in both the forms of rhetorical labor engaged by body positive rhetors as well as the bodies on and through which body positive rhetoric gains visibility. Using popular hip-hop artist Lizzo as a timely and illustrative example, this essay suggests that intersectional visibility politics are central to the political viability and decolonial worldmaking potential of body positivity. I analyze the ways in which Lizzo’s celebrity persona engages two forms of rhetorical labor that recenter the body positive movement back onto multiply marginalized bodies like hers and envision the possibility of a fat-positive world: (1) assemblaging the big butt and the fat, Black body, and (2) resisting dominant gazing and representational practices through performances of feeling herself. In doing so, I theorize intersectional assemblaging and feeling herself as two rhetorical maneuvers of intersectional visibility that reclaim power, agency, and humanity outside of the terms offered by coloniality and the white heteropatriarchal gaze.

Black Crip Superpowers

This article contains some language that readers may find offensive. Black people have never been human. White heteropatriarchal paradigms in the United States depend upon the abjection of blackness, excluding us from the realm of human identities. It is this exclusion that generates the problem of unintelligibility; this lack of grammar in turn renders black bodies invisible and more vulnerable to violence. The article attends to the black disabled body as a source of new grammars , short-circuiting the separation of blackness from other modes of difference. These new grammars, or what the article articulates as crip superpowers , theorize new ways of thinking, knowing, and being beyond abjection. By building on the labor of black feminist, crip/queer, and disability scholars, this intervention into disability studies analyzes how marginalized bodies engage with issues of erasure and disability within the black community. The article offers a transtemporal reading of Essex Hemphill’s Ceremonies (1992) and Danez Smith’s Don’t Call Us Dead (2017) to examine how black disabled subjects have developed these new grammars across time and space. Through this affective connection between the past and our contemporary moment, we can, as it were, go home ; we can imagine, that is, alternative worlds, where we can be whole and free.

Theoretical derivation of Planck’s constant based on brownian motion model and uncertainty relation

AbstractIn stochastic mechanics, one of the interpretations of realistic quantum mechanics, the Schrödinger equation can be derived by assuming the Brownian motion (BM) of minute particles. In this study, we theoretically derive Planck’s constant (h), a fundamental constant of quantum physics, by assuming same BM. Einstein investigated the BM of a resonator caused by photons in a black body; meanwhile, in this study, BM is considered to be caused by the particle and wave natures of light. As a result, as the functional form of h,$${h}_{N}=\frac{4\pi {e}^{2}}{c{\varepsilon }_{0}}\frac{1}{\beta }$$ h N = 4 π e 2 c ε 0 1 β (e: elementary charge, $${\varepsilon }_{0}$$ ε 0 : permittivity, c: speed of light) was derived, where the undetermined coefficient $$\frac{\beta }{2}$$ β 2 represents the probability that the interaction between electrons and electromagnetic waves becomes particle-like absorption in one cycle of oscillation. The theoretical value of h was calculated to be $$\frac{4\pi {e}^{2}}{c{\varepsilon }_{0}}\pi \sqrt{3}$$ 4 π e 2 c ε 0 π 3 by obtaining β from the transition conditions of the BM model and uncertainty relation. This theoretical value is within 0.3% of the most recent value of h. Besides, Nelson’s assumed diffusion coefficient in the stochastic mechanics, which is essential in obtaining Schrödinger’s equation, was proved to be obtained from the BM model and the uncertainty relation. This finding and the conclusion that the Planck’s constant can be mathematically derived, provide support for Nelson’s stochastic mechanics.

Shadow Detection in Remote Sensing Images Based on Spectral Radiance Separability Enhancement.

Shadow detection is a basic task of remote sensing image analysis, but it is often seriously disturbed by vegetation, water bodies, and black objects. It is observed that vegetation and dark objects often show a dark look in visible bands but brighter in the near-infrared (NIR), and is also noticed that the reflection of inland water bodies in the green band is stronger than that in the blue band. Taking advantage of these physical properties and combining them with the bluish and dark appearance of shadows, we propose a simple but effective shadow detection method for multispectral remote sensing images. These physical properties are used to create transformation models that suppress features such as vegetation, water bodies, etc., but at the same time enhance shadows. Then, we transform the shadow representation into a color space to generate candidate shadows using dominant color components. To separate shadows from the others, we propose two indexes, the normalized Color Difference Composite Index (CDCI) and Color Purity Index (CPI), and fuse them to achieve shadows and their confidence. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method can effectively detect the shadows in multispectral images and outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches.

