Escape Routes Research Articles

Sharing Hidden Histories: The XRchaeology at Miller Grove, a Free African American Community in Southern Illinois

ABSTRACT XRchaeology at Miller Grove is a web-based collection of new media components, including digital storytelling, geographic information systems, virtual tours, three-dimensional objects, and web-based virtual reality presentations. XRchaeology contributes to revisions of traditional narratives about free African Americans and the network of escape routes referred to as the Underground Railroad (UGRR). This project focuses attention on potential African American “conductors” in the UGRR and resituates African Americans as the agents of their own freedom. XRchaeology emphasizes that freedom was achieved across a continuum shaped by social, economic, and legal biases and anti-immigration sentiments. The XRchaeology application is designed for both traditional learners and non-specialist members of the public, as the project facilitates self-directed learning and evidence-based inquiry for all interest levels.

An engraved invitation to consider human–earth relations: thinking non-dualism through the mining-based art practice of Lee Harrop

The scale and ubiquity of global industrialized mining and its proportionately negative impact on human rights and the environment is well documented. These costly externalities, taken in the context of increasing demand for mined materials in technical applications such as mobile phones and other devices seen as essential to contemporary commerce and communication, focalize a range of contentious issues and complexities. This article argues that mining, as an instance of instrumentalism in the human–earth relationship and in many human–human relations, exposes the reason/nature dualism underlying western ontological assumptions. Key features of dualism are described and implicated for their role in the oppression and exploitation of both human and non-human Others. A map drawn from critical ecological feminism outlining an escape route out of dualism is unfolded and brought together with the onto-ethico-epistemology of agential realism in an effort to discover possibilities for a new western social imaginary of non-dualism. The art of Lee Harrop featuring engraved core samples from mining exploration is deployed as a productive site for thinking through non-dualising implications arising from science and new materialisms.

A proof of concept for neutralizing antibody-guided vaccine design against SARS-CoV-2.

Mutations and transient conformational movements of the receptor binding domain (RBD) that make neutralizing epitopes momentarily unavailable present immune escape routes for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). To mitigate viral escape, we developed a cocktail of neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) targeting epitopes located on different domains of spike (S) protein. Screening of a library of monoclonal antibodies generated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of COVID-19 convalescent patients yielded potent NAbs, targeting the N-terminal domain (NTD) and RBD domain of S, effective at nM concentrations. Remarkably, a combination of RBD-targeting NAbs and NTD-binding NAbs, FC05, enhanced the neutralization potency in cell-based assays and an animal model. Results of competitive surface plasmon resonance assays and cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) structures of antigen-binding fragments bound to S unveil determinants of immunogenicity. Combinations of immunogens, identified in the NTD and RBD of S, when immunized in rabbits and macaques, elicited potent protective immune responses against SARS-CoV-2. More importantly, two immunizations of this combination of NTD and RBD immunogens provided complete protection in macaques against a SARS-CoV-2 challenge, without observable antibody-dependent enhancement of infection. These results provide a proof of concept for neutralization-based immunogen design targeting SARS-CoV-2 NTD and RBD.

Divorce, kinship, and errant wives: Islamic feminism in India, and the everyday life of divorce and maintenance

This article is an ethnographic exploration of a women’s sharia court in Mumbai, a part of a network of such courts run by women qazi (Islamic judges) established across India by members of an Islamic feminist movement called the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (Indian Muslim Women’s Movement). Building upon observations of adjudication, counselling, and mediation offered in cases of divorce and maintenance by the woman qazi (judge), and the claims made by women litigants on the court, this article explores the imaginaries of the heterosexual family and gendered kinship roles that constitute the everyday social life of Islamic feminism. I show how the heterosexual family is conceptualised as a fragile and violent institution, and divorce is considered an escape route from the same. I also trace how gendered kinship roles in the heterosexual conjugal family are overturned as men fail in their conventional roles as providers and women become breadwinners in the family. In tracing the range of negotiations around the gendered family, I argue that the social life of Islamic feminism eludes the discourses and categories of statist legal reform. I contribute to existing scholarship on Islamic feminism by exploring the tension between the institutionalist and everyday aspects of Islamic feminist movements, and by exploring the range of kinship negotiations around the gendered family that take place in the shadow of the rhetoric of ‘law reform’ for Muslim communities in India.

