content
stringlengths 7
2.61M
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// Complexity : O(T+P)
void predo(string pattern,int dp[]){
dp[0] = 0;
for(int i=1;i<pattern.size();i++){
dp[i] = dp[i-1];
while(dp[i] > 0 && pattern[dp[i]] != pattern[i]) dp[i] = dp[dp[i]-1];
if(pattern[dp[i]] == pattern[i]) dp[i]++;
}
}
void KMP(string text,string pattern){
int dp[pattern.size()];predo(pattern,dp);
for(int i=0,match=0;i<text.size();i++){
while(match > 0 && pattern[match] != text[i]) match = dp[match-1];
if(pattern[match] == text[i]) match++;
if(match == pattern.size()){
// do something with i-pattern.size()+1
match = dp[match-1];
}
}
}
|
/*
* Open Source Physics software is free software as described near the bottom of this code file.
*
* For additional information and documentation on Open Source Physics please see:
* <http://www.opensourcephysics.org/>
*/
/*
* Gamma function by <NAME> for the OSP library.
* Ref : http : //www.alglib.net/specialfunctions
* Using the Algorithm of Stephen L. Moshier
*
* @author <NAME> 2008.
*/
package org.opensourcephysics.numerics.specialfunctions;
import org.opensourcephysics.numerics.Function;
public class Gamma implements Function {
/**
* Implements the Function interface for the gamma function .
*
* @param x
* @return gamma function at x
*/
public double evaluate(double x) {
return gamma(x);
}
public static double gamma(double x) {
/*
* Input parameters:
* X - argument
* Domain:
* 0 < X < 171.6
* -170 < X < 0, X is not an integer.
* Relative error:
* arithmetic domain # trials peak rms
* IEEE -170,-33 20000 2.3e-15 3.3e-16
* IEEE -33, 33 20000 9.4e-16 2.2e-16
* IEEE 33, 171.6 20000 2.3e-15 3.2e-16
*/
double sgngam, q, z, y, p1, q1;
int ip, p;
double[] pp = {1.60119522476751861407E-4, 1.19135147006586384913E-3, 1.04213797561761569935E-2, 4.76367800457137231464E-2, 2.07448227648435975150E-1, 4.94214826801497100753E-1, 9.99999999999999996796E-1};
double[] qq = {-2.31581873324120129819E-5, 5.39605580493303397842E-4, -4.45641913851797240494E-3, 1.18139785222060435552E-2, 3.58236398605498653373E-2, -2.34591795718243348568E-1, 7.14304917030273074085E-2, 1.00000000000000000320};
sgngam = 1;
q = Math.abs(x);
if(q>33.0) {
if(x<0.0) {
p = (int) Math.floor(q);
ip = Math.round(p);
if(ip%2==0) {
sgngam = -1;
}
z = q-p;
if(z>0.5) {
p = p+1;
z = q-p;
}
z = q*Math.sin(Math.PI*z);
z = Math.abs(z);
z = Math.PI/(z*gammastirf(q));
} else {
z = gammastirf(x);
}
y = sgngam*z;
return y;
}
z = 1;
while(x>=3) {
x = x-1;
z = z*x;
}
while(x<0) {
if(x>-0.000000001) {
y = z/((1+0.5772156649015329*x)*x);
return y;
}
z = z/x;
x = x+1;
}
while(x<2) {
if(x<0.000000001) {
y = z/((1+0.5772156649015329*x)*x);
return y;
}
z = z/x;
x = x+1.0;
}
if(x==2) {
y = z;
return y;
}
x = x-2.0;
p1 = pp[0];
for(int i = 1; i<7; i++) {
p1 = pp[i]+p1*x;
}
q1 = qq[0];
for(int i = 1; i<8; i++) {
q1 = qq[i]+q1*x;
}
return z*p1/q1;
}
private static double gammastirf(double x) {
double p1, w, y, v;
w = 1/x;
double[] pp = {7.87311395793093628397E-4, -2.29549961613378126380E-4, -2.68132617805781232825E-3, 3.47222221605458667310E-3, 8.33333333333482257126E-2};
p1 = pp[0];
for(int i = 1; i<5; i++) {
p1 = pp[i]+p1*x;
}
w = 1+w*p1;
y = Math.exp(x);
if(x>143.01608) {
v = Math.pow(x, 0.5*x-0.25);
y = v*(v/y);
} else {
y = Math.pow(x, x-0.5)/y;
}
return 2.50662827463100050242*y*w;
}
}
/*
* Open Source Physics software is free software; you can redistribute
* it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) as
* published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License,
* or(at your option) any later version.
* Code that uses any portion of the code in the org.opensourcephysics package
* or any subpackage (subdirectory) of this package must also be released
* under the GNU GPL license.
*
* This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
* GNU General Public License for more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
* along with this; if not, write to the Free Software
* Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston MA 02111-1307 USA
* or view the license online at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
*
* Copyright (c) 2007 The Open Source Physics project
* http://www.opensourcephysics.org
*/
|
def s3_list_folders(region_name, bucket_name: str) -> list:
s3_client = initialize_s3_client(region_name)
response = s3_client.list_objects_v2(Bucket=bucket_name, Prefix='', Delimiter='/')
def yield_folders(response):
for content in response.get('CommonPrefixes', []):
yield content.get('Prefix')
folder_list = yield_folders(response)
return [x.split('/')[0] for x in folder_list] |
Mixedspecies biofilm compromises wound healing by disrupting epidermal barrier function In chronic wounds, biofilm infects host tissue for extended periods of time. This work establishes the first chronic preclinical model of wound biofilm infection aimed at addressing the longterm host response. Although biofilminfected wounds did not show marked differences in wound closure, the repaired skin demonstrated compromised barrier function. This observation is clinically significant, because it leads to the notion that even if a biofilm infected wound is closed, as observed visually, it may be complicated by the presence of failed skin, which is likely to be infected and/or further complicated postclosure. Study of the underlying mechanisms recognized for the first time biofilminducible miR146a and miR106b in the host skin woundedge tissue. These miRs silenced ZO1 and ZO2 to compromise tight junction function, resulting in leaky skin as measured by transepidermal water loss (TEWL). Intervention strategies aimed at inhibiting biofilminducible miRNAs may be productive in restoring the barrier function of host skin. Copyright © 2014 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
The largest imperial offensive since the Iraq invasion of March, 2003, is in full swing, under the banner of “humanitarian” intervention – Barack Obama’s fiendishly clever upgrade of George Bush’s “dumb” wars. Having failed to obtain a Libyan-style United Nations Security Council fig leaf for a “humanitarian” military strike against Syria, the United States shifts effortlessly to a global campaign “outside the U.N. system” to expand its NATO/Persian Gulf royalty/Jihadi coalition. Next stop: Tunisia, where Washington’s allies will assemble on February 24 to sharpen their knives as “Friends of Syria.” The U.S. State Department has mobilized to shape the “Friends” membership and their “mandate” – which is warlord-speak for refining an ad hoc alliance for the piratical assault on Syria’s sovereignty.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are swigging the ale with their fellow buccaneers. These “human rights” warriors, headquartered in the bellies of empires past and present, their chests shiny with medals of propagandistic service to superpower aggression in Libya, contribute “left” legitimacy to the imperial project. London-based Amnesty International held a global “day of action” to rail against Syria for “crimes against humanity” and to accuse Russia and China of using their Security Council vetoes to “betray” the Syrian people – echoing the war hysteria out of Washington, Paris, London and the royal pigsties of Riyadh and Doha. New York-based Human Rights Watch denounced Moscow and Beijing’s actions as “incendiary” – as if it were not the empire and its allies who were setting the Middle East and Africa on fire, arming and financing jihadis – including hundreds of veteran Libyan Salafists now operating in Syria.
Under Obama’s “intelligent” (as opposed to “dumb”) imperial tutelage, colonial genocidaires like France now propose creation of “humanitarian corridors” inside Syria “to allow NGOs to reach the zones where there are scandalous massacres.” NATO flatly rejected such a corridor in Libya when sub-Saharan Africans and black Libyans were being massacred by militias armed and financed by the same “Friends” that now besiege Syria.
Turkey claims it has rejected, for now, the idea of setting up humanitarian “buffer zones” along its border with Syria – inside Syrian territory – while giving arms, training and sanctuary to Syrian military deserters. In reality, it is Syrian Army troop and armor concentrations on the border that have thwarted the establishment of such a “buffer” – a bald euphemism for creating a “liberated zone” that must be “protected” by NATO or some agglomeration of U.S.-backed forces.
NATO, which bombed Libya non-stop for six months, inflicting tens of thousands of casualties while refusing to count a single body, wants desperately to identify some sliver of Syrian soil on which to plant the “humanitarian” flag of intervention. They are transparently searching for a Benghazi, to justify a replay of the Libyan operation – the transparent fact that prompted the Russian and Chinese vetoes.
Faced with the certainty of superpower-backed attack under the guise of “protecting” civilians in “liberated” territory, Syria cannot afford to cede even one neighborhood of a single city – not one block! – or of any rural or border enclave, to armed rebels and foreign jihadis. That road leads directly to loss of sovereignty and possible dissection of Syria – which western pundits are already calling a “hodge-podge” nation that could be a “failed state.” Certainly, the French and British are experts at carving up other people’s territories, having drawn the national boundaries of the region after World War One. It is an understatement to say that Israel would be pleased.
With the Syrian military’s apparent successes in securing most of Homs and other centers of rebellion, the armed opposition has stepped up its terror tactics – a campaign noted with great alarm by the Arab League’s own Observer Mission to Syria, leading Saudi Arabia and Qatar to suppress the Mission’s report. Instead, the Gulf States are pressing the Arab League to openly “provide all kinds of political and material support” to the opposition, meaning arms and, undoubtedly, more Salafist fighters. Aleppo, Syria’s main commercial and industrial city, which had seen virtually no unrest, was struck by two deadly car bombs last week – signature work of the al-Qaida affiliate in neighboring Iraq.
The various “Friends of Syria,” all nestled in the U.S./NATO/Saudi/Qatar cocoon, now openly speak of all-out civil war in Syria – by which they mean stepped up armed conflict financed and directed by themselves – as the preferred alternative to the protracted struggle that the regime appears to be winning. There is one caveat: no “Western boots on the ground in any form,” as phrased by British Foreign Secretary William Hague. It is the Libya formula, and might as well have come straight from Barack Obama’s mouth.
Syria is fighting for its national existence against an umbrella of forces mobilized by the United States and NATO. Of the 6,000 or so people that have died in the past 11 months, about a third have been Syrian soldiers and police – statistical proof positive that this is an armed assault on the state. There is no question of massive foreign involvement, or that the aim of U.S. policy is regime change, as stated repeatedly by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (“Assad must go,” she told reporters in Bulgaria).
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have chosen sides in the Washington-backed belligerency – the side of Empire. As groups most often associated with (what passes for) the Left in their headquarters countries, they are invaluable allies of the current imperial offensive. They have many fellow travelers in (again, what passes for) anti-war circles in the colonizing and neo-colonizing nations. The French “Left” lifted hardly a finger while a million Algerians died in the struggle for independence, and have not proved effective allies of formerly colonized people in the 50 years, since. Among the European imperial powers, only Portugal’s so-called Carnation Revolution of 1974, a coup by young officers, resulted in substantial relief for the subjects of empire: the withdrawal of troops from Portugal’s African colonies.
There was great ambivalence – the most polite word I can muster – among purported leftists in the United States and Europe to NATO’s bombardment and subjugation of Libya. Here we are again, in the face of existential imperial threats to Syria and Iran, as leftists temporize about human rights while the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” blazes new warpaths.
There is no such thing as an anti-war activist who is not an anti-imperialist. And the only job of an anti-imperialist in the belly of the beast is to disarm the beast. Absent that, s/he is useless to humanity.
As we used to say: You are part of the solution – or you are part of the problem. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are part of the problem. |
Larry Alan Thorne was born on May 28, 1919 and joined the Armed Forces while in Norwalk, Connecticut. He served in the United States Army, 5th Special Forces. In twelve years of service, he attained the rank of Major. Larry Alan Thorne is listed as Missing in Action.
From various contemporary press reports: Thorne was born in Finland in 1919, entered the Finnish army in 1938 and fought in the 1939-40 war against the Soviet Union. He subsequently conducted guerrilla warfare against the Soviet forces after the Finnish regime allied itself with Nazi Germany and reentered the war. As Shultz tells it, "In September 1944, Finland surrendered to the Soviet Union. Thorne didn't. He joined the Germans, attended their school for guerrilla warfare, and then fought with their marines until the war ended. "The Soviets wanted to get their hands on Thorne and forced the Finnish government to arrest him as a wartime German collaborator. They planned to take him to Moscow to be tried for war crimes. Thorne had other plans. He escaped, made his way to the United States, and with the help of Wild Bill Donovan became a citizen. The wartime head of the OSS knew of Thorne's commando exploits..." Thorne joined the U.S. Army and his expertise in guerrilla warfare led him into the Special Forces Group, where he was commissioned a first lieutenant, eventually rising to the rank of captain and commanding a Special Forces team in Vietnam, before joining SOG. Name: Larry Alan Thorne
Rank/Branch: Major, United States Army Unit: Headquarters Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Detachment SD 5891, 5th Special Forces Group, 1st Special Forces With orders to Studies and Observation Group Long Thanh, South Vietnam Date of Birth: 28 May 1919 (Viipuri, Finland) Home of Record: Norwalk, Connecticut
Date of Loss: 18 October 1965
Country of Loss: South Vietnam (official); Laos (actual)
Status in 1973: Killed/Body Not Recovered
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: CH34 "Seahorse"
Other Personnel In Incident: (none missing) SYNOPSIS: Larry Alan Thorne was born Lauri Allan Torni in Viipuri, Finland. As a young adult, he enlisted in the Finish Army where he obtained the rank of Captain. During the early years of World War II, he developed, trained and commanded the Finish ski troops. Under his strict and demanding leadership, the ski troops fought the Russians deep behind enemy lines for extended periods of time. During Finland's wars against the former Soviet Union, he was awarded every medal for bravery that Finland could bestow including the Knight of the Mannerheim Cross, which is the equivalent of the American Congressional Medal of Honor. After Finland fell to the communists, Captain Torni joined the German SS in order to continue fighting the communists. After World War II, Lauri Torni made his way to the United States where he enlisted in the U.S. Army under the Lodge Bill. After completing basic training, Larry Thorne was selected for the budding Special Forces program. He quickly rose through the ranks, and with the assistance of allies within the military, received a commission. In 1964, Larry Thorne served his first 6-month tour of duty in South Vietnam. In February 1965, then Captain Larry Thorne returned to Long Thanh, South Vietnam for his second tour of duty. While assigned to Headquarters, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Captain Thorne was instrumental in establishing the standard operating procedures employed by the fledgling Studies and Observation Group, better known by its acronym "MACV-SOG." MACV-SOG was a joint service unconventional warfare task force engaged in highly classified operations throughout Southeast Asia. The 5th Special Forces Group channeled personnel into MACV-SOG (although it was not a Special Forces unit) through Special Operations Augmentation (SOA), which provided their "cover" while under secret orders to MACV-SOG. The teams performed deep penetration missions of strategic reconnaissance and interdiction that were called, depending on the location and time frame, "Shining Brass" "Daniel Boone," "Salem House" or "Prairie Fire" missions. When North Vietnam began to increase its military strength in South Vietnam, NVA and Viet Cong troops again intruded on neutral Laos for sanctuary, as the Viet Minh had done during the war with the French some years before. This border road was used by the Communists to transport weapons, supplies and troops from North Vietnam into South Vietnam, and was frequently no more than a path cut through the jungle covered mountains. US forces used all assets available to them to stop this flow of men and supplies from moving south into the war zone. In September 1965, the infiltration of reconnaissance teams into Laos, Codenamed: "Shining Brass," was approved, but severe limitations by Washington restricted the teams to penetrate no deeper than 50 kilometers into Laos. In case the team was captured the cover story derived for the first Shining Brass mission was that "they were looking for a crashed US Air Force C-123 cargo aircraft that was lost near the South Vietnamese/Lao border." Further, in conjunction with planning cross-border missions, Larry Thorne flew as the observer for many intelligence gathering reconnaissance missions over eastern Laos. Because of this, he was very familiar with the entire area in which MACV-SOG's teams would be operating. One of the earliest helicopters employed in Southeast Asia, and the primary Marine Corps helicopter used during the early years of the war, was the Sikorsky UH34D Seahorse. This aircraft was already quite old when they arrived in the battle zone. However, both the US and South Vietnamese military found them to be extremely effective throughout the war. The Seahorse was frequently used to insert MACV-SOG teams into Laos. On 18 October 1965, the first MACV-SOG cross-border mission was to be inserted by South Vietnamese Air Force helicopters into a target area approximately 20 miles northwest of Kham Duc known as "D-1" to locate and report on North Vietnamese activity operating on and near Highway 165. All personnel were initially transported to Kham Doc Forward Operating Base (FOB) in preparation for their launch into Laos in search of what would eventually be known as the "Ho Chi Minh Trail." Master Sergeant Charles "Slats" Petry, team leader; Sergeant First Class Willie Card, 1 South Vietnamese Army Lieutenant and 7 Nungs comprised Recon Team (RT) Iowa, the team to be inserted. As the men of RT Iowa prepared their weapons and gear, Major Norton and Captain Thorne brought the SVAF Kingbee, US Army Huey and USAF Forward Air Controller (FAC) aircrews together in the operations shack to plan the team's insertion at dusk. RT Iowa's landing zone (LZ) would be a slash-and-burn area that resembled an old logging clear-cut from the Pacific Northwest. U.S. Air Force Major Harley B. Pyles, pilot; and U.S. Marine Corps Captain Winfield W. Sisson, observer and Marine MACV-SOG air liaison officer; comprised the crew of an O1E Bird Dog, call sign "Bird Dog 55," the number 2 aircraft in a flight of two that would coordinate all aircraft involved in inserting RT Iowa. Major Harold Nipper flew the lead Bird Dog. In addition to the FACs, the U.S. Air Force provided a flight of B-57s to conduct a Combat Air Patrol (CAP) for this mission should the ground team run into trouble and greater firepower was needed. At 1745 hours, both FACs departed Kham Duc. Minutes later Major Pyles transmitted the weather conditions were marginal, with clouds below the mountaintops and increasing ground fog. In spite of the existing conditions, the FAC pilot believed the low flying helicopters could weave around the worst of it and called for the rest of the mission's aircraft to launch. At 1800 hours, the Kingbee helicopters lifted off with Cowboy, piloting the lead SVAF Kingbee; and Mustachio piloting the #2 Kingbee. The third Kingbee was a chase aircraft that would retrieve the crew and passengers of any aircraft that went down. Captain Thorne, who was not about to remain at Kham Duc, was the only passenger aboard the chase aircraft. US Army Huey gunships launched at the same time to provide air cover should it be needed at any time during the mission. As the Kingbees and Huey gunships flew low over the countryside, all they could see were rolling hills, wild rivers and waterfalls. The weather proved especially hazardous, forcing them to weaving between thunderheads and sunbeams while avoiding sporadic .50 caliber machinegun fire, all of which missed. The flight arrived over the target area just before sundown. The all aircraft circled the area looking for a way to get down to the clearing through the thick angry clouds that blanketed the area. Minutes before Captain Thorne intended to cancel the mission and return to Kham Duc, the clouds opened up slightly allowing the two Kingbees carrying RT Iowa to spiral into the slash-and-burn clearing, rapidly discharge their passengers and immediately climb for altitude. As Larry Thorne's helicopter and Major Pyles' Bird Dog attempted to descend, the clouds again closed up. Captain Thorne ordered the now empty Kingbees to return to Kham Duc. Shortly thereafter, Captain Thorne also released Bird Dog 55 and the Huey gunships to return to base. As the weather worsened, Larry Thorne continued to orbit D-1 near the landing zone in case RT Iowa ran into trouble. As Cowboy and Mustachio flew toward the east, they reported low-level visibility so bad that they had to climb to 8,500 feet in order to clear the top of the clouds. Once Captain Thorne received a message from RT Iowa that their insertion was successful, he transmitted that his aircraft was also on its way back. At 1810 hours, Major Nipper released the B-57s and began his own return flight to Kham Duc. Approximately 5 minutes after receiving the patrol's report, the other aircrews heard a constant keying of a radio for roughly 30 seconds. After that, only silence was heard in response to repeated attempts to raise anyone aboard the Kingbee. Intense search efforts were initiated at first light the next morning and continued for the next month, but found not trace of the missing Kingbee, its crew and passenger. Shortly after loss, Larry Thorne was reported as Missing in Action. Prior to his final mission, Larry Thorne had been recommended for promotion to Major and was being groomed for a staff position as an intelligence officer. His posthumous promotion to Major was approved in December 1965. Early on 19 October 1966, the U.S. Army declared that Captain Larry A. Thorne was no longer being listed as Missing in Action, but had been declared Presumed Killed in Action in South Vietnam, not Laos. The Department of the Army officially stated, "On 18 October 1965, Major Thorne was a passenger aboard a Vietnamese Air Force CH34 helicopter which crashed about 25 miles south of DaNang." Prior to the end of the war, the wreckage of the Kingbee was found and a search and rescue-recovery (SAR) team inserted into the crash site. According to reports, the SAR personnel found and recovered the remains of the South Vietnamese aircrew, but found no sign of Larry Thorne either dead or alive. The number of MACV-SOG missions conducted with Special Forces reconnaissance teams into Laos and Cambodia was 452 in 1969. It was the most sustained campaign of raiding, sabotage and intelligence gathering waged on foreign soil in US military history. These teams earned a global reputation as one of the most combat effective deep-penetration forces ever raised. If Larry Thorne died in the loss of the Kingbee, he has a right to have his remains returned to his family, friends and country. However, if he survived, he most certainly could have been captured by NVA forces openly operating throughout the region and his fate, like that of other Americans who remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, could be quite different. Since the end of the Vietnam War well over 21,000 reports of American prisoners, missing and otherwise unaccounted for have been received by our government. Many of these reports document LIVE America Prisoners of War remaining captive throughout Southeast Asia TODAY. American military men in Vietnam and Laos were called upon to fly and fight in many dangerous circumstances, and they were prepared to be wounded, killed or captured. It probably never occurred to them that they could be abandoned by the country they so proudly served. Larry A. Thorne is the only American POW/MIA to fight communism under three flags - those of Finland, Germany and America. THORNE, LARRY ALAN
Remains Found 1999 - Identified 2003, Buried Arlington June 26, 2003
Name: Larry Alan Thorne
Rank/Branch: O3/US Army
Unit: HQ MACV SD5891
Date of Birth: 28 May 1919
(Viipuru, Finland - military records - correct spelling is Viipuri)
Home City of Record: Norwalk Connecticut
Loss Date: 18 October 1965
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 152558N 1074744E (YC895105)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 3
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: CH34 REMARKS: Source: Compiled in 1989 from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK 2003. SYNOPSIS: Larry Alan Thorne was born Lauri Allan Torni on May 28, 1919. As an adult in Finland, he joined the Finnish army where he attained the rank of Captain. His valor earned him the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Mannerheim Medal. He was so successful as a ski troop commander that the unit patch carried his initial "T" with a lightning bolt through it. At the end of the Winter War, Torni joined the German "SS" to fight the Russians. When the Continuation War began, he returned to Finland and again commanded his ski troops. Following Finland's second defeat to the Russians, Torni was imprisoned by the
communists as a war criminal. He escaped prison three times and made his way to
the United States where he enlisted in the U.S. Army as a private. Throughout the late 1950's, the budding U.S. Army Special Forces had been building a controversial force to conduct unconventional warefare. These unconventional warfare warriors had to be able to master critical military skills needed to train and lead guerrilla warriors, to be inserted anywhere in the world by any means of transportaion, to survive the most hostile environment, and to take care of themselves and others under the pressures of harsh combat conditions and isolation. At the same time, these individuals had to be independent thinkers, able to grasp opportunities and innovate with the materials at hand. In order to control and lead irregular fighters, they had to understand people, languages, and foreign cultures. Most important, the Special Forces warriors had to posses the intelligence, knowledge, tact, and acumen to successfully transform ordinary civilians into an effective military threat to a strong and cunning occupation army. In addition to recruiting rugged individuals possessing these attributes from regular army formations, the Special Forces attracted a proven lot of hardy, versatile volunteers from Finland and other European countries through the Lodge Act, Public Law 957 of the 81st Congress, sponsored by Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. Regardless of his background, each SF volunteer underwent strenuous physical conditioning, including paratrooper training, and was extensively tested to determine his best skills and abilities. He then received comprehensive instruction in his specialty area. Thorne was selected for the Special Forces and ultimately led an important mountain rescue mission to a crashed USAF plane in the middle east. The plane was carrying classified equipment and three earlier attempts to reach it had failed. Next, he went to Vietnam, he and his 7th Special Forces A-734 established the camp at Tinh Bien in April 1964 near the Delta's Seven Mountains area, which bushwacked so many Viet Cong that it becamse a serious thorn to the VC lifeline into Cambodia. In a second tour of Vietnam, attached to Headquarters Company, MACV, Special Detachment 5891, the Vietnamese Air Force CH34 helicopter on which Thorne was a passenger crashed about 25 miles southwest of Da Nang. When rescue workers went to the site, they recovered the remains of the Vietnamese crew, but found no sign of Larry Thorne. He had simply disappeared. Thorne's photo is maintained in a pre-capture photo group shown to defectors for POW/MIA identifications purposes, yet Thorne was classified killed in action the day after the crash. His remains were never found. Men who served with him believe that Larry is still alive. They gather to toast his health every year. No one, they say, is better equipped to survive than Larry Thorne. In Finland, Lauri Torni is a national hero. In the United Sates, Larry Thorne is forgotten by all but a few. His family believes he is still alive, even considering he was 70 years old this year (1989). Lauri Torni hated the threat of communism so much that he was willing to join any army to fight it. We must never forget men like Thorne. It is to them that we owe our freedom. We also owe them theirs. UPDATE 1998 In June of 1998, the book THE SOLDIER UNDER THREE FLAGS was made available by Pathfinder publishing. The author, H.A. Gill, III is a graduate of the
Citadel. He served as an infantry offcier in the U.S. Army and currently
works for an aerospace corporation. The book about Larry Thorne has 208 pages and 37 photographs, and is available for 14.95.
ISBN : 0-934793-65-4
Pathfinder Publishing
1-800-977-2282
458 Dorothy Avenue
Ventura, CA 93003 Subject: Re: Major Larry A. Thorne - Deceased - 18 Oct.'65
In a message dated 6/6/03 4:02:23 PM Central Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes: Gentlemen: Great News. FINALLY after 37+ years - CLOSURE. The USG has finally closed the case on Larry A. Thorne. Needless to say - it has been a long struggle for the past few years. Larry will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery on 26 June 2003, reportedly scheduled for 0900 hours commencing at the ANC Administration Building. Tentatively plans for a memorial service are also scheduled for the evening of 25 June. Time and Location as yet to be determined. As many of you are aware Larry was lost in the clouds on 18 October 1965 on a CH-34 "KINGBEE" helicopter from the 219th Vietnamese Air Force Squadron while performing a C&C mission out of Kham Duc for the very first OP-35 cross-border reconnaissance mission (RT Iowa) being conducted by Charles "Slats" Petry, Willie Card and four "little people" and never seen again. "Slats" and his RT were able to infiltrate the AO via another "KINGBEE," but, almost immediately following insertion the weather turned to shit. John Voter was in another "KINGBEE", acting as "Chase." Due to the same miserable bad weather in the area that Larry got caught up in, John was forced to land at an emergency site and fortunately was able to return to Kham Duc the next day. "Slats" and his RT conducted a successful mission and returned to Kham Duc at a later date. In 1999 a US/VN JTF/FA conducted an excavation of a CH-34 KINGBEE crash site and recovered several fragments of bones, miscellaneous equipment and a Swedish "K" SMG. Based on that limited evidence coupled with a series of forensic and DNA tests, it has taken the USG till now to arrive at a conclusive decision that this was in fact Larry's ill-fated aircraft. Juha Rajala, Larry's nephew has scheduled a Press Release for 10 June in Finland announcing the decision by the USG as it relates to Larry. However, a close family friend, Ilkka Nieminen has secured permission from Juha for an early release of this information in order to permit Larry's American friends sufficient time to coordinate travel and accommodation arrangements in the event they desire to attend the Memorial Service (25 June) and Interment (26 June 2003) at Arlington National Cemetery. A number of Finnish dignitaries including Juha (representing the Thorne family) will be in attendance at both services. If anyone plans on attending - request you advise me and I will be pleased to pass it on to the family. I will also secure a name and address in Finland for anyone desiring to dispatch a card to Juha and/or Salme, the last surviving sister of Larry. That is it for now. Does anyone know how to get in touch with John Voter? Advise. Regards, Clyde (Clyde J. Sincere, Jr. 11722 Lariat Lane Oakton, Virginia 22124-2323 (703) 620-0953 [email protected]
Legendary Finnish war hero Lauri Trni (Larry Thorne) to get final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery Remains of victims of 1965 helicopter crash will be interred simultaneously. The last picture of Larry Thorne was taken three days before he disappeared. The Finnish-American war hero is on the left in the picture with some American and South Vietnamese brothers in arms. Foreign - Tuesday 17 June 2003
By Asko Temmes Lauri Trni (1919-1965) was a World War II hero and a recipient of the Mannerheim Cross - the highest award for gallantry on the field - in his native Finland. After the end of hostilities, the fiercely anti-Communist Trni found life at home difficult, and he emigrated to the United States. There he entered the U.S. military and became a decorated and much-revered Vietnam War hero in Special Forces. Trni, by now better known to his colleagues as Larry Thorne, disappeared after the helicopter he was in went down close to the Laos border in 1965. At long last, his remains have been formally identified, and he will be laid to rest in the Arlington National Cemetery on June 26 of this year. Trni's remains will be buried in the same coffin with those of three other victims of the same helicopter crash. When the crash site was finally located four years ago, the U.S. military made inquiries concerning Trni's final resting place. In Finland, hopes were raised for the national hero's possible burial in his home country. Separating the remains of the crash victims, however, turned out to be an impossible task, which led to a pragmatic decision to organise a joint burial at Arlington. "A traditional American military officer's burial is to be expected, with trumpets and salutes", says Trni's nephew Juha Rajala, who is also the Vice President of the Lauri Trni Tradition Guild in Finland. The Tradition Guild will send representatives to the funeral, and the Finnish Defence Forces will decide on their participation next week. It is likely that the representation from the U.S. Army will be at the level of a General. Trni still enjoys an awesome reputation amongst military men even today, nearly 40 years after his demise. The Arlington National Cemetery is in Virginia, across the Potomac River from the nation's capital, Washington DC. Arlington Cemetery contains about 270,000 graves, most of them belonging to individuals who served in the U.S. armed forces. Arlington's most famous grave, accompanied by an eternal flame, is that of President John F. Kennedy. The day before the interment, a memorial service will be arranged. Larry A. Thorne, the name by which Trni is remembered in the United States, was a captain and a Green Beret in the U.S. Special Forces. Special Forces will also organise a tribute to their hero. After Trni's status was changed from "missing in action" to "presumably killed in action", a memorial service was already organised in Helsinki back in 1967. Excavation at the crash site in Vietnam was launched four years ago. The helicopter crashed on a mountain-top in a severe thuderstorm. Three South Vietnamese soldiers had accompanied Trni on the ill-fated helicopter flight, returning from a secret mission, probably in Laos. Two of the South Vietnamese lieutenants were identified from DNA samples. The third soldier, a machine-gunner, was recognised from his identification tag. Trni's fate was finally confirmed, not by a DNA sample, but from his dental records. Trni had a dental crown on his tooth number 18. Even before the medical confirmation, two pieces of evidence pointed strongly to the final outcome: the serial number found on the helicopter's rotor blade and the Swedish-made machine pistol that Trni had taken with him, which was found nearby. The Lauri Trni Tradition Guild has planned a trip to Vietnam, to the site of their hero's death. Thirty of the Finnish Army infantrymen who accompanied Trni on numerous dangerous missions in World War II are still alive, among them Finland's former President Mauno Koivisto. Next year Lauri Trni would have celebrated his 85th birthday. More on this subject: Legendary Finnish war hero Lauri Trni (Larry Thorne) to get final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery. BACKGROUND: War hero's unbelievable life in the service of two countries Previously in HS International Edition: DNA testing to resolve the fate of Larry Thorne (14.9.1999) Trni was not the only Finnish soldier to serve under more than one flag, as this article indicates: Finnish officer becomes legend in US Army (3.10.2000) One Burial, Four Fighters There's a story behind almost every funeral at Arlington National Cemetery, but a group burial at the cemetery earlier this summer was particularly uncommon. A single casket bearing the remains of four men killed in a helicopter crash during the Vietnam War was buried June 26 with military honors. Three of those laid to rest were South Vietnamese Air Force crew members. The fourth was a Finnish war hero from World War II who later became a legendary U.S. Special Forces officer, portrayed on film by John Wayne. The story begins with the Winter War, which began with the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939, when Lauri Torni fought against attacking Red Army troops. During World War II, Torni trained with the Waffen SS in Germany and fought alongside Finnish and German guerrillas against the Soviets. He was a recipient of the Mannerheim Cross, Finland's highest award for gallantry in the field. Torni found life in Finland difficult after the war and moved to the United States, enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1954 and later gaining citizenship. With the new name of Larry Thorne, he became an officer in the Green Berets, of the Army's elite Special Forces, serving in operations in Iran and Vietnam, according to an article last year in Military Review, an Army publication. On his second tour in Vietnam in 1965, assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group, Thorne was involved in the secret war in Laos. On October 18, 1965, he was on a covert mission into Laos, riding in a South Vietnamese Air Force H-34 helicopter. In thick clouds near the Laotian border, the helicopter crashed into a mountaintop. Also on board were three South Vietnamese crew members: Lieutenant Bao Tung Nguyen, First Lieutenant The Long Phan and Sergeant Vam Lanh Bui. Searches of the rugged terrain found nothing. Thorne was declared killed in action by the Army in 1966. In America, posthumous fame arrived when he was portrayed by Wayne in the 1968 film "The Green Berets." A joint U.S.-Socialist Republic of Vietnam team found the wreckage in 1997, and the site was excavated in 1999. The remains were subsequently identified by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii. The three Vietnamese service members were eligible for burial at Arlington because their remains were commingled with those of an American serviceman, according to a spokeswoman for Arlington Cemetery. Now the three lie together with Thorne in America's most hallowed ground, a unique ending to a unique story.
The last picture of Larry Thorne was taken three days before he disappeared.
The Finnish-American war hero is on the left in the picture with some American and
South Vietnamese brothers in arms
THORNE, LARRY ALAN
MAJ US ARMY
VETERAN SERVICE DATES: 10/18/1955 - 10/18/1965
DATE OF BIRTH: 05/28/1919
DATE OF DEATH: 10/18/1965
DATE OF INTERMENT: 06/26/2003
BURIED AT: SECTION 60 SITE 8136 - Arlington National Cemetery
Posted: 24 August 2003 - Updated: 26 December 2003 Updated: 26 June 2004 Updated: 1 January 2006 Updated: 23 November 2006
Updated: 9 December 2006 |
import { logger } from "@truffle/db/logger";
const debug = logger("db:project:migrate:networkGenealogies:test:setup");
import { connect, Project } from "@truffle/db";
export const setupProjectForTest = async (options: {
identifier: string;
}) => {
// @ts-ignore
const db = connect({
working_directory: options.identifier,
db: {
adapter: {
name: "memory"
}
}
});
const project = await Project.initialize({
project: {
directory: options.identifier
},
db
});
return {
db,
project
}
}
|
/* Compute an optimal Huffman code from an input data set. */
/* The client must have set all the elements of *def. */
int
hc_compute(hc_definition *def, const long *freqs, gs_memory_t *mem)
{ uint num_values = def->num_values;
count_node *nodes =
(count_node *)gs_alloc_byte_array(mem, num_values * 2 - 1,
sizeof(count_node), "hc_compute");
int i;
count_node *lowest;
count_node *comb;
if ( nodes == 0 )
return_error(gs_error_VMerror);
for ( i = 0; i < num_values; ++i )
nodes[i].freq = freqs[i], nodes[i].value = i;
qsort(nodes, num_values, sizeof(count_node), compare_freqs);
for ( i = 0; i < num_values; ++i )
nodes[i].next = &nodes[i - 1],
nodes[i].code_length = 0,
nodes[i].left = nodes[i].right = 0;
nodes[0].next = 0;
debug_print_nodes(nodes, num_values, "after sort", 0);
for ( lowest = &nodes[num_values - 1], comb = &nodes[num_values]; ;
++comb
)
{ count_node *pn1 = lowest;
count_node *pn2 = pn1->next;
long freq = pn1->freq + pn2->freq;
lowest = pn2->next;
comb->freq = freq;
if ( pn1->code_length <= pn2->code_length )
comb->left = pn1, comb->right = pn2,
comb->code_length = pn2->code_length + 1;
else
comb->left = pn2, comb->right = pn1,
comb->code_length = pn1->code_length + 1;
if ( lowest == 0 )
break;
if ( freq < lowest->freq )
comb->next = lowest, lowest = comb;
else
{ count_node *here = lowest;
while ( here->next != 0 && freq >= here->next->freq )
here = here->next;
comb->next = here->next;
here->next = comb;
}
}
comb++->code_length = 0;
while ( comb > nodes + num_values )
{ --comb;
comb->left->code_length = comb->right->code_length =
comb->code_length + 1;
}
debug_print_nodes(nodes, num_values * 2 - 1, "after combine", 0);
qsort(nodes, num_values, sizeof(count_node), compare_code_lengths);
debug_print_nodes(nodes, num_values, "after re-sort", num_values);
hc_limit_code_lengths(nodes, num_values, def->num_counts);
debug_print_nodes(nodes, num_values, "after limit", num_values);
for ( i = num_values; i > 0; )
{ int j = i;
int len = nodes[--j].code_length;
while ( j > 0 && nodes[j-1].code_length == len )
--j;
qsort(&nodes[j], i - j, sizeof(count_node), compare_values);
i = j;
}
memset(def->counts, 0, sizeof(*def->counts) * (def->num_counts + 1));
for ( i = 0; i < num_values; ++i )
{ def->values[i] = nodes[i].value;
def->counts[nodes[i].code_length]++;
}
gs_free_object(mem, nodes, "hc_compute");
return 0;
} |
Last month Smith & Wesson, one of the top gun manufacturers in America, reported a steep drop in sales in its latest quarterly earnings report. Sales plunged more than 10 percent, and forecasts warn of a further decline in the coming year. This was a huge surprise to investors considering that the company is the second largest publicly traded firearms manufacturer in the United States.
Profits came up short due to a decline in “long rifle” guns. More specifically, sales of assault style weapons have seen the most precipitous decline. This coincides with a steep decline in the number of background checks conducted in the early part of this year when compared to the same time last year.
Gun ownership has seen a continuing decline since the 1980s. During that period, nearly 50 percent of all American households owned at least one firearm. Over the next two decades, however, the number of gun owners decreased dramatically, even though firearm sales went up. The trend in fewer owners and more guns continued until 1993, which saw an era of lower crime and, ultimately, a lower fear among the public. Fear is the precipitating factor for gun sales, which showed another spike after the 9/11 terrorists attacks.
With violent crime down overall and fewer gun owners, gun manufacturers were constantly challenged with keeping gun sales up. The National Rifle Association, the lobbying arm of the industry, continues to pressure lawmakers to decrease restrictions on guns and ownership, even when most Americans, including gun owners, believe that these are reasonable requirements for public safety. Then just when things looked bleak, a new kind of fear emerged in 2008.
It was that year the fear of the black president swept (a small part of) the nation.
Believing that the Democratic majority and a popular (black) president would begin a liberal agenda that would confiscate guns from all the “real” Americans, gun “enthusiasts” began buying up assault-style weapons that gun control advocates have long been trying to curtail. Over the next few years, sales of ammunition and guns skyrocketed. In some paranoid circles, it was obvious that the fear was racially based. Rumors on the Internet warned of an impending race war and President Obama secretly creating plans to round up white people and house them in FEMA trailers.
Needless to say, this did not happen.
Sales increased even though the number of owners continued to drop. As of 2012, nearly all of the guns in the United States were concentrated in just over one-third of households – a decline of nearly 20 percent in the past two decades. It is estimated that there are more than 300 million guns in circulation, most of them in the hands of only 34 percent of the population.
The estimated population of the entire United States is 318 million.
In spite of evidence to the contrary, these fears continued, even as more mass shootings headlined the national news. In a rather perverse irony, sales of the weapons used in mass shootings spike after each horrific incidence, again due to the fear that the government would take action to outlaw them. After the deadly school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in December 2012, sales of semi-automatic weapons sky rocketed. For nearly a year, gun stores reported a shortage of the weapons, as well as large capacity ammunition magazines, due to the high demand.
Even then, there was no serious movement on gun control.
While there have been some successful attempts to make the licensing requirements stricter and restricting the amount and types of ammunition sold, nothing has been done to ban specific types of guns in recent years. The Supreme Court has made impossible to eliminate guns, as recent rulings have expanded the Second Amendment to include a right to things like handguns and self defense. Needless to say, the government has not taken anyone’s guns.
It is perhaps due to the lack of movement on gun legislation that sales of guns have gone down. Now that the fear is being proven to be misplaced, these same gun enthusiasts are feeling less of a need to stock up on weapons that are generally best suited for war. Handgun sales are still popular, but gun manufactures, like Smith & Wesson, are seeing a decline in the assault weapons that have been a boon for their bottom line. Fear has been a great motivator for profits.
Only time will tell if this is a market correction after a spike in sales, or if indeed the irrational fears that have gripped the nation has finally subsided…at least for now.
Debbie, do you hate guns in the hands of military & law enforcement? If they always mean death , then why aren't places like Svalbard (which requires everyone know how to use a rifle against) or Kennesaw (which requires every home to have a gun) as opposed to Mexico city or New York City (both have strict weapon laws) so violent? I see that people cite the U.S. gun ownership rate & blame it for our higher homicide & violence rates. But they rarely think outside the box and consider other variables such as economics, culture, availability of services & so on.
Yup -- ...and I hate rolling pins, kitchen knives cleavers, dandelion diggers (make a dandy spear), shovels, rocks, hemlock, and certain mushrooms; not to mention hammers, axes, etc.
I hate guns of all kinds! Guns spell 'DEATH' - death of an animal or death of a person!!
Too John P.: I wish so.
T be honest, will NOT accept any surveys no matter e result because not only does few people who go to a certain website can't just represent the entire population but people don't always answer surveys honestly. People wish to be private, and just might not answer surveys correctly for privacy reasons. P.S: sopcalled "assault style" weapons are more often than not no deadlier than some "non assault" style weapon. As demonstrated on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjM9fcEzSJ0&list=PLkYQwSCzfVREuHIZOk28qPIyH7mAq5dN-&index=6, a Ruger Mini-14 with a wooden stock is just as deadly as a AR-15 with plastic stock, grip and fore-end. Even at that, these CAN be used as effective weapons for use of defense of self and others.
@Pamela W. thanks for clearing that up, but I must say the fact that RLEE E. couldn't even COPY the name correctly, doesn't surprise me a bit...Most gun-wielding Maniacs are at best semi-literate...Case in point, Wayne LaPierre!!!! |
package goat
import (
"github.com/fatih/color"
)
func PrintSuccess(s string) {
color.Green(s)
}
func PrintInfo(s string) {
color.Blue(s)
}
func PrintFail(s string) {
color.Red(s)
}
func PrintWarning(s string) {
color.Yellow(s)
}
func PrintHeading(s string) {
d := color.New(color.FgHiWhite, color.Bold)
d.Println(s)
}
func PrintIndent(s string) {
println(" " + s)
}
|
import React = require("react");
interface PasswordProps {
id?: string;
promptLabel?: string;
weakLabel?: string;
mediumLabel?: string;
strongLabel?: string;
feedback?: boolean;
}
export class Password extends React.Component<PasswordProps,any> {} |
Complete atrioventricular nodal block after propofol administration in an elderly patient undergoing total knee replacement arthroplasty -A case report- Complete atrioventricular (AV) block is defined as a dissociation of atrial and ventricular activities. Complete AV block that occurs during the perioperative period is difficult to reverse and usually requires implantation of a pacemaker. Propofol does not affect a normal AV conduction system but may act as a trigger for AV block. It can also potentiate vagal stimulation factors and reduce sympathetic activity. We report a case of complete AV block that may have been related to administration of propofol. Complete atrioventricular (AV) block occurs when no electrical impulses are conducted from the upper to lower chambers of the heart. It is associated with high mortality and sudden death, myocardial infarction, and progressive heart failure until a pacemaker is inserted. However, the prognosis of a complete AV block improves greatly once a pacemaker is inserted. Propofol has been one of the most widely used drugs for anesthesia since the early 1980s. It has several advantages over other anesthetics, such as smooth induction and a good recovery profile. However, various types of arrhythmias are associated with the infusion of propofol. Propofol may prolong AV conduction (or stimulus-to-His bundle interval) and Wenckebach cycle length in a concentration-dependent manner. It can also decrease heart rate via central sympatholytic or vagotonic mechanisms rather than depression of baro receptors. We present a patient who experienced complete AV block that persisted after propofol administration during the induction of anesthesia for total knee replacement arthroplasty (TKRA). Case Report An 80-year-old woman (weight, 53 kg; height, 154 cm) was scheduled for TKRA of the left knee due to degenerative joint disease. She was diagnosed with hypertension 1 year ago but did not receive any medication. Preoperative blood and coagulation tests were normal. She had not undergone any previous operations. At admission, her vital signs were stable. Preoperative electrocardiography (ECG) showed normal sinus rhythm and a complete right bundle branch block (Fig. 1). A chest X-ray showed a hypertensive heart contour. We did not perform an echocardiogram, because it was obtained at another hospital, and cardiac function was normal except for the hypertension. The patient was premedicated with glycopyrrolate 0.2 mg intramuscularly 30 min before anesthesia. Upon arrival in the operating room, standard ECG, pulse oximeter, noninvasive blood pressure, and bispectral index monitoring (Model A-2000; Aspect Medical Systems, Newton, MA, USA) were applied. Her vital signs were pulse rate, 76 beats/min (bpm); oxygen saturation, 97%; and blood pressure, 177/83 mmHg. Anesthesia was induced with 40 mg lidocaine and 60 mg propofol. Rocuronium was given at a dose of 0.6 mg/kg to facilitate endotracheal intubation after loss of consciousness. After a few minutes, the ECG showed a complete AV block and ventricular rhythm of about 40 bpm (Fig. 2). Despite the administration of 0.5 mg atropine, the arrhythmia persisted (blood pressure, 90/40 mmHg; pulse rate, 30-49 bpm). At that time, her trachea was intubated with a 7.0-sized endotracheal tube under direct laryngoscopy, and a radial arterial line was placed for continuous arterial pressure monitoring and blood gas analysis. A central venous catheter was also inserted via the right internal jugular vein catheter. About 10 minutes after the propofol injection, her blood pressure was 145/55 mmHg, and her pulse rate was 66 bpm. The ECG showed a sinus rhythm. The operation was delayed, and she was transferred to the intensive care unit until fully awake for close observation and further evaluation. We assessed the patient's creatine kinase-MB, troponin T, Korean J Anesthesiol Noh, et al. and myoglobin, and all values were normal. An echocardiography taken the next day exhibited a left ventricular ejection fraction of 63%, which was suggestive of an indeterminate left ventricular filling pattern due to complete AV block. In addition, a 24-h ECG Holter monitor showed AV dissociation. Three-dimensional (3D) computed tomography of the heart revealed that the proximal and middle parts of the left anterior descending artery were narrowed by 50%. She also had a focal aortic valve and mitral annular calcification. We had planned to perform the surgery again. She received a temporary pace maker (VDD mode) with the minimum rate was set to 60 bpm. She was taken to the operating room, where her blood pressure was 180/95 mmHg and pulse rate was 72 bpm. A 22-gauge catheter was placed in the left radial artery for blood pressure monitoring. A central venous catheter was already inserted via the right internal jugular vein. The patient was placed in the right lateral decubitus position, and spinal anesthesia was performed at the L4/L5 interspinous space with 0.5% hyperbaric bupivacaine 8 mg. The sensory level reached the 10th thoracic segment. The surgeon then began the operation with an initial blood pressure of 170/80 mmHg and a heart rate of 90 bpm. The operation lasted about 2 h. She asked for sedation and we administered midazolam 3 mg intravenously. However, because adequate sedation was not achieved, she received a continuous infusion (50 g/kg/min). A few minutes after the propofol infusion, the ECG showed a complete AV block with a ventricular rhythm of about 40 bpm. The complete AV block disappeared soon after the propofol infusion was stopped. During the remainder of the surgery, her vital signs were stable. At the end of the operation, she had a blood pressure of 150/55 mmHg, a pulse rate of 55 bpm, and oxygen saturation of 96%. A permanent pacemaker (DDDR mode) on postoperative day 2 was inserted ( Fig. 3). On postoperative day 27, she remained hemodynamically stable and was discharged from the hospital uneventfully. Discussion Complete AV block may even lead to asystole. Complete AV block is a complete dissociation of atrial and ventricular activities. The ventricular escape mechanism can occur anywhere from the AV node to the bundle-branch of the Purkinje system. In general, the causes of complete AV block include myocardial infarction, iatrogenic injuries and drugs, such as quinidine, procainamide, flecainide, beta-blockers, amiodarone and calcium channel blockers. The risk factors of AV block are fibrosis and sclerosis of the conduction system, ischemic heart disease and intraventricular conduction disturbance. Our patient may have been at risk for a complete AV block because she had conduction disorder (right bundle branch block), had mild coronary artery stenosis, and had annular calcification. However, although 3D computed tomography of the heart revealed that the proximal and middle parts of the left anterior descending artery were narrowed by 50%, clinical features did not indicate a diagnosis of myocardial infarction, and normal cardiac enzyme values were obtained. There was no confirmed evidence of ischemia by a cardiologist. We may hane been able to rule out complete AV block due to myocardial infarction. AV block occurred twice immediately after propofol administration in our patient. During the first operation, lidocaine, rocuronium and anesthetic agents, such as propofol and desflurane may have been the cause of the complete AV block. However, during the second operation, as the heart rate was kept > 60 bpm, the failure of the temporary pacemaker was not Vol. 64, No. 4, April 2013 AV block after propofol administration noticed before the AV block occurred after the administration of propofol without lidocaine. Therefore, the administration of propofol alone may have induced the complete AV block. Propofol can affect AV nodes through depressed sympathetic outflow, enhanced vagal tone, and altered baroreceptor sensitivity. Studies have also described a direct inhibitory effect of propofol on myocardial contractility. Propofol acts directly on the calcium channel proteins to diminish voltagedependent L-type calcium channels and cardiac contractility. The L-type calcium channel plays an important role in the plateau phase of the cardiac action potential as well as to pacemaker activity in nodal cells. The influx of calcium ion through voltage-dependent L-type calcium channel plays an essential role in cardiac excitability and in coupling excitation to contraction. This influx of calcium ion triggers the release of intracellular stores of calcium ion from the sarcoplasmic reticulum, and the ensuing intracellular calcium ion transient results in activation of the myofilaments. Therefore, propofol retards AV nodal conduction by directly suppressing calcium channels. Several reports have been published about propofol-associated cardiac arrhythmias or adverse events. Propofol may also produce sinus bradycardia and complete AV block in adult patients. Yorozu et al. reported a retrospective examination showing factors that influence intraoperative bradycardia in adult patients. They revealed that the most prominent factor to affect heart rate was premedication with atropine. Other factors such as the use of muscle relaxants, endotracheal intubation, and neuraxial blockade were determined to affect heart rate only temporarily. Atropine significantly antagonized propofol-induced stimulus to a His bundle interval prolongation. The cardiovascular effects of propofol are a negative chronotropic effect, a negative dromotropic effect, and a frequencydependent effect. The negative chronotropic effect of propofol is concentration-dependent based on slowing of spontaneous atrial rate. The negative dromotropic effect of propofol is concentration-dependent prolongation of AV nodal conduction time. This effect is predominantly mediated by M 2 muscarinic receptors. The frequency-dependent effect of propofol is greater at faster atrial pacing rate than at slower atrial pacing rates. Wu et al. reported propofol has been shown to retard the atrial rate and depress the AV nodal conduction at con cen tration ranging from 10 to 100 M, and propofol at 100 M might also cause AV block. They thought that the negative dromotropic and chronotropic effects of propofol have been potential properties of this drug which may be manifested in patients with diseased hearts. In conclusion, complete AV block may be induced by propofol administration. In patients with risk factors, physicians should closely monitor patients in whom an arrhythmia occurs when anesthesia is induced with propofol. |
<reponame>OCEO-YJ/Synapse-Repository-Services
package org.sagebionetworks.asynchronous.workers.changes;
import java.util.List;
import org.apache.logging.log4j.LogManager;
import org.apache.logging.log4j.Logger;
import org.sagebionetworks.asynchronous.workers.sqs.MessageUtils;
import org.sagebionetworks.common.util.progress.ProgressCallback;
import org.sagebionetworks.repo.model.message.ChangeMessage;
import org.sagebionetworks.schema.adapter.JSONObjectAdapterException;
import org.sagebionetworks.schema.adapter.org.json.EntityFactory;
import org.sagebionetworks.workers.util.aws.message.MessageDrivenRunner;
import org.sagebionetworks.workers.util.aws.message.RecoverableMessageException;
import com.amazonaws.services.sqs.AmazonSQS;
import com.amazonaws.services.sqs.model.Message;
/**
* A message driven runner that can read a batch of change messages and
* forwarded each message to the provided worker.
*
* @author jhill
*
*/
public class ChangeMessageBatchProcessor implements MessageDrivenRunner {
static private Logger log = LogManager
.getLogger(ChangeMessageBatchProcessor.class);
private AmazonSQS awsSQSClient;
private String queueUrl;
private ChangeMessageRunner runner;
public ChangeMessageBatchProcessor(AmazonSQS awsSQSClient,
String queueName, ChangeMessageRunner runner) {
this.awsSQSClient = awsSQSClient;
this.queueUrl = awsSQSClient.getQueueUrl(queueName).getQueueUrl();
this.runner = runner;
}
@Override
public void run(final ProgressCallback progressCallback,
final Message message) throws RecoverableMessageException,
Exception {
// read the batch.
List<ChangeMessage> batch = MessageUtils
.extractChangeMessageBatch(message);
if (runner instanceof BatchChangeMessageDrivenRunner) {
BatchChangeMessageDrivenRunner batchRunner = (BatchChangeMessageDrivenRunner) runner;
runAsBatch(progressCallback, batch, batchRunner);
} else if(runner instanceof ChangeMessageDrivenRunner) {
ChangeMessageDrivenRunner singleRunner = (ChangeMessageDrivenRunner) runner;
runAsSingleChangeMessages(progressCallback, batch, singleRunner);
}else{
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unknown runner type: "+runner.getClass().getName());
}
}
private void runAsBatch(final ProgressCallback progressCallback,
List<ChangeMessage> batch,
BatchChangeMessageDrivenRunner batchRunner)
throws RecoverableMessageException, Exception {
try{
batchRunner.run(progressCallback, batch);
} catch (Exception e) {
//if part of the batch fails for any reason, put everything back onto the queue as individual batched messages and retry later
if (batch.size() == 1) {
// Let the container handle retry for single messages.
throw e;
} else {
// Push each single message back onto the queue
for(ChangeMessage message: batch){
// Add the message back to the queue as a single message
awsSQSClient.sendMessage(queueUrl,
EntityFactory.createJSONStringForEntity(message));
}
}
} catch (Throwable e) {
log.error("Failed on Batch: " + batch.toString(), e);
}
}
/**
* Run each messages from the batch separately.
* @param progressCallback
* @param batch
* @param runner
* @throws JSONObjectAdapterException
* @throws RecoverableMessageException
*/
void runAsSingleChangeMessages(
final ProgressCallback progressCallback,
List<ChangeMessage> batch, ChangeMessageDrivenRunner runner)
throws JSONObjectAdapterException, RecoverableMessageException {
// Run each batch
for (ChangeMessage change : batch) {
try {
// Make progress before each message
runner.run(progressCallback, change);
} catch (RecoverableMessageException e) {
if (batch.size() == 1) {
// Let the container handle retry for single messages.
throw e;
} else {
// Add the message back to the queue as a single message
awsSQSClient.sendMessage(queueUrl,
EntityFactory.createJSONStringForEntity(change));
}
} catch (Throwable e) {
log.error(
"Failed on Change Number: " + change.getChangeNumber(),
e);
}
}
}
}
|
Anxiety and comorbid measures associated with PLXNA2. CONTEXT Reduction in adult neurogenesis has been proposed as a mechanism for onset of depression. Semaphorins and their coreceptors, plexins, have been implicated in nervous system development and in adult neurogenesis. A recent genomewide association study of schizophrenia identified a variant of the gene encoding plexin A2 (PLXNA2) to be most consistently associated across study samples. Common genetic liabilities have been reported between psychiatric and psychological measures, but few examples exist of common genetic variants. OBJECTIVE To perform a genetic association study between 6 single nucleotide polymorphisms from the PLXNA2 gene (rs3736963, rs2767565, rs752016, rs1327175, rs2478813, and rs716461) and anxiety, depression, neuroticism, and psychological distress. DESIGN Extreme discordant and concordant siblings. SETTING Australia. PARTICIPANTS Study participants were selected with respect to extreme neuroticism scores from a population cohort of 18 742 twin individuals and their siblings. The participants and their parents (if blood or buccal samples were available) were genotyped, for a total of 2854 genotyped individuals from 990 families. Of these, 624 individuals with a diagnosis of anxiety or depression from 443 families were used in the association analysis. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES All the participants completed the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, the 23-item Neuroticism scale of the revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and the 10-item Kessler Psychological Distress Scale. Diagnoses of DSM-IV depression and anxiety were determined from the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. RESULTS There was evidence of an allelic association between rs2478813 (and other single nucleotide polymorphisms correlated with it) and anxiety, depression, neuroticism, and psychological distress; the association with anxiety is significant after Bonferroni correction for multiple testing (empirical P<.001). The mouse ortholog of PLXNA2 is located in a highly significant linkage region previously reported for anxiety in mice. CONCLUSION PLXNA2 is a candidate for causal variation in anxiety and in other psychiatric disorders through its comorbidity with anxiety. |
def is_pingable(self):
return ping(self.ip, partial=True,
timeout=1, count=1) |
package io.github.himankbatra.java9.privatemethods;
public class SendNotificationsImpl implements SendNotifications {
public static void main(String[] args) {
SendNotifications sendNotifications = new SendNotificationsImpl();
sendNotifications.sendNotification();
SendNotifications.sendNotifications();
}
} |
Elevated Level of Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) in Serum-Derived Exosomes Predicts Poor Survival in Patients with Breast Cancer Undergoing Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Simple Summary Exosomes and cytokines play crucial roles in the process of tumor progression. Recent studies have reported that cytokines can be packaged into exosomes, leading to drug resistance. The aim of this study is to evaluate the potential value of cytokines in both serum and exosomes as prognostic biomarkers of long-term outcomes in patients with breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. We observed significant differences in expression patterns between serum cytokines and exosomal cytokines. Elevated levels of serum IP-10, serum MMP-1, and exosomal NGF were associated with poor overall survival. In multivariate analysis, exosomal NGF was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival. These findings suggest that exosomal NGF is useful for identifying patients with poor survival outcomes. Abstract Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is a standard treatment strategy for patients with locally advanced breast cancer (LABC). However, there are no established predictors of chemosensitivity and survival in LABC patients who undergo NAC. Many studies have demonstrated that exosomes and cytokines are important players in intercellular communication between tumors and their environments, and are involved in chemotherapy resistance. Recently, it was reported that cytokines can be packaged into exosomes, but whether exosomal cytokines serve as biomarkers in breast cancer patients is still unclear. In this study, we examined the roles of cytokines in both serum and exosomes as prognostic biomarkers for long-term outcomes in patients with breast cancer who undergo NAC. We isolated exosomes from the blood of 129 patients with early breast cancer who were receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy between 2008 and 2011 at Samsung Medical Center. The levels of cytokines and growth factors in serum and exosomes were measured with ProcartaPlex immune-related panels. We investigated correlations between clinic-pathologic variables and patient survival, and Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was performed for prognostic evaluation. We detected significant differences in expression patterns between serum cytokines and exosomal cytokines. In both serum and exosomes, many cytokines were positively correlated with age. In univariate analysis, patients with high serum IP-10, serum MMP-1, and exosomal NGF had shorter overall survival. Exosomal NGF showed significantly poorer overall survival in multivariate analysis. These findings suggest that exosomal NGF is useful for identifying patients with poor survival outcomes. Introduction Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer in the world and is the leading cause of cancer death among females. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is a standard treatment strategy for patients with locally advanced breast cancer, especially HER2+ BC and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). NAC can reduce tumor burden of the breast and decrease tumor size, increasing the chances for successful breast conservation and decreasing the need for axillary node dissection in patients who initially appear to require axillary lymph node dissection. These effects may convert inoperable tumors to operable tumors. NAC can eradicate systemic micrometastasis before surgery and be used to evaluate in vivo chemosensitivity, providing valuable information on the effect of systemic chemotherapy on tumor biology. It is important to identify patients who are most likely to have long-term benefits from NAC treatment. Pathologic complete remission (pCR) after NAC is a strong predictor for favorable long-term outcomes in TNBC and HER2+ BC. However, patients who do not achieve pCR after NAC represent a heterogeneous group of disease with diverse prognoses, and no reliable biomarkers have been identified to accurately predict prognosis. In addition, patients with hormone receptor (HR) + BC tend to achieve relatively low pCR rates to NAC, and it is difficult to distinguish patients with a good prognosis from those with a poor prognosis. Exosomes, nano-sized extracellular vesicles composed of lipid bilayers, are produced by most cells and contain various biological molecules reflective of their cell types of origin. They can mediate communication between cells by transferring cargo molecules such as lipids, nucleic acids, proteins, and cytokines between donor and recipient cells, possibly resulting in changes of the recipient cells. Cancer-associated exosomes can transform normal wild-type cells into malignant cells and drug-sensitive cells into drug-resistant cells. Many studies have shown that exosomes mediate communication between the tumor microenvironment and the immune system, resulting in increased angiogenesis, metastasis, immune escape, and treatment resistance. In addition, accumulating evidence has shown that uptake of tumor-derived exosomes induced by chemotherapy in secondary tissues may modulate tumor behavior, especially in invasion and metastasis, host immune response, cancer stemness, and treatment resistance. Several reports suggest that circulating exosomes have predictive value as biomarkers for the response to NAC in patients with breast cancer. One study demonstrated that serum exosomes levels increased in BC patients who underwent NAC, and that the increase of exosomes concentration after NAC was associated with resistance to NAC and poor survival outcomes. Another study reported that the blood levels of breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP) was increased in patients with breast cancers that were resistant to NAC. These data indicate that exosomes are an attractive source for the identification of chemo-resistance factors that could determine the long-term outcomes of patients who receive NAC. Thus, exosomes released by tumor or stromal cells in response to NAC could have predictive value in patients who do not achieve complete response with NAC. However, the prognostic value of circulating exosomes in patients with breast cancer who receive NAC is underexamined. Cytokine and growth factors are small proteins that have specific roles in intercellular communication, but are also expressed in carcinomas, and are widely recognized as crucial factors in chemoresistance and metastasis through various signaling pathways. Cytokines release their soluble forms via the classical endoplasmic reticulum/Golgi pathway. Interestingly, recent studies have found that cytokines can be packaged into exosomes and affect physiological and pathological functions of target cells. Several studies have reported that cytokines such as IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, TGF-, and TNF- are detected in cancer-associated exosomes, leading to cancer progression and drug resistance. However, the role of exosomal cytokines as potential prognostic biomarkers in patients with breast cancer underwent NAC has never been explored. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential roles of exosomes and cytokines as prognostic biomarkers of long-term outcomes in BC patients treated with NAC. In this study, we determined the expression of cytokine profiles in both serum and exosomes of BC patients after NAC using multiplex assay-based immune-related panels. We detected significant differences in expression patterns between serum cytokines and exosomal cytokines. We found that many cytokines were positively correlated with age in both serum and exosomes. Ser_IP-10, Ser_MMP-1, and Exo_NGF were associated with clinicopathological factors and predicted OS. Patients We retrospectively reviewed the medical data of 200 patients with breast cancer who underwent NAC followed by curative surgery at Samsung Medical Center between 1 July 2008 and 31 December 2011. Patients with bilateral BC, ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) and distant metastases were excluded from this study. We included 129 patients with blood samples available at the Samsung Medical Center BioBank in this study. The clinico-pathological characteristics of tumors, including nuclear and histological grades, tumor size, axillary lymph nodal status, Ki-67 expression, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PgR), and HER2 statuses by immunohistochemical (IHC) staining were assessed by at least two experienced pathologists. ER and PgR positivity were defined as Allred scores in the range of 3-8 according to IHC staining with anti-ER (Immunotech, France) and anti-PgR (Novocastra, UK) antibodies, respectively. HER2 status was evaluated using appropriate antibody staining (DAKO, CA, USA) and/or fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). HER2 grades of 0 and 1 were defined as negative results, while grade 3 was identified as a positive result. Amplification of HER2 was confirmed by FISH if HER2 was rated as 2+ by IHC. Ki-67 expression according to IHC analyses were evaluated by both independent semi-quantitative and quantitative methods (DAKO). TNBC was defined as a lack of expression of ER, PgR, and HER2. All tumors were staged based on tumor staging criteria of the seventh edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC). This study was approved on 11th of January 2018 by the ethics committee of Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Republic of Korea (IRB No: 2017-12-068) and was conducted in accordance with the guidelines outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. All experiments were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. Exosome Isolation from Serum Blood samples were collected immediately prior to curative operation after completion of NAC and were incubated to induce clotting in room temperature for 30 min, then centrifuged at 3000 rpm for 20 min. Serum samples (800 L) were centrifuged at 2000 g for 10 min and centrifuged again at 10,000 g at 4 C for 30 min to completely remove cellular debris. Supernatants from serum were filtered through a filter with a 0.2 m pore size to remove particles with a size of 0.2 m or more. The filtered supernatant (700 L) was centrifuged in an Optima MAX-XP ultracentrifuge with an MLA-130 rotor (Beckman Coulter, Jersey City, NJ, USA) at 100,000 g at 4 C for 1 h for exosome isolation. The pellets concentrated from the filtered supernatant were washed with phosphate buffered saline (PBS), ultracentrifuged again, and dissolved in 70 L of PBS. Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) The size distribution and concentration of exosomes were measured using NTA. NanoSight NS300 was used for recording particle movement, and the data were evaluated using NTA v3.2 software (Malvern Instruments, Malvern, UK). The samples were then diluted in 1 mL PBS and thoroughly mixed before being put into the laser chamber. The following settings were used for data collection: detection threshold 3, camera level 14, and acquisition time 30 s. Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) TEM was performed to confirm the presence and sizes of exosomes. Samples were fixed in 2% paraformaldehyde and placed on formvar-carbon-coated copper grids. Fixed samples were allowed to absorb for 20 min at room temperature and grids were washed with PBS. The samples were fixed again with 2.5% glutaraldehyde for 5 min, washed 10 times with distilled water, and then negatively stained with 1% uranyl acetate for 1 min. Once dry, the images of exosomes were observed using a Hitachi 7700 transmission electron microscope operated at 80 kV. Western Blot Proteins were extracted using 10 RIPA buffer (Cell Signaling Technology, Danvers, MA, USA). Protein concentration was analyzed by the Micro BCA Protein Assay Reagent Kit (Thermo Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA). Then, 10 g of proteins per sample were separated on 4-12% Bis-Tris gel (Invitrogen, Waltham, MA, USA) and transferred onto a PVDF membrane (Merck Millipore, Burlington, MA, USA). Membranes was subsequently blocked on and incubated with primary antibodies against CD63 and CD9 (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Santa Cruz, CA, USA) at 4 C overnight. After washing three times, membrane was treated with HRP-conjugated antibodies for 1 h at room temperature. Enhanced chemiluminescence (ECL) reagents (Invitrogen) were applied for the detection of proteins according to the manufacturer's guidelines. Multiplex Immunoassay Exosomes and serum biomarker levels were analyzed using Bio-Plex200 (Bio-Rad Laboratories, Hercules, CA, USA) multiplex magnetic bead-based antibody detection kits following the manufacturer's instructions. The Immune Monitoring 65-Plex Human ProcartaPlex™ Panel and Immuno-Oncology Checkpoint 14-Plex Human ProcartaPlex™ Panel 1 (Invitrogen) were used for detection of a total of 79 analytes. cBioPortal Analysis We used the cBioPortal online tool (http://www.cbioportal.org (accessed on 23 April 2021)) to investigate gene alterations and transcriptional regulations of NGF-related genes in BC patients. The Molecular Taxonomy of Breast Cancer International Consortium (METABRIC, 2509 total samples) cohort was selected for genomics analyses. We selected genomic profiles according to mutations, putative copy-number alterations, and mRNA expression z-scores relative to diploid samples (microarray). Of the 2509 patients included, 1904 mRNA gene expression values were available. OncoPrint and Survival data were downloaded after cBioPortal finished its analysis. Statistical Analysis SPSS software 25 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) and GraphPad Prism 8 (GraphPad Software, San Diego, CA, USA) were used for statistical analysis. Pearson correlation analysis was used to test the relationships between age and expression levels of biomarkers. Comparisons between multiple groups were determined by the Kruskal-Wallis test for nonparametric data. Categorical variables were compared using the chi-square test. The overall survival (OS) period was calculated from the date of diagnosis to the date of death due to any cause. Kaplan-Meier plots for the different groups were compared with the log-rank test. Univariate and multivariate analyses for OS were performed with a Cox proportional hazards model to obtain the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Statistical significance was two-tailed and considered significant at a p-value < 0.05. Patient Characteristics We included 129 patients in this study. Patient characteristics and clinical outcomes are presented in Table 1 Characterization of Isolated Circulating Exosomes Recently, we reported that ultracentrifugation is more suitable than the exoEasy and Exoquick methods for the study of exosomal cytokine. Therefore, we used the ultracentrifugation method to isolate exosomes from serum samples of patients. The characterization of exosomes was confirmed. TEM analysis demonstrated round, doublelipid membrane vesicles ( Figure 1A). The particle size distribution ranged from 40 to 200 nm in diameter in NTA analysis, with most particles detected in the size range compatible with exosome dimensions (119.4 ± 23.1 nm; Figure 1B). The ExoView assay provided particle size distribution and co-localization of the exosomes with tetraspanins (CD81, CD63, and CD9) ( Figure 1C,D). The exosomal markers CD63 and CD9 were present and confirmed by Western blot ( Figure 1E). The absence of non-exosomal markers (Calnexin, Histone H3, and -actin) was confirmed in Figure S1 and the uncropped blots of Figure S1 were shown in Figure S3. Comparisons of Biomarker Expression Levels in Serum and Exosomes Next, we performed a multiplex assay using the immune-related panels. Exosomes isolated from 250 L of patient sera and 25 L serum were used for multiplex assays. The expression profiles of biomarkers in circulating serum and exosomes are described in Table S1 and Figure 2. The heat map and box plot showed that biomarker profiling differed according to the sample type. Expression levels of analytes were enriched in exosomes compared with serum, although it is necessary to account for the difference in loading volume. Twenty Correlations between Biomarker Expression and Age or BC Subtypes Pearson's correlation analysis was performed to determine the relationships between age and the expression levels of biomarkers. As shown in Table 2, the expression levels of 20 biomarkers were correlated with age. We found that serum levels of 10 biomarkers, including HGF, IP-10, Eotaxin, IL-18, BTLA, CD80, SCF, IDO, PD-1, and MCP-1 were positively correlated with age. HGF showed the most significant positive correlation with age (R = 0.375, p < 0.001), followed by IP-10 (R = 0.305, p < 0.001) and the Kruskal-Wallis test also showed significant results ( Figure 3A,B). There were also significant positive correlations between age and 10 biomarkers (TRAIL, Eotaxin-2, TNF-R2, Gro-alpha, Eotaxin-3, BAFF, BLC, MDC, APRIL, and MCP-3) in exosomes. These results suggest that age should be considered when conducting biomarker studies with blood. Kaplan-Meier analysis was performed to estimate the correlation of age and subtype with OS. Age was not associated with survival outcomes, but TNBC showed the worst outcome in terms of 5-year OS (48.3%) ( Figure 4A). Prognostic Value of Circulating Serum and Exosomal Biomarkers To validate the prognostic value of biomarkers, patients were divided into 2 groups with high and low expression based on the median values of each marker. Of all markers, only Ser_IP-10, Ser_MMP-1, and Exo_NGF were significantly associated with poor OS. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis demonstrated that patients with high levels of Ser-IP-10 had poor OS compared to those with low levels of Ser-IP-10 (69% vs. 83%; p = 0.038). Likewise, patients with high levels of Ser-MMP-1 presented significantly decreased rates of 5-year OS (69% vs. 83%; p = 0.039). In the exosome sample, high NGF expression was significantly associated with poor OS (66% vs. 85%; p = 0.014) ( Figure 4B). Relationship between Clinicopathological Factors and Potential Biomarkers We further investigated the relationships between these selected biomarkers and clinical characteristics (including age, menopausal status, stage, molecular subtype, nuclear grade, histologic grade, and Ki-67). Patients with high levels of Ser-IP-10 were significantly older than those with low levels of Ser_IP-10 (p = 0.022), consistent with the results shown in Table 2 and Figure 3. Additionally, overexpression of Ser-IP-10 was associated with unfavorable parameters such as high stage (p = 0.049) and high histologic grade (p = 0.059). Patients with elevated Ser_MMP-1 expression had more unfavorable parameters, including high nuclear grade (p = 0.06), high histologic grade (p = 0.005), TNBC subtype (p = 0.004), and high Ki-67 score (p = 0.005), when compared with patients with low Ser_MMP-1 levels. Unlike Ser_IP-10 and Ser_MMP-1, no correlations were observed between Exo_NGF and clinicopathological factors, of which Exo_NGF appeared to be independent (Table 3). Genetic Mutations and Their Associations with Prognosis of NGF-TrkA/p75NTR Axis Genes We next accessed the cBioPortal tool to evaluate potential correlations between genetic alterations and expressions of the NGF-TrkA/p75NTR axis genes in tumor tissue and prognosis in breast cancer. Using the MAETABRIC database, we explored genetic mutations, putative copy-number alterations, and mRNA expression of NGF-TrkA/p75NTR axis in BC patients. As shown in Figure 5A, NTRK1 exhibited the highest mutation rate (25%), followed by NGFR (11%) and NGF (5%). DNA copy number amplifications and mRNA up-regulation were the main genetic mutation types. No mutations of the NGF receptor pathway genes were observed in breast cancer. Genetic mutations of NGFR were significantly correlated with poor survival (RFS, p < 0.001; OS, p = 0.011), whereas mutations of NGF and NTRK1 did not affect survival ( Figure 5B). These results suggest that genetic alterations in NGF pathway genes occur at high rates in BC patients and are associated with unfavorable prognosis. Discussion NAC is an increasingly popular treatment strategy in locally advanced breast cancer patients with the goals of achieving tumor downstaging, eradicating distant dissemination, and assessing chemosensitivity in vivo. The most important surrogate marker of long-term outcomes after NAC is pathological complete response (pCR defined as the absence of residual cancer both in the breast and ipsilateral axillary lymph nodes after NAC). Patients who achieve pCR have significant survival advantages over those who do not, especially patients who are HER2+ BC and TNBC. However, a significant number of patients, including up to 50% of triple-negative (TN) or 30-40% of HER2+ BC and >80% of HR+ BC, do not achieve pCR. Furthermore, although some patients achieved initial pCR, they subsequently relapsed with more advanced disease. These observations reflect chemotherapy-induced cancer cell behaviors that contribute to treatment tolerance and tumor cell evolution, and they highlight the need to identify biomarkers to predict and monitor chemotherapy response. Many recent studies have reported that exosomes and cytokines, which are easily available in the peripheral blood, are important players in intercellular communications between tumors and their environments and are involved in chemotherapy resistance. Fitzgerald and colleagues reported that cytokines can be released in soluble or EVassociated forms in diverse biological systems. Analyses of cytokine distribution revealed that nine cytokines (IL-6, IL-8, IL-13, IL-16, IP-10, MCP-1, MIP-1, MIP-1, and MIP-3) were found more often in the free form. In contrast, eleven cytokines (IL-2, IL-4, IL-12p70, IL-17, IL-21, IL-22, IL-33, IFN-, ITAC, TGF-, and TNF-) were found in higher levels than the free form in EVs. Similarly, our results show that IL-16, IP-10, MCP-1, and MIP-1 were detected more in serum than in exosomes, and IL-4, IL-21, and IL-22 were higher in exosomes than in serum. Some discrepancies among studies could be due to differences in exosome isolation methods and the presence or absence of chemotherapy. Our results indicate that elevated serum levels of IP-10, MMP-1 are associated with poor overall survival in univariate analysis. IP-10 (interferon-gamma inducible protein) is a cytokine secreted by several cells in response to IFN-. Several studies have demonstrated that overexpression of IP-10 was associated with advanced tumor stages in various types of cancer including breast cancer. Recent studies have indicated that BC patients have higher IP-10 than healthy controls and patients with high serum IP-10 had shorter OS. Matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP1) is a proteolytic enzyme that degrades extracellular matrix. Elevated levels of MMP-1 have been detected in breast cancer and are reported to be associated with breast cancer progression and poor prognosis. In addition, some studies found that high MMP1 expression enhances drug resistance. Wang et al. demonstrated that MMP-1 expression was associated with breast cancer lymph node metastasis and TNBC. MMP-1 expression was significantly higher in BC patients with axillary lymph node metastasis than without lymph node metastasis and was the highest in TNBC tissues compared to those in HR+ and HER2+ BC tissues. Similarly, our results also indicated that patients with elevated Ser_MMP-1 expression had a high nuclear grade, a high histologic grade, TNBC subtype, and a high Ki-67 score. Nerve growth factor (NGF) has primarily been investigated in the neurological system, but is also expressed in carcinomas, and has substantial impacts on tumor cell development and metastasis in breast cancer. The binding of ligand NGF with tropomyosin receptor tyrosine kinases A (TrkA) and the TNF-receptor family member p75NTR (NGFR) activates downstream pathways, such as RAS/MAPK and PI3 kinase, resulting in increased cell proliferation and survival of human breast cancer cells. Just as increased blood vessel formation is required for tumor growth, increased nerve density is also one of the components of the tumor microenvironment. Mounting evidence has shown that the nervous system has a role in cancer development and metastasis. Nerve fibers around the tumor release neurotransmitters into surrounding tissues affecting on receptors expressed by tumor cells. Cancer-associated neurogenesis, called tumor innervation, has also been reported in breast cancer and is associated with aggressive clinical characteristics including tumor grade, poor survival outcome. The present study demonstrates the presence of exosomal NGF and their association with poor prognosis in BC patients treated with NAC. Although we were unable to compare exosomal NGF levels in the serum with corresponding tumor tissue, we probed public databases to determine the associations of the NGF-TrkA/p75NTR axis with survival outcomes in patients with breast cancer. Our results indicate that NGF-TrkA/p75NTR had alterations, mainly DNA copy number amplifications and mRNA, with alterations correlating with worse survival. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to report the prognostic significance of exosomal NGF in breast cancers. In this study, the patients were mainly premenopausal, reflecting the younger population in the Asia Pacific region compared to Western countries, and characterized by high risk of relapse with advanced stages (clinical stage II 11%, clinical stage III 89%) at the time of diagnosis before NAC. Limitations of our study are its retrospective nature and inclusion of a relatively small number of patients and heterogeneous subtypes of breast cancer. Prospective studies with large numbers of patients are warranted to validate the usefulness of this potential biomarker in breast cancer treated with NAC. Conclusions In summary, we examined the roles of cytokines in both serum and exosomes as prognostic biomarkers for long-term outcomes in patients with breast cancer who were treated with NAC. We observed significant differences in expression patterns between serum cytokines and exosomal cytokines. In both serum and exosomes, many cytokines were positively correlated with age. In univariate analysis, patients with high serum IP-10, serum MMP-1 and exosomal NGF showed poor overall survival compared with low groups. Further, exosomal NGF showed significantly poor overall survival in multivariate analysis. These findings suggest that exosomal NGF might be useful for predicting survival outcomes in patients with breast cancer under neoadjuvant therapy. Further studies to understand the functional mechanisms of exosomal NGF are warranted and will aid in the development of prevention and treatment strategies. Supplementary Materials: The following are available online at https://www.mdpi.com/article/ 10.3390/cancers13215260/s1, Figure S1: Characterization of exosome preparation by Western blot, Figure S2: Uncut blots for Figure 1E, Figure S3: Uncut blots for Figure S1, Table S1: Full name for each target in the ProcartaPlex immune-related Panel. Informed Consent Statement: Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study by Samsung Medical Center BioBank. Data Availability Statement: The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. |
<reponame>ardnew/clin
// Package clin provides convenience methods that obtain user input for
// command-line Go applications.
//
// It is lightweight (uses packages from the standard library only) and easily
// integrates with complex flag parsing packages like "flag".
//
// There is one type, Input, and three of its methods exported, Args, Fields,
// and Reader. See the godoc comments on each of those methods for details.
//
// A global unexported variable of type Input is also defined, which is the
// target of top-level functions Args, Fields, and Reader.
// The function Default returns an Input initialized with the value of this
// global variable, whose fields can then be modified to fine-tune the behavior
// of each method.
// The default input stream is read from os.Stdin.
// Use field Stream to change this.
package clin
import (
"bufio"
"io"
"os"
"strings"
)
// Input configures the behavior of its exported functions Args and Reader.
//
// The top-level package functions always use the default configuration.
//
// To configure different behavior, either make a different Input or use
// function Default to start with an Input with default configuration.
type Input struct {
// The default reader to read from when no arguments are given (typically
// os.Stdin for command-line applications).
Stream io.Reader
// If true, always interpret input as a string literal, never a file path.
Literal bool
// When Args scans Stream for elements of the returned slice, the input
// stream is tokenized using ArgsDelim as separator.
ArgsDelim []byte
// When Reader returns a strings.NewReader over the given slice args,
// the elements of args are joined together, with ReadDelim as separator.
ReadDelim []byte
// Discard final Scanner token, if empty, when reading Stream in Args.
skipToken bool
}
// input defines the default configuration and is the target of top-level
// functions Args, Fields, and Reader.
var input = Input{
Stream: os.Stdin,
Literal: false,
ArgsDelim: []byte("\n"),
ReadDelim: []byte(" "),
}
// Default returns an Input with default configuration.
func Default() Input { return input }
// Args returns the given string slice args if non-empty.
// Otherwise, a slice of each token read from Stream is returned, delimited by
// both CR+LF ("\r\n") and LF ("\n").
func Args(args []string) []string { return input.Args(args) }
// Fields wraps Args, and removes all empty (zeroed) string elements in the
// returned slice.
func Fields(args []string) []string { return input.Fields(args) }
// Reader returns an io.Reader over the string constructed by joining all
// elements in the given non-empty slice args, separated by one space (" ").
// If the given args contains a single element, and that element refers to
// a file path that we can open, then an io.Reader over the content of that
// file is returned.
// Otherwise, args is empty, returns Stream.
func Reader(args []string) io.Reader { return input.Reader(args) }
// Args returns the given string slice args if non-empty.
// Otherwise, a slice of each token read from Stream is returned, delimited by
// ArgsDelim.
func (in *Input) Args(args []string) []string {
if len(args) == 0 {
// No arguments: read lines from stdin.
s := bufio.NewScanner(in.Stream)
a := []string{}
s.Split(in.scanArgs)
in.skipToken = false
for s.Scan() {
if !in.skipToken {
a = append(a, s.Text())
}
}
return a
}
return args
}
// Fields wraps Args, and removes all empty (zeroed) string elements in the
// returned slice.
func (in *Input) Fields(args []string) []string {
args = in.Args(args)
a := make([]string, 0, len(args))
for _, s := range args {
if s != "" {
a = append(a, s)
}
}
return a
}
// Reader returns an io.Reader over the string constructed by joining all
// elements in the given non-empty slice args, separated by ReadDelim.
// If the given args contains a single element, and that element refers to
// a file path that we can open, then an io.Reader over the content of that
// file is returned.
// Otherwise, args is empty, returns Stream.
func (in *Input) Reader(args []string) io.Reader {
switch len(args) {
case 0:
// No arguments: read from Stream.
return in.Stream
case 1:
if !in.Literal {
// One argument: if it is a file path, read from the file.
if r, err := os.Open(args[0]); nil == err {
return r
}
}
// One argument: not a file path, read the string itself.
return strings.NewReader(args[0])
default:
// More than one argument: read from the string constructed by
// joining all arguments, delimited by ReadDelim.
return strings.NewReader(strings.Join(args, string(in.ReadDelim)))
}
}
func (in *Input) scanArgs(data []byte, atEOF bool) (int, []byte, error) {
n := len(in.ArgsDelim)
// Split on each UTF-8 rune if ArgsDelim is empty.
if n == 0 {
return bufio.ScanRunes(data, atEOF)
}
for i := 0; i <= len(data)-n; i++ {
if string(in.ArgsDelim) == string(data[i:i+n]) {
// If ArgsDelim is a simple newline, also remove any trailing "\r"
// that exists, which transparently handles Windows/DOS input.
