Search Results (67)

Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African: Written by Himself is gastronomically surprising. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century slave narratives leaned on the rhetorical powers of eating and drinking to stir up sentimental feeling and moral disgust among anglophone publics hungry to consume eyewitness accounts of slavery. But Equiano uniquely sets the table for readers by critiquing the British slave trade for its consumptive logics and cannibalistic desires through diverse metaphors, rhetoric, and scenes related to eating and drinking—particularly in a theological key. Equiano’s autobiography thematizes his antislavery polemics through a rival feasting of interracial love and freedom in his climactic conversion to Methodist Christianity: the love feast. Contra readings that locate Equiano’s love-feasting in the history of the early church or his boyhood past of Igbo ritual and commensality, I argue Equiano spotlights this fellowship meal as an eschatological foretaste of an interracial kingdom to come. God, as Equiano indicates, condemns the slave trade and racial injustice from the future—not the past or even the present—allowing Equiano to consume, and appeal to, a Christian faith that promised, for himself and his race, a place at God’s eternal table. Full article

This article puts Christina Sharpe’s theories of “the wake” and “wake work” and Kevin Quashie’s theory of “Black aliveness” in conversation with Peace Peloton, a nonprofit organization promoting Black businesses and community through the activities of cycling and neighborhood events. The author reads Peace Peloton’s gatherings and the draft of turbulent air produced by their pelotons, or groups of bicyclists in motion, as radical Black performances and what Sharpe calls “wake work.” Acts of resistance and resilience enacted in the aftermath—the wake—of the Transatlantic slave trade, Peace Peloton’s rides and gatherings as “wake work” reject the ontological othering of Black bodies and being and dynamize what it means to be in a wake. Enacting Quashie’s sense of “worldmaking,” Peace Peloton’s “wake work” challenges presumptions of the outdoors and road cycling as white spaces, for white people, and reclaims for Black worldmaking once majority Black, now gentrified spaces of commerce and leisure. An interdisciplinary look into a cultural expression that has heretofore gone unexamined, this chapter weaves into its application of contemporary Afrodiasporic theory the history of redlining, cycling physics, writing on Blackness and the outdoors, Alexis Pauline Gumb’s short story “Bluebellow,” and Fedeke N. Castor’s Spiritual Citizenship: Transnational Pathways from Black Power to Ifa in Trinidad. It is through this ambitious and innovative interpretative lens that the author illuminates Peace Peloton’s “wake work” and Black worldmaking and situates them within the broader corpus of Afrodiasporic literature and cultural expressions. Full article

High-voltage grid maintenance and chemical processing demand dexterous manipulation in confined, visually occluded environments. Existing teleoperation systems present a severe cost–fidelity trade-off: industrial platforms exceed USD 60,000 yet lack spatial directional resolution, while affordable alternatives omit fingertip force sensing entirely. We present STRP (Spatial Teleoperation Research Platform), a low-cost teleoperation system with concurrent motion capture and directional haptic feedback that encodes fingertip six-axis force vectors into four-directional vibrotactile cues (left, right, dorsal, volar). The master interface is a wearable 15-DoF exoskeleton glove with Hall-effect joint sensing and a 16-channel LRA array; the slave end is a 17-DoF dexterous hand with integrated micro six-axis force/torque sensors. Experimental validation demonstrates 97.5% blind discrimination accuracy for directional cues and an end-to-end latency of approximately 28 ms. In teleoperated pick-and-place tasks, multi-directional tactile feedback reduced task completion time by 41% (31.2 s to 18.4 s) and peak grip force by 32% (4.11 N to 2.79 N) versus no-feedback baselines. In visually occluded wall exploration, directional feedback enabled systematic location of all target walls, whereas single-site volar feedback permitted detection of only volar-facing surfaces and no-feedback conditions precluded any spatial reasoning. These results identify spatial directional vibrotactile feedback as a distinct sensory channel that cannot be substituted by magnitude-only vibration or vision alone. STRP establishes a foundation for affordable, high-fidelity haptic teleoperation in hazardous environments. Full article

The “Lord’s Prayer” is a popular Christian prayer. Notwithstanding variations between Mtt. 6:9–13 and Lk. 11:2–4, it has traditionally guided and inspired a range of religious and social activities. Its exceptional status is because it was formulated and taught by Jesus Christ. Using a critical textual and non–exegetical approach and by applying theological and sociological analysis in the Catholic/Orthodox tradition between the prayers in Mtt. 6:9–13 (Lk. 11:2–4) and Jn. 17:1–26 (traditionally named the “High Priestly Prayer”), this research shows that the early editor or redactor who titled Mtt. 6:9–13/Lk. 11:2–4 the “Lord’s Prayer” inadvertently bequeathed a misnomer. In contradistinction, the prayer (if that title must go to just one of Jesus’ prayers) that deserves that title is Jn. 17:1–26 because its rich contents encapsulate what Jesus Christ is all about: soteriology, eschatology, and evangelical sociology. Furthermore, the radical social implications of this prayer due to its pragmatic and paradigmatic emphasis on love, unity, collaboration, and mutual acceptance inevitably resonates with the crisis–ridden modern world. It is recommended that Mtt. 6:9–13/Lk. 11:2–4 be re–titled, while Jn. 17:1–26 is rightly crowned the “Lord’s Prayer.” The Lord’s Prayer should also receive more attention in Christian faith–praxis and the Holy Mass. Full article