Vaccines against antimicrobial resistance: a promising escape route for multidrug resistance.

Antibiotic resistance has become a global health problem requiring urgent intervention. The pace of development and frequency of transmission of antimicrobial resistance have tremendously surpassed the number of antibiotics developed in the past few decades. Emergence and transmission of multidrug-resistant genes, for example, mcr-1 and mcr-5.3, against the lastresort of antibiotics has challenged the treatment options. Vaccination is a promising approach with no instance of antimicrobial resistance generation or transmission reported so far. The time required for developing a vaccine, extensive pre- and post-licensure studies and the financial constraints for the R&D has hampered vaccine development over the past few decades. Vaccine can prove to be an effective future strategy for combating antimicrobial resistance.

영국 주거공간의 피난안전 기준에 관한 연구

This paper aims to investigate fire safety and the means of escape in the realm of interior space, particularly in dwellinghouses in order to build the standard of institutional regulations and design plans in Korea. For this, this paper examines the current regulations on the means of escape in the dwelling space in the UK. Fires in residential spaces account for 25% of the country’s total fires and over 40% of all casualties. As a part of methods to reduce casualties, a re-examination of the fire safety is necessary, and the social safety net must be established through proposals for improvement of the standards of the escape route in dwellings. The documentation of fire safety, such as Approved Document B, Building Act and Fire safety in purpose-built blocks of flats provide a specific regulation on fire safety in dwellings in the UK. The standards were classified into housing and apartments. Fire alarm, the details of horizontal and vertical escape routes according to the height of the building and the number of stairs were investigated. Therefore, this paper will contribute to supporting the Korean escape route used as a framework that can improve the current regulation of the fire safety and solve various problems that occur in the interior construction on fires and regulations in Korea.

Kant, moral och rationalitet

This article defends a kantian version of the moral argument for the existence of God, formulated by Ronald L. Green. The argument consists of a dilemma of practical rationality. Rationality applied to society as a whole will render moral rules that will be rational – on average – for every individual to obey, since such rules will optimize self-interest. On the other hand there will be many situations where the self-interest of individuals will be threatened by such rules, and where it will be rational for the individual not to obey such (otherwise rational) moral rules. Kant’s solution to this dilemma is an overarching moral government – usually described as God’s just reward to the virtuous. In order to escape the force of this argument Mackie, following Sidgwick, denies the uniformity of rationality, and claims that practical rationality is in a state of “fundamental and unresolved chaos”. I will argue that this escape route is a price too high to be paid, since it threatens to undermine both moral philosophy as well as rationality as such.

Evacuation Safety and Time in Apartment using Egress Simulation

The special act for the management of disasters in super high-rise buildings and complex buildings with underground connections included the installation of a certain area of evacuation safety layer within 30 floors for high-rise buildings. However, for high-rise buildings with 30 stories or less, there is no separate regulation for evacuation safety floors. For high-rise apartments with less than 30 stories that do not have regulations for evacuation safety floors, an underground parking lot can be designated as a refuge shelter-in-place (SIP). This study aims to provide an optimal evacuation plan for evacuation simulations in high-rise apartments. This plan will ensure that the occupants are safely evacuated to the refuge SIP within a minimum timeframe. Evacuation simulations are conducted to establish an optimum evacuation plan. This is because there could be delays in the evacuation time as well as human casualties when evacuating to a SIP using stairs for the elderly and the disabled. Therefore, the elderly and the disabled use elevators to evacuate. The scenarios in this study were simulated on the basis of the number of occupants, the speed of the elevator, the number of evacuation stairs as SIP escape routes, and whether the elevator was used.