// Besides this one possible byte, all other trailing whitespace is
// preserved in each token.
j := i
if i > 0 && data[i-1] == '\r' && n == 1 && in.ArgsDelim[0] == '\n' {
j--
}
return i + n, data[:j], nil
}
}
if !atEOF {
return 0, nil, nil
}
// If the input is terminated with a delimiter, we reach here with a zero-
// length slice data. Discard this empty, final token.
// All other empty tokens (consecutive delimiters) are preserved.
in.skipToken = len(data) == 0
return 0, data, bufio.ErrFinalToken
}
|
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
"""
Created on Tue Aug 02 13:19:54 2016
@author: fangren
"""
"""
need to run gap_statistics.py first
"""
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sklearn.cluster import KMeans
import imp
import glob
import os
import csv
import numpy as np
plotTernary = imp.load_source("plt_ternary_save", "plotTernary.py")
def kmeans_clustering(data, cluster_num):
kmeans = KMeans(n_clusters = cluster_num)
kmeans.fit(data)
labels = kmeans.labels_
return labels
def addLabels(labels, folder_path, save_path):
"""
add Imax, I column to an existing CSV spreadsheet
create three lists for plotting: plate_x, plate_y, ratio of Imax and Iave
ROI1, ROI2...
"""
labels = np.concatenate((['labels',], labels))
for filename in glob.glob(os.path.join(folder_path, '*.csv')):
if filename[-5] == 'h':
print filename
with open(filename, 'rb') as csvinput:
with open(save_path+'k_clustering.csv', 'wb') as csvoutput:
reader = csv.reader(csvinput, delimiter = ',')
writer = csv.writer(csvoutput, delimiter = ',', lineterminator = '\n')
for row, label in zip(reader, labels):
row = row + list(str(label))
writer.writerow(row)
def twoD_visualize(folder_path):
"""
create three lists for plotting: plate_x, plate_y, ROI1, ROI2, ROI3...
"""
for filename in glob.glob(os.path.join(folder_path, '*.csv')):
if filename[-5] == 'g':
print filename
data = np.genfromtxt(filename, delimiter=',', skip_header = 0)
plate_x = data[:,1]
plate_y = data[:,2]
plate_x = np.nan_to_num(plate_x)
plate_y = np.nan_to_num(plate_y)
metal1 = data[:,54]
metal2 = data[:,55]
metal3 = data[:,56]
return plate_x, plate_y, metal1, metal2, metal3
cluster_num = input('cluster number = ')
plt.close('all')
labels = kmeans_clustering(data, cluster_num)
addLabels(labels, folder_path, save_path)
plate_x, plate_y, metal1, metal2, metal3 = twoD_visualize(save_path)
#
#plt.figure(1, figsize = (9, 8.5))
#plt.scatter(plate_y, plate_x, c = labels, s = 400, marker = 's')
#plt.xlim((-36, 36))
#plt.ylim((-36, 36))
#plt.xlabel('plate_y')
#plt.ylabel('plate_x(flat)')
ternary_data = np.concatenate(([metal1],[metal2],[metal3],[labels]), axis = 0)
ternary_data = np.transpose(ternary_data)
plotTernary.plt_ternary_save(ternary_data, tertitle='', labelNames=('Co','Fe','Zr'), scale=100,
sv=False, svpth=folder_path, svflnm='k_means',
cbl='Scale', cmap='jet', cb=True, style='h') |
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <vector>
#include <map>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>
using namespace std;
void replace_all(string &haystack, string from, string to)
{
size_t pos;
pos = haystack.find(from);
while(pos != haystack.npos)
{
haystack.replace(pos, from.size(), to);
pos = haystack.find(from);
}
}
void uc(string &s)
{
for(unsigned int l = 0; l < s.length(); l++)
{
s[l] = toupper(s[l]);
}
}
|
package utils
type LDAPAuthConfig struct {
Addr string `yaml:"addr,omitempty"`
TLS string `yaml:"tls,omitempty"`
InsecureTLSSkipVerify bool `yaml:"insecure_tls_skip_verify,omitempty"`
CACertificate string `yaml:"ca_certificate,omitempty"`
Base string `yaml:"base,omitempty"`
Filter string `yaml:"filter,omitempty"`
GroupFilter string `yaml:"group_filter,omitempty"`
BindDN string `yaml:"bind_dn,omitempty"`
BindPasswordFile string `yaml:"bind_password_file,omitempty"`
BindPassword string `yaml:"bind_password,omitempty"`
LabelMaps map[string]LabelMap `yaml:"labels,omitempty"`
}
|
#include "driver.h"
#include "vidhrdw/generic.h"
#define NEW_TIMER 0 /* CPU slice optimize with new timer system */
#define NAMCOS1_MAX_BANK 0x400
#define USE_MTRANDOM 1
/* from vidhrdw */
READ_HANDLER( namcos1_videoram_r );
WRITE_HANDLER( namcos1_videoram_w );
READ_HANDLER( namcos1_paletteram_r );
WRITE_HANDLER( namcos1_paletteram_w );
WRITE_HANDLER( namcos1_videocontrol_w );
extern void namcos1_set_scroll_offsets( const int *bgx, const int *bgy, int negative, int optimize );
extern void namcos1_set_optimize( int optimize );
extern void namcos1_set_sprite_offsets( int x, int y );
#define NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY 0x100
static unsigned char key[NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY];
static unsigned char *s1ram;
static int namcos1_cpu1_banklatch;
static int namcos1_reset = 0;
static int berabohm_input_counter;
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* Key emulation (CUS136) Rev1 (Pacmania & Galaga 88) *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
static int key_id;
static int key_id_query;
static READ_HANDLER( rev1_key_r ) {
// logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip read %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,key[offset]);
if(offset >= NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY)
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: unmapped keychip read %04x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset);
return 0;
}
return key[offset];
}
static WRITE_HANDLER( rev1_key_w ) {
static unsigned short divider, divide_32 = 0;
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip write %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
if(offset >= NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY)
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: unmapped keychip write %04x=%04x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
return;
}
key[offset] = data;
switch ( offset )
{
case 0x01:
divider = ( key[0] << 8 ) + key[1];
break;
case 0x03:
{
static unsigned short d;
unsigned short v1, v2;
unsigned long l=0;
if ( divide_32 )
l = d << 16;
d = ( key[2] << 8 ) + key[3];
if ( divider == 0 ) {
v1 = 0xffff;
v2 = 0;
} else {
if ( divide_32 ) {
l |= d;
v1 = l / divider;
v2 = l % divider;
} else {
v1 = d / divider;
v2 = d % divider;
}
}
key[2] = v1 >> 8;
key[3] = v1;
key[0] = v2 >> 8;
key[1] = v2;
}
break;
case 0x04:
if ( key[4] == key_id_query ) /* get key number */
key[4] = key_id;
if ( key[4] == 0x0c )
divide_32 = 1;
else
divide_32 = 0;
break;
}
}
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* Key emulation (CUS136) Rev2 (Dragon Spirit, Blazer, World Court) *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
static READ_HANDLER( rev2_key_r )
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip read %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,key[offset]);
if(offset >= NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY)
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: unmapped keychip read %04x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset);
return 0;
}
return key[offset];
}
static WRITE_HANDLER( rev2_key_w )
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip write %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
if(offset >= NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY)
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: unmapped keychip write %04x=%04x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
return;
}
key[offset] = data;
switch(offset)
{
case 0x00:
if ( data == 1 )
{
/* fetch key ID */
key[3] = key_id;
return;
}
break;
case 0x02:
/* $f2 = Dragon Spirit, $b7 = Blazer , $35($d9) = worldcourt */
if ( key[3] == 0xf2 || key[3] == 0xb7 || key[3] == 0x35 )
{
switch( key[0] )
{
case 0x10: key[0] = 0x05; key[1] = 0x00; key[2] = 0xc6; break;
case 0x12: key[0] = 0x09; key[1] = 0x00; key[2] = 0x96; break;
case 0x15: key[0] = 0x0a; key[1] = 0x00; key[2] = 0x8f; break;
case 0x22: key[0] = 0x14; key[1] = 0x00; key[2] = 0x39; break;
case 0x32: key[0] = 0x31; key[1] = 0x00; key[2] = 0x12; break;
case 0x3d: key[0] = 0x35; key[1] = 0x00; key[2] = 0x27; break;
case 0x54: key[0] = 0x10; key[1] = 0x00; key[2] = 0x03; break;
case 0x58: key[0] = 0x49; key[1] = 0x00; key[2] = 0x23; break;
case 0x7b: key[0] = 0x48; key[1] = 0x00; key[2] = 0xd4; break;
case 0xc7: key[0] = 0xbf; key[1] = 0x00; key[2] = 0xe8; break;
}
return;
}
break;
case 0x03:
/* $c2 = Dragon Spirit, $b6 = Blazer */
if ( key[3] == 0xc2 || key[3] == 0xb6 ) {
key[3] = 0x36;
return;
}
/* $d9 = World court */
if ( key[3] == 0xd9 )
{
key[3] = 0x35;
return;
}
break;
case 0x3f: /* Splatter House */
key[0x3f] = 0xb5;
key[0x36] = 0xb5;
return;
}
/* ?? */
if ( key[3] == 0x01 ) {
if ( key[0] == 0x40 && key[1] == 0x04 && key[2] == 0x00 ) {
key[1] = 0x00; key[2] = 0x10;
return;
}
}
}
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* Key emulation (CUS136) for Dangerous Seed *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
static READ_HANDLER( dangseed_key_r ) {
// logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip read %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,key[offset]);
if(offset >= NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY)
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: unmapped keychip read %04x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset);
return 0;
}
return key[offset];
}
static WRITE_HANDLER( dangseed_key_w ) {
int i;
// logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip write %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
if(offset >= NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY)
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: unmapped keychip write %04x=%04x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
return;
}
key[offset] = data;
switch ( offset )
{
case 0x50:
for ( i = 0; i < 0x50; i++ ) {
key[i] = ( data >> ( ( i >> 4 ) & 0x0f ) ) & 0x0f;
key[i] |= ( i & 0x0f ) << 4;
}
break;
case 0x57:
key[3] = key_id;
break;
}
}
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* Key emulation (CUS136) for Dragon Spirit *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
static READ_HANDLER( dspirit_key_r )
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip read %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,key[offset]);
if(offset >= NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY)
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: unmapped keychip read %04x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset);
return 0;
}
return key[offset];
}
static WRITE_HANDLER( dspirit_key_w )
{
static unsigned short divisor;
// logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip write %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
if(offset >= NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY)
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: unmapped keychip write %04x=%04x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
return;
}
key[offset] = data;
switch(offset)
{
case 0x00:
if ( data == 1 )
{
/* fetch key ID */
key[3] = key_id;
} else
divisor = data;
break;
case 0x01:
if ( key[3] == 0x01 ) { /* division gets resolved on latch to $1 */
unsigned short d, v1, v2;
d = ( key[1] << 8 ) + key[2];
if ( divisor == 0 ) {
v1 = 0xffff;
v2 = 0;
} else {
v1 = d / divisor;
v2 = d % divisor;
}
key[0] = v2 & 0xff;
key[1] = v1 >> 8;
key[2] = v1 & 0xff;
return;
}
if ( key[3] != 0xf2 ) { /* if its an invalid mode, clear regs */
key[0] = 0;
key[1] = 0;
key[2] = 0;
}
break;
case 0x02:
if ( key[3] == 0xf2 ) { /* division gets resolved on latch to $2 */
unsigned short d, v1, v2;
d = ( key[1] << 8 ) + key[2];
if ( divisor == 0 ) {
v1 = 0xffff;
v2 = 0;
} else {
v1 = d / divisor;
v2 = d % divisor;
}
key[0] = v2 & 0xff;
key[1] = v1 >> 8;
key[2] = v1 & 0xff;
return;
}
if ( key[3] != 0x01 ) { /* if its an invalid mode, clear regs */
key[0] = 0;
key[1] = 0;
key[2] = 0;
}
break;
case 0x03:
if ( key[3] != 0xf2 && key[3] != 0x01 ) /* if the mode is unknown return the id on $3 */
key[3] = key_id;
break;
}
}
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* Key emulation (CUS136) for Blazer *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
static READ_HANDLER( blazer_key_r )
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip read %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,key[offset]);
if(offset >= NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY)
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: unmapped keychip read %04x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset);
return 0;
}
return key[offset];
}
static WRITE_HANDLER( blazer_key_w )
{
static unsigned short divisor;
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip write %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
if(offset >= NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY)
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: unmapped keychip write %04x=%04x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
return;
}
key[offset] = data;
switch(offset)
{
case 0x00:
if ( data == 1 )
{
/* fetch key ID */
key[3] = key_id;
} else
divisor = data;
break;
case 0x01:
if ( key[3] != 0xb7 ) { /* if its an invalid mode, clear regs */
key[0] = 0;
key[1] = 0;
key[2] = 0;
}
break;
case 0x02:
if ( key[3] == 0xb7 ) { /* division gets resolved on latch to $2 */
unsigned short d, v1, v2;
d = ( key[1] << 8 ) + key[2];
if ( divisor == 0 ) {
v1 = 0xffff;
v2 = 0;
} else {
v1 = d / divisor;
v2 = d % divisor;
}
key[0] = v2 & 0xff;
key[1] = v1 >> 8;
key[2] = v1 & 0xff;
return;
}
/* if its an invalid mode, clear regs */
key[0] = 0;
key[1] = 0;
key[2] = 0;
break;
case 0x03:
if ( key[3] != 0xb7 ) { /* if the mode is unknown return the id on $3 */
key[3] = key_id;
}
break;
}
}
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* Key emulation (CUS136) for World Stadium *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
static READ_HANDLER( ws_key_r ) {
// logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip read %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,key[offset]);
if(offset >= NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY)
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: unmapped keychip read %04x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset);
return 0;
}
return key[offset];
}
static WRITE_HANDLER( ws_key_w ) {
static unsigned short divider;
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip write %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
if(offset >= NAMCOS1_MAX_KEY)
{
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: unmapped keychip write %04x=%04x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
return;
}
key[offset] = data;
switch ( offset )
{
case 0x01:
divider = ( key[0] << 8 ) + key[1];
break;
case 0x03:
{
static unsigned short d;
unsigned short v1, v2;
d = ( key[2] << 8 ) + key[3];
if ( divider == 0 ) {
v1 = 0xffff;
v2 = 0;
} else {
v1 = d / divider;
v2 = d % divider;
}
key[2] = v1 >> 8;
key[3] = v1;
key[0] = v2 >> 8;
key[1] = v2;
}
break;
case 0x04:
key[4] = key_id;
break;
}
}
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* Key emulation (CUS181) for SplatterHouse *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
#ifdef USE_MTRANDOM
// Courtesy of <NAME>, University of Washington
typedef unsigned long uint32;
#define N (624) // length of state vector
#define M (397) // a period parameter
#define K (0x9908B0DFU) // a magic constant
#define hiBit(u) ((u) & 0x80000000U) // mask all but highest bit of u
#define loBit(u) ((u) & 0x00000001U) // mask all but lowest bit of u
#define loBits(u) ((u) & 0x7FFFFFFFU) // mask the highest bit of u
#define mixBits(u, v) (hiBit(u)|loBits(v)) // move hi bit of u to hi bit of v
static uint32 state[N+1]; // state vector + 1 extra to not violate ANSI C
static uint32 *next; // next random value is computed from here
static int left = -1; // can *next++ this many times before reloading
static void seedMT(uint32 seed)
{
register uint32 x = (seed | 1U) & 0xFFFFFFFFU, *s = state;
register int j;
for(left=0, *s++=x, j=N; --j;
*s++ = (x*=69069U) & 0xFFFFFFFFU);
}
static uint32 reloadMT(void)
{
register uint32 *p0=state, *p2=state+2, *pM=state+M, s0, s1;
register int j;
if(left < -1)
seedMT(4357U);
left=N-1, next=state+1;
for(s0=state[0], s1=state[1], j=N-M+1; --j; s0=s1, s1=*p2++)
*p0++ = *pM++ ^ (mixBits(s0, s1) >> 1) ^ (loBit(s1) ? K : 0U);
for(pM=state, j=M; --j; s0=s1, s1=*p2++)
*p0++ = *pM++ ^ (mixBits(s0, s1) >> 1) ^ (loBit(s1) ? K : 0U);
s1=state[0], *p0 = *pM ^ (mixBits(s0, s1) >> 1) ^ (loBit(s1) ? K : 0U);
s1 ^= (s1 >> 11);
s1 ^= (s1 << 7) & 0x9D2C5680U;
s1 ^= (s1 << 15) & 0xEFC60000U;
return(s1 ^ (s1 >> 18));
}
INLINE uint32 randomMT(void)
{
uint32 y;
if(--left < 0)
return(reloadMT());
y = *next++;
y ^= (y >> 11);
y ^= (y << 7) & 0x9D2C5680U;
y ^= (y << 15) & 0xEFC60000U;
return(y ^ (y >> 18));
}
#endif
static READ_HANDLER( splatter_key_r ) {
unsigned long data;
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip read %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),activecpu_get_pc(),offset,key[offset]);
switch( ( offset >> 4 ) & 0x07 ) {
case 0x00:
case 0x06:
return 0xff;
break;
case 0x01:
case 0x02:
case 0x05:
case 0x07:
return ( ( offset & 0x0f ) << 4 ) | 0x0f;
break;
case 0x03:
return 0xb5;
break;
case 0x04:
{
#ifdef USE_MTRANDOM
data = randomMT() & 0xff;
#else
data = rand() & 0xff;
#endif
if ( offset >= 0x1000 )
data |= 0x80;
if ( offset >= 0x2000 )
data |= 0x04;
return (data);
}
break;
}
/* make compiler happy */
return 0;
}
static WRITE_HANDLER( splatter_key_w ) {
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %08x: keychip write %04X=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),activecpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
/* ignored */
}
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* Banking emulation (CUS117) *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
static READ_HANDLER( soundram_r )
{
if(offset<0x100)
return namcos1_wavedata_r(offset);
if(offset<0x140)
return namcos1_sound_r(offset-0x100);
/* shared ram */
return namco_wavedata[offset];
}
static WRITE_HANDLER( soundram_w )
{
if(offset<0x100)
{
namcos1_wavedata_w(offset,data);
return;
}
if(offset<0x140)
{
namcos1_sound_w(offset-0x100,data);
return;
}
/* shared ram */
namco_wavedata[offset] = data;
//if(offset>=0x1000)
// logerror("CPU #%d PC %04x: write shared ram %04x=%02x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),offset,data);
}
/* ROM handlers */
static WRITE_HANDLER( rom_w ) {
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %04x: warning - write %02x to rom address %04x\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc(),data,offset);
}
/* error handlers */
static READ_HANDLER( unknown_r ) {
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %04x: warning - read from unknown chip\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc() );
return 0;
}
static WRITE_HANDLER( unknown_w ) {
//logerror("CPU #%d PC %04x: warning - wrote to unknown chip\n",cpu_getactivecpu(),cpu_get_pc() );
}
/* Bank handler definitions */
typedef struct {
mem_read_handler bank_handler_r;
mem_write_handler bank_handler_w;
int bank_offset;
unsigned char *bank_pointer;
} bankhandler;
static bankhandler namcos1_bank_element[NAMCOS1_MAX_BANK];
/* This is where we store our handlers */
/* 2 cpus with 8 banks of 8k each */
static bankhandler namcos1_banks[2][8];
/* Main bankswitching routine */
WRITE_HANDLER( namcos1_bankswitch_w ) {
static int chip = 0;
if ( offset & 1 ) {
int bank = ( offset >> 9 ) & 0x07; //0x0f;
int cpu = cpu_getactivecpu();
chip &= 0x0300;
chip |= ( data & 0xff );
/* copy bank handler */
namcos1_banks[cpu][bank].bank_handler_r = namcos1_bank_element[chip].bank_handler_r;
namcos1_banks[cpu][bank].bank_handler_w = namcos1_bank_element[chip].bank_handler_w;
namcos1_banks[cpu][bank].bank_offset = namcos1_bank_element[chip].bank_offset;
namcos1_banks[cpu][bank].bank_pointer = namcos1_bank_element[chip].bank_pointer;
//memcpy( &namcos1_banks[cpu][bank] , &namcos1_bank_element[chip] , sizeof(bankhandler));
/* unmapped bank warning */
//if( namcos1_banks[cpu][bank].bank_handler_r == unknown_r)
//{
// logerror("CPU #%d PC %04x:warning unknown chip selected bank %x=$%04x\n", cpu , cpu_get_pc(), bank , chip );
//}
/* renew pc base */
// change_pc16(cpu_get_pc());
} else {
chip &= 0x00ff;
chip |= ( data & 0xff ) << 8;
}
}
/* Sub cpu set start bank port */
WRITE_HANDLER( namcos1_subcpu_bank_w )
{
int oldcpu = cpu_getactivecpu();
//logerror("cpu1 bank selected %02x=%02x\n",offset,data);
namcos1_cpu1_banklatch = (namcos1_cpu1_banklatch&0x300)|data;
/* Prepare code for Cpu 1 */
cpu_setactivecpu( 1 );
namcos1_bankswitch_w( 0x0e00, namcos1_cpu1_banklatch>>8 );
namcos1_bankswitch_w( 0x0e01, namcos1_cpu1_banklatch&0xff);
/* cpu_set_reset_line(1,PULSE_LINE); */
cpu_setactivecpu( oldcpu );
}
#define MR_HANDLER(cpu,bank) \
READ_HANDLER( namcos1_##cpu##_banked_area##bank##_r ) {\
if( namcos1_banks[cpu][bank].bank_handler_r) \
return (*namcos1_banks[cpu][bank].bank_handler_r)( offset+namcos1_banks[cpu][bank].bank_offset); \
return namcos1_banks[cpu][bank].bank_pointer[offset]; }
MR_HANDLER(0,0)
MR_HANDLER(0,1)
MR_HANDLER(0,2)
MR_HANDLER(0,3)
MR_HANDLER(0,4)
MR_HANDLER(0,5)
MR_HANDLER(0,6)
MR_HANDLER(0,7)
MR_HANDLER(1,0)
MR_HANDLER(1,1)
MR_HANDLER(1,2)
MR_HANDLER(1,3)
MR_HANDLER(1,4)
MR_HANDLER(1,5)
MR_HANDLER(1,6)
MR_HANDLER(1,7)
#undef MR_HANDLER
#define MW_HANDLER(cpu,bank) \
WRITE_HANDLER( namcos1_##cpu##_banked_area##bank##_w ) {\
if( namcos1_banks[cpu][bank].bank_handler_w) \
{ \
(*namcos1_banks[cpu][bank].bank_handler_w)( offset+ namcos1_banks[cpu][bank].bank_offset,data ); \
return; \
}\
namcos1_banks[cpu][bank].bank_pointer[offset]=data; \
}
MW_HANDLER(0,0)
MW_HANDLER(0,1)
MW_HANDLER(0,2)
MW_HANDLER(0,3)
MW_HANDLER(0,4)
MW_HANDLER(0,5)
MW_HANDLER(0,6)
MW_HANDLER(1,0)
MW_HANDLER(1,1)
MW_HANDLER(1,2)
MW_HANDLER(1,3)
MW_HANDLER(1,4)
MW_HANDLER(1,5)
MW_HANDLER(1,6)
#undef MW_HANDLER
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* 63701 MCU emulation (CUS64) *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
static int mcu_patch_data;
WRITE_HANDLER( namcos1_cpu_control_w )
{
// logerror("reset control pc=%04x %02x\n",cpu_get_pc(),data);
if( (data&1)^namcos1_reset)
{
namcos1_reset = data&1;
if (namcos1_reset)
{
cpu_set_reset_line(1,CLEAR_LINE);
cpu_set_reset_line(2,CLEAR_LINE);
cpu_set_reset_line(3,CLEAR_LINE);
mcu_patch_data = 0;
}
else
{
cpu_set_reset_line(1,ASSERT_LINE);
cpu_set_reset_line(2,ASSERT_LINE);
cpu_set_reset_line(3,ASSERT_LINE);
}
}
}
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* Sound banking emulation (CUS121) *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
WRITE_HANDLER( namcos1_sound_bankswitch_w )
{
unsigned char *RAM = memory_region(REGION_CPU3);
int bank = ( data >> 4 ) & 0x07;
cpu_setbank( 1, &RAM[ 0x0c000 + ( 0x4000 * bank ) ] );
}
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* CPU idling spinlock routine *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
static unsigned char *sound_spinlock_ram;
static int sound_spinlock_pc;
/* sound cpu */
static READ_HANDLER( namcos1_sound_spinlock_r )
{
if(cpu_get_pc()==sound_spinlock_pc && *sound_spinlock_ram == 0)
cpu_spinuntil_int();
return *sound_spinlock_ram;
}
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* MCU banking emulation and patch *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
/* mcu banked rom area select */
WRITE_HANDLER( namcos1_mcu_bankswitch_w )
{
int addr;
/* bit 2-7 : chip select line of ROM chip */
switch(data&0xfc)
{
case 0xf8: addr = 0x10000; break; /* bit 2 : ROM 0 */
case 0xf4: addr = 0x30000; break; /* bit 3 : ROM 1 */
case 0xec: addr = 0x50000; break; /* bit 4 : ROM 2 */
case 0xdc: addr = 0x70000; break; /* bit 5 : ROM 3 */
case 0xbc: addr = 0x90000; break; /* bit 6 : ROM 4 */
case 0x7c: addr = 0xb0000; break; /* bit 7 : ROM 5 */
default: addr = 0x100000; /* illegal */
}
/* bit 0-1 : address line A15-A16 */
addr += (data&3)*0x8000;
if( addr >= memory_region_length(REGION_CPU4))
{
//logerror("unmapped mcu bank selected pc=%04x bank=%02x\n",cpu_get_pc(),data);
addr = 0x4000;
}
cpu_setbank( 4, memory_region(REGION_CPU4)+addr );
}
/* This point is very obscure, but i havent found any better way yet. */
/* Works with all games so far. */
/* patch points of memory address */
/* CPU0/1 bank[17f][1000] */
/* CPU2 [7000] */
/* CPU3 [c000] */
/* This memory point should be set $A6 by anywhere, but */
/* I found set $A6 only initialize in MCU */
/* This patch kill write this data by MCU case $A6 to xx(clear) */
WRITE_HANDLER( mwh_bank3 );
WRITE_HANDLER( namcos1_mcu_patch_w )
{
//logerror("mcu C000 write pc=%04x data=%02x\n",cpu_get_pc(),data);
if(mcu_patch_data == 0xa6) return;
mcu_patch_data = data;
mwh_bank3( offset, data );
}
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* Initialization *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
static OPBASE_HANDLER( namcos1_setopbase_0 )
{
int bank = (address>>13)&7;
OP_RAM = OP_ROM = (namcos1_banks[0][bank].bank_pointer) - (bank<<13);
/* memory.c output warning - op-code execute on mapped i/o */
/* but it is necessary to continue cpu_setOPbase16 function */
/* for update current operationhardware(ophw) code */
return address;
}
static OPBASE_HANDLER( namcos1_setopbase_1 )
{
int bank = (address>>13)&7;
OP_RAM = OP_ROM = (namcos1_banks[1][bank].bank_pointer) - (bank<<13);
/* memory.c output warning - op-code execute on mapped i/o */
/* but it is necessary to continue cpu_setOPbase16 function */
/* for update current operationhardware(ophw) code */
return address;
}
static void namcos1_install_bank(int start,int end,mem_read_handler hr,mem_write_handler hw,
int offset,unsigned char *pointer)
{
int i;
for(i=start;i<=end;i++)
{
namcos1_bank_element[i].bank_handler_r = hr;
namcos1_bank_element[i].bank_handler_w = hw;
namcos1_bank_element[i].bank_offset = offset;
namcos1_bank_element[i].bank_pointer = pointer;
offset += 0x2000;
if(pointer) pointer += 0x2000;
}
}
static void namcos1_install_rom_bank(int start,int end,int size,int offset)
{
unsigned char *BROM = memory_region(REGION_USER1);
int step = size/0x2000;
while(start < end)
{
namcos1_install_bank(start,start+step-1,0,rom_w,0,&BROM[offset]);
start += step;
}
}
static void namcos1_build_banks(mem_read_handler key_r,mem_write_handler key_w)
{
int i;
/* S1 RAM pointer set */
s1ram = memory_region(REGION_USER2);
/* clear all banks to unknown area */
for(i=0;i<NAMCOS1_MAX_BANK;i++)
namcos1_install_bank(i,i,unknown_r,unknown_w,0,0);
/* RAM 6 banks - palette */
namcos1_install_bank(0x170,0x172,namcos1_paletteram_r,namcos1_paletteram_w,0,s1ram);
/* RAM 6 banks - work ram */
namcos1_install_bank(0x173,0x173,0,0,0,&s1ram[0x6000]);
/* RAM 5 banks - videoram */
namcos1_install_bank(0x178,0x17b,namcos1_videoram_r,namcos1_videoram_w,0,0);
/* key chip bank (rev1_key_w / rev2_key_w ) */
namcos1_install_bank(0x17c,0x17c,key_r,key_w,0,0);
/* RAM 7 banks - display control, playfields, sprites */
namcos1_install_bank(0x17e,0x17e,0,namcos1_videocontrol_w,0,&s1ram[0x8000]);
/* RAM 1 shared ram, PSG device */
namcos1_install_bank(0x17f,0x17f,soundram_r,soundram_w,0,namco_wavedata);
/* RAM 3 banks */
namcos1_install_bank(0x180,0x183,0,0,0,&s1ram[0xc000]);
/* PRG0 */
namcos1_install_rom_bank(0x200,0x23f,0x20000 , 0xe0000);
/* PRG1 */
namcos1_install_rom_bank(0x240,0x27f,0x20000 , 0xc0000);
/* PRG2 */
namcos1_install_rom_bank(0x280,0x2bf,0x20000 , 0xa0000);
/* PRG3 */
namcos1_install_rom_bank(0x2c0,0x2ff,0x20000 , 0x80000);
/* PRG4 */
namcos1_install_rom_bank(0x300,0x33f,0x20000 , 0x60000);
/* PRG5 */
namcos1_install_rom_bank(0x340,0x37f,0x20000 , 0x40000);
/* PRG6 */
namcos1_install_rom_bank(0x380,0x3bf,0x20000 , 0x20000);
/* PRG7 */
namcos1_install_rom_bank(0x3c0,0x3ff,0x20000 , 0x00000);
}
void init_namcos1( void ) {
int oldcpu = cpu_getactivecpu(), i;
/* Point all of our bankhandlers to the error handlers */
for ( i = 0; i < 8; i++ ) {
namcos1_banks[0][i].bank_handler_r = unknown_r;
namcos1_banks[0][i].bank_handler_w = unknown_w;
namcos1_banks[0][i].bank_offset = 0;
namcos1_banks[1][i].bank_handler_r = unknown_r;
namcos1_banks[1][i].bank_handler_w = unknown_w;
namcos1_banks[1][i].bank_offset = 0;
}
/* Prepare code for Cpu 0 */
cpu_setactivecpu( 0 );
namcos1_bankswitch_w( 0x0e00, 0x03 ); /* bank7 = 0x3ff(PRG7) */
namcos1_bankswitch_w( 0x0e01, 0xff );
/* Prepare code for Cpu 1 */
cpu_setactivecpu( 1 );
namcos1_bankswitch_w( 0x0e00, 0x03);
namcos1_bankswitch_w( 0x0e01, 0xff);
namcos1_cpu1_banklatch = 0x03ff;
/* reset starting Cpu */
cpu_setactivecpu( oldcpu );
/* Point mcu & sound shared RAM to destination */
{
unsigned char *RAM = namco_wavedata + 0x1000; /* Ram 1, bank 1, offset 0x1000 */
cpu_setbank( 2, RAM );
cpu_setbank( 3, RAM );
}
/* In case we had some cpu's suspended, resume them now */
cpu_set_reset_line(1,ASSERT_LINE);
cpu_set_reset_line(2,ASSERT_LINE);
cpu_set_reset_line(3,ASSERT_LINE);
namcos1_reset = 0;
/* mcu patch data clear */
mcu_patch_data = 0;
berabohm_input_counter = 4; /* for berabohm pressure sensitive buttons */
}
/*******************************************************************************
* *
* driver specific initialize routine *
* *
*******************************************************************************/
struct namcos1_slice_timer
{
int sync_cpu; /* synchronus cpu attribute */
int sliceHz; /* slice cycle */
int delayHz; /* delay>=0 : delay cycle */
/* delay<0 : slide cycle */
};
struct namcos1_specific
{
/* keychip */
int key_id_query , key_id;
mem_read_handler key_r;
mem_write_handler key_w;
/* cpu slice timer */
const struct namcos1_slice_timer *slice_timer;
/* optimize flag , use tilemap for playfield */
int tilemap_use;
};
static void namcos1_driver_init(const struct namcos1_specific *specific )
{
/* keychip id */
key_id_query = specific->key_id_query;
key_id = specific->key_id;
/* tilemap use optimize option */
namcos1_set_optimize( specific->tilemap_use );
/* build bank elements */
namcos1_build_banks(specific->key_r,specific->key_w);
/* override opcode handling for extended memory bank handler */
cpu_setOPbaseoverride( 0,namcos1_setopbase_0 );
cpu_setOPbaseoverride( 1,namcos1_setopbase_1 );
/* sound cpu speedup optimize (auto detect) */
{
unsigned char *RAM = memory_region(REGION_CPU3); /* sound cpu */
int addr,flag_ptr;
for(addr=0xd000;addr<0xd0ff;addr++)
{
if(RAM[addr+0]==0xb6 && /* lda xxxx */
RAM[addr+3]==0x27 && /* BEQ addr */
RAM[addr+4]==0xfb )
{
flag_ptr = RAM[addr+1]*256 + RAM[addr+2];
if(flag_ptr>0x5140 && flag_ptr<0x5400)
{
sound_spinlock_pc = addr+3;
sound_spinlock_ram = (unsigned char*)install_mem_read_handler(2,flag_ptr,flag_ptr,namcos1_sound_spinlock_r);
//logerror("Set sound cpu spinlock : pc=%04x , addr = %04x\n",sound_spinlock_pc,flag_ptr);
break;
}
}
}
}
#if NEW_TIMER
/* all cpu's does not need synchronization to all timers */
cpu_set_full_synchronize(SYNC_NO_CPU);
{
const struct namcos1_slice_timer *slice = specific->slice_timer;
while(slice->sync_cpu != SYNC_NO_CPU)
{
/* start CPU slice timer */
cpu_start_extend_time_slice(slice->sync_cpu,
TIME_IN_HZ(slice->delayHz),TIME_IN_HZ(slice->sliceHz) );
slice++;
}
}
#else
/* compatible with old timer system */
timer_pulse(TIME_IN_HZ(60*25),0,0);
#endif
}
#if NEW_TIMER
/* normaly CPU slice optimize */
/* slice order is 0:2:1:x:0:3:1:x */
static const struct namcos1_slice_timer normal_slice[]={
{ SYNC_2CPU(0,1),60*20,-60*20*2 }, /* CPU 0,1 20/vblank , slide slice */
{ SYNC_2CPU(2,3),60*5,-(60*5*2+60*20*4) }, /* CPU 2,3 10/vblank */
{ SYNC_NO_CPU }
};
#else
static const struct namcos1_slice_timer normal_slice[]={{0}};
#endif
/*******************************************************************************
* Shadowland / Youkai Douchuuki specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_shadowld( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific shadowld_specific=
{
0x00,0x00, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&shadowld_specific);
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Dragon Spirit specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_dspirit( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific dspirit_specific=
{
0x00,0x36, /* key query , key id */
dspirit_key_r,dspirit_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&dspirit_specific);
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Quester specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_quester( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific quester_specific=
{
0x00,0x00, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&quester_specific);
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Blazer specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_blazer( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific blazer_specific=
{
0x00,0x13, /* key query , key id */
blazer_key_r,blazer_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&blazer_specific);
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Pac-Mania / Pac-Mania (Japan) specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_pacmania( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific pacmania_specific=
{
0x4b,0x12, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&pacmania_specific);
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Galaga '88 / Galaga '88 (Japan) specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_galaga88( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific galaga88_specific=
{
0x2d,0x31, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&galaga88_specific);
}
/*******************************************************************************
* World Stadium specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_ws( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific ws_specific=
{
0xd3,0x07, /* key query , key id */
ws_key_r,ws_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&ws_specific);
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Beraboh Man specific *
*******************************************************************************/
static READ_HANDLER( berabohm_buttons_r )
{
int res;
if (offset == 0)
{
if (berabohm_input_counter == 0) res = readinputport(0);
else
{
static int counter[4];
res = readinputport(4 + (berabohm_input_counter-1));
if (res & 0x80)
{
if (counter[berabohm_input_counter-1] >= 0)
// res = 0x40 | counter[berabohm_input_counter-1]; I can't get max power with this...
res = 0x40 | (counter[berabohm_input_counter-1]>>1);
else
{
if (res & 0x40) res = 0x40;
else res = 0x00;
}
}
else if (res & 0x40)
{
if (counter[berabohm_input_counter-1] < 0x3f)
{
counter[berabohm_input_counter-1]++;
res = 0x00;
}
else res = 0x7f;
}
else
counter[berabohm_input_counter-1] = -1;
}
berabohm_input_counter = (berabohm_input_counter+1) % 5;
}
else
{
static int clk;
res = 0;
clk++;
if (clk & 1) res |= 0x40;
else if (berabohm_input_counter == 4) res |= 0x10;
res |= (readinputport(1) & 0x8f);
}
return res;
}
void init_berabohm( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific berabohm_specific=
{
0x00,0x00, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&berabohm_specific);
install_mem_read_handler(3,0x1400,0x1401,berabohm_buttons_r);
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Alice in Wonderland / Marchen Maze specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_alice( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific alice_specific=
{
0x5b,0x25, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&alice_specific);
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Bakutotsu Kijuutei specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_bakutotu( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific bakutotu_specific=
{
0x03,0x22, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&bakutotu_specific);
// resolves CPU deadlocks caused by sloppy coding(see driver\namcos1.c)
{
data8_t target[8] = {0x34,0x37,0x35,0x37,0x96,0x00,0x2e,0xed};
data8_t *rombase, *srcptr, *endptr, *scanptr;
rombase = memory_region(REGION_USER1);
srcptr = rombase + 0x1e000;
endptr = srcptr + 0xa000;
while ( (scanptr = memchr(srcptr, 0x34, endptr-srcptr)) )
{
if (!memcmp(scanptr, target, 8))
{
scanptr[7] = 0xfc;
srcptr = scanptr + 8;
logerror ("faulty loop patched at %06x\n", scanptr-rombase+7);
}
else
srcptr = scanptr + 1;
}
}
}
/*******************************************************************************
* World Court specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_wldcourt( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific worldcourt_specific=
{
0x00,0x35, /* key query , key id */
rev2_key_r,rev2_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&worldcourt_specific);
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Splatter House specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_splatter( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific splatter_specific=
{
0x00,0x00, /* key query , key id */
splatter_key_r,splatter_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&splatter_specific);
#ifdef USE_MTRANDOM
seedMT(rand());
#endif
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Face Off specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_faceoff( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific faceoff_specific=
{
0x00,0x00, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&faceoff_specific);
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Rompers specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_rompers( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific rompers_specific=
{
0x00,0x00, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&rompers_specific);
key[0x70] = 0xb6;
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Blast Off specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_blastoff( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific blastoff_specific=
{
0x00,0x00, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&blastoff_specific);
key[0] = 0xb7;
}
/*******************************************************************************
* World Stadium '89 specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_ws89( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific ws89_specific=
{
0x00,0x00, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&ws89_specific);
key[0x20] = 0xb8;
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Dangerous Seed specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_dangseed( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific dangseed_specific=
{
0x00,0x34, /* key query , key id */
dangseed_key_r,dangseed_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&dangseed_specific);
}
/*******************************************************************************
* World Stadium '90 specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_ws90( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific ws90_specific=
{
0x00,0x00, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&ws90_specific);
key[0x47] = 0x36;
key[0x40] = 0x36;
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Pistol Daimyo no Bouken specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_pistoldm( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific pistoldm_specific=
{
0x00,0x00, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&pistoldm_specific);
//key[0x17] = ;
//key[0x07] = ;
key[0x43] = 0x35;
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Souko Ban DX specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_soukobdx( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific soukobdx_specific=
{
0x00,0x00, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&soukobdx_specific);
//key[0x27] = ;
//key[0x07] = ;
key[0x43] = 0x37;
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Puzzle Club specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_puzlclub( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific puzlclub_specific=
{
0x00,0x00, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&puzlclub_specific);
key[0x03] = 0x35;
}
/*******************************************************************************
* Tank Force specific *
*******************************************************************************/
void init_tankfrce( void )
{
const struct namcos1_specific tankfrce_specific=
{
0x00,0x00, /* key query , key id */
rev1_key_r,rev1_key_w, /* key handler */
normal_slice, /* CPU slice normal */
1 /* use tilemap flag : speedup optimize */
};
namcos1_driver_init(&tankfrce_specific);
//key[0x57] = ;
//key[0x17] = ;
key[0x2b] = 0xb9;
key[0x50] = 0xb9;
}
|
<reponame>samwelkey/leetcode-go
func isMatch(s string, p string) bool {
sb := []byte(s)
pb := []byte(p)
if len(p) == 0 {
return len(s) == 0
}
firstMatch := !(len(sb) == 0) && (pb[0] == sb[0] || pb[0] == '.')
if len(pb) >= 2 && pb[1] == '*' {
return isMatch(s, string(pb[2:])) || (firstMatch && isMatch(string(sb[1:]), p))
} else {
return firstMatch && isMatch(string(sb[1:]), string(pb[1:]))
}
}
|
Air-conditioners having a refrigerant or coolant heater are an equipment for heating a refrigerant by means of a refrigerant heater to utilize a heat produced thereby as a heat source in heating operation. FIG. 1 shows one example of such air-conditioners. In FIG. 1, at the time of the heating operation, a circulation circuit of refrigerant is formed by a compressor 1, a four port connection valve 2 (switching position of the solid line), an indoor heat exchanger 3, a valve 4, a refrigerant heater 5, and a check valve 6. On the other hand, at the time of the cooling operation, a circulation circuit of refrigerant is formed by the compressor 1, the four port connection valve 2 (switching position of the broken lines), an outdoor heat exchanger 7, a check valve 8, the indoor heat exchanger 3, and a check valve 9. Here, it is assumed that, at the time of the cooling operation, the valve 4 is closed. This invention is directed to a heating operation of an air-conditioner carried out by using the refrigerant heater 5 without use of the outdoor heat exchanger 7.
The refrigerant heater 5 used in the heating operation of an air-conditioner includes therein a fuel combustor or chamber supplied with fuel, e.g., gas through a control valve 10 to heat the refrigerant by heat produced by the combustor. The quantity of heat produced by the refrigerant heater 5 is controlled by adjusting the opening of the control valve 10 by means of a controller 20. Accordingly, the controller 20 adjusts the opening of the control valve 10 so that a room temperature becomes close to a set temperature thus to control a flow rate of the fuel.
Parts constituting the burning or combustion control system for heating refrigerant in such air-conditioners generally have large unevenness in their characteristics. In order to set minimum and maximum combustion quantities to respective predetermined values at the time when air-conditioners have been assembled, it is required to adjust individual control valves 10 at the area or place where the air-conditioners are assembled or installed. Generally, this adjustment includes a structural adjustment of the control valve 10 itself and an adjustment of the controller 20 combined with the control valve 10.
FIG. 2 shows the controller 20 in FIG. 1 in more detail. The controller 20 includes a combustion command signal generation unit 21 in which a plurality of steps of combustion command values corresponding to quantities of heat that the refrigerant heater 5 should produce are set, and a control valve controller 22 for controlling the opening of the control valve 10 on the basis of the combustion command values. At the combustion command signal generation unit 21, variable resistors 23 and 24 as the minimum combustion command adjustment means and the maximum combustion command adjustment means are provided, respectively.
The adjustment of control valve 10 and controller 20 is conventionally carried out as follows. First, the variable resistors 23 and 24 as the minimum combustion command adjustment means and the maximum combustion command adjustment means are provisionally set at intermediate positions, respectively. Thereafter, a minimum combustion command is caused to be sent from the control valve controller 22 to allow the opening of the control valve 10 to be in correspondence with a value corresponding to the minimum command value, thus to carry out a structural adjustment of the control valve 10 so that the combustion state of the refrigerant heater 5 results in the state corresponding to the minimum combustion command In this instance, since a structural fine adjustment of the control valve 10 is difficult, fine adjustment at the minimum combustion command point is carried out jointly by using adjustment of the variable resistor 23. Then, a maximum combustion command is caused to be sent from the control valve controller 22 to allow the opening of the control valve 10 to be in correspondence with a value corresponding to the maximum command value, thus to control the variable resistor 24 so that the combustion state of the refrigerant heater 5 results in a state corresponding to the maximum combustion command. The above-mentioned adjustments relating to the minimum value and the maximum value of a combustion quantity of the refrigerant heater 5 both rely upon delicate manual work by a skilled operator. However, since the combustion state of the refrigerant heater 5 varies to much degree by a small change of a quantity of fuel supplied as well, the above-mentioned adjustment work is generally difficult. Accordingly, in order to carry out the above-mentioned adjustment work, it takes a considerably long time. In addition, for the variable resistors 23 and 24, variable resistors of the multi-rotary type must be used in order to facilitate fine adjustment. This is disadvantageous from an economic point of view. |
/*
Author : <NAME>
Copyright 2021 BlackBerry Limited
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.
*/
package com.blackberry.jwteditor.model;
import com.blackberry.jwteditor.model.keys.Key;
import com.blackberry.jwteditor.presenter.KeysPresenter;
import org.json.JSONArray;
import org.json.JSONObject;
import java.util.*;
/**
* A container class for Key objects
*/
public class KeysModel implements Iterable<Key>{
// Underlying hashmap - use LinkedHashMap to preserve insertion order
final LinkedHashMap<String, Key> keys;
KeysPresenter presenter = null;
/**
* Iterator to pass through to the underlying hashmap
*/
@Override
public Iterator<Key> iterator() {
return new KeyModelIterator();
}
class KeyModelIterator implements Iterator<Key>{
final Iterator<String> hashMapIterator;
public KeyModelIterator() {
hashMapIterator = keys.keySet().iterator();
}
@Override
public boolean hasNext() {
return hashMapIterator.hasNext();
}
@Override
public Key next() {
return keys.get(hashMapIterator.next());
}
}
/**
* Create an empty KeysModel
*/
public KeysModel(){
keys = new LinkedHashMap<>();
}
/**
* Parse a JSON string to a KeysModel
*
* @param json JSON string containing encoded keys
* @return the KeysModel parsed from the JSON
* @throws java.text.ParseException if parsing fails
*/
public static KeysModel parse(String json) throws java.text.ParseException {
KeysModel keysModel = new KeysModel();
try {
JSONArray savedKeys = new JSONArray(json);
for (Object savedKey : savedKeys) {
Key key = Key.fromJSONObject((JSONObject) savedKey);
keysModel.addKey(key);
}
} catch (Key.UnsupportedKeyException | java.text.ParseException e) {
throw new java.text.ParseException(e.getMessage(), 0);
}
return keysModel;
}
/**
* Convert the KeysModel to a JSON string
*
* @return JSON string representation of the KeysModel
*/
public String serialize(){
JSONArray jsonArray = new JSONArray();
for(Key key: this){
jsonArray.put(key.toJSONObject());
}
return jsonArray.toString();
}
/**
* Associate a UI presenter with this model that will be notified when the model changes
*
* @param presenter presenter to associate
*/
public void setPresenter(KeysPresenter presenter){
this.presenter = presenter;
}
/**
* Get a list of all signing capable keys
*
* @return key list
*/
public List<Key> getSigningKeys() {
List<Key> keyList = new ArrayList<>();
for(Key k: this){
if(k.canSign()){
keyList.add(k);
}
}
return keyList;
}
/**
* Get a list of all verification capable keys
*
* @return key list
*/
public List<Key> getVerificationKeys() {
List<Key> keyList = new ArrayList<>();
for(Key k: this){
if(k.canVerify()){
keyList.add(k);
}
}
return keyList;
}
/**
* Get a list of all encryption capable keys
*
* @return key list
*/
public List<Key> getEncryptionKeys() {
List<Key> keyList = new ArrayList<>();
for(Key k: this){
if(k.canEncrypt()){
keyList.add(k);
}
}
return keyList;
}
/**
* Get a list of all decryption capable keys
*
* @return key list
*/
public List<Key> getDecryptionKeys() {
List<Key> keyList = new ArrayList<>();
for(Key k: this){
if(k.canDecrypt()){
keyList.add(k);
}
}
return keyList;
}
/**
* Add a key to the model
*
* @param key key to add
*/
public void addKey(Key key){
keys.put(key.getID(), key);
if(presenter != null){
presenter.onModelUpdated();
}
}
/**
* Remove a key from the model by id
*
* @param keyId key id to remove
*/
public void deleteKey(String keyId){
keys.remove(keyId);
if(presenter != null){
presenter.onModelUpdated();
}
}
/**
* Remove a set of keys from the model by id
*
* @param indicies indicies of keys to remove
*/
public void deleteKeys(int[] indicies) {
List<String> toDelete = new ArrayList<>();
for(int index: indicies){
toDelete.add(getKey(index).getID());
}
for(String keyId: toDelete){
deleteKey(keyId);
}
}
/**
* Remove a key from the model by index
*
* @param index index of key to remove
*/
@SuppressWarnings("unused")
public void deleteKey(int index) {
deleteKey(getKey(index).getID());
}
/**
* Get a key from the model by index
*
* @param index index of key to retrieve
* @return retrieved key
*/
public Key getKey(int index){
String key = (String) keys.keySet().toArray()[index];
return keys.get(key);
}
/**
* Get a key from the model by index
*
* @param keyId ID of key to retrieve
* @return retrieved key
*/
public Key getKey(String keyId) {
return keys.get(keyId);
}
}
|
JOSE MOURINHO is plotting a mass clearout at Manchester United to facilitate a move for Juventus star Paul Pogba, according to reports.
The 23-year-old, who is currently on international duty with France at Euro 2016, has been heavily linked with a return to Old Trafford.
Pogba came through United's youth ranks but made just three first-team appearances for the club before deciding against signing a new deal and joining Juve in 2012.
In his time in Italy he has enjoyed trophy-laden success, winning four Serie A titles and two Coppa Italia crowns, and Mourinho is keen to bring him back to the Premier League to replicate that success with United.
The Sun claim the Portuguese boss is determined to land Pogba and could axe eight players to get the £100million midfielder.
It is claimed Mourinho wants to work with a core of 22 players and he is keen for Pogba to be at the heart of his squad.
A United source said: “Jose has made it clear he wants to work with 22 key players.
This could spell the end of Bastian Schweinsteiger, Marcos Rojo and Morgan Schneiderlin's United careers, with the trio at risk after poor seasons.
Memphis Depay - who has been linked with a suprise move to Juventus - is another player whose future is under threat with Adnan Januzaj, Daley Blind and Juan Mata.
Express Sport understands Mata is set to be dumped by Mourinho for a second time to make room for Pogba after he was given the chop by the 53-year-old when he was at Chelsea.
It is believed Everton are waiting in the wings to land the Spaniard with a fee of £20m being earmarked for the former Valencia man.
Mourinho has already been making waves in the summer transfer window and has put his £200m kitty to good use to sign Eric Bailly from Villarreal, Zlatan Ibrahimovic as a free agent after leaving Paris Saint-Germain and Henrikh Mkhitaryan from Borussia Dortmund.
The report adds United will face competition from Real Madrid for Pogba's signature. |
/*
* Copyright 2000-2016 JetBrains s.r.o.
*
* Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
* you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
* You may obtain a copy of the License at
*
* http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
*
* Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
* distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
* WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
* limitations under the License.
*/
package com.intellij.lang.ant.dom;
import com.intellij.ide.highlighter.XmlFileType;
import com.intellij.lang.ant.AntFilesProvider;
import com.intellij.lang.ant.AntSupport;
import com.intellij.lang.ant.ReflectedProject;
import com.intellij.lang.ant.config.impl.AntResourcesClassLoader;
import com.intellij.lang.properties.IProperty;
import com.intellij.lang.properties.PropertiesFileType;
import com.intellij.lang.properties.psi.PropertiesFile;
import com.intellij.openapi.diagnostic.Logger;
import com.intellij.openapi.fileTypes.LanguageFileType;
import com.intellij.openapi.project.Project;
import com.intellij.openapi.util.Key;
import com.intellij.openapi.util.Pair;
import com.intellij.openapi.util.text.StringUtil;
import com.intellij.openapi.vfs.VirtualFile;
import com.intellij.psi.PsiFile;
import com.intellij.psi.PsiFileFactory;
import com.intellij.psi.PsiFileSystemItem;
import com.intellij.psi.xml.XmlElement;
import com.intellij.psi.xml.XmlFile;
import com.intellij.psi.xml.XmlTag;
import com.intellij.util.LocalTimeCounter;
import com.intellij.util.xml.XmlName;
import gnu.trove.THashMap;
import one.util.streamex.StreamEx;
import org.jetbrains.annotations.NonNls;
import org.jetbrains.annotations.NotNull;
import org.jetbrains.annotations.Nullable;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.*;
/**
* Storage for user-defined tasks and data types
* parsed from ant files
* @author <NAME>
*/
public class CustomAntElementsRegistry {
public static final ThreadLocal<Boolean> ourIsBuildingClasspathForCustomTagLoading = ThreadLocal.withInitial(() -> Boolean.FALSE);
private static final Logger LOG = Logger.getInstance(CustomAntElementsRegistry.class);
private static final Key<CustomAntElementsRegistry> REGISTRY_KEY = Key.create("_custom_element_registry_");
private final Map<XmlName, ClassProvider> myCustomElements = new THashMap<>();
private final Map<AntDomNamedElement, String> myTypeDefErrors = new THashMap<>();
private final Map<XmlName, AntDomNamedElement> myDeclarations = new THashMap<>();
private final Map<String, ClassLoader> myNamedLoaders = new THashMap<>();
private CustomAntElementsRegistry(final AntDomProject antProject) {
antProject.accept(new CustomTagDefinitionFinder(antProject));
}
public static CustomAntElementsRegistry getInstance(AntDomProject antProject) {
CustomAntElementsRegistry registry = antProject.getContextAntProject().getUserData(REGISTRY_KEY);
if (registry == null) {
registry = new CustomAntElementsRegistry(antProject);
antProject.putUserData(REGISTRY_KEY, registry);
}
return registry;
}
@NotNull
public Set<XmlName> getCompletionVariants(AntDomElement parentElement) {
if (parentElement instanceof AntDomCustomElement) {
// this case is already handled in AntDomExtender when defining children
return Collections.emptySet();
}
final Set<XmlName> result = new HashSet<>();
final Pair<AntDomMacroDef, AntDomScriptDef> contextMacroOrScriptDef = getContextMacroOrScriptDef(parentElement);
final AntDomMacroDef restrictToMacroDef = Pair.getFirst(contextMacroOrScriptDef);
final AntDomScriptDef restrictToScriptDef = Pair.getSecond(contextMacroOrScriptDef);
final boolean parentIsDataType = parentElement.isDataType();
for (final XmlName xmlName : myCustomElements.keySet()) {
final AntDomNamedElement declaringElement = myDeclarations.get(xmlName);
if (declaringElement instanceof AntDomMacrodefElement) {
if (restrictToMacroDef == null || !restrictToMacroDef.equals(declaringElement.getParentOfType(AntDomMacroDef.class, true))) {
continue;
}
}
else if (declaringElement instanceof AntDomScriptdefElement) {
if (restrictToScriptDef == null || !restrictToScriptDef.equals(declaringElement.getParentOfType(AntDomScriptDef.class, true))) {
continue;
}
}
if (declaringElement != null) {
if (declaringElement.equals(restrictToMacroDef) || declaringElement.equals(restrictToScriptDef)) {
continue;
}
}
if (parentIsDataType) {
if (declaringElement instanceof AntDomMacroDef || declaringElement instanceof AntDomScriptDef || declaringElement instanceof AntDomTaskdef) {
continue;
}
if (declaringElement instanceof AntDomTypeDef) {
final AntDomTypeDef typedef = (AntDomTypeDef)declaringElement;
final Class clazz = lookupClass(xmlName);
if (clazz != null && typedef.isTask(clazz)) {
continue;
}
}
}
result.add(xmlName);
}
return result;
}
@Nullable
private Pair<AntDomMacroDef, AntDomScriptDef> getContextMacroOrScriptDef(AntDomElement element) {
final AntDomMacroDef macrodef = element.getParentOfType(AntDomMacroDef.class, false);
if (macrodef != null) {
return new Pair<>(macrodef, null);
}
for (AntDomCustomElement custom = element.getParentOfType(AntDomCustomElement.class, false); custom != null; custom = custom.getParentOfType(AntDomCustomElement.class, true)) {
final AntDomNamedElement declaring = getDeclaringElement(custom.getXmlName());
if (declaring instanceof AntDomMacroDef) {
return new Pair<>((AntDomMacroDef)declaring, null);
}
else if (declaring instanceof AntDomScriptDef) {
return new Pair<>(null, (AntDomScriptDef)declaring);
}
}
return null;
}
@Nullable
public AntDomElement findDeclaringElement(final AntDomElement parentElement, final XmlName customElementName) {
final AntDomElement declaration = myDeclarations.get(customElementName);
if (declaration == null) {
return null;
}
if (declaration instanceof AntDomMacrodefElement) {
final Pair<AntDomMacroDef, AntDomScriptDef> contextMacroOrScriptDef = getContextMacroOrScriptDef(parentElement);
final AntDomMacroDef macrodefUsed = Pair.getFirst(contextMacroOrScriptDef);
if (macrodefUsed == null || !macrodefUsed.equals(declaration.getParentOfType(AntDomMacroDef.class, true))) {
return null;
}
}
else if (declaration instanceof AntDomScriptdefElement) {
final Pair<AntDomMacroDef, AntDomScriptDef> contextMacroOrScriptDef = getContextMacroOrScriptDef(parentElement);
final AntDomScriptDef scriptDefUsed = Pair.getSecond(contextMacroOrScriptDef);
if (scriptDefUsed == null || !scriptDefUsed.equals(declaration.getParentOfType(AntDomScriptDef.class, true))) {
return null;
}
}
return declaration;
}
public AntDomNamedElement getDeclaringElement(XmlName customElementName) {
return myDeclarations.get(customElementName);
}
@Nullable
public Class lookupClass(XmlName xmlName) {
final ClassProvider provider = myCustomElements.get(xmlName);
return provider == null ? null : provider.lookupClass();
}
@Nullable
public String lookupError(XmlName xmlName) {
final ClassProvider provider = myCustomElements.get(xmlName);
return provider == null ? null : provider.getError();
}
public boolean hasTypeLoadingErrors(AntDomTypeDef typedef) {
final String generalError = myTypeDefErrors.get(typedef);
if (generalError != null) {
return true;
}
return StreamEx.ofKeys(myDeclarations, typedef::equals).anyMatch(name -> lookupError(name) != null);
}
public List<String> getTypeLoadingErrors(AntDomTypeDef typedef) {
final String generalError = myTypeDefErrors.get(typedef);
if (generalError != null) {
return Collections.singletonList(generalError);
}
List<String> errors = null;
for (Map.Entry<XmlName, AntDomNamedElement> entry : myDeclarations.entrySet()) {
if (typedef.equals(entry.getValue())) {
final String err = lookupError(entry.getKey());
if (err != null) {
if (errors == null) {
errors = new ArrayList<>();
}
errors.add(err);
}
}
}
return errors == null ? Collections.emptyList() : errors;
}
private void rememberNamedClassLoader(AntDomCustomClasspathComponent typedef, AntDomProject antProject) {
final String loaderRef = typedef.getLoaderRef().getStringValue();
if (loaderRef != null) {
if (!myNamedLoaders.containsKey(loaderRef)) {
myNamedLoaders.put(loaderRef, createClassLoader(collectUrls(typedef), antProject));
}
}
}
@NotNull
private ClassLoader getClassLoader(AntDomCustomClasspathComponent customComponent, AntDomProject antProject) {
final String loaderRef = customComponent.getLoaderRef().getStringValue();
if (loaderRef != null) {
final ClassLoader loader = myNamedLoaders.get(loaderRef);
if (loader != null) {
return loader;
}
}
return createClassLoader(collectUrls(customComponent), antProject);
}
@Nullable
public static PsiFile loadContentAsFile(PsiFile originalFile, LanguageFileType fileType) {
final VirtualFile vFile = originalFile.getVirtualFile();
if (vFile == null) {
return null;
}
try {
return loadContentAsFile(originalFile.getProject(), vFile.getInputStream(), fileType);
}
catch (IOException e) {
LOG.info(e);
}
return null;
}
public static PsiFile loadContentAsFile(Project project, InputStream stream, LanguageFileType fileType) throws IOException {
final StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
try {
int nextByte;
while ((nextByte = stream.read()) >= 0) {
builder.append((char)nextByte);
}
}
finally {
stream.close();
}
final PsiFileFactory factory = PsiFileFactory.getInstance(project);
return factory.createFileFromText("_ant_dummy__." + fileType.getDefaultExtension(), fileType, builder, LocalTimeCounter.currentTime(), false, false);
}
private void addCustomDefinition(@NotNull AntDomNamedElement declaringTag, String customTagName, String nsUri, ClassProvider classProvider) {
final XmlName xmlName = new XmlName(customTagName, nsUri == null? "" : nsUri);
myCustomElements.put(xmlName, classProvider);
myDeclarations.put(xmlName, declaringTag);
}
private static PsiFile createDummyFile(@NonNls final String name, final LanguageFileType type, final CharSequence str, Project project) {
return PsiFileFactory.getInstance(project).createFileFromText(name, type, str, LocalTimeCounter.currentTime(), false, false);
}
private static boolean isXmlFormat(AntDomTypeDef typedef, @NotNull final String resourceOrFileName) {
final String format = typedef.getFormat().getStringValue();
if (format != null) {
return "xml".equalsIgnoreCase(format);
}
return StringUtil.endsWithIgnoreCase(resourceOrFileName, ".xml");
}
@NotNull
public static ClassLoader createClassLoader(final List<URL> urls, final AntDomProject antProject) {
final ClassLoader parentLoader = antProject.getClassLoader();
if (urls.size() == 0) {
return parentLoader;
}
return new AntResourcesClassLoader(urls, parentLoader, false, false);
}
public static List<URL> collectUrls(AntDomClasspathElement typedef) {
boolean cleanupNeeded = false;
if (!ourIsBuildingClasspathForCustomTagLoading.get()) {
ourIsBuildingClasspathForCustomTagLoading.set(Boolean.TRUE);
cleanupNeeded = true;
}
try {
final List<URL> urls = new ArrayList<>();
// check classpath attribute
final List<File> cpFiles = typedef.getClasspath().getValue();
if (cpFiles != null) {
for (File file : cpFiles) {
try {
urls.add(toLocalURL(file));
}
catch (MalformedURLException ignored) {
LOG.info(ignored);
}
}
}
final HashSet<AntFilesProvider> processed = new HashSet<>();
final AntDomElement referencedPath = typedef.getClasspathRef().getValue();
if (referencedPath instanceof AntFilesProvider) {
for (File cpFile : ((AntFilesProvider)referencedPath).getFiles(processed)) {
try {
urls.add(toLocalURL(cpFile));
}
catch (MalformedURLException ignored) {
LOG.info(ignored);
}
}
}
// check nested elements
for (final Iterator<AntDomElement> it = typedef.getAntChildrenIterator(); it.hasNext();) {
AntDomElement child = it.next();
if (child instanceof AntFilesProvider) {
for (File cpFile : ((AntFilesProvider)child).getFiles(processed)) {
try {
urls.add(toLocalURL(cpFile));
}
catch (MalformedURLException ignored) {
LOG.info(ignored);
}
}
}
}
return urls;
}
finally {
if (cleanupNeeded) {
ourIsBuildingClasspathForCustomTagLoading.remove();
}
}
}
private static URL toLocalURL(final File file) throws MalformedURLException {
return file.toURI().toURL();
}
private class CustomTagDefinitionFinder extends AntDomRecursiveVisitor {
private final Set<AntDomElement> myElementsOnThePath = new HashSet<>();
private final Set<String> processedAntlibs = new HashSet<>();
private final AntDomProject myAntProject;
CustomTagDefinitionFinder(AntDomProject antProject) {
myAntProject = antProject;
}
@Override
public void visitAntDomElement(AntDomElement element) {
if (element instanceof AntDomCustomElement || myElementsOnThePath.contains(element)) {
return; // avoid stack overflow
}
myElementsOnThePath.add(element);
try {
final XmlTag tag = element.getXmlTag();
if (tag != null) {
final String[] uris = tag.knownNamespaces();
for (String uri : uris) {
if (!processedAntlibs.contains(uri)) {
processedAntlibs.add(uri);
final String antLibResource = AntDomAntlib.toAntlibResource(uri);
if (antLibResource != null) {
final XmlElement xmlElement = element.getXmlElement();
if (xmlElement != null) {
final ClassLoader loader = myAntProject.getClassLoader();
final InputStream stream = loader.getResourceAsStream(antLibResource);
if (stream != null) {
try {
final XmlFile xmlFile = (XmlFile)loadContentAsFile(xmlElement.getProject(), stream, XmlFileType.INSTANCE);
loadDefinitionsFromAntlib(xmlFile, uri, loader, null, myAntProject);
}
catch (IOException e) {
LOG.info(e);
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
super.visitAntDomElement(element);
}
finally {
myElementsOnThePath.remove(element);
}
}
@Override
public void visitMacroDef(AntDomMacroDef macrodef) {
final String customTagName = macrodef.getName().getStringValue();
if (customTagName != null) {
final String nsUri = macrodef.getUri().getStringValue();
addCustomDefinition(macrodef, customTagName, nsUri, ClassProvider.EMPTY);
for (AntDomMacrodefElement element : macrodef.getMacroElements()) {
final String customSubTagName = element.getName().getStringValue();
if (customSubTagName != null) {
addCustomDefinition(element, customSubTagName, nsUri, ClassProvider.EMPTY);
}
}
}
}
@Override
public void visitScriptDef(AntDomScriptDef scriptdef) {
final String customTagName = scriptdef.getName().getStringValue();
if (customTagName != null) {
final String nsUri = scriptdef.getUri().getStringValue();
final ClassLoader classLoader = getClassLoader(scriptdef, myAntProject);
// register the scriptdef
addCustomDefinition(scriptdef, customTagName, nsUri, ClassProvider.EMPTY);
// registering nested elements
ReflectedProject reflectedProject = null;
for (AntDomScriptdefElement element : scriptdef.getScriptdefElements()) {
final String customSubTagName = element.getName().getStringValue();
if (customSubTagName != null) {
final String classname = element.getClassname().getStringValue();
if (classname != null) {
addCustomDefinition(element, customTagName, nsUri, ClassProvider.create(classname, classLoader));
}
else {
Class clazz = null;
final String typeName = element.getElementType().getStringValue();
if (typeName != null) {
clazz = lookupClass(new XmlName(typeName));
if (clazz == null) {
if (reflectedProject == null) { // lazy init
reflectedProject = ReflectedProject.getProject(myAntProject.getClassLoader());
}
final Hashtable<String, Class> coreTasks = reflectedProject.getTaskDefinitions();
if (coreTasks != null) {
clazz = coreTasks.get(typeName);
}
if (clazz == null) {
final Hashtable<String, Class> coreTypes = reflectedProject.getDataTypeDefinitions();
if (coreTypes != null) {
clazz = coreTypes.get(typeName);
}
}
}
}
addCustomDefinition(element, customSubTagName, nsUri, ClassProvider.create(clazz));
}
}
}
}
}
@Override
public void visitPresetDef(AntDomPresetDef presetdef) {
final String customTagName = presetdef.getName().getStringValue();
if (customTagName != null) {
final String nsUri = presetdef.getUri().getStringValue();
addCustomDefinition(presetdef, customTagName, nsUri, ClassProvider.EMPTY);
}
}
@Override
public void visitTypeDef(AntDomTypeDef typedef) {
// if loaderRef attribute is specified, make sure the loader is built and stored
rememberNamedClassLoader(typedef, myAntProject);
defineCustomElements(typedef, myAntProject);
}
@Override
public void visitInclude(AntDomInclude includeTag) {
processInclude(includeTag);
}
@Override
public void visitImport(AntDomImport importTag) {
processInclude(importTag);
}
private void processInclude(AntDomIncludingDirective directive) {
final PsiFileSystemItem item = directive.getFile().getValue();
if (item instanceof PsiFile) {
final AntDomProject slaveProject = AntSupport.getAntDomProject((PsiFile)item);
if (slaveProject != null) {
slaveProject.accept(this);
}
}
}
private void defineCustomElements(AntDomTypeDef typedef, final AntDomProject antProject) {
final String uri = typedef.getUri().getStringValue();
final String customTagName = typedef.getName().getStringValue();
final String classname = typedef.getClassName().getStringValue();
if (classname != null && customTagName != null) {
addCustomDefinition(typedef, customTagName, uri, ClassProvider.create(classname, getClassLoader(typedef, antProject)));
}
else {
defineCustomElementsFromResources(typedef, uri, antProject, null);
}
}
private void defineCustomElementsFromResources(AntDomTypeDef typedef, final String uri, AntDomProject antProject, ClassLoader loader) {
final XmlElement xmlElement = antProject.getXmlElement();
final Project project = xmlElement != null? xmlElement.getProject() : null;
if (project == null) {
return;
}
XmlFile xmlFile = null;
PropertiesFile propFile = null;
final String resource = typedef.getResource().getStringValue();
if (resource != null) {
if (loader == null) {
loader = getClassLoader(typedef, antProject);
}
final InputStream stream = loader.getResourceAsStream(resource);
if (stream != null) {
try {
if (isXmlFormat(typedef, resource)) {
xmlFile = (XmlFile)loadContentAsFile(project, stream, XmlFileType.INSTANCE);
}
else {
propFile = (PropertiesFile)loadContentAsFile(project, stream, PropertiesFileType.INSTANCE);
}
}
catch (IOException e) {
LOG.info(e);
}
}
else {
myTypeDefErrors.put(typedef, "Resource \"" + resource + "\" not found in the classpath");
}
}
else {
final PsiFileSystemItem file = typedef.getFile().getValue();
if (file instanceof PsiFile) {
if (isXmlFormat(typedef, file.getName())) {
xmlFile = file instanceof XmlFile ? (XmlFile)file : (XmlFile)loadContentAsFile((PsiFile)file, XmlFileType.INSTANCE);
}
else { // assume properties format
propFile = file instanceof PropertiesFile ? (PropertiesFile)file : (PropertiesFile)loadContentAsFile((PsiFile)file, PropertiesFileType.INSTANCE);
}
}
}
if (propFile != null) {
if (loader == null) { // if not initialized yet
loader = getClassLoader(typedef, antProject);
}
for (final IProperty property : propFile.getProperties()) {
addCustomDefinition(typedef, property.getUnescapedKey(), uri, ClassProvider.create(property.getUnescapedValue(), loader));
}
}
if (xmlFile != null) {
if (loader == null) { // if not initialized yet
loader = getClassLoader(typedef, antProject);
}
loadDefinitionsFromAntlib(xmlFile, uri, loader, typedef, antProject);
}
}
private void loadDefinitionsFromAntlib(XmlFile xmlFile, String uri, ClassLoader loader, @Nullable AntDomTypeDef typedef, AntDomProject antProject) {
final AntDomAntlib antLib = AntSupport.getAntLib(xmlFile);
if (antLib != null) {
final List<AntDomTypeDef> defs = new ArrayList<>();
defs.addAll(antLib.getTaskdefs());
defs.addAll(antLib.getTypedefs());
if (!defs.isEmpty()) {
for (AntDomTypeDef def : defs) {
final String tagName = def.getName().getStringValue();
final String className = def.getClassName().getStringValue();
if (tagName != null && className != null) {
AntDomNamedElement declaringElement = typedef != null? typedef : def;
addCustomDefinition(declaringElement, tagName, uri, ClassProvider.create(className, loader));
}
else {
defineCustomElementsFromResources(def, uri, antProject, loader);
}
}
}
}
}
}
}
|
Intrusion: The Central Problem for Family Health Promotion among Children and Single Mothers after Leaving an Abusive Partner Like other single-parent families, those consisting of mothers and their children who leave abusive partners/fathers are broadly viewed as deficient, high-risk structures in which children are susceptible to multiple problems. The mechanisms of strength and vulnerability in these families are poorly understood, and, consequently, their health promotion processes remain virtually unexplored. In a feminist grounded theory study of health promotion processes of single-parent families after leaving abusive partners/fathers, the authors discovered intrusion to be the basic social problem as families strive to promote health in the aftermath of abuse. The authors discuss the complex nature of intrusion, demonstrating how health is socially determined, and the challenges of health promotion in terms of the issues and dilemmas faced by study families and consider implications for health promotion knowledge and practice. |
<filename>di/mocks.h<gh_stars>0
#pragma once
#include "executer.h"
#include "group.h"
#include "manager.h"
#include <gmock/gmock.h>
struct MockLogger : ILogger
{
MOCK_METHOD(void, log, (const std::string&), (override));
};
struct MockExecuter : IExecuter
{
MOCK_METHOD(void, process, (const std::string&, std::function<void(const std::string&)>), (override));
MOCK_METHOD(void, stop, (), (override));
MOCK_METHOD(const Id&, getId, (), (const, override));
};
struct MockFactoryExecuter : IFactoryExecuter
{
MOCK_METHOD(std::unique_ptr<IExecuter>, create, (Ssid&&, Id&&), (const, override));
};
struct MockGroup : IGroup
{
MOCK_METHOD(IExecuter&, getExecuter, (), (override));
MOCK_METHOD(void, stopAll, (), (override));
};
struct MockFactoryGroup : IFactoryGroup
{
MOCK_METHOD(std::unique_ptr<IGroup>, create, (Ssid&&), (const, override));
};
|
Heat and mass transfer enhancement strategies by impinging jets: A literature review Heat and mass transfer can be greatly increased when using impinging jets, regardless the application. The reason behind this is the complex behavior of the impinging jet flow which is leading to the generation of a multitude of flow phenomena, like: large-scale structures, small scale turbulent mixing, large curvature involving strong normal stresses, and strong shear, stagnation, separation, and re-attachment of the wall boundary-layers, increased heat transfer at the impinged plate. All these listed phenomena have highly unsteady nature and even though a lot of scientific studies have approached this subject, the impinging jet is not fully understood due to the difficulties of carrying out detailed experimental and numerically investigations. Nevertheless, for heat transfer enhancement in impinging jet applications, both passive and active strategies are employed. The effect of nozzle geometry and the impinging surface macro-structure modification are some of the most prominent passive strategies. On the other side, the most used active strategies utilize acoustical and mechanical oscillations in the exit plane of the flow, which in certain situations favors mixing enhancement. This is favored by the intensification of some instabilities and by the onset of large scale vortices with important levels of energy. |
Outage and symbol error probabilities of dual-hop AF relaying in a Poisson field of interferers In this paper, we introduce a new framework to compute the Outage Probability (Pout) and the Average Symbol Error Probability (ASEP) of dual-hop Amplify-and-Forward (AF) relaying in the presence of noise, fading, and network interference. The interfering nodes are randomly distributed in the 2D Euclidean plane according to a homogeneous Poisson point process. Our framework provides closed-form expressions of Pout and ASEP over Rayleigh fading channels, additive noise at the relay and at the destination, and network interference at the destination. The accuracy of our analytical derivation is substantiated through extensive Monte Carlo simulations. |
An intertriginous eruption in an infant, topical preparations, excessive sweating, and occlusion have all been purported triggers. 3 Many of the rare reports of pediatric GP have been linked to the over-treatment of diaper dermatitis with topical products containing zinc oxide. The role zinc oxide plays in the development of GP is unclear, though it is known to speed up epidermal cell turnover resulting in an abnormally thick stratum corneum. 7 There are also reports of children developing GP after exposure to benzalkonium chloride. 7,8 This ammo-nium compound is a skin irritant that can be found in laundry rinses. It is thought to disrupt the lipid bilayers of the epidermis, compromising the process of cornification. 7 In addition, it has been proposed that infants with concomitant atopic dermatitis may be more susceptible to GP since topical products are better able to penetrate the disrupted epidermal barrier of eczematous skin. 9 However, further studies are needed to evaluate the association between infantile GP and atopic dermatitis. Few therapies for pediatric GP |
A double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized comparison of pre and postoperative administration of ketorolac and tramadol for dental extraction pain ObjectiveObjective : To compare the analgesic efficacy and safety of single-dose oral ketorolac and tramadol administered pre and postoperatively for dental extraction pain. Materials and Methods Materials and Methods : 74 patients undergoing third molar extraction (impacted or other causes) were recruited into the study, over a period of 1 year. The patients were divided into six groups and they were given ketorolac (20 mg), tramadol (100 mg), or placebo either preoperatively or postoperatively (half an hour before or half an hour after the procedure). Placebo was glucose powder filled in empty capsule. Pain assessment was done using a modified Verbal Rating Scale (VRS) at 30 min, 2, 4, and 6 h after the procedure. A record of whether rescue analgesic (ibuprofen 400 mg) was taken during the 6 h study period, along with the time it was taken, was made. Record of any adverse effects experienced by the patient was also kept. Maximum pain scores for each of the six study groups, over the 6 h study period, were noted. ResultsResults : Ketorolac and tramadol were significantly better than placebo in relieving molar tooth extraction pain. Postoperative administration of tramadol was found to be more efficacious than preoperative administration in relieving the pain, whereas the preoperative administration of ketorolac was better than its postoperative administration. ConclusionConclusion : This study demonstrated that tramadol is equally effective to ketorolac in relieving pain in the first 6 h after molar extraction and therefore can be tried in patients who are intolerant to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Abstract Introduction Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage. Pain of dental extraction produces moderate to severe pain which is routinely treated with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for 2-3 days. The NSAIDs have the advantage of being analgesic as well as anti-inflammatory and are therefore the rational choice for pain associated with inflammation. At the same time the NSAID's are liable to produce gastrointestinal adverse effects such as gastritis and peptic ulcer and thus should be used cautiously. Analgesics such as tramadol, which are non-NSAIDs, can be tried on such patients. Dental extraction pain is an excellent clinical model for acute pain, especially third molar extraction pain. This study was designed to compare the analgesic efficacy of ketorolac with tramadol for pre and postoperative pain relief as well as their side effect in patients undergoing dental extraction. Materials and Methods This prospective randomized, placebo-controlled study was conducted on patients for 1 year (Jan 2010-Jan 2011) attending the Dental Outpatient Department of Teerthanker Mahaveer Medical College and Research Centre, Moradabad, UP. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Institutional Ethical Committee. Seventy four patients undergoing tooth extraction were recruited according to the inclusion and exclusion criterion. They were divided into six groups, i.e., to receive tramadol, ketorolac, or placebo pre or postoperatively. Patients with history of acid-peptic diseases, hemorrhagic diathesis, known hypersensitivity of NSAIDs or tramadol, and epileptic patients were excluded. A total of 74 patients were recruited during the study, 25 each in the tramadol and ketorolac groups and 24 in the placebo group. Both the investigator and patient were blind. Random allocation of groups was done using computer-generated random numbers. Each drug was coded and packed into identical appearing packets, with only the patient number and whether to be given pre-or postoperatively indicated on the label. Drugs were given by the dental surgeon per orally (PO) as per Table 1. A verbal rating scale (VRS) was chosen to grade pain for this study because it is very reliable and easy to administer. The first assessment of the pain intensity/relief was done half an hour after the end of the procedure. The 2 nd, 3 rd, and 4 th assessments done at 2, 4, and 6 h postextraction. We devised a modified VRS for grading pain, taking into consideration the use of a rescue analgesic (ibuprofen 400 mg), and it is shown in Table 2. As placebo is included in this study, it was ethically incorrect not to include the rescue analgesic. Ibuprofen is NSAID with good anti-inflammatory and analgesic activity. It is one of the most commonly used analgesics for dental pain. Therefore, we included ibuprofen as the rescue analgesic in our study. Patients from placebo group were given rescue analgesic when pain becomes intolerant. Pain scores of patients receiving same drug preoperatively or postoperatively as well as other drug groups were compared using Mann-Whitney's U test. Age of patients, the amount of rescue medication taken, and time after extraction when rescue medication was taken were compared by ANOVA followed by post-hoc Dunnett's T3 test. Number of males and females in different groups were compared by Chi-square test, P value. Adverse effects were compared using Chi-square test or Fischer's exact test as appropriate. All analysis were done using SPSS software 16.0 version. P value < 0.05 was considered significant. Results Out of the 74 patients recruited, 12 patients each were in preoperative group for tramadol, ketorolac, and placebo group; 13 patients each in postoperative group of tramadol and ketorolac; and 12 patients were in postoperative group of placebo. 36 patients were males (48.64%). The mean age of the patients in the study was 31.57 years, ranging from 18-65 years, with 92% of the patients in the 25-45 year age group. Prior to surgery local anesthetic (2% lignocaine) was injected to all patients. The mean dose of the local anesthetic was 2.4 ml ranging from 2 to 8 ml. All except three patients (4%) had antibiotic coverage prior to surgery. The mean duration of the procedure was 15.93 min, ranging from 2 to 70 min. For 59 patients (78%) it took less than 20 min for the completion of the procedure. For two patients (1.5%), it took 70 min. The indications for the third molar extractions were impacted teeth, infected teeth, or both. One patient had a tongue ulcer for which the extraction was indicated. Of the 74 patients, 51 patients (69%) had impacted teeth, 7 patients (9.5%) had infected teeth, and 16 patients (21.5%) had both. All except three (4%) were lower molar extractions. All the six patients group were similar in terms of gender distribution, average age, the amount of local anesthetic administered, the antibiotic coverage given, the position of the molar extracted, and the duration of the procedure. The results of the analysis of the primary end point namely mean pain scores show that the analgesics (ketorolac and Rank No pain 1 1 Some pain, but no need for rescue 2 2 Pain severe enough to take rescue 3 3 After Rescue No pain 4 3 Some pain, but less than when rescue was 5 3 Pain same as when rescue was taken 6 3 Pain more severe than when rescue was taken 7 4 tramadol) were more efficacious in reducing the pain as compared to placebo . Mean combined pain score for tramadol plus ketorolac versus placebo at 30 min was 1.261 and 1.312, respectively, and at 6 h was 2.132 and 2.884, respectively. When the pain scores of analgesic group were compared against those of the placebo group separately, the analgesic group was found to have lower maximum pain scores at each time point as compared to placebo, indicating that the analgesics were superior to placebo in producing pain relief. On comparison of the pain scores of the preoperative group versus the postoperative group of tramadol, postoperative administration was found to reduce the pain score more than preoperative administration at each time point. Mean pain score for preoperative tramadol and postoperative tramadol at 30 min was 1.4 and 1.1, respectively, and at 6 h it was 2.42 and 1.875, respectively . When preoperative and postoperative ketorolac were compared, there was no significant difference between the maximum pain score (mean pain score for preoperative ketorolac and postoperative ketorolac at 30 min was 1 and 1.545, respectively, and at 6 h it was 2.416 and 1.818, respectively . The secondary end point in the study was the need for rescue analgesic. When tramadol was compared with placebo (both preoperative and postoperative), the analgesic group needed less rescue drug than the placebo group. The average time taken by the patient from the start of the procedure to the time when pain was severe enough for the patient to feel the need to self administer the rescue analgesic was more in the tramadol than in the placebo group, which indicates that more prolonged pain relief was seen in the analgesic group as compared to those receiving placebo (meantime for rescue analgesic in the tramadol and ketorolac group -366 min, in the placebo group -240 min . On comparison of preoperative placebo with preoperative tramadol, there appeared to be no significant difference in need for rescue analgesic. P = 0.241 (mean time for rescue in the preoperative placebo group -245 min and mean time for rescue in the preoperative tramadol group -313 min). However, on comparison of preoperative placebo and preoperative ketorolac, the need for rescue was significantly lower in the ketorolac group. P = 0.006 (mean time for rescue in the preoperative placebo group -245 min and mean time for rescue in the preoperative ketorolac group -407 min). When postoperative placebo was compared with postoperative tramadol, the need for rescue analgesic was significantly lower in the tramadol group. When preoperative tramadol was compared with postoperative tramadol, there was no significant difference in the need for rescue analgesic. P = 0.217 (mean time for rescue in the preoperative tramadol group -313 min and mean time for rescue in the postoperative tramadol group -372 min). When preoperative ketorolac was compared with postoperative ketorolac also, there was no significant difference in the need for rescue analgesic between the two. P = 0.766 (mean time for rescue in the preoperative ketorolac group -407 min and mean time for rescue in the postoperative ketorolac group -373 min). There were no serious adverse events reported for any of the study groups. Adverse effects seen are tabulated in Table 3. Only 8 patients (16.3 %) of the total of 49 reported side effects. Of these eight patients that reported side effects, seven belonged to the tramadol group and one to the placebo group. One patient each from the tramadol groups complained of sedation. Two patients felt dizziness and five patients had giddiness in the tramadol group. One patient each from the tramadol group and the ketorolac group felt weakness/tiredness. Two patients in the ketorolac group and one patient in the tramadol group felt nausea/ vomiting. One patient in the placebo group complained of tingling sensation. Comparison of adverse effect reportage of tramadol versus placebo groups showed that tramadol was significantly more likely to produce adverse effects compared to placebo. Comparison of adverse effect reportage of ketorolac versus placebo groups showed that ketorolac that was significantly more likely to produce adverse effects compared to placebo. Comparison of ketorolac and tramadol for adverse effects showed that there was no significant difference between the two. For purposes of analysis, occurrence of adverse effects was represented as nominal data that is either "any adverse effect occurred" or "no adverse effect occurred." Pearson's Chisquare test (without Yale's continuity correction) showed a significant difference between groups. Discussion Third molar extraction produces moderate to severe pain and a fair amount of inflammation. It is routinely treated with NSAIDs for 2-3 days. NSAID's are known to produce side effects such as gastric irritation leading to ulceration and bleeding disorders. Despite the inflammatory component, one of the drugs used in this study was a non-NSAID, so that the side effects produced by the anti-inflammatory analgesics could be avoided. The analgesic efficacy of non-NSAIDs versus NSAID's to placebo was compared in this study. We also attempted to compare the adverse effects of non-NSAID and NSAID with placebo, when given as single dose. Another aspect, which was looked at in this study, was pre-empting the expected pain by preoperative administration versus countering pain after it sets in by postoperative administration. This study has succeeded in demonstrating the analgesic efficacy of single oral doses of either tramadol or ketorolac for impacted third molar extraction with an acceptable incidence and severity of side effects, over the first 6 h following extraction. There was no significant difference between the analgesic efficacy of tramadol and ketorolac. The pre-and postoperative administration of ketorolac was found to be equally effective in controlling dental pain. Tramadol was found to be more effective postoperatively than preoperatively. We looked at whether there is any need for analgesics for postextraction pain as the patient is already receiving a local anesthetic prior to surgery and found that a significant proportion of patients do experience pain severe enough to require analgesics. Single dose of either tramadol or ketorolac was more efficient than placebo in relieving pain, over the first 6 h. Other studies corroborate this finding. Keeping the concept of pre-emptive analgesia in mind, we expected preoperative administration of analgesics to be more efficacious in relieving the pain than postoperative administration. Our results show that postoperative administration of tramadol appears to be more efficacious than preoperative administration in terms of pain relief. Analgesic effect of tramadol begins within 1 h and reaches a peak in approximately 2-3 h. It is likely that the postextraction pain reaches a peak in the first 2-4 h. Pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of most administered drugs are time dependent. Opioid activity of tramadol is due to both low-affinity binding of the parent compound and higher affinity binding of the O-demethylated metabolite to opioid receptors. As it is extensively metabolized by a number of pathways, the bioavailability of the active metabolite is high. It has a quick onset of action. The analgesic effect of tramadol begins within 1 h and reaches a peak in approximately 2-3 h. Though tramadol was given preoperatively with the idea of preempting the expected pain, it appears that it was given too early to be of any benefit and the peak analgesic effect and the time of maximum pain after tooth extraction may not have coincided with each other. Even though the preoperative administration of ketorolac was found to be effective, it was not significantly better than postoperative administration. Ketorolac inhibits the enzyme cyclo-oxygenase, thereby inhibiting the synthesis of prostaglandins, which is a mediator of inflammation and pain. It is a potent NSAID with a plasma half-life of approximately 4.5-5.5 h. The dose of ketorolac (20 mg) administered in this study was possibly not enough to preempt the pain produce by third molar extraction or that the time of administration was too close to the extraction for the drug to produce any effect. Third molar extraction produces a fair amount of injury to the surrounding tissue, leading to release of arachidonic acid, which is converted into prostaglandin by cyclo-oxygenase. Inhibition of cyclooxygenase even before the release of arachidonic acid from injured tissue ensures that the synthesis of prostaglandins is blocked and pain and inflammation is preempted. Sufficient residual pain remains despite adequate local anesthesia. Tramadol being an Opioid and norepinephrine modulator, more central nervous system-related side effects as expected was found as six patients is tramadol group had CNS-related side effects and none in placebo group reported. Comparison of tramadol and ketorolac did not show any significant difference in side effect reportage; however, the organ system affected differed in each case. Ketorolac has been reported to produce nausea, vomiting, dyspepsia, peptic ulceration, and prolongation of bleeding time, whereas tramadol effects on the gastrointestinal tract are fairly minor and its CNS effects are more prominent. Some of the reported side effects include anxiety, confusion, euphoria, sleep disorders, visual disturbance, and dependence. Pain assessment using a VRS was appropriate for this study. Some studies assessed the utility of 10 indices (including the verbal rating scale) in the subjective experience of acute pain. The results indicated that each of the measures of pain intensity is adequately valid. In other studies, it has been observed that pain intensity is a relatively easy dimension of pain experience for patients to report, most self-report measures of pain intensity are strongly related to one another, and so can probably be used interchangeably in many situations. As telephonic interviews were needed for the assessment of postoperative pain, patient not accessible by telephone were not included in the study. The fact that this was a single-dose study and pain was assessed only over the first 6 h was another limitation. Ideally, the duration of a study for assessing the analgesic efficacy of drugs is postextraction pain, which should be for a period of 2-3 days, with multiple dosing. Conclusion This study demonstrated that postoperative administration of tramadol is equally effective as traditional NSAID's in relieving pain in the first 6 h after molar extraction, and therefore, it can be tried in patients who are intolerant to NSAIDs. A firm conclusion regarding the time of intervention (i.e., pre and postextraction) for optimal pain control is a point for clarification and needs further analysis. |
Pathological and molecular assessment of sentinel lymph nodes in solid tumors. Sentinel nodes (SNs) are the first set of nodes to receive drainage and cancer cells from a primary tumor. While there may be a single SN, frequently there are one to three or more SNs. The development of sentinel node surgery over the last decade has led to dramatic changes in the surgical approach to regional nodes draining solid tumors. The surgeon can now identify, to a level of accuracy previously impossible, the regional nodes most likely to be involved with cancer in any individual patient. This new capability comes at a cost; the principles guiding the extent of nodal surgery must be completely re-examined. The extent of surgical resection required to achieve each of the goals of regional node surgery- establishing prognosis, obtaining regional control, and improving overall survival-may no longer be simply the default "regional node resection" and may vary depending on the clinical goals. Inseparable from this new surgical technology is the methodology employed for pathologic evaluation of SNs. It is critical that pathologists and clinicians conduct definitive clinical research directed toward defining the role and impact that SN surgery has on each of these surgical goals. |
package com.github.maxopoly.dogfacts.database;
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.PreparedStatement;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.UUID;
import java.util.logging.Level;
import java.util.logging.Logger;
import org.bukkit.scheduler.BukkitRunnable;
import com.github.maxopoly.dogfacts.DogFactsPlugin;
import com.github.maxopoly.dogfacts.facts.Fact;
import vg.civcraft.mc.civmodcore.dao.ManagedDatasource;
public class DogFactsDAO {
private ManagedDatasource db;
private Logger logger;
private final static String insertIgnore = "insert into ignoredFacts (id, uuid) select id, ? from facts where identifier = ?;";
private final static String registerFact = "insert into facts (identifier) values(?);";
private final static String getAllFacts = "select f.identifier, if.uuid from facts f inner join ignoredFacts if on f.id = if.id;";
public DogFactsDAO(ManagedDatasource db, Logger logger) {
this.db = db;
this.logger = logger;
registerMigrations();
db.updateDatabase();
}
public void registerMigrations() {
db.registerMigration(0, false,
"create table if not exists facts (id int not null autoincrement, identifier varchar(200) not null, primary key(id), unique(identifier));",
"create table if not exists ignoredFacts (id int not null, uuid varchar(36) not null, unique(id, uuid), foreign key (id) references facts(id));"
"create table if not exists ignoringAllFacts "
);
}
public void registerFactAsync(Fact fact) {
new BukkitRunnable() {
@Override
public void run() {
registerFact(fact);
}
}.runTaskAsynchronously(DogFactsPlugin.getInstance());
}
private void registerFact(Fact fact) {
try(Connection connection = db.getConnection();
PreparedStatement addFact = connection.prepareStatement(registerFact)) {
addFact.setString(1, fact.getIdentifier());
addFact.execute();
} catch (SQLException e) {
logger.log(Level.WARNING, "Unable to register fact " + fact.getIdentifier(), e);
}
}
public void insertFactIgnoreAsync(UUID player, Fact fact) {
new BukkitRunnable() {
@Override
public void run() {
insertFactIgnore(player, fact);
}
}.runTaskAsynchronously(DogFactsPlugin.getInstance());
}
private void insertFactIgnore(UUID player, Fact fact) {
try(Connection connection = db.getConnection();