Evaluation of an Intensive Care Unit Sepsis Alert in Critically Ill Medical Patients.

Sepsis alerts commonly used for intensive care unit (ICU) patients can lead to alert fatigue because these patients generally meet 1 or more of the criteria for systemic inflammatory response syndrome. To identify ICU patients at greatest risk for sepsis-related consequences, an ICU-specific sepsis alert was implemented. To evaluate an ICU sepsis alert based on modified criteria for systemic inflammatory response syndrome among critically ill medical patients. This retrospective evaluation was conducted at a comprehensive tertiary referral center. Patients included were at least 18 years old, were admitted to the critical care medicine service, and had at least 1 sepsis alert between January 1 and February 29, 2020. The sepsis alert identified patients meeting at least 2 modified systemic inflammatory response syndrome criteria (white blood cell count, <4000/μL or >12 000/μL; body temperature, <36 °C or >38.3 °C; heart rate, >110/min; and respiratory rate, >21/min), with at least 1 of the 2 criteria being white blood cell count or body temperature. For 128 alerts evaluated, the positive predictive value was 72%. Of 713 patients who were admitted to the critical care medicine service and did not have a sepsis alert, 7 received a sepsis diagnosis. The ICU sepsis alert had a negative predictive value of 99%, sensitivity of 92.9%, and specificity of 95.1%. An ICU sepsis alert using modified systemic inflammatory response syndrome criteria was effective for identifying sepsis in critically ill medical patients.

Sulfonylureas exert antidiabetic action on adipocytes by inhibition of PPARγ serine 273 phosphorylation

ObjectiveSulfonylureas (SUs) are still among the mostly prescribed antidiabetic drugs with an established mode of action: release of insulin from pancreatic β-cells. In addition, effects of SUs on adipocytes by activation of the nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) have been described, which might explain their insulin-sensitizing potential observed in patients. However, there is a discrepancy between the impact of SUs on antidiabetic action and their rather moderate in vitro effect on PPARγ transcriptional activity. Recent studies have shown that some PPARγ ligands can improve insulin sensitivity by blocking PPARγ Ser-273 phosphorylation without having full agonist activity. It is unknown if SUs elicit their antidiabetic effects on adipocytes by inhibition of PPARγ phosphorylation. Here, we investigated if binding of SUs to PPARγ can interfere with PPARγ Ser-273 phosphorylation and determined their antidiabetic actions in vitro in primary human white adipocytes and in vivo in high-fat diet (HFD) obese mice. MethodsPrimary human white preadipocytes were differentiated in the presence of glibenclamide, glimepiride and PPARγ ligands rosiglitazone and SR1664 to compare PPARγ Ser-273 phosphorylation, glucose uptake and adipokine expression. Transcriptional activity at PPARγ was determined by luciferase assays, quantification of PPARγ Ser-273 phosphorylation was determined by Western blotting and CDK5 kinase assays. In silico modelling was performed to gain insight into the binding characteristics of SUs to PPARγ. HFD mice were administered SUs and rosiglitazone for 6 days. PPARγ Ser-273 phosphorylation in white adipose tissue (WAT), body composition, glucose tolerance, adipocyte morphology and expression levels of genes involved in PPARγ activity in WAT and brown adipose tissue (BAT) were evaluated. ResultsSUs inhibit phosphorylation of PPARγ at Ser-273 in primary human white adipocytes and exhibit a positive antidiabetic expression profile, which is characterized by up regulation of insulin-sensitizing and down regulation of insulin resistance-inducing adipokines. We demonstrate that SUs directly bind to PPARγ by in silico modelling and inhibit phosphorylation in kinase assays to a similar extend as rosiglitazone and SR1664. In HFD mice SUs reduce PPARγ phosphorylation in WAT and have comparable effects on gene expression to rosiglitazone. In BAT SUs increase UCP1 expression and reduce lipid droplets sizes. ConclusionsOur findings indicate that a part of SUs extra-pancreatic effects on adipocytes in vitro and in vivo is probably mediated via their interference with PPARγ phosphorylation rather than via classical agonistic activity at clinical concentrations.