Відповідність вогнезахисних целюлозовмісних матеріалів екологічній безпеці

Search for new highly efficient agents for wood fire retardant treatment in the construction has been conducted more and more intensively. But fire retardant treatment nowadays should not only ensure specified fire resistance of wood but preserve its performance as well as ensure its environmental safety and durability. Therefore a significant problem of ensuring vital activities and safe functioning of building facilities lies in the development of intumescent coatings for building structures taking into consideration economical, processing and environmental aspects; these coatings shall be used not only on a par with existing similar ones but be highly efficient in special spheres of construction which makes it possible to prevent occurrence of man-caused accidents. The paper shows results of the studies purposed at raising efficiency of the facilities protection by conversion of the cellulose containing materials used at them to the group of hardly combustible materials; it was revealed that application of appropriate composition converted the wood into hardly combustible material that did not spread flame across its surface and had moderate smoke production ability. Taking into account these fire hazard indices the wood having been subjected to fire retardant treatment as construction material could be allowed for application for the internal lining of rooms including those at the escape routes.

Evacuation Simulation Focusing on Modeling of Disabled People Movement

All building users should have the right to safe evacuation. However, evacuation becomes a big challenge when it concerns people with disabilities. Nowadays, computer programs are used to plan escape routes. Therefore, the manuscript deals with the issues of modeling evacuation with particular emphasis on people with disabilities. A review of different evacuation modeling software is presented. The research is performed mainly to see what the limitations of different programs are and how they regard occupants with disabilities. The analyses contain a study of six cases of the evacuation from a building. In this study the three following programs—SIMULEX, STEPS and Pathfinder—are considered. Different populations of people with mobility impairments are modeled. The comparison of the methodology when using these three programs is presented in the following sections. Research has shown that despite the same input data, the results obtained with the three programs differ significantly. In the case of the total evacuation time, the differences reach up to 8%.

Effect of the welding position on weld quality when laser welding Inconel 617 Ni-based superalloy

Inconel 617 Ni-based superalloy sheets were joined using a laser-welding process. The welding experiments were conducted on four different welding positions (i.e., flat, horizontal, vertical-up, and vertical-down), using two sets of welding parameters with different heat inputs. Then, the geometry, internal defects, mechanical properties, and molten-pool dynamics of the laser joints were evaluated. The results showed that, when using high-heat input parameters, the welding position has an obvious effect on the laser weld quality. The top surface of the flat weld and the root surface of the vertical-down weld are both slightly concave. Moreover, the horizontal weld and vertical-down weld have serious keyhole-induced porosity defects, which lead to relatively worse mechanical properties. The analysis shows that the stability of keyhole differs for different welding positions; keyhole-induced porosity is easily generated in the horizontal and vertical-down positions. Moreover, solid metal blocks escape routes of the bubbles, resulting in more serious porosity for these welding positions. However, when using low-heat input parameters, the welding position has less influence on the laser weld quality because there is less molten metal, which makes the keyhole more stable in different welding positions.

Can happiness measures be calibrated?

Measures of happiness are increasingly being used throughout the social sciences. While these measures have attracted numerous types of criticisms, a crucial aspect of these measures has been left largely unexplored—their calibration. Using Eran Tal’s recently developed notion of calibration we argue first that the prospect of continued calibration of happiness measures is crucial for the science of happiness, and second, that continued calibration of happiness measures faces a particular problem—The Two Unknowns Problem. The Two Unknowns Problem relies on the claim that individuals are necessarily a part of the measurement apparatus in first person measures of happiness, and the claim that we have no reason to believe that the evaluation standards people employ are invariant across individuals and time. We argue that calibrating happiness measures therefore involves solving an equation with two unknowns—an individual’s degree of happiness, and their evaluation standards—which is, generally, not possible. Third, we consider two possible escape routes from this problem and we suggest that the most promising route requires yet unexplored empirical and theoretical work on linking happiness to behavioral or neural evidence.

A bright and fast source of coherent single photons.