PreparedStatement addIgnore = connection.prepareStatement(insertIgnore)) {
addIgnore.setString(1, player.toString());
addIgnore.setString(2, fact.getIdentifier());
addIgnore.execute();
} catch (SQLException e) {
logger.log(Level.WARNING, "Unable to insert ignoring for fact " + fact.getIdentifier() + " for player " + player , e);
}
}
public void loadAllIgnores(Map <String, Fact> factsByIdentifier) {
try(Connection connection = db.getConnection();
PreparedStatement loadFacts = connection.prepareStatement(getAllFacts);
ResultSet facts = loadFacts.executeQuery()) {
while (facts.next()) {
String identifier = facts.getString(1);
UUID uuid = UUID.fromString(facts.getString(2));
Fact f = factsByIdentifier.get(identifier);
if (f != null) {
f.addIgnore(uuid, false);
}
}
} catch (SQLException e) {
logger.log(Level.WARNING, "Unable to load all ignores", e);
}
}
}
|
def insertion_sort(arr):
# For every index in array
for i in range(1,len(arr)):
# Set current values and position
currentvalue = arr[i]
position = i
# Sorted Sublist
while position>0 and arr[position-1]>currentvalue:
arr[position]=arr[position-1]
position = position-1
arr[position]=currentvalue
arr =[3,5,4,6,8,1,2,12,41,25]
insertion_sort(arr)
arr |
Decentralised Authoring, Annotations and Notifications for a Read-Write Web with dokieli While the Web was designed as a decentralised environment, individual authors still lack the ability to conveniently author and publish documents, and to engage in social interactions with documents of others in a truly decentralised fashion. We present dokieli, a fully decentralised, browser-based authoring and annotation platform with built-in support for social interactions, through which people retain ownership of and sovereignty over their data. The resulting living documents are interoperable and independent of dokieli since they follow standards and best practices, such as HTML+RDFa for a fine-grained semantic structure, Linked Data Platform for personal data storage, and Linked Data Notifications for updates. This article describes dokielis architecture and implementation, demonstrating advanced document authoring and interaction without a single point of control. Such an environment provides the right technological conditions for independent publication of scientific articles, news, and other works that benefit from diverse voices and open interactions. To experience the described features please open this document in your Web browser under its canonical URI: http://csarven.ca/dokieli-rww. Introduction While the Web was originally conceived as a decentralised platform where every organisation and individual can participate, it became increasingly centralised with less than 1% of the servers serving more than 99% of the content. The main reason for this is rooted in technology: it is currently much easier and more efficient to author, manage, publish, and search large amounts of similarly structured content using a centralised platform. Blogger, YouTube and Facebook, for example, are centralised authoring, publishing, and search platforms for blog posts, videos or social network content respectively. However, independence of centralised platforms is a necessity for ownership of published ideas, and to establish a relation of trust. For example, Facebook has been accused of bias, false information, and censorship-but rather than blaming this on any particular platform, we identify it as an unavoidable result of centralisation. After all, there is a continued tension between unrestricted publication rights on the one hand, and a guarantee of balanced, verified information on the other. In a fully decentralised setting, each source is filterless and responsible for its own quality and reputation, while others are free to selectively (dis-)trust certain sources using any mechanism they desire. Decentralised authoring, publication, and annotation furthermore have the potential to impact areas in which centralisation currently determines the pace of evolution. Scientific publishing, for instance, is often bound to centralised review and dissemination processes. Instead, rigorous scientific discourse could be realised with an open, decentralised environment for the annotation of manuscripts, which has the potential to engage more people sooner. Trust then no longer stems from a finite process with limited transparency, but is rather continuously assessed by repeated independent validation. Publication thereby becomes the starting point rather than the end point. If we want to strengthen the decentralised nature of the Web again, we need to develop technologies to simplify the decentralised authoring, management, exploration, and search of Web content. In this article we present the principles and architecture for a fully distributed authoring and publishing system in Sects. 2 and 4 respectively. We describe the dokieli implementation of this architecture as well as an overview on its current adoption in Sect. 5 before we conclude with an outlook on challenges and future work in Sect. 6. Principles This describes the principles against which decentralised approaches for authoring, annotation and notifications should be designed. These principles are derived from current literature on decentralisation, and Web development best practices. Data storage independent of service providers: Users should have a choice in where they store their data and full control over it e.g. with regard to who is allowed to access it. The Industrial Data Space initiative calls this "data sovereignty". Interoperability: By allowing the application logic to be decoupled from the data, users can switch between applications and personal data storage servers, thereby avoiding a vendor lock-in. To achieve maximum interoperability, applications should conform to well-defined Web standards and protocols (rather than properietary software implementations). Dangers of data silos and some example standards to use to decentralise are given in. Separation of concerns: A progressive enhancement strategy to connect the structural, presentational, and behavioural layers allows content and base functionality to be accessible through different media and devices (as described in ). Accessibility: To lower the entry barrier for all forms of participation, enhanced functionality should be accessible to users based on the capabilities of their useragents, storage availability, network access or personal preferences (we consider this to be self-evident, and there are a plethora of Web best practices in this area). Freedom of expression: Because there are no central authorities, we must assume applications follow the open-world principle, where "any author can say anything about anything". Identifying everything using referenceable IRIs allows any distributed authoring or annotation application to reference and link to previously published content (this overlaps with Principles 1, 3 and 4 in the W3C Semantic Web Activity charter). Web of Trust: The Web as a collaborative medium makes it possible for people to take responsibility (or be accountable) for their contributions. It should be possible for people to publish, share, and annotate information while ensuring their provenance, authenticity and integrity. Related Work An overview on relevant related work is given in. A range of quality attributes such as collaboration, interoperability, and scalability, while relevant to our work, we also consider systems and tools on dimensions based on the principles that we have outlined. Centralised authoring and annotation platforms: Google Docs, Medium, and Authorea are examples of Web applications for collaborative creation and publication of content which require account creation and data storage with respective centralised services. They allow multiple participants to annotate and hold discussions around the primary content; users must access their accounts to be notified of updates to conversations, and data from both the main content and related discussion is confined to the service which was used to create it. WordPress is a free and open-source platform for article publication which can be self-hosted on a server controlled by the user. Visitors may sign-in with their WordPress accounts to leave comments on others' articles, however they are typically under the hosting site' database. Hypothesis makes it possible for users to leave annotations on different types of documents on the Web using a browser plugin or via a proxy. Annotations may be private or public, and can be threaded to form conversations around a piece of content. Despite allowing the attachment of annotations to resources hosted anywhere, they depend on centralised account creation and storage for the annotations themselves. Hypothesis is open source, with an API that uses Web Annotations data model, and may be self-hosted, but currently it is not possible to federate between different instances. Pundit is a set of tools that allow web annotation with highlights, comments and semantic annotations. It is similar to Hypothesis in its architecture and deployment, i.e., annotations made through the pundit client require it to be saved on its corresponding annotations server. Decentralised authoring and annotation systems: Some authoring and publishing systems already go into a decentralised direction. However, they only realize a relatively small subset of the principles outlined in the last section. LibreOffice Online, for example, allows collaborative editing of office documents (e.g., Writer) from the Web browser. Content can be stored under different CMSs in the cloud. The document's interface consists of image tiles which are sent from the server and rendered in the browser. However, it hardly provides accessibility, rich interlinking and annotations or separation of concerns. The Smallest Federated Wiki allows pages to be forked; users can maintain personal copies. Amaya is a desktop Web editor application (to create and update documents) as well as a lightweight browser developed by W3C to test its technologies. The tools that provide good collaborative editing UIs appear to do so at the expense of data ownership and interoperability; those which promote data creation and publication in open reusable formats are lacking facilities for linking discourse and conversation to concepts published. Decentralised creations also mean that each author can choose their own semantics (e.g. their own vocabulary to annotate RDF), and then such decentralised documents can link to each other and their schemas can also be mapped to each other, whereas in centralised platforms this is (if they support semantics at all) often prescribed, either technically enforced, or encouraged by social convention. Architecture and Technologies In this section we discuss an architecture to bridge the gaps in existing work for a decentralised authoring and semantic annotation client-side application, which decouples itself from data and specific server requirements. Architectural Overview Decentralised read-write environments make it possible for different actors (e.g., authors, reviewers) to have their own personal online storages where they can: manage their data; have socially-aware access controls on the data (e.g., who gets to see and update what); send notifications based on their interactions; and permit different applications to operate on the data, including moving the data from one server to another seamlessly. Figure 1 depicts the contrast between typical centralised and decentralised architectures. dokieli as a client-side application can be deployed on a single-page or through a browser extension, which can consume and interact with Linked Data anywhere on the Web. We consider an HTML document with embedded JavaScript as the default UI of a document. It is independent from specific server-side software, proprietary APIs or the requirement to have an account. On the other hand, if desired and available, users can participate using their own profiles (WebIDs) located anywhere on the Web, and get to store and make their annotations in their own personal storage, as well as assign access controls to documents. Similarly, a decentralised communications protocol, Linked Data Notifications (W3C Proposed Recommendation ), is used get past the limits of centralisation by enabling communication to happen across independent servers. Figure 2 depicts relations between the kinds of entities which underly dokieli's architecture, where nodes are under different domains and authority. Fig. 2. Typical centralised and decentralised architectures dokieli is self-replicating, in that the reader of a dokieli document can spawn an instance-either a copy or a brand new empty document-into their own storage space at the click of a button. Creating Documents Documents use HTML5 Polyglot Markup to ensure that when served as (X)HTML respectively, they can be processed as either HTML or XML, which is useful in XML ecosystems and toolchains. Semantics is embedded directly into human-visible prose using RDFa. The machine-readable data is thus kept in context, reusing the article's text as literal object values, and avoiding data duplication or data 'islands', which can occur when other RDF serialisations are included within HTML <script> elements. The appearance of documents is determined with CSS3. Different stylesheets can be applied to the same HTML structure so that a document can be presented flexibly, in the most appropriate way for a particular circumstance. Stylesheets can be switched from either dokieli's menu or through Web browsers with native controls, for example from a two-column layout required by an academic journal to a design in keeping with the author's blog. When JavaScript is enabled, dokieli provides a rich editing interface which includes visual and structural formatting of text as well as embedding machinereadable semantics, media, dynamic citations, and inclusion of statistical charts from live endpoints. An external personal data store, or even internet connection, are not needed at this stage as modifications to a document made in the browser this way can be persisted to a local filesystem using the dokieli menu export function (or the browser's save as). Consuming Documents Documents can be retrieved from Web servers with a single HTTP GET request, by either a browser (for human-readable HTML) or script (machine-readable RDF). Through the use of progressive enhancement, document contents are available in text-only browsers, and further functionality of CSS and JavaScript are layered on according to the user agent's abilities. dokieli's approach to marking human-visible content in RDFa makes it possible to further decouple itself, the application that produced the data, from the data itself, facilitating potential reuse of the data by other applications. A dokieli document can be parsed into a graph, and users can use any other RDF-aware application with the data that was generated by dokieli. Thereby, dokieli can effectively remove itself as a dependency when it comes to data consumption and reuse. dokieli is able to authenticate users via WebID-TLS if they provide a WebID. This enables further functionality: the user can use dokieli to access protected resources and write to non-public data storage containers if their WebID is authorised to do so. For authenticated users leaving annotations on other documents dokieli fetches their name and display picture from their online profile if available, to display alongside their comment. dokieli uses the following vocabularies as standard: schema.org to describe the general-purpose relations about the document as well as profiles, the SPAR Ontologies for scholarly articles and referencing, Web Annotations for annotations (with motivations e.g., replying, bookmarking, commenting, assessments), LDP for personal storage management, WebAccessControl /ACL for access control, LDN Inbox and ActivityStreams for social notifications, Creative Commons for rights and licensing, PROV Ontology for provenance, and the RDF Data Cube vocabulary to consume multi-dimensional data from SPARQL endpoints. Authors can optionally include other vocabularies to mark up specific concepts through dokieli's UI. Publishing Documents Documents can of course be published on ordinary Web servers, as ordinary Web pages. The next layer of enhancement is for authors who wish to edit documents on a Web server directly rather than locally; they can make use of dokieli's write operations. This uses JavaScript, and moves the burden of processing user input from servers (i.e., offering HTML forms and processing of the form submission) to the client. In essence, the expectation is that dokieli should be a "smart client". dokieli implements the Linked Data Platform (LDP) protocol for creating, updating and deleting documents. As such, personal data stores or servers which implement the server portion of the protocol can be used to store and edit dokieli documents directly. An HTTP PUT request to a URL is used to create a new document, to clone an existing one with save as, to save changes, and so that readers of a document can create their own document in reply. All of these operations are available through the dokieli menu. Social Interactions and Annotations Interactions with a document take the form of: a comment or (dis)like about the document as a whole, or an comment or (dis)like of a selection of text, i.e. an annotation. In both cases, the dokieli menu presents an input to the commenter, and then, adding additional semantic markup where necessary, sends the data off for appropriate storage so it can be retrieved and re-displayed on future document loads. Document authors can point to a storage service (using the Web Annotations annotationService property) which lets readers without their own personal storage comment nonetheless. Readers who have a preferred storage location against which they can authenticate are able to direct dokieli to store their input there instead (or in addition). Conforming to LDP, dokieli allows users to remove their annotations with an HTTP DELETE operation. In this way, dokieli does not impose a centralised mechanism for social interactions, and allows users to effectively 'own' their comments, annotations, and reviews, in their own space. Notifications When readers interact with a document, the author is notified by means of the Linked Data Notifications (LDN) protocol. A notification, composed of the data from the interaction or annotation, is sent to the inbox advertised by the document or arbitrary parts, thereof. This inbox may be on the same server as the document itself, or may be elsewhere. dokieli subsequently reads this inbox to display interactions and annotations on the document. As the author of the document has control of the inbox, they can remove notifications for interactions they find inappropriate, without needing to worry about their inability to access the original source of the interaction. Conversely, annotators do not lose control or authority over their contributions, even if the object of their interaction wishes to disassociate itself. Each contributor retains their own respective rights over the entities they create on the Web. Components dokieli's components include data (for structure and semantics), stylesheets (for presentation) and scripts (for interaction). All data (articles, annotations, notifications) are represented in HTML and RDF with vocabularies expressing the underlying content, resources are self-descriptive to increase their reuse, and contain relations to related external resources to foster follow-your-nose type of exploration. Several stylesheets provide alternative views for consumption (e.g., stylesheets for different media: screens, print, slideshow). dokieli's JavaScript includes: a library for editing (MediumEditor ) in its authoring environment; features to fetch and display statistical data from SPARQL endpoints (Sparqlines ); retrieval of profile information, as well as means to sign in with WebID Authentication over TLS ; functionality for write-operations, which includes checking authorisation against access-control level settings on the server with the authenticated user's WebID and personal certificate; creation and consumption of Web Annotations and Linked Data Notifications; and fetching information from remote articles when adding a citation. The scope of dokieli includes documents and the interactions around them. The creation and maintenance of user profiles, personal storage spaces, and access control rules are not managed by dokieli; since they are all standard mechanisms, users are expected to be able to accomplish this using other specialised applications. Deployment dokieli employs two complementary deployment approaches: single-page application and Web browser extension. dokieli's presentational and behavioural code layers can be included in Web pages in order to trigger them as active single-page applications. It is a smart client that allows different kinds of articles e.g., academic, blog posts, news, to be authored and annotated from within Web browsers, without necessarily having them deployed from a server, i.e., it can be used offline or on localhost. dokieli internally handles its content and well-formed structural and semantic representation based on user's interactivity. Articles, profiles and their contact information, notifications, annotations with different motivations, for instance, can be read and written ubiquitously to any Web space with standard LDP and access control mechanisms. The Web browser extension is a thin wrapper around dokieli's core code in order to embed itself in any HTML-based Web page on the Web. It inherits all of the features of a single-page application. While HTML based documents on the Web vary in their quality, dokieli's write operations generate well-formed HTML+RDFa. One of the primary utilities for the extension is to have a consistent interface for annotating (comment, bookmark, like) any text selection on a Web page, as well as sharing parts of pages with ones contacts via notifications, without having a service dependency or being limited by the Web page's UI. Interactions Screencasts for the following use-cases showcase dokieli's social features where users interact by creating and sharing information are at https://dokie.li/. Annotations: A core feature to facilitate collaboration is the possibility to annotate arbitrary parts of a Web document. Users can select an entity or a span of text of interest, a context menu is presented to input their annotations along with the choice to select a license for their contribution. If the user is signed-in with their WebID, and provided they have a personal storage space, dokieli discovers this through their online profile and saves the annotations to that location. Once the annotation is submitted by the user, dokieli proceeds with three operations: the annotation is requested to be saved at the user's personal storage, and if it is access controlled, the user will be prompted to authenticate themselves against that server, before the annotation is saved and is assigned its own URL, if the article or any identifiable statement or segment has its own inbox, dokieli sends a notification to the inbox indicating that an annotation was made and with its retrievable location, and accompanying metadata like creator, date, license, etc., the annotation is fetched from its canonical location, and integrated into the article e.g., in marginalia. If the article has a reference to a public annotation service (a writeable space adhering to the Web Annotation Protocol ), the user has the option to send a copy of the annotation there as well. In cases where the user does not want to have the canonical copy of the annotation on their server, or if a user does not have write access to a storage, they can use this option to engage with the article (Figs. 3 and 4). Social Sharing: A key aspect of the Social Web is sharing with others. After (optionally) authenticating with a WebID, dokieli documents can be shared with contacts, which are discovered from the user's WebID profile. Contacts whose profiles advertise an LDN Inbox will receive a notification of the share. The notification contains Activity Streams 2.0 vocabulary terms, and recipients can Inline Citations: Rich semantic links can also be established between dokieli documents themselves. The author selects a text fragment and inserts the URL of the document to be linked to as well as a semantic link type (e.g. "agrees with", "confirms", "cites as evidence") from the CiTO and schema.org ontologies. dokieli automatically retrieves metadata (e.g. title, authors) from the linked document and adds a proper scientific endnote reference. If the linked document advertises a standard LDN Inbox, a notification of the citation is sent as well, thus allowing bi-directional linking (Figs. 5 and 6). Statistical Data and Diagrams: Embedding dynamically generated diagrams and charts is possible: after selecting text, the dokieli context menu offers results of a search across registered SPARQL endpoints for the keywords in the selected text, and presents a list of available data series to visualise. The result is an inline sparkline diagram. Adoption The W3C Working Group Note Embedding Web Annotations in HTML includes examples from dokieli's use of the Web Annotation data Model and Vocabulary with motivations for example for "Lightweight, decentralised Annotation Tools". The Linked Data Notifications specifications use dokieli's HTML+RDFa template, and the Editor's Draft showcase dokieli as a consumer of LDN and Web Annotations. The LDN tests suite also uses dokieli's templates and stylesheets. The academic workshop SemStats series use dokieli in its Website templates, including the call for contributions. CEUR-WS.org, an "Online Proceedings for Scientific Conferences and Workshops" offers the ceur-make tool to help organisers generate proceedings using dokieli's HTML+RDFa template. We list a community (of academics) who self-publish their articles and thesis using dokieli with different stylesheets and derived scripts under its examples in the wild. The conference series: WWW e.g., LDOW, WOW, ISWC, and ESWC propose dokieli as one tooling in which authors can use to for their contributions. https://linkedresearch.org/ uses dokieli in its templates on the site as well as workshop proposals and call for contributions. http://csarven.ca/ uses dokieli in full, where some articles (like this article) offer pointers to a public annotation service which users may wish to use for their annotations. Articles also dynamically embed annotations from personal storage spaces. Conclusions The Web's design stands out because of its absence of centralised control, both for technical reasons of scalability and resilience as well as a societal need for freedom of expression. A challenge in such large-scale decentralised networks is how related publications can be semantically interlinked, even if they are authored and published by different parties. Centralising their publications is practiced by the majority of authoring networks today, demanding authors to give up some or all of their control in exchange for technical simplicity. dokieli shows it is possible to build a social machine wherein people interact with each other without the need of centralised coordination. Users can choose storage space for their content independently of the applications with which they edit and view that content. Documents are connected statically through links and dynamically through Linked Data Notifications. This is a proof for the viability of a decentralised authoring and annotation environment built with Web standards. On the other hand, dokieli's use of standards shows that dokieli itself is only one means to an end: once the document has been created, it lives on as an independent Web citizen. The social machine consists of people and documents, connected by Web standards, with dokieli acting as just one possible catalyst. Different Web applications can incorporate any of dokieli's functions and implement the principles to varying extents. Since the data is loosely coupled to the application, we avoid the walled garden problem of many current social platforms today. A couple of important socio-technical challenges remain. Resources might want to indicate in a granular way which actions they support or encourage, such as liking, bookmarking, or sharing, and perhaps conditions about which notifications should be sent when any of these events take place. In order to encourage positive behaviour, we might want ways to provide moderation, and solutions to prevent harassment and abuse. Closely related is the issue of identity, pseudonymity and anonymity, and its relation with trust and verification. While there is likely no final solution to these issues in an open ecosystem, it is worthwhile exploring within dokieli or other tools. Future work can examine how additional features can be realised on top of existing Web standards, or where more development is required. Real-time collaborative editing is often realised with centralised communication (even though some p2p alternatives exist). Services like top-down annotations or automated entity marking can improve the discoverability of a publication, yet the question of how to offer these without being tied to certain servers needs to be still solved. We invite you to try dokieli yourself. Annotate this article or spawn a new or a copy that you can edit yourself at http://csarven.ca/dokieli-rww. |
<gh_stars>1-10
// Copyright 2018 PingCAP, Inc.
//
// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
// You may obtain a copy of the License at
//
// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
//
// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
// limitations under the License.
package handle_test
import (
"math"
"time"
. "github.com/pingcap/check"
"github.com/pingcap/tidb/sessionctx/variable"
"github.com/pingcap/tidb/util/testkit"
)
func (s *testStatsSuite) TestGCStats(c *C) {
defer cleanEnv(c, s.store, s.do)
testKit := testkit.NewTestKit(c, s.store)
testKit.MustExec("use test")
testKit.MustExec("create table t(a int, b int, index idx(a, b), index idx_a(a))")
testKit.MustExec("insert into t values (1,1),(2,2),(3,3)")
testKit.MustExec("analyze table t")
testKit.MustExec("alter table t drop index idx")
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_histograms").Check(testkit.Rows("4"))
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_buckets").Check(testkit.Rows("12"))
h := s.do.StatsHandle()
h.SetLastUpdateVersion(math.MaxUint64)
ddlLease := time.Duration(0)
c.Assert(h.GCStats(s.do.InfoSchema(), ddlLease), IsNil)
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_histograms").Check(testkit.Rows("3"))
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_buckets").Check(testkit.Rows("9"))
testKit.MustExec("alter table t drop index idx_a")
testKit.MustExec("alter table t drop column a")
c.Assert(h.GCStats(s.do.InfoSchema(), ddlLease), IsNil)
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_histograms").Check(testkit.Rows("1"))
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_buckets").Check(testkit.Rows("3"))
testKit.MustExec("drop table t")
c.Assert(h.GCStats(s.do.InfoSchema(), ddlLease), IsNil)
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_meta").Check(testkit.Rows("1"))
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_histograms").Check(testkit.Rows("0"))
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_buckets").Check(testkit.Rows("0"))
c.Assert(h.GCStats(s.do.InfoSchema(), ddlLease), IsNil)
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_meta").Check(testkit.Rows("0"))
}
func (s *testStatsSuite) TestGCPartition(c *C) {
defer cleanEnv(c, s.store, s.do)
testKit := testkit.NewTestKit(c, s.store)
testkit.WithPruneMode(testKit, variable.StaticOnly, func() {
testKit.MustExec("use test")
testKit.MustExec("set @@session.tidb_enable_table_partition=1")
testKit.MustExec(`create table t (a bigint(64), b bigint(64), index idx(a, b))
partition by range (a) (
partition p0 values less than (3),
partition p1 values less than (6))`)
testKit.MustExec("insert into t values (1,2),(2,3),(3,4),(4,5),(5,6)")
testKit.MustExec("analyze table t")
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_histograms").Check(testkit.Rows("6"))
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_buckets").Check(testkit.Rows("15"))
h := s.do.StatsHandle()
h.SetLastUpdateVersion(math.MaxUint64)
ddlLease := time.Duration(0)
testKit.MustExec("alter table t drop index idx")
c.Assert(h.GCStats(s.do.InfoSchema(), ddlLease), IsNil)
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_histograms").Check(testkit.Rows("4"))
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_buckets").Check(testkit.Rows("10"))
testKit.MustExec("alter table t drop column b")
c.Assert(h.GCStats(s.do.InfoSchema(), ddlLease), IsNil)
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_histograms").Check(testkit.Rows("2"))
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_buckets").Check(testkit.Rows("5"))
testKit.MustExec("drop table t")
c.Assert(h.GCStats(s.do.InfoSchema(), ddlLease), IsNil)
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_meta").Check(testkit.Rows("2"))
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_histograms").Check(testkit.Rows("0"))
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_buckets").Check(testkit.Rows("0"))
c.Assert(h.GCStats(s.do.InfoSchema(), ddlLease), IsNil)
testKit.MustQuery("select count(*) from mysql.stats_meta").Check(testkit.Rows("0"))
})
}
func (s *testStatsSuite) TestGCExtendedStats(c *C) {
defer cleanEnv(c, s.store, s.do)
testKit := testkit.NewTestKit(c, s.store)
testKit.MustExec("set session tidb_enable_extended_stats = on")
testKit.MustExec("use test")
testKit.MustExec("create table t(a int, b int, c int)")
testKit.MustExec("insert into t values (1,1,1),(2,2,2),(3,3,3)")
testKit.MustExec("create statistics s1(correlation) on t(a,b)")
testKit.MustExec("create statistics s2(correlation) on t(b,c)")
testKit.MustExec("analyze table t")
testKit.MustQuery("select name, type, column_ids, stats, status from mysql.stats_extended").Sort().Check(testkit.Rows(
"s1 2 [1,2] 1.000000 1",
"s2 2 [2,3] 1.000000 1",
))
testKit.MustExec("alter table t drop column a")
testKit.MustQuery("select name, type, column_ids, stats, status from mysql.stats_extended").Sort().Check(testkit.Rows(
"s1 2 [1,2] 1.000000 1",
"s2 2 [2,3] 1.000000 1",
))
h := s.do.StatsHandle()
h.SetLastUpdateVersion(math.MaxUint64)
ddlLease := time.Duration(0)
c.Assert(h.GCStats(s.do.InfoSchema(), ddlLease), IsNil)
testKit.MustQuery("select name, type, column_ids, stats, status from mysql.stats_extended").Check(testkit.Rows(
"s2 2 [2,3] 1.000000 1",
))
testKit.MustExec("drop table t")
testKit.MustQuery("select name, type, column_ids, stats, status from mysql.stats_extended").Check(testkit.Rows(
"s2 2 [2,3] 1.000000 1",
))
c.Assert(h.GCStats(s.do.InfoSchema(), ddlLease), IsNil)
testKit.MustQuery("select name, type, column_ids, stats, status from mysql.stats_extended").Check(testkit.Rows())
}
|
A Theoretical Model of Thermal Conductivity for Multilayer Nitride-based Nanosystems A new generalized analytical theoretical model of thermal conductivity for multilayer nanostructures based on nitride semiconductors is proposed. The developed theory qualitatively complements and generalizes the investigations, the results of which were performed for one- or two-layer nanostructures. The theory has its mathematical basis for the application of another type of boundary conditions for the components of the phonon field and components of the stress tensor. The obtained results can be performed to describe the processes associated with the theoretical conductivity of nanostructures with an arbitrary number of layers in them. The proposed theoretical investigations are applied to the calculation of the thermal conductivity of experimentally created nanostructures. |
With all the hype and chatter about the next iPhone to come out of the Apple camp, whether the iOS smartphone is known as the new iPhone, or the iPhone 5 or something else, perhaps the iPhone Pro with a mount of its rear that can support numerous accessories including DSLR lenses might be what the next iPhone needs.
Spec wise, the iPhone Pro offers a 4.5-inch 1280 x 800 pixel touch screen along with a 1.2 megapixel 3D camera that can hook up to a DSLR lens, quad core A6 processor, and all stuffed into a 9.6mm thick iPhone housing, and such accessories as a portable speaker, projector and removable hard disk.
As for that special port in the back of the iPhone Pro, well apparently it can just about connect to anything.
However there is of course just one small problem with the iPhone Pro, and that is the device is a concept phone brought to our attention by the guys over at Concept Phones, and by way of Yanko Design.
Thus as the iPhone Pro is a concept designed by Jinyoung Choi, we’ll no doubt never see the iPhone Pro become a reality in the smartphone space. However I am sure that there would be a call for the iPhone Pro, especially from photographers that would love to make use of that DSLR mount.
So perhaps there is a need for the iPhone Pro to be the iPhone 5, and who knows, Apple just might take a few tips from the iPhone Pro concept when it comes to a 4.5-inch display and DSLR mount, anything is possible.
Wow, I love it, this should be the next iPhone! |
From baby boomer to millennials: the changing flavor of entrepreneurial traits Learning outcomes The learning outcomes are as follows: decision-making in the areas of business plan, business strategy, financial management, profit planning and marketing, learning from outer business environment, succession planning for first-generation entrepreneur and choosing appropriate source of financing and drivers for diversification. Case overview/synopsis Immersed in sipping green tea in his capacious office lounge, the octogenarian Arjun Mehta introspected on the trials and tribulations of his journey as an entrepreneur, the voyage which started four decades ago. From 1976 to 2018, the business has now traversed three generations. Starting with Spice Mart (Sole Proprietor) to Hindware and Lament Construction (partnership firms) to Starlite Homes Pvt. Ltd. (corporate entity), Mr Mehta witnessed transformation and restructuring in organization with every new generation which characterized the evolution of family business. Handholding children to take up the reins of Spice Mart was not a calculated choice. Yet it is remarkable to study the growth in organizational structure of the regional family business. As a self-made entrepreneur, morals, ethics and value system are vital ingredients steering the organic growth story. Third-generation Mehtas are enterprising, aspiring and visionary. With the incorporation of a corporate entity, they convinced themselves to bring inorganic growth in their business. Arjun Mehta gleamed with pride as Spice Mart partakes an organized structure which had lost prominence with the second-generation entrepreneurs. But he is equally hammered with juxtaposed thoughts. He contemplates whether the integration of retail business with real estate corroborates sustainable innovation. Will independent businesses create the brands footprints perpetually? Should the millennial confine business natively or should they grow internationally and become a conglomerate? Complexity academic level The case can be exclusively taught to masters and executive education class of students pursuing entrepreneurship and business management courses. The case will supplement understanding of theories of entrepreneurship and dimensions of family businesses in emerging economies. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email [email protected] to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS 3: Entrepreneurship. |
package com.example.myapplication;
import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.text.TextUtils;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.EditText;
public class Fiir extends AppCompatActivity {
Button navigate;
EditText nameOfPerson;
EditText emailOfPerson;
EditText crimeOfPerson;
EditText culpitOfPerson;
EditText culpritDetails;
EditText phoneNumber;
EditText yourAddress;
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_fiir);
navigate = findViewById(R.id.nextPageTO);
nameOfPerson = findViewById(R.id.nameOfPerson);
emailOfPerson = findViewById(R.id.emailOfPerson);
crimeOfPerson = findViewById(R.id.crimeOfPerson);
culpitOfPerson = findViewById(R.id.culpitOfPerson);
culpritDetails = findViewById(R.id.culpritDetails);
phoneNumber = findViewById(R.id.phoneNumber);
yourAddress = findViewById(R.id.yourAddress);
navigate.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(View v) {
String nameOfPe = nameOfPerson.getText().toString().trim();
String emailOfPe = emailOfPerson.getText().toString().trim();
String crimeOfPe = crimeOfPerson.getText().toString().trim();
String culpitOfPe = culpitOfPerson.getText().toString().trim();
String culpritDe = culpritDetails.getText().toString().trim();
String phoneNu = phoneNumber.getText().toString().trim();
String address = yourAddress.getText().toString().trim();
if (TextUtils.isEmpty(nameOfPe))
{
nameOfPerson.setError("Name is Required");
return;
}
if (TextUtils.isEmpty(crimeOfPe))
{
crimeOfPerson.setError("Add the Crime is Required");
return;
}
if (TextUtils.isEmpty(phoneNu) && phoneNu.length()!=10)
{
phoneNumber.setError("Add your phone number");
return;
}
if (TextUtils.isEmpty(address))
{
phoneNumber.setError("Add your Address");
return;
}
Intent i = new Intent(Fiir.this,FirPage2.class);
i.putExtra("nameOfPerson",nameOfPe);
i.putExtra("emailOfPerson",emailOfPe);
i.putExtra("crimeOfPerson",crimeOfPe);
i.putExtra("culpitOfPerson",culpitOfPe);
i.putExtra("culpritDetails",culpritDe);
i.putExtra("phoneNumber",phoneNu);
i.putExtra("phoneNumber",address);
startActivity(i);
}
});
}
} |
<gh_stars>100-1000
from claf.data.dto.batch import Batch
from claf.data.dto.bert_feature import BertFeature
from claf.data.dto.helper import Helper
# fmt: off
__all__ = [
"Batch",
"BertFeature",
"Helper",
]
# fmt: on
|
def start(self, detach_process=True):
if detach_process:
try:
with open(self.pidfile, "rb") as f:
self.pid = int(f.read().strip())
except IOError:
self.pid = None
except SystemExit:
self.pid = None
except ValueError:
self.pid = None
if self.pid:
msg = ("pidfile {0} already exists. The daemon is already "
"running?".format(self.pidfile))
self._report(msg, logging.CRITICAL)
raise UtilDaemonError(msg)
self.daemonize()
return self.run() |
/***************************************************************************
qgsmaptoolreshape.cpp
---------------------------
begin : Juli 2009
copyright : (C) 2009 by <NAME>
email : <EMAIL> dot <EMAIL>entobler at karto dot baug dot ethz dot ch
***************************************************************************
* *
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify *
* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by *
* the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or *
* (at your option) any later version. *
* *
***************************************************************************/
#include "qgsmaptoolreshape.h"
#include "qgsfeatureiterator.h"
#include "qgsgeometry.h"
#include "qgslinestring.h"
#include "qgsmapcanvas.h"
#include "qgsproject.h"
#include "qgsvectorlayer.h"
#include "qgisapp.h"
#include "qgsmapmouseevent.h"
QgsMapToolReshape::QgsMapToolReshape( QgsMapCanvas *canvas )
: QgsMapToolCapture( canvas, QgisApp::instance()->cadDockWidget(), QgsMapToolCapture::CaptureLine )
{
}
void QgsMapToolReshape::cadCanvasReleaseEvent( QgsMapMouseEvent *e )
{
//check if we operate on a vector layer //todo: move this to a function in parent class to avoid duplication
QgsVectorLayer *vlayer = qobject_cast<QgsVectorLayer *>( mCanvas->currentLayer() );
if ( !vlayer )
{
notifyNotVectorLayer();
return;
}
if ( !vlayer->isEditable() )
{
notifyNotEditableLayer();
return;
}
//add point to list and to rubber band
if ( e->button() == Qt::LeftButton )
{
int error = addVertex( e->mapPoint(), e->mapPointMatch() );
if ( error == 1 )
{
//current layer is not a vector layer
return;
}
else if ( error == 2 )
{
//problem with coordinate transformation
emit messageEmitted( tr( "Cannot transform the point to the layers coordinate system" ), Qgis::Warning );
return;
}
startCapturing();
}
else if ( e->button() == Qt::RightButton )
{
deleteTempRubberBand();
//find out bounding box of mCaptureList
if ( size() < 1 )
{
stopCapturing();
return;
}
reshape( vlayer );
stopCapturing();
}
}
bool QgsMapToolReshape::isBindingLine( QgsVectorLayer *vlayer, const QgsRectangle &bbox ) const
{
if ( vlayer->geometryType() != QgsWkbTypes::LineGeometry )
return false;
bool begin = false;
bool end = false;
const QgsPointXY beginPoint = points().first();
const QgsPointXY endPoint = points().last();
QgsFeatureIterator fit = vlayer->getFeatures( QgsFeatureRequest().setFilterRect( bbox ).setNoAttributes() );
QgsFeature f;
// check that extremities of the new line are contained by features
while ( fit.nextFeature( f ) )
{
const QgsGeometry geom = f.geometry();
if ( !geom.isNull() )
{
const QgsPolylineXY line = geom.asPolyline();
if ( line.contains( beginPoint ) )
begin = true;
else if ( line.contains( endPoint ) )
end = true;
}
}
return end && begin;
}
void QgsMapToolReshape::reshape( QgsVectorLayer *vlayer )
{
QgsPointXY firstPoint = points().at( 0 );
QgsRectangle bbox( firstPoint.x(), firstPoint.y(), firstPoint.x(), firstPoint.y() );
for ( int i = 1; i < size(); ++i )
{
bbox.combineExtentWith( points().at( i ).x(), points().at( i ).y() );
}
QgsLineString reshapeLineString( points() );
if ( QgsWkbTypes::hasZ( vlayer->wkbType() ) )
reshapeLineString.addZValue( defaultZValue() );
//query all the features that intersect bounding box of capture line
QgsFeatureIterator fit = vlayer->getFeatures( QgsFeatureRequest().setFilterRect( bbox ).setNoAttributes() );
QgsFeature f;
int reshapeReturn;
bool reshapeDone = false;
bool isBinding = isBindingLine( vlayer, bbox );
vlayer->beginEditCommand( tr( "Reshape" ) );
while ( fit.nextFeature( f ) )
{
//query geometry
//call geometry->reshape(mCaptureList)
//register changed geometry in vector layer
QgsGeometry geom = f.geometry();
if ( !geom.isNull() )
{
// in case of a binding line, we just want to update the line from
// the starting point and not both side
if ( isBinding && !geom.asPolyline().contains( points().first() ) )
continue;
reshapeReturn = geom.reshapeGeometry( reshapeLineString );
if ( reshapeReturn == 0 )
{
//avoid intersections on polygon layers
if ( vlayer->geometryType() == QgsWkbTypes::PolygonGeometry )
{
//ignore all current layer features as they should be reshaped too
QHash<QgsVectorLayer *, QSet<QgsFeatureId> > ignoreFeatures;
ignoreFeatures.insert( vlayer, vlayer->allFeatureIds() );
if ( geom.avoidIntersections( QgsProject::instance()->avoidIntersectionsLayers(), ignoreFeatures ) != 0 )
{
emit messageEmitted( tr( "An error was reported during intersection removal" ), Qgis::Critical );
vlayer->destroyEditCommand();
stopCapturing();
return;
}
if ( geom.isEmpty() ) //intersection removal might have removed the whole geometry
{
emit messageEmitted( tr( "The feature cannot be reshaped because the resulting geometry is empty" ), Qgis::Critical );
vlayer->destroyEditCommand();
return;
}
}
vlayer->changeGeometry( f.id(), geom );
reshapeDone = true;
}
}
}
if ( reshapeDone )
{
vlayer->endEditCommand();
}
else
{
vlayer->destroyEditCommand();
}
}
|
The conflict between The GNOME Foundation and Groupon erupted today when it was revealed that the GNOME trademark was being disputed by both parties. Now, it looks like Groupon is taking a step back and recognizing the impact of what it's doing.
Update [November 11, 2014, later]: Groupon is abandoning the Gnome name for its tablet and it has made an official announcement.
"After additional conversations with the open source community and the Gnome Foundation, we have decided to abandon our pending trademark applications for 'Gnome'. We will choose a new name for our product going forward."
The GNOME Foundation showed today that it was in legal battle with Groupon over the GNOME trademark, which has belonged to the former since 2006. This multi-billion dollar company is working on a tablet software for merchants and businesses that has the Gnome name, but the problem is that it's already trademarked. Some consultations took place between the two entities, but Groupon chose to file for its own trademarks and not deal with the actual owner.
The trademarks are a problematic issue, especially if you are a non-profit organization that has to defend its property against a much bigger company that has all the resources behind it. The foundation is now looking for money to help it in the legal battle and it's had great support from the community. It was initially looking for $80,000 (€65,000) until December 3, 2014, but it has already managed to get 25% of that sum in the first day alone.
Groupon might be backing down
The blowback from the Linux community has been tremendous and Groupon's representatives must have realized that this entire discussion is not doing them any favors, and from the looks of it, they could be taking a step back.
"There is some recent confusion around Groupon’s intended use of a product name that the Gnome Foundation believes infringes on their trademarks."
"We love open source at Groupon. We have open sourced a number of projects on Groupon github. Our relationship with the open source community is more important to us than a product name. We’ve been communicating with the Gnome Foundation for months to try to come to a mutually satisfactory resolution, including alternative branding options, and we’re happy to continue those conversations. And if we can’t come up with a resolution, we’ll be glad to look for another name," says Sri Viswanath, senior vice president of Engineering and Operations for Groupon.
We've been in touch with The GNOME Foundation and it has not issued any statements regarding Groupon's new position, but it is overwhelmed by the support shown, not just in terms of funds raised.
For now, the entire legal situation is still unclear. Groupon may be showing signs that it is considering changing the name, but it should also withdraw the trademark applications to demonstrate that it is serious. Until then, users should still presume that this is going to court and that things will get messy. |
A Generic Agent Framework to Support the Various Software Project Management Processes Introduction Software Project Management (SPM) has become a critical task in many organisations. Managing software projects is a complex task, further complicated by a continued increase in the size and complexity of the software-intensive system. In the 1980's SPM methodologies primarily focused on providing schedule and resource data to management (Schwalbe, 2006.) However, present-day SPM activities involve much more. With the advent of the Internet, improvement of computer hardware, software, and networks, global interdisciplinary work teams have changed the working environment addressed by SPM. Global networking capabilities have become more pervasive with the result that cost effective computing resources will continue to play a major role in improving organisational operations. SPM involves the management of all issues involved in the development of a software project, namely scope and objective identification, evaluation, planning, project development approaches, software effort and cost estimation, activity planning, monitoring and control, risk management, resource allocation and control, as well as managing contracts, teams of people and quality. Since publication of the 1995 report of The Standish Group, this same organisation studied 13,522 projects in a follow-up survey, aptly dubbed EXTREME CHAOS (The Standish Group, 2000). This study determined that 23 percent of the surveyed projects failed, 49 percent did not meet the requirements and only 28 percent succeeded. In March 2003 the group reports that success rates increased to a third of all projects, but time overruns increased to the 82nd percentile, whilst only 52 percent of required and specified functions and features were included in the final product (The Standish Group, 2003). Many software projects still failed to comply with the triple constraints of scope, time and cost (Oghma: Open Source, 2003). These triple constraints refer to the fact that the failure of software projects can mostly be attributed to projects not delivered on time and that it does not meet the expectations of the client (scope), and as a result have cost overrun implications. As previously mentioned, the SPM environment is continuously changing due to globalisation and advances in computing technology. This implies that the traditional single project, commonly executed at a single location, has evolved into distributed, collaborative projects. The focus in SPM processes has clearly shifted from the position that it held two decades ago. Consequently, the size, complexity and strategic importance of information systems currently being developed require stringent measures to ensure that software projects do not fail. As organisations continue to invest time and resources in strategically important software projects, managing the risk associated with the project becomes a critical area of concern. Software agent technology offers a promising solution in order to address SPM problems in a distributed environment. According to this technology, software agents are used to support the development of SPM systems in which data, control, expertise, or resources are distributed. Software agent technology provides a natural metaphor for support in a distributed team environment, where software agents can support the project manager and team members to monitor and coordinate tasks, apply quality control measures, validation and verification, as well as change control. Agent technology has distinct advantages over client/server technology as distributed system instantiation. SPM skills, especially in the distributed computing environment, are greatly in demand. Moreover, there is a need for technologies and systems to support management of related aspects of software projects in such environments. Our research is therefore aimed at software practitioners and software developers, but will also be beneficial to researchers working in the field of SPM. |
"Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract."
Remember this classic line from Michael Corleone in The Godfather?
This is essentially what labor unions are doing in Nevada to help re-elect President Obama.
Culinary Workers Union Local 226 appears to be committing voter registration fraud by hoodwinking noncitizen immigrants into registering to vote and then threatening them if they fail to cast their ill-gotten ballots illegally. People who have been lawfully admitted to permanent residence in the United States, that is, permanent residents or green card holders, do not have the right to vote in elections.
Glenn Cook of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that union members who barely speak English were made to sign voter registration forms without understanding what they were signing.
Union goons then visited those members to press them to vote. When they failed to vote, union officials kept visiting and ramping up the pressure.
"One of the immigrants was visited at home by a Culinary representative and said the operative made threats of deportation if no ballot was cast," according to Cook.
Cook writes that the immigrants, who refused to be identified in print, said they're afraid of losing their jobs and being prosecuted for signing a government document that says at the bottom, "I swear or affirm I am a U.S. citizen. I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct."
Of course all of this had to be happening in Nevada, a heavily-unionized state plagued by voter fraud.
It was in Nevada that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was convicted last year in a massive voter registration fraud conspiracy.
Former senior ACORN executive Amy Adele Busefink was also convicted alongside ACORN. She appealed her conviction on constitutional grounds and was rebuffed last month by the Nevada Supreme Court.
While under indictment in Nevada, Busefink ran ACORN and Project Vote's disastrous 2008 national voter drive. In that drive election officials invalidated 400,000 of the 1.1 million voter registration packages submitted.
Busefink now works for Project Vote, the ACORN affiliate that employed President Obama in 1992.
In fact, Busefink is running the left-wing group's national 2012 voter drive.
Matthew Vadum is an investigative reporter in Washington, D.C. His book on ACORN and President Obama, Subversion Inc., was published last year. |
Planning for health equity in the Americas: an analysis of national health plans ABSTRACT There is growing recognition that health and well-being improvements have not been shared across populations in the Americas. This article analyzes 32 national health sector policies, strategies, and plans across 10 different areas of health equity to understand, from one perspective, how equity is being addressed in the region. It finds significant variation in the substance and structure of how the health plans handle the issue. Nearly all countries explicitly include health equity as a clear goal, and most address the social determinants of health. Participatory processes documented in the development of these plans range from none to extensive and robust. Substantive equity-focused policies, such as those to improve physical accessibility of health care and increase affordable access to medicines, are included in many plans, though no country includes all aspects examined. Countries identify marginalized populations in their plans, though only a quarter specifically identify Afro-descendants and more than half do not address Indigenous people, including countries with large Indigenous populations. Four include attention to migrants. Despite health equity goals and data on baseline inequities, fewer than half of countries include time-bound targets on reducing absolute or relative health inequalities. Clear accountability mechanisms such as education, reporting, or rights-enforcement mechanisms in plans are rare. The nearly unanimous commitment across countries of the Americas to equity in health provides an important opportunity. Learning from the most robust equity-focused plans could provide a road map for efforts to translate broad goals into time-bound targets and eventually to increasing equity. There is a growing recognition that improvements in health and well-being have not been shared across populations. Among world regions, the Americas have a disproportionate share of highly unequal contexts, as measured in terms of income inequality, access to health care, and well-being. Empirical evidence suggests a central role for public policy in producing or shifting the drivers of inequity. There is also some evidence that targeted national policies have improved disparities in access and use of health services in the Americas. However, there is little agreement on whether good policy planning or effective programming is responsible for the documented advances. Recent assessments of health equity in policy have treated proper planning for equity and the execution of pro-equity interventions together as a single activity, while others argue that proper agenda-setting without implementation can actually widen health inequalities. Still others posit that the formulation of sound, evidence-based health policy is a requirement for the achievement of health equity. A strong conceptual framework has recently been given to health equity in the Americas and other regions, which is newly enabling a type of explicit planning and strategizing to reduce inequities in health. This article addresses a core question for health equity: are governments in the Americas planning robustly to address health equity? The striking inequities in health could be a reflection of strong national plans that have not been able to be This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 IGO License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. No modifications or commercial use of this article are permitted. In any reproduction of this article there should not be any suggestion that PAHO or this article endorse any specific organization or products. The use of the PAHO logo is not permitted. This notice should be preserved along with the article's original URL. Open access logo and text by PLoS, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. implemented or whose strategies to address inequity have not been successful. Alternatively, it could be that countries are not planning robustly for health equity at a national level. These two different contexts would suggest quite different paths for international and national decisionmakers seeking to drive more equitable health in the region. This question is particularly acute in the context of the Commission of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on Equity and Health Inequalities in the Americas, which called on countries to "make health equity a key indicator of societal development and establish mechanisms of accountability," including planning for health equity. Are countries already doing so? Proceeding from the premise that such policy planning has a central role in reducing health inequalities, this article provides a situation analysis of the integration of health equity into health plans in the Americas and alignment with key goals articulated in the PAHO Equity Commission report. This analysis employs a rubric meant to give insight into the inclusion of health equity in 32 national health plans along with a series of 10 categories that define priority actions toward equity in health. There is significant variation in the substance and structure of how the health plans incorporate health equity. This analysis shows that some areas and issues of health equity are tackled far more widely and robustly, while others are addressed by very few countries, with no clear pattern by gross domestic product (GDP) or geography about how countries address health equity. Most of the plans assessed do include the term "health equity" as part of the document's mission or vision and display a strong focus on the social determinants of health. However, most lack specific measurements to assess progress on addressing inequalities and accountability mechanisms to achieve health equity results. Intentions to address discrimination as a driver of health inequalities are less prevalent in plans than expected. The overall objective of this paper is to assess the degree to which written national health plans for countries in the Americas plan explicitly for addressing health equity. MATERIALS AND METHODS Based on a review of literature and practice in health equity, a rubric was developed to code and analyze health policy environments' inclusion of health equity. This rubric draws explicitly on the analytic framework of the PAHO Equity Commission and work on health equity programs of action, which have been proposed as a systematic approach to address health equity. Starting with these frameworks, a comprehensive but manageable set of 31 indicators (for a total of 43 questions when sub-questions are included) across 10 domains was selected: 1) mission; 2) social and environmental determinants of health; 3) multisectoral actions; 4) participatory processes; 5) equity toward universal health; 6) inclusion of traditionally excluded populations; 7) disaggregated data and targets; 8) monitoring; 9) accountability; and, 10) capacity to respond to health inequities. A full set of the questions and indicators is included in Table 1. The domains follow the conceptualization described above that centers both process and outcomes and that span the policy cycle-from developing the plan through key domains of its content, monitoring and evaluation, accountability, and further research to improve policies. Following Creswell and Poth, the rubric was verified through the reinforcing approaches of peer review and informant views; the former of which was accomplished through a small advisory group of experts from PAHO and Johns Hopkins University, and the latter occurred through a series of publications and a webinar with several hundred participants conducted in January 2019. An initial application of the rubric in two countries yielded further insights and slight changes to the rubric. With the support of PAHO country offices and staff, the most recent written national health sector policies, strategies, and plans (NHPSPs) for countries in the Region of the Americas were collected. The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged all countries to create coherent NHPSPs-a distinct type of national policy document-arguing that " strategizingmeaning designing plans and policies to achieve a particular goal related to the health of a nation -is absolutely critical in the 21st century". These plans, as described by WHO, should be intersectoral and address both health and health equity within the overall national health planning process. Most countries in the Americas have an official NHPSP produced by government, and PAHO offices were able to share them upon request or verify if a country did not have one in place. NHPSPs were gathered for 32 countries of the Americas (see Annex 1 in supplementary material). The text of these plans formed the basis of the analysis in this paper. Canada, Cuba, and the United States of America were not included in this analysis because, at the time of review (December 2019), these countries did not have a single national health plan, comparable to other countries in the Americas, that could be coded. 1 Alternatives such as national health legislation are not comparable to national plans (for example, being narrowly focused on health insurance), and thus results could not be meaningfully compared with other countries. While plans reviewed certainly do not represent a complete picture of the countries' health policies, they do represent a perspective on the goals, intentions, and approaches national governments are taking within the health system at a given moment. Therefore, this article provides an initial foray into coding and analysis of health equity policies and should be viewed in that light. Each of the gathered plans was coded on each indicator for inclusion in the plan or strategy, using a binary 0 or 1 coding on whether each factor was present in the plan. Sub-questions received fractional scores so that each question's total was 1 (see Table 1). Sub-questions related to which populations health plans addressed were not assigned a score because the appropriateness of whether a particular population is included is context-dependent, but are reported below. Overall findings: cross-national variation The degree to which countries had incorporated equity into their national health plans varied considerably, as shown in 1 A health equity analysis of the United States of America's Affordable Care Act (ACA) was conducted by Grogan in 2017. However, because the ACA is a piece of health legislation with decentralized implementation, rather than a national health plan, and primarily (though not exclusively) focused on healthcare financing, especially health insurance, it is unsuitable for inclusion in this comparison. i. Non-discrimination: 1. Does the health plan incorporate or refer to a strategy to address discrimination in the health sector? Rev ii. Physical accessibility 1. Does the health plan include at least one action (other than health workforce related) to increase accessibility to quality primary health services in remote, rural, or otherwise underserved geographic areas or communities (e.g., constructing facilities in these areas, mobile health clinics, telemedicine)? 2. Does the health plan include at least one action to ensure the accessibility of health facilities for people with disabilities? iii. Health workforce 1. Does the health plan include actions to increase the number of health workers in underserved communities to the health workforce? 2. Does the health plan include any actions regarding recruiting people from underrepresented communities into the health workforce, including management or other positions of authority? iv. Health financing 1. Does the health plan include interventions to increase health service affordability for disadvantaged populations (e.g., delinking health service use from costs for these populations, subsidies)? 2. Does the health plan include strategies to increase the equitable distribution of health funding (e.g., more funding to communities with worse health outcomes, more disadvantaged populations)? v. Health information 1. Does the health plan include any actions to increase health literacy of marginalized populations? 2. Does the health plan address language barriers to health services (e.g., interpretation services, health workforce recruitment from linguistic minorities)? vi. Medicines and medical technologies (stock-outs/supply chain underserved areas, affordability) Does the health plan include interventions to increase access of marginalized populations to medicines (e.g., addressing affordability, improving supply chains to reduce stock-outs in remote areas)? ii. Does the health plan includes specific actions to reduce barriers to good health for identified marginalized populations? 1 iii. Does the health plan refer to any actions to ensure that programs and services are differentiated to meet distinct needs of women, girls, men, and boys? iii. Does the health plan include a role for the public in monitoring and evaluating the health plan's implementation? an example, with its fifth Strategic Objective being "to reduce health inequities of the population by mitigating the effects produced by social and economic determinants of health." Likewise, 30 of 32 of the countries' health plans address underlying determinants of health, such as increasing access to nutritious food, safe water, improved sanitation, or healthier environments (Figure 1). Barbados's national health plan exemplifies an affirmative answer to this question. Its plan includes actions related to food and nutrition and access to water and sanitation. It also includes specific targets for this objective, with a commitment to a 50% reduction in dependence on food imports and to develop a National Food Security Program by 2010. In contrast to the frequent positive findings for measures to improve underlying determinants of health, no country had financing models that incentivize addressing the social determinants of health. However, Belize's Health Sector Strategic Plan 2014-2024 addresses road safety financing, mentioning a How countries incorporated equity varied considerably. For example, Chile, Colombia, and Guyana included many of the indicators of participation in their plans, while countries including the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines did so to a lesser extent. Brazil, El Salvador, and Honduras focused less on participation in their plans but included many of the universal health and health care elements. Unlike most countries, Belize, Chile, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Suriname included all three of the elements coded for on disaggregating data and targets. Mission, vision, and social determinants of health Almost all countries, 30 out of the 32, included health equity as part of their health plan's mission or vision (or elsewhere in the document). Chile's Estrategia Nacional de Salud para el Cumplimiento de los Objetivos Sanitarios 2011-2020 provides Does the health plan incorporate measures to improve underlying determinants of health (e.g., increasing access to nutritious food, safe water, improved sanitation, healthier Does the plan include nancing models to incentivize health sector action on the social determinants of health? Does the plan include actions that the health sector is taking to respond to climate change? Does the health plan include any measures to address health equity in the private sector? Does the health plan refer to or describe a process in developing the plan that included public engagement, civil society engagement, or both? If yes, does the plan refer to speci c outreach to or inclusion of populations in situations of vulnerability? If yes, did the process refer to the participation of non-health sectors in developing the plan? Discrimination and identification of populations in situations of vulnerability Eleven out of 32 countries' health plans "incorporate or refer to a strategy to address discrimination in the health sector." Costa Rica's health plan offers a good example, with two strategies to be applied across the health sector to address gender inequality and violence against LGBT people. Despite the small number of health plans that include non-discrimination strategies, most plans reviewed did identify multiple populations that face obstacles to equal health. Figure 2 shows the number of countries listing each of eight different population categories in their national plan. People living in poverty and people with disabilities are the two socially excluded groups most often mentioned in the health plans. Roma peoples and migrants are the least mentioned. Recognizing that it might be quite reasonable for some countries that are not home to certain populations-for example, many simply might not have a Roma population-the inclusion of these populations was assessed, but did not factor into scoring. Whether an exclusion is well-justified or an omission that should be rectified requires an assessment of the country context that was beyond the scope of this study. Data, monitoring, and accountability More than half of the analyzed country plans (19/32) include baseline data on health inequities across multiple dimensions (e.g., income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location). Forty-one percent of the plans (13/32) have time-bound targets on reducing absolute or relative health inequalities in health service access or health outcomes. Panama is a good example; its Poltica Nacional de Salud y Lineamientos Estratgicos 2016-2025 analyzes the country's health situation with disaggregated data on several health-related issues. Fewer national development strategies-which were also analyzed along with national health plans for a small set of indicators-include time-bound indicators or targets for health equity. Almost half of countries (15 of 32) include specific indicators and time-bound targets (sometimes still to be developed) for health overall, though only about half of these countries (8 countries) include one or more indicators or targets related to equity. Of the eight countries that include health equity targets in their national development strategies, six also have such targets in their national health plans (of the 13 total national health plans with such targets). Eighty-four percent of the national health plans (27 out of 32) incorporate a process for regularly monitoring and evaluating their objectives and targets. However, only 31% (10/32 countries) include a role for the public in monitoring and assessing the health plan's implementation. The degree of specificity of the monitoring and evaluation processes varies. For example, Honduras includes a general description of the monitoring process, and Suriname's health plan provides monitoring as an objective of the plan itself and specific targets to fulfill it, together with creating two monitoring and implementation committees. Very few countries' health plans addressed accountability mechanisms tied to the right to health. Only two countries' health plans discuss mechanisms for reporting violations to the right of health, and only three mention mechanisms for investigating and reducing fraud and corruption. financing mechanism for a road safety project funded by the Inter-American Development Bank. Several other areas in the domain of social determinants of health provided a more mixed picture. Just over half (18 of 32) of the analyzed countries' plans include measures to respond to climate change. Meanwhile, despite the private sector playing a growing role in many countries, only 11 out of 32 countries addressed health equity in the private sector in their health plans. Participation in plan design and implementation More than half of the analyzed country plans (20/32) describe a process for developing the plan that included public engagement, civil society engagement, or both ( Figure 1). For example, Colombia's Plan Decenal de Salud Pblica 2012-2021 was developed with public consultation during the plan design process. However, few health plans refer to outreach to specific marginalized (or other) populations. Encouragingly, most national health plans recognize the need for public participation and refer to specific mechanisms for public (or civil society) participation in developing and implementing policies and programs (28 of 32 countries). Guyana's National Health Policy is exemplary. It includes additional guiding principles dedicated to "active social participation" and incorporates a National Health Policy Committee as a mechanism to include the "civil society and private sector organizations" in strengthening "the legislative, institutional, and policy framework of the health system." However, there were few references to these participatory mechanisms being funded, structured efforts. Brazil is one of the 5 (out of 32) countries that include any actions to support the functioning of these mechanisms through, for example, supporting the establishment of decentralized ombudsman structures, implementing policies to encourage the evaluation of services by users, and disseminating information about the right to health and the exercise of such a right. Equity toward universal health and health care Substantively, plans showed significant diversity in how they addressed health and health care overall, including measures that are key to health equity. Most plans include a goal to provide universal health coverage. Specific steps toward equity in ensuring health care for all, however, were less common. The most common areas addressed by the plans on this front were medicines-with just under half of plans including interventions to increase access of marginalized populations to medicines (e.g., addressing affordability, reducing stock-outs in remote areas)-and physical accessibility, with just over half of plans including at least one action to increase accessibility to quality primary health services in remote, rural, or otherwise underserved geographic areas or communities. Ten of 32 countries included actions to increase the number of health workers in underserved communities, though only Jamaica included measures on recruiting people from underrepresented communities into the health workforce. A similar number include interventions to increase health service affordability for disadvantaged populations (14 countries) as include interventions to increase the equitable distribution of health funding (13 countries). Attention to participation varies greatly among countries; one country includes all of the indicators, a handful of countries include many of them, and some include none. No country includes all measures of substantive equity in health systems, but quite a few include several of these measures, such as improving physical and financial accessibility, and increasing access to medicines for socially excluded populations. Fewer countries addressed other areas, including addressing discrimination, increasing access to health workers in underserved areas, and removing language barriers. On the whole, countries include attention to socially excluded populations in their health plans, though with a few notable limitations: only about a quarter of plans identify Afro-descendants; fewer than half identify Indigenous people, with some countries with large Indigenous populations not addressing them. Only four countries in the region include attention to migrants. A minority of countries, only 41%, include time-bound targets on reducing absolute or relative health inequalities. Interestingly, the setting of time-bound targets corresponds fairly often with countries with equity-robust plans across the board. However, there are exceptions, including Mexico, which sets clear targets for health equity, even though the country includes only 10 out of 31 indicators in the national health plan. Like El DISCUSSION Setting out to identify whether countries in the Americas are planning to address health equity, this study shows mixed results, with significant reason to believe that planning could be strengthened. The PAHO Equity Commission's recommendations are anchored in governance shifts that start with a call to "develop strategic plans for improving health equity". Reviewing national health sector plans shows that this is indeed a gap for all countries in the region, even as many have taken up key pieces of this work already and could share their experiences between countries. The PAHO Equity Commission's recommendations are not yet embodied in the current health sector plans of the Americas. However, there is reason for optimism, as countries are giving attention to health equity in their written national health sector policies, strategies, and plans. Nearly all explicitly include health equity as a clear goal of these plans. As recommended by PAHO, the overwhelming majority include specific attention on the social determinants of health in their plans. With a growing role of the private sector in many countries in the region, with significant implications for equity, it is notable that few plans address that sector. will be necessary for real planning to help address equity. Political will to translate goals into impact will be seen in the coming years in whether time-bound targets are set and achieved. So far, fewer than half of countries include time-bound targets on reducing absolute or relative health inequalities, which is likely to undermine progress on equity. Substantive equity-focused policies, such as those to improve physical accessibility of health care and increase affordable access to medicines, are included in many plans, though no country includes all aspects examined. Participatory processes documented in the development of these plans range from none to extensive and robust vis--vis the policies, targetsetting, and accountability included in health plans. This suggests that both technical support on health equity when plans are crafted and peer-learning could be beneficial in supporting planning to reach stated goals. Further, there remain gaps in identifying actions to address inequities among marginalized populations-particularly Afro-descendants, Indigenous people, and migrants. The diversity of plans presents a strong opportunity for learning. Insofar as some countries have created detailed, equityrobust plans, this might provide ideas. But no two plans are the same, and even the countries with more robust plans could take inspiration from others. The rubric developed in this study represents a step toward assessing and understanding the policy environment for health equity that could be applied, in future work, to a wider range of health policies, laws, and strategies. This can be helpful, too, in future work to understand what kinds of policies are particularly effective and support regional learning. Policy-making is an intervention-aimed at taking ideas to a national scale-and subjecting it to review, evaluation, and improvement can only help achieve the widespread ambition of reducing inequalities across the region. Author contributions. All authors worked collaboratively to conceive and implement the review of national health plans reported here. LFN reviewed and scored plans and developed the figures and tables, ANA conducted literature review, EAF wrote the methodology section, and MMK drafted the overall manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved the final version. Conflict of interest. None declared. Funding. Funding for this project was provided by a grant to PAHO from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which did not influence in any way in the design, data collection, analysis, writing, or the decision to publish these results. Disclaimer. Authors hold sole responsibility for the views expressed in the manuscript, which may not necessarily reflect the opinion or policy of the RPSP/PAJPH and/or PAHO. Salvador, a few countries with the most robust plans have not yet set time-bound equity targets. Overall, very few countries included clear accountability mechanisms that we might hope to see in plans addressing health equity, with just a handful including references to education, reporting, or enforcement mechanisms in this area. It is noteworthy that of the 32 countries whose health plans we reviewed, the average score under this rubric was inclusion of just 13 out of 31 indicators in their plans; no country includes more than about 70%. There is work to do in planning throughout the region. It is notable too that some countries with better health outcomes, like Argentina, pay relatively little attention to health equity in their national health plans; while some like Haiti, with the region's lowest life expectancy, have more robust attention in their plans. There is, of course, no simple causal line between the content of written plans, which is the narrow focus of this study, and health outcomes. Yet this study does tell us something about a starting point for addressing health inequalities-which remain urgent in both Argentina and Haiti. Measuring the problem, setting targets for progress, and building mechanisms of accountability are all widely recognized tools in effective planning-tools which these data show are underutilized in addressing health equity. This analysis has several limitations. First, there is an inherent limitation in seeking to understand a country's policy environment and actions to advance health equity through reviewing documented plans, both because other laws and policies affect health equity and because countries' health and development plans can only be fully understood in countries' overall political, institutional, and social contexts, including progress already made toward greater health equity. Therefore. this study's modest goals should not be over-interpreted. Future analysis of a broader set of legal and policy documents could prove fruitful in expanding the picture. In addition, countries take different approaches to the level of specificity and granularity, reflecting that these findings are influenced by the broader characteristics of the planning process and documentation in a given country. That said, the animating theory behind this work is that measuring, planning, and creating accountability can be important for improving health equity, and these findings provide an initial representation of national attention to those factors. Conclusion The nearly unanimous commitment across countries of the Americas to equity in health, as expressed in their national health plans, provides an important opportunity to advance the agenda of addressing inequity. We find, however, significant variation in the substance and structure of how health plans in the Americas handle the issue. It is helpful that, in many countries, baseline data are available in national plans on several axes of inequality, against which progress could be judged. In other countries, such baseline data La planificacin para lograr la equidad en la salud en la Regin de las Amricas: un anlisis de los planes nacionales de salud RESUMEN Cada vez es mayor el reconocimiento de que las mejoras en cuanto a la salud y el bienestar no han llegado por igual a todos los segmentos de la poblacin en la Regin de las Amricas. En este artculo se analizan 32 polticas, estrategias y planes nacionales del sector de la salud con respecto a diez reas distintas relativas a la equidad en la salud. El objetivo es comprender, desde una perspectiva, cmo se est abordando la equidad en la Regin. Se ha encontrado una variacin significativa, tanto en sustancia como en estructura, sobre la manera en que se maneja el tema en los planes de salud. Casi todos los pases incluyen explcitamente la equidad en la salud como una meta clara y la mayora abordan los determinantes sociales de la salud. En la formulacin de estos planes se ha documentado desde ningn proceso participativo hasta procesos participativos exhaustivos y slidos. En muchos planes se han incluido polticas sustantivas centradas en la equidad, como aquellas para mejorar la accesibilidad fsica a la atencin de salud y el acceso a medicamentos asequibles, pero en ningn pas se incorporan todos los aspectos analizados. Si bien los pases contemplan a los grupos marginados en sus planes, solo una cuarta parte identifica especficamente a las personas afrodescendientes y ms de la mitad de los pases no considera a las personas indgenas, incluso en el caso de algunos pases con una poblacin indgena grande. Cuatro pases contemplan la atencin mdica a los migrantes. A pesar de que existen metas sobre la equidad en la salud y datos de lnea de base sobre las inequidades, menos de la mitad de los pases incluyen metas con plazos para reducir las inequidades en la salud absolutas o relativas. No son habituales tampoco en los planes los mecanismos de rendicin de cuentas claros, como educacin, presentacin de informes o cumplimiento de los derechos. Los pases de la Regin de las Amricas muestran un compromiso casi unnime con la equidad en la salud, lo cual brinda una oportunidad importante. Aprender de los planes para la equidad ms slidos podra proporcionar una hoja de ruta para las iniciativas que tratan de traducir algunas metas amplias en metas con plazos especficos que puedan eventualmente mejorar la equidad. |
SET MEMBERSHIP PARAMETER IDENTIFICATION WITH COMPLEX INTERVALS USING POLAR FORMS Abstract This paper is dedicated to bounded error identification with complex valued non-linear models. Complex intervals are characterized by using polar forms and a new inclusion function is given for the addition of sectors. The latter is expressed as an optimization problem solved analytically. The new complex interval arithmetic is used with actual data and a complex valued non-linear model for the bounded error identification of the thermal properties of materials. |
package xyz.lwz.redis.config;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.AutoConfigureAfter;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.data.redis.RedisAutoConfiguration;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.data.redis.connection.lettuce.LettuceConnectionFactory;
import org.springframework.data.redis.core.RedisTemplate;
import org.springframework.data.redis.serializer.Jackson2JsonRedisSerializer;
import org.springframework.data.redis.serializer.StringRedisSerializer;
/**
* @Author liwz
* @Date 2020/9/30 15:50
**/
@Configuration
@AutoConfigureAfter(RedisAutoConfiguration.class)
public class RedisConfig {
/**
* 采用Jackson进行key/value序列化
* @param redisConnectionFactory redis连接工厂
* @return RedisTemplate<String,Object>
*/
@Bean
public RedisTemplate<String, Object> redisTemplate(LettuceConnectionFactory redisConnectionFactory) {
final RedisTemplate<String, Object> redisTemplate = new RedisTemplate<>();
// 使用Jackson2JsonRedisSerialize 替换默认序列化(默认采用的是JDK序列化)
Jackson2JsonRedisSerializer<Object> jackson2JsonRedisSerializer = new Jackson2JsonRedisSerializer<>(Object.class);
// StringRedis序列化方式
StringRedisSerializer stringRedisSerializer = new StringRedisSerializer();
redisTemplate.setKeySerializer(stringRedisSerializer);
redisTemplate.setValueSerializer(jackson2JsonRedisSerializer);
redisTemplate.setHashKeySerializer(stringRedisSerializer);
redisTemplate.setHashValueSerializer(jackson2JsonRedisSerializer);
// 开启事务
redisTemplate.setEnableTransactionSupport(true);
redisTemplate.setConnectionFactory(redisConnectionFactory);
return redisTemplate;
}
}
|
<reponame>motor-dev/Motor
/* Motor <<EMAIL>>
see LICENSE for detail */
#include <stdafx.h>
#include <motor/meta/engine/namespace.hh>
#include <motor/plugin.scripting.python/context.hh>
#include <motor/plugin.scripting.pythonlib/pythonlib.hh>
#include <motor/plugin/plugin.hh>
#ifndef PYTHON_LIBRARY
# error PYTHON_LIBRARY must be defined to the library name for this module
#endif
static minitl::ref< Motor::Python::Context > create(const Motor::Plugin::Context& context)
{
using namespace Motor::Python;
ref< PythonLibrary > library = loadPython(MOTOR_STRINGIZE(PYTHON_LIBRARY));
if(!library)
{
return minitl::ref< Context >();
}
else
{
return minitl::ref< Context >::create(Motor::Arena::general(), context, library);
}
}
MOTOR_PLUGIN_REGISTER_CREATE(&create);
|
Phase transfer catalysed polymerisation of butyl methacrylate using potassium peroxydisulphate as initiator : A kinetic study The kinetics of phase transfer catalysed free radical polymerisation of butyl methacrylate using potassium peroxydisulphate as water soluble initiator and propiophenonebenzyldimethylammonium chloride (PPBDAC) as phase transfer catalyst were studied. The polymerisation reactions were carried out in cyclohexanone-water biphase media at 60°C in an inert atmosphere under unstirred condition. The effect of various experimental conditions such as different concentrations of monomer, initiator, phase transfer catalyst (PTC) and different ionic strength, temperature and the volume fraction of aqueous phase is studied. The order with respect to monomer, initiator and the phase transfer catalyst is found to be 1, 0.5 and 0.5 respectively. The rate of polymerisation (Rp) is independent of ionic strength and pH. However, an increase in the polarity of solvent and volume fraction of aqueous phase slightly increases the R p value. Based on the results obtained, a mechanism has been proposed for the polymerisation reaction. |
FRI0093A Systematic Analysis of the Safety of Prescribing of Anti-Rheumatic, Immunosuppressive and Biologic Drugs in Men Trying to Conceive Background Prescribing of anti-rheumatic and immunosuppressive drugs in men with active rheumatic disease trying to conceive is required to control disease activity. This increases the chance of successful conception. However it is complicated by concerns regarding the safety of these drugs. They arise from safety information based mainly on experimental and animal studies as human data is limited. Previous systematic reviews have identified a risk of oligospermia with sulfasalazine and gonadal toxicity with cyclophosphamide in men trying to conceive, as well as theoretical concerns for leflunomide and biologics. We have undertaken a systematic review to update information on this subject. Objectives This systematic review aims to update information on the safety fo prescribing these drugs in men trying trying to conceive. Methods A systematic search of PubMed and Embase was carried out using relevant keywords for pregnancy, men, conception and drugs commonly prescribed in patients with rheumatic disease from 1966 onwards. The drug categories included analgesics, disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, biologics and steroids. Review articles and non-English language papers were excluded. Results 21 studies were selected for detailed review, describing relevant drug use in men with rheumatic disease, inflammatory bowel disease, post-transplantation, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis and leukaemia. The studies included 3 case reports, 4 case series, 10 cohort studies and 1 case-controlled study. These studies identified 2214 drug exposures (705 NSAIDs, 517 steroids, 343 azathioprine, 287 ciclosporine, 100 methotrexate, 120 sulfasalazine, 44 etanercept, 66 infliximab, 13 hydroxychloroquine, 11 rituximab, 6 adalimumab, 2 leflunomide) in 1963 men trying to conceive, leading to 2112 pregnancies. There were limited reports of the effects upon fertility (in 133 men) and one retrospective questionnaire study1 of 30 men taking azathioprine reported an increased rate of infertility (>1yr to conception) of 15.2% vs 8.3% of controls. The confounding effects however, of underlying (Crohn's) disease and the possibility of female infertility, were a limitation of this study. Of the 1778 live births, 33 congenital malformations were reported which were not specific to any drug. In the remaining 78 pregnancies that miscarried, the precise number of elective terminations was not stated in all studies. Conclusions This systematic review did not find an increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes in partners of men taking anti-rheumatic, immunosuppressive and biologic drugs whilst trying to conceive. However there remains insufficient evidence to advocate the safe use of these drugs. This information however, is useful when counselling men of potential risk particularly after accidental conception. References Teruel C et al. Outcomes of Pregnancies Fathered by IBD patients exposed to thiopurines. The American Journal of Gastroenterology 2010; 105:2003-2008 Disclosure of Interest None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.4289 |
import glob
from os import path
# Search for all the available region files in the given directory
def get_region_files(directory):
print(f'Searching for region files in directory [{directory}]')
region_files = glob.glob(path.join(directory, '*.mca')) # Get all the region files in the given directory
print(f'A total of [{len(region_files)}] region files where found')
return region_files |
President Barack Obama will not yet wade into the fierce public battle over encryption, his administration has decided.