Genome-wide identification of yellow gene family in Hermetia illucens and functional analysis of yellow-y by CRISPR/Cas9.

The yellow gene family plays a crucial role in insect pigmentation. It has potential for use as a visible marker gene in genetic manipulation and transgenic engineering in several model and non-model insects. Sadly, yellow genes have rarely been identified in Stratiomyidae species and the functions of yellow genes are relatively unknown. In the present study, we first manually annotated and curated 10 yellow genes in the black soldier fly (BSF), Hermetia illucens (Stratiomyidae). Then, the conserved amino acids in the major royal jelly proteins (MRJPs) domain, structural architecture and phylogenetic relationship of yellow genes in BSF were analyzed. We found that the BSF yellow-y, yellow-c and yellow-f genes are expressed at all developmental stages, especially in the prepupal stage. Using the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein9 (Cas9) system, we successfully disrupted yellow-y, yellow-c and yellow-f in the BSF. Consequently, the mutation of yellow-y clearly resulted in a pale-yellow body color in prepupae, pupae and adults, instead of the typical black body color of the wild type. However, the mutation of yellow-c or yellow-f genes did not result in any change in color of the insects, when compared with the wild type. Our study indicates that the BSF yellow-y gene plays a role in body pigmentation, providing an optimal marker gene for the genetic manipulation of BSF.

Genome-wide identification of toll-like receptors in Octopus sinensis and expression analysis in response to different PAMPs stimulation

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are one of the extensively studied pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) and play crucial roles in the immune responses of vertebrates and invertebrates. In this study, 14 TLR genes were identified from the genome-wide data of Octopus sinensis. Protein structural domain analysis showed that most TLR proteins had three main structural domains: extracellular leucine-rich repeats (LRR), transmembrane structural domains, and intracellular Toll/IL-1 receptor domain (TIR). The results of subcellular localization prediction showed that the TLRs of O. sinensis were mainly located on the plasma membrane. The results of quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) showed that the detected TLR genes were differentially expressed in the hemolymph, white bodies, hepatopancreas, gills, gill heart, intestine, kidney, and salivary gland of O. sinensis. Furthermore, the present study investigated the expression changes of O. sinensis TLR genes in hemolymph, white bodies, gills, and hepatopancreas in different phases (6 h, 12 h, 24 h, 48 h) after stimulation with PGN, poly(I: C) and Vibrio parahaemolyticus. The expression of most of the TLR genes was upregulated at different time points after infection with pathogens or stimulation with PAMPs, a few genes were unchanged or even down-regulated, and many of the TLR genes were much higher after V. parahaemolyticus infection than after PGN and poly(I:C) stimulation. The results of this study contribute to a better understanding of the molecular immune mechanisms of O. sinensis TLRs genes in resistance to pathogen stimulation.

Towards in-situ water quantification via neutron imaging: insights from NeXT-Grenoble

Neutron imaging has gained increasing attention in recent years. A notable domain is the in-situ study of flow and concentration of hydrogen-rich materials. This demands precise quantification of the evolving concentrations. Several implementations deviate from the ideal conditions that allow the direct applicability of the Beer–Lambert law to assess this concentration. The objective of this work is to address these deviations by applying both calibration and correction procedures to ensure and validate accurate quantitative measurements during 2D and 3D neutron imaging conducted at the cold neutron source at the NeXT instrument of the Institute Laue–Langevin, Grenoble, France. Linear attenuation coefficients and non-linear correlations have been proposed to measure the water concentration based on the sample-to-detector distance. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the black body grid correction method, introduced by Boillat et al (2018 Opt. Express 26 15769), is evaluated which accounts for spurious deviations arising from the scattering of neutrons from the sample and the surrounding environment. The applicability of the Beer–Lambert law without any data correction is found to be reasonable within limited equivalent thickness (e.g. below 4 mm of water) beyond which the correction algorithm proves highly effective in eliminating spurious effects. Notably, this correction method maintains its effectiveness even with transmissions below 1%. We examine here the impact of grid location and resolution with respect to sample heterogeneity.