A single-photon source is an enabling technology in device-independent quantum communication1, quantum simulation2,3, and linear optics-based4 and measurement-based quantum computing5. These applications employ many photons and place stringent requirements on the efficiency of single-photon creation. The scaling on efficiency is typically an exponential function of the number of photons. Schemes taking full advantage of quantum superpositions also depend sensitively on the coherence of the photons, that is, their indistinguishability6. Here, we report a single-photon source with a high end-to-end efficiency. We employ gated quantum dots in an open, tunable microcavity7. The gating provides control of the charge and electrical tuning of the emission frequency; the high-quality material ensures low noise; and the tunability of the microcavity compensates for the lack of control in quantum dot position and emission frequency. Transmission through the top mirror is the dominant escape route for photons from the microcavity, and this output is well matched to a single-mode fibre. With this design, we can create a single photon at the output of the final optical fibre on-demand with a probability of up to 57% and with an average two-photon interference visibility of 97.5%. Coherence persists in trains of thousands of photons with single-photon creation at a repetition rate of 1 GHz.

Step-Wise Hydration of Magnesium by Four Water Molecules Precedes Phosphate Release in a Myosin Motor.

Molecular motors, such as myosin, kinesin, and dynein, convert the energy released by the hydrolysis of ATP into mechanical work, thus allowing them to undergo directional motion on cytoskeletal tracks. A pivotal step in the chemomechanical transduction in myosin motors occurs after they bind to the actin filament, which triggers the release of phosphate (Pi, product of ATP hydrolysis) and the rotation of the lever arm. Here, we investigate the mechanism of phosphate release in myosin VI using extensive molecular dynamics simulations involving multiple trajectories of several μs. Because the escape of phosphate is expected to occur on time-scales on the order of milliseconds or more in myosin VI, we observed Pi release only if the trajectories were initiated with a rotated phosphate inside the nucleotide binding pocket. We discovered that although Pi populates the traditional "back door" route, phosphate exits through various other gateways, thus establishing the heterogeneity in the escape routes. Remarkably, we observed that the release of phosphate is preceded by a stepwise hydration of the ADP-bound magnesium ion. The release of the anion occurred only after four water molecules hydrated the cation (Mg2+). By performing comparative structural analyses, we show that hydration of magnesium is the key step in the phosphate release in a number of ATPases and GTPases. Nature may have evolved hydration of Mg2+ as a general molecular switch for Pi release, which is a universal step in the catalytic cycle of many machines that share little sequence or structural similarity.

Exosomes induce endolysosomal permeabilization as a gateway by which exosomal tau seeds escape into the cytosol

The microtubule-associated protein tau has a critical role in Alzheimer’s disease and other tauopathies. A proposed pathomechanism in the progression of tauopathies is the trans-synaptic spreading of tau seeds, with a role for exosomes which are secretory nanovesicles generated by late endosomes. Our previous work demonstrated that brain-derived exosomes isolated from tau transgenic rTg4510 mice encapsulate tau seeds with the ability to induce tau aggregation in recipient cells. We had also shown that exosomes can hijack the endosomal pathway to spread through interconnected neurons. Here, we reveal how tau seeds contained within internalized exosomes exploit mechanisms of lysosomal degradation to escape the endosome and induce tau aggregation in the cytosol of HEK293T-derived ‘tau biosensor cells’. We found that the majority of the exosome-containing endosomes fused with lysosomes to form endolysosomes. Exosomes induced their permeabilization, irrespective of the presence of tau seeds, or whether the exosomal preparations originated from mouse brains or HEK293T cells. We also found that permeabilization is a conserved mechanism, operating in both non-neuronal tau biosensor cells and primary neurons. However, permeabilization of endolysosomes only occurred in a small fraction of cells, which supports the notion that permeabilization occurs by a thresholded mechanism. Interestingly, tau aggregation was only induced in cells that exhibited permeabilization, presenting this as an escape route of exosomal tau seeds into the cytosol. Overexpression of RAB7, which is required for the formation of endolysosomes, strongly increased tau aggregation. Conversely, inhibition of lysosomal function with alkalinizing agents, or by knocking-down RAB7, decreased tau aggregation. Together, we conclude that the enzymatic activities of lysosomes permeabilize exosomal and endosomal membranes, thereby facilitating access of exosomal tau seeds to cytosolic tau to induce its aggregation. Our data underscore the importance of endosomal membrane integrity in mechanisms of cellular invasion by misfolded proteins that are resistant to lysosomal degradation.