Several of Obama’s top appointees, including FBI Director James Comey, have been pushing tech companies, like Apple and Google, to weaken the encryption in their products by inserting special doorways to ensure that investigators can access communications when they have a warrant. The White House convened meetings to discuss ways to balance privacy and security concerns with law-enforcement needs, but administration officials rejected the proposed solutions as politically toxic and technically unfeasible.
Liberal and conservative political groups, security experts, and tech companies have pressured Obama to publicly reject so-called “backdoors” in commercial encryption, hoping that the president would finally put an end to the decades-long battle over encryption that has set privacy groups against intelligence officials.
At a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday, Comey revealed that the president had chosen not to heed those calls—but that he wouldn’t push to mandate backdoors, either.
“The administration has decided not to seek a legislative remedy now, but it makes sense to continue the conversations with industry.”
“The administration has decided not to seek a legislative remedy now,” he said, “but it makes sense to continue the conversations with industry.”
President Obama reportedly decided not to change the status quo on encryption at an Oct. 1 meeting with his Cabinet.
National Security Council spokesman Mark Stroh told the Daily Dot that the government is “actively engaged with private companies to ensure they understand the public safety and national security risks that result from malicious actors’ use of their encrypted products and services.”
Joseph Hall, chief technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a leading Internet-privacy group, expressed his disappointment at the president’s decision.
“It’s hard to not see this as further delay,” he said in an email to the Daily Dot. “We’ve been here before.” He noted a 1998 New York Times story about the FBI “retreat[ing] from legislation to give law enforcers access to encrypted computer data and communications.”
“It’s good if the executive [branch], as Comey states, has recognized (again) that any legislative solution is a non-starter,” Hall said. “I’m deeply troubled that they seem to be trying to accomplish the same goals through arm-twisting of companies to voluntarily weaken their security and encryption.”
There is little evidence that encryption is a serious problem for investigators. Asked to estimate in how many cases encryption had stymied his agents, Comey told the Senate committee, “Probably the best number I can give in an open setting is dozens.”
Tech companies have said that they understand these risks but remain vigorously opposed to weakening their encryption. Apple CEO Tim Cook has been particularly vocal on this point. At an Electronic Privacy Information Center awards dinner in June, Cook blasted Comey’s demands for backdoors, saying, “Weakening encryption or taking it away harms good people who are using it for the right reason.”
Cook told NPR on Oct. 1, the same day Obama made his decision, that “any backdoor means a backdoor for bad guys as well as good guys. And so a backdoor is a nonstarter.”
Congress has taken note of the Obama administration’s encryption trepidation. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates on Thursday asking her to brief his staff about the Justice Department’s conversations with tech companies. A Justice Department spokesman said that the department was “reviewing” Grassley’s letter.
“It’s time for the administration to demonstrate global leadership and unequivocally put us past this narrative of going dark vs. going bright,” said Hall. “We need a solid foundation on top of which we can undergird global cybersecurity.”
Illustration by Max Fleishman |
Time perception in narcolepsy in comparison to patients with Parkinson's disease and healthy controlsan exploratory study The striatum and the prefrontal cortex play an important role in cognitive time processing, and time perception depends on sustained attention. Narcolepsy patients are unable to maintain sustained attention, due probably to deficient hypocretin signalling. Impaired time perception has been found in Parkinson's disease (PD) and attributed to a dysfunctional dopaminergic striatal pacemaker. We aimed to assess time perception in patients with narcolepsy and PD and to compare the outcome to healthy control participants. Seventeen narcolepsy patients, 12 PD patients and 15 healthy controls performed a short time production task, where they had to produce an interval of 1, 2 or 5 s. The accuracy of time production differed significantly according to task target duration, and there was a trend towards a group difference with narcolepsy patients tending to overproduce all target durations. Absolute variability was significantly different between groups, with narcolepsy patients showing higher absolute variability in comparison to controls and PD patients. The analysis of the temporal course of time estimation showed more pronounced overproduction of each target duration at the end of each trial in narcolepsy patients, whereas performance was more or less stable in controls and PD patients. Overproduction and higher variability of all time durations in narcolepsy indicate impaired short interval timing in the seconds range, while the scalar property of timing was preserved. The timecourse of accuracy and variability of time production within sessions indicate an attentionrelated mechanism of impaired interval timing. |
And the Big Men Fly
Plot summary
The coach of the Crows football team, J.J Forbes, sends his assistant, Willy, out to find a new player for the big season championship which was to start in 2 weeks. J.J thought that they would never have a chance, as Wally couldn't seem to find anyone with some decent talent.
J.J was getting very upset at Wally and told him on the phone to do anything to get someone, as he says, "I don't care if you have to rewrite the law books. That's what we put you through university for!" A little while later, Wally bursts into the room yelling and screaming. "J.J… I've got him! I've got him! Oh, you've never seen anything like him, he's beautiful, he's a Greek god." At this point J.J starts to think that Wally has gone mad and needs to see a psychiatrist.
Wally is trying to convince J.J that this player, Achilles Jones, can kick a wheat bag 10 yards. J.J doesn't believe Wally at first, but thinks that he has nothing to lose so they decide to go and meet Achilles They drive all the way out to Manangatang, where this Achilles lives, and J.J finally gets to meet him. At first, things are a bit stressful as Achilles gets the shot gun out and threatens to kill them when they arrive. They try convincing Achilles to come and play football for the Crows but Achilles is just too happy where he is and won’t go anywhere. J.J and Wally aren't happy, so they decide that they are going to get Achilles to play through bribing his partner, Lil, with gifts and getting her to convince Achilles to try it out and play a few games. To start with convincing Lil, they tell her that she will get all sorts of nice things and they even give her a fur coat. They end up telling Achilles that the Williamses – Achilles' neighbors and worst enemies – think that he would never be able to play football in his life, so he decides that he will go and play for the Crows, only so he can show the Williamses that he can play and that he is better than them.
Once Achilles arrives in Melbourne, he is taught the rules of the game and does private training. He is kept private from the public as Wally and J.J want to make a big showcase on the first day of the football championship. At the first game of the championship, Achilles takes to the field but does nothing. J.J and Wally start to get very stressed out and worried that he won't do anything, until J.J sends Wally out onto the field to see what was wrong with him and found out that it was partly because he was wearing football boots, which he much disliked, and partly because Achilles can't play or kick when he's not angry. J.J then told Wally to send Lil out onto the field and make up a story about the Williamses so that he would get all angry and start to run and kick the ball around.
This keeps going on every week of the championship. Lil has to keep making up stories, and telling Achilles that the Williamses said bad stuff about him when they actually didn't. This is the only way that they could get Achilles to actually get out there on the football field to run around and play the actual game.
Just before the season had begun, Wobbly Coates and J.J made a public bet on the radio over their yearly wages that the Crows wouldn't get into the championship grand final and win, as they haven't done for the past 30 years. Near the end of the season, Wobbly realises that he will going to lose this bet if he doesn't do something to stop Achilles playing the grand final, so he rang up the Williamses and told them that Achilles had been saying lots of bad stuff about them and their farm. This then set the Williamses off, and they went to fight him. This plan by Wobbly had already been working excellently as he wanted to tire Achilles out before the big game so that he couldn't play. The fight between the Williamses and Achilles went on for three days straight, but Achilles was still pushing on strong for the grand final match.
On the night before the big game, Les Williams gave up and decided that he didn't want to fight anymore – this is when Achilles found out that his best mate, Milly the horse, had died back at home on the farm. Les and Achilles decide to come together inside and have a cup of tea and decide that they are going to stop all of this nonsense between the two of them.
Achilles doesn't want to play the game when he gets to the field on the big day, but luckily enough, Les Williams heard on the radio who rang him up and told him all the lies – it was Wobbly Coates. This report got Achilles playing the game for a while and both the commentators and the crowd were going wild by this time because of his performance in the game.
As the game nears the end, Achilles has to make a decision whether he is going to win the game or make them lose. He thinks about it and suddenly decides that he is going to get the score even, and then kick the ball straight up into the commentary box where Wobbly Coates is sitting, and hopefully it hits him and injures him. This decision was going to be his payback for all of the lies that he had told to Les Williams.
The grand final game ends in a draw and is rescheduled to next week without the participation of the new team recruit, Achilles. He then decides that he is going to live back on the farm with Lil and spend a lot more time with her.
Production history
In 1963 the Melbourne Theatre Company had scheduled The Man Who Came to Dinner with Frank Thring and Alan Hopgood, which was expected to run for months at the Russell Street Theatre. However the play bombed unexpectedly and MTC director John Sumner needed a replacement. He asked Hopgood if he had any plays and Hopgood wrote And the Big Men Fly in a week. The play had its world premiere at Russell St Theatre in Melbourne in 1963. Hopgood himself played Forbes, while Dennis Miller played Jones.
The play was presented again in 1988 with Hopgood reprising the role of Forbes. Jones was played by Shane Connor.
It educated my two kids, said Hopgood later. It was made into a TV mini-series and almost 250,000 copies of the script have been sold since. |
HARMONIC INTERPOLATING WAVELETS IN NEUMANN BOUNDARY VALUE PROBLEM IN A CIRCLE The Neumann boundary value problem (BVP) in a unit circle is discussed. For the solution of the Neumann BVP, we built a method employing series representation of given 2-periodic continuous boundary function by interpolating wavelets consisting of trigonometric polynomials. It is convenient to use the method due to the fact that such series is easy to extend to harmonic polynomials inside a circle. Moreover, coefficients of the series have an easy-to-calculate form. The representation by the interpolating wavelets is constructed by using an interpolation projection to subspaces of a multiresolution analysis with basis 2-periodic scaling functions (more exactly, their binary rational compressions and shifts). That functions were developed by Subbotin and Chernykh on the basis of Meyer-type wavelets. We will use three kinds of such functions, where two out of the three generates systems, which are orthogonal and simultaneous interpolating on uniform grids of the corresponding scale and the last one generates only interpolating on the same uniform grids system. As a result, using the interpolation property of wavelets mentioned above, we obtain the exact representation of the solution for the Neumann BVP by series of that wavelets and numerical bound of the approximation of solution by partial sum of such series. Introduction Subbotin and Chernykh constructed real 2-periodic orthogonal wavelets and applied them to represent and analyze solutions of Dirichlet, Neumann, and Poisson boundary value problems for harmonic and biharmonic functions. In the Dirichlet BVP in a unit circle was solved by means of interpolating-orthogonal periodic wavelets from. In the present paper, we propose to use the same wavelets for solving the Neumann BVP in a unit circle. Moreover, our main interest is the exact representation of the solution for the Neumann BVP by series of wavelet bases and behavior of partial sums of such series. For the sake of convenience, we give the reader an adequate background for further study and partially repeat sections with interpolating and interpolating-orthogonal 2periodic wavelet construction from. Preliminaries Consideration of autocorrelation functions for orthonormal scaling functions instead of orthonormal scaling functions is commonly used construction technique for interpolating wavelets in R. It is equivalent to replacement of scaling (x) function by function, which Fourier transform coincides with | ()| 2. It is easy to see, that for n ∈ Z So the sequence of spaces (1.3) has only 2 j distinct linearly independent terms. Hence, we can assume in the following discussion that k = 0, 2 j − 1. Define system of spaces {V j s := span{ j,k s (x) : k = 0, 2 j − 1} : j ∈ Z}. As follows from ∆ j ∩ Z = {0} for j ≤ 0 and s = 1, we see that i.e., for all integers such that j ≤ 0 and for all k ∈ Z relation j,k s (x) = j,0 s (x) = const holds and thus we can consider the system of spaces Using interpolating condition of basis { j+1,k s (x) : k=0, 2 j+1 − 1} on the grid {x l j+1 : l=0, 2 j+1 − 1} and assuming x := 2l/2 j+1 in (1.4), we find the coefficients b n (n = 0, 2 j+1 − 1): In view of b n obtained, the sum on the right side of the expression (1.4) may be written as two sums over even and odd indices As a result, we have and it implies that In view of definitions of spaces V j s and W j s, for all j ∈ N ∪ {0} and for all k = 0, 2 j − 1 relation holds. Denote the interpolation projection of a function f ∈ C 2 (the space of continuous 2-periodic functions) onto the V j s by where j ∈ N ∪ {0} and l = 0, 2 j − 1. Using definition (1.5), we rewrite S s,2 j+1 (x; f ) and take Consequently, 3), (1.7) and preceding expression the following relation holds for a function f ∈ C 2. Then S s,2 j (x; f ) is the partial sum of order 2 j for (1.7) and from (1.6) series (1.7) converges uniformly. Thus for J ∈ Z Application to the solution of the Neumann BVP in a circle Setting of the Neumann BVP in the unit circle K 1 (see, for example, ): where re ix (0 ≤ r < 1, 0 ≤ x < 2) are points of the unit circle K 1 centered at the origin of the polar coordinate system. It has been well known that necessary condition of solvability of the Neumann problem is Since U (r, x) is a harmonic in the unit circle function with continuous boundary value U (1, x), it follows that the above series converges uniformly on the boundary of K 1 by taking into account (1.8) and (1.9) (where for f (x) we take U (1, x)). Because of maximum principle for harmonic functions, we obtain the following representation for U (r, x) in form of uniformly convergent in K 1 series Using (1.8), we have the following representation for function g 1 (x) ∈ C 2 in form of uniformly convergent in K 1 series We may extend terms of the series into the interior of the unit circle to harmonic polynomials c j,k (g 1 ) j,k s (r, x) and, consequently, we may extend the series into the interior of the unit circle to harmonic in K 1 and in continuous K 1 function. (2.4) Because of series in (2.3) converges uniformly, we can perform a term-by-term differentiation with respect to r and multiplication by r and as result we get As is easy to see that this function is harmonic in K 1. In view of setting of the Neumann BVP, we have ∂U ∂r (r, x) r=1 = g 1 (x), this implies that for 0 ≤ r < 1 the equality r ∂U ∂r (r, x) = g 1 (r, x) holds as equality of two harmonic functions which are equal at the boundary of K 1. Hence In consequence of (2.2), we also have 2 0 g 1 (r, x)dx = 0. (2.5) Indeed if we expand function g 1 (r, x) = r ∂U ∂r (r, x) in a series by system {r |n| e inx : n ∈ Z} (for instance, with the use of Poisson kernel), then we get for 0 ≤ r < 1 Interchanging of integration and summation and using (2.2), we arrive at Thus, using (2.5) and taking into account s = 1, we obtain and numerical series on the left side of the equality converges. Consequently, the following equality holds Therefore, by setting where the series converges uniformly in K 1. Setting and calculating the U (r, x) from the preceding equality, we formulate the following theorem. Series in (2.6) converges uniformly in K 1 and U is a constant. Conclusion Theorem 1 gives the solution (2.6) (up to an additive constant) of the problem (2.1) in form of uniformly convergent in K 1 series of harmonic interpolating 2-periodic wavelets. In this case, coefficients of series in (2.6) have an easy-to-calculate form in preference to calculating coefficients (integrals) in case of implementing orthogonal 2-periodic wavelets. This useful fact simplify the numerical implementation of the suggested method. |
<reponame>NextGenIntelligence/gerrit<gh_stars>1-10
// Copyright (C) 2009 The Android Open Source Project
//
// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
// You may obtain a copy of the License at
//
// http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
//
// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
// limitations under the License.
package com.google.gwtexpui.user.client;
import com.google.gwt.user.client.ui.Composite;
import com.google.gwt.user.client.ui.Widget;
/**
* Widget to display within a {@link ViewSite}.
*<p>
* Implementations must override {@code protected void onLoad()} and
* arrange for {@link #display()} to be invoked once the DOM within the view is
* consistent for presentation to the user. Typically this means that the
* subclass can start RPCs within {@code onLoad()} and then invoke
* {@code display()} from within the AsyncCallback's
* {@code onSuccess(Object)} method.
*/
public abstract class View extends Composite {
ViewSite<? extends View> site;
@Override
protected void onUnload() {
site = null;
super.onUnload();
}
/** true if this is the current view of its parent view site */
public final boolean isCurrentView() {
Widget p = getParent();
while (p != null) {
if (p instanceof ViewSite<?>) {
return ((ViewSite<?>) p).getView() == this;
}
p = p.getParent();
}
return false;
}
/** Replace the current view in the parent ViewSite with this view. */
public final void display() {
if (site != null) {
site.swap(this);
}
}
}
|
Her Last Tomorrow, Adam Croft’s latest DIY thriller, lifted his bedroom business into the sales stratosphere. He talks about paying off his mortgage in weeks and why he’s fine with publishers being ‘sniffy’
“Could you murder your wife to save your daughter?” That’s the hook for a novel that has enabled self-published author Adam Croft, writing from his back bedroom, to pay off his mortgage in just 20 weeks, selling 150,000 copies and winning a book deal with Amazon.
Croft, who lives in Flitwick, Bedfordshire, was running an internet marketing company when he wrote his first novel, Too Close for Comfort, in 2011. At first, he wasn’t sure what to do with the thriller, in which new recruit DS Wendy Knight takes on a sadistic serial killer. “It didn’t cross my mind to send it to a publisher – I thought it was my first one and it wouldn’t get picked up,” says the 29-year-old. He looked into Amazon’s self-publishing programme Kindle Direct Publishing, which offers royalties of up to 70%, depending on pricing. “I just wanted someone to pick it up and read it. I didn’t know I could self-publish until two weeks before I did it.”
Sales “trickled” in at first, until they took off enough for Croft to decide that he would write full-time. Croft has since self-published eight more books, seven of which are parts of his Kempston Hardwick and Knight and Culverhouse series. Amazon does not release sales figures, but Croft says he had sold around 350,000 books in five years, until the gamechanger: his most recent novel, Her Last Tomorrow. This thriller has sold 150,000 copies in just five months, and Croft estimates that he’s on target for £1m ($1.4m) of sales in 2016, compared with £20,000 ($29,000) in 2015. To put this in context, a 2014 survey of almost 2,500 working writers in the UK found that the professional author’s median income was just £11,000 ($16,000), while a 2015 survey of US authors found the median fell below the poverty line – a plummet attributed to “several factors related directly to Amazon’s role in the current publishing landscape”.
Publishers have had it very easy for a long time – since presses were introduced, there’s been very little change Adam Croft
“It went a bit mad to say the least,” says Croft of his last book. “I went from just about paying the bills to making around £2,000 ($2,900) a day in royalties. It got into the top 10 in the Amazon digital chart and last week was No 12 on the overall Amazon paperback chart, fiction and non-fiction combined. We’ve paid the mortgage off just 20 weeks after not having a pot to do the proverbial in. It’s totally blown everything through the roof in the space of a few weeks.”
Croft’s success comes in the wake of a new report from Enders Analysis, published by the Bookseller, which found that 40 of the 100 top-selling ebooks on Amazon US in March were self-published. Self-publishing is “only going to grow more attractive” as an option for writers, said the report, which went on to warn that it was “the largest threat to incumbent publisher businesses in the medium term ... and publishers cannot be complacent”. However, the medium has not won over everyone: founder of Profile Books Andrew Franklin said an “overwhelming majority” of self-published books “are terrible – unutterable rubbish” while author Jonathan Franzen said Amazon’s self-publishing model favoured “yakkers and tweeters and braggers”.
For me, traditional publishing means poverty. But self-publish? No way Read more
“I’m happy enough for the traditional publishers to be sniffy about self-publishing – they’ve been sticking their heads in the sand for years and it’s to their detriment,” says Croft. “Publishers have had it very easy for a long time – since presses were introduced, there’s been very little change. For years we’ve been saying that this is the way things are going, that they’re changing. We’re not saying this for our own benefit, because we’re already embracing the change.”
The author has signed a deal with Amazon’s crime imprint Thomas & Mercer, to republish Her Last Tomorrow and release his next novel, provisionally titled Only the Truth, in 2017. “We’re delighted that Adam has chosen to join the Thomas & Mercer imprint – we’re looking forward to helping bring his pacy, dark thrillers to a wider audience,” said Eoin Purcell, UK leader of Amazon Publishing. “Adam is an exciting voice in one of the most interesting genres in crime writing right now, whose work really explores the psychological depths of his characters. We’re excited to help introduce him to new readers.”
14 hour days, marketing and dealing with snobbery: my life as a self-published bestseller Read more
The paperback of Her Last Tomorrow is currently 29th in Amazon.co.uk’s bestseller list, just behind A Game of Thrones. It has almost 1,300 reviews from readers, around 1,000 of those five-star, and Croft says it’s been the biggest-selling independent book this year so far. “Little old me, doing it myself from my back bedroom, has outsold people like Stephen King and Lee Child over quite a few weeks this year.” |
A variation in tooth position-180° rotated maxillary second premolar. Rotation of a tooth around an axis which is perpendicular to the occlusal plane through angles which approach 180° is a rare anomaly which is found in the human dentition. Such aberrations present a multi-factorial model in their origin. Both genetic and local factors seem to contribute to this abnormality. If the contribution of local factors could be identified, a way could open to an early treatment and prevention of secondary rotations of opposing and contiguous teeth. A case of a 180° rotation of maxillary left second premolar in a male patient of Indian origin has been described here. |
ALSO BY CAROLINA DE ROBERTIS
FICTION
_The Invisible Mountain_
TRANSLATION
_Bonsai_
by Alejandro Zambra
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2012 by Carolina De Robertis
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
De Robertis, Carolina.
Perla / by Carolina De Robertis.—1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-95738-2
1. Young women—Fiction. 2. Family secrets—Fiction. 3. Argentina—History—Dirty War, 1976–1983—Fiction. I. Title. PS3618.O31535P47 2012 813′.6—dc23 2011041833
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Jacket photograph of woman by Julia Davila-Lampe/Getty Images
Jacket design by Emily Mahon
v3.1
_Para ti, Rafael_
# Contents
_Cover_
_Other Books by This Author_
_Title Page_
_Copyright_
_Dedication_
_Epigraph_
Part One
1: Arrival
2: A Secret Dimension
3: Waters and Sorrows
4: The Chorus in the Depths
5: Failed Geraniums
6: The Word _Where_
Part Two
7: A Map of Her
8: Nectar and Venom
9: El Grito Sagrado
10: Open
Part Three
11: Cradle
12: Empty Hands, Clear Water
13: Homecoming
14: You
_Acknowledgments_
_A Note About the Author_
The aim of the Process is the profound transformation of consciousness.
—GENERAL JORGE RAFAEL VIDELA
General Commander of the Argentine Army, 1976–1981
Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps... He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad.
—HERMAN MELVILLE,
_Moby-Dick_
# ONE
# 1
_Arrival_
Some things are impossible for the mind to hold alone. So listen, if you can, with your whole being. The story pushes and demands to be told, here, now, with you so close and the past even closer, breathing at the napes of our necks.
He arrived on the second of March, 2001, a few minutes after midnight. I was alone. I heard a low sound from the living room, a kind of scrape, like fingernails on unyielding floor—then silence. At first I couldn't move; I wondered whether I had left a window open, but no, I had not. I picked up the knife from the counter, still flecked with squash, and walked slowly down the hall toward the living room with the knife leading the way, thinking that if it came to fighting I'd be ready, I'd stab down to the hilt. I turned the corner and there he lay, curled up on his side, drenching the rug.
He was naked. Seaweed stuck to his wet skin, which was the color of ashes. He smelled like fish and copper and rotting apples. Nothing had moved: the sliding glass door to the backyard was closed and intact, the curtains were unruffled, and there was no damp trail where he might have walked or crawled. I could not feel my limbs, I was all wire and heat, the room crackled with danger.
"Get out," I said.
He didn't move.
"Get the hell out," I said, louder this time.
He lifted his head with tremendous effort and opened his eyes. They were wide eyes that seemed to have no bottom. They stared at me, the eyes of a baby, the eyes of a boa. In that moment something in my core came apart like a ship losing its mooring, anchor dismantled, the terror of dark waters on all sides, and I found that I could not turn away.
I raised the knife and pointed it at him.
The man shuddered and his head collapsed against the floor. My instinct was to rush to his side, help him up, offer him a hot drink or an ambulance. But was he pretending, hoping I'd come closer so he could overpower me? _Don't do it. Don't go near him_. I took a step backward and waited. The man had given up on lifting his head again, and was watching me from the corners of his eyes. A minute passed. He did not blink or lunge or look away.
Finally, I said, "What do you want?"
His jaws began to work, slowly, arduously. The mouth opened and water poured out, thick and brown like the water of the river, seeping into the rug. The murky smell in the room intensified. I took another step back and pressed against the wall. It felt cool and hard and I wished it would whisper _Sshhh, don't worry, some things are solid still_ , but it was only a wall and had nothing to say.
His lips worked around empty air. I waited and watched him strain to form a word. Finally he spoke, unintelligibly and too loudly, like a deaf person who has not learned to sculpt his sounds. "Co-iii-aahh."
I shook my head.
He made the sound again, more slowly. "Coo. Iiiii. Aaaahh."
I tried to piece it together. "Coya?" I asked, thinking, a name? a place I've never heard of?
"Coo. Miiiii. Aaah."
I nodded blankly.
"Coo. Miiiii. Dah."
And then I understood. " _Co-mi-da_. Food. Food?"
He nodded. Drops of water fell from his face, too copious to be sweat; they seeped from his pores, a human sponge just lifted from the river—though even sponges would stop dripping at some point, and this man's wetness had not relented. Without turning my gaze away from him, I pressed the knife against my arm, to see whether I was dreaming. The blade broke skin and drew blood and I felt the pain but did not wake out of this reality into another one. If my father had been here he surely would not have seen this ghoulish man, or if he had, he would have stabbed him already, without a word, then poured a glass of scotch and watched Mamá clean up the carpet. I met the stranger's gaze and felt my heart pulse like a siren in my chest. I should attack him, I thought. I should chase him out. But I couldn't bring myself to do either. Later, I would look back on this moment as the one when my real life began: the moment in which, without knowing why, to my own shock and against all reason, I lowered my weapon and went to forage for food.
The kitchen was just as I'd left it, only the pot had boiled over on the stove, water hissing as it leaped out onto the burner. I had been cooking squash for Lolo, the turtle, who stood by the refrigerator, neck craned from his shell, unperturbed. My cigarette had gone out on the counter. I was shocked to see it, as it did not feel like the same night on which, just a few minutes earlier, I had stood there smoking and chopping squash, thinking to myself, as though repetition would make me believe it, it's good to be alone, the house to myself, and isn't it wonderful, I can do anything I want, eat toast for dinner, whirl naked in the kitchen if I choose, leave dirty dishes on the sofa, sit with my legs spread wide, cry without explaining myself to anyone.
I turned off the fire under the pot of squash, and began to rummage through the refrigerator. Mamá had left the house well stocked. I gathered an array of foods on a tray: Gouda, bread, last night's roast chicken and potatoes, white wine, a glass of water, a few bonbons in a gold box—and headed back down the hall. I still had the knife with me, nestled between the dishes. My parents protested, from nowhere, from the air at my back, and I had no answer for them. I felt the heavy cape of their disapproval, their dismay at my breach of common sense. _Perla, what are you doing?_ I imagined them calling as I kept on down the hall and into the living room.
He had not strayed from his position, folded into himself like a fetus. He did not shiver. The burgundy rug was almost black with water. He was motionless except for one bare foot that tapped silently against the floor. He stared at the wall and his eyes did not blink. In the morning I would wake up and he would be gone and the carpet would be dry, dry, because none of this ever happened.
I put the tray down on the floor beside him. He stared as if it held objects from a strange and sunken kingdom. He made no move to rise and eat, and, I realized, he probably couldn't, since he'd barely had the strength to move his mouth. He was as vulnerable as a dazed infant, and might be waiting for me to feed him, bite by bite. The notion repulsed me—my hand at his mouth, his damp skin brushing against mine—and so I waited. He made a sound, unformed and plaintive, all vowel and longing. Another minute passed.
Finally, I asked, "Would you like some chicken?"
He shook his head, almost imperceptibly.
"Cheese?"
He shook his head again.
"Chocolate?"
Again.
"Water?"
He nodded, and his eyes widened. Pleading.
There was no avoiding it. He could not serve himself. I lifted the glass from the tray, toward his lips, and he raised his head a few centimeters from the floor. Now that I was closer, I saw a bluish tinge to his lips, and a sheen of moisture on his face. I tipped the glass, carefully, and he chewed as though he were eating the water, as though it were as solid as bread. I was careful not to touch him with my fingers, although even then my repulsion warred with a prick of curiosity: what on earth would his skin feel like?
He finished eating and sank his head back to the floor.
"Who are you?" I said, but he had closed his eyes.
I didn't know what to do with myself, so I sat on the floor for a while, next to the stranger. I thought of trying to move him somewhere, to the backyard, to the street. But he seemed too heavy, it would be worse if the motion woke him up, and in any case what if the neighbors saw? Easier to just do nothing, go to bed and in the morning he'd be gone the way he came. Not a rational solution, but one to get me through the night.
I felt so tired. It had been ten days since my fight with Gabriel, since I'd left him on that Uruguayan beach with empty hands and emptier eyes and no promise of ever seeing him again. Since then, unpalatable visions had not let me sleep. But in the morning I would always rise and polish the surface of myself, a gleaming, confident young woman, an excellent student and good daughter starting her fourth year at the university, moving smoothly through the world, and even though inside the chaos scraped and railed I would push it into the crevices of the day so it could not be detected.
The only person who could be counted on to see through my masks was Gabriel. When we first met, four years ago, I thought it was because he was seven years older, and therefore more sophisticated. But surely there were twenty-five-year-old men who were barely men and didn't know how to see the black hole in a poised eighteen-year-old girl. I had managed to deceive professors, friends, my parents and their friends, everyone except Gabriel. Early on, when I said I had to go study for a psychology exam, he had said, _All that Freud, and yet you can't see your own demons_. Then he kissed me, laughing, which enraged me. My own desire to kiss back enraged me more. Don't talk to me about demons, I said, until you've wrestled down your own. He looked at me as if I'd just spoken the secret of seduction. I did no studying that night; not of Freud—only of the slopes of his body, the urge in his hands, his mouth against my skin, his sex hard against me through his jeans. That was our first year together, the least complicated of our years, when I was simply Perla and not the people I was linked to, before we talked about his work or my family let alone the explosive combination of the two, before our images of each other started cracking, fault lines spreading, as happens to mirrors hit by tiny stones. It was enough, then, to kiss and laugh and argue, to smoke and drink and undulate against each other until the heat we generated hauled the sun out of its sleep.
I thought of this as I left the stranger on the floor and went back to the kitchen, where I put the boiled squash in a bowl on the floor for Lolo, who was hiding somewhere but would surely come in the night, when the house was asleep. I walked up the stairs toward bed, feeling both exhausted and viscerally awake. I longed to turn back time and reenter those early nights with Gabriel, reenter Gabriel himself, the scent of him, his vigorous voice, the gaze that made me feel transparent. Wrapped in his presence I would look for the woman I had been with him, or believed that I could be. _And who is that woman, Perla?_ A braver woman, a woman from underground, carrying secrets like subdued snakes in both hands. Inklings of that woman had flared at me during nights with Gabriel; I could imagine burning through my own reality to become the snake-woman, hair on fire, ready to rise. But these were only absurd imaginings, and anyway ten days ago I'd shut that door, and shut the door on Gabriel. He was gone from me now and it was my own doing. I had to do it, there was no other choice, I thought, night after night, running the words through my mind, _no other choice, no other choice_ , an incantation whose power grew with repetition. I had thought he might call me, but he did not. He had been angrier than I'd thought. If he doesn't call in seven days, I thought, it's absolutely over—and when seven days had passed with no Gabriel I thought my heart would come apart but instead of shedding a single tear I went to a bar near the university, found a shy classmate called Osvaldo, and let him take me home. It was shockingly easy, all it took was a split second longer gaze than usual and five minutes later he'd bought me a drink, thirty minutes later we left the bar for the raucous night. On the walk to his apartment he acted like a miner who had stumbled on a vein of gold. He was a kind person, but when he reached into my body he found my body only. He never sensed the inner shape of me that even I could barely face but that Gabriel had always seemed to reach for, to touch, to want to understand. There was pleasure in the way Osvaldo touched me, the way he wrapped my legs around his neck like rope, the way his sex quickened its pace from sheer enthusiasm, but the pleasure seemed to belong to someone else, a girl who had taken my body for the night and whom I scarcely recognized. Afterward, I lay naked beneath him in the dim light and thought, Now, Perla, you've got what you want, freedom from exposure, a self so well hidden it cannot be found. I should have felt relief or at least some scrap of triumph, but I only felt terribly alone.
And I was alone, for three more nights, until this stranger broke in without shattering a single pane.
He wakes up in the morning from a sleep that heaves like tides. There is sunlight in the room, more intense when poured through air than through the water. He was in the water before, was he not? From the wet blur of his memory comes the feel of light through water, its slow rhythm, the dispersion of beams through a dense realm. There is so much he can't remember, but he does remember this: he lost his body, once, though he's not quite sure how. Somehow he disappeared, then died, then floated in the water for a very long time. The sea and the river were his homes. Until finally, last night, he rose into the air, buoyant, invisible, and the darkness rubbed against his naked mind, he had no form, he had no bulk, he was translucent as the air, which was black and sweet and weightless, and he felt that he could rise up to the sun, but in the night there was no sun, nor was there any moon. And in any case he wasn't drawn into the heavens, he was drawn toward the earth, toward the shore, where little lights winked and gleamed and boasted. The city. His city. Buenos Aires. He was starved for something there but he didn't know what. He knew only hunger and specks of light.
He glided toward the city, and as he did, his form began to change. He slowly took the shape of a man. At the edge of the city there were houses full of light and darkness. He was pulled toward them. He was pulled toward one.
And then suddenly he was here, in this room, where light moves so fast, it shoots right into him. He is not accustomed to it. He is not accustomed to anything—not this large room; this wet and limber body he's encased in; not this morning sun that shouts its presence, ricochets from the walls and the paintings hanging from the walls, the ship and hills and disfigured clocks inside those paintings, this sun that makes the room cry out. The sofa seems to swell, the bookshelf looks over him, the rug glows at the edges and the song is broken, chromatic, invisible. Fast light cuts into all of him and he can't shout, he hears the room and hears the light and he can smell it, also, he lets in the scent of light, the lemoncrush and greensweat of morning.
She enters the room, the woman from last night, she is wearing something red and she is marvelous, a marvel. There is something about her that chafes at him. Something important, though he doesn't know what it is. Knowing comes to him haphazardly, sharp and sudden, his mind is a bowl full of splinters that he cannot sift through, cannot gather, cannot see, all he can do is wait for them to cut him so he'll know that they are there. She comes closer. She looks at him with thinly veiled disgust.
You're still here, she says.
He stares at her.
You seem stronger.
He is silent.
I have to go out.
Colors, he thinks, there are colors in her face he's never seen.
Why are you here?
He shakes his head.
You don't know?
Her lips are as red as the clothes she's wearing. Her hair is long and dark, a heavy curtain around her shoulders. Once there was another woman with dark hair around her shoulders, he remembers now, a memory cuts into his mind, her name was Gloria and the day the black boots came for him her name rang out inside his mind, Gloria, Gloria.
The woman rises. I have to go. I'll be back in the evening.
She is gone.
He stares at the window, where the sun ebbs in, along with the gentle sound of a car passing. The shard is cutting deeper. The black boots and Gloria's name grow vibrant. He remembers.
On the train into downtown Buenos Aires, I almost missed my stop and had to barge through a knot of men in suits to make it through the sliding doors before they closed. I rushed up the stairs in a thick mass of people, all moving in the same direction on separate legs, not speaking or even looking at each other, focused only on speed and destination. Usually I took these stairs without noticing the bodies all around me, my mind absorbed by a friend's romantic problems or an upcoming exam, but today I keenly felt their presence, their momentum and their folded psyches as they emptied out of the station into the broad light of the day.
The street met us all with blaring horns and impatient cars. The tall buildings loomed over us, as always, casting their implacable shadows. Today they stood taller than ever. The strangers around me seemed to walk to the inaudible clicks and clacks of a hidden potent timepiece, the invisible machine that powers Buenos Aires, and though I usually fell in step without a thought, today I could not walk like them. My legs were loose, unleashed. I had lost the gait of reason within myself. You cannot walk with perfect reason when a dripping man who may not even be a man has appeared in your house. Purses and satchels swung in irritation as their owners overtook me. It's not my fault, I thought, it's the water: it leaked into my consciousness and soaked it, bloated it, ruined the regular mechanics. I wondered whether I had gone insane. If so, I thought, then this is what it feels like; I would never have guessed the world would still appear so sharp and vivid, the streets the same, the clouds the same, nothing different except your mind has come unhinged, its cogs whirling loose and wild and hazardous.
As I walked up the noisy boulevard toward the university I thought of all the years that I had dutifully walked through the world with careful sanity, as though all were well, as though my family were well, as though nothing rotted beneath the surface, until I broke away from expectations by enrolling in the department of psychology. That was the first time I ever went against my father's wishes on anything significant. He had always planned for me to become a medical doctor, a paragon career for his paragon daughter, the only path he would accept for me, chosen by the time I was born. When I first told him my decision, he would not speak to me for days, and even in my first year at the university, the campaign continued: You still have time, Perla, you could switch to medicine, it would take you longer but at least you won't be making this mistake.
"But it's not a mistake, Papá. It's what I want."
He shook his head. "You're too young to know what you want."
"Everybody decides at my age."
"I'm not talking about everybody."
His hands were broad and large and calloused, resting on the table as he leaned in to persuade me, and his voice was stern but his eyes were pleading, almost tender, only the best for my princess, and I wanted to take his hands and cup them in front of me so I could pour in what I was learning. Look look, here are the secrets of the mind, the deep-sea treasures I am diving for, lost keys that can unlock what has long remained shut down in the dark. How I longed for my father's reach. How I hated myself for doing so.
I arrived in class fifteen minutes late. My professor raised an eyebrow—Perla, the eyebrow said, this is not like you—and kept talking. I took out my notebook and tried to turn my attention to the evolution of Freudian dream theory. The field's understanding has deepened and expanded over the years; we are all responding to the constant cues of our subconscious, only the insane see dripping ghouls in their home. I looked up, startled, but of course no one had heard my thought. I made notes dutifully, but even as I wrote the page seemed distant and even hazy, as though seen through a windshield blanketed with rain. Inside, I was riding a torrent, to who knows where, back to my living room, to the madness of seaweed in my living room, and to the figure of a naked man or not-man lying on the floor at this very moment, moaning or muttering or just dripping in absolute silence. God, what was he? A ghost? A monster? Just a sad pale man? Would he still be there when I got home? What an absurd predicament. Gabriel, I thought, if only I could call you; you of all people would know what to do or at least would invent some way to respond, or barring that might at the very least put your arm around me as I face the living room tonight, how I long to see you, but surely, after the way we parted, you would never want to hear from me again. The professor glanced over at me—she'd made some point she thought would spark me, and I, Perla, excellent student, nodded thoughtfully. I'd missed what had been said. I was a liar, nodding Yes, Yes, like a dutiful machine.
My friend Marisol looked at me from across the room, and smiled hello. Her eyes added, _Where have you been?_ I answered with a halfhearted smile back, and hoped she wouldn't approach me after class. If she did, I'd make a quick getaway, or, if she caught me, I'd tell her I had an appointment. We usually went out for coffee every few days, but I'd been avoiding her this week, ever since my return from Uruguay. We had spoken only once on the phone.
"Well?" she'd said. "How did it go?"
"Fine," I'd said, and once it was out of my mouth it was too late to take back the lie.
"You didn't get caught?"
I had told my parents I was taking a trip with Marisol and her family. "No, that all went smoothly. Thanks for covering for me."
"And his family?"
"Whose family?"
"Perla. Come on. Gabriel's family. How was meeting them?"
"Sorry, Marisol, but this isn't a good time. Can we talk later?"
"Sure, sure. Just call me when you have time."
But I never had the time. Or I did have the time, but lacked something else essential to making the call, and such an ordinary call at that, to catch up with a friend. It wouldn't even have to be particularly involved; Marisol wasn't the best of listeners, and would soon turn the conversation to her latest fight with her mother. But I didn't have it in me. And now, even less so—with the whoknowswhat in my living room, I felt incapable of feigning chatter.
What would she say if she knew? And what would the rest of my classmates say? I imagined my professor presenting the case study, my story told: a young woman believes she saw a wet ghost just like you see me here, that she gave him water from a glass and he chewed it. Now remember, your patient is convinced of her reality, attached to its veracity even though it plagues her. What treatment would you say she requires? The hands shoot up.
When I woke up that morning I'd lain in bed, staring at the ceiling, the impervious ceiling, asking it for a normal day. A normal living room. A normal fist of silence in my mind. Not like these raucous thoughts, these eddies, this whirlpool of wondering what the hell had poured into my house.
The day the black boots came for him was a pretty day, with bright blue slices of sky between the buildings. He remembers, now, the café he went to on his way home. It was halfway between the office and his apartment. It was beautiful and ordinary, with ivory walls, bitter coffee, little cookies. People walked sharply outside the window. It was just another cup of coffee to him then, and just another window. He was tired. He had stayed up too late fighting with Gloria, about a stupid thing, the apartment, something about the apartment, whether or not they should move and what they should do with the apartment if they did, though he couldn't remember what had raised the question about moving, where they would go and why, all he knew was that her mouth was pursed in profile, she turned and showed her shoulder blades, they didn't touch in sleep that final night, what an idiot, not to have touched her. He dreaded going home, the chance that she was still angry, the dance-step of apologies, and so he stopped for coffee. The coffee came with little almond cookies, not the butter ones today, what a shame. He remembers. He tastes the coffee and the almond cookie, tinged with his petty disappointment. Then home. He turned the key and pushed the door open and there was Gloria, bound to a chair, blindfolded, still as a doll. The first fist sent him to the floor and he stayed there, there were many of them, dozens, a dozen boots around him, in his ribs, kicking, speaking, the boots were speaking, they wanted to know things but he couldn't speak. Blood filled his mouth. A hand caught his hair, lifted him from the ground, then came a fist and he was down again, sinking in a vortex of men. He understood that they had come for him, it was his turn, he would be gone, Gloria was right about people being taken and he wished that he'd believed her, held fiercely to this wish as though believing her could have staved off this moment, there was red in his eyes, wet copper in his mouth, two teeth floating across his tongue like hidden shipwrecks, and Gloria was pleading please don't hurt him, shut up Gloria, a slap and then a cry, that's right darling, don't say a thing, sit still until it's over and then maybe they won't take you, please shut up. She didn't shut up and they weren't done and he was on the floor and pulled up and back down again, they wanted to know where Carraceli was but he had never known a Carraceli, it was no use, the hood came over his head, the room went quiet, by now it was the middle of the night, he was rolled into a carpet, he was carried down the stairs of his apartment building past neighbors' doors that did not open, everybody seemed to know to keep their doors closed on such nights, and then he was in the footwell of a car that drove and drove and drove and drove and that—he now remembers—is how he disappeared.
# 2
_A Secret Dimension_
I arrived home with brown bags full of food. I was ready for anything—ready to find an empty living room and accept that I had hallucinated and was clinically insane, and also ready to see him there still, in which case perhaps the world was crazy and not me. I imagined this, the world on the couch, the whole of it lying prone and anguished, a globe deflating in the grip of confession, and my professor scribbling on a tablet, _Suffers from delusions, psychosis. Acute_.
He was still there. I smelled him as soon as I opened the door, a gust of metallic fish and rotting apples. He still looked wet, as if he'd just emerged from water. He sat on the floor, staring at the painting on the wall, Tía Mónica's blue rendition of a ship on tumultuous seas. The monochrome approach was inspired by Picasso's blue period; that's what Papá always said about it. Intermittently, Mamá would make a case for them to take it down, or at least hang it in the upstairs hallway, the last thing I want in my own living room is to be reminded of your sister, but none of the appeals ever worked. On most decorating points my father caved to my mother, but there was no moving this vestige of Tía Mónica.
"I brought more food," I said.
He didn't move.
"I had no idea what you wanted."
He turned his head toward me, slowly.
"Are you hungry now?"
He didn't answer and I felt like a fool, standing in my living room with two bags of groceries I had painstakingly chosen—lingering in the aisle, thinking, Pasta? surely he'd like pasta?—for a guest I had never invited and whose humanity was in question and whom I had no reason at all to long to feed and who now would not even deign to speak. "You must be hungry."
"Rain."
"What?"
"It's going to rain."
"Oh." I looked out the window, at the heavy sky beyond the trees. It had been a hot summer day, humid as always, and rain had not occured to me. "Maybe." I put the grocery bags down on the table. "You can talk."
He nodded. "I am remembering."
"What do you remember?"
He said nothing.
"What are you?"
Through the wall, I heard Belinda, the neighbor child, shrieking with pleasure in the yard. Another child laughed; there was a friend over. I wanted to hurl a loaf of bread at this stranger who would barely talk to me.
"I'm going to make us dinner. You want dinner?"
"Water."
"What?"
"Water."
"That's not dinner," I said, and stopped myself before adding _not for real people, anyway_.
His eyes probed and entered me, his eyes were looking into my mind, they were all sight, they were all dark, they had no bottom. "Water. Please."
He eats the water, chews it, it has substance, it's the only thing with substance in this world. It sparkles in his throat as it goes down. It flows into this unfamiliar flesh, not like the living flesh he had before he disappeared, but something else; he doesn't understand what; he can't answer her questions, still doesn't know it all, the who and what of his presence, after so much absence he must defend his presence, that's how it is, how the world is, a dry dry world, he wants water to pour into him, over and over, fill him up, like it did in the cradled years, the deep-in-river years, when everything was water and he not only ate water but the water—sparkling, ravenous—ate him.
I ate my bread, torn from the loaf, unbuttered. I felt both restless and paralyzed, yearning for motion yet unable to do anything ordinary such as open a book, cook dinner, call friends and meet them for drinks. I needed a drink. I couldn't imagine what I would tell my friends. How's your week going? Oh really? As for me, there's a pale wet man who smells like a dirty beach sitting in my living room. No, I don't know how long he's staying. No, he looks too weak to steal the stereo. Don't worry. Let's buy another round.
I poured myself a scotch from my father's good bottle. I would have offered some to the man but he wanted only his plain water, which he consumed with such intensity it should have been a private act. He finished and looked up at me.
"Thank you." His voice was clearer now, just a little blurred.
I nodded. The window was open. Outside, I heard a dog bark, a man silencing the dog. It didn't rain.
"I was in the water."
It was difficult to hold his gaze. "In the water?"
"Yes."
"Which water?"
"All of it."
I finished my scotch and filled my glass again. "And before that?"
"I disappeared."
I reached for my cigarettes and matches. The small flame moved down the match toward my fingers. I let it scorch me, and it seemed incredible that my fingers didn't shake. "Are you alive?"
He cocked his head to the side and stared at me; it was maddening, terrible, corrosive, the way he didn't blink. "I don't think so."
I smoked the cigarette, watching the smoke curl on itself in the air between us. "I don't think so either."
I poured my third glass of scotch and tore another piece of bread from the loaf, but didn't eat it. I pulled out the soft, white center and pressed it into a ball. Disappeared, I thought. I should have felt bemused, disturbed, at the very least surprised, but all I felt was the low burn of scotch inside my throat.
"Why did you come here?"
He stared at the white ball in my fingers. Bread with all the air crushed out of it. "I don't know."
We spent the next few hours in silence. He stared at Tía Mónica's painting, the ship and sea evoked with the same hue and brush. This painting seemed to engage him far more than the print on the other wall, Dalí's _Persistence of Memory_ , with its melted clocks draped over a barren branch, an angled surface, a sleeping creature of inscrutable origins. I had not caught him looking at the Dalí even once, whereas Mónica's painting seemed to have the effect of a gripping story, as though a part of him could leap over the frame and into its blue world. When I was a child, I had done the same: watched the painting in naked fascination, certain the ship was in motion and would lunge toward me at any moment, as if to save me from perilous shores. The brushstrokes were thick and dynamic, blending ship with sea, creating the illusion that they interpenetrated. A ship melting into the ocean waves, or being born from them: my child-mind could never decide which was more true and always longed to ask the woman who had made the painting. _Does the ship form the water or the water form the ship?_ But I could never ask her this, of course, because she was gone, to an unknown place, a woman even more enigmatic than her art. I drank and smoked and pretended not to watch the man who watched the painting. The street lifted its low voice into the room. The air swirled. I put my head down on the table, and slept.
Perla, Perlita, my mother said, don't believe the lies about the disappeared. You're going to hear things in school and I'll tell you now that they're not true, Perlita, these people are hysterical, they don't understand a lot of things. Don't say anything to them about it. Just stay quiet and remember they're confused.
I nodded then, and my tight braids brushed against my dress. Mamá smiled at me, helped me into my coat, and gave me a hug. As always, I wanted the embrace to last longer so I could dissolve into my mother's soft blouse and bright perfume, but the touch was perfunctory, a means to an end, delivered in the rush of a busy morning. Mamá loved me very much, but she had many things to think about, and very nice clothes that should not wrinkle so early in the day.
I was six years old. The democracy was about to turn one. And yes, there were people now who clearly did not like Navy men like Papá. Romina Martínez's uncles had been gone for seven years, or so she'd told me in the coatroom at school. There are many people like that, she'd whispered. Many people who never came home in the Bad Years. Her grandmother still marched in the plaza downtown every Thursday, wearing a white scarf over her head, so that her uncles would return. But, Romina said, taking off her green galoshes, Mamá said that's crazy, they won't come back, because they're dead.
I said nothing to this because I was a goodgirl. But later, weeks later, one night after homework, I asked my own mamá about it: Where are Romina's uncles? Will they come back?
Mamá sighed. She was holding a scotch, and she swayed it back and forth, so that the ice cubes chimed against the glass. "Who knows?"
"Where are they?"
"They probably went off to live lazy lives in Paris."
I felt sorry for Romina then, with her hand-me-down galoshes and her grandmother wandering the plaza and uncles too lazy to come home. She did not have a mamá like mine, the kind that had her nails done every week and wore imported French scarves that draped across her collar like bright plumes. Mamá had beauty all around her, Papá was a strong man who arrived home in the evenings with his uniform still pressed, and I was a lucky girl to have parents like these.
But Romina was not the only one who spoke about these things. We're a democracy now, said the puffy-haired lady on the television news; the dictatorship is behind us. I had never heard the word _dictatorship—dictadura_ —before. I tried to understand what it could mean. It had the word _dura_ inside of it, meaning _hard_ , so perhaps there had been something hard about that time, which might explain why Romina called them the Bad Years, but did not explain why Papá seemed not to like that they were over. Maybe it wasn't a bad kind of hard. Like walls. Everybody knew it was good that walls were hard, because that way the rain couldn't come in. But you wouldn't want your pillows to be hard, or your father's hand, or many other things.
Whenever the puffy-haired lady came on television, I watched intently so I could better understand this word, _dictatorship_. From her, I learned that in those years a thing had happened called El Proceso, the Process, and some people said it was a good thing, while others said it hurt a lot of people, especially some people who were called _desaparecidos_. The disappeared. At that point, I waited for the puffy-haired lady to name Romina's uncles, maybe even show Romina and her family on the screen, but she did not. Instead, she was busy talking about a man called General Jorge Videla, who had commanded the country (I could see this clearly, the commanding: Argentina at the table like a schoolgirl, Videla the headmistress, passing the bread, telling Argentina to keep its elbows off the table and chew with its mouth closed), and now people were mad at him and other generals because of the disappeared, and so there were going to be trials. On the first day of the trials, my parents watched the news after dinner without saying a word. I watched them more than I watched the footage of stern military men and shouting people on the street. On the second night, they watched for five minutes, until my father got up quickly and turned it off.
"We're not watching that shit."
"Language," said Mamá.
Mamá and Papá bought another television for their bedroom. I didn't see the news anymore. But still, I learned at school that the former commanders went to prison. And as the years passed, I learned that the disappeared had not reappeared. The word _disappeared_ kept ricocheting, through rooms, down streets, in grocery stores, in plazas, in newspapers, in whispers and in wails and all tones in between. A new number of _desaparecidos_ was calculated, denied, defended. Thirty thousand. That number was a lie from foreign groups. That number was a truth that had occurred. The number was of people that the government had taken. No. It was people who simply had gone somewhere else. No. There were mass graves. There were exaggerations. They were dead. There must be survivors. El Proceso was a national shame. El Proceso had been necessary. The disappeared had been innocent. The disappeared had endangered the security of the nation.
So many words, so many versions, always pushing back and forth. I wanted to believe everybody, wanted to find the space where everyone—my father, the journalists, strangers in the store—had a little piece of the truth. When I was eleven, I read Borges in school, and it occurred to me that everything was possible. Because, in Borges's stories, there were men who dreamed grown men into being, and points in space that contained the universe, and gardens that forked the paths of time itself. If all of this could happen, then there must be a way to understand the vanished people. Maybe El Proceso had tapped into an unknown seventh dimension. A crack had opened between our plane and another secret realm. And thirty thousand people had fallen through, by a slip of the foot, a slip of the tongue, a slip of reality. In which case, the disappeared were still somewhere. Still alive. But not with us.
I wrote a story for Spanish class in which the thirty thousand clustered, waiting, wakeful, trapped in a secret dimension. I was twelve when I wrote it; the democracy was five years old. Videla had been released from prison, pardoned by President Menem. In the story, the thirty thousand crowded their new homes and survived by taking in memories instead of air, craving recollection the way the rest of humanity craves breath. Their mouths grew large from telling their own stories. They kept looking for the rift in their reality, the crack they'd slipped through, a way to go back home, or at least tell those they'd left behind what happened so they wouldn't have to worry. But the slipping-place was gone. I wrote this story for myself, in the depth of the night, spilling over beyond the demands of the assignment, which was a story of three pages while my own version continued on for thirteen, and every page surprised me, made me wonder where it came from, where the words and memory-breaths and tangled translucent avenues and ethereal lost people with distorted mouths had come from, what this force that pushed my pen across the page could be. When I finished, I didn't dare to read it over. Instead I put it under my pillow and slept the three remaining hours of the night.
The story won a school contest, and a briefer version was published in the newspaper. My teacher had me stand up at her desk while the whole class clapped, and though they did so with wooden duty and even envy, the sound still showered through me and reached inner chambers I had not known were there.
When I came home that night, at ten o'clock from studying at a friend's house, my father was waiting for me in the living room. He was drunk.
"Come here."
I didn't want to go there but I did.
"Sit down."
I sat.
He held up the clipping of my story. "What is this?"
"A story."
"Who wrote it?"
I grasped my fingers in my lap. "I did."
"Oh yeah? And who are you?"
Papá looked old, gray around the edges. I thought that he might shout or hit me, but he didn't. His tone was a slap already. He stared at the wall and then at me and with his eyes upon me I wanted to shred that story and swallow it, piece by piece, pull the whole thing back into my body and make it disappear.
"Perla. There are a lot of things that you don't understand."
I nodded.
"We're your parents. Your mamá and I."
I felt Lolo amble up to me. He leaned his cool shell against my ankle, and this calmed me a little. I nodded again.
"Do you want to lose us?"
I shook my head.
"You want to be an orphan?"
"No."
"Then why the hell would you write a thing like this?"
Mamá was in the doorway now. "Héctor," she said, "that's enough. Stop it." She walked over, hard shoes echoing, and put her hand on Papá's shoulder, her long red nails against his white shirt like exotic insects. I leaned forward, into the sweet edge of her perfume.
Papá looked at me with an open face, a face more open than I'd ever seen on him, afraid, exposed, a man lost in the jungle. At that moment, I felt as though I understood nothing, not a single thing about the world, except one: I would not write. I moved forward and put my hand on his knee to comfort him, or to calm him, or to keep myself steady.
"Perla," he said, "you're killing me."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"All right then," said Mamá. "Let's all go to bed."
His eyes are closed but he isn't sleeping. He recalls the time when he had no eyes. They hooded him, a simple way to take eyes from a man. He wore the hood day and night, and day and night did not exist, there was only dark, the dark was everywhere, all around him, in the air while he swung from the ceiling, in the cold water thrown over his sleep, in the steel mesh of the electric table. The men said You are nothing, We are God, and pissed and spat on him, his countrymen, all in a day's work. Sometimes they said it shouting, and other times mechanically, duty done, mission accomplished; in his other life when he had eyes he might have asked them for their names, or for some shred of who they were, perhaps he'd known them, their feet may have once kicked a soccer ball his way in some park in the city, it was possible, there had been many games in the park, but this was not soccer and he was not a ball and their feet had their own marching orders.
He missed his eyes at first. He longed for light and thought that light might save him. He wanted to see his welts, his bruises, he was worried about his balls. The way they hung it seemed they'd swollen to the size of grapefruits from the twisting and the twisting, from the electric shocks, they throbbed and throbbed, there was a time when Gloria had cradled them in her fingers, in her mouth, squeezing playfully, a daring squeeze, how could they have imagined what could be done to balls? how much more daring things could get? where was she now? his wife _safe, safe, safe_ drinking coffee with her girlfriends, typing letters for her boss, taking off her earrings in the bedroom, taking off her blouse, leaving on her wedding ring, wondering where he was. His mind returned to her over and over, finding her in bed, her body warm, hair redolent, opening arms and legs to him, _shhhhh you're back, don't worry_ , he'd shrink to baby-size and be enfolded, crawl between her legs into her body where the baby was growing, _shhhhh there's room for both of you_ , he stayed inside her, warm, lush, halfway between worlds, all three of them resting in one nest of flesh—until cold water and spit made him return.
Days passed. Weeks. He couldn't tell. He learned that there are things worse than the dark. Light in the wrong places, like his ass, the hole of him, filled up with a metal rod that lit with current. The questions kept coming and coming, over and over, he no longer knew what he answered, he no longer knew what they wanted, what his body could survive. He longed for dark, retreated there, a microscopic coil of a man.
The men said You don't exist.
They said it loud and also said it low and there was no day, no night, no slope of time between light and darkness.
You don't exist. You're nothing.
Little did they know those words could be a refuge. What does not exist can feel no pain. Pain still approached with jaws wide open, but it found nothing to clamp onto. Nothing mattered. He slipped away. Even his name was gone from him, erased from the past, from all the mouths that ever made the shape of it to call him from the street for dinner, to call on him in class, to sing him to sleep, to punctuate a question—did you steal that? are you cold? do you still love me? how many oranges? where do you think you're going? Where there are no questions there's no life. Where there is no name there is no calling. Better not to be called, not to feel yourself again, the skin and cold nightwater and the boots, the three other men in the small tube of a cell, whom he smelled nearby though they were strictly forbidden to speak. They too had no names. They only had numbers, called out by guards when they arrived to take them to the interrogation room down the hall.
The men in that room. They existed. They were hot unyielding they were everywhere. He hated them. He needed them. Sometimes he loved them—he despised himself for it but couldn't help it, they could grant reprieves, could halt the beating and say _Look what I did for you_ , could fill his mouth with a sweet pastry when he was starved, the same hand brought the pastry and the electric jolts, stroked his forehead dry with a cloth and pushed levers, and he was so debased that when the pastry came and the voice said _Say thank you, sir_ , he would not only repeat the words but mean them. I want to live and so I want your love. Men who could grant life and thresh it to oblivion. The guards were myriad, they gave him _mate_ sometimes and sometimes a crust of bread, a bowl of gruel, a small moment to lift the hood off and eat. Sometimes they laughed, the laughter of a bored man or of a boy watching ants drown in the water he'd just poured over them.
In the end it was light that broke him, light worse than the dark. Light revealing colors that never should be seen. He was tied to the table, as usual, facedown, beaten first, then shocked, poked, twisted, as usual. A hand touched his face, caressed it, two fingers soft along his cheek, then drawing up his hood. His head was pulled back by the hair. His eyes were stung by the light, it had been days or months, he blinked several times and the voice said _Do you know what this is?_ and so he blinked again and strained to focus. There was another hand in front of him, holding a rag that dripped with blood; he had no answer and anyway there was no time, the voice went on— _It's your wife's panties, that's what_ —and then the hood came back down and the dark, the dark, the dark clasped him and swallowed his whole mind.
I woke up, not in bed. I was at the table. What had I dreamed? Of swimming through dark waters, full of broken fish. And I was cold. And then? Already I couldn't quite remember.
The man was still on the living room floor. His eyes were closed, so I took a long look at him. There was a drenched translucence to his skin, an unnatural paleness, that did not belong to the living. His limbs were as limp as tentacles. His lips were blue and swollen, and his genitals drooped. I had never offered him clothes, I realized, and he had not asked for them; somehow, the notion of clothing seemed extraneous and even strange. He did not seem cold, after all, and appeared to have no way of becoming dry. As for modesty, he seemed to have none, and I had no desire to draw attention to his nakedness by making the suggestion. In any case, I did not feel the embarrassment I would have expected to feel in response to a naked stranger; I might as well be embarrassed at the nakedness of a fish. He had a few bits of seaweed stuck in his hair. I thought of the seaweed on the beach in Uruguay, that last night with Gabriel, how it glistened obscenely in the moonlight. How I ran away and left him there, alone on the beach, calling after me. I thought of his face right before I turned from him, washed in moonlight, the lost look of a man who's exited the train at the wrong stop. I didn't want to think about that moment, couldn't bear to think about it, but this man's presence was pushing at the dam I had erected to keep it out of my thoughts. This man's presence was wet and heavy and seemed to have this effect, he threatened to collapse the dam so anything could pour into my mind, memories, urges, melted question marks. I was afraid of what would happen if he stayed here, who I would continue to become.
It was quiet in the room; there were no cars on the street, all the neighbors were home behind closed doors. The tall lamp in the corner illumined a wide circle in the room, hemmed by silent shadows. The light was low, but gleamed gently in the wet drops on the man's skin. I wondered whether he would ever dry, or whether he'd always appear this way, damp and clammy, as if freshly risen from the river. He was uninvited moisture. He had leaked into this house. I had every reason to find his presence an affront, to be enraged at his invasion, or at least to eject him in calm tones. Certainly he made me feel combustible, unsafe in my own skin. But though I didn't know why, though the feeling shocked me, I did not want him to leave. It occurred to me then that there might be something the two of us had to do together, something ineffable, something I could not possibly do alone.
Perla, I thought, you're delirious with the night.
Outside, it began, very softly, to rain.
# 3
_Waters and Sorrows_
Morning came. I didn't go to class. I left a message on my professor's voice mail, something I'd never done before but it was so unlike me to miss school for any reason that I felt the need to explain. I'm running a high fever, I said, a strange summer virus. It wouldn't be responsible to expose the rest of the class, and anyway, with my head in this state I won't be able to apply myself. I said it all thinking I was weaving a big lie, but as I hung up it occurred to me that everything except the fever could be true.
The wet man slept on his patch of floor, his body curled into a loose ball. The rug around him was stained with water. I watched him breathe for a few minutes, taking in air, expelling it, his mouth slack. I wondered how old he was. In the morning sun his hair was still black with hints of green, his ash-white face unwrinkled—he could be my own age, twenty-two, or perhaps a couple of years older, twenty-five at most. But then again, he had been somewhere that could have changed his skin, darkened his hair, shifted his constitution in ways I couldn't grasp. I was trying to fathom him, the bare essentials of his being; trying to open my thinking, my world, to contain what he claimed to be: one of the disappeared. One of the people who left for work and never arrived, or arrived at work and never came home, or went home and never emerged. People who left holes more gaping than the ordinary dead, because they can't be grieved and buried, forcing their loved ones to carry their perpetual absence as though the absence itself were alive. Like Romina, with her missing uncles, and her involvement with the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, with whom she marched in sight of the Presidential Palace, a white kerchief around her face in protest. In the single year that we were close friends, I had always imagined the uncles' absence as a dominating current in her house, sweeping the walls along with sunlight, murmuring under dinner conversations, lining the copious shelves of books. Of course that was all before we turned fourteen and Romina cut our ties in a single brutal gesture of disgust—or rage? or grief? or—after which there was no more speaking let alone dreaming between us, only glares at me in the hall that spoke with such ferocious naked force that I came to spend my high school years studiously avoiding Romina's face. I imagined finding Romina now—an apparition in stern glasses, hovering in the hall—and saying Look, look, one of them is here, I don't know how he got here but it's true, he drips and stares like a human trout but he says he's one of them, halfdead, undead, disentangled from the threads of nonexistence, he has not aged, could he be your uncle?
The apparition of Romina scowled and said, That's impossible.
I know it seems impossible, but he's here.
Not that, bitch. It's impossible that my uncle would come to your house.
I stood, to dispel the vision, unsteady on my feet. I didn't want to stay home, nor did I feel equipped to leave. I washed my face, but didn't shower. Two cups of coffee for breakfast. For Lolo, boiled squash, which he picked at for a moment and then abandoned. I'd been boiling his food faithfully ever since I was old enough to be let near the stove. He hadn't been able to eat lettuce in thirty-nine years, since before I was born, when he was my father's turtle, and so mean, it is said, that my grandfather kicked him and broke his mouth. His mouth was still crooked from the injury. Occasionally he disappeared for days, and the squash I boiled for him would go untouched. I would worry about his hunger and demise until I saw him again, out in the open, alert, unperturbed, crooked jaw shut tight around the secret of where he'd been. He was capable of immense stillness as well as a surprising gallop up and down the hall when the mood struck him. That bastard is strong, mean and strong, my father would always say, and shake his head in vexed admiration. Now, as I watched Lolo amble out, I wished I could crawl into his leathery head and dig up memories like buried stones. Because he was there when my father was a child, long before he became my father, when he was just a little boy called Héctor watching his own father kick a turtle in the face and break his jaw. A forceful boot, the rapid shatter of a mouth. Lolo had brought it on himself, or so the story went. What had he done? Walked too slowly? Too fast? Been too much underfoot? Perhaps he'd bitten his attacker first, though I'd never seen him bite anyone and could not imagine him doing so without provocation. And surely there were some provocations in the house that formed the boy who became Héctor, a house four kilometers away that smelled of medicines and disinfected floors, in which a childhood had unfurled that I had little knowledge of, barely a fistful.
Once, my mother had told me, when I was small and crying in my room because Papá was angry and I'd been bad and had to be punished, _Your father's good to you, you know, he never hits you like his father did with him_. I was spoiled, the one who was not hit, escaping the fate of Héctor, and of Lolo. When we visited my grandfather, I saw a man who everyone said was ill but who seemed to possess a terrible charm, wearing his Navy colonel's jacket just to sit at his own kitchen table, capable of mesmerizing a child, launching his special game that sent me hiding in the house without any seek, no one to come after me, no one to find me and pull me by the arm into the light. Yet still I breathed with quick exhilaration in the dark, counting to sixty as instructed, and then emerged a changed girl, always a changed girl, to find my grandfather talking to the grown-ups and to wait patiently (eyes on his feet, trying to discern which one had wounded Lolo years ago) until he looked at me and smiled, saying, _Well?_ And I'd say, _Well_ , not knowing what else to say. _Did you hide in the dark?_ I nodded. Dark places were always the best, the only true ones, for hiding. _How was it?_ I never knew how to answer, what the right response was for the game, but no matter what I said, he always sent me out again. _This time count to eighty, if you can_.
The wet man awoke as I lit up my third smoke.
"Good morning."
His body had not moved. His eyes wide open.
"Did you sleep well?"
"I don't know."
I tapped ash into the saucer on the table and tried to smile. "I'm staying home with you today."
He glanced at the window without moving his head. He looked back at me. Eyes from the depths. Octopus eyes.
I got up, went to the kitchen, and returned with a glass and pitcher. "Hungry?"
He nodded, as if to say, I am voracious, I could devour the sea.
As I held the glass to the mouth of my guest, I felt terribly sad, and the sadness gaped inside me, faceless, formless, bottomless, ready to draw everything down into it, books, skies, cigarettes, the very texture of the day. It was not an unfamiliar sensation, but one that always came without warning. I struggled to keep it concealed, as I usually do, but this time the effort was futile: he stared at me with eyes so clear they could have read the emotions of a stone.
Sometimes, to hide your sadness, you have to cut yourself in two. That way you can bury half of yourself, the unspeakable half, and leave the rest to face the world. I can tell you the first time I did this. I was fourteen years old, standing in a bathroom stall holding the last note I would ever receive from my friend Romina, a note consisting of a single question in furious capital letters.
We had been in class together for years, but did not grow close until we were thirteen, when Romina began to have her _experience_. That was her own word for it, _experience_ , spoken in a hallowed tone that gave it an aura of great mystery.
"An _experience_ ," I repeated blankly, the first time I heard of it.
"Come over tonight, I'll show you," Romina said.
I nodded. I wondered whether the _experience_ had something to do with breasts. If so, Romina's change was no great secret: on the contrary, it was sudden and astonishing, and had rapidly transformed a perennially mousy girl into an axis of hushed attention. Boys and also girls had started glancing sidelong at the blouse of her school uniform, under which those early and voluminous globes hummed—surely they hummed!—and pushed out curves that incited whispers and giggles and stares. They were fecund; they were bolder than their bearer; they sang themselves into the rounded air. I was fascinated by them too; I wanted (though I would never say this) to touch them, to explore their bulk and shape, the buoyant slope of them, their quiet yet absolutely incontrovertible presence. My own breasts had grown only a little so far, and could not possibly equal this capacity to command the center of a room. At night, in bed, I stroked my own breasts and wondered at their fresh swells, the soft-then-firming nipples, and, as I did, I wondered what Romina's breasts would do under my fingers, how they would curve, how the supple skin would respond. The only thing more unbelievable than Romina's breasts was her own reaction to them. She barely seemed to notice all the new attention. She had always been the kind of girl who stared out of the window and chewed her pencil to shreds and looked perfectly comfortable lunching alone, and her new reknown left that unchanged.
As it turned out, Romina's _experience_ had nothing to do with breasts, not talking about them and most certainly not touching them; it was nothing more and nothing less than the philosophical and aesthetic expansion of her world. She had begun exploring her parents' bookshelves. That was all. I tried to hide my disappointment. That afternoon, she walked me back and forth in front of them, pointing out the spines of Kierkegaard, Sartre, Storni, Parra, Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Vallejo, pulling out the volumes and spilling them open in her hands as if they had wills of their own. She had been sleeping with them under her pillow. She had been waking in the middle of the night and opening them to arbitrary pages, imbibing words, and then reciting them in her head as she drifted back to sleep. She had been rolling words around her mouth, consuming them like food, even instead of food. She had been thinking—and this, I realized, was a very concrete and important action in Romina's world: her father, after all, was a philosopher, which meant that he had forged a life out of thinking, and that the university even paid him to do it, a notion that amazed me, far as it was from anything I had seen in my own family. Imagine! A man who is paid to think! What happens in such a mind (and such a household)? As Romina spoke, the sun gradually faded from the living room, casting huskier light along the books, and I touched the spines, with their embossed titles and names, wondering what it would be like to draw so passionately from a mere printed page, or, for that matter, draw so passionately from anything at all. By the time night had fallen, my disappointment had given way to curiosity: there was something hallowed and ecstatic about Romina's relationship with the books that I had never seen before. I wanted to feel what she felt.
That night, I stayed for dinner, and Romina introduced me as That Girl Who Wrote the Story About the Disappeared, with a glow in her voice that surprised me and made me blush. It had been a year since the story had been published, and she had never said anything to me about it. The parents exclaimed, _A wonderful story, we loved it, how brave of you_ , and a hot shame ran through me at accepting praise for this story that had brought so much trouble at home, that I had willed myself to renounce, because surely it was a bad story, wasn't it, and I had been bad for writing it? Wasn't it an embarrassment? Hadn't it been woven out of lies? Romina's parents did not seem to think so; the father grinned, the mother served me more potatoes, delicious potatoes, perfectly salted, crisp around the edges. At this table, I realized, it was not my story that was embarrassing but something else, other parts of my life, the things my parents said. Even things they had done. It was a confusing thought, surrounded by cacophonous thorns. I pushed it down and said nothing so I could stay at this table and eat potatoes without breaking the spell.
We began to spend hours together after school, after homework was done, exploring books, ideas, poems, life's great questions. We pillaged her parents' bookcase, pulling volumes down, reading, and sharing our findings with each other. We built small fortresses around ourselves, with volumes as the bricks. We read chaotically, opening books at random, reading a page aloud, watching each other for wordless excitement or disinterest. If it lit us up, we continued. If it did not, we discarded it without a thought, like greedy children with an enormous box of truffles, abandoning one flavor for another after a single bite. I often had no idea what the words meant, but I didn't say so, and if Romina didn't understand them, she didn't say so either. Tasting the words was enough. We approached them freely, without the pressure of analysis or even understanding, for the pure pleasure they incited. The words began to spin inside me, to sing to me of wakefulness and wanting and mystery and pain, to thread through my days and accompany me to class, to bed, to meals with my mother and father who I thought could not possibly understand what I was discovering, who read newspapers and popular novels but never lines of words like these, lines that could whip you from the inside.
This is how I discovered Rimbaud, one rainy evening. The first time I opened _Illuminations_ , I read, _In an attic where at the age of twelve I was locked up, I knew the world and illustrated the human comedy_. My hands shook. I felt cut open. It was not a line I could read to Romina. I turned the pages back toward the beginning.
_Waters and sorrows, rise up and bring back the Floods_.
This line hooked into me and would not let me go, the way a song from the radio repeats in the mind, a chant to which my feet beat on the pavement, left foot, _Waters_ , right foot, _sorrows_ , left, _rise up_ , right, _bring back_ , on and on as I walked wherever I was going. Perla, where are you going? To the moon, I thought, to the city, to myself. I had no idea what the line meant, but it shook me. There's that feeling that comes when you read something and the lines speak directly to you, and to you only, even though the person who wrote them died long before you were born, or, even if alive, has no idea you exist. The words seep right into your mind. They pour into your secret hollows and take their shape, a perfect fit, like water. And you are slightly less alone in the universe, because you have been witnessed, because you have been filled, because someone once found words for things within you that you couldn't yourself name—something gesturing not only toward what you are, but what you could become. In that sense, books raise you, in a way your parents can't. They emancipate you.
For my fourteenth birthday, Romina gave me a copy of _Illuminations_ , complete with a handwritten dedication. _To Perla, So your truth will always burn bright. Abrazos, R_. I slept with the volume under my pillow. In the mornings, before rising, I would open the book to any page and read a line. My hands opened the book, the book opened the day. The line I read accompanied me, furled in my mind, a mantra beyond meaning.
Needless to say, the other girls found this new friendship strange, even laughable. But I didn't care. I had never had a friend who ignited me like Romina. I no longer pitied her as I had years before, when she first told me about her uncles, but rather saw her as fearless and free, and I wanted to be more like that, even if it meant that the other girls stopped calling my house, gave me berth. In some ways, I was in fact free then, perhaps more so than at any other time in my life—though there were limits. Every Thursday, Romina went to the Plaza de Mayo, where she marched in a long, slow circle with her grandmother and many other women in white kerchiefs carrying placards with enormous black-and-white photographs of men and women who had vanished long ago, and messages also: WE DEMAND JUSTICE, WE WANT THEM BACK WITH LIFE. It was a part of her world that made me sting with discomfort. I could not reconcile this aspect of her life with the rest of her. Mamá, after all, insisted that the accusations about _desaparecidos_ were untrue; if these women in the plaza were caught up in a big mistake, unable to accept the wanderlust of their sons (and wouldn't it be good if it had always been that, if Romina's uncles had just gone roaming the world like Rimbaud! if they arrived back one day with too-long hair and exotic tales to tell!)—then wouldn't Romina with all her sophistication see through her family's delusions?
Unless they were not delusions. Unless the people in the plaza were the ones with the truth, and I was the one who breathed in lies. This strange thought hovered inside me, a live grenade. I did not know what to believe. I wondered whether Romina was as sure of her beliefs as she seemed. I wondered what went through her mind as she marched the plaza, what it meant to her, what she privately thought about her family's weekly ritual. Whether she participated for herself, or just to placate her abuela, and, above all, whether she also harbored doubts.
But these were not questions I would ever ask aloud. The topic was hazardous, to be avoided at all costs. She asked me to come with her to these demonstrations _—We can go to my house afterward_ , she said—but I always found an excuse, spoken in a carefully casual voice. I had told her that my father worked in the port, a vague description that was not exactly a lie, was it, considering that the port had to do with water and the Navy did as well? It was just a slight blur of reality. No. I could not fool myself. It was a lie. I had to do it, I told myself, to protect our intimacy, our hours together, the radiant bond I could not bear to lose.
I finally had Romina over to my house, and that was my great mistake. We were at the dining table, doing homework, textbooks spread around us. My parents were both out.
"Are there more books in your father's study?"
"Some."
"I want to see them."
"You can't."
I said it too quickly, and Romina put her pencil down and looked up. "Why not?"
"We're not supposed to go in there."
She looked surprised, then hesitant. She returned to her work. I thought the danger was gone, but then, an hour later, she went to the bathroom and twenty minutes passed and she still had not returned.
I found her in the study. She stood completely still, in front of a bookcase, her profile to the door. Her hands were at her sides, frozen with fingers far apart like startled starfish. I thought of my father coming home at that moment, the invasion discovered, sharp words in front of my friend. We had to leave the room. I searched for the words.
Romina said, "What is this?"
Her voice was tight, almost foreign. I followed her gaze to the bookshelf, where a photograph stood in a silver frame, of my father in full uniform, standing in a row of officers in front of ESMA, the Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada, with stately door and soaring ivory pillars that, to me, had always evoked the unshakable laws of an ancient world. Romina was staring at it, concentrating furiously, as though working through a complex algebraic equation. _Speak_ , I thought. _I need to speak_. I opened my mouth, but it was empty.
"He's one of them, isn't he," Romina said. "Your father."
The silence spread through the room, long tentacles that wrapped around my throat and slid into my belly. I felt seasick. Romina turned and stared at me, and she looked like a girl lost in dark waters, a girl who had just stumbled on evil in those waters, for the first time, in its wild form. A girl looking evil in the face. _My face? Mine?_ No, it could not be, this was terribly wrong, we had fallen through the world's ice into a mistaken place. I took a step toward her in an attempt to shift the story but her face wrenched into a brutal wail that would not come.
"Don't touch me," she said, and began to cry without sound. Her body shook violently, straining to sob, straining not to sob, at war with itself.
"Romina," I said.
She hurried past me, to the dining room, where I heard her packing up her textbooks. I knew I should go in there, say something, persuade her to stay, to understand. But I myself did not understand what had happened, what had spread through the study, the nausea at the pit of me, the look on her face. I could not move. I stared at my father's desk, which was long and wide and freshly polished, the cherry-dark wood as smooth and gleaming as a mirror. A leather-bound cup of pens stood reflected on the desk, and I knew they all had ink in them; my father was scrupulous about discarding pens as soon as they ran out. I stared at the pens' reflections. I counted them. There were seven. I counted them again. I was still counting when I heard rapid footsteps, the front door opening, the loud slam shut.
The next day, in class, Romina would not look at me, her back a rod of steely reproach. The naked horror had been replaced by something else, something shuttered and cold. I pretended not to care, although my hand shook as I copied Latin lessons from the blackboard. The fear of losing my friend consumed me. Romina's voice, surprisingly throaty, reading aloud from a book in the diminishing light. Romina's face, eyes closed in pleasure, absorbing the sound of a paragraph or poem. Her breasts. Romina bent over her homework, her hair a fine brown wall around her, her pencil turning to shreds between her teeth. Romina in the study, wrestling down sobs. I wanted nothing more in the world than to rebuild our friendship. It seemed a looming task, but in those first days it did not yet seem impossible. The more I thought about it, the more the situation seemed like nothing more and nothing less than a misunderstanding—though, granted, one of epic proportions, historic proportions, a tragic disconnect between two poles of reality as much as between two schoolgirls. It seemed to me that the rift between us was larger than us, larger than either of our understandings—wasn't it? surely that's how it was?—since to understand it fully would mean seeing things from all sides, and neither of us had done such a thing. For all I knew, no one in all of Argentina had truly seen all sides. Maybe no one had ever stood in the gales between men like Papá and men like Romina's uncles and somehow absorbed all of it, the whole scope of the story, every inch of shadow and light. Maybe no one had ever loved a person on both sides of that chasm. It seemed impossible, too far for a heart to stretch. I was trying to do it, and felt dismantled by the effort—and yet in those first days I still longed to occupy that space and swallow everything, mend everything. I still believed in such mendings, with all the fervor and deaf hope of adolescence. Romina, I wanted to say, it's not what you think, I'm not what you think, I don't know what we are but I want to discover it with all the roving intellectual boldness we found together. We can rewrite this story; come with me, come back, I'll explain. I'll try to explain.
But I never found my chance.
A week after the incident, I found a note tucked into my science textbook, on torn paper, in Romina's unmistakable capital letters:
ARE YOU A MURDERER TOO?
My hand shook, holding the paper. I couldn't breathe. I looked around the classroom: the other students were raucously packing their bags, talking about lunch, and Romina was nowhere to be seen. I had read the note undetected. I stuffed it quickly into my pocket and hurried to the bathroom, where I locked myself into a stall and stood with my eyes closed and my face against the door. The stall smelled of urine and cigarettes and the cheap perfume someone had sprayed to disguise the smell of smoke. The note seemed to burn through my pocket, scalding me—I would surely take off my trousers that night and find red puckered skin. I closed my eyes and saw my father, face full of love, at my bedside at night as he stroked my hair and sang a lullaby off-key. I heard his laugh, watching television, the sound of him round and generous and dropping slowly in pitch, _ha-ha-ha_ , as if somersaulting down steep stairs. I heard the long push of his breath as he filled an inflatable pool for me, in the summer, the _pfffhhh, pffffhhh_ of his dedication to my joy. I saw him eating breakfast, about to leave for work, in proud clean uniform, the golden buttons shining on his cuffs. He was not a—no. Could not be. I was enraged. I was ashamed. I felt like breaking everything in sight, only there was nothing in my sight except the blistered paint on the stall door.
The stall door stayed closed in front of me, dispassionate, unyielding, worn.
I stood and stood while time stretched and moaned and pressed around me, until the bell rang to signal the end of lunch. I had forgotten to eat, I was late for class, I was not hungry. I took the note back out, unfolded it, and read it again. It had not changed. I read it and read it and read it. Then I tore it into many little pieces and flushed it down the toilet, a futile act that could not keep me from reading those words incessantly in the coming months, in the dark of night, where they blazed and hovered over my bed.
After this, the crimes of my father—the crimes of the nation, also, crimes to which I had not given words—settled on me, rode my back, draped my shoulders, stuck to me and refused to wipe away. They were not delusions. I could no longer believe they were delusions. Things had happened in this nation, they were true, and Romina's family had played one role while my family had played another, a role that could not easily be cleansed, and that clung to the underside of my skin like a dense sheet of lead that made it difficult to rise from bed in the mornings. I couldn't clearly see what my father had done—the images only came in fractured pieces, his gleaming cuffs against a desk, his face gazing through iron bars—nor did I want to see any more clearly. But I had accepted that the disappeared had truly disappeared, and this was enough for condemnation. I was guilty by inheritance. There was no trial, no choice, only the _here you go this belongs to you_ of guilt, which increased with every bite of bread from the dinner table, every absent smile from Papá as he looked up briefly from the morning paper, every brisk kiss I accepted from Mamá as I left for school, every night I burrowed into fresh linens that had been washed by a woman who was paid with pesos that my father earned the way he'd earned them. With every turn and motion and common daily act, the stain occupied more space beneath my skin. It was inescapable. I could no more free myself of it than I could free myself of my own face.
I said nothing to my parents, and they did not seem to suspect that I had changed, that the secret at our family's heart had become exposed.
At that time, of course, I was sure that it had.
My old friends accepted me back, though gradually and not without a few barbs, which I met with amiable shrugs. I did not explain and they did not ask for explanation. They were popular girls who did not care about French poets or Thursday marches or _experiences_ that led down hazardous roads. Instead they were obsessed with eye shadow and hairstyles gleaned from fashion magazines and losing weight they didn't have and movies from Hollywood in which things went terribly wrong but always ended well for everyone except, of course, the villain. I buried the parts of myself that seemed radioactive. My friends made it easy to pretend, so convincingly that on good days I lulled myself into believing my own act, and became a girl who was not haunted by the echoes of a question on a torn sheet of paper. She was an easier girl to be. So I became her.
From then on, there were two Perlas: one on the surface who had good grades and good friends and smiled a lot and for whom everything was going fine, and a secret Perla under the surface where sins and shame and questions lay buried alive, like land mines.
# 4
_The Chorus in the Depths_
The morning flares open, slowly, filling the air, piercing his mind. They are quiet together. He watches her smoke cigarettes, flip through magazines, flip through television channels. She doesn't laugh when recorded laughter issues from the screen. He listens to the sound of her in the kitchen, clattering around, cooking nothing. The turtle crawls up to him on squat, scaly legs. It cranes its neck out of its shell. Its jaw smacks open, then closed, with a low clack. There were jaws in the water, many jaws of differing shapes and hardness, the toothy eel-jaw, the sluggish trout-jaw, the whole-body opening of jellyfish. Water has so many mouths. They ate his body while the rest of him drifted on, penetrated, porous, unperturbed. Now there is no water for him to drift through and he doesn't want to be eaten, he doesn't want to go away. He bares his teeth at the turtle. The turtle opens his jaws and lets his narrow tongue hang out. Neither of them blinks. The turtle is the first to close his mouth.