Dark-object subtraction atmosphere correction for water body information extraction in Zhuhai-1 hyperspectral imagery

The atmospheric correction of hyperspectral data stands as a fundamental step in quantitative applications, crucial for the accurate analysis of hyperspectral information. Zhuhai-1 hyperspectral data, characterized by its high spatial and spectral resolution, holds substantial potential and advantages for the quantification of water body information. Nonetheless, the adoption of more precise physical models for atmospheric correction often demands extensive satellite and ground environmental parameters, which pose practical challenges in applying physical models The Dark Object Subtraction (DOS), leveraging the intrinsic spectral characteristics of the imagery, offers an efficient alternative for achieving improved atmospheric correction results tailored to the data and study area. In this context, this study presents a Dark Object Subtraction for Water body information extraction (DOSW), specifically designed to advance the quantification of water body information in Zhuhai-1 hyperspectral data. The proposed method is rigorously evaluated by comparing the correction results from the Foshan region and Feilaixia Reservoir with standard and measured spectra of typical objects. The results demonstrate the accuracy of DOSW in atmospheric correction, with correlation coefficients exceeding 0.7 when compared to standard spectra for three representative objects. Notably, DOSW achieves exceptional accuracy in water body correction, achieving a correlation coefficient of 0.95 and an RMSE of 0.002 in the Feilaixia Reservoir, and a correlation coefficient of 0.72 and an RMSE of 0.005 in the Foshan region. Overall, the results underscore the efficacy of DOSW in accurately addressing atmospheric correction challenges to Zhuhai-1 hyperspectral data, effectively meeting the requirements of hyperspectral quantification applications.

Black body representation in Get Out (2017) and Us (2019) by Jordan Peele

Black characters soon appeared in Hollywood films such as The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916). They are recognised as criminals, not conceded as human rights. African-American directors created films to change the image of black people. Jordan Peele inherits the efforts of his predecessors and takes the story of black people in cinema to a new level with identity clarification. That is clearly shown in the movies Get Out (2017) and Us (2019). The research aims to identify the black body representation in the above two films by Jordan Peele as an expression of identity. Body denial is the root cause of violence among African Americans. This acts as a form of identity tracing. The research combines the use of cinematic narrative and semiotic approaches with interdisciplinary research methods such as culturology and anthropology. The basic principle of the position of the research is the theory of ethnic identity. The use of comparison, collation, analysis and synthesis will be applied in the process of developing theses.

On stability behaviors of 5D M-theory black objects

Using N = 2 supergravity formalism, we investigate certain behaviors of five-dimensional black objects from the compactification of M-theory on a Calabi–Yau three-fold. The manifold has been constructed as the intersection of two homogeneous polynomials of degrees (ω + 2, 1) and (2, 1) in a product of two weighted projective spaces given by WP4(ω,1,1,1,1)×P1 . First, we determine the allowed electric charge regions of the BPS and non BPS black holes obtained by wrapping M2-branes on appropriate two cycles in such a proposed Calabi–Yau three-fold. After that, we calculate the entropy of these solutions which takes a maximal value corresponding to ω = 1 defining the ordinary projective space P4 . For generic values of ω, we show that the non BPS states are unstable. Then, we conduct a similar study of five-dimensional black strings. Concerning the allowed magnetic charge regions of the BPS and non BPS black stringy solutions derived from M5-branes on dual divisors, we calculate the tension taking a minimal value for P4 . By determining the recombination factor, we show that the non-BPS black string states are stable in the allowed regions in the magnetic charge space.

Lightweight two-stage transformer for low-light image enhancement and object detection

In low-light conditions, due to the loss of image details the visual tasks are challenging. To achieve real-time image enhancement and improve the accuracy of object detection task, we propose a lightweight two-stage Transformer. First, we use dynamic convolution to improve the adaptability of the network to different samples and preliminarily enhance the image through predicting the multiplicative and additive maps of the least squares method. In the second stage, we propose a FFT-Guidance Block (FGB) to obtain frequency components for explicit modeling, guiding the recovery of image potential information. In addition, joint our model with YOLOv3 to build a dark object detection framework, and we only use normal detection loss to simplify the training process. On the LOLv2 dataset, our model achieves advanced results. The enhanced model maintains good performance while the parameters are only 0.050M, and increase the accuracy of the downstream object detection task. The detection framework reaches 77.9% and 60.2 in mAP and FPS respectively on ExDark dataset, which can be better robust in dark conditions.