This paper presents a recurrent wavelet cerebellar brain controller (RWCBC) for synchronizing uncertain 4-D memristive hyper-chaotic master-slave systems affected by nonlinear uncertainty, memory-dependent dynamics, and bounded external disturbances. The proposed controller combines three elements: a linear stabilizing feedback term, a single-branch recurrent wavelet cerebellar approximator, and a smooth tanh-type robust compensation term. The recurrent association memory is used to exploit temporal information in the synchronization error, whereas the wavelet receptive fields improve local approximation of sharp nonlinear variations in the hyper-chaotic trajectory. The tanh compensation attenuates residual approximation errors and disturbances while avoiding the discontinuity of sign-based switching control. A Lyapunov-based analysis is developed to derive the adaptive learning law and to establish uniform ultimate boundedness (UUB) of the synchronization errors with an explicit ultimate bound. Numerical simulations on a 4-D memristive hyper-chaotic system indicate that the proposed RWCBC provides competitive tracking accuracy and a favorable accuracy-complexity trade-off compared with the considered WCMAC and FBELC baselines under the tested conditions. Full article

This paper adopts a multisemiotic perspective to examine the significations of monuments in city spaces in Calabar, Nigeria. Data were generated through photo documentation, participant observation and semi-structured interviews in a three-year fieldwork involving 34 participants. Drawing from interactions between the designers, the monuments and the social audience, findings present the monuments as multisemiotic significations of the benefits derived from Western education, gains from missionaries’ activities and their interface with the locals, abolition of the slave trade, sociocultural heritage, histories and identity, potential in tourism and carnivals, and an emerging shift from African traditional religion to Anglo-Christian beliefs. These representations are dialogic expressions of lived experiences and histories of residents that (re)construct memorials of their past and provide a guide for the present and project expectations of the future. The symbolic images integrate localised intentions of the designers drawn from the environment and the people, with appropriate interpretations by the social audiences to situate their indigenous significations within varying global discourses on monuments. Full article

Teleoperated dual-arm underwater manipulators are a promising alternative to divers for hazardous subsea tasks, such as removing fishing nets from ship propellers. However, kinematic discrepancies between the master and slave can cause self-collisions between links that the operator cannot perceive, risking mechanical damage and costly underwater recovery. Real-time self-collision detection is therefore essential, yet existing approaches face an accuracy–efficiency trade-off: mesh-based methods such as GJK and FCL are accurate but computationally costly, while sphere and capsule approximations overestimate distances near joint interfaces, causing false positives. This paper proposes the Generatrix Distance Method (GDM), an analytical algorithm with bounded $\mathcal{O}\left(1\right)$ per-pair complexity for real-time self-collision detection. GDM approximates each link as a finite-length cylinder and classifies the configuration between two cylinders into four cases: Side–Side, Side–Cap, Cap–Side, and Cap–Cap. The Side–Side case admits a closed-form solution; cap-involved cases use a bounded-iteration cap-edge projection. Cylinder parameters are systematically derived from URDF kinematic information, enabling platform-independent deployment. GDM was validated through Gazebo simulations of a dual-arm underwater walking robot and teleoperation experiments on the ROBOTIS FFW-SG2 AI Worker. GDM runs about $10\times$ faster than FCL-Cylinder, while its iterative variant attains a 0.15 mm mean error at a $3\times$ speedup, confirming real-time suitability. Full article

West African cuisine is among the world’s most complex and historically significant culinary traditions, shaped by diverse ecosystems, centuries of trans-regional trade, and the cultural heritage of more than three hundred distinct ethnic groups spanning the Atlantic coast and the Sahel. West African cuisine has undergone a significant cultural and culinary transformation in the American food landscape, moving from relative obscurity to mainstream visibility. This entry examines the rise of West African cuisine in the United States, with particular attention to jollof as a cultural symbol of identity, diaspora, and culinary diplomacy. Drawing on academic scholarship, food journalism, and primary cultural sources, the entry traces the historical roots of West African foodways through the transatlantic slave trade and their enduring influence on American culinary traditions. It further explores how contemporary chefs, restaurateurs, and food writers of West African descent, including Eric Adjepong, Pierre Thiam, and Kwame Onwuachi, have elevated the cuisine within American fine dining and popular culture. The entry also addresses the role of social media, particularly the viral “Jollof Wars,” in amplifying West African culinary culture globally, culminating in UNESCO’s recognition of Senegalese jollof rice as an element of intangible cultural heritage. Questions of structural barriers, authenticity, and representation are critically examined. The entry argues that while West African cuisine is experiencing unprecedented visibility in America, its mainstream acceptance remains mediated by cultural filters that risk diluting its complexity and richness. Ultimately, this entry positions West African cuisine not merely as a culinary trend but as a living expression of diasporic identity, cultural resilience, and global influence. Full article