He sits up on the floor. His spine creaks. There is sensation in him, power of touch, he can feel his body beneath his fingers. The flesh is real, though soggy. He can feel pain. He feels the pain of sunlight in his head.
There is a world beyond this house. He hears the groan of a car outside, the lilt of voices. They are close to the city, his city, but they are not inside it; the quiet is too great; the streets do not roil and purr as they did where he once lived. There, he had felt the city under every sound like the sharp drone of a bee in flight. He was never alone in the city, a place where solitude was always tinged with strangers' voices, the low blare of a radio, the smell of someone else's steak on the grill, the brush of a rough shoulder on the street. He recalls these now in a tumble of sensations. The city: how it accompanied him unceasingly, the way the devout claim to be accompanied by God. On visits to the country—rolling pampas, breezy beaches, the vast ice of Patagonia—he enjoyed the beauty of each place but always felt relieved to return home, to be folded once again in the great fabric of a living place imbued by the breath and noise of millions. He remembers this with a sting of longing for his city, for Buenos Aires. For a moment, he is tempted to stretch his mind wide the way it stretched inside the sea, so he can go and feel it, the incessant pulse and sprawl, legions of feet. But no, he will not. This is not the sea and it is painful and difficult to stretch here. In any case, there is no need: this room is a world within a world. He turns his attention to his surroundings, seeking the inner soul of the place. On the bookshelf, books stand shut, their secrets tightly pressed inward. These are not books that open often, nor do they want to. On the contrary, they seem to say to their own words, you are captives, we won't let you out, you cannot fight us. The spines are tidy and betray no signs of the battle within. In front of the books sits a porcelain swan, its head bent in defeat or from carrying a terrible burden for too long. It throbs with unsaid thoughts. One shelf above the swan, there are two photographs, a bride and groom in one, a little girl in the other. He notices them for the first time. The little girl wears her hair in pigtails, she is sitting on a sofa, the sofa in this room. Her smile is too big for her face, her face is perfect, beaming and spilling what her features cannot hold. The wedding couple are young and handsome, both smiling with their mouths closed, the woman's chin in a high slant of pride or defiance, the man's eyes searching the camera for clues to an unsolved puzzle. Now the camera is gone but the man's eyes keep searching, roving the living room for signs of what he sought. On the other wall, over the ominous sofa, the painting of the sea, the sea, slashed in thick blue paint not made of water but he knows it is the sea, with something riding it the color of the water, a ship, plunged in water, made of water, a ship risen from the wet arms of the sea itself, and he can swim-pour-flood into those brushstrokes and ride the swelling curves of blue, dreaming the waves of his lost home.
She comes back from the kitchen with a plate of empanadas. On the way, she watches the turtle amble past her with an expression that he recognizes as tenderness. She loves the turtle, he thinks, and his mind is stabbed by the word _loves_. She sits down at the table, and eats without looking up. Her hair is pulled back in a rubber band. Gloria used to pull her hair back when she was serious about something: scouring the stove, taking a test, winning a fight. Gloria always won their fights. She was able to turn his words around and hand them back to him, hard, polished, proof of her triumph. She was going to be the greatest lawyer in the nation, that's what he always told her, throwing his arms up in defeat. He had such faith in her. Thanks to her fighting prowess they wouldn't always live in a small apartment with gray water leaking through the roof from the third floor. Good things would happen. They were sure to. They both said this. They were happy. The gray water didn't matter, anyway. But they didn't know that; they didn't know, back then, how little the leaks mattered, how happy they really were. Didn't know how good it was to have all of their toes. To drink too much red wine. To feed their animal joys, naked, slippery with sweat. To take doorknobs, showers, speech for granted, and complain bitterly about getting up early in the morning, as if it were some monumental sacrifice. What brats we are, he thinks, when we are happy.
The woman at the table glances over at him, though when their eyes meet she stares down at her empty plate. Her body is young and beautiful, it is so whole, uncut, unbruised, unburned. She has the luxury of sinking in a vague sadness. She has never been raped with rods that deliver electric shocks. The skin has never been peeled from the bottom of her feet. She has never hung from a ceiling hook, basted in shit. She has never been shown panties, bloody, torn, in the hand of a man whose voice is intensely familiar but whose face is unknown. She has never even had the smallest bullet wound. And all of this is good: he is nourished by her wholeness. A wholeness that he knows she cannot see.
They are linked, he and the girl. But how? By a rope of light, a truth that flickers for an instant before fleeing into the morass of his mind.
The phone rang and I didn't want to talk in front of the dripping man, so I ran from the living room to my father's study.
"Hello?"
"Perlita."
"Hi, Papá."
"It rang so long, I thought you weren't home."
"I'm home."
"Yes. Well, we're just calling to make sure everything's all right."
The room was dim, the curtains were drawn, and I hadn't turned on the light when I came in. I leaned against his desk. "Everything's fine."
"You're fine?"
"Yes."
"And the house?"
"What would be wrong with it?"
"Perla, I'm just asking."
"But what could happen? I don't see why you need to ask."
"Because it's my house."
"Only yours?"
"What's the matter with you?"
I was wondering the same thing myself. I hadn't meant to pick a fight, hadn't meant to expose him to my private chaos. "How's Punta del Este?"
"Beautiful. We're having a great time." He sighed, the heavy sigh of a man beseiged by a child. "Look, just be careful. Here's your mother."
I waited. There were distant murmurs before she came.
"Perla?"
"Hi, Mamá."
"What's happening over there? Is everything all right?"
"Everything is fine. Papá's just being paranoid."
"He worries, that's all." She said it soothingly, almost in a purr, and I could see him at the other end of the room, pouring them drinks. "So you don't need anything?"
"No."
"Good. We miss you. I wish you'd come."
But Mamá, then who would stay home to water the ghost? "I couldn't miss the start of classes."
"Right. Well, maybe next time."
"Maybe."
"Call if you need anything, okay?"
"Okay."
"Take care of yourself, Perlita."
I hung up. The sun hovered at the window, reticent to fill the room. I thought of my parents in Punta del Este, enjoying the sun and the food, forgetting their troubles. That's what my mother always said about it: Punta del Este is where we go to forget our troubles. There was a time when I was very small, long before Romina, when I had no idea what she could be referring to, what troubles my Mamá and Papá might face. All I knew was that when we took the ferry to Uruguay, troubles remained miraculously bound to the shores of Argentina, unable to cross the waters, waiting for our return. Whatever we might be escaping from, I'd feel relieved to be doing so, our family taking refuge in a high-rise apartment that overlooked the Atlantic Ocean.
For me, the best of Punta del Este was not the boutiques, the brazen yachts in the harbor, the waves crowded with people, or the bustling restaurants to which Mamá wore her most elegant summer dresses every night. It was that hour when twilight began to run its lightest fingertips over the beach, whispering of the impending dark, _I know, you don't believe it, or don't want to believe it, but it's coming_. At that hour, my father would usually suggest we go for a walk. I'd always say yes, and my mother occasionally did, but more often she'd say, No, you two go on. I always preferred it when we two went on. We'd walk along the damp sand near the water, not talking, I rooting for sea-shells and then jogging to keep up. Around us, other families would splash and play or start to fold their towels and umbrellas. Not every group had children in it, but the ones that did usually had several, and you could see them running through the foam together or bickering over plastic spades. Not everybody built their sand castles alone, like I did. We were a small family, just the three of us, no brothers or sisters, no aunts or uncles living nearby, but at that age I never thought to see us as incomplete. It was just the way we were. A constellation of three stars, and I the faint one, like the pinprick at the tip of Orion's sword. What shape we might have made among the heavens, who can say.
On our walks, I thought about how it would be if we kept walking, beyond the little peninsula of Punta del Este, along the edge of Uruguay, all the way to the country's end. A perfect place to start from, since the town sat right at the formal border between the Río de la Plata and the Atlantic Ocean, like a guard watching their bodies mix. If we walked with the water on our left, we would trace the shore of the wide river and eventually wind our way back to Argentina. With the water on our right, it would not be river but ocean, and we'd end up in Brazil. I always asked to walk with the water on our right. Of course, to reach another country the walk would have to be extremely long. It would take days, or maybe months, which was almost the same thing as forever. I liked the idea of perpetuating the walk forever, or at least until the last of my father's sadness had been shaken out by our steps. You are my light, he'd sometimes say when I ran up to him with a particularly beautiful seashell. I had to time this at the right moment, so it wasn't a bother to him, but a welcome interruption of his mood. When I succeeded, he would hold my palm in his as he admired the shell, paused on the beach, commenting on its pattern, its color, its size. Look at that swirl along the edge, how lovely. And such a nice pink, so deep, like raspberries. Like wine. You are my light, you know that? As if without me he'd be stumbling in the dark. And so the star of me would shine that much brighter. My bare toes would revel in the sand between them. The sun was going to set soon, but it didn't matter; I was light for my father, and the world was well.
Except that now, in his study, I felt so far from him. The very word _father_ raw and open in my mind, like a wound.
Searching his mind for the strange flicker that he'd lost he thought of God and how he lost Him. When he first disappeared he had a God, and when the dark swallowed his mind he reeled and broke and soared out to find Him, pray to Him, God as final refuge. Save us from this hell, forgive my sins, forgive my crime of not protecting Gloria, send your angels please like flying armies to save her and the child she carries. Gloria is alive, she has to be, the red rag might have been a trick, after all, just a cloth with which they'd mopped the floor. You've protected her, haven't You? Give us this day our daily bread and keep her safe? Because, in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit, if I could only fly to her I'd give my life to mend her body, offer myself to her like a needle for the sewing, mend the nest where baby was, no, is, still has to be. But I cannot fly, please go for me. And hallowed be Thy name. He had not prayed so much in years. He was a bad Catholic, too fond of soccer and slow sex on Sundays, but surely God remembered him, the child he'd been, the altar boy with his frock perfectly white, gazing piously at the candles, the bloodsoaked cross, the yeasty body of Christ breaking apart in the hands of priests. He had loved the cold air in the vaulted church, the ceilings he would never ever be tall enough to touch, not even jumping, not even standing on the shoulders of ten men, and the stonecold air tautened his skin and made it tingle with the subtle gust of what must surely be God's breath. And even though, when he grew up, he never bothered to pray, he had still felt God's peculiar presence, in the colors of the dawn after a long night in the bars, the sway of wheat stalks in the country wind, the opening inside him as he opened a good book, the touch and sigh of Gloria, the memory of prayers pouring from his mother's lips, by turns rapid and languid, mumbled in church pews, droned at home with the urgency of swarming bees, _Pater noster qui es in caelis_ , at times in Latin, at times in Spanish, at times in the Italian she had gathered in slivers at her own mother's heels, infused with magic power in every language, though who knew whether that power came from God or from the robust whip of his mother's tongue. Everything his mother set her mind to either came to pass or spawned infinite warfare in which she unfurled all her weapons, word and will and fistful of rosary beads brandished alike and he could not would not think about what she might be doing now that he was gone from the normal world; what his absence was now doing to her; he could not bear to reach for his mother and so instead he reached for God, resurrecting the old prayers, _Pater noster qui es in caelis_ our father who art in heaven save her, my Gloria, raise her from this place, I'll go to mass each week for the rest of my life, I swear it, show me a sign. And then it came. He was on the machine. The explosions were in his mouth and on his genitals. And then they stopped, the hood raised up, he saw the composed face of a priest.
Confess, my child.
Father.
You must cooperate.
Father, please, tell them to stop, they're going to kill me.
My son, how can they stop when you won't help them?
I have nothing else to tell. I don't know anything.
Confess, my son. Confess.
Please, I have a wife, don't let them kill her.
Death is in the hands of God.
Then tell God not to kill her.
The priest smiled sadly. God knows this is all for the good of the country.
The hood went down, the machine began again and _the Lord is with you_ everything seared with light and _o ye of little faith_ his skin burst open in gashes of pain and _thy will be done_ he screamed and screamed but not to God, God wouldn't hear him, He was gone, He was on the side of the captors and their will was now His will: or else, far worse, the captors had stolen God out of his heaven and torn him slowly apart on their machines, and if it was so, then God was truly lost, God Himself was a _desaparecido_.
She smokes a cigarette. It grows dark. He hears a dog bark, then silence, then a passing car. He hauls his attention back into the room; he is not on that machine; he is deeply relieved to be here instead of there. The more memories come, the more his mind feels cut open, wounded, and the more he looks to this house to hold him, even though this place is not entirely safe—he knows this, he can feel it, this house has its own specters. But he has a chance here, a chance at—what? At accomplishing what he came for, a purpose he still doesn't know, but whose presence he senses, afloat on the air, vague and as yet unseen. There is a purpose. He needs to be here, in this particular house, with the turtle and the windows and the woman. That much of his knowing he's pieced together, that many shards in place. He sits on his haunches, forward on the floor, like a dog. The rug on the floor is moist as a sponge from all his drippings. Leaning into it is like leaning into underwater mud, or into coral. There is a dangerous voluptuousness to coral, a cradling quality that lulls and surrounds you at the same time. The sofa glowers at him for soiling the rug, look what you've done, you are not welcome, intruder! drencher of rugs! Its pillows flare like a beast about to pounce, he is almost afraid, it is large and could easily crush him, but it has not moved since she walked in and sat on it, pinning it down, reinforcing its function, dominating it without a word. She has showered and her hair is different, glistening, heavy with wetness. It shines in the lamplight, and the lamplight fills his consciousness (it does not lacerate him like the sun, it does not shoot as quickly, these are duller blades of light that cut in slowly), his consciousness is clear and open, and everything is this now, this moment, watching the young woman smoke a cigarette. He can't stop staring at her. He feels the heavy presence of her mind.
What are you thinking about? he asks.
Nothing.
What kind of nothing?
Same as usual.
I want to know more. He is surprised by the force in his own voice. For the first time he hears longing in his voice.
You're talkative all of a sudden.
I'm waking up, he says, and even as he says it the waking unfurls further, there is more room inside him.
I see.
Little by little.
The turtle crawls in from the kitchen. He goes to her. He rests his shell against her naked ankle.
How is it? Being awake?
It makes my head hurt.
The memories?
No, memories don't hurt. I just see them. What's painful is the sun.
I don't understand.
The turtle yawns his mouth open and closes it, snap. The eyes don't blink. He wants to shake the turtle, without knowing why.
It doesn't matter, he says.
At least you can talk now.
Yes.
Were you gone a long time?
Yes. I think so. More or less.
You were kidnapped?
Yes.
And you died?
Yes.
She lights another cigarette and taps the arm of the sofa with her lighter, as if bored, as if killing time with little questions. Do you remember what happened in between?
Almost.
And it doesn't hurt to remember?
Not like sunlight. Not like thirst.
You want more water?
Please.
She leaves for the kitchen and comes back with a large blue jug.
Thank you, he says.
Take your time.
He takes his time. Water pliant between his jaws, coruscating, brilliant in his throat. Water sturdy and enduring, the liquid flesh of the world. He eats and eats and she is watching, silent in her faint haze of smoke, and when he's done and wiping the last streaks from his chin, she says, What else do you remember?
Why?
I want to know.
Why?
I want to understand.
Understand what?
Why you're here.
The light, the light, small flecks of it are catching in her hair. It hurtles in through the window and lands everywhere, walls, shelves, picture frame, but there is something in the way light mingles with her hair that hurts him. He says, Why wouldn't I be here?
You're dead...
He nods, waits.
... and we didn't know each other. Didn't you have anyone you loved?
Of course I did.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way.
I had many people. A wife.
Sorry.
They took her.
Her cigarette has burned down, but she's still holding it. They are silent for a while. The turtle has closed his eyes. The woman looks out of the window, at the deep blue sky. Buoyant voices rise from the street. She gets up and goes to the kitchen, and as he waits for her, he returns to the painting. He roams the painted waves, tastes their expansive salt, and takes comfort in the curves that dissolve barriers between sea and ship, path and voyager, object and world. As though brushstrokes could unify reality. She returns with a glass in one hand and a bottle of gold-brown liquor in the other. By the time she sits down, she has emptied one glass. She doesn't look at him, and the distance is vast between them, she has shrunk away from him into some invisible shell and he can't stand it, her distance, the hard line of her jaw, he wants to get close, he would curl against her naked ankle if he didn't think she'd pull away in horror.
He says, Are you happy?
What?
In your life.
I don't know. She finishes her second glass and pours another. You're talked about, you know.
Me?
All of you. The disappeared.
What do people say?
Depends. Mostly, how bad things were.
You weren't born yet?
I was born during.
Ah.
It is not her naked ankle that he wants to press against: it is the Who of her, the inside sound, the secret aural texture of her being. He wants to hear the chorus in the depths of her, where the past and all the unseen futures gather to sing.
Tell me what you were like at fourteen.
She pulls back in shock. Why that age?
Why not that age?
She stares at him in silence. He isn't sure why he picked that number, fourteen. He could have started elsewhere, anywhere. Finally she says, I was studious. Great at Latin. I wanted to be a poet.
What else were you like?
I wore my hair long.
In a ponytail?
Sometimes. She swirled her drink.
The boys must have liked you.
Not the ones I wanted.
What else?
I don't know. I was sad.
Why?
My parents were sad.
Is that why?
No. It was me. I don't know why. I was afraid.
Of what?
Everything.
Did you cry a lot?
Never.
Did you write poems?
Rarely.
Did you have friends?
Yes. No. I lost a friend that year, the year I was fourteen. Then I made new friends.
How did you lose her?
We fought.
Over what?
Why should I tell you?
She is becoming resistant, he can feel a shield rising around her, but his hunger to know will not let him stop. He leans forward, onto his elbows, into the moisture of the rug. What happened after that?
Then I turned fifteen, sixteen.
Were you still sad?
Yes.
Then what?
I started at the university.
How was it?
Why do you want to know?
I do. I just do.
I don't see why.
I want to know all of you. Every instant since you were born.
Now she looks him right in the eyes and the room goes bright, too bright, and something in her stare slices him open, the ease is gone and the disgust is back and there is something else, too, something new that fills him with confusion.
That would take forever.
I have time, he says.
She gets up so quickly that the bottle falls to its side. Liquor spills onto the table. She stares at it, then goes to the stairs and rises out of view. He hears steps down a hall above him.
I don't have time, she shouts, and just before the door slams: I'm not dead.
I hid in my room. I thought the stranger might try to drag himself upstairs and knock on my bedroom door with his damp knuckles, but he didn't come. I reached for a magazine and attempted to distract myself with its pages, to care or at least pretend I cared about the fashion spreads and photos of celebrities with their ostentatious teeth, as if it were a normal night and the silence in the living room were normal also, why wouldn't it be silent when my parents were gone and I was alone? Only I couldn't fool myself, I was not alone, he was downstairs in the living room. I couldn't stand the lack of sound. Silence prickling with the stings of incursion. I'm not crazy, I said to myself, and tried to believe it. Sometimes, when I was very small and cried too much, my father would say _Don't be crazy_ and I would quickly become quiet, brush away the tears and try to forget the lost doll or scraped knee or the punishment freshly meted out. There was always that fear of going mad, of falling off the edge of the family. Such a paralyzing fear. Girls who fall off the edge of their family have nothing left to stand on in this world. Or so it seemed, and not a fiber of my being dared test the theory. Not even now. That man, that _thing_ , his presence downstairs threatened my sanity and my house and the very tenets I'd grown up on and now my thoughts were curling in on themselves, twisting into dangerous shapes; I had to get rid of them. I wished the man would vanish. If only I could make him leave: but how? Pack up your things was a futile thing to say, as there was nothing to pack. I could simply say Get out, and see whether he could devise a way to exit—I pictured him scanning the room, at a loss for where the doors were and how to use them; trying to heave his body forward and failing; dragging himself to the sidewalk with slouching steps, neighbors staring at him through their curtains. Maybe he wouldn't go of his own volition. Maybe he would hover in the living room, refusing with one of those ghostly stares of his and then I'd have to grab him by the arm and drag him out, all the way out, more neighbors at more curtains that would blatantly pull open to watch me haul a soggy naked man to the curb. And then there he would be, out on the street, wet, abandoned, naked, trying to find his way through the suburbs, the train station, the cafés, the ruthless cars. I saw him razed by a fast taxi, or fallen in an elegant front yard (he seemed so weak, he could collapse, I'd never even seen him walk), or arrested for his inexplicable demeanor. Worst of all, I saw him staying at the front door of this house, ringing, knocking, ringing, waiting for me to open, filling the threshold and driveway and street with the smell of rotting fish, and me inside, trapped in my own home. Trapped, I thought, I'm trapped already. I wanted to scream.
Perla, I thought, if you stay here like this much longer you're going to come unglued, and in fact you're already on your way.
So I changed my clothes and came out of my bedroom, went down the stairs, and grabbed my purse without looking at the strange wet man who looked up as if snapping from a dream and said, "Where are you going?"
I slammed the door behind me as an answer.
I didn't know where I was going. It didn't matter, it couldn't matter. I headed toward the city. I emerged from the train a little past midnight and the streets were swollen with people. I was out in the world again, out in Buenos Aires, where everyone lives above water and where restaurants are full of little candles and clinking knives, where people stroll or sit without ever leaning forward on damp haunches, where look look people were smiling as if the past were just a flattened thing beneath their feet, easily sidestepped, or at least possible to ignore long enough to go out for a drink. True, not everyone was smiling, but that's the street, that's the city. Ever since I was a child, walking through Buenos Aires in my thick winter coat with Mamá's hand firmly on mine, I had heard a strange voice in the city. It was subtle and unpredictable, as thin as a fairy's wing, and all it would say was _psshhh, psshhh, you_ —and then I would turn and look around the sidewalk, across the street, but no one would have opened their mouth or tried to meet my eye. The strangers around me would look bored or busy or distracted, gazes averted, and I would wonder whether my father was right, whether I was, in fact, a little crazy—or whether I was hearing the voice of the city itself, a disembodied sound that sprang from the mesh of all other sounds, from the cars and constant footsteps, the private lives through open windows, the creak of ornate doors, the glad moan of sunlight, the hum of humidity, the twisted whispers of crumbling walls, all combining into something neither human nor inhuman, neither real nor imagined. My mother would keep leading me as though nothing had happened, maintaining a brisk pace, focused on our destination rather than our surroundings. And I would wonder what would happen if I broke from Mamá's hand and followed the voice, pursued it around the corner and down the block, into alleys and out of them and around more turns until I knew I was alone in the great maze of the city, sublimely lost, wandering on cobbles and asphalt toward something for which I had no words. I never did it, I was always too afraid, Mamá's gloved hand a steady anchor—but still I wondered. Could a voice like that lead me to a place where I'd belong? Even now, as a grown woman, part of me listened for the fluid voice of the city. I did not hear it. I walked. The streets smelled of bread and gasoline, gutters and coffee, stone and age and sadness. The summer air was humid and it didn't look like rain.
I walked into a bar, a regular spot, and scanned the tables from the doorway. My friends weren't there. A couple of men near the back looked up and tried to meet my eye. I didn't look at them and didn't sit down. I knew the bartender, who grinned at me and raised his hand in greeting—Perla, he said, smiling—but I turned and left and walked on. I would have liked to see my friends, but it was probably for the best that I failed to find them; I was always the confidante, the mature one, the shoulder to lean on when drunk or in pain, and my friends had grown so accustomed to my composure that any other face became invisible. You can lean on Perla. Talk to Perla, she'll understand. I looked generous to people, with so much room for tending to their problems, but people rarely saw the power it gave me, the shield from scrutiny, Perla Who Has the Answers, Perla Who Can Help You, Perla Without Problems of Her Own. How I liked to see myself through the eyes of a grateful friend. How strong I seemed, floating above the earth with all its human tangles. Not at all like a girl who feels out of place in her own home. And they appreciated me, called me kind for it, Leticia with her constant love troubles, Marisol with her hard-drinking mother, Anita with the faltering grades and the childhood rapes that continued to haunt her dreams. They needed me, and I needed to feel needed—a perfect symbiotic fit. These were the friendships I had chosen, the ties I'd formed, with girls who wanted to be listened to, grateful for a friend who demanded no attention in return. But tonight I would not be able to sustain the act; the façade would surely break and burden my relationships with more weight than they had been designed to bear. I was lost tonight, the cage lay broken, even my mother's rules lay shattered on the ground, _always neaten your clothes before you leave the house, always think before you speak, always make sure your hair is in place_ , so thoroughly drilled into me, so familiar and now so savagely abandoned, my mouth was capable of anything, my hair was surely a disaster. I could roam the city, just as I was. I had never wandered the city much as a girl; our family forays were always focused, purposeful, and in any case my parents mostly kept me in our neighborhood. They were protective. They enfolded me in great protective wings. They did everything for me, they said so, and it was true. Perla, we do everything for you. There was so much shouting in my mind, about my father, about my mother, doubts and questions I had spent these recent days struggling against with all my desperate strength. And now, with the ghost's arrival, I could not escape the questions, and yet I still couldn't bear to put them into words, even in silence, even inside. I was walking and walking the lambent streets and had nowhere to go. I could have swallowed all the buildings in this city, could have swallowed anything, the sky, a corpse, a lie, a truth, the sea. I was starved for something that had no name. Buenos Aires was so beautiful, full of noise, full of night. I couldn't go home yet. I needed to hear the voice of another human being, someone who didn't smell of river or of death and who could hear the whole of me no matter what I said. Of such people there was only one. I hesitated for a moment, imagining him hanging up on me, but then I stopped at a public telephone and dialed. He answered after two rings.
"It's me," I said.
Gabriel was silent. For a moment I thought we'd lost the connection.
"Are you there?"
"I'm here."
"I just wanted to hear your voice." Now that I'd said the words, they sounded stupid. And naked. Why had I picked up the phone?
Gabriel said nothing.
"Am I disturbing you?"
"No. No." He sounded uncertain. "I'm just surprised."
"I know. I mean, I can imagine. Look, if this is a bad time—"
"It's not. It's really not."
"Okay," I said.
There was a pause. "I was starting to think you'd never call."
"You didn't want me to?"
"That's not what I said."
"Okay," I said again, like an idiot.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
"You sound strange."
"I am strange."
I said it without thinking, and he laughed, hesitantly, but enough to ease the tension. "Tell me about it."
I smiled into the phone receiver.
"Why did you call?"
I didn't answer. The words sounded harsh. Until ten days ago, I'd never needed a reason to call him. I would simply turn to him, for company, comfort, or pleasure; to hear how he was, to be with him. But now there was a wall between us that had to be taken down. If it even could be taken down, because, having heard his voice, it seemed possible that it was now too late. And of course I should have known, should have shielded myself and gathered my tools, but instead, in my disoriented state, I'd reached for the phone out of longing, impulsive, unprepared.
After a long silence, he said, "You're so quiet."
"So are you."
"But you're the one who called me."
"I know, I know."
"And so? Why did you call?"
_Because a phantom of the disappeared is in my living room, and he won't go away, and the things he's tearing open only you would understand_. "It's complicated."
"What isn't?"
"Nothing. You're right. Everything is complicated."
"But still," he said, exasperated, "some things are simple, Perla. It's simple to say, _because I miss you_. Or to say, _I'm sorry_."
The hurt and anger in his voice were palpable. What a huge mistake, I thought, to make this call. "You know—" I said, then stopped.
" 'You know' what?"
"Never mind."
"Perla?"
"It doesn't matter."
"How can you say that?"
"That's not what I mean. I didn't mean us. _We_ do matter."
"Is there still a _we_?"
How easily he could cut me, even when that wasn't his intention. "You think there isn't?"
"I don't know what to think. If there were a _we_ , you would have called."
"You didn't call either."
"But you," he said, "are the one who ran away."
I could have said _because you made me_ , but we would only have descended further into a hole that seemed to have no bottom and for which I had no words, no verbal tethers that could pull us back to the surface. "Listen, Gabo, this isn't a good time. I'm at a pay phone." I closed my eyes. My forehead ached. "And for other reasons too."
"Such as?"
"I can't tell you."
His voice softened. "Are you really sure you're all right?"
"Yes. No. I will be. I have some things to deal with, and then I'll call again."
"And how long will that take?"
"I have no idea."
"But you won't tell me what's going on."
"No. That's not possible." There was no language for it, after all, no place to begin. "But please don't give up on me."
He was silent.
"Gabriel?"
"I don't know what to say to that."
"Just say, 'Of course I won't give up on you.' "
"Perlita. Listen to yourself."
"I'd rather not."
He laughed. I wanted to live inside the gauzy folds of his laugh. They could lilt up on the wind and I would float there, suspended, surrounded, at home.
Before his laughter could abate and deposit us back on hard earth, I quickly hung up the phone.
I took the subway to Puerto Madero and walked along the promenade, flanked by glossy restaurants and clubs to my right, and the water to my left. Through the doorways came the scent of freshly grilled _churrascos_ , the thrum of techno music, bursts of people dressed for the night. It always amazed me that the old, abandoned docks of Buenos Aires had been changed into such a fashionable destination for tourists and well-heeled locals, with its long brick warehouses refurbished to hold upscale businesses and lofts. You never know what a city can become. I was the only person by myself, and I felt out of place, unkempt, though in fact I probably blended in just fine, judging from the way I was ignored. There was no reason for someone looking at me to suspect that anything was wrong, any oddness at home, any drenched interlopers to contend with, any nightmares rearing up and demanding to be seen, and this was good; this was how it worked, wasn't it? You don't walk in the truth, you walk in the reality you want to inhabit, you walk in the reality you can stand. This is how realities are made.
The sky spread above me, black and cloudless, robbed by the city of its stars. I was separated from the water by a metal rail, which a couple leaned against to kiss, while an older, well-groomed couple glanced at them with a mix of amusement and envy. Behind the rail, the water glimmered darkly, holding the bellies of yachts and a weak reflection of the Hilton Hotel on the other side. Just a ribbon of water, really, though I knew it came from the river, which, I suddenly realized, was why I'd come here: to see some piece of the Río de la Plata, which was not a river really but an estuary, a big wide-open mouth that swallowed the sea, gulped it in toward the land. Such wide water that the other side, the shore of Uruguay, was too far to see. The river made a long seam with the horizon, stitching the world closed in a great sphere of water and sky, a vast ethereal cloth hemmed around Argentina. As a child, I had imagined that the city did not end at the shore but rather continued underwater, down in the depths, in the great low cradle between two countries. I would stare at the water and picture streets, castles, and houses flooded with brackish water, fish lacing through windows, waving coral, the high distorted songs of mermaids, sailors drowned in long-forgotten vortices of time. I tried to imagine the secret laws of such a place. I imagined hieroglyphs that painted shimmering tales in the water and vanished with the shifting of the tide.
It had been so easy, as a little girl, to believe in such a city. As a grown woman, of course, I knew better than to believe in an underwater world, except that now, on this night, with no compass to tell me who I was, I had no idea what I could believe. And so I had wanted to come here, to the old port, that was now the ultramodern port, to lay eyes on a strip of water.
Its surface shone with electric light, and revealed nothing.
I slowed to light a cigarette and leaned against the rail to smoke it. Dark, quiet water licked the bodies of the yachts. Nearby, a group of young women shrieked with laughter and spoke to each other in a rapid foreign tongue. I thought of Gabriel, his delectable laugh, and how he must have felt when I cut off the call without giving him a chance to say good-bye. He must have said _Hello? hello?_ into the receiver, dismayed, affronted, then stared at it and perhaps decided in that moment that he was tired of this, tired of me, ready to find a woman who was less of a headache and fit better into his life. Sadness engulfed me at the thought.
I looked out over the water in search of reprieve. Light from electric streetlamps fell and broke against it, glimmering shrapnel, caught in the ripped cloth of the river.
That night in Uruguay, when I last saw Gabriel, sand had filled the gaps between my toes, wet and dark. I couldn't see it but after he spoke I looked down anyway, at the dark water tearing open at my ankles, thinking, there are grains of sand down there, millions of them, burying my toes, burying themselves, as if they knew that some things can never be exposed. As if hiding were a matter of survival.
I walked on. I reached the construction zone for the Women's Bridge, which was well under way. A sleek white walkway with a great fin rising at an angle, spearing the heavens, or so it seemed through the scaffolding. A bridge like nothing you've ever seen, one columnist had said. I stopped at its edge and stared at the bridge, thinking of things that were like nothing I had ever seen. I stood for a long time. Water beckoned from below. I gazed down and imagined myself plunging, swimming, in search of unthinkable places that could not and yet seemed to exist.
# 5
_Failed Geraniums_
I have to tell you more about Gabriel, and about who I was when I met him. I can't fully paint my world without those strokes—and I need you to take in the whole picture, which is made of words instead of colors because it's the best way I know to give you this story, here, tonight, six years after the stranger came, sitting at this window, torn by pain and ecstasy in alternating waves. As though the world itself were surging through my body and my body had to stretch to give it space. That's how it feels. But I can't stop. There is no place to stop this story, which, in being voiced, has taken on a life of its own, as stories inevitably do. Now I myself am whirling in its orbit, suspended in it, unable to do anything but ride. It's the only way I can think to do the telling: careening around the center, circling and circling, in a spiraling path, whirling gradually closer to the source. Though you may not understand, though it may sound strange, this is the best way in. Linear routes seem faster, but they lack dimensions, they lack flesh, they are dead—and this is not a dead story, it's a living story, it breathes and palpitates. Keep following me. This is the best way I know to show you who I really am—and it's urgent for me to do so, here, now, while there is time.
From the start, it was dangerous to pursue Gabriel, like walking calmly into a burning house. I knew this, of course, and some part of me sought him out for just that reason: to be scorched, to catch fire, to search for myself in the flames of danger.
I met him at a party in his honor, invited by a friend of a friend. He was celebrating his new job as assistant editor at _Voz_ , an amazing feat, my friend explained, for a twenty-five-year-old man. Her eyes lit with admiration as she told me about it. I had never read _Voz_ , but I knew what my father thought of it: that pack of lies, not good enough to wipe my ass with. He said that but he feared it. He only bothered, after all, to insult the things he feared. And there were few things that he feared more than reporters. Which, naturally, made me extremely curious to meet Gabriel.
I was eighteen years old, in my first year at the university, studying the axis of repression, the dance of consciousness, the hidden havoc of the id. I dreamed of becoming the sort of psychologist who could reach into people's minds, touch the unspeakable, and guide them to it and beyond it, for don't we need to pass through the unspeakable to be truly free?
Even if it meant facing, for example, what lay within my father. The ugliness there.
But not only that, my father was not only that. He was also the man who, long ago, prowled to the kitchen at 3 a.m. only to find his daughter barefoot on the tile floor, a small insomniac in a pink flowered nightgown. _You can't sleep, can you, Perla, you are your father's daughter_ , he would say, smiling, and search the cupboards for chocolate we would break into little jagged squares, our midnight prize for being the wild ones, the two who could not wrestle themselves down to sleep, just because the lights went out, just because the clock said it was time. We were not like Mamá, the Queen of Sleep, who could lie down when the extended ritual of cotton balls and makeup removal was complete, and doze as soon as she closed her eyes, and who could not understand why her husband and daughter tossed and turned, rose and roamed the night. Only we shared this fate, Papá and Perla, and when we were together in the kitchen in the hours before dawn, what could have been a defect came to seem like a boon, a source of stolen pleasure and shared pride.
On those nights the chocolate was sultry-sweet on my tongue. My father would look relieved and glad as if my presence had eased whatever plagued him. He would stroke my hair and look at me as though we shared a profound understanding, beyond language, beyond time, and he'd say something like _God was good to send you to me_ , or just _Eat, eat_. And I felt happy, so happy with the chocolate and his touch.
But then came the revelations of his profession. So much in one man, I could not grasp it. I could not comprehend how it all resided in one skin, and yet this seemed essential to grasping who I was. I longed to understand him, not to exonerate him, but to extricate myself, and perhaps to save him, or at least to be able to see clearly and without fear. Surely somewhere in the annals of psychoanalysis lay the secret to seeing without fear. He became my phantom patient, on whose analysis I depended for survival.
And so, at the university, I dug through the theories and case studies the professors presented to us as maps to the subconscious, in search of the workings of my father's mind. I exhausted my textbooks, and not only my textbooks but the other tomes assigned to more advanced classes that did not yet belong to me—curled up on the floor of the university bookshop for hours, or forsaking homework to linger in the library stacks—but nowhere could I find a profile that described a person like my father, a person who had done the kinds of things that he had done. Freud had never analyzed a man like him, or if he had, his pen had refused to tell of it. (What a time Freud would have had with Héctor Correa! He would either have run away or salivated at the thought of sessions.) There were references to men like him in sociological texts, but only with the word _evil_ attached, a word that, for all its moral strength, flattened the picture of a man rather than plumbing the depths of his consciousness. I read and read but still could not unravel the thick dark knots that I encountered; they were too tangled, I got lost over and over in the mire of my own mind. I was searching for answers to questions I had not fully dared to form. I had never lain on an analyst's couch—my parents would not have permitted such a thing, and I did not have money of my own to do so without being discovered—and in any case, though our professors considered it essential to our development, I didn't want to. The notion terrified me. When I imagined it, I saw myself talking and talking on the couch, only to meet with silence and turn to see my analyst staring at me with Romina's face, that night in the study, the horror and urge to run. I would not take that risk. Better that I pursue the slippery things I was pursuing by myself, surreptitiously, ravenously, each theory and case study a nest of clues. Books were already a familiar refuge, after all, and they still took me in without the slightest judgment. They don't close to you the way a person can. You might feel as though you don't belong anywhere, least of all in your own home, you might feel bound to a person whose actions you abhor yet unable to divorce yourself, struggling to individuate in their shadow—all these feelings you wouldn't dare articulate to another person, no matter how highly trained—but you can bring your whole untempered self to books. You can ask them anything, and though you may need to search for the resonant lines, though the answer may come at a slant, they will always speak to you, they will always let you in. And so I entered and entered. Back then, in my first year of university, I trusted books more than people. If I was lonely, if I wished for something deeper with living breathing human beings, I didn't know it—until the night I met Gabriel.
As I got ready for his party, I thought of _Voz_ and brave young journalists and frightened fathers and broken rules and printed sentences that could shake the page that held them. I applied more makeup than usual, heavier eyeliner and shadow. The skirt was short already. I didn't know exactly what I planned to do, or, if I did, I told myself that I didn't know it. Just preparing, I said to myself, for whatever is offered by the night. I looked at myself closely in the mirror and the reflection didn't look like me. Another woman stared out of the mirror, with bright eyes and a generous mouth, red-lipped, round with confidence. Such a daring mouth, to whom did it belong? I wanted to let that mouth loose, an animal off its leash, to see what sounds might tumble from it when it opened. Surprise me, I thought to the woman in the mirror, and she laughed at me with her eyes. There was the thrill of rebellion, that night (he was a fearless journalist! the very kind they'd warned about!) but also something more. What begins as rebellion can quickly become something else, something with flesh of its own.
He had no idea I was eighteen. He was not the kind of man to seek out a girl so young. And he never did seek me out in the first place: I, Perla, a goodgirl and a virgin, was the one to make the advance. I found him in the kitchen, polite, confident, and almost haughty, the sleeves of his black linen shirt rolled to the elbows. He was the kind of man made beautiful by the generous conviction of his gestures. I watched him while pretending not to. The party came to him in steady waves. Three different girls approached him at the counter, asking him questions, smoothing their hair. Finally he glanced over. All I did was look at him, across the room, biding my time, holding him in a gaze that spoke and spoke and did not flinch or cool. As if I'd done such things before, as if I knew exactly how to calibrate the temperature of lust, as if I were some kind of vixen rather than an inexperienced girl exploring her own strength. As if I held the secrets of Eros in my power, instead of Eros having its sharp hold on me. And it did have its hold, it scratched fire across my skin, the terrible sweet wound of it, what had I begun? We stared at each other until another guest approached him and broke the spell. I slunk to the living room; I was not breathing; my own boldness seemed a cause for both triumph and alarm. I found my friends and joined their conversation, steadying my breath. If I was flushed, no one seemed to notice.
Half an hour later, he approached me in the hall. The heat immediately returned.
"Are you having a good time?"
I nodded.
"I don't think I've met you before."
"Perla."
"Gabriel."
"I know."
He smiled, with a coy shyness. "Can I get you another drink?"
I looked at his hands. They were slender, surprisingly long, the hands of a woman, the hands of a languorous pianist. I wanted them to bring me things—a drink, a feather, broken glass, shards of unfamiliar songs.
He brought me a beer and stayed beside me. He was easy to talk to. We didn't talk about politics that night: we talked about his sisters, Bob Marley, Nietzsche, my dream of traveling the world.
"Where would you go?" he asked.
"Morocco. Laos. Indonesia."
He looked surprised. "Not Europe?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"It's too close."
"Not r—"
"I don't mean geographically."
He looked intrigued. "Then what do you mean?"
"Buenos Aires, the Paris of South America, and all that. I want to go to a place to which _argentinos_ have never thought to compare themselves. Where no one knows a thing about Argentina."
"People don't know about Argentina in Laos?"
"I don't know. I hope not."
"I see. And what would you do there?"
"Look. Listen. Smell." _And lose myself_ , I thought, but this part I did not say.
"You could do that in Buenos Aires."
"I already know Buenos Aires."
"Are you sure?"
I started to say yes, then couldn't.
"How," he said, waving toward the balcony door, "can you ever fully know a city like this one?"
I looked toward the balcony, where a cluster of people smoked and laughed, while, beyond them, the city's heart beat with electric light, and the great gray wall of an apartment building rose across the street, hoarding the secrets of centuries. In that moment the night's pulse seemed to come roaring in through the windows, the delirious blend of a million human hearts. The city, incorrigible and sprawling and awake. For all its long and freighted history, for all its cracked façades and streaks of sorrow, on this night the city seemed young, renewed by the vigor of its people. I could have leaped from the balcony to the streets and wandered them until the sun came up, only I did not want to leave the party.
"Let's dance," I said.
It had been a long time since I'd danced with a boy or a man. In high school I'd begun to dance alone at parties and those around me had learned to keep their distance, that's Perla, she's a bit strange, there she goes moving like she's the last person left on the planet, or, from less kind sources, like the bitch thinks music plays only for her. My friends saw me dancing with Gabriel and made faces of mock alarm, _What, you?_ I laughed. I moved to the rhythm of my laugh. Gabriel looked at me strangely, _Who is this girl, where is the joke_ , and I came closer so his cologne could fill my nose and coat my tongue when I opened my mouth to smile and though I longed to touch him I did not, we danced with our desire, we danced desire into being, we danced to the Rolling Stones, to U2, even to a tango when someone cued up those old songs and then his hand landed on my waist with all the sureness of a bird making a nest for itself; our bodies touched, shouts and laughter filled the room as a young generation revived the old steps their grandparents had taught them. When the song ended, we lingered close for an instant, not wanting to draw apart, and I felt his body listening for what mine wanted to say. I pulled away quickly.
"Are you all right?" he said.
"Let's go outside and get some air."
We stayed on the balcony for hours. My friends left the party, and, eventually, so did his. At five in the morning only a small cluster remained, drinking beers in the living room, leaving us the balcony as our kingdom. And I did feel like royalty, strangely exalted, poised up on my perch over the city, watching people walk the streets of San Telmo, leaving bars or friends' apartments with their arms around each other. Perched up there I felt for the first time that I could own the city, and it could own me back.
"I love your apartment," I said. "It's the best in Buenos Aires."
He laughed. "How do you know?"
"I know things," I said, with mock imperiousness.
"Ah! So do I."
"Oh really? Like what?"
That's when he kissed me. He tasted of cigarettes and eucalyptus and beer. I had only kissed high school boys before, never a grown man, and everything about his kiss took me by surprise: its skill; its supple confidence; the measured pleasure his tongue took in my mouth, the hints it gave of skills and pleasures yet to come; and my own response to the kiss, the places that opened widely to receive it, not only my lips but my thighs (and this alarmed me, I rushed to close them but his hand was there and so they stayed half-parted, listening to his light touch) and hidden places in my being where I'd long stashed parts of myself that could not be allowed into the light. I'd never guessed a kiss could do that. I should have stopped but I could not, we kissed for a long time and I could have kept on longer. I didn't want it to end. I could have toppled over the rail and continued as we crashed together down the streets of Buenos Aires, limbs entangled, joined at the mouth, tumbling blindly through alleys and boulevards, knocking down kiosks and café tables on our way to the sea.
He took me out to dinner the following week. We sat in a warm Italian restaurant, the kind with dim lights and dark red walls and black-and-white photographs of other eras crowding every corner. I felt far from the suburbs, transported to a Buenos Aires that, though only a train ride away from where I had grown up, still felt somewhat foreign. I had determined that I would not talk about my family yet, and had devised various strategies for avoiding the topic, but as it turned out, it was shockingly easy. Though, I thought as the meal progressed, perhaps I should not be so shocked: he was a man, after all, accustomed to filling the air with his voice and being listened to, all the way from the reading of menus to the last spoonfuls of dessert. With just a few prompting questions from me, he told me about his father, who was from Mar del Plata, and his mother, who was Uruguayan, and how they had met on vacation in Piriápolis, a little town on the Uruguayan coast. His father was in medical school at the time, though he had hidden this fact from the girl he was pursuing to make sure that, if she returned his attentions, it would be for the right reasons, as he did not want to marry a social climber who would try to keep him from his dream of ministering to the poor. When he finally told her, at the end of an idyllic seaside week, he expected her to light up with delight, All this in a man and he'll be a doctor!, but she looked at him without expression for a long time and then said, So you're a medical student.
He nodded.
And a liar.
No, he said quickly, of course not, I don't lie.
And that story, she said, about dropping out of school?
He stopped cold, or so it was always told to Gabriel throughout his childhood, by both tellers; they agreed on the fact that he stopped cold in that moment and had no idea what to say. It was a test, he finally confessed.
She said, And you failed.
He thought of protesting this, pointing out that he had not been the one being tested, but then he gave up and nodded. I'm sorry, he said, I'll never lie to you again.
And therein, they told their son years later, lay the secret to their long and happy marriage.
They moved to Buenos Aires, where Gabriel's father worked for a clinic that served the slums at the edges of the city. When the dictatorship took over, Gabriel was five years old, and his sisters were four and one; fearing for their safety in a political atmosphere where anyone working for the most vulnerable elements of society was in danger of being labeled a subversive, they fled, and since they obviously could not return to Uruguay because of its own dictatorship, they went to Mexico City, where Gabriel grew up in a cluster of exiles from the Southern Cone who carved out homes for themselves in that cacophonous, phenomenal, disorienting city. How he loved it, with its palatial colonial buildings layered uneasily over and beside Aztec ruins that whispered—no, not whispered, he corrected himself: the ruins _sang_ —of ancient days and powers we _ríoplatenses_ down south have long forgotten in our stubborn amnesia over what this land has been, the life it had before Europe crashed in and transformed it with paving stones and spilled blood. Here, he said, we talk about the pretty paving stones but not the blood. We act as though the founding of Buenos Aires were the beginning of time rather than an interruption of what Time had long been doing. We think four hundred and something years is old, but please, that's just a young snotnose of a city when you've experienced México D.F. You should really try these cannelloni, here, have some, they're spectacular. Mm, see? In any case, I loved it there, but my mother couldn't stand the pollution, the whorls of noise, and above all she could never get used to the edge of violence that accompanies you there as constantly as your own shadow. She pined for the tranquillity of Uruguay, where even the capital has the bucolic calm of a village. And so, after the Uruguayan dictatorship ended, we moved to Montevideo. I was fifteen then. My father would have preferred Buenos Aires, but my mother won that fight. No, she said, I can't stand that many Argentineans at once. Despite her intermarriage, she never shook off the Uruguayan belief that Argentineans all too often suffer from excessive arrogance, and, to put it bluntly, are sons of bitches. She would sometimes throw up her hands in the house and say, My husband, my children, they're all _argentinos_ , I'm surrounded! So, I finished high school in Montevideo, and by my first year at the university I was writing for newspapers. Small, insignificant pieces at first. Then I started writing about political issues, the imprint left by both dictatorships, and I wrote an article about Uruguayan nationals who'd disappeared in Argentina. You know, I'm sure you've heard about it, they came here seeking refuge from their government, but then the junta took over here and—paf!—Operation Condor, lists of names, and the regimes are doing each other's dirty work. A disgrace. But anyway, after I wrote that piece, I became obsessed with the _desaparecidos_ in general, and I felt that I had to come back here, to Buenos Aires, to dive further into those stories. Now I feel like I can't leave, he said, taking a bite of almond torte. I love Montevideo too, my family's there, I visit, but this is home.
"What makes Buenos Aires home?" I said.
"I don't know. The streets. I never get tired of these streets, their noise, their colors, even their sadness. Even the cracks in run-down buildings seem beautiful to me."
I drank the last drops of wine from my glass. The bottle stood empty. I felt warm, sated.
Gabriel looked as though he'd just woken. "But wait. We haven't talked about you."
"We don't have to."
"This is terrible. I've talked the whole night."
"I like to listen."
"You're very good at it."
"You sound alarmed."
"Perhaps I am. I don't usually tell my whole life story on a first date like this."
"No?"
"No."
I smiled.
"I'm a journalist, for God's sake. I'm supposed to get people talking."
"And I'm an aspiring psychologist," I said. "I'm supposed to do the same."
"Looks like you won."
"I liked hearing your stories." I meant this. I could have listened for hours more.
"Well, you owe me some next time."
He invited me back to his apartment that night, and I declined, though I did kiss him long and slow at the subway gate before descending to catch my train. On the next date, at the same trattoria, he was ready with his questions.
"I don't want to talk about my family," I said.
"Why not?"
I waved my hand, hoping that the gesture seemed both confident and casual. "Your family doesn't define who you are."
"It doesn't?"
"No."
"But it's where you come from. Where you begin."
"Not where I begin."
He looked slightly amused. "Where do you begin, then, Perla?"
Without thinking, I said, "With Rimbaud."
He laughed. "What? The poet?"
"The poet." I spent the next hour weaving a creation story for myself, miraculously devoid of parents. I described my experience at Romina's bookshelves, opening volume after volume as if opening the gates to textual cities. In those cities, among those words and meanings, I said, the true trajectory of my life began. Everything I said was true, though of course I left out details of my friendship with Romina—her discovery in the study, her uncles, the note I read and reread in the bathroom stall. Instead, I focused on the appetite with which we'd open book after book, picking out delectable lines to roll against the tongue of the mind, the wonder of those hours, the way the words and visions and ideas sparked from those pages and dug into my flesh like splinters of a fire started on the page by a writer long dead. It made me fall in love with the mind, I said. It made me see how everything—ideas, poems, buildings, even wars—ultimately began in the mind. First comes a thought, then words to carry it, and only then does a thing take shape in a concrete way. In the beginning there truly was the Word. Eventually I became a student of the mind, the place where words begin, so that one day I could accompany people's journeys into the dizzying labyrinths within them, and help them navigate, help them change. It felt good to tell the story without the context of my mother this, my father that. My own story, unhampered, as if my parents did not exist. I had never described my life that way to anyone. I felt entranced by my own telling, and wondered how much of it was fiction and how much a new way of looking at the truth.
"So Freud has the keys to the labyrinth?" Gabriel asked.
"Some of them."
"Do you believe everything he said?"
"Even Freud didn't believe everything he said. He contradicted himself, he made mistakes. But he was the first to unlock certain rooms of the psyche."
"Such as?"
"Unconscious desires."
"Mm hm. Unconsious desires." He looked at me with a subtle smile. He was so confident with his lust, I found it both maddening and impressive. "Do you have any of those?"
"If I did, I wouldn't know it, would I?"
That night, I did go back to his apartment, and he turned on Coltrane's _A Love Supreme_ and poured us wine and we kissed in the middle of the living room, on our feet, swaying, a kiss that started with languor and rapidly intensified as though it had a will of its own. We were on our knees, kissing, we were on the floor, his hands on my breasts and in my hair and everywhere else all at once or so it seemed, and my hands too, we were there a long time, we didn't take our clothes off but we pressed so forcefully it seemed the fabric might burn away from our bodies. Finally, I said, reluctantly, "I should go."
"Do you have to?"
"I have to."
He brushed my hair back, very gently. "I've never met a girl like you."
"Oh, shut up."
"It's true."
"You're good at this, Gabriel. But I'm still not going to have sex with you."
He made a face of wounded innocence. "Sex? Who said anything about sex?"
I laughed.
He pouted. "I feel so used."
"Poor thing."
He grinned. "I have something for you," he said, and left the room. He returned with a file folder, and opened it to show me a small stack of clippings. "If you'd like to borrow them. To read some of my work."
The article on top was called "Gentlemen of the Sea: The Role of the Navy in Disappearances." The room went cold. I did not want to read his work. But I smiled and took the folder from him. "Of course I do."
I started reading on the subway ride home. The article was smart and eloquent. Outrage emanated from every sentence, hard as a spear, flung at men who had participated in atrocities and now held immunity under the law when obviously they had no right to roam free in the world _with their daughters_ —no, it didn't say that. The train was nearly empty. I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. I had been so stupid. I had thought that we could find some kind of common ground, or if not find it, then create it for ourselves, out of nothing, out of sheer desire for each other. As if common ground could exist between our worlds.
The train hummed on. I felt Romina's phantom presence in the empty seat behind me, lit with triumph. _Perla, Perla. Who do you think you are?_
Go away.
_He'll never love you_.
Go away.
_You have to stop_.
I know. I know.
I broke off the next date, but Gabriel called and called and the thought of his smell when I last saw him, deep sweat under sharp cologne, decimated my resolve. I finally agreed to visit his apartment on a Sunday afternoon.
"What happened?" he said, as soon as I came in.
I stood uncertainly in the center of his living room. "I just wasn't sure."
"About me?"
"About this."
"Why?"
I looked around the room as though the answer could be culled from it. Afternoon light poured in from the balcony, gilding the books strewn on the floor, the dirty coffee mugs, debris from a long night of research. "How old do you think I am?"
"Twenty-two?"
"Eighteen."
"God. Oh God. Are you joking?"
I just looked at him.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You didn't ask."
"You're too young for me."
"Don't be so sure." I didn't know where my words were coming from, there was a woman speaking whom I barely knew, a Perla who could not be trusted to keep to any script.
"What are you saying?"
"That you don't know me."
He stared at me, and I met him without flinching. "You're right, Perla. I have no idea who you really are."
"I didn't mean it as—"
"No, it's a good thing. You're complex. I never feel like you say things just to impress me."
"Why the hell would I say things just to impress you?"
He laughed. "You see what I mean?"
"So can I stay?"
"Do you want to?"
I should have left right then, taken the revelation of my age as an exit door, ensured the safety of my world. "What do you think?"
I stayed, that afternoon. After that, we continued to see each other and I stopped resisting it. Those were delectable times. Our nights were long and full of beer and heat and urges that were probed but not satisfied; we cleaved to each other, we seemed to fit the convoluted curves of each other's inner lives. This surprised me: I'd imagined him to be the kind of man who moved from girl to girl with distracted ease. You don't know me, then, he said. _Oh, come on_ , I answered, _you've never been that way? with all those ex-girlfriends?_ This made him laugh and run his tongue along my ear, so that when he said _You do something different to me, Perla_ , I could barely hear the words through streaks of pleasure.
And on some level, I understood. He was not a man who could be penned in. He succumbed to bouts of writing during which the phone went unanswered, the dishes unwashed, schedules rearranged for the sake of the story, and in those bouts a woman could lose her footing by demanding too much. Other girlfriends in the past had badgered him—What are you writing? Can I read it? Can't I sit beside you while you work? What are you thinking now?—but I had no desire to enter that sphere of his life; I understood the need for private spaces, the need for inner chaos to spin its whorls, because I needed the same thing.
In any case, it was safer this way for both of us. I preferred his journalism stashed outside of our relationship, part of him yet separate, like a shadow. I did not make too many demands on his time. I did not insist that he come home to meet my family. We stayed in the present moment. When you are with me, give me your lithe hands and green eyes and use your wit to make me laugh, don't talk to me about the article you published, the letters that streamed in, I don't care, I only want to speak of what the sun is doing to our skin, what my skin does to yours and what yours does to mine, what our bodies generate and how our minds catapult together to new realms.
Believe it or not, I kept my father's identity from him for a year.
Finally, one day, as we were getting ready to leave his apartment for a party, he told me about a meeting friends of his had organized. They were part of an exciting group called HIJOS, like the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, only by and for children of the disappeared who were now young adults. They were wonderful, they had the coolest tactics, they named perpetrators on the radio and listed not only their crimes against humanity, but their phone numbers and home addresses, and called protests at those addresses, an amazing method, _eserache_ , what an innovation. There was going to be a rally next week outside a general's house, why didn't we go together?
I felt hollowed out from the inside. I imagined a crowd of young people, Gabriel among them, shouting on a lawn that, in my mind's eye, happened to resemble my own. "I'll never go to anything like that with you. Don't ask me again."
He looked shocked, but his comb kept moving through his hair. There was a party to get to, after all. "But why?"
I had dodged these subjects before, with elliptical remarks and timely silence. But it had become exhausting. "Gabo. Listen. My father is in the Navy."
The comb stopped moving. He held it in midair. He stared at me, and though I'd imagined this moment many times, I still was not prepared for the look on his face. "Was he in the Navy... when...?"
I couldn't bring myself to speak, so I just nodded.
He was silent. He stepped away from me, sat down on the bed, and covered his face with his hands. I didn't move. The city blared in through the window, cars and murmurs and the heavy groan of an overloaded bus.
"Perla," he finally said, "why didn't you tell me?"
"Why do you think?"
"He must have taken part in it, you know."
"Don't lecture me."
"But how can you talk to the man?"
"You don't know him."
"Do you?"
"You don't know what I know and what I don't know."
"Fine. No need to shout."
"I'm not shouting."
"It was just a question."
"Are we going to the party or what?"
"Can't we talk about this?"
"What for?"
He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it. I hadn't meant to speak with such hardness, and I thought I might see him lose his temper for the first time. But he only sighed. "Fine, let's go, we'll talk about it later."
We went to the party and afterward we came back to his apartment and stood in the light of one dim lamp, staring at each other like two jaguars in the jungle, quiet, drunk. He looked at me as though he'd never seen me before, as though I had just broken into his home. I wanted to run but could not tell whether the impulse was to run away or run toward him. I longed to say but did not say so many things, _I am not my father_ and _When will I ever be free of this_ and _Mea culpa mea culpa mea culpa_ , but the words were impossible to my mouth and my eyes did all the speaking, his eyes spoke back and not only spoke but shouted and I thought that he might strike me but instead he kissed me brutally, I crushed against him, I let him strip me down to nothing, and I pressed my nakedness against him with all the ferocity of a demon straining for deliverance. I pulled him to the floor and pulled him into me, brashly, savagely, the first time. We made sounds like people fighting for our lives. Such pain, so round and swift, whirling through my body, carrying specks of pleasure on its back. I did not want it to stop, I wanted it to lash through me forever. Afterward, I heard him weeping softly. He was beside me on the floor, his face half-buried in my hair. I crawled over to the lamp to turn it off and then returned and cradled him in the dark until the tears were gone and he was limp against me, wrung out, open. Then, gently, we began again.
We kept on for three more years. We were pulled to each other again and again, we breathed each other's air, there were nights when it seemed the rest of the world with all its rage and nightmares could fall away and leave us to the savage joy that spilled from us when we made love. On those nights—this may seem mad, but I must tell you, of all people in the world I must tell you, even though you won't understand what I am saying—I could have sworn that the world was being born again in the rocking cauldron of our hips. Lust as cleansing force, not only for us, but for the wounds that haunted us.
But it was not always like that. We also fought like dogs. Gabriel attended HIJOS meetings, he protested outside the homes of accused members of the former regime, he spent hours between midnight and dawn at bars with other people who gladly rode the rapids of political discussion with him. He engaged in similar discussions with his parents, or so he told me. His mother in particular was proud of his work. She was passionate about the subject, so much so that _The Official Story_ had become her favorite film. She never tired of watching it. It wasn't particularly original of her, of course, to love that movie, which was a source of pride to all of Argentina (those were her words about it) ever since it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. And a pride to the world, really, since it wasn't just the first Argentinean film to win the prize, but the first film from any part of Latin America, can you imagine that! And so, she would say (and Gabriel was an expert at impersonating her exaggerated fervor), it has made history. But more important, she'd go on, Norma Aleandro is an absolute genius, perfectly cast in the starring role, she makes you feel exactly what it would be like to be in her shoes—that is to say, in her character's shoes—discovering your adopted child was actually stolen from the disappeared. Gabriel found all this amusing, but it made me dread ever accompanying him home. I tried to stay distant from his work, and though in the past this had relieved him, now he found it irritating. He wanted to learn more about my family; I could not stand the notion. I avoided spending time with his friends, who, it seemed to me, might appear any day at my own doorstep. I often imagined the scene, the angry faces, our curtains drawn, Gabriel outside with them unable or unwilling to cross the lawn to see me, or even yelling _Won't you come outside and join us?_
"Understand," I told him, "that I hate who they are. Who they've been."
"Have you told them that?"
I hadn't, I couldn't, I couldn't explain it to him. Not the fear, nor the guilt, nor the love—least of all the love. "I know you're ashamed of me."
"Look, I keep asking you to come with me. You're the one who won't meet my friends. I'm not the one who's ashamed."
"Fine. I'm ashamed. Of course I'm ashamed."
"Perla."
"But you don't understand them."
"If you understood them you wouldn't live with them another instant."
"Go to hell, Gabo."
"Why won't you bring me home to meet them?"
"You don't want to do that," I said quickly. "What if I do?"
"That's impossible."
He turned away to heat more water for our _mate_. "You know what's impossible? This. We are. We're impossible."
I never told my parents about him. It may seem strange that I could hide such an important relationship for four years. I'd love to take the credit and say it's all because of my expert sleight of hand, but that's only partly true. At the end of the day, people will believe what they most want to believe. And my father, in particular, preferred to believe that I was too engrossed with my studies to take any boys too seriously.
That didn't mean he didn't ask.
"So," he said over dinner, "you're going dancing tonight."
I shrugged, casually. "With my girlfriends."
"But you're not going to be dancing alone."
"I don't know yet, Papá."
"A gorgeous girl like you? The men will be all over you." He waved his fork in a mix of worry and pride. "Be careful."
"Ay, Héctor, leave her be. She knows how to take care of herself." Mamá smiled at me. "Right, Perla?"
"Right, Mamá."
"And if there were anyone special... anyone worth mentioning... well, you'd tell us that too, wouldn't you?"
I nodded, somewhat impatiently, as if the answer were too obvious to say aloud.
"Well then, in the meantime, let the girl dance."
After dinner, though, as we were clearing the dishes and Papá had retired to his study, my mother added, conspiratorially, "It's too bad it didn't work out with that Rodrigo fellow. Is he going to be there tonight?"
"No," I said. "Thank God. I don't ever want to see him again."
She sighed in commiseration, though I also sensed a pinch of pleasure at being in the know. "You'll find someone else," she said. "Just wait."
I felt guilty, then, unworthy of her compassion and encouragement. As far as my mother knew, my dating life was riddled with these fitful starts and stops, young men whose names I had to keep careful track of so as not to confuse my stories. They never lasted; they were never worth bringing home. Sometimes, it was nothing more than an interest, a spark with a classmate that I'd drag on for months without it going anywhere. And she'd coach me: have you given him enough clues? Do you think he's shy? I'd answer in two or three words, and she learned quickly not to press me for too much information so as not to break the fragile shell of our confidence. It delighted her that we shared this mother-and-daughter talk, and that she knew things about my life to which my father was not privy. She never told him a word of it. She almost seemed to revel in the notion that there was something Papá and my secret club could not contain—especially something like this, that gave her vicarious access to the dating life of a young woman, something she herself never had, having shut so many doors at a young age. She seemed to imagine my romantic prospects as a limitless horizon to be savored. After so many years of feeling far from my mother, I would have liked for this new closeness to be genuine, rather than a farce made up of one small lie after another. But I could not tell her about Gabriel without eventually telling her who he was, and bringing him home to meet them. Each day I felt more entrenched in a double life.
But what choice did I have?
Once, lying naked in Gabriel's arms, in the succulent warmth of half-sleep, I succumbed to fantasy and imagined the four of us—my father, my mother, myself, and Gabriel—sitting around a table. We looked at each other and talked, and though I couldn't hear what anyone was saying, the scene seemed miraculously calm. Maybe such a thing could happen after all. Maybe the world wouldn't come apart at the seams. These were drunken thoughts, of course, steeped in the liquor of sex and love and hope. But then the vision changed: suddenly the table was strewn with dead geraniums, and the four of us stared at them in horror. I snapped awake. Gabriel had fallen asleep, his arm around me, his chest against my back. I lay in the dark for a long time. Outside, cars moaned through the insomniac city, a song with no solace and no end.
The geraniums arrived in droves, during my last year of high school. They invaded our house, shouting red, shouting orange on their way to a synchronized death. Mamá had read about geraniums in a magazine— _versatile, pretty, easy to grow_ —and, after that, had seen them featured in the home of a Navy captain's wife. The wife had placed a few cheery painted pots near the windows, that was all. Not enough for Mamá. Her geraniums would be extravagant, unparalleled. She would have a fiefdom of geraniums if she would have any. She became possessed with a vision of a house flooded with flowers, accosting you with their bright colors everywhere you turned, drowning out the chairs and shelves and carpets, more flowers than any other house in Buenos Aires—so that when you enter, she said, you feel as though you're swimming through petals.
The notion ignited her and propelled her into motion. She spent a small fortune on elegant plant stands, imported flowerpots inlaid with mosaic, and armies of fully grown geraniums. She could be like that, my mother, given to sudden sprints of creativity. When she was young, she'd wanted to be an artist—she had not yet told me the whole story, but I'd seen the single frightening canvas in the attic—and though that desire had long ago been strangled, occasionally its phantom escaped to attack the world, usually in a bout of shopping that yielded designer shoes and skirts and blouses which she combined into tastefully bold outfits for a few weeks until she tired of them.
I had never seen her take an interest in plants before, beyond providing general instructions to the gardener. The geraniums were different: they were not to be delegated to a mere professional. She repotted them herself. The operation took three days. She commandeered the backyard and transformed it into a flower factory, crowded with pots and plants and large bags of fertile soil. She enlisted my help, and we squatted in the backyard together, surrounded by the red and orange flowers (she had, I noticed, overwhelmingly chosen red), arranging roots in their elegant containers.
It was February, the ripe height of summer, and the sun cascaded over us in slow, humid waves. Mamá wore long gardening gloves over her manicured hands, and her fingers pressed soil into place with fastidiousness and even passion. She had bought me gloves too, but I refused to wear them.
"You'll get so dirty, Perla."
"I want to get dirty."
"Ay, Perla," she said, shaking her head. She said no more but beamed with irritation. After all, my refusal disturbed the plan for how the geranium days should go, mother and daughter tending flowers and don't they look picture perfect in their matching gloves? Such interesting gardening gloves, with their violet fleur-de-lis, what a find! For half an hour she would not talk to me, but then she thawed, so engrossed in the execution of her project that she forgot my transgression, or perhaps for fear that I might abandon the project altogether.
She needn't have worried. I didn't want to leave. I had protested this chore, but only mildly; it was a rare chance to spend time with my mother without the pressure of speaking to one another. We could crouch side by side, our attention on the plants, and I could taste the scent of her perfume and feel the rhythm of her breaths without having to find anything to say. We often struggled to find things to say to each other, beyond the essential _good morning_ and _here's your breakfast_ and _what time will you be home?_ and _good night_ , as though we were both foreigners who'd stumbled into this house from utterly different faraway lands, and had only just learned the rudiments of each other's languages. At that time, I still wanted to learn my mother's language (though I would not have told her that), if only to better understand her, and to increase the chances of her understanding me. There was so much I longed to tell her as I squatted beside her with my hands full of dirt, but I also feared that, if I started, other matters might leap out that were not meant to be spoken. Better not to risk the opening. Better not to attempt too much speech with my mother, especially on such flagrantly hot days on which it was impossible to rest your eyes on anything but geraniums and geraniums.
They were hardy little plants. The blooms themselves were bright and simple, relatively unassuming, but when gathered in such plentiful crowds they seemed to acquire an almost hypnotic power. The roots were much darker than the petals, and more twisted than the stems, a hidden half that exposed itself to my curious fingers in the journey from pot to pot. Strange, the body of a plant, with limbs never meant to be exposed to the sun. Every once in a while, over the course of our three days, Mamá hummed. The melody meandered, it was nothing I recognized, but it soothed me. At night, I would close my eyes for sleep and see a great geranium with its root bared in all its gnarled intricacy until my hands arrived full of soil to cover it back up.
When all the flowers were ready in their decorated pots, Mamá spent a fourth day distributing them through the house, moving a wooden stand here and now there, there and now here, now this pot with the shell motif, now the other pot with the Spanish tile, until at last every geranium had moved into the house and she collapsed onto the sofa in exhausted triumph. Flowers lurked at every turn. You could not rest your gaze without encountering a geranium, two geraniums, hundreds of geraniums, and you could not walk without the feeling that geraniums were following you close at heel, bright mobs of them, crowding the air at your back. You could not help feeling vastly outnumbered.
For a week, Mamá was delighted. The geraniums gave order and purpose to her days. She spent hours watering them, tending to them, examining their petals in gently cupped hands, even whispering to them when she thought no one was looking. The flowers may or may not have whispered back, but they stood fresh and still and, in that first week, they thrived.
And then, as Mamá later put it, everything was ruined by Scilingo.
He appeared for the first time on March 2, 1995. Every year thereafter, I would remember the date, an unnamed anniversary. It was not a live show, just a photograph and his recorded voice on television. Everyone knew about the broadcast. The ads had been running all week. I didn't watch it with my parents; this was for their private bedroom viewing only, and I knew this without having to ask. I went to my friend Amelia's house to watch. Don't worry, she said, my parents don't know. She didn't add _about your Dad_ , but I understood and I was thankful. Amelia's father was an attorney, her mother was a housewife who made her own aprons. Her mother brought soda and cookies on a tray and we all sat down in time for the start of _Hora Clave_.
The famous journalist presented his story. This, he said, is not the first time we learn what happened, but it is the first time we hear directly from one of the men involved. He approached me of his own accord, in the subway, wanting the truth to be known. We met many times. It was extremely difficult for both of us. We recorded these tapes.
I stared at the photograph of Scilingo as the tapes played. He looked older than I remembered him, hair and mustache gray around the edges, eyes tired and plaintive, but it was him, Adolfo Scilingo, the same man who never came to my house without pulling a dulce de leche or apple candy out of his pocket for Perlita linda. That's what he called me: _Here you go, Perlita linda, just for you_. His face earnest, hopeful, as if he'd spent all day worrying about whether I'd like the gift. The candy was always warm from having traveled against his leg, slightly melted into its paper skin, and I always took it eagerly, put it in my mouth and sucked gladly with no thought of where the candy or the leg that warmed it had gone that day. So that, as a girl, whenever I saw Scilingo coming, my mouth would water in anticipation of something sweet.
The voice of the man on the tape spoke of requesting to be sent to ESMA, the Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada, to serve with the saviors of the nation. The voice did not work in the quarters where subversives were detained, but it did once stumble into the zone by accident and see and hear and smell more than intended. One day, a superior told the voice to take subversives on flights, assuring that these acts were sanctioned by the clergy as Christian and humane. He took part in two flights, casting thirty people altogether into the sea. How many others there had been, he couldn't say, but thirty fell from his own hands. The people were drugged and stripped, then thrown out of the airplane, naked and alive. Everyone had participated in such flights, as part of their rotating duties. There were times when the voice paused, broke, lowered, other times when it sailed through details as if reading a shopping list out loud.
Afterward, Amelia's mother stood quickly and turned off the television. A gaping silence filled the room. "God," she said. "Oh God."
The father rubbed his forehead as though it pained him.
"I can't believe it," the mother said. "All those people."
For an instant the room filled with the watery breaths of thirty ghosts, burdening the air with their damp, ragged exhalations. Then they were gone. I could not feel my legs, my arms, I felt unhinged from them.
"The worst part," the father said, "is that we can't throw him in prison. With a confession like that!"
"I know. That men like him should get immunity."
"That's politics for you."
"I hope they all die a painful death and rot in hell." Amelia's mother turned to me. "Another cookie? Really, don't be shy."
The late summer light fell on the plate of cookies. They were homemade, and the warm scent of their baking still lingered in the house. My own mother hadn't baked cookies in over a decade. I took another one, not because I wanted it, but to please Amelia's mother, or perhaps to feel like less of an intruder.
The next evening, at home, I sought and failed to find a rudder in my parents. Why I looked to them for one, why any part of me thought it could depend on them to navigate a clear route through the dark, I cannot say. There was no reason to such a thought. But in any case, that fantasy was soon dispelled. They, too, were lost. Dinner was burned and too salty and no one said a thing about it. We ate our tough _milanesas_ in silence. The silence was taut and ominous. I ate slowly, dutifully, though my stomach clenched and I had no appetite. Out of the corners of my vision I glanced at Mamá and Papá and attempted to read the emotions on their faces. They looked like refugees of an unexpected natural disaster: there was shock and fear—was that fear?—and also anger, especially from Mamá.
I looked for shame in their faces but could not find it. I looked for innocence in their faces but could not find it.
Mamá emptied a bottle of wine and opened a second. Her cheeks grew flushed. I had never seen her with such turmoil on her face. My mother, after all, was the consummate expert at keeping her poise, she was none other than Luisa Belén Correa Guzmán, known for a smooth exterior that some interpreted as coldness and others as graceful restraint. I admired this exterior, even tried to emulate it (though it was hard work for me, with so many inner fires to douse and douse), but I also cringed from the moments when the mask would crack and reveal the seep of molten forces mortal girls were not designed to withstand. A kind of heat pulsed from her, across the dinner table, urgent and amorphous. Sitting at the table in the scope of this heat, one could forget that my father was the one trained in the art of war. He seemed to skulk from her; the air grew tense between them; they explained nothing to me. They did not look at me. I pictured our feet under the table, forming an agitated hexagon.
Toward the end of the meal, Mamá tipped the second bottle to her glass, found it empty, and knocked it over. She watched it roll slowly to the edge of the table, fall to the floor, and continue rolling until it hit the wall. No one moved to pick it up. No one acknowledged its trajectory, or even its existence. The next morning, as I left for school, it was still there.
A week later, on March 9, I returned to Amelia's to watch Scilingo's live appearance on _Hora Clave_. This time, her parents had recovered from their initial shock and grown emboldened. They had had a week to let the revelations simmer, and they had plenty to say to the television screen during the show. It was clear that they still did not know who my parents were, and I was grateful to Amelia for this protection, even if she did it less out of loyalty than for reasons of her own. We had never talked directly about my father's profession, only in half phrases that trailed into silence. She seemed not to judge, or at least she seemed to pity me the way one might pity a cripple who cannot help her inability to walk, which stung, of course, but was far better than the alternative. Amelia glanced nervously at me as her parents hurled forthright insults at the television, but none of that mattered. I wasn't there for them or even to hear Scilingo's words, all I wanted was to see him on the screen.
He wore an expensive suit and had every hair in place and, at one point, to the contempt of Amelia's parents, wept. _I believe you_ , I thought at him, _I believe your tears_ , though I wasn't sure whether I could believe in whatever had impelled the tears, or merely in the fact of their existence. Tears seemed so simple, an obvious answer I had not yet managed. I envied Scilingo his tears. I wondered whether there was candy in the pockets of his slacks, what he would say to me if I could crawl into the television screen to meet him, whether he would take everything back, Perlita linda, it's you, I've been stuck in a strange dream, conjured by a curse, absurd lies have been pouring from my mouth, but no matter, you're here, you know who I really am. And I would curl up on that lap and we would rock, Scilingo and I, my body would shrink to infant size and his arms would be warm and we would rock, back and forth, forgetting planes, forgetting silences, forgetting the words that cut our minds.
"Monsters," Amelia's mother said after the show. "Those men are monsters."
I nodded blankly.
In the week that followed, the tension between my parents deepened and expanded. They fought behind closed doors. I tiptoed to their bedroom door to listen. Sometimes there was nothing; sometimes there were scraps.
"Don't you dare call him."
"He's not a bad man, Luisa."
"He's a disaster. Look what happened to his career. He has nothing left but to go crying on TV."
"He's my friend."
"He _was_ your friend."
"Just a phone call."
"A phone call is enough to destroy us. Is that what you want?"
"No, no."
"Then shut up, Héctor."
"Don't tell me to shut up—"
It went on, but I went to bed, and as sleep had long since abandoned me I stared out of the window and watched the moon hang in the sky and do nothing. I tried not to think, but the images came, my father on _Hora Clave_ , my father on an airplane, my mother kissing my father good-bye on a Monday morning, _have a nice day, call if you're staying late_ , my father in a dark room with naked bodies, my own self in a dark room with naked bodies, implicated, struggling for breath, unable to get out. My father in my bedroom, kneeling on the floor, begging for something incomprehensible in flotsam words. He was not there, his shadow not hulking in the dark beside my bed, but still I turned away to face the wall.
April came. I strove to maintain order at the surface of my life. I threw myself into the pursuit of excellence in two arenas: my studies, and drinking shots at parties. I was equally ruthless and equally successful in both endeavors. My grades were perfect and I gained a reputation for drinking even the most athletic boys under the table. All I wanted was to burn my throat with grappa while a boy floundered in his effort to keep up, until his eyes registered wonder and _Who is this girl still in control_ and _Shit why won't she let me_ and then I'd rise from the table with my head on fire and dance, dance, dance alone and not let anyone touch me, dance so hard the beats could almost bruise, dance my way through exorcisms no one else could see.
Another confession hit the television screens, this time a man notorious for his creative cruelty and high voltages, and he was neither well groomed nor repentant. His name was El Turco—or so, at least, he'd been known in the force—and he seemed to revel in the national attention. The immunity laws, after all, gave him a protected sphere in which he could speak of his acts with frank abandon and no fear of being arrested like a common criminal, for he was no common criminal, he was just a man who had carried out his duties to the state with special zeal. His appearance barely seemed to affect my parents, who were already caught in the gales of private skies. They didn't speak to each other, they glared at each other, Mamá seethed through dinner and afterward Papá disappeared into his study with his scotch.
The geraniums died of thirst. They turned brown and brittle and withered in their pots. You could not rest your gaze in the house without seeing the corpses of neglected geraniums unless you looked to the ceiling, steadfastly ignoring the sphere in which people move back and forth to inhabit their everyday lives. Because in that sphere, in the everyday sphere, the bright mobs of flowers had turned to dark mobs of putrefaction that crowded the vision so thickly and filled the nose with such a ripe, sharp odor that they created the illusion of also reaching other senses: your mouth could taste the decay, your skin crawled with the sensation of a hundred crumbled flowers, your ears were privy to the dying cries of potted plants that echoed through the air in fine high voices long after their demise. We were choked and crowded out by the geraniums' deaths. We were stranded, three lone humans in the botanical graveyard our home had become—a graveyard without graves, since no one bothered to clean anything up. The pots remained in place all over the house, offering up their stems like gnarled thin fingers reaching out of dirt. In an act of denial so prodigious it bordered on a marvel, my mother swung from tending the geraniums like children to ignoring them completely, as though she could make them cease to exist by barricading her own mind. She went about her days as if the flowers were invisible to her. She left them to die. My father seemed to notice nothing; his gaze was always reaching toward something just behind the walls. At times, I wondered whether I was insane, hallucinating dead plants that no one else seemed willing or able to see, while my parents lived God knew where, in some other house that occupied the same physical space but adhered to different rules of reality, impossible to penetrate.
After three weeks, I couldn't stand it any longer and I finally began to clear the flowerpots myself, filling garbage bags with broken blooms, stacking empty pots and plant stands along the edge of the patio. I filled thirteen garbage bags with dirt and plant remains. I stood among them on the patio and stared and stared at the bulging black bags and pots still laced with earth. I wanted to haul the bags up the stairs and spill their contents on my parents' bed so that dirt and broken roots seeped into their clean linens. I wanted to smash the flowerpots against the patio and use the shards as knives with which to cut my parents open, and myself as well, peeling back the skin as if the truth of who we were could be so easily laid bare.
There was so much to lay bare, so much hidden. Behind the locked door to the study, in the flowerpots, and in the stiff and bitter smile my mother wore like armor. The Hidden loomed among us, impossible to shrug off or deny. It claimed all three of us as its creatures. It thickened our nights and drained the color from our days. I could barely stand to be in a room with both my parents. Even the smallest pleasantry seemed to throb with hostile undertones. My mother never said anything disparaging to my father—at least not in front of me—but she looked at him differently now, with an expression of vexed pity, as if he had crumbled in her esteem. She had married a man with a clean uniform and clean hands, a man of righteous actions and sure footing, and now that man was in danger of becoming something else, something unacceptable, neither righteous nor sure.
On some nights, dinnertime would arrive and Mamá would not be home. She neither called nor left a note informing us of her whereabouts. On those nights, I cooked pasta and heated a jar of tomato sauce, which Papá and I would eat at the table without talking. I never found out where my mother spent that time, though I imagined her wandering through her favorite boutiques, perhaps in search of outer manifestations of an inner wilderness, rubbing skirts between her fingers, stroking shoes, never purchasing a thing. One night she arrived home while we were still at the table. My father and I both looked up, forks in midair, at the sound of her key in the door. Her footsteps approached the dining room, stopping at the threshold. I turned to greet her but she didn't look at me; she was staring at the back of my father's head, which had not turned. He had resumed eating as though nothing had happened. Somehow, it seemed that anything I might say would only make the situation more awkward, so I faced my plate again. For a minute, the only sound was my father's fork against his plate.
"Who cooked?" she asked, surprise in her voice. As if she never would have imagined that we'd eat without her.
"I did," I said.
She sighed. It was a protracted sigh, almost melodic, almost ennobled. I thought she'd walk away then, but she didn't. My appetite was gone, so I rose and took my plate to the kitchen. When I returned, she was still there, staring at my father's back with an indecipherable expression on her face. I wanted to slap her. I wanted to shake him. The scene seemed at once tense and ridiculous. But whatever it actually was, I was not part of it; I left the room and they remained immobile, as though my exit were entirely inconsequential.
I started to wonder whether my parents were headed toward divorce. Part of me wished they were, if divorce could ease this freighted atmosphere. I was seven months away from starting at the university and I tried to imagine what my life would be like when classes began, whether I would still live in this house, and if so with which parent. It would be a new life, more fully mine, or so I dared to hope. Wherever I lived, and whatever became of my parents' marriage, I would have something of my own, a course of study that would take me down paths they could not enter. And what path would I take? The plan, not devised by me, had always been to study medicine.
But now I felt no interest in it, even chafed at the thought, as if it were a drab coat tailored for a very different body. I wanted to be excited by my studies; I wanted them to make the world more real to me, or make me more real to the world. The practical approach, which many of my peers took, involved making decisions based on sensible, orderly long-term plans. I could not see so many years ahead with the months in front of me so hazy and uncertain. Later, the professional trappings would come into focus, but when I first decided, I could think only of what studying the mind could open for me, a direct route into everything that dwelled inside me, and around me, unspoken, unspeakable.
I didn't tell my parents about this plan, knowing they would disapprove, and they were too distracted to ask. I tried to imagine living alone with my mother or my father. I could not imagine living without Papá, knowing that he was alone, especially if he lost the house and no longer had his study into which to disappear. All those long nights alone in his study. I wondered how many hours he was spending in there, what thoughts went through his mind, whether he turned on all the lights or kept the room dim, whether he paced back and forth or lay on the floor or sat in his chair with his eyes closed.
One night, I dreamed my father and I were in an airplane over the sea, and the hatch opened and he turned to me and said _Shall we?_ and then he smiled and pointed at a naked man on his hands and knees at the hatch, grabbed his hair and pulled his head back but the man had no face, it was an empty face. The sky whipped in and I could hear the distant sound of bleating donkeys. My father pushed the head back down and pulled it up with a face now, a girl's face, my face, with donkey teeth and donkey ears and my own terrified eyes, and the girl looked up at me as wisps of hair escaped my father's fist and writhed in the wind and she bleated and bleated and said _go on, push_ , and Papá said _Perla, hurry up, the pilot has lost his way home_.
I woke in the dark and lay still for an hour, feeling the warm blankets, the pace of my breath, the air that hung still because it was not (was not) at the open hatch of a moving plane. I saw myself packing a hasty bag and running away into the night, leaving home and father and future university studies for the life of a vagrant, starved, vulnerable, free of conscience. I saw myself going to school tomorrow and denouncing my father to my class, my friends, reporters, Amelia's parents, _I am so sorry, I was just a baby, please forgive_ , tears and rage and a family torn apart. I saw myself going downstairs to look for my father in his study, in search of truth, in search of understanding, in search of the man whose heart was full of things to show his daughter: love for her, suffering, perhaps even remorse.
I could not bear to do any of those things, that night. But the following night I got out of bed, went to the study, and put my ear to the closed door. I heard only silence. I did this every night for four nights, then slunk away and went to bed and tried to sleep. On the fifth night, I knocked.
"Papá?"
Silence. Then steps. To my surprise, the door opened.