Chemotherapy-Enriched THBS2-Deficient Cancer Stem Cells Drive Hepatocarcinogenesis through Matrix Softness Induced Histone H3 Modifications.

The physical microenvironment is a critical mediator of tumor behavior. However, detailed biological and mechanistic insight is lacking. The present study reveals the role of chemotherapy‐enriched CD133+ liver cancer stem cells (CSCs) with THBS2 deficiency. This subpopulation of cells contributes to a more aggressive cancer and functional stemness phenotype in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) by remodeling the extracellular matrix (ECM) through the regulation of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) activity, collagen degradation, and matrix stiffness. The local soft spots created by these liver CSCs can enhance stemness and drug resistance and provide a route of escape to facilitate HCC metastasis. Interestingly, a positive feed‐forward loop is identified where a local soft spot microenvironment in the HCC tumor is enriched with CD133 expressing cells that secrete markedly less ECM‐modifying THBS2 upon histone H3 modification at its promoter region, allowing the maintenance of a localized soft spot matrix. Clinically, THBS2 deficiency is also correlated with low HCC survival, where high levels of CSCs with low THBS2 expression in HCC are associated with decreased collagen fiber deposits and an invasive tumor front. The findings have implications for the treatment of cancer stemness and for the prevention of tumor outgrowth through disseminated tumor cells.

A dynamic fire escape path planning method with BIM

Aiming at the current research on the escape path of complex building fires with the problem about lack of path prediction correction and multi-person escape, this paper proposes an analytical method of real-time dynamic escape path prediction based on Building Information Model (BIM). The method uses a Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) to simulate the spread of the fire and analyzes the simulated data of BIM model, and dynamically adjusts simulation of the spread of fire according to the real-time situation of fire. This method is designed for path planning for the single and multi-person escapes. The single-person escape path planning uses real-time dynamic methods to locate the evacuee and obtain the fire situation. The Dijkstra algorithm is used to derive the shortest escape route with BIM integration information, and the fire spread simulation data and escape speed are used to predict and correct the path to achieve the best escape path planning in real-time dynamic. The multi-person escape path planning predicts the congestion according to the single-person escape route. When the congestion is predicted, the corresponding evacuation process is carried out to avoid the hazard caused by the fire escape and crowding so as to realize rapid escape at the scene of fire. Through the BIM 3D model, the dynamic fire escape path can be visualized for the evacuees. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by constructing a prototype system for the analysis.

‘Guests of the British Crown’: White Russian Refugee Camps in Egypt, 1920–1922

ABSTRACT During the closing stages of the Russian Civil War in south Russia Novorossiisk, a port on the Black Sea coast, provided an escape route to the Crimea for the defeated White Russian forces. During the early months of 1920 the port was also crowded with civilians desperate to escape the consequences of the imminent Bolshevik victory. British funded and crewed ships helped thousands to get away. Of these, despite instructions to the contrary from London, some were landed in Egypt. In the great diaspora of White Russians that followed the final victory of Bolshevism all faced challenging circumstances, but the experiences of the refugees in Egypt were untypical in many respects.