The rapid inspection of urban road hazards, such as subsurface voids and pipeline damage, demands high efficiency and precision in detection technology. Conventional Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) systems often face limitations in urban environments, including slow survey speeds, poor channel scalability, and the trade-off between shallow resolution and deep penetration. The proposed system integrates a dual-band antenna array (200 MHz and 400 MHz) to resolve the classical resolution–penetration trade-off, simultaneously capturing high-resolution shallow data and achieving deep subsurface penetration in a single pass. To overcome the sampling rate bottleneck inherent in low-cost microcontrollers, a custom Time-Division Step Multiplexing (TDSM) protocol extends the equivalent sampling period to 0.38 µs across 24 parallel channels while maintaining a 200 kHz pulse repetition rate—enabling real-time data streaming at vehicle speeds up to 70 km/h with 5 cm trace spacing. This capability directly addresses the critical challenge of traffic disruption on urban arterials caused by conventional slow-speed GPR surveys. Complementing this, a master-slave FPGA-MCU hierarchical architecture provides seamless channel scalability from 24 to 36 channels, adapting to diverse swath width requirements without hardware redesign. Laboratory physics model experiments demonstrate a penetration depth exceeding 3 m after convolutional sparse fusion of the dual-band data, covering the typical burial depth of urban utilities. This study provides a deployable high-resolution underground detection solution for rapid urban infrastructure surveys and emergency disease detection by breaking the traditional constraints of channel number, sampling rate, and detection speed, significantly reducing interference with urban main traffic. Full article

In flexible DC transmission and AC-DC interconnection systems, the Self-Adaption Station and Line Commutation Converter (SLCC) integrates static var compensation with conventional thyristor conversion functionality. This enables dynamic reactive power support at the valve side while improving commutation conditions, thereby enhancing the voltage support capability and operational robustness of DC systems. Under high renewable energy penetration, power fluctuations and sudden ramping challenges principal–slave controlled SLCC DC interconnection systems with a trade-off between principal-side DC voltage regulation and capacity margin constraints: Disturbance-induced active power demands may exceed available margins, causing DC voltage deviations and increasing protection trip risks. Leveraging the active/reactive decoupling characteristics of the SLCC topology, this paper proposes a principal–slave coordinated control strategy that accounts for principal station capacity margins. Methodologically, capacity margins are explicitly embedded into the principal station control mode. By reconstructing key variables in the DC voltage outer loop and introducing a closed-loop suppression mechanism with “over-capacity power” as feedback, the principal station maintains continuous voltage regulation while avoiding entry into over-capacity operation zones. On the slave side, a power support mechanism is designed to coordinate regulation among generation, storage, and load under power balance and equipment capacity constraints. This coordination process is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem balancing disturbance economic losses with generation/storage utilization, solved using NSGA-II. Simulation results demonstrate that this strategy suppresses the risk of principle station overcapacity, enhances power sharing coordination during disturbance conditions, and improves DC voltage dynamic performance. Full article

Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) collaborative coverage path planning is widely applied in fields such as regional surveillance. However, optimizing the trade-off between deployment costs and task execution efficiency remains challenging. To balance resource costs and execution efficiency with an uncertain number of UAVs, this paper analyzes the characteristics of irregular mission areas and formulates a bi-level optimization model for multi-UAV collaborative CPP. The model aims to minimize both the number of UAVs and the total path length. First, in the upper level, an improved Best Fit Decreasing algorithm based on binary search is designed. Straight-line scanning paths are generated by determining the minimum span direction of the irregular regions. Task allocation follows a longest-path-first, minimum-residual-range rule to rapidly determine the minimum number of UAVs required for complete coverage. Considering UAV’s turning radius constraints, Dubins curves are employed to plan transition paths between scanning regions, ensuring path feasibility. Second, the lower level transforms the problem into a Multiple Traveling Salesman Problem that considers path continuity, range constraints, and non-overlapping path allocation. This problem is solved using an Improved Biased Random Key Genetic Algorithm. The algorithm employs a variable-length master–slave chromosome encoding structure to adapt to the task allocation of each UAV. By integrating biased crossover operators with 2-opt interval mutation operators, the algorithm accelerates convergence and improves solution quality. Finally, comparative experiments on mission regions of varying scales demonstrate that, compared with single-level optimization and other intelligent algorithms, the proposed method reduces the required number of UAVs and shortens the total path length, while ensuring complete coverage of irregular regions. This method provides an efficient and practical solution for multi-UAV collaborative CPP in complex environments. Full article