I entered the wood-paneled room. It was lit by a single desk lamp, which illuminated a small sphere around it. My father had already sat back down in his chair behind the desk. His jaw was sternly set. I stood in the middle of the room for a while, searching for something to say. Nothing came out. I was not sure what I had come for, whether I aimed to reassure him or confront him or somehow push unspoken burdens off my shoulders, out of my body, into his hands. Whether to magically absolve or to accuse. I settled down on the floor, not too close to him, not facing him, not wanting him to balk at too much proximity. I heard him pour, lift his glass, drink, set it back down. Enough time went by that I thought he'd forgotten my presence. I almost started to drift to sleep, and then he said, as if picking up the thread of an ongoing conversation, "It was war. It was a just war."
He was silent for a long time. I didn't move.
"So it brings bad memories. Show me the war that doesn't bring bad memories. Hah? Just try it, you can't, there isn't one. That's war for you. Look, _hija_ , even the church said it was just. God's work, they said. Separating wheat from chaff. The subversives, you know, they didn't believe in God."
He went silent, as if waiting for a response, but I said nothing.
"Want a drink?"
I shook my head.
He poured himself another glass. When he spoke again, he sounded more at ease. He was quite drunk. "We were the ones restoring order. For years and years this country had no order. You have no idea what a shithole this country was before. It needed to be saved, and people knew it, they even asked for it. Now they criticize. Well, you know what—fuck them. They talk about the suffering of the prisoners, but what about our suffering? What about our sacrifice? Fucking bastards, the lot of them."
He leaned back in his chair, away from the low sphere of light, his back approaching the wall of plaques behind him. I stayed very still, just like when I was a little girl and he would come into my bedroom late at night to stroke my hair and turn a bar song into a lullaby, with a voice as gentle and meandering as lazy waves on a warm day, his hand like raw cotton along my scalp, and I always feared that if I moved too much he'd go away and I'd be in the dark without his songs. Somewhere in the far folds of the cosmos, there might be a script that held the right responses to his words, the way a father confessor intimates the next lines in a penitent's dialogue with God. But I had no access to this. I was not a confessor and in any case my father had expressed no penitence. My voice seemed to have vanished from my throat.
"I just did my job," my father said. "I carried out orders, like anybody else."
Then he wept.
At first, I did not recognize the sound, hoarse and stifled as it was. The sobs did not come freely; they pushed under the surface of short, heavy breaths. He sounded like a man with a fresh bullet wound, desperate to keep quiet, battling to contain the pain. I did not look over at him. I did not move. I could not have moved even if I'd wanted to: my legs had frozen in their curl beneath my body and there was no hope of running, not toward him, and not away. I did not cry. I felt as though I'd never be able to cry again, as though my father's and Scilingo's tears had robbed me of my own.
After a long time, the sounds abated. He blew his nose, once, twice. We sat in silence.
"Ay, Perlita," he finally said. "Then there's you. It was all worthwhile, because I have you."
I strained to understand how these words connected to the rest of them. These words like tiny foreign bombs. Looking back, I should have known right then, except that something shut in me and left those words out in the cold.
He rose from his chair, abruptly, and turned off the light. I watched him walk past me, toward the door.
"Go to sleep," he said, and then he was gone.
I stared into the blackness all around me, thick and dark like the inside of a great mouth, ready to gulp you into oblivion. The floor heaved like a bottom jaw. I sat for a long time, in the swirl of air and dark and whispers that were not to be deciphered, trying not to think too much, unable to stop thinking, my ears ringing with the sound of my father's tears, and also with sounds that were absent from the room, the soft _whooosh_ of naked bodies falling and falling and falling. I felt sick. I almost fell asleep there, on the floor, but I feared what I might dream if I stayed. When I finally went to bed, I dreamed, mercifully, of nothing.
The next day, he found me in the backyard. I was standing in front of the flowerpots, restacking them in higher towers, for no good reason.
"Perla," he said, and was silent until I turned toward him. His face had changed from the night before, closed up, a storefront that's been boarded and abandoned. "I want to make something clear."
I waited.
"There are elements in this country that are not to be trusted. You've got to be careful. Especially now that you'll be at the university soon, exposed to more kinds of people."
I looked into his eyes and he looked away from me, at the rosebushes at the edge of the patio, the tall stacks of mosaic flowerpots, the plant stands that held nothing but air. He looked exhausted, his skin lined in that manner that seems to etch the story of a life without revealing any secrets.
"You're never to speak to reporters. They're like vermin, they get in where they shouldn't and they're never any good. And in general, be careful of the company you keep."
"Whom I speak to is my concern."
"Perla. Everything you do is my concern."
"It's not. I have my own life."
"Because I gave it to you."
I stared at him; he seemed startled at his own words. "Fuck you," I said, fully expecting him to shout or slap me for it. I'd never dreamed of saying such a thing to him before.
But he did not shout or slap. Instead, he said, "Perla, listen. You have to listen. There are things you don't understand."
He stared at me with an intensity that reached beyond his words, and in his gaze I read a plea that he would not articulate and that I should not accept, a plea that reached back to our conversation from the night before and asked for absolution or amnesia or, at the very least, for continued love. He wanted me to stomach his confessions and stand by him, his faithful daughter, an essential part of a united family that knew how to keep secrets from reporters, from the world, from their own selves. I should not accept the plea, I thought. I should spit in his face on behalf of a nebulous thirty thousand, or at least denounce him with brutal measured words, disentangling my own conscience from his deeds—but I could not. I would pay a price for this. It seemed a terrible crime to allow the threads of our connection to go uncut. I wanted to be a different kind of person, free to condemn the flights and other horrors with pure contempt. What a luxury, pure contempt. How very civil, how very smooth. Like Amelia's mother, and like so many members of my own generation, with whom I felt out of step, unable to join the full-throated recriminations without tearing myself in two. My father needed me. Only I had seen his tender places, heard his tears; if I abandoned him, in any sense of the word, he would surely wander lost and fragile and alone, without anchor, without salvation.
I wanted to run from him, from the crowded patio, from his gaze on me, from my own freighted love. But I did not run. I stood, paralyzed, while my father walked away with the last word.
# 6
_The Word_ Where
This is how it ended: they came in with syringes and he thought it would be lethal but it was just some kind of drug, to keep you calm, they said, while we transport you to a special station in the south. Bliss, relief, to enter the haze drugs gave him, like white gas piped into his mind. Then he was in a truck, an Army truck, the kind with a green canopy over the top, he couldn't see it through his blindfold but he could tell by the fabric he leaned against, the leak of air from outside. He was crushed against the other bodies, also drugged, all of them nameless with nothing but a number to identify them. He tried to recall where they were going: to the south, yes, that was it, they were going to a special station in the south. He tried to hold on to this with his sedated mind, grasping at the word _south_ like an anchor, but it kept slipping away into white fog.
When the truck stopped, they were taken to an airplane, dazed cargo that they were, with legs that could not walk or run. They were half-carried, half-dragged, a guard holding his arm, holding him up, guiding his steps. The guard's body was young and lean, muscular, most likely he grew up on the edge of town, so many of the military boys of low rank grew up on the edge of town, meals without meat, not enough bread, not enough school, hard knocks, perhaps he'd been a good boy, was still a good boy now, the arm was strong and could be leaned on, faster, said the guard, come on, let's go.
At the door of the airplane two guards fought over their bodies. There isn't room said the guard right beside him.
Then make room, the other guard said. Pack them in.
What if they don't fit?
Idiot, then come back for the second load.
Strange, he thought, that they would argue in front of prisoners. Perhaps they were confused by their instructions. Perhaps they thought their charges were too drugged to understand. He was dragged into a hold and pushed against other bodies, stacked like odd-shaped boxes.
They flew.
They rose into the air, stuffed into their dark hold. He felt a woman's body crushed beneath him, a man's legs on his chest, felt the lurch and rattle of the machine. The air was scarce and fetid. He wondered where they were really going. The plane rumbled and groaned. It took a long time but there was no time, not anymore, it had stretched and warped so it didn't matter. He felt another needle in his arm, another prick, more drugs. From the flinches of bodies next to him he knew they were injected, too. More time passed. The fog inside him deepened. The hands returned and stripped their clothes off. He thought, The south, I'll never see it, not that I'd have seen anything anyway, but the south is not where we are going. The stripping seemed to take a lot of time. His sores opened as pants legs were removed, he oozed onto their hands. They wiped their palms off on his thighs, brusquely, still so much to do. Eventually his body pressed against other naked bodies, his thigh was in an ass, a hand pushed against his rib cage, no, it was a foot, twisting the skin, as though trying to get some kind of foothold, they were so close, the gas so thick inside his mind, skin is pliable, it melts, skin is made to melt right into skin, you can't escape it, their bodies seemed to blend into one writhing, liquid body. It was hot and hard to breathe. Suddenly the slide of metal, roar of air, and the hatch stood open to the sky. The bodies drew back from the open door as if they were one body. He felt the scuffling of many limbs, some of them his own, a slow and pointless stupor of a scuffle. A body was pulled on, pulled away, and he felt the ripple of its loss through the mass of them, the swirling human cumulus.
A guard-voice: Come on, push.
Another guard-voice made a sound, a sob, the kind of sob that cuts the throat.
You faggot. Fuck.
Another voice, deep with age: Take him to the cockpit.
There was confusion among the naked ones, they were too dazed to scream, some of them were pinned against unconscious bodies, the hatch was open, there were a few groans that rose and disappeared. He heard the guard who'd sobbed move through the groaning mass, away from the opening, away from the bare sky. From the hatch he heard a whimper, a whimper falling away, so far already, lost in the air. More groans now, grunts, whispers, quiet sounds of terror. Slowly there began to be more room. There were less of them and he was not so crushed, they were pulling apart into discrete bodies. Naked bodies were falling from the hatch. He swung an arm and it was caught by a firm hand that pulled him to the edge of whipping air; he didn't resist; he was so flimsy: he was on his knees at the lip of the hold and the push was almost gentle like a blind man being guided through the night and then he tumbled forward into sky.
His hands flew to his face and pushed his blindfold off his eyes. Below him was a sea of clouds, torn, white, criminally beautiful, blinding in their radiance, the moonlit water far below. They fell down, naked humans, puncturing the clouds. He is one of them, a drop of rain, it's raining humans, naked humans, naked drops, below him white, around him wind, the whir and whip of air, his mouth hangs open and he opens his arms too, as if to fly, as if to brace, he thinks he may be pissing on himself, he falls into the spray of his own piss, white, he falls through white, it doesn't break his fall and for an instant he is cloud and there were times when as a boy he'd lean back and stare at clouds and on his wedding day she came to him right down the aisle in her white bridal gown all puffs and lace and how he longed to touch her, he falls now through her skirt, her billowed bridal skirt, vast and white and torn by bodies falling and so soft so very soft it cannot hold him, cannot keep him, he grasps the air for threads but still keeps plunging, hold me, wrap me, where are you _mi amor_ , I think I smell you, the musk under your skirts, strong, savory, opulent, your deep scent; I want to stay inside the skirts but I am falling, down, away, he fell through all his memories of white, the clouds in boyhood, altars at church, paper silent underneath his hand, all those words he'd written, the words he'd never write, none of his words had white to land on anymore and he had nothing to land on also, he was below the clouds now in the black crystal air, his arms still out as if to embrace the sea, wind rushed against him, the water stretched below him long and calm, a thick dark mass now broken by a falling body, then another, naked bodies break the surface and the water twists and spikes and takes them in, ripples circle out around their landing, subtle wrinkles glistening beneath the moon, water slightly wrinkled by human bodies and the wind, he would not wrinkle, would not age, now it was decided, instead he would be swallowed by the sea as he was, young, smooth-skinned, rainbow-skinned, with red and blue and white and green and purple marks across his skin, it would take him and he prayed it wouldn't sting, he could face death if it only wouldn't sting no more stinging, water was close, an instant left and he said, God, where the fuck are you? where's my wife? our baby? though all that left his mouth was the word _where_ before the water broke and swallowed him and cracked his bones and filled his mouth and didn't sting at all.
Memories exhaust him. They have wrung him like a rag. He would rather shut them out, at least for a time. He is alone; the girl has not returned; even the turtle has slunk off to the kitchen. The room is dark, lit only by dull blades of light from streetlamps through the window.
There is only one thing he wishes to remember, and that is Gloria's face. It hurts him, the empty oval in his mind, surrounded by dark hair. Other parts of her are vivid and exquisitely illumined—her shoulder blades, the way they jutted that last night in sleep; her ankles, thick and solid, surprisingly so for her slight frame; her shoulders tense and compact that last time he saw her, tied to a chair; her long fingers on his knee in the evening; her fingers the first time she touched him, the night they met, at 2 a.m. in the bookstore when, like an idiot, he asked her for the time, because she was beautiful, to start a conversation, and she said, I don't know, I'm not wearing a watch. She looked amused and glowed as her friends laughed at him, but she also brushed his wrist with her fingers, saying, You're the one with a watch, why don't you tell me? She looked up at him undaunted, waiting, as she would do so many times from that night on, and he longs to see but cannot see her face. It tilts blankly in his memory, a blur of erased flesh. She was small without being fragile, this he knows. She was bony and the bones of her cut into his mind, he wants their cutting, wants to be scarred by her protrusions, to carry their marks on this new skin. Most of all, he wants her face back, wants to recall her nose and eyes and jaw-slope in the fog behind his eyelids. If he can just see her face, he thinks, then perhaps he'll have her back, at least a scrap of her, no matter what's been done to her or what she has become, and then he won't be alone in this dark house.
He gathers all his strength and stares at the wall. He will conjure her face along its surface. The task is slow and arduous, but he is determined. It is coming. He will have this part of her back.
He works for a long time, in absolute silence.
Finally he has done it. Gloria's face is there. The forehead is hazy and there is fog where ears should be but the rest of it has been composed against the bare wall. Gloria's face, ceiling to floor. He could soar up into it, fly right up to the face, and lose himself there, open his head and press his naked mind against her lips, that's what he longs to do but he stays still because he doesn't want to lose the image. And so he concentrates. He stares unmoving at the wall, keeping his mind still, his mind a jar of splinters that must not shake, must not be jostled, every fractured shard of memory in its place. The face glows. The eyes are perfect. He holds the image of her eyes and they are wide and alert, his masterpiece of recall.
Key in the door. He hears it turning. The girl is home.
She enters and shuts the door behind her. She stands there for a moment, looking at him without turning on the light. He feels her gaze on him as he stares, intently, at the wall. He feels his body again, under her gaze—hands damp on the rug, the drip from his chin, bent knees. The light from the streetlamps mixes with the glow from Gloria's face. He stays still, he has to, the life of Gloria's face depends on him. The woman in the doorway walks toward the wall. She's in his peripheral vision now, and Gloria's mouth is large and voluptuous and opens slightly. He lets his gaze dart at the woman who has come.
You're still here, she says, with no trace of surprise.
He looks at her and her mouth is also open, slightly, in a manner that makes his head roar because it is so much like Gloria's—so very much like Gloria's—and then the face on the wall is gone, leaving sudden clarity in its place. The room becomes a vortex of stars that shoot fast circles around him, closer, closer, threatening to cut into his heart. He wants to make a sound that is unbridled, a sonic flood that rises but stays trapped inside his throat.
All he can say is, You.
He stands up for the first time, knees shaking, and reaches out to her.
The woman looks into his eyes and then she runs to the stairs and is gone.
# TWO
# 7
_A Map of Her_
All night he has stayed up like this, eyes open and fixed on the empty wall. Now the knowledge is indelible, pressed into him, hard knowledge and his mind strains to form a new shape around it. He has recognized the girl.
He is stunned, dazed. Questions swarm him—how can this be? How did he find her? How did she arrive into this place? Should he tell her who he is, and where she comes from?
He longs to tell her. He cannot tell her. She cannot possibly be ready for such knowledge, having grown up in this house—and considering how she ran from him last night.
He wants something he can never have. A map of her. All the inner routes and shores and glaciers. He wants to know her better than he ever knew himself. She has been so many girls—she was a thousand days old once, and then a thousand and one—and the girl she was each day can't live again, can't re-happen, for all that he would scour the world to find them. He pictures all the versions of her he can never know: girl too small to lift up her own head, girl the size to lift up to his shoulders, girl hide-and-seeking in a kitchen cupboard, girl the size of hopscotch and of ribbons in the pigtails and the wind in pigtails and the pigtails in the wind, the shine of sun on pigtails never to happen again, secret girl discovering storms in her body, clenched girl finding reasons to fight, sharp girl with her weapons, growing girl alone, growing girl accompanied for better or for worse. Then woman. Somewhere, somehow, woman, with thousands of girls inside her. You can't go in there. It's in the past. You can't repeat the past even though he longs to, he longs to push at the river of time, force the current to run in the opposite direction, pushing upstream toward the girls that she has been. He could shout, he could explode out of his strange damp skin with his desire to see her childhood, to touch her delicate newborn limbs, to hold her when she was too small to walk, to brush her hair when she was too small for school, to send her off to school, to be there for her first step and first word and the first time she ever spelled out her own name. To recognize her name as something he himself had given, the gift of syllables in his mouth, in hers, in the mouths of the world, _may this name become your home_. Such intimacies, such ordinary joys, the only ones that mattered. He tries to plumb toward them with his mind, tries to seek the past and thrust his way toward it, it was stolen and he rages to have it back, but he cannot find his way, he has no map and time is cruel and does not care about his losses, not the loss of his body or his senses or his eyes or days or life or this, the loss of time with a girl before she became the woman who has stood before him, large and young, as large and young as he was when he disappeared.
How beautiful she is. How very much she carries in her skin. How much of her there is to get to know; he has so much catching up to do, it seems a task that he'll never fully accomplish. But he must try. There is no boundary left for him between knowing the girl and knowing himself. She is the road to his own heart, to what remains of it, to what survived undrowned. He wants to believe that the link between them has remained, indelible, coded in her blood as it whispered through her body, as it kept her vital and alive, spilling occasionally with the scrape of a knee or the seal of a childish promise _best friends forever, I swear_ , she never guessing that her true origins lay ciphered in each drop. She learning how to climb a tree and fall and how to make promises and break them, and he not there to catch her, to believe her, to clean the wounds carefully with both hands. Ten minutes, he thinks, I want the whole of life with her but all I ask is to be transported to her childhood for ten minutes. He knows just how he would spend them: alone together at a riverbank, where he could watch her fingers dive into the dirt, memorize the contours of her face, listen to her words or laugh or silence.
He closes his eyes and strains; it does not happen. He cannot return.
He looks at all his losses—everything the water swallowed—and this is the least bearable. Time that can't be spent with the small girl.
But he should not be ungrateful. Because now he is with her, she is here in this home and he has a chance to get to know her as she is. He cannot let grief subsume him. He must wake up. The little girl is gone but he has precious moments now with the grown woman. He does not know what star or god or crook of fate he has to thank for his collision with her world, for this time they have together, but he rapidly thanks it. Whatever it is he came to do, he must still do it, for himself, for the girl, and for Gloria.
Gloria. She came out of you, she lived, how did it happen? Did you survive as well? Where are you? Whether you lived or died she was taken from you, brought to this house. How you must have keened for her. But Gloria, she's alive, I must tell you that she's utterly alive, and also beautiful, more than I could ever have imagined. A creature with a mouth like yours.
A mouth like yours, God help her.
It is morning, swords of sun in him, he is ravenous.
Because the morning that loomed over me appeared so harsh with light and breadth, and because the guest's terrible _You_ from the night before still burned at the center of my chest, I could not get out of bed for a long time. I thought of many things. I thought of the attic, hidden just above the innocuous ceiling. Once, when I was eight or nine years old, I went upstairs into the attic to look for costumes for a school play in the trunk that always stood against the wall, old and heavy like a pirate's chest. I had seen that trunk up there before but never looked inside, and always pictured it full of pretty silks and pearls and gold medallions. I climbed the ladder to the attic alone for the first time. Dust idled in the single beam of sunlight from the window. The trunk was locked. I pulled at the ornate metal lip but it stayed locked. It was hot and stuffy and I shouldn't be there, I hadn't asked permission, I could get into trouble. My body flushed at the thought of trouble. Behind the trunk loomed the painting, the only one my mother had ever made, when she was seventeen: an enormous garish canvas gathering dust, its furious billows of black paint roiling over crushed mounds of dark purple and maroon. The billows seemed about to seethe from the huge canvas and drown me. I feared the painting, but I also longed to leap into it to search for Mamá, the inner storm of her that almost never broke her smooth exterior but had escaped her brush when she was young, and that still waited in the dark curls of the painting, potent, brooding, formless. The painting stood still and could not be plumbed and revealed no secrets. I thought of that Alice girl, the one who fell down the rabbit hole and tussled with a Queen of Hearts who wanted to cut off her head. How blind Alice must have felt while she was falling in, spinning, exhilarated, lost. And then, when she arrived: sight. Too much sight. Danger. There are worlds you long to enter and worlds you should not touch, and some worlds were both of these at once. Even so I stood in front of the painting for a long, long time. In fact, even now, as a grown woman, I couldn't recall how I left the attic, how I ever broke the painting's spell.
Another time I went to a forbidden place: once, at Gabriel's house, I took down his copy of _Nunca más_. He was in the shower, and I did it before I could stop myself or ask myself why. It was a thick red book, impossible to miss on any shelf. Of course I knew about it—everybody knew about _Nunca más_ —but I'd never actually held it in my hands. I traced the cover's worn edge with my fingers. NUNCA MÁS, it said, THE REPORT FROM THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON THE DISAPPEARED. The commission had been created by the president in 1983, when democracy returned, to find out what had happened to the missing. They gathered thousands of testimonies. This was their summary. When Romina and I were still friends, she referred to it as the Terrible Book, the one everyone had to read but no one could finish. Needless to say, _Nunca más_ could not be found in my house.
I opened Gabriel's copy. I read until I heard the water turn off in the bathroom, roughly five minutes, after which I put the book back on the shelf, as if it had never been moved. I closed my eyes. I listened to Gabriel shuffle around behind the closed door, electric toothbrush, comb, cologne. In the pinkdark behind my eyelids I saw hooded bodies naked in a cell, a steel rod, spread legs, toes clenched against a bloody floor, an empty kitchen with the chairs overturned and then my father's hands on our polished dining table and his feet marching into an office and his silhouette at my bedroom door at night, broad and strong and black, blocking out the light from the hall.
Gabriel emerged from the bathroom, and I smelled the sweet peach of his soap and the sting of his cologne as he came up behind me and kissed me on the exposed nape of my neck and, when I leaned into him, his hands reached around to my breasts, easily, greedily, he was not, at that moment, thinking of hoods and rods and planes, though of course he knew all about these planes and rods and hoods, they ricocheted between us all the time and kept us adrift from each other, pushed by the storm, unable to find a common harbor. I meant to stop his caresses so as not to mix the place to which my mind had fallen with his touch, but my body had other plans: it wailed for him; it demanded force, demanded nipples to be twisted until they bled (though he would not go that far) and the fucking to be hard (though he still said and said _my love_ ) as though only this could exorcise the flesh-and-metal sounds that had erupted from the book. Once climax had swept over us, I clung to him and would not unwrap my limbs and would not tell him why.
He never brought up the incident, for which I was deeply grateful. But on another night, not long after that, he said, "I wish I could leave you."
We were in bed, almost naked, and he said it with the tenderness of a love song.
"Then you should."
He shook his head. "I can't."
"Why not?"
"I don't know, but sometimes I hate it."
"And other times?"
"Other times I don't care. All I want to do is be with you."
I burrowed close to his chest. It had been a hot day and he smelled of sweat and sun and cigarettes, his smell many times more palpable than his words.
"In any case, I'll wait for you."
"Wait? For what?" I stiffened defensively but did not rise, did not attempt to look into his face. Gabriel stroked my hair and failed to answer.
I finally sat up. It was already eleven o'clock. I'd have to skip my shower if I was going to make it to class. And what a strange ritual that was, preparing to go out, the way emerging into the world and doing things that can be termed productive involves such small intimate rituals as the plucking of your eyebrows and the soaping of your thighs, the styling of your hair before the mirror, these rituals of looking at yourself without looking at yourself. This morning I was more likely to slip up, and look at my face as more than canvas for makeup and linger too long examining its slopes and features. I didn't want to see my eyes, nor did I want to see the arc of cheekbones or the way my chin came to a surprising whittled point. Where did this all come from, how did it get shaped, this thing I have called mine? My face. Was it really mine? Only gods spring fully formed from foam or godly foreheads. My face had sources and on this day I didn't dare to think about them. When I was growing up people would say You have your father's face. They never said I looked like my mother—my mother with the blue eyes and light brown hair; it was my father's dark weight I resembled, his coarse black Andalusian hair and thick eyebrows on a steep ledge above large and doleful eyes that, according to my uncle Joaquín, drew a lot of ladies in his day. Everything else was hard-set as for a good military man, but the eyes held the weight of a formless lament, a vulnerable layer beyond reach.
And what about the way my father sang? Drunk, in the dark, off-key and full of resonance, turning ballads from the bars into lullabies? For me. He sang for me. With naked emotion, which he rarely if ever exposed to anyone else. As if he loved his daughter so very much that he saved up his vulnerable layers all his life until he finally revealed them to her, and only to her, his light, his prize. As if he always knew that, when his pain became unbearable, the girl would be there, to hear him, to hold him, even to love him, because what human being was not beautiful when seen at such close hand? When seen through the eyes of a daughter? And that even in the face of the worst horrors she would never let him go. Because she was good, because she was his, because there was nowhere else that she could possibly belong.
As I rose and changed my clothes, I couldn't stop thinking about him, Héctor, the man whom I had always called _Papá_ , his stern face and gentle hands and scotch-scented breath and the sound of him singing in the dark.
Steps sound on the stairs, and she descends. His skin thrills at her return.
Don't say anything. She holds up her hand. Not a word.
He gazes at her. She hasn't bathed, she's dry and still a little rumpled from sleep.
Hungry?
He nods.
Water?
He nods.
Obviously. She goes to the kitchen. She comes back with the pitcher and a glass. He eats and eats and water drips down his face and seeps inside him. When he's done he starts to thank her but she says, sternly, Not a word.
He leans forward on his arms, into the marshy rug. I was right, he thinks. There is no way I can tell her.
I don't know how you got here, or when you're going to leave. I have no clue what to say to you.
He nods.
Last night I wanted to throw you out. I almost came in here and dragged you to the street.
In the corner of his vision, he sees the turtle crawling away into the kitchen.
But I can't do that. She sinks into a chair. Not today. In fact, if you left today I couldn't take it. You're not going to leave, are you?
He cocks his head.
Now you may talk.
No.
I can go to class? When I get back you'll be here?
I will.
How can you be sure?
I can't be.
Then how can I trust you?
No one is ever sure of anything.
Some people say they are.
They're liars.
She smiles wryly. Maybe so.
She leans back in her chair, into a ray of sun, and glitter briefly fills the chaos of her hair.
# 8
_Nectar and Venom_
I meant to go to class. I really did. But in the end I couldn't bring myself to leave the house. I couldn't even bring myself to shower. I cooked Lolo's squash and returned to the living room. Cigarettes for breakfast. I was low on smokes again. How had that happened?
The living room rug was ruined. It had soaked through with the strange waters of my guest, and smelled like a decomposing orchard. I saw myself attempting to explain this to my parents on their return: I'm sorry, your fine Persian is gone, it's just that I had a phantom over, or rather, one of the disappeared who reappeared. Yes, I know, who could have imagined it—but then again, isn't there some logic to the reappearance of what disappears? Isn't that what keys and socks do? If you can't explain how something went away, then why should its return obey the laws of reason? And what is reason anyway, hasn't it been used to exploit the—yes, yes, I'm sorry, let's not fight, we were talking about the rug. Your rug. I'm afraid it's gone. You might say it's disappeared.
That would be the easy version, the one that might conceivably occur if the guest were gone when, four days from now, my parents came home. But what if he was still here? He showed no signs of leaving. I had no idea how to explain his presence, or, more important, how to keep my father from trying to slaughter the ghost. I could see him now, the look on his face, the kitchen knife or what he could do with his bare, well-trained hands—though surely he would not succeed since ghosts cannot be slaughtered. Who knew what would come of such an attempt? It was a mystery. The whole future was a mystery. I had no plan for what to do on my parents' return. I tried to picture the moment but I could not bring it into focus. Two blurred figures would hover at the edge of the living room, their faces inscrutable. Then a sharp cry from one of them, followed by a garbled stream of words in which I could make out only _Perla_ and _our house_ and the high rise of a question mark at the end. Then it would be my turn to speak, to answer the question I had not understood, but I could not imagine forming any coherent words, I saw myself opening my mouth to speak and spilling out water the way the ghost had when he first arrived.
These were, of course, ridiculous imaginings. They did nothing to move me closer to a real plan, which I needed, of course, but which I could not bring myself to make. The pragmatic part of my mind had come undone, its order dismantled by droves of thoughts that clamored to be noticed, to be touched, to be seen. I could not touch them all at once. I could not address the future when I had barely begun to address the crowded past. The mind is elastic but not infinite, it can only pull so far at once before it starts to break apart, and Time, it turned out, was not a river at all but an ocean, spreading in all directions, disorderly and vast, swirling with spiraled currents. You never knew where you might drift, or what would become of you along the way.
Such thoughts rushing through my mind. More than enough to drown in.
The rug. I stared at the rug. There was nothing left but to get rid of it, stow it somewhere out of sight. Gently and with great effort, I pulled him over. He didn't resist, but it was still difficult, as he barely had the strength to stand up on his own. The feel of him startled me, it was so ordinary, like any human being just risen from water, from cold water, perhaps on a dark winter's night. I rolled up the rug and stowed its damp remains in the basement, then returned to him.
"There. You're dry now."
"Am I?"
I looked at him. He was dripping. "You're drier. You have a dry place."
I moved him back to the center of the room and arranged towels around his body, to catch the moisture as it emerged from him. He was curled up on his side, so I gently lined his back with towels, and draped others along his legs and hips, white towels against pale skin. I covered his groin with another towel, a kind of loincloth, even though I was accustomed to his nakedness, and no longer had to consciously avoid his genitals with my eyes. I'm not sure why I covered him. Perhaps I was thinking of the lepers in the Bible, their supplication, the acts of charity and grace. I wanted to minister to him that way, not out of selflessness, but for more complicated reasons. There was something for me in it, a kind of expiation, or perhaps a restoration, but of what exactly, I could not say.
I was still telling myself that any moment I'd leave for school, but as I draped the last towel around his knees I realized that I would not. I could not leave. I'd always been the girl who felt the sky collapse if she arrived in class a few minutes late, but now I thought, To hell with it, the heavens can buckle and fall if they must, the grades can plummet if they must, I don't care, I can't care, I can't leave. Everything that matters is here, in this room, in this strange unfolding story—once upon a time there was a turtle and a woman and a man or not-man and they spent many hours together as if their lives somehow depended on the spending, or on _together_ , or on how the hours slowly sank into their skins.
We were quiet together. He stared at the ceiling. I was free to examine his nose, ears, eyes, the way his jawbone jutted an angle at the edge of his face. He'd be handsome if he weren't so blue and soggy. I wished I could see the way he looked before he died. He would have been a young man then, just venturing into adulthood. I imagined that, back then, he had a fresh clean face and a lithe body and that love came to him like an act of grace. The world rolled out before him in all its shine and possibility, entreating him to come and rove and touch it, and he surely would have if he hadn't disappeared.
I couldn't stop looking at him, couldn't stop straining to imagine his features on a living man.
By evening he had soaked through the towels. I replaced them with dry ones, knowing they wouldn't last long.
"Do you want to move to the bathtub?"
He shook his head. This had become his room.
Later, as I brushed my teeth, I thought of the pool. I found it after a long rummage in the basement. It was packed neatly in a cardboard box, labeled with my mother's handwriting. Mamá was the most organized person I'd ever known. She thrived on the maintenance of order, as if assembling boxes and arranging shelves pushed back the dim unpalatable chaos of the world. How did I marry a man who can't even find his keys? she would say, smiling at her husband. Didn't they teach you anything in the Navy? Her husband would smile back, genially: Who needs the Navy when I have you? Those were their good days, the days I would call up in my mind during less hospitable times.
I opened the box and pulled out the deflated red plastic. Holding it, I could smell the fulsome warmth of summer grass, see the red tint of water captured in red walls, and hear light splashes around my body, which was lithe and small and supple once again, the shape-shifting body of a child; now I was a princess, now a dolphin, now a fusion of them both, a royal animal with gemstones draped along my fins. The sun leaped and shimmered in the water. I flapped my feet and the crowds—fish and seahorses and octopuses—shivered in delight. They bowed to me, to Princess Perla, and the salty currents sang my name, Perla, Perlita, swim for us, stir the waters. I laughed. I swam around my tiny sea, utterly alone, pretending I was not alone, never thinking about the breath from my father's lungs that had created the pool and that held its walls in place. Sometimes my father came to squat nearby and watch me play, with a look of baffled tenderness, as if he could still scarcely believe this good fortune, a princess in his midst, or so I imagined his thoughts from the perspective of my subsuming game. And I would think, I will tell the seahorses to carry him a gift (a rock, a whisper, a rare bone), the poor man, so tied to the land, incapable of experiencing our sea. In the context of my game, he was of a different species, a lesser one, unequipped to learn the ways of water. He was foreign to me, and though he didn't know it, the imaginary animals around me did. The seahorses would not want to carry gifts to him; the octopuses shuddered with mistrust; the fish swarmed around me in defense. I had to placate them, sshhhh, don't worry, be kind to him. He's not a bad creature. He just doesn't understand our world.
I returned to the living room and inflated the pool. He lay on his side, limbs limp as always, watching me do it with those eyes that seemed to look right into me, wide, clear, indecipherable. A man with limp arms and weak legs and the most vigorous eyes. I put the pool down in the middle of the floor and helped him into it, propping up his body as he swung one leg in, then the other. We're getting better at this, I thought.
He looked like a child in a plastic crib, limbs curled into its confines. I didn't know what to say to him, but then, he didn't seem to be waiting for me to speak. He seemed immersed in staring at the porcelain swan on the bookshelf. I read on the sofa, a Saramago novel I'd left unfinished months ago, about a city thrown into chaos because everyone sees white, nothing but white. I read until the words began to blend and lose their meaning. I fell asleep with the book open on my chest.
In the morning, the water level had risen; the pool was a third full.
"Good morning. You dripped a lot."
"I remembered a lot."
"You drip when you remember?"
He shrugged.
I got a tall cup and a bucket and began to empty his pool, slowly, cupful by cupful. I watched the water pour from cup to bucket, catching the early morning light. It looked silty, slightly opaque, like river water, but otherwise quite normal. "So are the memories in the water?"
He didn't answer.
"I'd like to know what you remembered."
He looked doubtful.
"You don't believe me?"
He shrugged again.
He remembers that when he was in the water, the water ate him, ate his body, and as his body decomposed his consciousness was freed into the sea. Consciousness—death showed him this—is a supple wide translucent thing that can gather and disperse, stretch and shrink, be thin or viscous, roil or remain still. Let loose from the body it becomes a free amorphous haze of presence. He was untied, loose, he had no static bulk or density, he simply interpenetrated water. Objects with life or bulk could move through him with ease: currents, silt, the deep-down cold, the dance of starfish, coral fingers, tentacles, fins slicing their world as they passed by, the shake of sun, gentle knives of moonlight, bones down in the sand, things he could not name, and there were no names left, only the plumb and swirl and hover glide pour open close of being.
The sea, the endless breadth of it, long push of unhemmed waves, the sea, the sea, dark and wet and dirty, he was not alone there, the sea was full of presence, including presences like his because his living body did not fall alone, other bodies came undone inside the water, other clouds of consciousness glided too, and it is an illusion to be one and only one, especially once the body breaks apart: then communal truths reveal themselves; he blended with the others and what a searing joy to mix with them, complete the merging their skin had begun during the flight. Now without skin it was so easy, there were memories in the water, the water was marvelously cold, the memories were points of light that shot through them, shot through the schools of fish that pierced them, shot through their water, iridescent flashes of their collective past: someone ran through wheat stalks on naked feet, someone opened naked legs on the kitchen table, someone's wrist blistered under shackles, someone watched sausages blister on a grill, someone writhed tied to a grill, someone lay between two men who writhed in sleep, someone woke up to the wail of a tango from the piano, someone danced on a crowded balcony, someone hid in a bare basement, someone smelled shit, someone smelled fear, someone smelled night-blooming jasmine, someone kissed a woman beside night-blooming jasmine, someone kissed the toes of a child, someone was a child, someone was afraid of the dark, someone prayed in a clean cotton nightgown, someone heard a bedtime story, someone heard a gun, someone wept, someone sang, someone opened empty palms, and there were no more someones, all the memories were shared, everyone remembered or not so much remembered as shared a single consciousness infused with memories; the memories shimmered in the mesh of them; the mesh of them expanded and contracted, together, a heaving underwater lung.
Others came at first. They fell into the water just the same way, in clusters, thrashing against the sea. The vast collective lung inhaled them and helped them decompose, sshhhh, sssshhh, here you go, take off your flesh, take off the pain, open to the water, let your body fall apart, let us absorb the rest of you like oxygen. Water rocks and breathes and in the water there are things that awaken. In the wetness there are things that sink away. And then there is this, the merging of things, the sloshing permeability of consciousness, shot through with bright darts of memory that belong to the currents, the breathing, the seaweed and the silt and the sharks—and so inside this liquid haze all things belong to each other, the seaweed belongs to the light that illuminates its fronds, the breaths belong to the silt itself, the memories belong to sharks that belong inside the drenched collective lung.
And the sun, the sun pulsed through all of it, slow and golden, pouring its heat into the water. Unmeasured years of underwater sun. The mesh of them drifted out to the vast ocean, kissed the roots of hot islands and cold icebergs, but they returned. They reached the shore of their own land again, hovered at the wide river's mouth. The river yawned to welcome them. It unfurled fluid claws. It pulled them in and they rode its rich waters, riding against the currents, into the bay between two countries that burst with human life. The claws of the river drew them, hooked into them, seemed to know them and want them close. And they, for their part, permeated the river with ease and gladness. It was home. They were close enough to the lands of their beloved living ones to almost taste them—their morning musk and piquant sweat and bitter sadness—in the particles of soil that browned the water. The almost-taste of their beloved living ones kept them in the brackish bay. Meanwhile, the two cities on either shore hummed on, unaware of the third city, the liquid city, that hung underwater close by, mocking their solidity, challenging the arrogance of steel and stone, _psshhh we are also here and also real_ , breathing in the great wet space between two nations, between saltwater and fresh, sea and river, true life and true death.
He knows his story now, the essential arc of his own genesis. Once he rained into the sea and died. In death he merged with others. And the memories keep welling up, that's why he's here, why he's back—to let the memories froth and rise and splatter out of darkness into sonorous light.
For that, and for her. His return would have no meaning without her.
The water looked as red as the pool that held it. He created his own red sea. When I drew the water out with a cup, it lost its tint and became plain and transparent, with its traces of silt. The guest watched me pour water into the bucket, watched my hand as it dipped back into his pool to take more water. He looked up at me, his gaze unblinking.
I smiled at him.
He smiled, a little, for the first time since he arrived. I waited for him to speak, to tell me about his dreams, to ask me a question, but he said nothing. Now it was he who was reticent, and I who wanted to talk, the silence around us a palpable thing I longed to break into small pieces.
"Are you comfortable?" I asked.
He looked at me as though it were the strangest thing I had said so far.
"I mean, in the pool?"
"It is good, yes. Thank you."
"If you need anything else..."
"You do too much for me."
"No."
"You must have other things to do."
I shrugged. "They can wait."
He leaned forward on his arms, in that pose that reminded me of a dog. A stray dog just starting to ease into the comforts of human housing.
I lit a cigarette, sat down, looked out the window. It was later in the morning than I'd first realized; the sky was strong with light, though covered with a smooth sheet of clouds. I hadn't looked at a clock or brushed my teeth. I didn't want to brush my teeth, wanted the stale taste in my mouth to mix with the morning tobacco, so that my mouth would taste the way I felt, unpresentable, reduced to urge and impulse. "Are you sure you can't tell me what you remembered?"
"This time, it was about the water."
"What about it?"
"How we blended in the water, when our bodies were gone."
"We?"
"Many of us fell at the same time."
"From where?"
"From the sky."
"From an airplane."
"How did you know?"
I kept my gaze over his head, at the bushes in the patio, which were perfectly still, there was no breeze. "Some stories have been told. Parts of stories."
"About airplanes."
"Yes."
"And how we fell."
"Yes."
"Are these things still happening?"
"No. Not here."
"In other places?"
"Who knows?"
"Do the stories scare you?"
"No. I don't know." The cigarette was gone, too fast, reduced to a stained filter I crushed in the ashtray and abandoned. The taste lingered bitterly in my mouth. I forced myself to look at him. He was staring at my parents' wedding photograph on the bookshelf. His cheekbone jutted toward them like an arrow.
"Tell me about them."
The room seemed suddenly deficient of air, a hostile place to breathe. "What about them?"
"Who are they?"
"My parents."
He didn't move and didn't soften. "Yes. But who?"
"Their names?"
"Who."
I wanted to shake him, shake the edge out of his voice, a new edge I didn't want to understand. "They met at her cousin's wedding. They're both from Buenos Aires, although her family has land in the north."
"And?"
"And... he was already an officer. She wanted to be an artist, a painter, but she had given it up by then."
"Why?"
"Why did she give it up?"
"Yes."
"I don't know. I think her father forced her."
"How?"
I tried to tell him the story, the version I had cobbled together from my mother's furtive slips and sharp explosions, and he listened intently with his gaze still on the photograph. This young woman, the woman in question, this Luisa, grew up in a family that had owned cattle ranches for five generations, and in which there were two constants: rules, and money. These two entities were ubiquitous, unquestioned. From what I could gather, the father never raised his voice and never bent his will for anyone, and the mother was an elegant socialite who glittered on her good days and glowered on her bad days until, finally, when Luisa was nine, she left for Rome and never returned. Luisa grew up as a goodgirl, obediently Catholic, obediently quiet, with all her ruffles and smiles in place, though no one knew what churned and curdled under the surface. Then, when she was seventeen, she spent the summer with an uncle in Madrid, and in that summer, the summer of 1969, she found the nub of rebellion within her and made it unfurl. This was the period that fascinated and bewildered me, the brief version of my mother I could not comprehend, and longed to see. This version of my mother parted her hair in the middle, wore long peasant skirts, and in a single month discovered both marijuana and Salvador Dalí. She confessed all of this to me right before I graduated from high school, the only night she ever told the story, the two of us alone on my bed. She curled in close to me. She had had more wine than usual at dinner and I had had two glasses myself. My leg fell asleep beneath me but I did not dare stretch it out to relieve the numbness for fear that, if I did, Mamá might wake from her storytelling trance, interrupt herself, and leave to begin her nightly rituals. I did not want to move and shake the warm, fragile portal that had opened between us and through which my mother's stories now poured. You may as well know, she said, you probably think you're the only one who has had big dreams, that's how it is when we're young, we always think we're the first to taste whatever it is we're tasting. Well, you should have seen me, that summer in Madrid. She propped her elbow against my pillow, her legs tucked under her like a daydreaming girl, as if the intervening years had somehow fallen away in the comfort of this night and she were not a mother on her daughter's bed, but a teenager spilling confessions to a friend. (On that night, I felt delicious hope that we'd stay like this now, mother and daughter, woman-friends, sharing secrets and delights. It seemed attainable. It was probably the wine.) In Madrid, she said, the marijuana had made her too paranoid for her liking, made her feel like a rapidly spinning steering wheel, and so she soon abandoned it. But the Dalí sank into her bones and lit them up: naked women with roses bleeding on their bellies, ants erupting from bare hands, heads peeled open like an orange—savage truths, relentless vision, the human mind turned inside out. She glutted herself on trips to the city's museums, spending hours in front of a single work by Dalí or Picasso or Goya or Velázquez or Bosch. She was most moved by the famous paintings, the ones that drew throngs of tourists to gape and gaze and forget the time and place in which they stood. All that attention, across time, on a canvas painted by a single mortal man. One day, standing in front of _The Garden of Earthly Delights_ , watching naked men and women fall in ceaseless anguish through the guts of a beaked monster in hell, she decided to become an artist. She would spend her life creating images on canvas, painting shapes and creatures into being that did not exist anywhere else, that would never have existed if it were not for her hands. When she returned to Buenos Aires, she had two notebooks full of sketches and a print of _The Persistence of Memory_ , a painting she'd never seen with her own eyes since the _yanquis_ had stolen it away from Spain long before. She bought herself paints, brushes, a palette, and a single enormous canvas. Once she had these items safely in her room, their presence irrefutable, she went to her father and said, I want to be an artist, I want to go to art school.
_Perla_ , she said the night she recounted the tale, _you have no idea how my hands shook as I was speaking_.
Luisa's father laughed, and then, when it was clear that she was serious, spat into a nearby rosebush. He walked away and the subject never arose again. Luisa went to her room and stared at the canvas, the paints, the notebooks full of summer sketches, evidence of the girl she had discovered oceans away from Argentina. She refused to eat for three days, but her father didn't seem to notice. On the fourth day, she locked herself in her room, blended all her oils in chaotic swirls, and created the only painting of her life, an abstract monstrosity of black and brown and maroon rage, piled thick in sweeping strokes that loomed and protruded from the canvas, hideous and heavy as a storm. She burned her notebooks, gave away her brushes and palette, and slept under the shadow of her huge painting because there was nowhere else to put it. She vowed to escape her father's house as soon as possible, and succeeded two years later, when she found a young Navy officer called Héctor who wished to marry her. By that time, the girl who had prowled the Museo del Prado was gone, her only vestige caught inside an awful painting that moved into the attic of their new house.
"He didn't force her," the guest said.
"What?"
"Your grandfather. All he did was spit."
"But he forbade her."
"Did he cut off her hands?"
I was startled by the question. No, I wanted to say, he didn't cut off her hands because he didn't have to, he had cut them off long before, with years of keeping all authority in his own palms, all the rules and all the power and all the answers emanating from him and no one else. And if you don't understand that, if you've never been in such a family, then you can't know the way the mind shackles itself and amputates its own limbs so adeptly that you never think to miss them, never think that you had anything so obscene as choice. But how could I say this to someone who perhaps had seen the cutting, the real cutting, of real hands or toes, and felt shackles of real metal against real skin? How did a rich girl's thwarted desire to paint look through the eyes of a person like that? "No. He didn't cut off her hands."
"Then she could paint, she was free."
"But she didn't know she was free. She couldn't possibly see that. Doesn't that make her chained?"
He shrugged, unconvinced, and a veil seemed to fall over his face to make his expression indecipherable. I felt a need—and this surprised me—to defend my mother, to convince the guest that she had been the victim of a subtle yet brutal psychic force, that she was a complex woman with wounds and flaws and a tenacious will that could be bent toward good things, like the protection and enfolding of a little girl. I said none of this, held it close inside, suspecting that the guest would not want to hear it, or would not receive it in the manner it was meant. I myself was not sure how I meant it, or what I actually believed. My head hurt. He, too, seemed taxed by the conversation: his skin was dripping copiously, as if he'd just risen from a plunge.
"And he?" he asked, eyes on the photograph again, on the man beside the bride. His voice was low and throaty. "Who is he?"
I should have known the question was coming. "A confusion."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't want to talk about him."
I waited for the guest to recoil from me, as I'd already said before that my father was an officer and surely that is more than enough information for repulsion; I had seen that look before, in Gabriel's face, in Romina for years at school and in so many other faces that I knew exactly how to shield myself, make the surface impenetrable, the face composed, the subject of conversation changed and the stain of wordless crimes buried and hidden. Though no matter what I did, I still felt my inner reaction keenly. Shame was ready at the base of me, would rise to choke me any moment at the slightest flinch of his body or mind. But he did not flinch or falter. He only looked at me with an open face and something in his eyes that I'd be tempted to call tenderness if it weren't so ferocious and if tenderness, in this exchange, weren't so absurd and impossible. Outside, it was raining; I hadn't noticed until now. The window caught the weeping shivers of the sky. We stared at each other and listened to the sound of the rain.
"And you?" he said, very softly.
"Me?"
"Who are you?"
"About that, I don't know anything at all."
He tilted his head and held my gaze, and I had no way to comprehend it, no theory to encompass or articulate this hunger, this need to be with him, to lose or find myself in his dark, fathomless eyes.
"No," he said. "No, no. You do."
No one, on meeting my mother, Luisa, would imagine she had once been that earnest and ardent young woman, bent on becoming a painter, prowling the museums of Madrid. Even I, growing up in her presence, could not have imagined it. My mother the mystery, my mother the masked woman.
Once, only once, I saw my mother's naked face. It was an accident, a slip, the result of a grave mistake. I was about to turn eight, and it was time for bed, but my heart was full of brightwarm colors because, the following day, Mamá was going to take me to the zoo for my birthday, and I would see the giraffes again with their slim legs and fluid jaws and serene eyes. Everybody thought the necks were what made giraffes special, but no, it was the eyes, I knew this because the last time I had met the gaze of my favorite giraffe our souls had spoken to each other for a long instant before the animal had turned back to her leaves. Eyes so far apart they seemed prepared to catch the whole world in their vision. Eyes that gave me the sense of floating high high above the ground. And now I was going to see them again and, since it was my birthday, perhaps Mamá would let me stay with the giraffes extra long. Ice cream cone first, then the giraffes—that, I realized as I brushed my teeth, was the best way to do it. And once I was finished with brushing my teeth and hair, eager to share my plan, I barreled to my mother's bedroom door and opened it with so much haste that I forgot the strict rule of knocking first.
Mamá was removing her makeup. This was a solemn, private nightly routine, conducted on a cushioned seat in front of a table and mirror surrounded by eight little bulbs of light. I had glimpsed moments of it in the past, though in general the ritual took place behind closed doors, and bore a shroud of mystic secrecy. A mound of dirty cotton balls lay on the table, between the jewelry boxes and vials of perfume. Mamá was half-finished: one of her eyes wore a perfect mask of black lines and blue shadow, while the other was naked and sunken, bereft of paint, staring wearily at its own reflection.
"Mamá," I said.
My mother did not move or blink, but the eye grew strangely hard. It continued to look at itself. I waited, wishing suddenly that I could erase my actions, unmake my entry, wait until the morning light to talk about the zoo. After a long moment, Mamá's reflection stared at me without smiling.
"What do you want from me?"
She said this in a voice I had never heard before, the voice someone might use toward a stranger who is not to be trusted. The mirror reflected a single naked eye, cold, aggrieved, and utterly foreign.
"I should have knocked," I said. "I'm sorry."
"Stupid girl. That's not what I'm talking about."
I hovered. I could not imagine what else my mother might be talking about. I tried to think of what else I'd done wrong that day, aside from the transgression of bursting through this door, but nothing came to mind. It had been an ordinary Friday. I had done all my homework and helped set the table for dinner. It must be something else, I thought, something much larger, a failing that transcends time and defies correction. Defining it seemed like a Herculean task—big and impossible and essential to survival; I could not face it. I felt so small.
I heard her sigh, long and slow. I stayed, frozen, until finally, to my relief, Mamá spoke again. "You know what?"
"What?" I said.
"I wasn't made to be a mother." She said this in a tone at once resigned and vaguely ennobled by her own sorrow. "I often think you shouldn't have come." The naked eye gazed at the reflection of itself, intently, as if searching for something hidden. All I could think of was the painting in the attic, the thick strokes of black and violet, threatening to leap into the room.
Then she looked at me, through the mirror, and her gaze was so raw I wished I could look away. "Perla. Let's forget this." She spoke very quietly. "Go to bed and let's pretend this never happened."
I retreated to my room without a word.
That night, I dreamed of doors and doors and doors.
The next morning, I felt afraid to see my mother, but when I came downstairs for breakfast I found her with her mask whole again, immaculately applied: powder, lipstick, bright smile. She served me toast and milk and glanced at her watch. "Ready?"
I nodded.
"Well then, let's get going," she said. Her face was warm and steady, so much so that I briefly wondered whether I'd invented the encounter of the previous night. I might have come to believe this if it had not been for the way her gaze lingered on me, searching for confirmation of a pact that would never be spoken. A pact that encircled me in that moment and that I knew I would not betray. She would wear her mask and I would wear mine and as long as neither of us let them drop, everything would be all right, she needed this from me so I had to help her, and I needed it too, didn't I? It lasted only a few seconds, the lingering gaze, and then she nodded in what seemed like satisfaction. "Eat your toast, Perlita."
I had no appetite, but I ate anyway, and even managed a false smile.
At the zoo, I received my ice cream cone and my hour with the giraffes and I licked the cold vanilla slowly and most carefully as I gazed and gazed in silence at the beasts before me, with their famous necks and graceful jaws, but no matter what I did, no matter how long I stood there, no matter how I shouted with my mind, this time I could not make them meet my eyes.
It rains. Small drops torn from the body of a cloud announce their fall in wails and moans. He hears their trajectories through the air outside, gray, blue, violet, streaking the inner lining of time's cloak. They are pure color, pure substance, pure sound. Only rain is pure in this strange world, collapsing toward the thirsty chaos of the earth.
She is in the kitchen, making lunch. She will bring him more water soon. He is hungry for it, ready to grind it wetly between his teeth, to feel it enter him and give him substance, fortify his presence and veracity with its whisper through his insides, _you belong here, wshhhh, this world is yours as well_ —but he won't ask for it, she's coming, he knows she's thinking of it. It is easier every hour to sense the rhythms of her mind. Her mind is a wary forest creature, a deer perhaps, elegant, light-footed, expert at disappearing into dark folds of foliage at the slightest rustle of alarm. Not a simple creature to approach, let alone touch. If he is to touch her mind, he must be patient. He must circle and circle and also be immensely still. Above all, he must not let her see what rises up in him when he thinks of the two in the photograph, the other denizens of this house—the sour flood that makes him want to howl. He will not shake, he will not howl, he does not want to scare her and in any case he needs to bear the truths that have filled this house and taken possession of the girl. Because he hungers for the truth, however poisonous the draught of it. Without the truth he cannot truly know the girl. And you, Gloria, I do this for you: if I should ever find you, if I can hope against all hope that you might come here again, one day, one night, appear as I appeared with seaweed in your hair, or earthworms or bullets or flames—if I should find you in the curved road of the future that surely arches back into the past, and if we are unbroken enough to speak to each other or to meld as I did in the water, I know that you would reach into me for each follicle of knowledge of the girl, and I would give you everything, the nectar with the venom, the stars with the abyss, all the sights and scents and sounds of her that will quiver and break you, all the truth that I could gather, all the truth I could bear to imbibe.
And I would want to know your truths as well, the story of what happened to you after I disappeared. There are still so many questions.
He looks for Gloria's face in the room, but this time cannot find it, cannot re-create it in its entirety against the backdrop of the wall. The room is too alive now, noisy with the breath of shelves, the hum of books, the howl of rain, the constant sound of clouded light careening through the air. And there is the pool he now inhabits, that holds his fluids warm around him; this also sings; his mind is full of the slosh and buzz and glitter of his own little sea that came from him and now sustains him, surrounds him, holds him in its malleable embrace. It pains him—Gloria, the lack of Gloria. He gathers his mind by force and tries to focus. She comes in glimpses. He can see her if he lets go of the need for a coherent whole. Fractured Gloria, scattered shards, bits of Gloria protruding from the objects in the room. Gloria's eye, lashes and all, blinking on the tip of a pencil in a jar. Gloria's hair draped over the back of a chair, a pinewood slatted back that holds the tresses up like hallowed things. Her nose protruding from the spine of a novel. Her neck arched in the minuscule motions of the curtain, lithe and supple, ready for a kiss. Gloria's breath in the slow darkening of the day. Her thigh, without knee or hip to join to, thrown against the sofa in seduction, only there is no body to seduce him toward, no whole woman to laugh or arch or pull the skirt up and say _come_. Her sex appears only at night, in the shadows of the far corners, in many of them at once, the floor the sill the ceiling opening in the darkness to become her, Gloria, Gloria, damp and rich and potent. You are here, Gloria, and I accept each piece of you, I revel, I drink the sight, every single hair and toe a benediction. The eye watches, the neck turns, the hair quivers, the thigh awaits touch. He wants to tell the girl about Gloria's presence, tell her how Gloria's fragments haunt the room, but, as with everything, he battles vainly for the words. And anyway, the girl—though he loves her, though he hungers every moment for proximity—is not like him. She is alive. And the living may not understand; they may not find beauty in a broken woman flung across the house like shrapnel.
I came out of the kitchen with water for him and toast for me and saw him gazing at the painting, Mónica's painting, of ship and sea formed out of the same blue brushstrokes. He was riveted, as though its contents were in motion, unfolding a tale of homecoming or escape. I wondered what had gone through Mónica's mind as she painted, whether she was thinking of escape or homecoming, the urge to forge a home or flee from one. _Remember_ , hummed the painting, _turn me in the light_ , and the air itself seemed to brandish the shattered partial accounts of my aunt Mónica. Many of them were filtered through the lens of Mamá's disdain. Though surely Mamá's own repressed desires helped explain it: all her longing for the brush and palette compressed into that sharp knife of hate. _Your sister_ , she once told Papá, _is the only thing about you I despise. A silly woman trapped in Picasso's blue period, no talent at all, who lived like a whore and shamed her family_. Words that stung Papá enough to make him glare at his wife as though he wanted to hit her, a rare response from him, but Mamá showed no trace of surprise and even seemed to hold her chin up as if to say, I not only stand by what I've said, I glory in it. It must have been unbearable to her, as a new bride, to watch Mónica painting away in direct defiance of her father and God's supposed unwillingness to bless her with the gift, and not only painting but hanging her work in little galleries across town. Free, flagrant, terribly shameless. At that time, Mónica lived in a run-down apartment in San Telmo with a girlfriend, and then, everybody knew it, she got involved with politics—that is to say, with the subversives. It was believed that she became part of ERP, that guerrilla group whose acronym always sounded, to my child-ears, like the imitation of a burp.
Of course, it was also possible that she'd joined a different group, not ERP at all, since in that time there were so many factions and so many strains of leftist underground movements; those subversives, Mamá once said, they plagued Argentina like cockroaches in those days, in the early 1970s, you have no idea how bad things got, the violence, the kidnappings, nobody was safe anymore, let me tell you, some people talk badly now against the military but something had to be done. Of course, she didn't mention the violent right-wing groups, like AAA, whom I learned about much later on my own. Growing up, my sense of the era before the dictatorship was one of utter chaos, of danger around every corner, of young people corrupted by bad people, of wanton violence in the name of revolution. It amazed me that a relative of my father's—his own sister!—could have become one of those people. It seemed impossible, though of course it wasn't. She would not have been the only guerrilla to come from such a family.
In any case, from what I could gather, Mónica did not deny the accusations when they were cast her way, though she did not admit to anything, either. She fled to Spain before the generals took over. Rumor had it that she landed in Madrid—how Mamá must have seethed! That woman, that supposed whore, in her own beloved estranged mecca! Twenty-five years now, and we had heard nothing of Mónica, she could be living in Madrid or any other part of Spain or of the planet, or not living at all. She never wrote, never called, and though Mamá always claimed that the family had spurned her, it had always seemed to me that it was Mónica who had spurned us. Mónica, the Girl Who Got Away, Mónica the aperture, the cautionary tale, the exile, the embarrassment, the wild card. She was rarely mentioned by name in our house. I had met her only through photographs older than myself—a serious young woman with a mournful yet defiant stance, even in her first communion dress—and through the single painting of a blue ship that I sometimes caught my father staring at, searchingly, almost expectantly, as though the ship might at any moment turn its course or cast its anchor down in a long-awaited gesture of arrival.
And there it hung now, the ship, neither reaching its destination nor abandoning the attempt. I stared at it as I gave the guest his water. If Mónica could come into this house right now and see who was here, what would she say? Perhaps she'd gape in amazement at this red pool and its contents, or perhaps she'd just want to turn and leave, _I left all this for a reason, don't drag me in_ , or perhaps she'd sit down and open up her stories of where she'd been and who her brother was and who her father was and after she had emptied herself of all those keys and tales she might ask the impossible question that the ghost had asked and that still hung unanswerable in the air, _And you, Perla? Who are you?_ And I would still have no tenable answer. There would be no words on my tongue, nothing but air.
The ghost devoured his water. He was so grateful (I could tell from the softening of his eyes) for a simple cup of water. He seemed to feel its secret texture, making it crunch and shape-shift between his working jaws.
His pool was already half full. He looked like he was bathing. I brought over the cup and bucket and began to empty it out. I thought, there is no end to his dripping, he will never be dry, for the rest of my life I will scoop and pour this pungent water that possibly contains the liquid essence of the nightmares my guest endured before he died. Who could have imagined it, such memories distilled in pungent water, what does it taste like? If I drank it would I absorb his memories, and if so how could I stand it? I was hypnotized by the pour of it, the gentle rush into the bucket. How easily water returned to itself and took the shape of anything that held it. It was clear and supple; it revealed nothing.
It should have felt like a burden, the edge of madness, this need to kneel beside his pool and remove the water he'd secreted. But it did not. I was too far gone to care about madness and its edges; it seemed to me that I had crossed them long ago and all I wanted was to stay close to this guest forever and not think too much and let his presence filter through me, through the air, this house so full of hieroglyphs and shadows, this house that had been thirsty for so long. It saturated me, woke up my empty spaces and made them roar. I felt dissolved and expanded, all at once. The regular world seemed far away, a strange realm whose language I was steadily losing the ability to speak. I thought of the city out there, full of people, full of rain: students ducked into class with dripping hair, professors closed the windows and noticed or did not notice my absence, taxis skidded dangerously on wet streets, coffee poured into demitasses in cafés crowded with bodies demanding warmth, umbrellas staved the rain away from small, lurching circles of dry space that people make around themselves, marching, purposefully, or pretending to have clarity of purpose. As if everybody knew where they were going and why. The city was an exhausting place, with all its charade of normalcy, its real and invented purpose. Tomorrow I would have to face it—my provisions were starting to get low—but not today. It was no place for a girl who was steadily coming untied, no place for a mind so unmoored.
The doorbell rang and startled me out of the long gauzy tumult of my thoughts. I wasn't expecting anyone, and there was no one I would open the door to, no one I wanted to see or was willing to let into this world. I decided to ignore it, pretend I wasn't home, let the person go away of his own accord. The bell rang again. The guest cocked his head and looked at me with wide eyes.
I heard a key turn in the front door.
It was Thursday. Carolina came on Thursdays, to clean the house. She always rang first but she had a key. I ran to the foyer. Carolina had begun to crack the door open, and already her face was crunching with confusion at the smell.
" _Hola_ , Carolina."
"Perla, what—"
"I'm sorry, I can't let you in."
She looked offended. She was my elder. She had been coming into this house for years. "What?"
"It's not a good time."
"But I promised your parents—"
"I know, not today. Not until they come back."
She sniffed the air, as if to corroborate her first reaction. "Perla, what's going on?"
"It's hard to explain."
"It smells like something's rotten."
"Exactly. It's my problem, for me to clean up."
"I could help."
"No."
"Did you spill something? Take home a beached whale?"
_Something in between_. I said nothing.
Carolina stared at me as though I'd grown into a strange beast, feral, roaming past the edges of acceptable behavior. She tried another tactic. "Your parents have already paid me."
"They don't have to know. I'll never tell them."
She folded her arms and stared at me.
"Just take the day off."
She didn't move, but she was listening.
"Please."
"And what shall I tell your parents when they come back?"
That's when I finally realized, with the alarm of a person waking from a reverie who finally sees the obvious, that they were returning in three days. "Nothing."
Carolina pursed her lips.
"Everything will be back to normal," I said, with a confidence I did not remotely feel.
Carolina sighed in surrender, and walked back to the door. I was about to close it when she turned around to face me. "Perlita, what has happened to you?"
I smiled weakly and closed the door.
As I stood listening to her steps down the stone path, the question rang on in my head.
# 9
El Grito Sagrado
I awoke on the sofa, in the pale early morning. I had fallen asleep downstairs again, but I had not brought down a blanket or pillow because I'd told myself that I was just resting my eyes, that any moment I'd go upstairs to bed, that I was not camping in the living room out of a deep urge to stay close to the guest. Lying to myself, as always. How very many lies.
Darkness pushed up against the bottom of my mind, rising from my rib cage, threatening to expand and consume me. My whole body thrashed and railed against what I knew, what I fought to deny.
_You can't win this_.
I can't let it in.
_You have to_.
It'll destroy me.
_So will the lies_.
A dog barked, outside on the street, a pained and plaintive sound. Outside, the rain had abated, though the sky was still a delicate gray, as if wrapped in thin and somber silk. The rosebushes in the yard glittered in the glory of their dampness, all leaf and thorn, devoid of blossoms. The guest lay in the pool with his eyes closed. He looked peaceful, almost childlike, in his sleep.
I knew then that I couldn't hide anymore. Not because I didn't want to, but because there was no room left, no corner dry enough in this house.
I stood up, and to my own surprise my feet were firm and steady. In that moment, I began to say goodbye.
The memory that comes to him begins with beauty, it was a beautiful day: blue skies, loud streets, a victory for Argentina. The World Cup had come to Buenos Aires, it was 1978, the whole world had turned its eyes to them, and they had won. He felt an electric flush of vindication, he couldn't help himself; he certainly had his skepticism of nationalistic fervor, but still—the world was watching, they stood at the zenith of the world, and even if he balked inside at patriotism in these turbid times he could not deny, could never deny, his great passion for soccer. He had watched the game with his whole body taut, leaning forward from the chair, his legs thrilling with each flex and run and glorious kick. His head felt the thump of the ball, the shouts of the crowd, the hair slick with sweat and wind and motion, as though he himself were on that field writing his nation's name into the books of history. He cheered and groaned and tensed along with all his fellow countrymen in the stands and also home in front of television sets, like him, separated by walls of plaster and ideas but united, for today, in the throbbing nexus of the game, and when they won his fists shot up, his body leaped, his lungs were bellows pressing out the orgiastic _GOOOOL_ that shook his body and the city and the world, the whole damn amazed circumference of the world, and now, an hour later, the television still roared. The street outside his open window roared as well, rife with sunshine and throngs and blue and white flags, honking cars, radios, chanting, _ganaa-mos, ganaa-mos, we won, we won, we won_. On the television, more crowds, even thicker crowds, and you could see the wide mouths and the fists high in the air, and General Videla among uniforms, shaking hands with Henry Kissinger, who came thousands of miles to witness the event and salute the Argentinean nation; he was in the stands to see their strength and victory, a not-so-tacit approval of the coup, of course, the U.S.A. all smiles with the generals but by the glow of the World Cup even this fails to disgust him. The cheers from the street erupt in polyphonic splendor and he feels them in this body, he wants to descend, to join them, to merge with these streets that are his streets after all, the people's streets, streets that can be danced across despite the rumors of these times, he is only waiting for Gloria to arrive, any moment she'll be home and they will plunge into their fomented city.
Gloria arrives late, her coat flung open, the buttons have long stopped closing around her pregnant belly. She bursts in with coat and hair and eyes loose and wild and she glares at the television as though it were the worst kind of perversion and says, Turn that shit off.
He stares at her from his perch at the small balcony.
Turn it off!
He comes in, turns it off, and tries to calm her with his hands along her shoulders, but she will not be calmed. She wrests from him and paces, a caged animal.
My brother's gone.
Gone?
He disappeared. Yesterday. He went to work and never came home.
He reaches for something to say, but can find nothing. Outside, the elated voices, _We won, we won, we won_.
My mother hasn't stopped weeping, I tried but I could not make her stop.
She looks up. The blankness in her face terrifies him more than her words.
Gloria.
I don't know what to do.
Could he have been a Montonero?
It is the wrong thing to say; she turns away from him. Should that permit them to do whatever they want with a man?
I didn't say that.
I don't know what he was, what he wasn't.
I'm sorry.
Mamá's taken out her kerchief, she's joining the Madres.
He thought of Gloria's mother out on the Plaza de Mayo, carrying a photograph of Marco. That's dangerous, he said.
She doesn't care. She says we should be careful.
Us?
She nods.
We haven't done anything.
She flares up, bares her teeth. What does that matter? Can you tell me what Marco did?
Of course not.
Can you? Can you?
Gloria, calm down.
She says nothing. A wave of trumpets rises through the window, buoyed by the sound of honking cars, the opening lines of the national anthem played on brass and sung along to by the exultant mob, _Oid, mortales, el grito sagrado, libertad, libertad, libertad_. Listen, mortals, the sacred cry, freedom, freedom, freedom. He should be thinking of her brother, her _hermanito_ as she still called him even though he towered over her, with his eager lean and stubborn streak and shaggy hair and au courant mustache that belied his age, but he can only think of Gloria's belly, the baby inside, only three months from bursting out into the world, and his task as protector that has already begun, he must defend the baby (wild creature who kicked against my palm last night) from all dangers, including the danger of a womb receiving panic from the woman it inhabits, the chemical reactions of despair, he wants to calm them, smooth them out, surely all will return to balance if only Gloria will be calm.
Perhaps they'll release him soon.
God, you're such an idiot. You still don't get it.
He can't stand the distance between them, longs to close it. He says, I'm sorry.
Mamá thinks we should leave.
The country?
Yes.
Is she leaving?
No.
What do you think we should do?
I don't know. I don't know. She rubs her wide belly and weeps without making a sound.
He wakes. There is no national anthem and no Gloria, only the pool and the room and the girl, who kneels on the floor with a cup of ready water. Her hair is wet, she has bathed, and there is a strange expression on her face, something he hasn't seen before and can't identify. She offers him the water, and he leans forward to the cup, eats from it, chews the incandescent liquid and feels it suffuse him, augment him, give him strength. He watches the girl bring the bucket and begin to empty his pool and thinks, _Once again you give me life_. The thought makes him want to weep, how can this be, that she should give him life, the young to the old or the child to the father or the living to the dead rather than the other way around, it seems to have no logic and yet it's right and true. He accepts it though his mind could crack under the weight of his gratitude. She is so magnificent, every microscopic hair a revelation, how did all this emerge from Gloria and the seed of him? And also good, she is so good, her kindness with a being as strange as what he has become and the sudden intrusive chaos he has surely created in her life—her kindness has no reason, no sense. _Don't ever succumb to sense_ , he thinks to her.
I have to go out, she says.
He nods.
I'm not sure what time I'll be back.
He holds her gaze and he could swear that there is something she longs to say, a kind of pursing at her mouth that suggests words striving to escape before the mind will let them, and her eyes, they are awake, alive, familiar—he has seen them years before—they are just like his own eyes, he remembers them, their stare in the mirror, eyes of intensity, eyes full of night.
Where are you going?
Various places, she says, and before he can gather his thoughts for something else to say, she rises from the floor and is gone.
The memory offers up a melodious coda: on the night that Argentina won the World Cup, Gloria fell asleep to the sounds of a drunken city. He lay awake beside her, wide-eyed, restive, his wife's pregnant belly bulging beside him like the corporeal voice of fate. She was so big now, vulnerable for all her fierceness, she had wept a flood of tears over her brother and collapsed into sleep exhausted by her own helpless rage. She wanted to leave the country. She did not want to leave the country. No matter what he answered, he was wrong and she was right and she fought him like a panther. How to protect a woman who tried to claw you to shreds each time you approached? And yet he had to protect her, it was his duty, the most solemn vow he'd ever taken in his life. Other men might mock him for taking marital vows so much to heart, to have and to hold, God you're so earnest, how very quaint, and perhaps it was indeed quaint and earnest—they were well into the 1970s, after all. But he didn't care, that was how he felt. The promise to protect her was the most serious one he'd ever made at an altar. He had never dreamed it would come to feel so difficult.
If only they could be as they had been, two years before, in the simpler era of their engagement, when marriage sweetened the horizon before them like a nectar they had yet to taste. When he thought of that period of their lives together, he always returned to the day they came home from a visit to Azul, driving through the golden wheat fields of the pampas. He had just proposed to her in the plaza of the town where she grew up, on his knee the way he'd seen it done in films from Hollywood, and she had blushed at the ogling passersby, smiled at their applause when she said yes. Now, hours later, they were quiet together in the car, listening to the poignant songs of Sui Generis at the highest volume their old cassette player could muster, and as he watched the stalks and stalks of wheat pour past the windows, the land and music seemed to blend together, Argentinean rock music, Argentinean land, and he thought, I am part of this, part of the dirt that makes these stalks grow and part of the muse that fuels these songs; the hurtling stream that is this nation contains me too: and surely there are still good things in this nation even in these insane times, despite the kidnappings by the extreme right and by the extreme left, despite the death of President Perón, despite the wife he left to take his place, Isabel Perón, she has no idea what she's doing, how overwhelmed she is, how corrupt it all is, what a mess we are in, exasperating, perilous, who knows where it's all going, but here on this road I can see the best of Argentina and thank God it's still here, the wheat fields, the rock stars, and Gloria, yes, her too, the woman at the steering wheel, the pinnacle of what this country can produce, and I am going to marry her, I may not till our soil or sell any records but I am going to marry the most beautiful woman in the nation, she has said yes, and surely that is something, makes me part of the greater fabric of land and song and meaning, we will be inordinately happy and she will bear us many children who will carry on the Argentinean story, whatever shape it takes, our children's children's children will know our names. The blessing almost seemed too great to bear. Before he could stop himself, he asked her why she had accepted.
What are you talking about?
Well, why me?
She laughed. She pulsed her fingers lazily against the steering wheel. She liked to drive, and he let her do it even though his friends had teased him about it, _you give your woman the wheel, next thing you know she'll want you to piss sitting down_. Because you asked, she said, her eyes still on the road.
No really, he said, I mean it. Why? You could have any man.
Her face softened, then, in the way it sometimes did when he stroked her breasts, and he wanted to do it right then, lean over and run his hands across her blouse even if it meant careening off the highway.
I don't want any man, she said. I want you. You have the face I want to watch grow old.
She said no more and he did not pursue the subject, did not dare upset the delicate grace of the moment, her words in the air, her breasts ripe against her blouse, his hands hungry to touch them and the rest of her as one day soon they would, the sun drenching the fertile fields, the highway long and straight, surrounded by the promise of fresh wheat. The cassette player crooned "Quizás Porque," one of his favorite songs, in which a man confesses that he's not of noble birth, yet dares to call his lover queen and princess, offering her a cigarette paper crown. He waited for the line and let it ripple over him. What a poet, that Charly García. He even says in the same song that he's not a good poet, then there he is turning cigarette paper into a crown. The transubstantiation of love. I would like to make a crown for Gloria out of—what?—out of this song, out of broken bits of the plastic cassette that holds this song. He imagined Gloria walking down the wedding aisle in a crown of his own making, cigarette paper and crushed cassette and stalks of pampas wheat. That would be perfect. He felt drunk. He was full of hope, like air in a balloon, almost enough to buoy him into the sky.
In bed beside his sleeping wife, plagued by the shouts of inebriated patriots outside, anxieties settled on his chest like harpies. How quickly, he thought, a life can become burdened; from one instant to the next, worries flood in, and the body itself feels old. He worried that he would fail in his duty to protect Gloria, to shield her from the stresses that could weaken the development of their child. He wanted to erase her sadness, and could not. He worried that all the weeping would make her sick, he worried that she would stay this way until her brother came back, which could be weeks, even months, and he worried about the question of whether to leave the country before the baby was born—was it really necessary? What would happen to his or her citizenship? How would this rattle their child's future? And what would they do for work in another nation, where would they land, how immensely would they miss Buenos Aires, what would they do with all their homesickness, the three of them adrift in a strange place? It seemed a monumental sacrifice, the flight to exile. He touched his wife's taut belly in search of signs of life, but it seemed that the baby was asleep in her amniotic sac. There were no kicks or jutting elbows. I don't know what we're going to do, he whispered, speaking to the baby, what do you want us to do? There was no answer. He kept his hand on Gloria's belly and lay quietly, as the crowds on the street sang on and on for Argentina, an entity he had once loved blindly and that now seemed distorted beyond recognition. What is this Argentina they sing for? And does it even hear their cries? He thought this as he stirred and stirred the worries through his mind, not imagining—never imagining—how small, how absurdly palatable, even how enviable such worries would soon seem.
Buenos Aires gleamed. After days in the house with my guest, I felt dazed by the brightness of the city. Rain had cleaned the buildings and made way for a bright blue sky to hang over them, a shining tarp. Tourists bustled past me, obviously relieved at their change in fortune, smiling into the sun, wearing backpacks on their fronts because they'd read all about the pickpockets that roamed this city that, despite its legacy of old grandeur, could not escape the destitution of the Global South it still belonged to. Their legs were exposed below the hems of shorts, terribly pale because it was the dead of winter back home in Europe or the United States of America. I wondered how the city looked to them, whether they saw the lush majestic detail on the façades of old buildings and not the way they moldered from neglect, or whether they saw the moldering of façades and not the lush majestic details. I could take you home with me, I thought, and show you a hidden face of Buenos Aires, something that is sure to, ahem, make a splash; you won't find it in guidebooks, it's off the beaten path, as they say, or rather on a path that has sustained an entirely different kind of beating. I walked on. At the university, I sped up my pace, taking detours down longer halls so as to avoid the classroom I should have been sitting in at this hour, and the offices of professors who might stop me and demand an explanation, _Perla, where on earth have you been?_ , or perhaps they would simply look at me coldly and let me pass, or be too wrapped up in their own research to recall my days of absence. I couldn't decide which was worse, to be shut out or forgotten or pressured to come back in.
I made it to the library without incident. I thought—perhaps I hoped—that it might be difficult to find what I was looking for, but the computerized catalog instantly pulled up three titles that were all relevant and all available. One, I thought, I can stand only one. I wrote down the titles and numbers and carried the slip of paper into the stacks, held in front of me between ginger fingers as though it were a delicate grenade. When I was a girl, my mother would take me to the public library on Saturdays, and the stacks seemed like halls of hallowed knowledge where I'd pace randomly without a plan or any numbers jotted on slips of paper, emerging, to Mamá's consternation, with piles of books captured in forays to the shelves for adults. A history of China, eighteenth-century French verse, a survey of the botanical wonders of the Amazon.
"What on earth do you want with these books?" she would say as she leafed through them, examining each one to give her approval.
"I'm curious."
Mamá frowned. "About China?"
"Yes."
"What is there to be curious about?"
"It's a very big country."
"Yes. But it's full of Chinese."
"I don't know anything about the Chinese."
Mamá sighed. "It's good you want to learn so much," she said, though she still tried to steer me back to the children's books, which, she pointed out, would be easier to understand, and which were less likely to be riddled with lies.
"What kind of lies?"
"Various kinds. You have to be careful in the adult aisles; books for grown-ups have lies buried in them, like hidden fangs."
When she said _fangs_ , she aimed two crooked fingers at me, as if to emphasize the point. This only deepened the power of the image in my mind—if Mamá said it, it must be baldly true—and for years after that, while reading, until I began to read with Romina, I always felt the presence of those wild teeth between the lines, white fangs that concealed themselves in white space, chameleon fangs, ready to leap and sink into my skin if I wasn't careful. They lent a layer of danger to the act of reading: you could be innocently tracing the shapes of black letters and suddenly the lies might rise out of the whiteness, a flock of small and deadly jaws, disembodied from heads or faces, ready to sink into you with force—they would leap first at the eyes—and destroy you in a rabid white swarm. Of course, this never happened. By the time I was in high school, by the time of my mother's failed geraniums, I had discounted the whole notion of lies hidden in books as my mother's attempt to keep a girl away from pages that could intrude on the fragile reality of a house. My mother did not want to see, nor for her daughter to see, certain things that could be written about in books, such as, perhaps, the years when I was small and the nation full of quiet. _She didn't know. She knew. She knew. She struggled each day to not-know_. I had no way of discerning which it was. She would never tell me the true version, and even if she could I wasn't sure that I could bear to hear it.
I found my book in the stacks and turned it over in my hands, once, twice, feeling the weight of it, the creased binding, a book purporting to be as ordinary as any other. On my way back downstairs, I pulled out two generic history volumes at random, to stack on top as I handed the books to the librarian, whom I knew and would have to face in the future. I pictured her looking up from the last title and staring at me, eyes softening in pity, or hardening in alarm, but she did neither. She was impartial, dispassionate, she had many other important things to do and this was just another student with just another project or assignment or obsession, it's all the same, the books were stamped and waved through the machine and released into my care. I placed them in my backpack and walked out, toward the sunshine, their weight mauling at my shoulders.
I didn't know where I was going. I had nowhere to go but had to go somewhere, couldn't go home, couldn't yet face the melted clocks and thick damp air and contents of an inflatable red pool. I descended into the subway and took the first train. No one on board was smiling. A man read the paper with a mournful expression on his face. Another man, bald and hunched, stared out of the window as though he were watching trees, sun, houses, anything other than the black walls of a tunnel speeding by. A woman breast-fed an infant under her blouse. The child sucked greedily, surrendered to the pleasure of it, eyes rolled back under half-closed lids, legs kicking softly, fingers splayed in surrender. I was staring; I looked away. What is that like? I wondered. Did I ever do such a thing?
I exited at Plaza de Mayo. Upstairs, in the street, light stung my eyes.
I walked to the plaza. A breeze traced light and furtive patterns in my hair. Scattered tourists snapped photos of each other, while a vendor of ice cream and key chains looked on, sleepy, haggard, he had seen many days like this one. I didn't know why I'd come here but I stood, taking in the vast spreading presence of the plaza, which throbbed with pride or sun or history, its pink flagstones empty but still straining, surely, under the weight of all the steps that had traversed this patch of earth in the long years in which it had been a congregating place. I wondered what the flagstones knew: whether, for example, they still felt the blood that was shed here in the 1800s by Manuel de Rosas and his circle of assassins, the Mazorca, with their public destruction of all enemies, real and perceived. Violinists, the killers called themselves, for the long stroke of knife across throat, the music that surged from victims as they died. One throat after another, so that blood from dozens of men and women blended on one blade. And then their heads were cut off and placed on tall stakes here in the Plaza de Mayo for all to see and dream about, so even dreams could be scrubbed clean of thoughts of treason by the sight of severed heads, perhaps of friends or neighbors, slowly becoming unrecognizable thanks to the flies. All of this was long before the city was a sprawl of many millions, it lacked the cars and high-rises that wrap around the plaza now, but even then it was the center of the city. The decapitated heads were on display for drivers of horse-drawn carriages, government officials, ladies visiting the shops. Now you could no longer see the flies and rotting heads on stakes, they were not here, unless we can believe that the past is always present in the place where it unfolded, still a phantom hiding in the winds of the current moment. If it were possible for time to collapse, for the great hulking curve of it to crash into itself, then perhaps I would see the heads on stakes surrounded by swarms of flies, as well as the crowds who faced the Casa Rosada when Evita Perón came to the balcony to speak, and the film extras who crowded here when Madonna came to the Casa Rosada to pretend to be Evita on the balcony, and also the countless afternoons and mornings they had come here, the Madres of the Plaza de Mayo, a small group at first, then growing, white kerchiefs tied around their heads to represent the innocence of their beloved lost ones, with their enlarged photographs in hand, walking around and around the plaza as if their bodies formed the spoke of a great wheel, _we want them back with life_ , walking despite the governmental warnings and the nightsticks and arrests and _those women are crazy_ and the threats, walking in the shade of the dictatorship and walking later in the shade of a democracy that still failed to cough up the ones they loved, _with life_ —all the walking would compress here in the great collapse of time. As I stood and stared, I imagined how the various eras might melt into each other, how the women would march around the rotting faces eaten by the flies, flies would buzz around the kerchiefs of the Madres, the tourists who now snapped photos of the statue and the Casa Rosada just across the road would swat the flies away and say, It's so hot here in the south, the film extras would mingle with the masses waiting for Eva Perón, Eva Perón would gaze at Madonna as she gazed out at the Madres in their eternal circle of a walk, resolute, constant, women in their forties, women in their seventies, ageless as the sea, tattooing their existence into the flagstones and the earth below. And as for me, I thought, what if I'm seen here? What if one of the Madres could turn her head and see me, include me in the mad blend of epochs with a single gaze? The past has not disappeared, far from it, the millennium may have turned and placed us in the fresh new twenty-first century, but that does not protect us from the reach and clear-eyed gaze of the past.
Perhaps that was why I had come here, against the current of my own conscious mind.
To be recognized.
Even though nothing terrified me more than the notion of one of those kerchiefed women capturing me with her eyes, across the veils of time, opening her mouth to speak or weep or spit at the lonely, silent girl. I looked out across the empty plaza, where the invisible Madres walked with the dignity of people who know more of pain than fear. I was certain that I could almost see them; they, however, did not seem to see me. I stood at the lip of their world, small, separate. Never in my life had I felt so small.
The breeze had disappeared, leaving the humid press of Buenos Aires air. There was a bench nearby, but I could not bring myself to sit. I stood and stood and stood.