Wanderlust: The Amazing Ida Pfeiffer by John Van Wyhe

Reviewed by: Wanderlust: The Amazing Ida Pfeiffer by John Van Wyhe Lai Suat Yan Wanderlust: The Amazing Ida Pfeiffer by JOHN VAN WYHE. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press: 2019. 344 pp. ISBN: 978-981-3250-76-5 This well-researched book on the amazing feat of the Austrian Ida Pfeiffer, documents her five adventurous journeys around the world starting with her first voyage to the Holy Land that traverses historical sites such as Smyrna, Beirut, Caesarea, and Jerusalem, the holy city central to various events in biblical history. The journey that started in late March 1842 took around six months. Her second journey to Iceland was to satisfy her romantic sensibility of visiting a remote place with immense natural wonders boasting a geography that included tundra, lakes, glaciers, geysers to volcanoes. During the six-month journey from April to October 1845, she visited Copenhagen, Hafnarfjörðour (Harbour Fjord), Reykjavík, Krýsuvík, a geothermal area, Gullfoss (Golden Falls), Mount Hekla, a volcano, Stockholm and Christiania (now Oslo). In 1846–1848, she circled the globe in 900 days as an expression of her wanderlust in her third voyage from Vienna to Prague, Brazil, Chile, Tahiti, Macao, Hong Kong, Canton, Singapore, Colombo and Kandy in Sri Lanka, Calcutta, Benares, Agra, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bombay in India, Assyria, Baghdad, Mosul, Urmia (Iran today), Nakhchivan and Yerevan in Armenia, Tbilisi and Redut Kale (present-day Kulevi) in Georgia, Odessa in Russia, Constantinople, Athens and Trieste before arriving home again in Vienna. Her fourth voyage from 1851–1855, included these localities: Prague, Hamburg, London, Cape Town, Singapore, Kuching and Sirambau in Sarawak before venturing into the heart of Borneo—Sintang, Landak, Pontianak, and Sambas. In this leg of the journey she also explored Java, Sumatra, the Maluku Islands, Sulawesi, Panama, Peru, Ecuador, California, New Orleans, Minnesota, Chicago, New York, Montreal, and Portugal. Her last journey was to Madagascar (1856–1858), presumably, because of the potential wealth of natural history specimens that may be handy to fund her next voyage. She caught the 'Madagascar fever' [End Page 220] during this trip, however, and died aged 61 at her brother's residence in Vienna on 27 October 1858. Her travels were also contextualized with the feats of the famous male travellers in history, namely Marco Polo, Captain Cook and Ibn Battuta, all of whom she surpassed in terms of the distance covered. Compared with female travellers preceding or during her time, for example, Maria Merian, Lady Hester Stanhope, Lady Mary Montagu and the Prussian Countess Ida Hahn-hahn, she stood out for venturing by herself on a limited budget. She typically travelled second or third class on steamers. Sailing on a crowded brig from Beirut to Alexandria for eleven nights she had no privacy. Others slept or used her mat whenever she left it momentarily and even used her toothbrush without asking. Travelling from Cairo on camel for the first time across the desert and unable to afford the rest houses, she slept outside their grounds. She survived numerous adventures on her trip including turbulent seas, robbery, threats that she would be killed and devoured and near drowning in a remarkably calm manner. Her experiences of living through poverty for nearly ten years after her husband lost his wealth, and her own wanderlust, stood her in good stead during these formidable encounters. She also learnt the skills needed to collect and preserve natural history specimens which she would sell to museums in order to fund her trips. Her adventurous spirit knew no bounds. She ventured to Telemark, Norway, though it was difficult for a woman to travel alone among the peasantry particularly with almost rudimentary command of the language. Places to which no Europeans had ventured or where the local men were killed, for example in Sumatra, seemed instead to spur her on rather than deter her spirits. Her wanderlust was ignited by the man she loved who had spurned her. It became an escape route that enabled her to follow her heart, particularly after the constraining life growing up under the dictates of her mother. These observations allowed us glimpses of the circumstances that drove her to embark on these remarkable journeys. Nevertheless...

The essence of thermovision research in the prevention of fires in underground workings

Underground fires are phenomena that pose a possibly fatal threat to human life, and they are particulary dangerous in the environment of underground workings where the amount of space and number possible escape routes are limited. Therefore, it is important to carefully control changes in temperature and the condition of machinery and equipment used in mine in order to avoid critical situations. The most common cause of fires are defects in mechanical and electrical devices, in order to conduct an analysis of their condition thermal imaging is perfectly suitable. In this article approximed a problem of underground fires, thermal imaging diagnostic method, temperature measurements taken in the KWK ROW Ruch Chwałowice in Rybnik, made an analysis of publicly available data from the KGHM mines and methods of combating the factors leading to the fire emergency been proposed.