The Atlantic slave trade was one of the most significant and violent processes in global history, and the Iberian empires played a central role in its development. Yet in Spain and Portugal, the historical and public memory of slavery remains fragmented, producing silences that contrast with its historical magnitude. This study examines these silences through two complementary lenses: the academic preparation of future history teachers and the heritage narratives presented in Iberian museums, adopting a mixed-methods design. A total of 138 pre-service teachers from eight Spanish and Portuguese universities completed a questionnaire providing quantitative data to assess how the Atlantic slave trade was addressed in their university training and which didactic and heritage resources they consider most appropriate for teaching it. In parallel, exhibitions and institutional discourses were analysed in seven national and regional museums related to America, colonisation or maritime expansion, drawing on qualitative data from written interviews with museum professionals. The findings reveal limited curricular attention to the Atlantic slave trade, uneven valuation of heritage resources, and highly variable museum narratives. These results highlight the need for coordinated educational and heritage strategies that strengthen historical understanding, support democratic and intercultural competencies, and contribute to a more inclusive and critically informed public memory. Full article

Background/Objectives: In Brazil, quilombos—African-descendant resistance communities—emerged during slavery and persisted beyond its abolition. The state of Paraná, in Southern Brazil, is home to 86 quilombos, yet their genetic diversity remains entirely unexplored, and little is known about their subcontinental African origins. Methods: To explore the demographic history of these communities and the reach of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Southern Brazil, we analyzed Y and mitochondrial DNA haplotypes in samples from two quilombo communities from Paraná, Feixo (n = 117) and Restinga (n = 47). Results: Our findings reveal a significant African maternal ancestry in both communities, with Feixo exhibiting 35% and Restinga showing a striking 78.72% of maternal haplogroups of African origin. Feixo’s mtDNA haplotypes display affinities with Bantu-speaking populations from Central-Western and Southeastern Africa (such as Angola, Congo, and Mozambique), whereas those found in Restinga are more closely aligned with lineages frequent in Western Africa. Y-chromosome data reveal 39.4% and 25% African paternal ancestry in Feixo and Restinga, respectively, with most African chromosomes assigned to haplogroup E1b1b1-M35, which has a broad frequency across eastern Africa. Conclusions: These results offer novel insights into the history of the African diaspora in a previously unstudied Brazilian region, suggesting African sources—including underdocumented Eastern/Southern lineages—and contributing useful new clues to their broader within-Africa affinities. Full article

The British colonial contact with Nigeria was dotted with diverse paradoxes. In the realm of architecture, it was a period punctuated with the importation of prefabricated buildings into many slave and palm oil trading towns, such as Old Calabar in southern Nigeria. Unfortunately, today, many of these prefabricated colonial architectural heritages have gone into extinction, except for a few which are also on the verge of collapse. One of the remaining few on the verge of collapse is the Egbo Egbo Bassey House built between 1883 and 1886 and declared a National Monument of Nigeria in 1959. Currently, there is no literature on the historical and architectural data of this building, besides those scattered over several files in archival records. Therefore, this paper aims at the holistic documentation of the National Monument. Two categories of data were considered in the documentation processes—namely the building historical data and geometrical data. Historical data were collected through archival research and interviews, while the geometrical data were collected through close-range photogrammetry and manual measurements. The result of this paper contributes to the current geographical dearth of literature on British prefabricated architectural heritage, which punctuated a very important period in the architectural history of the world. Full article

This study explores the role of olfaction in linking Brazilian cultural expressions with Yoruba heritages. Brazilian culture is deeply rooted in African traditions brought across the Atlantic, and this connection is evident in its foods, celebrations, and practices. Through a multidisciplinary approach combining bibliometric and historic review, fieldwork, and sensory analysis, the research reveals how distinct aromas, ranging from the scent of aromatic plants used in celebrations to culinary ingredients, act as olfactory markers of identity and collective memory in the state of Bahia and in a religious community in São Paulo. Historically, the transatlantic slave trade brought Yoruba peoples to Brazil, embedding their traditions deeply into the region’s cultural and everyday life. By documenting the shared olfactory elements between Bahian festivals such as the Lavagem do Bonfim and the practices observed within Yoruba-based cultural expressions in the Oduduwa Temple in São Paulo, the study underscores the significance of olfactory heritage to Afro-Brazilian culture and calls for greater scholarly attention to it. Recognizing smell as a dynamic conduit for history and emotion offers new insights into the survival and evolution of cultural traditions, urging further transdisciplinary research into the sensory narratives that shape our collective identities. Full article