Alone in the house. The room is quiet. The sofa has abated its attacks. The swan dreams but does not quiver. Even the books on the shelf seem to have forged a temporary truce with their pages. His mind goes to the girl. He would like to follow her with his consciousness, to see what she is doing, where she roams, what colors pulse through her heart. But he can't find her with his mind, and so he waits, watching the invisible dance of light and air.
_Psshhht_.
A voice from the corner of the room, from the shadows at the edge of the curtain, where he has seen Gloria's neck and knees waver in the semidark.
_Psshhht, come_.
Again he hears it, and he could swear it is not only in his mind, not just a memory, a sound as real as the voice of the girl or the rain. Could it be? It was not the turtle, who is across the room, in the doorway, eyes closed, unflapped. The room is still. He gathers himself.
Gloria?
_Why won't you come?_
Gloria. Gloria. I don't know where you are.
_Water is timeless. Search for me_.
The curtains quiver. The walls pulse. And now the light in the room is agitated, searing, bright with secrets, knifing into his mind; it can cut open anything, illuminate anything, he wants to call for her but is afraid his voice will break the spell and so he reaches out the currents of his mind to her, to Gloria, to the source of the voice inside the curtains. There is no more response. The curtains are emptied of sound. And so he reaches inward. His mind turns into a dense liquid that shimmers from within, it throbs with light and moisture, it can pour anywhere _water is timeless_ and he closes his eyes and plunges into the dark glow behind his eyelids through which tunnels soar, he is soaring through them, slipping through gates of time and space, further and further until he is deep inside the caverns of the past and then he sees her. He is with her, Gloria, in a dark small place. The floor is dank and sticky and the smells are familiar, piss and fear and the metal undertones of blood. She is naked, there are bruises on her thighs and arms, her belly is like nothing he has ever seen, the most incredible protrusion of flesh, curved and taut and much larger than the last day he saw her blindfolded and tied to a chair in front of which he sank into a vortex of men, now the baby inside her must be planning its escape, must be torn between love for the womb and longing for more freedom than the womb can provide. Gloria let me enfold you, kiss you, save you from the spiraling abyss in your mind, but Gloria has not fallen down the spiral, she is distracted from despair, her body is too busy opening its ancient revelations, her eyes are closed, her lips are open, her hands do all the speaking as they glide across the expanse of her belly, slowly, fearlessly, her hands are lioness tongues, drawing on a thousand generations of beastly instinct to stroke and calm and cover what's inside her, Gloria calls out to a guard, he cannot hear the voice but he can see the motion of her throat muscles, the guard takes a long time to come and when he does he wears a face too stern for his young age (he looks like a boy dressed up in his father's suit, the ridiculous hanging sleeves) and Gloria mouths the words, _they're getting stronger_ , the guard shakes his head, _we'll take you when it's time_ , she says _it's time_ , he says _shut up bitch_ and then he's gone. Gloria is alone, but not alone, I'm with you Gloria, can you feel my ghost-hands next to yours? fluttering across your belly? slowly, warm sweat slippery on your taut skin, time is as brittle as reality—and reality can collapse into the nightmare of this underworld that you and I were cast into where humanity does not apply to humans; if reality can collapse then so can time; I have always been here in this moment of the past, a wisp of a man, disembodied but awake, carrying memories of the future. There are three of us in this room and one will live and one will die and one, you, Gloria, I still do not know, but for now, for all the dark stench of this place, I still can't help but revel in the joy of touching you again, of offering you the paltry futile comfort of my touch, the heave of your breath makes my fingers rise and fall, your body strains, another wave of contractions is arriving like a storm whipping the sea toward the rocks, a sea that will rage against the rocks and crash around them but will not—do you hear me, Gloria?—will not destroy.
I was still wandering the city, with nowhere to go, walking the streets that caught the light with wide and stony arms, slowing at a café to smell fresh coffee and hear the bustling clinks of cups against spoons before continuing on. I didn't want to stop. I didn't want to drink or eat; the smells and sounds and sights were as much as I could stand to imbibe. The brush of a man's perfume. A spike of laughter. A wave of car exhaust and radio blare, the gleam of sun on boutique windows, the silent mannequin alone in her boutique, a woman scowling at her watch under a dark red awning, the percussive beat of shoes on concrete and on cobblestones, a man talking to another man and gesturing angrily at the sky, a plaintive child-voice _please Mamá_ , the smell of fresh empanadas from a shop where the cook bustled as if all of Buenos Aires had been waiting impatiently for this, his pastries, his prize. How easy it was to drown your thoughts in the swirling streams of the city. How difficult to find a toehold for your mind.
I finally stopped on a very familiar street. Gabriel's apartment building stood across the road. _How did I get here? What are you doing, Perla?_ I had had no plan of coming here, I was just wandering, it must be a coincidence that the motion of my feet had brought me here. If I were on the couch for any of my peers in the psychology department, none of them, not a single one, would let me believe such a thing. Buried desires, they would say, are the strongest ones, the ones that propel our unexplained actions and form the blueprints of our dreams. And as they said this they would look victorious, thrilled to see the theories brought to life, here, before them, in this tale of a woman's wandering feet. I had turned to textbooks in search of keys, but they only caused more problems: they made it harder to deny my own deep-sea urges and fears, without giving me the ability to escape them. I walked up to the door and rang the bell. His voice, wrapped in static, came through the grating. He was home.
"Hello?"
"It's me, Perla."
"Oh." Undisguised surprise. "Hello."
"I was just in the neighborhood." Right, of course—for what?
"Would you like to come up?"
"Could I?"
He answered with a long buzz to let me through the front door.
Upstairs, he was waiting for me in the open doorway. He smiled at me, though the smile seemed ambivalent and he didn't kiss my cheek. "Come in."
"I'm sorry to interrupt you."
"It's all right."
"Were you writing?"
He shrugged. "I was."
I glanced around his living room. It was full of stacks of papers that had always struck me as having the upper hand in the small space, like a strange and hardy species slowly asserting its dominion. The papers had not abated since my last visit; if anything, they had grown even more chaotic and triumphant. They ruled the kitchen counter, the coffee table, the edges of the floor. Gabriel had not removed the photograph of us from his bookshelf, the one where we beamed at the camera with our faces pressed together in the living room, slightly askew because he'd taken it himself with an extended arm. It still stood in its frame beside the larger photo of his family, the one I had studied so many times: the five of them, together in Montevideo, at an _asado_ on the patio of their home. The two parents stood on either end, his father holding a plate of raw meat ready for the fire, his mother beaming with no makeup on, while Gabriel stood in the middle, one arm around each of his sisters. The close lean of their heads said everything. They looked as though they were that moment wordlessly hearing each other's thoughts. Gabriel loved to talk about his sisters. He was so proud of them. Carla was now a lawyer, though still living with her parents as she could not find enough work to get a place of her own. Penélope, the youngest, was at the Universidad de la República in Montevideo, studying chemistry. I had never heard a person say the word _chemistry_ with as much tenderness as Gabriel, talking about his sister. She was five years younger than he, a gulf that surely made her seem a perennial child in his eyes. But she was two years older than I. I had brought this up only once, and Gabriel had laughed, but uneasily, and the truth was that it made me uneasy too. Neither of us ever brought it up again. I was moved by Gabriel's closeness to his sisters, but it also roused other emotions in me, a hot and sticky tar. For a long time, I didn't want to look at my reaction, know what was inside. Guilt was part of it. Look at that lovely family, and here I was, avoiding meeting them, refusing to join in the way he wished I would. Didn't he deserve the kind of girlfriend he could take home to visit without so much fuss? But after some time, I finally realized what plagued me most about his sisters. It was envy. I envied him—envied them all—for having siblings, for their miraculous trust and knowledge of each other, born at the very beginning of their lives, which gave them a lifelong antidote to loneliness that an only child could never hope to have.
Gabriel was waiting for me to speak.
"I had to see you," I said, before I could feel the thought in my own mind.
"What's wrong?"
"Does something have to be wrong to want to see you?"
He held up his hands like a man under attack. "I didn't say that."
"I'm sorry. I don't know why you put up with me. The fact is, I thought you'd refuse to see me."
"Why?"
"After the way I've treated you."
He picked up a lit cigarette from an ashtray, and took a long slow drag. He didn't look at me. It was almost as though I'd said nothing at all.
"You should be angry at me," I said.
"Should I?"
"Of course."
"About what?"
"Come on. You know."
"I want to hear it from you."
I longed for a cigarette, but it didn't seem like the moment to ask for one, and he didn't offer. "I shouldn't have hung up on you the other day. And, more importantly, I shouldn't have left you."
He studied me. "You're right. You shouldn't have."
It was my moment to say the words _I'm sorry_ , but they got trapped in my throat.
"I worried about you, Perla."
"You did?"
"Why so surprised? You think when you run off and don't say where you're going and it's the middle of the night and you're far from home, people won't worry? Sometimes I wonder about you."
"Sometimes I wonder about me too."
That seemed to soften him. "You could at least have left a note."
"I just had to go."
"Perla," he said, gently, "nobody ever _has_ to do anything."
"But they think they do." The words hurt, thorns in my throat. "I thought I did. I'm sorry."
We stared at each other. Pain was naked on his face.
"Can I have a cigarette?"
He rooted around the clutter on the coffee table for his pack, then gave me one and took another for himself. "Here, have a seat."
I sat down beside him on the sofa. We lit up and took refuge in the distraction of match, flame, inhale.
Then he said, "But I've been thinking. About that night. It wasn't all your fault. I shouldn't have pushed you so far, and for that I'm sorry."
I didn't know what to say. One drop and it could all come spilling.
"I missed you," Gabriel said.
"Really?"
"Did you miss me?"
"What do you think?"
I had not meant it sharply, but he flinched.
"I'm sorry. I'm not myself these days."
"Evidently."
The door to the balcony was open, and through it I heard the wail of an old U2 song, studded with the sound of passing cars. The singer still had not found what he was looking for. I could see myself with Gabriel, at 5 a.m., kissing on that balcony for the first time, the city flung wide below us like the arms of a gregarious friend.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
"Not much. Let's talk about something else. Are you writing anything new?"
"Sort of."
"About the disappeared?"
"Yes. Of course."
I didn't know how to ask my next question. I tried to sound casual. "What would you do if I told you one of them came back?"
"One of who?"
"The disappeared."
"From exile?"
"From the dead."
"I'd kiss you."
I hadn't expected this, even in a joking tone. It felt like something of an olive branch, or perhaps a guarded question. "Be serious."
"All right. I'd want to meet him."
"Or her."
"Right, yes, or her."
"I thought you didn't believe in that. In coming back from the dead."
"I don't. Of course not. But isn't this hypothetical?"
"What do you think?"
"Well then. Hypothetically, I'd want to meet him, or meet her." He was closer and his arm brushed mine. The light touch made my whole body crave him; I wondered whether he felt it too. "In any case, I might not believe in it, but does that really mean a thing can't happen? No one believed in disappearance, either. The world does things to people regardless of what we think is possible."
I opened my mouth, but said nothing.
"Why do you ask?"
"No reason."
"Oh, come on."
"It just came into my mind, that's all."
Gabriel looked worried. "Something's going on with you."
I looked away, out of the window, at the younger couple that was not yet a couple and was no longer there.
"Tell me what's really on your mind."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"I don't have the words."
"Start anywhere."
"That's not the problem." I imagined his face as he listened to a story of a drenched and dripping figure in my living room, a man who was not a man, who broke in without breaking anything, really just appeared, who smelled terrible and shed constant water and had memories that proved he had been alive and also when and in what circumstance, if there could be such a thing as proof in this mad story of a not-man who eats water, whom I could not stop thinking about, who had drowned my life and all the things of which I thought my life was made. "I just can't."
Very gently, he said, "Try me."
"I will, one day. I promise." And I meant it. It occurred to me that if there were any person in this world who had a chance of taking in this story, of holding it close to the body with both hands, it would be he.
"As long as you're all right," he said, and placed his hand over mine.
I stared at his hand. Hard as it was to believe, he seemed sincere. He was not thinking of himself, or at least not of the anger or the slights or even the uncertainty of days to come. I couldn't understand why he cared so much, when even I could stand myself only because I had no choice, because I was trapped inside my skin and could not peel it off and run away. Here was the hand that had reached inside me and found what I truly was, a feat my friends could not accomplish since my veneer was so convincing, a feat my mother seemed to avoid with a resistance that bordered on distaste, a feat my father had perhaps attempted but failed in—why?—perhaps for fear of things that lurked inside our bond. That Gabriel should have reached and felt—and that his hand should still return to me, still arrive on mine, like this, warm, supple, with no trace of disgust. That such a thing could be.
"Gabriel."
"Yes."
"I wish we could begin again."
I leaned in to his body. The air seemed to rush and form a shroud around us, dense and humming. His body told me with its bright electric language that desire was still there, that the gap between us could be easily dissolved, was already dissolving, and I turned my mouth in to his neck and closed the circle. He allowed me in, enveloped me, his hands were in my hair, under my shirt, my shirt was gone, his mouth returned to mine, my breasts returned to him, all the flesh that wanted to come home, he tried to talk but I said _Shhh, shhhhh querido, don't say anything_ , and even here he acquiesced, even this he gave me, sounds free of the cage of language, bodies free of words, he let me strip him, let me take him as a canvas for my deepest colors. I wanted to exalt him with the shout of my bare hands. His tongue spoke to my neck, his hands spoke to my skin, his sex spoke inside me with a force that could surely defy gravity, keep a human from falling, shoot a body to the stars and spill its secrets into black and endless space.
Afterward, I lay curled on him, wrapped in afternoon light and carnal smells and the noise of traffic through an open window, through which our sounds had surely reached the street.
"Perlita."
"Mmmm..."
"What are we doing?"
"Basking."
"Yes. But where do we go from here?"
"Wherever you want."
"Are you coming back to me?"
"Would you let me?"
"Conceivably."
"Conceivably? That doesn't sound so good."
"I'd have to hear your plea."
"I don't have one planned."
"No matter. Spontaneous is best." He took my hand and raised it to his lips. "Stay for a while. I'll cook something, we'll eat without putting on our clothes."
I wanted to stay. I almost said yes, almost let myself sing into the notion, but then I thought of the guest, thirsty for his water, swimming in his memories, needing me, waiting, wondering when I would arrive.
"I can't." I pulled myself up. "I have to go."
He stared at me, wounded.
"I'm sorry."
"I can't take much more of this, Perla."
"Don't give up on me," I said, for the second time this week.
"You're the one who's leaving." He searched my face. "Again."
"It's different this time. I just need to take care of something."
"But you won't tell me what."
"Not yet. I'll call you soon and I'll explain." I stroked his chest, slowly, lingering among the wiry curls. "I promise. I'll call you very soon."
When I left, he was still on the floor, watching me with bewildered eyes.
# 10
_Open_
I don't have much time left to tell this story, judging from the pain that just rushed through me—the most incredible sensation, like being gripped in the fervent fist of God.
As I said before and cannot say enough times, this is my way of speaking to the heart of things, curving around it, in the thrall of its gravitational pull. And now we're almost there, almost at the core.
Let me tell you about the night that cut me open.
I had gone to Uruguay with Gabriel. It was ten days before the wet man arrived. First, we went to Gabriel's family cottage on the beach, after which we planned to spend some days in Montevideo with his parents. For a long time I had attempted to put off meeting his parents, as I knew that they had not been pleased to learn their son was dating a girl with a family like mine. But Gabriel had been talking for years about the little house in Piriápolis, on the very beach where his parents had first met, where we could relax together in a place of calm and beauty. And your parents won't mind that you're staying overnight with someone you're not married to? He smiled at that. Oh Perla, he said, they're not that kind of parents. You'll like them, really, and they'll like you, they've had plenty of time to get used to the idea of, well, of you, and once they meet you they'll see who you are instead of just where you come from.
I finally relented. The idea appealed to my hunger for adventure, and in any case, the summer was ripe, the millennium fresh and young and spreading itself before us like a dare. Even the lie to my parents wasn't hard; my friend Marisol was more than glad to provide an alibi, and even Mamá, who thought I had a new romantic interest in the form of Bruno, a physics student whose father was a doctor—when my imagination faltered all my invented dates were sons of doctors—accepted the story without question.
During the whole ferry ride across the wide Río de la Plata, as I watched the water rush below us, smooth and thick and silty, I thought of my parents, back at home, believing the lie. I had never crossed a border without them. I was drunk on the liquor of transgression, its hot thrill of guilt and power, the promise of standing at the helm of my own life. We landed in Montevideo and immediately boarded a bus to Piriápolis. The bus ride took us out of the city to the countryside, with its gentle hillocks and copious green. I leaned in to Gabriel as if to sleep, but could not relinquish wakefulness. The road was too open, my lust too large, the pop songs on the driver's radio too buoyant. Mine, I thought, this road is mine, I am a grown woman on the road with my lover and all of this—these moments, this body, the rattle of the bus—all of it is mine. I could almost sink into the delicious illusion of being free, able to become any woman I wanted. I lay in Gabriel's arms and watched Uruguayan fields ebb past, tranquil, lush, beckoning.
We arrived at the cottage and immediately began having sex on the living room floor, the kitchen counter, and finally the bed. The freedom of an entire night together, with no subway ride home, made me delirious with lust, I couldn't stop. Dusk fell and wrapped us in hot summer darkness. I growled and screamed without concern for neighbors. At one point, Gabriel laughed at my ferocity, which made me laugh, and then neither of us could stop.
"What are you laughing at?"
"I don't know anymore."
"Me neither."
"Ay, Perla," he said, still laughing. I took that opportunity to kiss his chest, stomach, the bliss of his hip bone, my hand already on his sex.
"Wait a minute," he said. "Wait. Maybe we should go to the beach."
"Why?"
"It's beautiful at night. You'll love it."
"Not yet. I'm not done with you."
"We can come right back."
"I don't want to wash you off me."
"Who says you have to?"
"I'm not going to the beach smelling like this."
"You smell delicious."
"You're crazy."
"Want me to prove it?"
Before I could answer he sprang up, wrestled me onto my back, and pinned my arms above my head in a single gesture.
"I surrender," I called out.
And I did.
We lost track of time. The night held us in its velvet folds.
"Now I can't let you outside."
"Why not?"
"You smell so good that all the men will want you."
"Gabriel."
"They won't even know what hit them but what hit them is the sex and come and musky sweat all over you."
"Don't be silly."
"I'll have to beat them off with driftwood."
"Oh come on."
"Is that an order?"
I laughed.
"Well, in that case—"
"Gabo—"
It was two in the morning when we finally went outside. The Río de la Plata glimmered under a broken moon. The waves announced themselves over and over, _shhh, shhh, shhhhhhh_. Lovers and families strolled the shore in little clusters, murmuring, laughing, drinking _mate_. I saw several clusters of young Uruguayan hippies, with their uncombed hair and marijuana smiles and baskets of fresh-baked goods and trinkets they sold on the beach to fund their continued wanderings. They were my age, or younger; they seemed full of ease, too relaxed to care about their hair or future. I had never been like them, never had a friend like them, could not imagine their inner worlds. While in the past I might have mocked their clothes or lazy stances, tonight I felt a stab of envy. They seemed free. All the denizens of this little beach town seemed free. It could have been the lovemaking, still making me feel as though my bones were made of nectar, or perhaps the long day of travel, but I had the strange sensation of having entered an alternative plane, an enchanted realm of sex and calm and possibility. My family had often vacationed in Uruguay over the years, but only in Punta del Este, with its crowds of expensive bikinis and high-rises crushed up against each other. In Punta del Este, even the ocean seemed carefully groomed. Here the waves were just themselves, loose-maned, unabashed, mixing easily with the sand.
We walked. I walked arm in arm with Gabriel, cradling my weight against his body. We took off our shoes and walked toward the waves and when the water swallowed our feet like dark wet silk, I laughed.
"It's wonderful here," I said.
"I thought you'd like it."
"We should come back."
"We'll bring our children."
I laughed again.
"What's so funny?"
"What children?"
"You can't imagine it?"
"I didn't say that."
He splashed me with his foot. "Then what are you saying?"
He said it lightly, but I heard the edge in his voice. We had never talked about children before, not directly, though I had often wondered—late at night, naked, drifting in and out of sleep beside Gabriel—how a little boy or girl sprung from the two of us might look, how he or she might run or shout or laugh in a home we all shared, somewhere in the city, always in the city, an apartment where the child would fall asleep each night to lullabies shot through with the constant murmur of Buenos Aires. Surely that was what I wanted for my future, even if it meant long-avoided meetings, a double life exposed, a war with my parents that could end in my being cut from them like an amputated limb. I could have a life that contained Gabriel or a life that contained my parents, but I could not imagine having both. And so the thoughts of children, like all thoughts of the further future, stayed caught in the dim borderland between sleep and consciousness, never spoken. "Nothing."
"You don't want to have kids with me." He sounded genuinely hurt.
"That's not true."
"It's because of your parents, isn't it?"
I was quiet for a few steps. A low wave stroked our feet and then retreated.
"When are you going to live your own life?"
"I am living it."
"But in their shadow."
"Are you calling me a coward?"
"Do you feel like a coward?"
The waves, the waves, they were at my ankles, foaming and awake. "Sometimes."
"Let me meet them."
"No."
"You're about to meet my parents, but I can't meet yours."
"If you met them you couldn't stand them."
"Can you?"
I almost let it roll past me, it was such a beautiful night, but he had stopped walking and examined me with a gravity that bordered on a challenge. "Please. Try to understand. They're my parents."
His gaze softened and turned tender. "Maybe they're not."
"What?"
"Maybe they stole you."
I said nothing. I couldn't move.
"It's been on my mind," he said. "I've been turning it over. Haven't you ever wondered?"
"No," I said, and it was true. I hadn't. Or, more accurately, I had, but the wondering barely left an imprint on my conscious memory, it had been as rapid as a blink, shut-open-shut, fading into oblivion every time.
"Why not?"
"Why would I?"
"Well," he said, and I could have slaughtered him for the pedantic tone, "most of the abducted children were taken in by members of the regime. And from what you've told me about your father—"
"Shut up. I haven't told you anything about him."
Very gently, he said, "That's exactly my point."
I didn't answer.
"You could find out, you know, at Las Abuelas' office."
I didn't know what to say. I listened to the hostile whisper of the waves. Las Abuelas—the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo—were a group within the Madres who wore the same white headscarves but who searched not only for their disappeared children but for their grandchildren as well. Fighting, they claimed, for the return of stolen babies. Who now, in 2001, were not babies anymore, but young adults with their own lives and destinies.
Old women with grim faces that had nothing, nothing to do with me.
"How long have you been thinking this?"
He shrugged. "A while."
"Have you talked to anyone about it?"
"No," he said, then slowly added, "not really."
"Who?"
"My mother. Just my mother, honestly."
I walked away from him, into the water, cold around my calves. The night bellowed with stars. I wanted to climb into the sky and hurl myself into the black void between the constellations, where there was no air, no life, no mother in Montevideo preparing a dinner for a girl she thought was stolen, unbearable offerings heaped on the plates.
Gabriel was behind me now, hands on my shoulders. "Listen, Las Abuelas, they do blood tests. They can see whether your DNA matches any of the disappeared. You don't have to think it's true. It's for anyone who's unsure of their identity."
"I'm not unsure," I said, too loudly.
"There's nothing to lose."
"Stop it."
"I could go with you."
I whipped around to face him. "Are you listening?"
He stared at me. A wave wrapped its supple body around our calves, then ebbed away. I walked out of the water, picked up my shoes, and started back toward the cottage. He caught up with me.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm really sorry. Let's just forget this."
He put his arm around me, and I stiffened, but stopped walking. I could have hit and scratched and clawed him, but my body burned to lean against him so I did, against his subtle swells and hollows that still smelled of sex and in whose supple warmth I longed to lose myself.
"Let's walk some more," he said.
We traversed the boundary between dry and wet sand. The night sky vaulted above us, stung with stars, lulling me to forget my new dread of meeting Gabriel's mother, the fantasies of escaping the dinner she was preparing at which I now felt I would be less of an honored guest and more of a hunted animal, _that one, she's a fake_ , the conversation a field of pleasantries riddled with hidden traps. And other images rose into my mind, that I fought to push away, like the memory of my first brush with Las Abuelas, walking with my mother past an exhibit in a shop window. She sped our pace, but still I glimpsed children's drawings of shattered hearts and wailing mouths, and a banner reading IDENTITY IS A RIGHT, WE WANT THEM BACK WITH LIFE. _Those old bags_ , my mother said, _have nothing better to do than try to destroy other people's families_. Of course at that time her scorn and hurried gait did not make me suspect anything, why would it, when everything to do with the disappeared was subject to such treatment, this was no different and it meant nothing, did it, that look in my mother's eyes as she looked back at the shop window. The look that Lot's wife might have had just before salt replaced her flesh. Nothing, it meant nothing, damn Gabriel and his ideas, twisting everything, tangling the skeins of my mind when all I wanted was to enjoy a summer night on the beach. He held me gently as we walked; I wanted to tear his clothes off and shut him up with my mouth everywhere and then we could forget this, everything was fine, we were walking on a smooth shore, two lovers on a night walk, an ordinary idyll after all. Our feet moved in time. The ocean carried the moon in a thousand splinters. The rhythmic water soothed me, and I began to feel the first specks of calm.
Then he said, "I should tell you one more thing."
A wave rushed up around our toes and ebbed away.
"I called them for you."
"What? Who?"
"Las Abuelas. Perla, I worry about you."
"Did you tell them my name?"
"Look, Perla, if your parents are really your parents, then there's no ha—"
"Did you tell them my name?"
He hesitated, and I pulled away. He looked stunned, dazed. His voice was so quiet that it almost got lost in the waves.
"I did."
Down the shore, a pile of black seaweed glistened just beyond the reach of the waves. It probably turned green in the daylight, but now it was impenetrably dark, slick, something that the sea had coughed up from bowels where humans can't survive and shouldn't ever go, the inner organs of a monster, exposed on the sand. I felt far from my legs, they were not mine, they could buckle and betray me. I saw my family broken, police at our door, our house suddenly crowded with old women in white headscarves reaching for me and railing aloud and tearing apart the furniture but why would I think this if I did not have doubts Perla I thought Perla I shouted with my silent aching mind could it be that you have doubts?
I walked away.
"Perla—"
I kept walking. He followed, chased me, threw his arms out to stop me.
"Leave me alone."
"Please don't shout."
"Fuck you, Gabo."
"Look, if you don't want—"
"I don't want you! What I don't want is you, you fucking prick, not your babies or phone calls or arrogant fucking speeches!"
We stared at each other, both breathing hard. An older couple slowed to stare at us.
"We can fix this," he said.
I broke into a run.
I didn't know that I was running until I heard him call my name, once, and then a second time, already farther away. I ran to the cottage and picked up my purse and suitcase with whatever was still in it, left the rest behind and ran to the street, past homes where Uruguayans drank beer or _mate_ on their patios, looking comfortable and happy and incapable of understanding why on earth a young woman would rush down the street on a lovely night like this with her suitcase buckles only half-secured, back out to the main road where the bus from the capital had let us off. I stood at the drop-off spot, next to a family that was waiting for the bus, and I was grateful that they didn't try to talk to me. I stared down the bare two-lane highway, surrounded by low fields. Such calm, temperate land. Nothing to worry about, nothing to hide, the Uruguayan fields seemed to say. In that instant, I hated them for their serenity. I imagined Gabriel running up to find me here, grabbing my shoulders with both hands, _don't go, we can fix this_ , redolent of sex, my sex, trying to draw me to the cottage. And part of me even then longed for him to make it to my side before the bus arrived so he could persuade me back to the little beach house, back in time, to the sumptuous innocence of who we were when we arrived here just eight hours ago, and after we'd made the sun rise again with the sheer force of our pleasure he'd say _I'm sorry, you're right, it was all a big mistake_ , and we'd laugh at the absurd theories he and his mother had concocted, _she's a good woman, my mother, but she's watched_ The Official Story _one too many times_. Theories that the morning sun would dispel like phantom shadows. But the bus came and Gabriel did not and some returns are impossible. Through a scratched and dirty window pane I watched the dark hills pass and gradually turn into the outskirts of the city, of Montevideo, with its flat-roofed houses that told nothing of the dreams being dreamed inside their walls. A city I had seen only through moving windows. Three hours from Buenos Aires, right across the river, and yet a mystery. Somewhere in the city was the house where Gabriel had grown up, where he would arrive alone in a few days with who knew what excuse for my absence, _Sorry, Mamá, she ran away in the middle of the night_ , embarrassed and abandoned, his mother serving him more bread in quiet triumph, _Just as well, forget about her, you'll find a better girl_. I stared out at Montevideo and marveled at how little I knew of the world beyond my home, for all my dutiful studies of classroom history. Even as close as here, in Uruguay, in this capital across the water, songs surely lurked at every corner—ballads, arias, dirges, tangos, chants, laments—and rippled through the unknown streets. Uruguay also had its secret wounds and stains. I wondered how they haunted the city. I wondered how my skin might feel if I remained here, pretending I could trade one set of wounds for another. I would disembark from the bus and simply wander without stopping until I lost my sense of direction, my foothold, my memories, my name. A blank slate of a woman, roaming the Montevideo streets, she lost her shoes, she lost herself, have you seen her, the wild hair, the look on her face? Will she ever stumble on her lost self again? And if she does, will she wear it or deem it torn beyond repair? But I did not disembark. Instead, I caught the 6:56 a.m. ferry home across the Río de la Plata. Wan light stroked the water the whole way.
He is still with Gloria, has been with her for an eternity, a swath of liquid moments that spill over any boundaries of time, she has been laboring and laboring and now the guards have come with a bed on wheels and a blindfold and chains, _no please not chains_ but no one hears him, they tie her down and mask her eyes and roll her down a hall of gloomy doors that look the same and have no names or numbers to identify them or what lurks behind them, he follows them into an elevator that sinks down to the basement floor and down a hall into a bare room where two female nurses wait, the guards deposit their cargo and depart. Gloria is transfigured by the journey, she is naked and restrained and cannot see, the strong tongues of her hands cannot run across her body, and he cannot touch her either in the sour light of this room, he is pushed against the wall and cannot reach her, he is helpless to do anything but watch, Gloria is pinned and open, her belly huge as a pale whale, she is heaving like a beached whale, she sweats, her mouth is wrenched into a moan but he can't hear it and perhaps the moan is its own whale song, a sound that could travel for miles under the sea and be understood, recognized, an underwater music that speaks everything that never can be spoken and yet must be, must be, hurls out of her wideflung throat just as something else hurls out elsewhere, hurls slowly slowly through the tunnel of her flesh, her legs are spread wide open to the air and to the nurses who won't speak to her, they've been instructed not to do so, they know nothing about this woman exposed on the table except what they can guess, and they try not to guess, they are in a basement with no windows and it's dark and the first nurse would like some fresh air and a cigarette, the second nurse would like to bury her face in her man's chest and feel his hands rip off her dress and make her forget this place, this woman, stripped of name and clothes and sight but isn't she lucky she's allowed to scream although they cannot understand the sound as they aren't underwater, never have been, their touch is cool and professional, they don't remind her to push, they don't say _you can do this_ , push, Gloria, push, Gloria, you can do this look you're doing it, he forms the words he never had the chance to say but Gloria cannot hear them and she also does not need them, she is not just pushing, she is bursting, breaking, growling, swelling, crashing, he has never seen her face like this, she looks like she could tear the world to pieces, her sex is large and throbbing and it splits open like a fruit that cannot bear its own ripeness, it widens until he glimpses flesh inside that is not hers, smooth, hairy, glistening, just a tiny teardrop patch of flesh at first and then more as Gloria's sex opens even further, becoming larger, the second nurse wraps gloved fingers around the head as it slips out, there is a face, there are cries, he cannot hear them but he sees the tiny fishmouth pop open and the eyes crunch (and there she is, the girl, you won't recall this place or this moment or your very first cries but they are yours and perhaps this moment will stay with you as you grow up, forming a silent nest inside your body, in your chest or nape or hips or spine), and Gloria's face changes again, falls open in wonder, she arches back as far as the chains will let her and the little body abandons her like a moth flying from its broken chrysalis. The nurses examine the baby, hold her upside down and smack her buttocks as if to ensure that she is made of materials solid enough to withstand the pressures of this world. Gloria breathes with her whole body, and when the afterbirth has come and gone and the nurses sponge her down and dry her off and the baby's cries seem to have settled into whimpers, she tells them _thank you_ , the water is warm and the hands gentle but when she says _boy or girl? boy or girl?_ the nurses, well-trained and afraid, wheel her from the room without an answer.
On my way back from Gabriel's apartment, before returning to the house with its wet guest, I stopped at a neighborhood grocery store, where all the cans and cuts of meat stood in a fog. I could barely see the aisles because of what had happened to the air inside my mind, how unspeakably clear it had become. On the outside I was placing items in my basket like an ordinary woman in an ordinary world, but inside the world had cracked wide open and out swirled its stories in an unrelenting mesh of obvious truths, from genesis to denouement.
Once there was a boy whose name was Héctor. He was little and his father hit him and broke the jaw of the turtle that he loved, but he was a good boy who grew up to work hard and be proud of his pressed uniform and the strength he swore to use to serve his country. He would be the kind of man whose chest would glint with medals and whose presence stirred the perfect mix of awe and fear. He would hide his tender places and reserve them for his future child—only for her—to see. He married a girl called Luisa who had found her heart in the galleries of Madrid and then dashed it against a black and maroon canvas, leaving a sour cavity in its place, but who still mustered enough emotion to make vows to him in the most expensive wedding dress her family could find, a dress that should only portend great fruitfulness and multiplying of their goodness as the holy word had deemed for them at the very start of time.
They longed for a child, but no child came in the first years, a fact that brought surprise and a slim thread of gossip to their circles—and then the country changed and their dream came true, thanks to the intercession of God and to the natural order of things. They had a girl, or rather, they could not have her so they stole her from people whose existence was being erased as though they'd only lived in pencil. Surely, in their minds, it was not so much a stealing as a saving, an act of grace that followed an inevitable erasure and that, wrapped in silence, would itself disappear in the forgotten folds of time. The stolen girl or saved girl grew up without knowledge of the bitter glue that made her family, and she loved with her whole heart the man with the pressed uniform and wounded turtle, a man who sat beside her singing lullabies in the dark, smelling of scotch, and when he asked her in the dark _Do you love your dad?_ she said _Yes_ , and when he said _And will you always? no matter what?_ she said, again, _Yes, yes_ , and meant it with every cell of her body, even when, much later, she learned about the bodies he had treated like pencil strokes intruding on the canvas of the world, even then she said the _Yes_ that surely made her monstrous—a monster-girl, deformed by love—but that could not be helped, because this too, this loving of one's father, is the natural order of things.
And now the girl, in fact a woman but inside her skin the girl, still and always that same girl, walked down the street from the grocery store to the house that was not only haunted by a wet ghost of the past but had been haunted all her life by so many lies and shadows. And her feet carried her home or to the place she had been primed to always think of as her home, her feet braver than the rest of her, braver than the hands that gripped the grocery bags too tightly, the eyes that stung, the throat pulled shut by unseen string, the knees that melted as she fumbled with her key inside the lock and pushed open the door to find the smell of rotting apples and bright fish still present to surround her, and inside the house, the red pool that had held her as a small girl who bathed in lies, and there, inside the pool, the man or not-man whom she had longed to see all day and dreaded also and who, she now saw with her fresh and terrible lucidity, was beautiful. Beautiful. The drops along his skin resembled tears.
She arrives home at last, and stands in the center of the room without putting down her bags. She stares at him with an animal intensity. She stares at the water that surrounds him, high and deep and warm.
He thinks, It's over. She's tired of me. I'll apologize, I'll leave if I must, even though there's nowhere to go.
But then she comes to his side. Her eyes are wet.
Very quietly, she says, I know who you are.
# THREE
# 11
_Cradle_
And the room becomes a cradle of light, holding them close. The walls and furniture disappear into shadows beyond the small sphere that holds everything and anything that matters, just him and the girl.
A thousand questions swarm in him. He cannot form them all at once. How do you know?
For many reasons, she says. The fact that you came here, to this house of all the houses in the country. And things about my family. And your eyes.
He longs to see his eyes in a mirror, if only to search them for hints of her, the annunciation of her coming in the slope and hue.
Now I want to ask you everything.
Ask me.
I don't know where to start.
Anywhere.
What was her name?
Your mother?
She is silent.
Her name was Gloria.
What was she like?
His mind explodes with light, and he says, She was beautiful. Stubborn. Sometimes she laughed in her sleep. She talked too loud in restaurants, everybody looked.
The girl says nothing.
He tries to gather more memories for her, tries to gather words to translate memory into sound. The gathering is laborious. He says, She came from Azul. She moved to the city when she was thirteen. We met in a bookstore, in the middle of the night. She liked to take long walks and get lost on purpose, just to see what she would find around the next corner and the next.
How old was she?
About your age.
And she disappeared?
They took her. When they took me, they took her.
He stops telling. At the brink of his lips is the image of her tied to a chair, bruised, blindfolded, pregnant, before a dozen black boots pushed him down. But he doesn't want to tell the image. He leaves the vague words _took her_ in its place. It is an act of protection, a paltry replacement for the many years in which he could not fold his wings around the girl, but it is all he has. Instead, he says, You look like her.
I do?
You have her mouth, her hair.
Her hand rises to her lips, instinctively. And when she—when they took her. She was carrying me?
Yes. She was carrying you.
She stops, seems to gather herself to go on. When you arrived here. Did you already know?
No.
How long have you known?
Some days.
You got here anyway, though, without knowing.
Yes.
How can that be?
How can any of this be?
She moves to the sofa and lights a cigarette. They are quiet together. The air is unbearably full; it shimmers with a translucent weight that strains to spill out. He feels the physical distance between them as an ache throughout his skin, the little nest of their world stretched out too far, holding too much; but then, as if she too felt the pull, she comes back to the pool and sits close beside him. He is relieved. Smoke curls toward the ceiling, and she watches it with the focus of a hunter.
What are you thinking now? he asks.
I can't say it.
Why not?
Some things should not be said aloud.
No?
No.
All things can be spoken.
Bullshit.
It's true.
I'm afraid.
Say it anyway.
I was thinking about you. If you hadn't died. How it would have been for me. Who I would have been.
You would have been yourself.
But not the same self I am now.
What makes the self?
Experiences. Acculturation.
What else?
I don't know.
What's within you.
She says, I don't know what was within me and what got put there by my life as it was lived.
You can never know that.
No.
But there is a you that was there before you were born and that nobody shaped or changed or could have changed, not Gloria, not me, not the others.
How do you know that?
From the water.
What water?
The water I was in after I died.
She is silent.
Who would you like to have been?
I don't know, she says. Right now I can't even tell who I'll be in the morning. I feel completely naked, completely stripped of my own life. Like I've taken off the lies and there's nothing left. I don't know how else to explain it.
Her cigarette goes out; she lights another, and as she does, the small flame briefly illuminates her face. And he thinks, I would give anything, anything, ten years with my soft parts tied to their machines, to have stayed with you and watched you grow in place of the man you call your father.
Tell me about him.
Who?
Your other father.
She turns away.
He loves you?
Yes. I don't know. I don't know what that word means anymore.
He was good to you?
Yes. Overall. He has been a good father.
He moves his toes underwater, curls them shut.
He sang me to sleep. I was always clothed and fed. He wanted what was best for me, or what he thought was best.
It is not the whole story—he can feel in his bones that the portrait is incomplete, like a face cast half in light and half in shadow, and because of this, or perhaps because of something else, he longs to curse the man who could rightly be called a beast, an imposter, a prison warden disguised in father's clothing. He rallies all his strength into the task of reining himself in. He must not burst, he must not rage, and in any case he should be glad to hear that, in her early years, she experienced some doses of paternal tenderness, whatever their source. He must be gentle with the girl; he must control himself, be understanding. He must accept—must strain to accept—that she is not only discovering her parents on this night, but also losing them, or rather, losing the other parents who for years and years were the only ones she had. And no matter who they are or what they've done, they are her parents also. They raised her. Their fingerprints are indelible in her mind. He rails against this fact, in full knowledge that the fact will not be moved.
And you still love him.
Would you hate me for it?
Never.
How can you be sure?
I am sure.
Her voice turns to a whisper. Did you see him there?
Where?
In the place you were when you disappeared.
He glances at the wedding photo on the bookshelf, at the groom with the searching, restless gaze. No. I don't think so.
She looks relieved.
But most of the time my eyes were covered, I couldn't see.
Oh.
He was there?
I don't know. It might not have been the same place. She lowers her head, and hair curtains her face. You will. You'll hate me.
How could I ever?
Because of him.
But you're not him.
I'm his daughter—or I was. I thought I was.
His hands are not your hands.
But I was here.
You were a child.
I've defended him. I still defend him, she says, and pain throbs in her voice. I found out about his work and still said nothing.
It doesn't matter.
How could it not?
Because of who you really are.
And who is that? Who is that?
A memory juts into his mind, of the first time that he sensed her presence on this earth when she was still a scrap of flesh that had slipped into Gloria's body like the most carnal and tenacious miracle. He says, You are the glow.
What? What glow?
I'll try to tell you. Let me give you a memory, I will enter it and take you with me and tell it to you as it happens. It might take time. Will you listen?
She has been crying. She nods.
He shuts his eyes and dives into his mind.
He was terrified, not ready, but Gloria had room for nothing but delight. Six weeks, she said, the heart has formed two chambers, it is beating. A head has formed.
With eyes and ears?
No ears. Not yet. Just hollows where the aural passages will be.
Ah.
Stop looking so scared.
Who says I'm scared?
She laughed. I do. Come here.
He approached her and she put his hand to her belly, which felt the same as always, smooth and taut and warm, coaxing him down into the waist of her skirt.
Shhp, not now.
Why not?
I want you to feel my belly.
I feel it, it's sexy, you're sexy.
Not that. The baby.
Embryo.
She rolled her eyes. Just listen for it with your hand.
It's too early for that.
It's not. Just listen.
She was beautiful, he was distracted by the late afternoon light stroking her neck. This memory is vivid, rife with light, he can see the way it slants in through the tiny kitchen window, she sat at the kitchen table looking up at him with parted lips, he could never understand how a shy man like him had landed in the arms of such a woman. In a home with her, married, contemplating this phenomenon, _six weeks_. He obliged her, placed his hand on her belly, waited. He felt nothing, no motion, no change. He tried to listen with his hand: six weeks are you in there? can you feel me? will you know me when you finally come out? He imagined a tiny being with eyes and no ears, you can't hear, you can't see, or if you can there's only the dark inside of Gloria, your nose your mouth your hands are coming and Gloria and I will be your template, and we will wipe your caca, wake to your cries, will you ever let us sleep? And then he felt it. A delicate glow beneath his palm, as if the nerves inside his hands had suddenly gained a seventh sense. As if his nerves themselves had found a spark in which they recognized themselves, a light in Gloria's body that was not the normal lust or warmth he had felt in her before; and it could have been his own imagination, but he could swear that near the center of his palm, a few centimeters away, buried in his wife's flesh, there lay an essence that was linked to him and yet was not him, that was linked to Gloria but was not her, and that that essence glowed in a manner that had never in the history of the universe occurred anywhere else, but that belonged here, would be utterly itself, unique as a face or fingerprint but far more distilled, now, in its primeval state, unformed yet complete, beaming toward his hand, a pure unadulterated essence caught in a long slow gesture of growth.
Gloria was watching him closely.
Are we ready for this? he asked.
We will be.
How do you know?
I know.
The light had turned a deeper gold: in moments it would fall away to dusk. It fell across her shoulders like a shawl. He slid his hand down the waist of her skirt. Now can we?
She laughed. A brass bell in her laugh. We can, we can.
Her skin tasted of salt and summer heat. Her body on the kitchen table, legs wrapping around him, legs that could have crushed him as he slid into her body, which now evidenced new power, and this is a vivid memory, her body is damp and passionate, exuding fierce ecstatic joy at being entered, at breeding life, at being lit up from within by another being, at being whole and alive in a world that has not yet disappeared her from it, not yet revealed what is done to people in the unseen basements of the world. The sex ties them and unties them, binds the three of them into a burning knot and dissolves the boundaries between them, all at once. It is Gloria he is making love to but he can't help speaking also to the new one, the glow, the embryo, he pushes and pushes toward its nesting place and he is scared of disturbing it or revealing something children and babies should never see, he is scared that it is wrong to be together like this, the three of them rocking and whirling in a single bowl of heat, and yet an unknown instinct makes him do it anyway, makes him greet the new one, feel its presence, reach for its glow with the same part of his body that sent the seeds out hungry to create it, he reaches over and over, Gloria's thighs are warm and wide as gates but he will never arrive into her center so he greets it from a distance, forms the word _hello_ and sends it searing through his sex into the dark mysterious mazes inside Gloria.
That was just the beginning. Six weeks became seven and eight and ten and twenty, twenty-eight, each week a new revelation. Gloria's shape became a living testament to the miracle (and was it not, he thought, a miracle, for all that it had happened a trillion times in this world, and for all the carnal truths that caused this maculate conception?). He caught Gloria stroking her belly in the shower, and in the morning as she dressed, and at the stove as she stirred onions in the pan. She not only stroked, she also murmured, divulging secrets or promises to the one inside. Private trysts not even he could enter. Gloria abounded with names, what about this one, or, if not, perhaps this for a boy and that for a girl, how could a single word ever sing the full resonance of this baby's identity to the world? She was a changed woman, the sharp edges of her temperament rounded into a voluptuous, almost complacent capacity for pleasure. She basked in the attention of strangers, who approached her on the street or in the market and placed their hands on her belly, _oh how lovely_ , they rubbed her body without asking permission or so much as saying hello, _it's a girl, I can feel it_ , or _it must be a boy_ , and it enraged him that so many people had the nerve to touch his wife in public without even knowing her name. At first he tried to stop them, but Gloria intervened, _let them, it doesn't matter_ , and then he saw that she not only didn't mind: she beamed at their touch, shone like a lantern, did not experience the touch of strangers as an invasion but rather as a form of benediction, even worship, the world offering its awe and blessings with many hands. It was her turn to walk the road of the madonna, and she savored it, every bit of it, even the great miracles of swollen ankles and indigestion, which she complained about with all the thrall of revelation. It's just incredible, she would say, I can barely bend to put on my own shoes. She took unparalleled pleasure in being pregnant. See how she stood before the mirror, caressing her round belly when she thought no one was looking. She did this naked sometimes so her touch could reach closer to the child-to-come. See how she prowled the apartment at night, awakened by kicks, foraging for chocolate _alfajores_. See how she wept for no reason or for all the reasons of the world, gazing out the window at secret messages only she could read in the skies. And all that time, it was you in there, bulging her waist and slowing her steps and flushing her cheeks with euphoria. It was your glow that she borrowed on the exalted days, your flush on her face. You were perfect then as you are perfect now. And just as you were in her then she is now in you, in your eyes and ears and ankles, the soft beneath your fingernails, the blood racing through your veins toward the muscle of your heart. The shape of her, it held your shape and gave it a place to begin, and there, right there inside her, you became yourself, the Who of you that you still are and that will always have its roots in the pure Who of Gloria: while you live and while cells hold their twisting secrets in your body, you are never fully lost and she is not entirely gone.
He returns to the room, looks up at her. She has lit another cigarette, and faces the wall. He told too much at once. Her first night hearing about her mother, and he talks about sex. He is an idiot. He has lost touch with the etiquette of the living, the terrains that are not meant to be discussed and that fathers are certainly not supposed to share with their children; from where he sits he has forgotten to see lust as a hushed secret rather than a radiant life force. He thinks, I'm a fool, I've lost her now, she's going to close back up, but then she faces him again and there is naked emotion in her face.
Was it really like that?
All that and more.
She stares at him. What's your name?
I don't have one.
How can that be?
The waters took it.
What was your name before the water?
He strains his mind, but it is no use. I don't know. It's gone.
That's all right, she says gently. That's all right. She becomes quiet and they sit, together, in that room, in a long silence that is not like any other they have shared. It is an amniotic silence that holds them together more than it keeps them apart. He could hover in it with her forever. Time stretches. Time slows and speeds and does not _tic tac tic_ with any artificial calibrations; it melts; it pours. She is on the floor beside him, so close he smells her cigarettes and the sweet exhalations of her hair, and she is awake to him, she has unfurled herself, there are no veils left in her eyes. And this is more than just a night: it is a home carved into wasteland, a candle in black sky, salt on the tongue of the dying, defying the demands of oblivion.
He starts to hum. The sound rises from him without thinking. He has not sung since long before he died, and his voice is coarse at first, thick and wet at the back of his throat, but then it loosens and falls across the melody like a stream along stones. What is the song? It is old; he did not make it. His mother sang it to him as a boy and all the nights were crisp and safe and tinged with God, yes, now he knows, it is a lullaby. He hummed it into Gloria's belly in the darkness, under bedsheets, when the belly was wide and full and beckoned the admiring hands of strangers. In bed, at night, no one could touch Gloria but him, and he would touch and touch and sometimes hum and wonder, _Can you hear me?_ How he wanted to be heard. To be remembered more than all the others. To hum his way into the tiny heart of the almost-child.
He hums, and his daughter sits beside the red pool and listens. Her gaze is on the wall, on the painting of the ship, but her head cocks toward the sound. The melody meanders and does not break the good silence between them, but rather feeds it, strengthens it, pours fluid into fluid into fluid.
The sound of his voice surrounded me and I wanted to crawl into it, wrap myself in the lullaby, its great white cloth of sound. I wished I could live inside this night, not just now, but always, so that from this moment forward, no matter where I went or what I saw, this night would cover and surround me, be a filter for the rest of the world. I was enveloped. I was carried. I longed to be carried this way for the rest of my life. I longed to have been carried this way when I was small, by this man, his voice, his company. There was a woman I could have been if I had lived all my life within the reach of this man's voice, if this man had stayed in the world to hold me from the beginning. That woman would never exist. I could not be rewritten. And yet, in those moments, in the delicate warmth of that night, that woman seemed more real than me, more rightful than the Perla who inhabited my skin. I wanted to reach out to her, wherever she was, somewhere in the torn corners of the cosmos where our might-have-beens skulk through the twilight, and I wanted to touch her, understand her, at the very least look her in the eyes. This alternative self. This woman never broken at the root. This Perla from whose mouth I longed to hear the words LOVE and TRUTH and FAMILY, to know how she'd pronounce them, whether she'd cast them out in easy sparks or the long slow syllables of song. Because I, the false twin, the Perla who had been allowed to exist, no longer knew how to hold those words. I closed my eyes. My new father, my first father, sang on. The melody sank into me, gentle, phosphorescent. He longed for me, despite everything the world had done. I wanted to absorb his stories, make them mine. I wanted to believe that there were threads between us all—between me, him, and Gloria—that had shuddered but not broken, that could stretch under the surface of reality, part of a secret webbing that glistens in the realms beyond time. Those threads felt like the only things I had left in the world.
Dawn came. It came slowly, reluctantly, as if the sun itself hated to impinge on the sounds and silence of this night, but it still arrived, and found us sitting together in the living room, close and quiet and awake. In the pale light, I put out another cigarette and left it on the pile of crushed carcasses in the ashtray. Then I moved to empty water from the pool. Cup to bucket, cup to bucket. He hummed again as I poured water, this time an aimless, wandering tune. I stared at the bucket full of his water. I didn't want to pour it down the drains in the house anymore—not the bathtub, nor the shower, nor the sinks. I wanted to spill it in the sun. I took the bucket outside, to the yard, to the old oak that always spoke to me of childhood climbs, reading in the shade, dextrous ants I watched on long hot summer days, wondering, where are they all going? where are they from? what is happening in their minuscule ant minds? I poured the water at the base of the tree. It left black streaks in the dirt that would be gone by the middle of the morning. Some of the water might evaporate in the sun, but the rest of it would sink deep into the earth and offer itself to the tree's roots. And the roots, I thought, would surely consume every drop.
# 12
_Empty Hands, Clear Water_
H _ow_ , the book asked, _can a disappeared child form a true identity?_ I held the pages open in the morning light. The guest had finally closed his eyes; he had gone to sleep, or to whatever place he went to when he rested. I hadn't slept at all. I knew that I should, the night had been long and wakeful and my eyes burned with fatigue, but I could not do it. My mind was too crowded, as was this room, which palpitated with a thousand memories, thronging from the corridors of the past, demanding to be shaken open and seen anew. I saw my child-self eating ice cream from a crystal dish and also eating candy that had spent the day in Scilingo's trouser pocket while my father (could I still call him that?) and his friend Scilingo drank martinis and talked close by. I saw my mother (could I still call her that?) gently stroking the blooms of geraniums in those first days when they still received water and nurturance and were not yet left to die. I saw myself curled up with library books on the sofa beside Mamá while she read a magazine, our bodies close enough so that her delicate scent was in my lungs. I saw myself playing a card game with my father, _Don't let me win, Papá_ , and the way his eyebrows rose in exaggerated alarm, _Of course not, Perlita, that victory was all yours_ , and I also saw myself alone, the night Papá found out about my story in the newspaper and said _Oh yeah and who are you_ and left me standing still as a pillar beside the sofa, unable to sit, unable to make a sound.
Hordes of memories, too many of them. I could not stand to look at them, but I also could not sleep surrounded by their clamor, so instead I turned to the library book I had brought home the day before. A book for children of the disappeared, written by Las Abuelas of the Plaza de Mayo, decades into their search, addressing the grand-children they still longed to find. I looked over at the wet man, resting in his pool. His mother could be one of them. She could still be searching. I tried to picture her, a time-worn woman living just a handful of miles away, separated from her son (and granddaughter) by immense gulfs of reality, carrying the son's photo through the streets at marches, raised high above her head.
I leafed back to a photograph in the book of an Abuela with a white kerchief around her face and eyes like mournful wells. She gazed at me so intently that I could almost have believed that I was the still image and she the breathing presence. I wondered whether she might be the one.
But she was one of many. There were five hundred stolen infants, so it was believed, and only sixty so far had had their identities restored. _Restored_ , the book said; as if the identity I had before birth were simply waiting for me, a folded piece of clothing, ready to slip back into, a perfect fit. As though I could simply become the woman who would have blossomed with her true parents if the nation had not fallen prey to the Process. _Restored_ , like an old painting, the cracks and faded regions returned to their original state, to make it seem as though the intervening years had never occurred. I recoiled from the notion. I did not want to erase the person that I'd been all these years when I did not know where I came from. However false my identity might be, it was the only one I had. Without it I was nothing.
I wondered whether Las Abuelas, if I went to them, would want me to do this, to disown the person I had been. The thought made something ache below my rib cage.
I read on. These disappeared children, some were taken as babies, others while in their mothers' wombs. I looked at pictures of infants, from before they were lost, and I searched their wide primordial eyes for tales they could not tell. I did not want to read about the mothers, but I did it anyway. The book told me about things that were done to those women, pregnant women, in the same straits as the rest of the disappeared, enduring the same nightmares, except for the shackled hours of birth after which they might or might not see the baby before it disappeared from them, one disappearance inside of another, layers and layers of vanishing.
I closed my eyes. I did not want to think of my birth but the images arose and there were chains, blood, a dim medieval dungeon of a room although I knew that part was just my imagination. So many holes in memory and knowledge for imagination to fill. I had never really heard the false story of my birth, growing up, nor even seen pictures of Mamá pregnant. Oh, she'd said, I didn't want pictures taken of me, everything swelled up, you know, my calves, my face, forget about the waist. About the birth itself, she said only, The pain, you can't imagine, with a vague wave of her hand. Another lie, of course. It seemed that I would have to scour every memory of my childhood, that every centimeter was tainted with lies, that the cleaning and sorting would take the rest of my life. Even then there would always be holes, things I could never know, unless I filled the empty space with my imaginings. Like the imagined picture of a man in Navy uniform arriving home from work one day with a squirming bundle in his arms.
_Héctor, what's this?_
_Our baby_.
_How can that be?_
_I got a call in the office_.
_From the adoption agency?_
_From above them, direct from the government_.
_And the waiting list?_
_Don't ask too many questions, Luisa. Don't worry, she's ours. She was an orphan, no one to come for her_.
_A girl?_
_A girl. Her name is Perla_.
Perhaps it went that way, perhaps not. But this version seemed plausible. Above all, it seemed right that he would have been the one to choose my name. When I was a child, he always said _I'm the one who named you, Perla_ , with such emphasis that it now seemed like the only detail I could believe. I was his treasure, after all, wasn't that still true? A girl like gold to him. Stolen gold, I couldn't help but think. Which made me feel a bit like a spoil of war, an object claimed from battle, as warriors have done since ancient times. Gold, spears, slaves. Girls traded back and forth since the days of Troy. Girls raised to be loyal to their owners, so loyal you could remove the glimmering shackles and they'd stay, of course they'd stay, because after all the love circling their ankles was heavier than iron and in any case where could they go?
Stop it, I thought, these are ridiculous thoughts, you're not a slave, you're a grown woman, free to leave this house.
_So will you?_
The question curled open. It flared its enormous petals. I looked around at the bookshelf with its childhood photo and its bride and groom facing the future with closed mouths, the blue painting and still curtains and the patio beyond it that had once held too many flowerpots to count, the wet man resting in the pool whose humming lullabies had accompanied me all night, and I let all of it tear me open to see that I already knew the answer. I could not live here another day. I could not stay here in this haunted house where I would never form what the book called _a true identity_ , and though I might never be _restored_ —though I did not want to be _restored_ if it meant erasure—though I still didn't know exactly where I was going or who I wanted to become or what it would take to carve the road of becoming, I knew in that moment that I wanted nothing more than to rip apart the self I had worn like heavy clothing that suffocates you but that you cling to for fear of the cold. I needed to be cold. I needed to be stripped down, hungry, alive—and also close to what was not alive, this phantom, because that, too, I thought, is who I really am. I wanted to spend a thousand and one more nights with this wet man, because he was linked to me and I to him. I wanted to be close to him and close to Perla, the stripped version of myself, I wanted to look in the mirror in the morning and know whom I was greeting, be capable of stroking her glass face no matter what she'd done.
The sun was ripe and heavy in the room. I had spent most of the morning perched here with the book as my sole companion. The guest was still asleep but I had catapulted to a space beyond sleep. All I could think of was the phone, sitting still and ready in the study. What would happen if I called my parents in Punta del Este, what would come out of my mouth. Do it now, I thought, before sense returns and fear sets in. I went to the study, sat in the plush leather chair, and dialed.
He wakes to the sound of her steps, walking away, down the hall. Last night rushes back to him and he thinks, Let tonight be the same, and the next night and the next, a long chain of incandescent hours, what a glorious future, the girl and him, sharing a room, sharing a sphere, his humming and her hair, his water and her thoughts, together and together and together.
The room is bright with day. The sofa's aggression has been silenced forever. The melted clocks in their dry landscape do not tick. The swan still bends its head, but there is no sense of burden to the posture, only a bowing to the mysteries inside or around it. Now he loves them, clock and swan and sofa, the way a fish loves the coral reef and stone and current that make his water possible, without thought, without the slightest flicker of a fin, _yes, here we all are, intrinsic to the ocean_. He will stay in this communion as long as the fates allow, this room is everything and every thing is contained within this room, or will be when she comes and stays and he can drink the molten air of their shared presence, and this, he thinks, is the true curve of the world—now I glimpse it: all things are blended under the surface like the mass of us were blended in the water, it's the separateness of skin and rock and mind that is the great illusion. We are not discrete; we are not solid. People and things and even cities are meant to flow together, they are meant to connect, and this is why we're always full of longing, the way I long for the girl, and the girl longs for truth, and the truth longs for volume, and volume longs for people to hear it, and people long for—what?—for everything, air, home, violence, chaos, beauty, hope, flight, sight, each other. Always, whether to stroke or maim, each other, above all.
He glows with his new knowledge, wants to share it with her, waits for her return. But then he hears her voice from a room down the hall. She has left the door open. Is she talking to herself? No, she is on the phone. Her voice sounds tight; he has never heard her sound this way. He strains to listen. He strains to understand.
My father answered the phone on the third ring. "Hello?"
"Hi, it's me."
"Ah, Perla. Hello." His mood was amiable, relaxed. "We were about to leave for the beach."
"I was just calling to see how you were doing."
"We're doing great, terrific. The only problem is that we have to pack up so soon."
"Yes."
"And you? How are you?"
"Fine."
"Are you sure? You sound strange."
"Do I?"
"I said it, didn't I? What have you been up to?"
He sounded as though he was really asking, and before I could stop myself, before I could pull the veil back over my own voice, I said, "Thinking."
"Hm! About what?"
"A lot of things." I paused. My hands were shaking. "For example, what exactly you did. And whether you would do it again."
"Do what again?"
"The war. What happened at ESMA."
We were both shocked by my words and timbre. Silence.
"Why are you bringing that up now?"
"It's been on my mind."
He made no sound, and I thought the pause would never end; I was convinced that he had withdrawn from the topic, shut the window, drawn the drapes. But then he said, very softly, "Perla. For God's sake."
"For God's sake what?"
"Don't do this."
But even if I'd wanted to I couldn't have stopped the woman who had taken possession of my body and tongue. "Did you know their names?"
"Whose names?"
"The people under your charge. The"—disappeared, destroyed, disfigured—"subversives."
"Do you have to bring this up on my vacation?"
"Yes. I do."
"Why?"
"I've been wondering about my parents."
"Well, look, we never—"
"What did you do to my parents?"
He was silent again; it was a cavernous silence in which the question echoed, echoed, echoed. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I think you know, Papá."
"Look," he said, and now his voice was calm, carefully calibrated, a closely gauged voltage, "you've been talking to the wrong people."
"I want you to answer me."
"Somebody has confused you."
"I'm not confused."
"You are. It's better to talk about this in person. We'll be home tomorrow night, we can talk then and clear the whole thing up. All right?"
He would not answer. He would never answer. It was no use continuing, and also no use pretending that the bomb had not been launched. I imagined the woman who was playing the part of my mother, across the room from him, sitting stiffly in her bathing suit as she followed one side of the conversation. _Perla_ , I thought, _what have you done?_ "Fine."
"None of this is what you think it is."
My turn to go silent.
"Don't let anyone put ideas in your head. You can't be too careful these days, there are a lot of people out there spreading lies."
I laughed, then—I couldn't help it, the sound escaped before I had a chance to bite it down.
"What the hell is so funny?"
"Nothing."
"Perla." He sounded nervous now. "We'll chat when I get home, I promise. And then you can ask me anything you like."
Anything? Anything at all? _Papá, this is our houseguest, don't mind his dripping skin—have you met before?_
"Okay?"
I was silent.
"Perla?"
I almost hung up or shouted at him, my hand burned to slam the receiver and my throat burned with unsaid words, but I did not do either because I suddenly saw my future clearly, one in which there would be no chat when he got home, a future in which I held this phone call in a locked drawer of my heart labeled THE LAST TIME I HEARD HIS VOICE. And this made me feel both free and numb, an arm on the brink of amputation, saying a dazed good-bye to the body. For this reason, and this reason only, I stayed on the phone.
I said, "Okay."
"Be careful out there. Don't think too much." He paused, and I heard some shuffling. "Your mother sends a kiss."
"Okay."
"Well? Do you send one for us?"
He said it with a laugh, trying to ease the mood, but I could hear the strain in his tone, almost a begging. I thought of leaving him in that position, ending the call with his question suspended and unanswered—he had left my question in that same state, after all—and perhaps I should have, but I could not bring myself to do so. I was a coward. A coward, or just a daughter, after all. "Of course, Papá."
" _Hasta pronto_. I love you."
_"Adiós."_ I thought of saying _I love you_ back; the words hung silent in my mouth; but before my mouth could comply, I saw my hand reach for the telephone cradle and press down. I heard a click as the line went dead.
I put the receiver down. The wood-paneled walls seemed to respire around me. _Now you've done it_ , they breathed, _you can't turn back, the cutting has begun_. Even though my father was across the water in Uruguay, I was convinced that he would burst through the door at any moment and rush up to me, his hands landing on mine with warm authority, _Perla, what's all this crap, you're not going anywhere_. And then he would find a way to make me stay. But of course he didn't break through the door, I remained alone, and I wish I could tell you that I was glad he didn't come, that I sat there victorious and elated with no trace of longing for his presence. That's the story I would like to tell, but it would be a lie. I stared at the door for a long time. The walls bristled and pulsed around me. I felt sick. I felt gutted. I wanted to put my head down on the man called Héctor's desk and sleep for days, weeks, the rest of my life. But they were coming home the following night; I couldn't sleep yet, I had to act.
I picked up the phone receiver and dialed another number.
"Hello?"
"Gabriel."
"Perla." He sounded relieved and wary at the same time.
"How are you?"
"Fine," he said curtly.
"I miss you."
He was silent.
"I mean it."
"Fine. Whatever."
"Look, I know I've been horrible to you, I don't even deserve to ask this and if I were you I don't think I'd say yes, but I need your help."
He was quiet for a moment, in which I tried not to fidget.
"With what?"
"I need to leave this house."
"You want to go out somewhere?"
"I mean leave for good."
He was quiet again, and this time I sat utterly still. I felt a kind of preternatural ease now that the words were out.
"Are you okay?"
"I am. I think so. Maybe more than ever." Perla, I thought to myself, make some sense. No, to hell with that, it's much too late for sense. "You were right."
"About what?"
"About my parents."
"Oh." His voice became infinitely gentle. "Perla."
"What you said on the beach. You were right."
"How do you know?"
"It's hard to explain."
"Try me."
"I will. But I want to do it in person." Better, I thought, to show him the ghost than to try to describe the last few days. How could any of it ever be put into words?
"You're brave, you know."
"Me?"
"What you're going through. I can't even imagine."
I closed my eyes. "I'm not brave. I haven't gone through a thing, haven't lived a single instant that could be called authentic life."
"If it wasn't life, then what was it?"
"I don't know. I feel like I'm disappearing."
"Maybe it's the opposite."
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe you're finally appearing."
I looked past the bookshelves to the window, with its shred of visible sky. "Out of nothing? And with nothing?"
"With your true self."
"I don't have a true self."
"Of course you do."
"It's all been false."
"What about us? Was that false?"
"No. No."
Silence hung between us; I could almost hear him thinking. "Have you talked to your parents? I mean the—"
"—I know which ones you mean. They're not here. They're on vacation, they come back tomorrow night."
"So you want to leave before then."
"Right."
"Do you need a place to stay?"
"If I could. For a little while. Until I find my own place."
"How will you manage that?"
"I'll find a job. I'll drop out of school."
"You can't drop out."
"Of course I can."
"You don't have to, Perla. You can stay with me."
Gratitude rushed through me, mixed with relief. But then I tried to imagine our lives together—him, me, and the guest—with that ridiculous pool installed forever in his living room. It was too much. "Thank you, Gabo. Really. But you don't know what you'd be getting into. There's something I haven't told you yet."
The line between us seemed to prickle.
"It's not what you think."
"I don't know what to think. I don't know what you're saying."
"And I don't know how to say it. It can't be said, I have to show you. Can you come over?"
"When?"
"Tonight, if you can."
"How about nine o'clock?"
"Okay, nine o'clock. Could you drive? So I can take some things in your car."
"Sure."
"Thank you. I love you."
"No kidding?"
"No kidding."
"Say it again."
I laughed. "I love you."
"Well then." He sounded lighter. "See you soon."
We hung up. I sat back in my father's leather chair, the chair of the man I had always called my father. I tried to imagine Gabriel's face on meeting the guest, his shock or disgust or fascination. I hoped he would not run away, and would agree to help me move the man to the backseat of his car. We'll have to wrap him in a blanket, I thought, and perhaps a plastic tarp. I should take the red pool. I should take some of my clothes, books, childhood photos. Not everything, of course, just the things I can't live without. Which may be no things at all. It may be that there's nothing in this house that I can't live without, that I could walk out with empty hands and survive. And then the exhaustion I had evaded all these hours swept its plush black hood over me, and I gave myself to sleep. I dreamed of ants, millions of them, scaling the oak in the yard, climbing and climbing toward the sky.
The light is fading. The corners lose their sun. There is so much he could shout into the gathering darkness. The turtle enters on slow legs and stands in the center of the room and it is good to see him. _Clack_ , his hard jaws say to the shadows. _Clack_.
Hours have passed since the two phone calls, and she is still in the other room, completely silent. She must have fallen asleep. Let her rest, he thinks. And let her go. He cannot steal her life. He does not want to be a burden. How moving that she planned to take him. She is a kind girl—and courageous, too, the way she talked to the man who had been her father. But no, he cannot live with whoever she called next, whoever is coming tonight with a car and prying eyes. A certain Gabo. Whom she loves, she says, and he hopes this Gabo loves her back and will be good to her, treat her like the miracle she is. In any case, she has a place to go _and you have to let her go_. He looks around the room now and he loves it, loves the painting of the ship made with the same strokes as the sea, the curtains where he has seen shards of Gloria's body, the walls that have sung with blinding light, the sofa with whom he warred, the porcelain swan that longs to spread its hard white wings and tell its secrets in a slash of flight. Where else will he go? He has no idea. He will follow the pull. He closes his eyes and searches, dives, reels until he finds himself in the chamber with electric devices and trained men, he sees it clearly around him but it is different now, this is not his own memory, he is not the one tied to the mattress, it is an older hairy man who lies there writhing, he can see the man at the machine and the guard at the door and the doctor with his clipboard: the man at the machine is as calm as a captain at the helm of his ship, upright, broad-shouldered, prepared to steer through any waves that come; the guard is young and clean-shaven and earnest, he is doing his part to save his nation, he does not watch; the doctor makes notes on his clipboard as the man at the machine turns a dial and the small hairy naked man thrashes against his restraints, the doctor watching keenly, a man of science, he rubs his nose and nods to himself. He watches the four men from the ceiling. A dance, a strained choreography, four men in a bare room. He is lighter than air, floating, he can float out into the hallway and he must, something pulls him out into the hall and down it and he goes because _she is not far and I must find her_ , past the shut doors of cells with covered peepholes, one after the other, he is not so much searching for something as moving toward it the way a shard of iron moves toward a magnet. The pull grows stronger as he travels up a flight of stairs and down a hall past a room where guards play _truco_ , a card game, and watch television (and they seem bored, their eyes are glazed, they laugh but do not look at each other), down another hall to another room where he finds her. She lies shaking. She is curled up like a fetus, her belly is smaller now but not yet down to normal size. She is blindfolded and unrestrained, bleeding down her legs, the guards have just had a round with her, they have used her like a dog but you are not a dog, my Gloria, _tesoro, mi vida_ , I am here with you and I will stretch the nothingness I'm made of and cover you like a blanket, can you feel me across the boundaries of space and death and time? Do you feel warmer, Gloria? I would like to swaddle you, enfold you with myself, the soft of my consciousness a layer to blunt the edge of any fall. He unfurls the swath of his naked mind and strokes her with it. It is her skin, the same skin he has touched on many sweaty nights and languid mornings, supple and a joy to touch, like the joy of coming home after a long journey. _You. Come home_. Her breathing softens, her thin fingers move in the air as if playing a very quiet song on a piano, sensing for wayward keys. She tilts her head back, and her lips part. Yes, Gloria, I'm here, I'm here. She feels him, she must feel him, he believes it with his whole translucent being, he feels her body relax beneath his intangible caress. They lie together for an infinite instant or a brief eternity. When the guards come in to cuff and take her, he drapes himself around her shoulders like an unseen weightless shawl and stays wrapped around her in the Army truck that rumbles through the night, toward the outskirts of the city, carrying its cargo of dazed blindfolded people pressed close together in the dark, naked people merging with each other and straining to breathe air thick with the smell of unwashed bodies. They cannot see where they are going but some of them must know, they hang their heads as if in sleep or prayer. Gloria sways with the motion of the truck. He sways with her, the human shawl, he knows this journey, recalls the truck that led to the airplane and he tries to stroke her body with the limp invisible cloth of his mind. Once, Gloria, we drove through the pampas and your profile was so beautiful against the wheat fields passing by, such long flat land, how I loved you then, how I love you now, remember the wheat fields, Gloria. The truck stops and the guards unload their cargo on a dirt field beside a barracks, command the people to line up in the beam of the headlights, though the people cannot see and so the guards arrange them with their own hands, the air is cool and fresh and he can feel Gloria take deep breaths of it, her first night air in months, dark and sweet with the breath of leaves and rocks and the lingering taste of the sun, and she has just inhaled deeply when the shots begin and the air stays coiled inside her, she never lets it go. The guards roll the crumpled bodies into the ditch nearby, already prepared, large enough to take the whole pile at once, a mouth in the earth that swallows them all. She is gone now, lost under one female body and one male and the spray of falling dirt, and he unwraps from the shell that does not hold her anymore and rises, rises, out of the mass grave and high over the land so that the guards and truck and disturbed slash of earth become small below him, now he knows, he has seen, he knows that it was earth that took her (not sea, not fire) and with this knowledge slashing through him he can surely find her, Gloria, the glint of you must be somewhere, burrowing through mountains, trapped in the bedrock, curled into tree roots, riding a river, roaming the blue vaults of the sky, I will rove and rove for you, and when I find you I will have so much to show and give and pour, we will be together soon, none of this is finished, we are not finished, it's a girl, it's a girl, her name is Perla, her hair is rich like yours and her mouth is yours God help her, I have spent moments with her that are safely folded in my memory, the moments live and live and cannot be undone, they are more powerful than bullets or planes and see, see, I carry them toward you, wherever you are. He is higher now, beyond the trees, so high he sees the city to the east, Buenos Aires, glimmering with the lights of the living on an ordinary night, these things all happened on an ordinary night, the river glimmers black and long beyond it and even though he doesn't know what he's becoming he is not afraid, he is ready to change, ready to search, ready to rise.
The room was almost dark when I woke up, surprised to find my face against a desk. I felt groggy, disoriented. I had meant to pack some things before Gabriel arrived, but now he'd be coming any moment. And something wasn't right in the house, though I didn't know what. It was a feeling, a buzzing sound, or perhaps an absence of sound. I wondered how my guest was doing. I had to see him.
But when I entered the living room he was not there. The pool overflowed with water that had spilled over the edges to the hardwood floor, but there was no one in it.
_No_ , I thought, _No_ and _No_.
I tore back the curtains, ran to the kitchen, searched the hall closet, opened the sliding doors to the backyard and looked and looked around the rosebushes, the silent oak, the dark and unrevealing sky. He was gone. I had no name to call for him, no syllables to send into the heavens. But I knew him, I thought, he was mine and I was his. Every cell of my body screamed for his return, but he did not come. The loss of him crashed over me, surging in a tidal wave of losses. Too many losses to measure. Too many to contain. The yard stood utterly silent, the house leered at my back, even the skies were empty, unresponsive, thick and dark where are the stars? where is my father? where am I? And at that point I seemed to watch myself, as if I were not the woman standing in the yard but a pure field of sight, watching the woman as she turned and went inside, where she stared at the pool for a minute, then took her clothes off and stepped in. The water rose and spilled around her, onto the floor, snaking out toward the walls. She crouched there, naked, for a long time. She thought of everything and nothing. She wept. She looked at her empty hands through the clear water. And then, in a sudden act of alchemy, she became herself, nothing less and nothing more. I felt the warm water embrace my limbs, murmuring of times long gone and times that still awaited. I looked around the room. I could not let it stay like this, false and immaculate. I rose out of the pool and let my hands take over, they knew just what they wanted to do, they took charge and grasped the bucket, filled it at the pool, aimed, and cast water against the wall. I plunged the bucket again and a great wave collided against the leather sofa and ruined it for good. I kept going, soaking another wall, where the Dalí print dripped and puckered, its dry landscape deluged with sudden rain to twist the clocks into new shapes; the wall wept streams of tears; I threw more water and the painting of the ship glistened with fresh moisture and I heard a sound now, a woman groaning with her own voice, not caring anymore about the proper use of voices or the proper place for wetness, let the waters rise and drown the house and draw its entire structure out to sea. Now the bucket heaved again and waters—memory-water, almost unbearably clear—splashed along the bookcase, soaked into the books, toppled the wedding photograph of one man and one woman who smiled with their mouths closed, and I wanted their mouths to open and swallow the sea that enveloped their house, I wanted the whole house to pour and swim and sway under these waters, and the hands flew the bucket to the kitchen, to the study, flooded the leather chair and desk and rug and books whose pages would forever curl from the force of this deluge, and from the front hall came a ringing bell and then a thudding sound, over and over, what the hell could it be, back in the living room the floor was wet and all was wet and I was wet and naked and still throwing water when the thudding sound came back coupled by a muffled voice from outside, calling, _Perla? Perla?_
I went to open the door. Gabriel made a strange sound when he saw me.
"Come in."
"What—"
"Quickly."
He came in, and I closed the door and returned to the living room. He followed me and stood, uncertain, gaping at the drenched room. I felt as though I'd just risen from a trance. I tried to imagine how the place looked through his eyes, and searched for words to account for the state of things, the source of the pungent water, my days with a guest who had appeared and just as suddenly disappeared. But nothing came. In the meantime, Gabriel seemed to recover himself.
"So this is your house."
"It's not my house."
"Oh. Right."
"It's their house. Héctor and Luisa's house."
"I understand."
He was studying me now. I felt my nakedness. I thought of inviting him to sit but there was no dry surface to offer, so I just stood and let him look at me. In that moment, I realized that no matter what words I chose and no matter how much time I spent in telling, I would never be able to express my full experience. If I tried, he might choose to believe me—or pretend to believe me, for my sake, kind as he was—or he might discount the stranger parts of my story and try to rationalize them away. But it didn't matter. No matter what he really thought, no matter what I did or did not say, what had happened in this room—everything I'd seen and felt and come to understand—was impossible to convey to him, or to anyone. There are some experiences that only you can enter, that only you can truly hold. They are too vast to be imparted. You cannot even hold them wholly in your arms: they spill over into the dark beyond you, brimming, shooting out in ropes of light that make you ache with loneliness and yet yoke you to the world at the same time, because the vast things that have happened to you, however terrible, were always born out of the world, and so perhaps they offer you a place even as they push you out of another, even as they weigh you down with a self that can never fully be conveyed. Though most of us will try. We make bonds, we grow trust, we tell stories; we strive to articulate what it took to become who we are. Sometimes, if we're very fortunate, our listeners catch authentic glimpses of what we mean to say, like sparks in a dark room, but never the whole of it at once, not even with the best of friends or closest lover, because the whole of it at once is beyond speaking. It lives nowhere, absolutely nowhere, except inside your skin. That's where it flares, enormous, hazardous, utterly yours.
Finally, Gabriel stepped toward me. I owed him some kind, any kind, of explanation, and I opened my mouth to try.
But then he said, "So this is what you wanted to show me."
The room, I realized. He meant the state of the room. "It wasn't this."
"No?"
"It was more than this. What came before it."
He stepped closer, and took my wet hand in his. "Perla," he said. "It's all right. You thought this would scare me away, but it doesn't. I can see why you did it."
"You can?"
"Of course. With everything you've been through."
"But there's more, Gabriel. A lot happened these last few days."
"I can imagine." He stepped closer and embraced me. His hands on my back, they could surely hold up anything, a crumbling tower, a wounded tree. "We'll go home and you can tell me all about it."
"But I can't show you anymore."
"Why not?"
"Because he's gone."
"Who's gone?"
"My father's gone."
Softly, he asked, "Which one do you mean?"
"Both of them. They're both gone." I was weeping now. "Everybody's gone."
"I'm not gone," he murmured into my hair. "And neither are you."
I didn't fight the tears.
He was right. I wasn't.
# 13
_Homecoming_
The man and his wife arrived home late at night after a ferry ride from Uruguay, during which he stared out the window at the water spreading long and black in all directions, the water of the sea and then, gradually, though no one could say precisely where the shift occurred, the water of the river, still black and long and spread out like the mantle of a king in mourning.
His wife did not speak to him on the ferry or in the taxi ride that followed. Hours before, he had begged her to let him speak to their daughter first alone, _Give me a chance first_ , but she had only said, _She already knows, there's no undoing that_ , to which he had responded by slamming the suitcase shut on their vacation bed. On the ferry and also in the silent taxi he formed the words he would say to his daughter, carefully sculpted sentences he would not have the chance to speak because, when he arrived home and opened the door, he was met with a bizarre smell that made him afraid for his daughter, for what had happened in the house while he was gone. Though perhaps, he thought, she herself had caused the smell by leaving something (what on earth?) to decay and spread its stink inside their house, she should know better, he called her name in a stern voice as he turned on the light.
The devastated room reared up at him. Sofa, walls, books, all things soaked and destroyed. He looked and looked around him, called his daughter's name and looked in his study, the kitchen, the hall, came back into the living room where his wife stood still as a pillar. Then he saw the painting, the one created by his lost sister, of a ship at sea, the wall around it stained with streaks of water. The painting alone had withstood harm, its blue oils still miraculously in place. The ship rose from the waves with an unconquerable strength that struck him as almost violent.
I could kill her, he said.
His wife answered, You won't have the chance.
What is that supposed to mean?
She's gone.
I'll find her.
She'd still be gone.
No, I'll hold her down and—
Héctor, she's lost to us. It's over.
He was shocked by the cold edge in her voice, and the way she did not turn to look at him while speaking. No, he said. No. He ran up the stairs in search of his daughter, calling her name in sharp barks at first, and then in long protracted cries, her name, her name, the one he gave her when she was a little precious thing he salvaged from the depths of hell, that's how I chose your name, because of the way I dove for you, _hija_ , that's how we started, how you became mine, you were not in the world until I brought you here because that nether place where you were born cannot be called part of the world and I was the one who fished you out of there, it was me, and no one else. As he reaches the upstairs landing, he recalls the very first time he saw her, the way she stared at him, and how he thought _a fish, she has the eyes of a fish_. She was four days old and, though in the coming days and nights there would be countless tears, at that moment she was not crying. She had just woken from a nap in a wooden drawer in a dim room. He had approached her quietly, thinking she was still asleep, but when he reached her side she turned and fixed her gaze on him, a black-eyed gaze that did not blink and seemed to have no bottom. Her gaze made the room—made the whole accursed building—disappear. Were all newborns like this? He did not know. He had no experience with babies. He had never heard of such a thing, of a person falling into a newborn's eyes the way a stone falls to the depths of the sea. With eyes like that no one would ever say she looked like Luisa, he thought, but no matter, she is still right for us, she is the one. He wondered, that first day, whether her eyes would lose that strange power over the years but they did not. You don't know that story, do you, _hija_? Of course you don't, there are so many things you don't know, so many things you can't begin to understand, now where are you, where are you, not in the bathroom, not in the hall, your room is in turmoil but you are not in it, the master bedroom is empty and the walls in here are screaming with the lack of you, and his joints loosened as if the glue of him had suddenly dissolved, bringing him slowly to his knees. His wife came up behind him and placed her smooth hands on his two shoulders, whispering, Let her go.
We'll get her back.
It's too late.
No.
She's not our daughter anymore.
How can you say that? he asked, although he knew this woman well enough that he felt no surprise. His wife's heart was a maze, things could fall into it and get lost without a trace, never to be seen or spoken of again. It was not a closed heart, exactly, but a complex one, full of darkened convolutions that were better left unprobed. And in any case, there was plenty to incriminate the girl; the water in the fine Italian sofa could never be expunged. He, for one, did not care about the sofa or the walls or the books, although he could not stand the thought that anyone would try to damage the painting, Mónica's painting, the last vestige of his sister, _hija_ , how could you, if only you'd known Mónica who was a goodgirl once for all her delusions and mistakes, the one who brought me soup during my fevers, who taught me how to skate and catch beetles and steal the cookies in a manner where no one would find out. She was a lot like you, her face was similar to yours, if you'd stood side by side the whole world would have believed, without the shadow of a doubt, that you were related.
He said, No. I can't let her go.
She said, You have no choice. If you saw her now, what would you say?
He tried to form the conversation in his mind, the one he'd have with his girl, his daughter. He would rage at her, he would try to explain, she would melt and come back to him. Or she would resist until he became stern and his words broke her. Or he would be stern and try to break her but she would not let him, the girl capable of that downstairs room might keep on looking at him steadily with eyes that did not bend and then—and then—he could not complete the thought because dark water flooded his imaginings the way it had come to flood his house, and he was suddenly awash with memories, the ones of which he never spoke, they rose against his will and drenched his mind with sights and smells and sounds he had to push back and push back with all the force of a drowning man and then he realized, to his horror, that to keep those memories pushed back he had to let his daughter go. Only then did he see what he had lost, and it was radiant, like the sun. Like the sun, it blinded.
# 14
_You_
The day after my escape, I went to Las Abuelas' office, a warm, cluttered space in downtown Buenos Aires. I was welcomed by Marta, a kind woman with a yellow cardigan and sad eyes. She listened to me for longer than I expected to talk. She asked questions, but did not press for answers when I could not bear to give them. She filled out a form for me and arranged for the drawing of my blood. It would take a few months, she said, to decode the DNA. Did I want to look at the book of disappeared parents? I shook my head. I did not want to look. I had done as much as I could do on one evening. I left the office and took the elevator and once outside in the warm March air I thought, _Now what?_
I didn't know.
The city was so full, I was so empty.
For the next nine hours I walked and walked the streets, searching without knowing what I was looking for, staring at doors and faces and gutters with the slow intensity of an exile, though whether I was returning to my homeland or newly cast adrift in an unknown place, I could not say. Night fell and the streetlights came on. I lost my way. After five hours, my feet throbbed with pain. I thought of a fairy tale I'd read long ago, about a mermaid who longed to live on land. A witch transformed her tail into human legs, but condemned her feet to agony—every step would feel as though she were traversing shattered glass—so she would never forget her foreignness, never forget her liquid home. But I'm not a mermaid, I thought, I have no home. I walked on, block after block, on boulevards and through alleys, and my legs propelled me forward with surprising force despite the throbbing feet, and who knows, perhaps my legs were in fact bewitched. After all the madness I had seen, why not believe in this strange story? New legs for a new life. Fresh limbs for a broken girl. No, I thought, a broken _woman_ —and this made me laugh aloud, not caring about the people glancing at me from a sidewalk café with eyes that said _that one's gone mad_. I walked right past them and continued on, across the street, around the corner, lost in the unceasing maze of Buenos Aires.
In the weeks that followed, I did very little. I spent long hours on Gabriel's balcony (it's _our_ balcony, he would say), where I studied or pretended to study while the sun fell copiously on textbook pages. I sat alone in the apartment with Lolo, who had accompanied me as a stowaway in my purse, and stared at him as he stared at the wall. I cooked dinner with Gabriel, grateful for his chatter as well as for jazz albums that filled the silences so I did not have to. On some nights, we made love; on others he held me in his arms and demanded nothing from me, not even an explanation for my tears. I could not have explained them, not even to myself.
At school, I was able to catch up and retain my academic standing, largely thanks to Marisol, who provided me with class notes, study sessions, and, above all, the listening ear of true friendship. When you change, some friends don't follow you where you're going, and they fall away, whether abruptly or over time. This happened with most of my friends, but not with Marisol. In fact, we became closer than ever.
"I like this new Perla," she said to me one day.
"She's more fragile than the old one," I said.
"No, she's not. She just knows what she's made of."
In the mornings, I often lay in bed for a long time before opening my eyes. It was strange to awaken in the heart of the city rather than at its margins, the throaty songs of car engines already in my ears, along with passing radios, raised voices, the inconsequential dramas of everyday urban life. At first it bothered me to have my mind infused with the city like that, with no respite, but soon I grew addicted and could not imagine waking any other way.
I thought often of the man who had been my guest. The time I'd spent with him seemed like the most real time of my life, more vivid than the years before it. I felt his absence keenly, but there were also times when I could have sworn I sensed his presence. I smelled him in the thick weight of a hot day, a sudden whiff of fish and copper that could not be traced to the open window or the kitchen. Or I'd hear a splash when no water lurked nearby. Or a wisp of lullaby hummed toward me in the depths of the night. And then I'd want to reach for him, to run for him, but it was impossible to know which way to run—whether I could find him to the left or right, forward or back—so instead I'd light a cigarette and send the smoke into the sky like a furled message. I wished that I could follow him wherever he'd gone.
In those first days, even dying seemed a fine price to pay. After all, we'd had only one night on which all barriers were removed. There were so many conversations left for us to have, blank lifetimes to fill, spaces we had never shared that begged for us to come to them, to hurl ourselves into them, as if the stolen past were a great blank canvas still waiting for us to give it color.
But I could not die; there was no guarantee that death would help me find him, and in any case, when I imagined it, our nebulous reunion in a floating sphere of light, I could not see him welcoming me with open arms. Instead I saw him pushing me away, _You can't come in_ , and I'd say But I came all this way to find you, and he'd close the sphere, _You're the one who's supposed to live_ , and I could hear myself ask, Why, and could even hear his only possible answer, _Because you can_.
All this I saw in the perfect blackness of the ceiling as I lay awake beside Gabriel. On those long nights I felt the world sprawl out around me in all directions, huge, uncharted, and I was a tiny boat whose anchor had ripped away. How I faltered. How I spun with pain. How I feared that I might capsize at any moment. I have nothing, I told the blackness around me, but no, I thought, that's not true, make a list and hold it close: I have my body, my mind, my truth, my words. I have this bed with a warm man inside it, a turtle with a broken jaw, a stack of textbooks waiting on the balcony. And I have time. I have many years of time, if fate allows, and I have to find a way to live those years. I have to live. Not only that—I want to live. I found that wanting in myself and gripped it with both hands.
On good nights, in the blackness, I thought I saw the dance of tiny spirals, the twists of DNA, keepers of the most hallowed secrets. They magnified and whipped their tails and meandered through the dark.
Of course, I thought constantly about my other parents. The ones who raised me, who didn't have Gabriel's address but surely had other means to track me down. As far as I knew, they did not do so. I kept half-expecting my father to appear in the middle of the night, knocking and demanding I come home. I'd lie in bed and see him and Luisa burst through the door and run toward me through the dark, arms waving and outstretched to either slap me or pull me back to their house, or maybe both. Before arriving at my bed, they always dissolved into the blackness. I tried not to think about them. I failed. I often wondered how their homecoming had gone. I imagined the scene many times, watched their faces undergo endless variations as they discovered the deluge in their home. If the midnight raid was slightly far-fetched, it did seem plausible that they might hunt me down at the university if they wanted to find me, since it was a public building, perfectly easy to find, and nothing could stop them from invading its halls if they chose to.
But they didn't do it. This fact both filled me with victory and gutted me with grief. I wondered whether they ever would—specifically, whether Héctor might ever appear in the corridor outside one of my classes and accost me in front of all my peers. I could not tell whether this was my worst nightmare or my secret, feared desire. I held my breath every time I exited a lecture, and did not exhale until I'd made it outside without incident. He haunted those halls, a dim translucent figure, stalking me with his absence. At times I saw a person from afar on the street and thought it was Héctor or Luisa, and my body would go tight with heat until the stranger came closer and broke the spell. It was not them. It was never them. I was glad about this, and said so very clearly, in my own mind and to Gabriel.
"I never want to speak to them again."
I thought that he would smile with reassurance and approval, but instead he studied me. "Really?"
"Really."
"Not even once?"
"Why would I?"
He shrugged. "To answer your questions. They owe you that."
It was hard to imagine this, at first. They were gone from my life and I wanted them gone. I did not want to hear their insufficient explanations, their voices, even the sound of their steps coming my way. But as I lay in blackness, in the deep recesses of night, unable to quiet the clamor of my mind, I glimpsed a distant future in which I might have the brazen strength to open contact. It would be many years later, if it ever happened, and even when it did the reunion could not take place at their house (which I always imagined perpetually soaked and destroyed, like a shipwreck). It would have to occur in the city. I imagined myself, older, a woman who had gathered confidence over the years in some mysterious harvest I could not yet fathom, walking into a café to find the man called Héctor waiting for her at a small round table. The confident woman would insist on paying for the coffee and croissants, and would look the man directly in the face even when he looked away. All her questions would be gathered carefully in her hands like a fan of playing cards that could easily rattle into chaos as soon as they began to talk, as soon as she said _If I ask you questions, will you answer?_ and he nodded and obliged and exposed the stark terrain between them. Then the confident woman would have to find a way to take the urgent holes of understanding she was carrying and find a way to wrestle them into words, into pedestrian phrases such as _why did you_ or _why didn't you_ or _what have you been dreaming in your bed all these years_ , questions that would flatten the enormity of what she was trying to bring to him cradled with both hands, but it's the best that we can do, isn't it? Words are incomplete and yet we need them. They are the cups that give our memories shape, and keep them from trickling away. And so she'd listen to the things he'd say. And she would take them in and drink her coffee and stash his answers somewhere in her sturdy mind where they could not hurt her, and where they would never be lost.
With luck, he would also listen to her, and then she would voice her own story, which, if she could be sufficiently brave and lucid, would contain him, contain the bustling café, perhaps contain the whole of Argentina.
Five weeks after my escape, I went to Montevideo with Gabriel, to visit his family. Their house was cluttered and warm, with photographs in every corner.
A sepia picture hung in the center of the living room, of an older man with thick hair and a startling number of gold chains, who, Gabriel's mother told me, was her grandfather. He had come to Uruguay from Spain, and had once owned a traveling carnival that he named Calaquita, Little Skull, in honor of his own birthday, which was the Day of the Dead. _Calaca_ , of course, was a Mexican word, strange to both Spaniards and Uruguayans—almost as strange as the Mexican custom of celebrating the Day of the Dead with music, cheerful flowers, and skeletons dancing in the street. He had grown up forced to spend his birthday in the village cemetery every year with his mother and aunts, who wept morosely, all dressed in black. And so, while he liked to tell of his carnival's name as a great joke, Talia saw it as equal parts humor and exorcism. She had grown up listening to his stories of roaming the countryside with his collection of brightly painted wagons, and of the motley cluster of performers who were his closest friends.
"I keep his picture up," she said, looking at it with some bemusement, "because he was the most eccentric person in my family."
This comment, more than anything else, made me feel at ease. I had been bracing myself, not sure what to expect, anxious above all about Gabriel's mother. On the drive home from the ferry station, she had struck me as overly kind, too quick to laugh at my jokes, and I thought that she was doing so out of pity. But now, in her house, I saw her awkwardness as a sign of how fervently she hoped to make me comfortable. As she walked me through the photographs in the living room, her arm slinked through mine, an effortless, almost thoughtless touch.
"Call me Talia," she insisted. "And please drop that _usted_ , and address me with _tú_. You'll make me feel like an old lady, or even worse, like you're not at home."
The family set to preparing the _asado_ , a collective process so familiar that the roles seemed automatic: Gabriel's father stoked embers at the grill with scientific precision, Gabriel and his sister Carla disappeared into the kitchen to prepare the meat, and I was hustled outside with the younger sister, Penélope, to talk over a glass of wine. She was clearly the quietest member of the family, but I drew her out by asking her about her studies. She was so passionate about chemistry that I could have listened to her for hours. I didn't understand much of what she said, but it sounded fascinating, this talk of molecules and ions and electron clouds, which made me think of the charts we had to draw in high school that connected one atom to another with little lines and headless arrows, which, when you thought about it, was an ingenious way to order the universe, even though the aspect of the universe being mapped was too small to be seen with the naked eye. The world has been written in a microscopic script that the naked eye can't begin to imagine, I thought to myself, as Penélope refilled my glass of red wine and kept on talking.
Carla's boyfriend joined us for the meal, and we crammed around the table on the patio, with its checkered tablecloth embroidered by hand. Everybody talked at once. They bickered, laughed. They seemed to agree on nothing, or, at least, to pick at their differences with relish. No one pressured me to speak, or brought up my parents, or uttered the word _disappeared_. My wine glass was always full, no matter how much I drank from it. Gabriel looked like a boy unwrapping a long-awaited gift.
That evening, at dusk, the whole family took a stroll to La Rambla, the walkway by the shore of the river. Many people had emerged to walk along the water with their _mate_ gourds, the way they do in Uruguay, pouring hot water from their thermos into the gourds right out there in the open, on a bench, on the steps leading down to the sand, or even in mid-stride, instead of keeping to the kitchen as is the custom in Argentina. We walked in a gently amoebic cluster, Gabriel's arm around me, and I thought about the last time we'd walked together on a Uruguayan shore, before, before. Of course, that had been in Piriápolis, not Montevideo; but still, and this long dark sweep before us was the Río de la Plata, the same river I had known throughout my childhood, now seen from the other side. How wide it was. How strange, to walk on one side and imagine the existence of the other.
Talia made her way toward me with the gourd. In this family, she was the unquestioned _cebadora_ , server of _mate_ , and it was my turn. I took the gourd from her and drank.
"Perla," she said in a low voice. "If you ever want, I don't know, you know. To talk."
The brew was perfect, bitter and fresh. The gourd gurgled as I drained it.
"She's fine, Mamá," Gabriel said.
"I just want her to know—"
"Don't crowd her."
"I'm not," she said. "Am I, Perla?"
I passed the gourd back to her, and shook my head.
"Look, I know we just met. But I want you to know I'm here. After all, a girl can't have enough mothers."
An axe to the chest. The night, swiftly shattered, lay in pieces all around me.
_"Mamá."_
"Oh, God. I said the wrong thing." Talia sighed. "I'm sorry. Sometimes I say the wrong thing."
I meant to respond, but too much raged inside, I didn't dare open my mouth. I wished I hadn't drunk so much wine.
"I'm sorry," she said again, and ebbed away.
After a few more minutes, the family stopped together at a jetty of rocks overlooking the water, all of a mind, all of a goddamn mind, this family with its lifetime of goddamn rituals. Gabriel moved us toward a rock where we could sit in private.
"Are you all right?"
I leaned in to him and listened to the roar inside myself, through which there threaded a slim whisper, It's not her fault, it's not her fault, the axe was there already and you keep falling on it when you least expect it but one day you'll have new skin and be a woman who can walk beside a river without mere words cutting you apart. I didn't quite believe the whisper, but I grasped it like rope.
"She can be clumsy, my mother. But she means well. She wants to be your friend."
"Gabo."
"Hmm."
"Don't talk."
"All right."
"I'll be fine."
"All right."
"I just want to look at the water. Will you look at the water with me?"
He nodded. We looked out in silence, and when his family got up to move on we stayed, for hours, the two of us together before the vast river, gliding across it with our gaze, tracing infinite trajectories in the darkness.
What I could not have guessed, at that time, was that Gabriel's mother would in time become one of my best friends. Tonight, six years later, as I sit here at this window, I can assure you that Talia is one of the most generous people you will meet in this world. When I graduated from the university, she arrived with a bouquet so large I could barely see her as she carried it toward me, and she wept as if she'd been waiting for that moment for years. And when, a year later, I married her son, it was her wedding dress I wore, tucked in here and let out there, adjusted for a new bride but the same white dress with its blend of classic lace and 1960s flair. And by that time, when she said, "You are just like a daughter, my third daughter," I could take the words in the way she meant them, with joy and love and almost without pain.
Six years. Of course I am still becoming myself; becoming is an infinite road. But I am a different person now from that scared and broken girl who ran from a house in the suburbs in an effort to save her own life. As a psychologist, each time a new client walks into my office I am floored by their trust and by the way our conversations slowly push open their inner maze of light and darkness. My work rivets me and makes me larger. So does my marriage. Because a marriage, it turns out, is not merely the empty space between two people, the passive sum of two parts, but a beast all its own, with its own breath and muscle, its own insistent rhythms, its own inimitable sounds. It vexes us. It makes demands. It startles with its beauty. It carries us when we are lost or tired. That is what Gabriel and I have formed: a connection so intense it has its own life and motion.
This is truer than ever since I started carrying you.
How perfect you are. How you sussurate of almost unbearable perfection. A toe, a spine, an eyelid, each part of you a revelation; where did my body store the knowledge to create you? How many bodies have passed such knowledge down through eons so that you could curl inside me now, small and complete, ready to be born? Soon after I became pregnant, I learned that baby girls have all their eggs already formed in miniature while they are in the womb. So that the egg of you was in me before I was born. So that when I was in my mother, whose face I never saw, a fleck of you was there, a fleck inside a girl inside a woman. Which means that when she disappeared we both disappeared with her, and every reappearance—yours, mine, into the future—belongs to all of us as well. That is why I've spent the night here at this window, telling you this story, preparing you for the world or perhaps preparing the world for you. It is your story as much as it is anyone's, and your existence has already brought new understanding: having carried you, I see the depth of what was lost. Carrying you has brought new floods of grief. But it has also helped me see the depth of what cannot be lost, the unbreakable threads, invisible to the mind, indelible to the body.
The body is the first gift you receive; the second is your name. And you already have yours, Gloria. You have everything you need to face this world, and you are ready now to enter it, I know this from these early contractions that press and shiver through me. They both hurt and thrill. I am not large enough to hold you inside anymore, you want more space now, don't you? It's time for me to give you, as they say, to the light.
I was afraid of birth, at first, but I'm not anymore. I don't know that I'm ready to be a mother but I do know that there is nothing, nothing I want more than to meet you face-to-face, to hold you against me, to look into your eyes. The world is going to begin again with you inside it. I know, that sounds extreme. Yet every new mother believes this, and—who knows?—perhaps all of us are right, perhaps it happens every time, millions of times a day around the globe. A child born, a world renewed. And that is what will happen later today, when you burst out of me, and I know it will happen before midnight because I always suspected that you would arrive on March 2, which was why I was not at all surprised when the contractions began last night, after your father had gone to sleep and left me alone to sit here on the balcony, gazing out at the streets of the city that is about to become your city, Gloria, and sifting through the past, for your sake and for mine. The waves are coming closer together now; you are roaring to be born. I will be reborn with you as mothers always are and Gloria there is still so much to tell you about these recent years, about the long past and even longer future, but it will not be told tonight because it is time for us to leave. Gabriel is still sleeping in the other room, with the suitcase in arm's reach for our sojourn at the hospital. He packed it with the utmost care, as if your safe passage depended on his perfectly folding miniature pajamas. He unpacked and repacked the suitcase several times, rearranging its contents, until finally I said, Gabo, don't worry, everything is in its place, the suitcase is perfect, you're going to be a wonderful father. And then for a moment he looked more terrified than I've ever seen him, even with everything we've been through, so I took his head in both my hands and bent it toward my belly so he could feel your kicks against his cheek. He never gets tired of your kicks. Just wait until you meet him—though there's no need to wait, of course, as it will happen very soon. There's more I want to tell you, but the surges are too great now and in any case there will always be more, the story has no end, it will circle and circle the whole of your life while I am here with you to tell it, so let me just give you this last piece and then we'll go and wake your father:
Two months after I left Héctor and Luisa's house, the call came in. I was in the kitchen, boiling squash for Lolo.
"Perla?"
"Yes, hello."
"It's me, Marta, at Las Abuelas' office."
"How are you?"
"Wonderful," she said, her voice buoyant, a rising balloon. "We've found a match."
I stared at the pot, which was boiling now, bubbles roaring quietly to the surface.
"Your mother's name is Gloria."
The steam writhed upward and I could not move. "Gloria Rossella Ramos. Her parents have been looking for you, and so have your father's. Your father is Adelmo Rossella."
_Adelmo_ , I thought, and wished he would come back right then so I could tell him what I'd found, restore it to him. _Here it is, your name, take it back. Adelmo_. The woman was still talking, but I could barely hear her through the shimmering steam that seemed to fill the room and fill my skin and climb up to the ceiling and beyond it, through apartments through the roof into the blue vault of the sky.
"Perla? Are you there?"
"I'm here. I'm here."
"I know this can be overwhelming, but—your grandparents can't wait to meet you. And aunts, and uncles. Cousins. Do you still want to meet them?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"When can they?"
"Anytime. They're ready. It's up to you."
"Today?"
"If you want."
"At seven o'clock?"
"If you want."
The water seethed over the sides of the pot, spilling onto the stove. I turned the fire down. "Yes. I want."
We said good-bye and hung up. Gabriel appeared in the doorway, naked hope on his face. "You found them?"
I nodded. "They found me. We found each other."
"Perla," he said, then stopped, as though no other words could hold this moment.
"I'm going to meet them tonight."
"Do you want me to come with you?"
I shook my head. I knew that, on that night at least, I had to go alone. Nobody could walk through that door with me, not even Gabriel.
Five hours later I was on the subway, staring at the people around me—the solemn ones, the harried ones, the closed and proud and groomed and lonely ones—as if I had just arrived on their planet, in their city, _good sir can you tell me what to make of this place?_ The train sped through its dark tunnels to my station and released me from the underground into the light. The sun hovered above the tops of downtown buildings and I could have shouted at sky and roofs _my mother's name is Gloria_ , but I held the shouts inside and let them roil there as I reached the building where the office of Las Abuelas waited for me on the third floor. I opened the baroque wooden door that had swung open and closed for hundreds of years of this nation's history, pushed the button for the elevator and held my breath when it arrived for me and did not exhale as the doors closed and I rose to the second floor, the third, until the doors slid open on both sides and there, in the wood-paneled lobby, stood a crowd of people I had never seen before who stared at me with palms open and expressions on their faces like the ones that Lazarus' loved ones must have had when he returned from the grave. The faces hovered at the brink of cheers or sobs or exclamations, waiting for me to step out of the elevator into their midst, and when I did the sounds poured out in all their joy and unclasped sorrow. Two women rushed toward me first. The relatives around them made room as if their forward motion were the only possible step in an ancient choreographed dance. They were white-haired, two grandmothers, in gold earrings and their best blouses, arms outstretched in unison, both smiling, both weeping, and they enfolded me together from both sides, saying _It's you, it's really you_. Though soon there would be food and names and bellow-laughs and infinite conversation, for now these women's arms became the world. I let myself lean into their embrace, a long and fierce embrace that spoke and spoke to me of things long gone and things to come and what had never been let go. We did not let each other go. We held each other tightly, and our bodies kept on speaking as the late sun gathered in a mantle all around us.
# _Acknowledgments_
In his story "The Library of Babel," Jorge Luis Borges describes a universe in which infinite bookshelves contain all the written expressions of which human beings are capable. Only there could I ever hope to find a full record of my gratitude. It is that large and intricate. For now, until that library appears, I will make do with this humble sketch of my thanks.
With regard to research: my aunt Guadalupe López Ocón for accompanying me up and down the streets of Buenos Aires in search of traces of this story, and for the words with which she inscribed my personal copy of _Nunca más_ ; my aunt Cuti (Ester María López Ocón) for her wide-armed hospitality, and for walking beside me among the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo; my aunt Mónica López Ocón for her literary knowledge; Daniel Batlla, Claudio Batlla, Diego Batlla, and all my other relatives on the Argentinean side, for hosting, teaching, and embracing me during the hunting-and-gathering stage of writing this novel.
Vanesa González-Rizzo and Natalia Bruschstein for sharing their intimate stories over the course of one long Mexico City night. Evelyn Rinderknecht Alaga for the books. Las Madres y las Abuelas, for every drop of what they have done, and continue to do. Horacio Verbitsky, Ernesto Sábato, Marguerite Feitlowitz, Jacobo Timerman, and all the other writers whose courageous and unyielding pens have provided me, and the world, with indispensable sources. The filmmakers Estela Bravo and Peter Sanders, for sharing copies of their powerful documentaries _¿Quién soy yo?_ and _The Disappeared_ , respectively.
With regard to writing, I am indebted to Micheline Aharonian Marcom, under whose brilliant mentorship this book was born. I am also indebted to Daniel Alarcón, for his luminous insights and guidance. I thank the Mills College M.F.A. Program, the Hedgebrook Residency, and the Macondo Workshop for the space and support to work on this book, as well as Fernando Sasco and Enrique Loedel of the Uruguayan consolate in California for their steadfast generosity. I also thank the following friends for reading drafts or offering help along the way: Leila Abu-Saba (we miss you, _querida_ ), Eduardo Cabrera, Sara Campos, Héctor Mario Cavallari, Aya de León, Marcelo de León, Jenesha de Rivera, Frances Hwang, Shanna Lo Presti, Marc Anthony Richardson, Julia Azar Rubin, Cleavon Smith, Joyce Thompson, and Allison Towata. You are all fantastic.
In the publishing world, unending thanks to Victoria Sanders, stellar agent and human being, whose powers are so formidable we should all be grateful that, like a Jedi, she uses them only for good. Thanks also to her wonderful associates, Chris Kepner, Bernadette Baker-Baughman, and Benee Knauer, who make so much happen every day. Chandler Crawford, foreign agent extraordinaire, for working ceaseless miracles. And Sara Nelson, who humbles me with her great support of, and belief in, my books.
As for my editor at Knopf, Carole Baron: her passion, genius, and dedication are without equal. What a difference—what a joyous difference—she has made for this book. My deepest thanks to Sonny Mehta, as well, for his leadership and peerless vision. Emily Milder, another member of the editorial team, provided incisive comments, for which I am most grateful. And really, the whole team at Knopf and Vintage, not to mention at my fifteen-plus international publishers: you are superheroes. You should wear red capes to work.
Finally, vast thanks to my family, beginning with Pamela Harris, wife, soul sister, without whom none of this would be—and stretching out all over the world to the whole sprawling De Robertis–Marazzi–Canil–Martínez–Grimaldi–Batlla–López Ocón–Pascal–Aldama–Edwards–Friarson tribe. A map of my heart would be full of roads to you.
# _A Note About the Author_
Carolina De Robertis grew up in a Uruguayan-Argentinean family that immigrated to England, Switzerland, and California. Her first novel, _The Invisible Mountain_ , was an international best seller translated into fifteen languages; an _O, The Oprah Magazine_ 2009 Terrific Read, a _San Francisco Chronicle_ Best Book of the Year, and the recipient of Italy's Rhegium Julii Prize. Her translations of Latin American fiction have appeared in _Granta, Zoetrope: Allstory, The Virginia Quarterly Review_ , and elsewhere. She lives in Oakland, California.
|
LONDON, Aug 31 (Reuters) - European shares tumbled for a second day on Friday as reports that U.S. President Donald Trump is planning further tariffs on China heated up a trade war, while Whitbread stole the spotlight after clinching a $5.1 billion deal with Coca-Cola.
The pan-European STOXX 600 was down 0.6 percent by 0725 GMT, on track for its biggest fall in a fortnight, while Germany's DAX, heavier in trade-sensitive industrial stocks, fell 0.9 percent.
Trade sparring between Trump and the European Union weighed on car stocks, down 1.5 percent and the worst-performing sector.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU would respond in kind if the U.S. imposed car tariffs, after Trump was reported to have rejected the EU's offer to eliminate car tariffs, saying its trade policies are "almost as bad as China".
In M&A news, Whitbread soared as much as 19 percent after the UK firm agreed the sale of its Costa Coffee chain to Coca-Cola for 3.9 billion pounds ($5.1 billion).
Traders said the deal value exceeded the market's expectations by 500 to 900 million pounds, and was wrapped up more quickly than forecast.
Whitbread aside, there were many substantial falls across the European market.
Sage tumbled 9 percent, the biggest faller among European stocks, after the British software developer surprised the market by announcing chief executive Stephen Kelly would stand down in May next year.
Air France fell 4.3 percent, extending Thursday's losses after unions threatened further strikes.
German carrier Lufthansa also fell 4.6 percent, with traders citing a Citi note rating the stock a "sell" and analysts preferring low-cost European airlines. |
ADEN, Yemen — The crows and their haunting screams are pervasive. They scavenge through mountains of rubbish lining the streets and tear at rotting bodies lying in the no man's land separating the two warring sides in a conflict that has decimated this once bustling seaport. Yemen’s southern port city of Aden was, until recently, a popular if slightly dilapidated holiday retreat for throngs of Yemenis. Amid rising tension on March 19, Houthi militiamen, along with renegade military units loyal to the country’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, launched an assault in the city that quickly escalated into civil war. The widespread destruction caused by months of relentless fighting has torn the heart out of Aden, including the historic old town known as Crater that nestles in the dramatic backdrop of a dormant volcano. The most densely populated area of Aden is now ghostly quiet, save for the crows and the distant pounding of artillery indicating the latest location of the shifting front line. Burnt out tanks and armored personnel carriers stand amid the concrete skeletons of apartment blocks, hollowed out by weeks of shelling and gun battles. Most residents have fled as street-to-street fighting or air strikes have seen electricity lines cut and water pipes damaged. Thousands now live in hotels, schools and previously empty apartments in the northern and western suburbs, just behind the front lines. Others have escaped the city entirely, going east to the province of Hadhramaut or taking the treacherous journey by boat to the Horn of Africa. All of Aden’s 140 schools are now closed. In a western suburb, Safa School is now home to 100 children and their families who live in 17 rooms. With no cooking gas available, the women prepare meals over a wood fire.
Moaar Ali Mohammed is one of thousands of the displaced now scattered across the city and relying entirely on food aid. “Older people can adapt but the children can’t,” she said, sitting in the shade of a tree in the school’s grounds. “Without the food donations, we have nothing. No flour, no rice. There’s nothing otherwise.” The tit-for-tat shelling, along with bombs being dropped by fighter jets of the Saudi-led coalition in their attempt to push back the Houthi-Saleh forces, are not the only tools in this war. Food is also being used as weapon. The latest United Nations figures say half Yemen’s population is now food insecure in the wake of a naval blockade imposed by the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition in a country that usually imports 90 percent of its food. But in Aden, residents are facing a double siege. The Houthis and military units aligned to former president Saleh are blocking food and medical supplies from entering the city by road. Now the flour needed for bakeries across the city has run out, and the city’s vegetable markets are bare. The health care system is also on the verge of collapse, with hospitals struggling to cope with dwindling drug supplies and as a dengue fever outbreak takes hold. A few in the conflict-affected areas have defiantly refused to leave their homes, despite being cut off from the outside world. Phone networks have been shut down and families have been living for weeks in the sweltering heat without electricity. Surviving on a diet of rice and biscuits while collecting water from dripping pipes, 70-year-old Abdul Rahman al-Shuqri and his wife Amera decided to stay behind with one of their daughters, Safa, in their once luxurious home. Now they live in a hall way in the center of the house, away from the windows that have all long since been blown out by the shock waves from air strikes. “It’s terrifying,” said Amera, breaking into tears. “Maybe I will die here. I am afraid I will never see my children and grandchildren again.” The drastic reduction in goods has been matched by a similar decline in services as the state collapses. Employees of government institutions have not been paid since the war began, leaving rubbish to pile up in the streets, as cleaners no longer operate. In an unrelenting heat, the stench fills the city, and the risk of disease rises. The local water authority is also struggling. Down to 150 workers from 2,000, Najeeb Mohammed Ahmed, general director of the Aden water authority, says he no longer has the fuel to drive the truck needed to take diesel to the center of the city — where water needs to be pumped — after pipelines were destroyed in the fighting. “This war is a curse,” says Ahmed. “The situation is very dangerous. Now I am afraid of drought, even in the non-fighting areas.”
‘Older people can adapt but the children can’t. Without the food donations, we have nothing. No flour, no rice. There’s nothing otherwise.’ Moaar Ali Mohammed displaced Aden resident |
A Novel Wheeze Detection Method for Wearable Monitoring Systems Wheezy breath is a general sign for airway obstructive diseases like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. This paper presents a novel wheeze detection method that can be used to detect and identify wheezes automatically. The proposed method exploits ``entropy" to describe the pattern of the frequency spectrum of the wheezing signal and the wheeze identification can be conducted using only one or two entropy-based features. Therefore the proposed method has considerably reduced computational complexity and is able to operate with the low power consumption constraint under the wearable condition. The performance of the proposed method has been evaluated using lung sounds from patients and normal subjects under different Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). |
HESRi country impact and uptake in Slovenia Equity and solidarity are strongly embedded in Slovene society from the second half of the 20th century on. Questions, exploring equity issues date in 1964, as a part of the Slovene Public Opinion (SPO) Survey. Slovenia is reporting on health equity and wellbeing in three strands. The first one is regular Human Development Report, based on Slovene Development Strategy since 2007, delegated partially to Institute of Economic Research (IER). Second one is regular Inequalities in Health Report, led by National Institute of Public Health (NIPH), and based on the National Health Strategy, since 2011. The third one is regular Poverty Report, led by Institute of Social Protection (ISP), based on the decision of the Parliamentarian Commission for Health and Social Affairs in 2013. NIPH comprehensively reported on Inequalities in Health in 2011, at that time based on direct measures of socio-economic status (SES) like education, or indirect measures or indexes (as development index or deprivation index of the municipality). In the second, 2018 report, several developments enabled for reporting health equity gap based on the individual SES status and first few cases of policy influences on equity status were described. In line with the WHO Rio SDH declaration 2011, in the third Health Equity Report, planned for 2021, further shift is foreseen and focus will be given to the policies influencing the equity gaps. For the 2021 Health Equity Report for Slovenia, three national key institutions (NIJZ, IER and ISP) decided to work together, based on the established multisectoral competences. WHO HESRi was developed and launched in best possible timing for the Slovene national initiative, to provide the international support, insights and facilitate further national development. Slovene priorities will be defined according to the national interests, Slovene presidency to EU in 2021 and Country Specific Recommendations in the frame of the European Semester. |
The Crimes of Grindelwald, the second installment of J.K. Rowling's five-part Harry Potter prequel, is an immersive magical adventure into the Wizarding World. It has its moments of wonder and delight, yet it gets bogged down in its efforts to keep up to the Fantastic Beasts franchise.
The film picks up some six months after the events of the first Fantastic Beasts film, in the year 1927. The powerful dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, who was captured in the first edition with the help of Newt Salamnder, finally makes good on his promise to escape MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America) custody, while he is being transported to Europe and immediately sets about gathering followers, most unsuspecting of his true agenda; to raise up pure-blood wizards and witches, to rule over all non-magical beings.
On the other hand, while Newt (Eddie Redmayne) has returned to London, leaving Tina (Katherine Waterston) behind in New York, Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller) - the abused wizard with an Obscurus parasite who managed to survive his showdown with MACUSA - is now travelling through Paris secretly with a wizard circus, in the hope of uncovering the truth about his parents and family.
Newt is summoned by his former Hogwarts professor Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) to find Credence before Grindelwald does. Thus begins an international chase taking place between London, New York, Hogwarts and eventually Paris, where the majority of the action takes place.
Along the way, couples are reunited and torn asunder. Newt is reunited with his old friends, Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) and Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol), and learns from the latter that her sister Tina is also searching for Credence. As it turns out, however, there's more at stake than any one of them realise.
The plot has the same prime problem as that of its first edition -- it is largely superfluous and is overstuffed with characters and plot threads that lay the foundation for later sequels. Also, with overcomplicated backstories, the crimes of Grindelwald rarely surface and in the end, it is difficult to become emotionally invested in anything that happens in the film because nearly every scene is devoted to agenda-setting and not character or thematic development.
Also, like in its previous edition, the magical creatures themselves appear in mostly irrelevant, but nonetheless enjoyable side-scenes. Here, Newt must ride a wayward kelpie (underwater horse made of seaweed), tame a rampaging Taowu (Chinese dragon with a smiley face) and avoid a herd of Matagots (evil cats with alien eyes) which protect the Paris Ministry. Old favourites pop up too with Pickett, Bowtruckle and some baby Nifflers stealing several scenes throughout.
Among the new humans introduced, Law, as a young Albus Dumbledore, is smooth and charming and somehow is not "our" Albus. Claudia Kim's Maledictus is alluring, but barely there and Zoe Kravitz as Leta Lestrange, who we noticed in a photograph in the first Beasts, is potentially the most interesting character in the film, but we are never given the chance to really know her.
Among the old favourites, Newt, Tina, Queenie, and Jacob are at least given space to grow. As for Depp's Grindelwald, if there was ever any doubt as to how truly evil he is, it is allayed in the opening scenes when he executes a toddler and eliminates his own pet gremlin for being too needy.
While the film is visually brilliant, it struggles to find a rhythm to its narrative beats, resulting in some clunky pacing at times and ungainly transitions between scenes.
Overall, the film never really reaches any satisfying conclusions in any of its plot strands. Nevertheless, the film will appeal to fans of this genre. |
/*
* Copyright 2009 The Native Client Authors. All rights reserved.
* Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can
* be found in the LICENSE file.
*/
// This file exports a single function used to setup the
// multimedia sub-system for use with sel_universal
// It was inpspired by src/trusted/plugin/srpc/multimedia_socket.cc
// On the untrusted side it interface with: src/untrusted/av/nacl_av.c
//
// NOTE: this is experimentation and testing. We are not concerned
// about descriptor and memory leaks
#include "native_client/src/shared/platform/nacl_log.h"
#include "native_client/src/shared/platform/nacl_threads.h"
#include "native_client/src/shared/imc/nacl_imc_c.h"
#include "native_client/src/shared/srpc/nacl_srpc.h"
#include "native_client/src/trusted/desc/nacl_desc_imc_shm.h"
#include "native_client/src/trusted/desc/nacl_desc_wrapper.h"
#include "native_client/src/trusted/sel_universal/multimedia.h"
#include "native_client/src/trusted/service_runtime/include/sys/audio_video.h"
#include "native_client/src/trusted/service_runtime/internal_errno.h"
#include "native_client/src/untrusted/av/nacl_av_priv.h"
using nacl::DescWrapperFactory;
using nacl::DescWrapper;
// Configs
const int kMaxArgs = 5;
// Two ugly globals
IMultimedia* g_mm;
// NOTE: this shared memory struct is defined in src/untrusted/av/nacl_av_priv.h
NaClVideoShare* g_video_share;
static bool EventQueueIsFull() {
const int next_write_pos = (g_video_share->u.h.event_write_index + 1) %
NACL_EVENT_RING_BUFFER_SIZE;
return next_write_pos == g_video_share->u.h.event_read_index;
}
// TODO(robertm): there maybe some subtle theoretical race conditions here
// consumer is src/untrusted/av/nacl_av.c
static void EventQueuePut(const NaClMultimediaEvent& event) {
const int write_pos = g_video_share->u.h.event_write_index %
NACL_EVENT_RING_BUFFER_SIZE;
// NOTE: structure assignment
g_video_share->u.h.event_queue[write_pos] = event;
g_video_share->u.h.event_write_index = (write_pos + 1) %
NACL_EVENT_RING_BUFFER_SIZE;
}
static void EventQueueRefill(int max_events) {
NaClMultimediaEvent event;
for (int i = 0; i < max_events; ++i) {
if (EventQueueIsFull()) {
NaClLog(1, "event queue has filled up\n");
return;
}
g_mm->EventPoll(&event);
if (event.type == NACL_EVENT_NOT_USED) {
return;
}
EventQueuePut(event);
}
}
static void handleUpcall(NaClSrpcRpc* rpc,
NaClSrpcArg** ins,
NaClSrpcArg** outs,
NaClSrpcClosure* done) {
UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(ins);
UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(outs);
g_mm->VideoUpdate(g_video_share->video_pixels);
// NOTE: this is major hack: we piggyback on the video update
// to fill the event queue
EventQueueRefill(NACL_EVENT_RING_BUFFER_SIZE);
rpc->result = NACL_SRPC_RESULT_OK;
done->Run(done);
}
static void WINAPI ServiceHandlerThread(void* desc_void) {
DescWrapper* desc = reinterpret_cast<DescWrapper*>(desc_void);
NaClSrpcHandlerDesc handlers[] = {
{ "upcall::", handleUpcall },
{ NULL, NULL }
};
NaClLog(1, "upcall service handler start\n");
NaClSrpcServerLoop(desc->desc(), handlers, NULL);
NaClLog(1, "upcall server handlers stop\n");
NaClThreadExit();
}
static void BuildArgVec(NaClSrpcArg* argv[], NaClSrpcArg arg[], int count) {
int i;
for (i = 0; i < count; ++i) {
argv[i] = &arg[i];
}
argv[count] = NULL;
}
static void SendVideoMemAndUpChannel(NaClSrpcChannel* channel,
DescWrapper* video_desc,
DescWrapper* back_channel) {
uint32_t rpc_num;
NaClSrpcArg in[kMaxArgs];
NaClSrpcArg* inv[kMaxArgs + 1];
NaClSrpcArg out[kMaxArgs];
NaClSrpcArg* outv[kMaxArgs + 1];
rpc_num = NaClSrpcServiceMethodIndex(channel->client,
"nacl_multimedia_bridge:hh:");
NaClLog(1, "making rpc to nacl_multimedia_bridge %d\n", rpc_num);
in[0].tag = NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_HANDLE;
in[0].u.hval = video_desc->desc();
in[1].tag = NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_HANDLE;
in[1].u.hval = back_channel->desc();
BuildArgVec(inv, in, 2);
BuildArgVec(outv, out, 0);
if (NACL_SRPC_RESULT_OK != NaClSrpcInvokeV(channel, rpc_num, inv, outv)) {
NaClLog(LOG_FATAL, "rpc to nacl_multimedia_bridge failed\n");
}
}
// This function intializes the SDL multimedia subsystem
// * it allocates a shared memory datastructure including video_memory and
// * sets up a service for copy this video_memory into the framebuffer
// * finally it calls the client rpc "nacl_multimedia_bridge" to communicate
// the shared memory area and the new service to the client
void InitializeMultimediaHandler(NaClSrpcChannel* channel,
int width,
int height,
const char* title) {
DescWrapperFactory* factory = new DescWrapperFactory();
NaClLog(1, "InitializeMultimediaHandler\n");
g_mm = MakeMultimediaSDL(width, height, title);
// NOTE: these are really NaClDescXferableDataDesc. Code was mimicked after
// the exisiting plugin code
NaClLog(1, "create socket pair so that client can make multimedia upcalls\n");
DescWrapper* descs[2] = { NULL, NULL };
if (0 != factory->MakeSocketPair(descs)) {
NaClLog(LOG_FATAL, "cannot create socket pair\n");
}
NaClLog(1,
"creating video buffer shared region video size 0x%x\n",
g_mm->VideoBufferSize());
const size_t required_size = g_mm->VideoBufferSize() + sizeof(NaClVideoShare);
DescWrapper* shm = factory->MakeShm(required_size);
NaClLog(1, "mapping shared video memory locally\n");
size_t mapped_size;
shm->Map(reinterpret_cast<void**>(&g_video_share), &mapped_size);
NaClLog(1, "initializing the shared area at %p\n",
static_cast<void*>(g_video_share));
g_video_share->u.h.revision = 0x101;
g_video_share->u.h.video_width = width;
g_video_share->u.h.video_height = height;
g_video_share->u.h.video_size = g_mm->VideoBufferSize();
NaClLog(1, "spawning multimedia service thread\n");
NaClThread thread;
if (!NaClThreadCtor(
&thread,
ServiceHandlerThread,
descs[0],
128 << 10)) {
NaClLog(LOG_FATAL, "cannot create service handler thread\n");
}
SendVideoMemAndUpChannel(channel, shm, descs[1]);
}
|
def execute(self, triple_map, **kwargs):
subjects = []
logical_src_iterator = str(triple_map.logicalSource.iterator)
json_object = kwargs.get('obj', self.source)
if logical_src_iterator == ".":
results = [None,]
else:
json_path_exp = jsonpath_ng.parse(logical_src_iterator)
results = [r.value for r in json_path_exp.find(json_object)][0]
for row in results:
subject = self.generate_term(term_map=triple_map.subjectMap,
**kwargs)
for pred_obj_map in triple_map.predicateObjectMap:
predicate = pred_obj_map.predicate
if pred_obj_map.template is not None:
self.output.add((
subject,
predicate,
self.generate_term(term_map=pred_obj_map, **kwargs)))
if pred_obj_map.parentTriplesMap is not None:
self.__handle_parents__(
parent_map=pred_obj_map.parentTriplesMap,
subject=subject,
predicate=predicate,
obj=row,
**kwargs)
if pred_obj_map.reference is not None:
ref_exp = jsonpath_ng.parse(str(pred_obj_map.reference))
found_objects = [r.value for r in ref_exp.find(row)]
for obj in found_objects:
if rdflib.term._is_valid_uri(obj):
rdf_obj = rdflib.URIRef(str(obj))
else:
rdf_obj = rdflib.Literal(str(obj))
self.output.add((subject, predicate, rdf_obj))
if pred_obj_map.constant is not None:
self.output.add((subject,
predicate,
pred_obj_map.constant))
subjects.append(subject)
return subjects |
Kareem Jackson #25 of the Houston Texans celebrates after a tackle in the third quarter against the Jacksonville Jaguars at NRG Stadium on Dec. 30, 2018 in Houston, Texas.
The hit has reached near-legendary status for Broncos fans since their team signed Kareem Jackson last week.
Playing for the Houston Texans last November against the Broncos, Jackson was lined up at right cornerback.
At the snap, Broncos rookie running back Phillip Lindsay flared to the flat. Reading the play, Jackson ran straight ahead and delivered a huge hit to break up the pass. It was the first real big hit Lindsay took all year.
It is the kind of physicality the Broncos want from Jackson this year and the kind of football he took pride in playing during his nine years with the Texans.
After his press conference on Friday, Jackson was asked to break down the play that resulted in hitting Lindsay. It provided terrific insight into Jackson’s savvy and football IQ.
“We were actually in cover 2 (zone),” he said. “Before the ball was snapped, I tried to show a little bit deeper (downfield) than normal to give the impression we were playing a different coverage. I rolled up (closer to the line of scrimmage) at the last minute, saw (Lindsay) bubble to the left and (quarterback) Case (Keenum) didn’t see anybody else to throw the ball to.
2. Lindsay had wrist surgery after being injured in the Week 16 loss at Oakland. Ready for OTAs in May? “I’m not positive, but I would think so,” Elway said.
Not his fault. To hear Jaguars front office boss Tom Coughlin tell it on Thursday, last year’s 5-11 record was everybody’s fault but his even though he built the roster. But it’s not surprising. Coughlin hides in his bunker most of the time — his availability after Nick Foles’ press conference was his first since Day 3 of the 2018 Draft — instead of being out-front to support coach Doug Marrone, who fell on his sword throughout the season.
Division move. Good stuff from Raiders general manager Mike Mayock after signing left tackle Trent Brown. “If you watch him in the playoffs against the Chargers, watch him against Kansas City — the teams we have to play in our division — the bottom line is that we got way better on our offensive line,” Mayock said. Add in the Broncos’ Von Miller/Bradley Chubb and it’s easy to see why Oakland went after Brown. More teams should admit they add players with their six division games in mind. |
Leucine-Rich Alpha-2-Glycoprotein (LRG-1) as a Potential Kidney Injury Marker in Kidney Transplant Recipients Background Kidney transplantation is the treatment of choice for most patients with end-stage renal disease. To improve patient and transplant survival, non-invasive diagnostic methods for different pathologies are important. Leucine-rich alpha-2-glycoprotein (LRG-1) is an innovative biomarker that is elevated in cases of angiogenesis, inflammation, and kidney injury. However, there are limited data about the diagnostic role of LRG-1 in kidney transplant recipients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between serum LRG-1, urine LRG-1, and kidney transplant function and injury. Material/Methods We enrolled 35 kidney transplant recipients in the study. LRG-1 in the serum and urine was detected using ELISA. We evaluated the correlation of serum and urine LRG-1 with traditional serum and urine kidney injury markers. Results A higher level of serum LRG-1 correlates with a higher level of urine LRG-1. Serum LRG-1 has a positive correlation with transplant age, serum urea, serum creatinine, serum cystatin C, proteinuria, and fractional excretion of sodium (FENa) and a negative correlation with hemoglobin and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). Urine LRG-1 has a positive correlation with serum cystatin C, proteinuria, and urine neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL). Conclusions Higher levels of serum and urine LRG-1 are associated with kidney transplant injury and functional deterioration. Thus, LRG-1 might be also as a biomarker for tubular dysfunction in patients after kidney transplantation. Background For most patients with end-stage renal disease, kidney transplantation is the treatment of choice because it significantly improves survival and quality of life compared to dialysis. Leucine-rich alpha-2-glycoprotein-1 (LRG-1) could be a potential non-invasive diagnostic tool for kidney transplant recipients. Improving the health of recipients and maintaining graft function not only improves the quality of patient's lives and survival but also reduces the need for re-transplantation and increases the number of organs available for transplantation. LRG-1, which was first isolated from human serum by Haupt and Baudner in 1977, is a protein that is expressed during blood cell-granulocyte differentiation. LRG-1 consists of 347 amino acids and has a molecular weight of 50 kDa. Based on mRNA analysis, LRG-1 is thought to be normally produced in liver cells and neutrophils, but it may be expressed in a variety of cells in the presence of inflammatory cytokines (interleukin-6, interleukin-1b), lipopolysaccharides and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-a). LRG-1 levels increase in inflammatory processes and infectious diseases [3,, malignancy, autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, and the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy. LRG-1 has been described as a biomarker of acute kidney injury and tubular dysfunction. Terada et al showed that serum and urine LRG-1 levels were increased in a mouse model of acute kidney injury. In that study, immunohistological examination showed that LRG was mainly expressed in renal tubular cells. Lee and co-authors also studied a mouse model and observed that urine LRG-1 was expressed in proximal, distal tubules and collecting ducts. Data suggest that LRG-1 could be used as a marker of tubular damage in various kidney diseases. There are few studies on the role of LRG-1 in patients undergoing renal replacement therapy. In a study by Glorieux and co-authors, plasma LRG-1 levels were 2-fold higher in patients with end-stage renal disease compared with chronic kidney disease (CKD) stages 2 and 3. Serum LRG-1 has been shown to have a negative correlation with GFR. Thus, LRG-1 could be a potential marker for CKD. Banon-Maneus and co-authors studied the presence of various proteomes in urine and concluded that urine LRG-1 can be used as a biomarker to assess the severity of interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy in patients after kidney transplantation. Few studies have described the diagnostic role of LRG-1 in kidney transplant recipients. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the association between this biomarker and the function and injury of kidney transplants. Material and Methods This study was performed according to the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of the Development Society of Pauls Stradi Clinical University Hospital, approval number 280520-18L. The patients provided written informed consent prior to study participation. The study, conducted in spring 2020 at Pauls Stradi Clinical University Hospital, included 35 patients over 18 years old with a stable stage functioning kidney transplant. The study did not include patients with active infections, autoimmune diseases or diabetes mellitus, patients who had had a kidney transplantation in the last 12 months, or pregnant women. Following criteria despite kidney function may influence LRG-1 levels. Baseline demographics and clinical characteristics were obtained from patient and medical records. We collected peripheral blood and urine samples. Urine and blood examination was performed 7.7 (±6.9) years after transplantation (median time -6 years ). To assess the association between LRG-1 and kidney function, we used the correlation with serum creatinine, eGFR and cystatin C. Clinical chemistry tests (eg, creatinine, urea, sodium) were evaluated on a Siemens Atellica analyzer. GFR was estimated according to the MDRD (Modification of Diet in Renal Disease) formula. NGAL was measured using chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay. Correlation with urine NGAL and FENa was performed to obtain association between LRG-1 and tubular dysfunction. Proteinuria was detected using the proteinto-creatinine ratio. Human Leucine-rich alpha-2-glycoprotein 1 ELISA kit (Catalog No. NBP2-60577, Novus Biologicals, USA) was used according to the manufacturer's instructions to detect LRG-1 in blood serum and urine. This ELISA test is a quantitative sandwich-type enzyme immunoabsorbent technique. The obtained result was converted from ng/mL to g/mL for further statistical analysis. The obtained data were processed with Microsoft Office Excel, IBM SPSS Statistics and R-Studio programs. Parameters are reported as median values with interquartile ranges, and the frequency of results as a percentage. Given that the obtained data did not correspond to the normal distribution, the Spearman method was used to determine correlations between variables. The correlation is considered weak if the correlation coefficient (r) is less than 0.25, moderate if r=0.25-0.75, and strong if r >0.75. Age adjustment was used for data analysis. To estimate urine LRG-1 as a biomarker for proteinuria detection, we used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Patient Demographic and Clinical Characteristics There were 35 patients with a functioning kidney graft enrolled in this study. Their median age was 57 years, and 60% of patients were male. The median transplant age was 6.0 (IQR 2.0-10.0) years. The patient median serum creatinine was 123 (IQR 108-176) mol/L, and the eGFR was 47.1 (IQR 33.7-60.0) mL/min/1.73 m 2. The most common maintenance immunosuppressive regimen was therapy with tacrolimus, mycophenolate, and prednisolone (48.6% of patients). Patient characteristics are listed in Table 1. Linear regression analysis was conducted with urine LRG-1 as dependent variable. Every 1 ug/ml increase in urine LRG-1 was associated with a 53-units increase in serum LRG-1. Linear regression accounted for R2=25% of the variance of the serum LRG-1, as shown in Figure 1. Table 2). Serum and Urine The chance line on the ROC curve means the same probability of detecting healthy/sick using the urine LRG-1 biomarker as the area of the ROC curve AUC=0.5. The diagnostic accuracy of urine LRG-1 for the diagnosis of proteinuria >0.5 mg/g was moderate (AUC, 0.77; 95% CI: 0.60-0.94) (Figure 2). This means there is a 77% chance by increase of LRG-1 to distinguish between patients with or without proteinuria. The ROC curve-derived optimal cut-off values for urine LRG-1 was 0.1 ug/ml. The use of these cut-off values resulted in sensitivity (Se), specificity (Sp), positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of 79%, 70%, 65%, and 82%, respectively, for urine LRG-1 ( Table 3). This refers to the higher probability of a positive test (79%) than the probability of a negative test (70%). Discussion Higher LRG-1 levels are observed in various disorders, such as malignancy and autoimmune and inflammatory diseases [3,. Data in the literature also show that LRG-1 levels are elevated in cases of acute or chronic kidney injury. In our study, the main aim was to investigate LRG-1 as a biomarker for kidney injury. The study did not include patients with infection, diabetes, or autoimmune diseases because these conditions per se can increase serum or urine LRG-1 levels. Presence of infection was checked by clinical and laboratory examination. Patients did not have any symptoms such as fever, pain, or cough, and none of them had any remarkable changes in laboratory results (eg, elevated c-reactive protein, white blood cell count). Urinalysis and urine culture were sent for analysis to exclude urinary tract infection. Eleven (31%) patients had asymptomatic bacteriuria with positive urine culture. There were no significant changes in serum or urine LRG1 in patients with or without asymptomatic bacteriuria. BK virus nephropathy was excluded in patients who underwent kidney graft biopsy and was not considered by nephrologist evaluation in those who did not have a biopsy. This study is one of the few to explore LRG-1 as a potential biomarker for kidney injury, particularly in a kidney transplant recipient population. There is no defined reference interval for serum and urine LRG-1. Weivoda et al analyzed patients with different infections and autoimmune diseases, and the normal serum LRG-1 level was defined as up to 50 g/mL based on a control group of 20 patients. In a study of systemic lupus erythematosus, Ahn et al found that a serum LRG-1 level of more than 45.7 ng/mL could indicate disease activity. The reported norms differ significantly since the 2 studies used different units of measurement. In this study, mean serum LRG-1 was 51.07±19.81 g/mL. In comparison, in a study by Yang et al, which included 169 hemodialysis patients, the mean serum LRG-1 was higher (67.73±15.10 g/mL). This result indirectly suggests that patients with lower kidney function have higher serum LRG-1. There was a positive correlation between serum and urine LRG-1. Similar data have been described in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients who were studied over a 3-year period to investigate the correlation of LRG-1 with albuminuria progression. The researchers found that higher serum LRG-1 correlated with higher urine LRG-1 and indicated the progression of albuminuria. We determined that a higher serum LRG-1 level had a moderate positive correlation with the level of serum urea, serum creatinine, and serum cystatin C and a moderate negative correlation with eGFR. These correlations show that serum LRG-1 is associated with decreased kidney function of the renal transplant. Glorieux et al also found a negative correlation between serum LRG-1 and eGFR. In our study, serum LRG-1 had a negative correlation with the level of hemoglobin, which may indirectly indicate worse kidney transplant function because decreased renal function is associated with erythropoietin deficiency and secondary anemia. In addition, serum LRG-1 had a positive correlation with a higher level of phosphorus. This might be related to a decreased transplant function, tubular injury, and secondary hyperparathyroidism. Yang et al found a negative correlation between serum LRG-1 and hemoglobin in hemodialysis patients, but they did not find a correlation between serum LRG-1 and bone mineral disorders. Table 3. Diagnostic performance of urine LRG-1. Se -sensitivity; Sp -specificity; PPV -positive predictive value, NPV -negative predictive value; LR+ -positive likelihood ratio; LR--negative likelihood ratio. We found a positive correlation between serum LRG-1 and transplant age. A longer time after kidney transplantation is associated with decreased GFR levels due to chronic transplant dysfunction. Banon-Maneus et al studied different proteomes in urine. They found that urine LRG-1 may be used as a marker in diagnosing chronic graft dysfunction because it correlates with the severity of interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy. In our study, urine LRG-1 had a positive correlation with proteinuria and urine NGAL. Other studies suggest that plasma and urine LRG-1 levels are increased in cases of proteinuria and tubular damage. In a study on a mouse model of induced acute kidney injury, Lee et al found that urine LRG-1 was expressed in the renal tubular epithelium and could be used as a tubular damage marker. Urine NGAL is produced by tubular epithelial cells during renal damage, and the correlation of these 2 markers (urine LRG-1 and urine NGAL) in our study indirectly suggests tubular damage. This is a pilot study with the relatively small study cohort. Similar research needs to be performed in a larger cohort to obtain more precise correlations. Conclusions Our study demonstrates the potential role of serum and urine LRG-1 as a kidney injury marker in kidney transplant recipients. It correlates with other tubular injury markers (NGAL) and functional deterioration. Further research regarding LRG-1 in a larger post-transplant patient cohort with subsequent transplant biopsies is warranted. Data Availability Statement The data that support the findings of this study are not publicly available because they contain information that could compromise the privacy of research participants. Declaration of Figures' Authenticity All figures submitted have been created by the authors, who confirm that the images are original with no duplication and have not been previously published in whole or in part. |
// derive derives a 256-bit XChaCha20-Poly1305 key and 192-bit
// XChaCha20-Poly1305 nonce.
func (d djb) derive(ikm []byte) (key, nonce []byte) {
const (
K = chacha20poly1305.KeySize
N = chacha20poly1305.NonceSizeX
)
buf := make([]byte, K+N)
r := hkdf.New(sha256.New, ikm, nil, d.mkInfo)
_, err := io.ReadFull(r, buf)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
return buf[0:K:K], buf[K : K+N : K+N]
} |
#pragma once
#include "BaseEdit.h"
namespace FilterEdit
{
class CFloatEdit : public CBaseEdit
{
public:
enum e_Sign {eSigned, eUnsigned};
CFloatEdit (const e_Sign eSign = eSigned,
const unsigned int uiWhole = 19);
virtual ~CFloatEdit ();
void SetSigned();
void SetUnsigned();
void SetWhole(const unsigned int uiWhole);
double GetValue () const;
protected:
//{{AFX_MSG(CFloatEdit)
afx_msg void OnKillFocus(CWnd* pNewWnd);
//}}AFX_MSG
DECLARE_MESSAGE_MAP()
private:
static bool m_bInitialised;
static CRegEx m_SignedRegEx;
static CRegEx m_UnsignedRegEx;
static void CreateRegexes(const unsigned int uiWhole);
};
}
|
#include "simple/igloo.h"
using namespace igloo;
#include "simple/timestamp.h"
#include "simple/sleep.h"
Context(sleep_usage) {
Spec(sleep_seconds_usage) {
unsigned long begin_stamp = timestamp_tickcount();
sleep_seconds(1);
unsigned long end_stamp = timestamp_tickcount();
AssertThat(end_stamp - begin_stamp, EqualsWithDelta(1000, 100));
}
};
|
Image copyright Nissan Image caption The Infiniti is the latest car to be built at Sunderland
Car giant Nissan has announced it is to invest a further £37m in its production plant in Sunderland.
The cash will create an eighth press line - where car parts including doors and bonnets are produced.
Work is under way on the extension, which will take the Sunderland site to more than 350,000 square metres - the size of 50 football pitches.
Earlier this month the firm announced 300 extra jobs to work on its luxury Infiniti brand.
The new press will be used on the company's existing Qashqai, Juke, Note and all-electric Nissan LEAF vehicles.
Nissan's Senior Vice President, Colin Lawther, said: "This fresh investment is a clear signal of our intent to continue leading in these key areas for the Nissan brand, with our crossover and electric vehicle success founded on the exceptional quality and delivery standards achieved by our workforce here in Sunderland."
The new press line is expected to go into production in 2017.
The Sunderland plant, which opened in 1986, employs almost 7,000 people and produces more than 550,000 vehicles a year. |
Sweden’s Pirate Party, which aims to reform copyright laws and protect music file downloaders, has gained enough vote’s to win a seat in the European Parliament.
The party gained 7.1 percent of the Swedish vote in last night’s (June 8) count, meaning that it will gain at least one, possibly two seats.
The Pirate Party is the third largest political party in Sweden and has seen an increase in profile since four men involved in setting up the file-sharing website were sentenced to a year in jail for copyright infringement in Stockholm.
Party leader Rick Falkvinge hailed the victory as a victory for young technology-savvy people, reports ToffentFreak.
“Together, we have today changed the landscape of European politics,” he said. “This feels wonderful. The citizens have understood it’s time to make a difference. |
Admiral of the Fleet Rosslyn Erskine Wemyss, 1st Baron Wester Wemyss, GCB, CMG, MVO (12 April 1864 – 24 May 1933), known as Sir Rosslyn Wemyss between 1916 and 1919, was a Royal Navy officer. During the First World War he served as commander of the 12th Cruiser Squadron and then as Governor of Moudros before leading the British landings at Cape Helles and at Suvla Bay during the Gallipoli Campaign. He went on to be Commander of the East Indies & Egyptian Squadron in January 1916 and then First Sea Lord in December 1917, in which role he encouraged Admiral Roger Keyes, Commander of the Dover Patrol, to undertake more vigorous operations in the Channel, ultimately leading to the launch of the Zeebrugge Raid in April 1918.
Early life and naval career [ edit ]
Born the youngest son of James Hay Erskine Wemyss and Millicent Ann Mary Kennedy Wemyss (née Erskine), Wemyss (pronounced "Weems") joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in the training ship HMS Britannia in 1877.[1] He was posted to the corvette HMS Bacchante in July 1879, having been promoted to midshipman on 23 September 1879, he transferred to the battleship HMS Northumberland in the Channel Squadron in 1883.[1] After a tour in the corvette HMS Canada on the North America and West Indies Station, he was promoted to sub-lieutenant on 24 September 1883, and posted to the torpedo depot ship HMS Hecla in the Mediterranean Fleet in 1885.[1] Promoted to lieutenant on 31 March 1887,[2] he joined the Royal Yacht HMY Osborne in October 1887 and then transferred to the battleship HMS Anson in the Channel Squadron in September 1889.[1] He joined the armoured cruiser HMS Undaunted in the Mediterranean Fleet in 1890, the battleship HMS Empress of India in the Channel Squadron in 1892 and the cruiser HMS Astraea in the Mediterranean Fleet in 1895.[1]
Wemyss joined the Royal Yacht HMY Victoria and Albert in 1896, and having been promoted to commander on 31 August 1898,[3] he transferred to the cruiser HMS Niobe on the Cape of Good Hope Station which served as a troopship for prisoners of war during the Second Boer War.[1] He was invited by the Duke of York to become second-in-command of the ocean liner SS Ophir on his cruise March–October 1901 to open the Parliament of Australia and visit Commonwealth countries to thank them for their support during the Boer War.[1] Promoted to captain after their return, on 5 November 1901,[4] he became an extra equerry to the new Prince of Wales on 19 November 1901[5] and was appointed a Member of Fourth Class of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) on 24 December 1901.[6] He was posted to the President for temporary service at the Admiralty in October 1902,[7] and became Captain of the Royal Naval College, Osborne, in August 1903. Given command of the cruiser HMS Suffolk in the Mediterranean Fleet in 1905, he then took command of the battleship HMS Implacable in the Atlantic Fleet in March 1909.[1] He served as Captain of the ocean liner SS Balmoral Castle for the Duke of Connaught's cruise to open the Parliament of South Africa in 1910.[8] Appointed a Naval Aide-de-Camp to the King on 14 March 1910,[9] he took part in the funeral of King Edward VII in May 1910[10] and became an extra equerry to King George V on 10 June 1910,[11] he was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George on 17 January 1911.[12] Promoted to rear admiral on 19 April 1911,[13] he became Commander of the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet in October 1912.[8]
First World War and after [ edit ]
Wemyss served in the First World War, initially as commander of the 12th Cruiser Squadron in the Channel Fleet and then, after being despatched to Lemnos with a brief to prepare the harbour of Moudros for operations against the Dardanelles in February 1915, as Governor of Moudros.[8] He commanded a squadron for the British landings at Cape Helles on 25 April 1915 and also gave support for the British landings at Suvla Bay on the Gallipoli Front on 9 August 1915.[8] When the Gallipoli Campaign was abandoned he was responsible for the successful re-embarkation of troops from Suvla Bay and from Ari Burnu on 20 December 1915.[8] He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the 1916 New Year Honours.[14]
Wemyss became Commander of the East Indies & Egyptian Squadron in January 1916 where he supported military operations on the Palestine Front.[8] He encouraged the Arab Revolt under Emir Faisal and T. E. Lawrence: the latter said that "Wemyss acted godfather til the Arabs were on their feet".[15] Promoted to vice-admiral on 6 December 1916,[16] he was appointed a Commander of the French Legion of Honour on 23 March 1917[17] and a Grand Officer of the Order of the Crown of Italy on 11 August 1917.[18]
Wemyss (third from right) negotiating the ceasefire at the end of the First World War. Foch (Supreme Allied Commander) standing, his chief of staff Weygand sitting on the right.
Returning to the Admiralty, Wemyss was appointed Second Sea Lord in September 1917 and then Deputy First Sea Lord in October 1917.[19] Following Sir Eric Geddes's decision to dismiss the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Wemyss was appointed Jellicoe's replacement in December 1917.[19] As First Sea Lord he encouraged Admiral Roger Keyes, Commander of the Dover Patrol, to undertake more vigorous operations in the Channel, ultimately leading to the launch of the Zeebrugge Raid in April 1918.[19] He was advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in the 1918 Birthday Honours[20] and represented Britain at the Armistice in November 1918.[19] He was awarded the Grand Cross of the French Legion of Honour on 17 January 1919[21] and the French Croix de Guerre on 15 February 1919.[22] He was also promoted to full admiral on 21 February 1919,[23] awarded the Grand Cross of the Romanian Order of the Crown on 17 March 1919[24] and presented with the American Distinguished Service Medal on 16 September 1919.[25]
Wemyss was the senior British representative at the signing of the armistice that ended active hostilities in the war.[26] It was Weymyss who made the decision, much to the anger of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, to have the ceasefire to come into effect at 11.00 a.m. Lloyd George wanted it to take place at 2.30 p.m. so that he could make the announcement in the House of Commons. Wemyss realised that 11 a.m on the 11th day of the 11th month had a strong, poetic quality about it; besides, by 2.30 p.m. more soldiers could be unnecessarily killed.[27] After attending the Paris Peace Conference as Britain's naval representative, Wemyss resigned in November 1919 following persistent calls for Sir David Beatty to be given his job.[28]
Wemyss was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet on 1 November 1919[29] and was raised to the peerage as Baron Wester Wemyss, of Wemyss in the County of Fife on 18 November 1919.[30] In retirement he wrote his memoirs under the title The Navy in the Dardanelles Campaign and became a Non-Executive Director of Cable & Wireless.[28] He lived in Cannes where he died in his garden on 24 May 1933.[28] He was buried at Wemyss Castle, his ancestral home.[28]
Family [ edit ]
On 21 December 1903 Wemyss married Victoria Morier, daughter of Sir Robert Morier; they had one daughter, Alice Elizabeth Millicent Erskine-Wemyss.[31]
References [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]
Heathcote, Tony (2002). The British Admirals of the Fleet 1734 – 1995 . Pen & Sword Ltd. ISBN 0-85052-835-6.
Lawrence, T.E. (1997). Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Wordsworth Editions Ltd. ISBN 978-1853264696.
Further reading [ edit ] |
Osmotic compression of droplets of hard rods: A computer simulation study By means of computer simulations we study how droplets of hard, rod-like particles optimize their shape and internal structure under the influence of the osmotic compression caused by the presence of spherical particles that act as depletion agents. At sufficiently high osmotic pressures the rods that make up the drops spontaneously align to turn them into uniaxial nematic liquid crystalline droplets. The nematic droplets or"tactoids"that are formed this way are not spherical but elongated, resulting from the competition between the anisotropic surface tension and the elastic deformation of the director field. In agreement with recent theoretical predictions we find that sufficiently small tactoids have a uniform director field, whilst large ones are characterized by a bipolar director field. From the shape and director-field transformation of the droplets we are able to estimate the surface anchoring strength and an average of the elastic constants of the hard-rod nematic. I. INTRODUCTION Fluids of elongated particles that interact via a harshly repulsive excluded-volume interaction potential, i.e., hardrod fluids, have proven immensely useful as a model system for investigating the formation, structure and properties of liquid crystals 1. Indeed, hard-rod fluids exhibit a wealth of aggregated states including nematic, smectic and columnar liquid-crystalline phases as well as various plastic and crystalline solid phases, depending on the precise shape, density and composition of the model particles present in the system 2. Closest experimental realizations of the hard-rod fluid model are found in fluid dispersions of very stiff polymers, inorganic rod-like colloids, filamentous viruses, fibrillar or tubular protein assemblies, and carbon nanotubes 3, 4,5,6,7. For this class of system, the transition from an isotropic to a symmetry-broken liquid-crystalline or crystalline state is entropy rather than enthalpy driven, and the relevant control parameter is not the temperature but the concentration or particle density. The transitions between the different phases are driven by a tradeoff between free volume and configurational entropy. Arguably, the experimentally and theoretically by far most extensively studied liquid-crystalline state is the nematic that is characterized by uniaxial and up-down symmetry. The preferred mean orientation of the particles is described by a director field the ground state of which is spatially uniform. The transition from the isotropic to the nematic phase is first order. (See, however, the work by Oakes and co-workers 8.) In the biphasic region it proceeds via the formation of nematic droplets called tactoids in the background isotropic dispersion. Tactoids are typically not spherical but elongated and spindle-shaped, and they have over the past century or so been observed in a wide variety of systems 9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16. The shape and internal structure of nematic droplets is the result of the competition between the preferred surface anchoring of the director field and the deformation of the director field that occurs if the preferred anchoring is indeed accommodated. The shape and director-field configurations of tactoids have recently been studied theoretically in considerable detail within a macroscopic Frank elasticity theory 15,17,18,19,20. Predictions depend on several parameters: two surface energies (the surface tension and anchoring energy), three bulk elastic constants associated with the splay, twist and bend deformations, the saddle-splay surface elastic constant, and, finally, the size of the droplet. For our purposes, it suffices to summarize the most important predictions, presuming preferential planar anchoring of the director field to the interface that for rod-like particles seems to hold for entropy reasons: i) The director field of small drops is uniform and of large ones bipolar; ii) The crossover is smooth and set by a healing or extrapolation length that is the ratio of an average elastic constant and an anchoring energy; iii) The aspect ratio of uniform tactoids depends only on the anchoring energy, and of bipolar ones on their size relative to the healing length. Some aspects of these theoretical predictions have been verified against experiment, in particular the size dependence of aspect ratio and opening angle of the sharp ends of the tactoids 14,15,18,19,20. The crossover from bipolar to uniform director field has not been observed and this probably presents quite an experimental challenge because it has been predicted to occur when the drops are quite small, that is, in the micrometer range. For such small droplets, not at all very much larger than the particles that they are made up from, director field patterns are difficult to distinguish in polarization microscopic images. Clearly, computer simulations are of use here 21,22,23, not least because a macroscopic description might break down for such small drops, in other words, the predicted transition may be spurious. On the other hand, recent simulations on the nucleation of the nematic phase in a hard-rod fluid have indeed shown that small nuclei of the nematic phase are elongated and it appears at least that their director field is uniform 24. Simulations on small nematic droplets of prolate particles interacting via a Gay-Berne potential have been shown to exhibit similar behavior, although fluctuations are large so a director field is not so easily defined. 25,26 Because systematic computational investigations of the shape and internal structure of nematic droplets are lacking, we set out to do this for nematics of hard spherocylinders of aspect ratio eleven. Our simulations build on our earlier work on hard-rod nematics in a spherical cavity of fixed size and shape 27, but we now focus on actual drops that can adjust their structure. This we do by placing the spherocylinders in a suspension of spherical particles, which interact via a hard-core repulsion with the spherocylinders yet are transparent with respect to themselves, i.e., behave like an ideal gas. The method allows us to compress by osmotic stress droplets of a fixed and predestined number of rod-like particles. This is achieved in a controlled manner because the density of the rods in the drop will be set by the imposed pressure of the ideal gas of spheres (if we ignore a small contribution from a Laplace pressure). Hence, the drop size must then be given by the number of rods in the simulation box. Note that our making use of what in essence is a depletion agent (the spherical particles) is not all that dissimilar in spirit to the experiments of Dogic and Fraden 13, who used the non-adsorbing polymer dextran to induce phase separation in aqueous dispersions of filamentous fd virus particles. Our results may be summarized as follows. i) For relatively low densities of spheres, the droplets are spherical and the rods randomly oriented; ii) Above a critical sphere density, the drops become nematic and elongated; iii) Small tactoids have a uniform director field and large ones a bipolar one; iv) At the crossover the drops measure about four rod lengths so indeed are very small; v) The surface tension anisotropy and healing length that we deduce from the simulations are consistent with theoretical estimates. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In section II we introduce the model and define the relevant order parameters. A detailed discussion of our results is given in section III. Finally, in section IV we summarize our findings and relate them to theory and experiment. II. MODEL AND SIMULATION DETAILS In the Monte-Carlo simulations, we model the rods as spherocylinders consisting of a cylindrical part of length L and diameter D, capped at both ends by hemispheres of diameter D. In order to stabilize droplets of rods, we surround them by a liquid of spheres. The spherocylinders interact via a hard-core repulsion. The spheres also interact with a hard-core repulsion with spherocylinders but are able to freely interpenetrate each other at not energy cost. Hence, our model is an extension of the Asakura-Oosawa or AO model for colloid-polymer mixtures 28,29 to anisotropic colloids 30. Note that strictly speaking the spheres do interact with each other via the rods whilst this is not so in the original AO model. This difference is of academic interest only, because we consider only those concentrations of particles that produce a very strong phase separation into sphere-and rod-rich phases, so the former behaves as a (nearly) ideal gas of spheres that in essence acts as a barostat for the droplet consisting of only spherocylinders. As already advertised in the introduction, this implies that by means of changing the number of spheres in the system at fixed volume, we can tune the pressure exerted on the rods in the droplet. Through that we vary the density of the drop and therefore also the physical properties of the drop, such as the elastic response if the drop is in a nematic fluid state. Hence, we use the number density of spheres sp measured far away from the droplet as a parameter that characterizes the external conditions imposed on the droplets formed. The same method has been used in an earlier study to study the formation of nanocrystals in a simulation 31. The simulations were performed at fixed particle number N and simulation box volume V (and temperature T, but as the system is purely entropic, temperature is not relevant here) in a cubic box with periodic boundary conditions. We focus on spherocylinders with an aspect ratio of L/D + 1 = 11 (i.e. L/D = 10), and spheres with a diameter twice that of the thickness of the rods, D sp = 2D. Spheres that are much larger than this introduce strong effects on the surface anchoring, whilst for smaller spheres the numbers needed in the simulation are so large to be unpractical from a computational point of view. The number of spherocylinders in the box was varied from 200 to 700, and the number of spheres was fixed such that phase separation was induced into two phases containing virtually only spherocylinders or spheres. This corresponded in our simulations to between approximately 20000 and 70000 spheres. We chose the simulation box to be 70 3 D 3, i.e., sufficiently large to ensure that the spherocylinders did not interact directly with each other via the periodic boundaries. We verified the droplets that form are not system spanning. The systems were equilibrated by local translation and rotation moves. Depending on the specific concentrations, 10 6 − 10 7 MC sweeps were required. The boundary and volume of a droplet is established as follows. We first divide the system into small boxes and next verify whether a box contains the center of a sphere or whether it is intersected by any spherocylinder. In the latter case, this box is counted as a part of the droplet. If it so happens that a box does not fall into either of the two categories, it is counted as a part of the droplet if it has a larger number of nearest neighbouring boxes containing spherocylinders than spheres. As is customary, we define the average alignment of the (N ) rods in terms of the traceless tensor Q, with the elements where u i is the component ( = x, y, z) of the unit vector along the axis of particle i = 1,..., N and the Kronecker delta. Diagonalization of the tensor yields three eigenvalues, +, 0 and −, where + > 0 > −. Different authors use different combinations of these eigenvalues to define the nematic and biaxial order parameters 32,33. To avoid confusion, we shall present all eigenvalues instead. The case + > 0, 0 = − corresponds to a structure with one preferred direction. The case + = 0 > 0 corresponds to a structure in which one direction is avoided and the two other directions are equally favored. All the intermediate cases + > 0, + > 0 > − correspond to a biaxial structure. Obviously, in an isotropic phase one finds + = 0 = − = 0. When calculating observables, such as the components of the order parameter tensor properly averaged over the ensemble of configurations, all the possible types of symmetry in the system have to be taken into account. In the case of radial symmetry we calculated the orientational tensor directly by averaging over all configurations obtained in the simulations. If there is a preferred axis in the system along which the particles tend to align, we need to proceed differently. As rotations of the director do not cost any (free) energy, the orientation of this axis can fluctuate strongly during a simulation run. In order to average the local properties of interest, the configurations have been rotated in such a way that the director always points in the same direction. It is important to point out that this procedure introduces additional noise to the simulation results. In the following, we show all data rotated such that the director is aligned with the z-axis. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION In the diagram of fig. 1 we have indicated with asterisks the system conditions for which we ran the simulations. The letters "a" through "l" are used in the following to refer to specific points in this diagram. We have indicated schematically in the figure the shape and the structure of the droplets, which we discuss in more detail below. The numbers in the boxes indicate the aspect ratios of the droplets. Figs. 2 and 3 give the snapshots of two typical structures given by conditions "i" and "c", respectively, where only the spherocylinders are shown for clarity. Two essential differences between these structures can be seen: The first of the two droplets shown is i) more elongated and ii) the spherocylinders in this droplet have a much stronger tendency to orient in one direction. Below we will analyse these effects in a more quantitative fashion. The difference is caused by the difference in bulk sphere density and hence osmotic stress imposed on the drop by the sphere fluid. Droplet "i" is subject to much higher pressure and hence is condensed much more than droplet "c", and has crossed over to the nematic phase. The rod densities D 3 in the two drops are 0.034 and 0.027 (averaged over each droplet). From the (remarkably accurate) Lee-Parsons theory of the nematic transition in bulk fluids of hard rods 34, we expect for spherocylinders of aspect ratio 11 the nematic transition to occur at a pressure of P D 3 /k B T ≈ 0.25, corresponding to an ideal gas density of sp D 3 ≈ 0.25. This is in reasonable agreement with the transitional regime around sp D 3 ≈ 0.23 in the diagram. We also estimated the transition density by simulating a compression curve and an expansion curve in the bulk and obtained sp D 3 ≈ 0.22, which again is in good agreement with the numbers above. We note that due to the effects of Laplace pressure the nematic transition should occur at a somewhat higher sphere density then that in bulk solution. For details we refer to the Appendix. In fig. 4 we have plotted a typical iso-density distribution in the r-z-plane for nematic droplet "i". Inside the droplet the spherocylinders have an approximately constant rod density equal to D 3 = 0.039, which rapidly decays when approaching the interface to the fluid of spheres. It is clear that the drop is not spherical, the aspect ratio being approximately 1.8. For comparison, and in order to determine the shape of the droplets, we cut a slice from the r − z-density profile at half of its maximum value. That is where we expect the Gibbs plane to be situated. The curves obtained in this way are shown in fig. 5 for several systems consisting of the same amount or spherocylinders (N rods = 500) but with various densities of spheres, corresponding to the points "a","b","c","f","i", and "k". At low pressures the droplets are (nearly) spherical. This is to be expected if the rods are in their isotropic state. However, if the pressure is increased the droplets crossover to the nematic phase and hence become elongated in order to reduce either the elastic deformation of the director field if the anchoring is strong, or the anchoring free energy if the anchoring is weak. As already advertised, the crossover occurs when the typical drop dimension exceeds the healing length, which we are going to discuss in more depth in the following section. On increase of the density of rods, the elastic constants in all likelihood increase, too, as should the interfacial tension and potentially also the anchoring strength. We expect from scaling arguments that the ratio of the anchoring strength and the surface tension is a weak function of the pressure 35, however, and in the weak anchoring regime it is this ratio that dictates the aspect ratio of the drops 17. In the strong anchoring regime the aspect ratio is an increasing function of the healing length that in the equal-constant approximation is given by the ratio of the elastic constant and the surface tension. Hence, whether the droplets become more elongated then depends on how strongly these two energies depend on the pressure. Apparently, the elastic constants increase more strongly with pressure because the aspect ratio increases from about 1.1 to 1.8 with increasing sphere concentration. We observe the same tendency for the systems of 700 spherocylinders. At low pressures the droplet is more or less spherical (state point "e", aspect ratio 1.1) and at high pressures the droplet becomes elongated (state point "j", aspect ratio 1.8). We have to note, however, that droplet size also affects the aspect ratio: it decreases with increasing size. This has been observed experimentally and is predicted theoretically based on macroscopic theory 14,15,19. The aspect ratios for all the state points are shown in the boxes in the "shape" diagram fig. 1, with an estimated error of 0.1. We now turn to the orientational state of the rods in the droplets. This is described in terms of the eigenvalues of the orientational tensor Q (see II). In fig. 6 we show the r-and z-profiles of these eigenvalues for the drops "i", "f", and "c" (that each consist of 500 spherocylinders). The droplets become less ordered and less elongated. Droplet "i" has a high nematic ordering in its center, which slightly decays on approach of the interface to the gas of spheres in both, the r-and the z-direction. Droplet "f" has a lower density and also a nematic order parameter that is smaller. Droplet "c" has even lower values of the nematic order parameter, and at the interfaces all the eigenvalues become equal to 0, indicating an isotropic configuration. This drop probably is close to the conditions where the isotropic-nematic transition takes place. By analysing the tensor Q for all the investigated droplets, we construct scalar order parameter profiles as well as the nematic director-field configuration. The results are indicated schematically in the diagram 1: 1) Droplets "a" and "b" are spherical droplets of an isotropic rod fluid; 2) Droplets "c", "d" and "e" are in the isotropic-nematic transition region, exhibiting a strongly fluctuating orientational order; 3) States "f" to "l" are strongly nematic drops; 4) The director field of drops "i", "j", "k" and "l" is more or less uniform, those of "g" and"h" bipolar, and of "f" in between these two. To illustrate these findings, we show the director field (the axis given by the eigenvector corresponding to the largest eigenvalue of the orientation tensor) as a function of the radial and axial distances r and z in fig. 7 for the case "k" and in fig. 8 for the case "h". The director field of the tactoid "k" is more or less uniform and oriented along the main axis of the drop. That of "h" is bipolar, i.e., curved along the elongated drop surface toward the tips, where the scalar order parameter drops to zero. This signifies the melting of the nematic near the tips, where theoretically one would expect the surface point defects ("boojums") to reside 17. The director field in a nematic droplet is determined by the interplay of surface anchoring and elastic forces. The bipolar structure can only be formed if the energy for bending is small enough compared to the surface energy. This can be achieved if the density of the suspension is small (but the droplet still has a nematic structure), or if the droplet is big (and, therefore, the curvature of the interface is small). Systems "g" and "h" fit into this category. The aspect ratio of the droplets does not depend on their size if the director field inside the droplets is homogeneous. This follows directly from the well-known Wulff construction of the droplet shape given any polar angle-dependent surface tension 17. Indeed, all the droplets with an approximately homogeneous director field, droplets "i", "j", "k", and "l", that we obtained in our simulations have the same aspect ratio of 1.8 within a statistical error of the simulation of about 0.1, in agreement with this theoretical prediction. From the aspect ratio observed in the simulations we can in fact deduce a dimensionless anchoring strength. Let us presume that the anisotropic surface tension has a functional form of the Rapini-Papoular type, so = , with the bare surface tension, the dimensionless anchoring strength, q the surface normal and n the director field at the surface of the drop. For planar anchoring to be favored, > 0. From the Wulff construction we then deduce that the aspect ratio of the drop equals 1 + for 0 ≤ ≤ 1 and 2 √ for > 1 17. Hence, we find from our simulations a value for of 0.8, quite close the value of 0.65 found by Dijkstra and co-workers in a simulation study of nematic drops nucleated in a super-saturated dispersion of hard rods 36. Finally, from the crossover from bipolar to homogeneous director fields, we obtain an estimate for the healing length. According to fig. 1, the crossover occurs for drops of a volume about 1.7 10 4 D 3. This value may actually depend on the sphere density, but because of the lack of any detailed information we shall ignore this for simplicity. Presuming that the bend elastic constant is about ten times larger than the splay elastic constant, which seems reasonable on account of predictions for hard rods in the Onsager limit, the crossover occurs at a droplet volume equal to about 10 times the healing length ≡ (K 11 − K 24 )/ cubed according to macroscopic theory 18,19, where K 11 denotes the splay elastic constant and K 24 the saddle-splay surface elastic constant. So, we find for the healing length ≈ 12D, which is about a rod length. Clearly, macroscopic theories, such as those of Kaznacheev and collaborators 15,20, and of Prinsen and van der Schoot 17,18,19, could perhaps be expected to break down at such small length scales, yet the predicted crossover from uniform to bipolar director fields apparently still survives. From the estimate of the healing length, we can obtain an order of magnitude estimate of the interfacial tension between the rods and the spheres that we can compare with the scaling estimate given in the Appendix. If we presume the Saupe-Nehring relation to hold, implying that K 24 = (K 11 − K 22 )/2 37, and make use of the approximate expression K 22 = K 11 /3 38, we obtain ≈ 2K 11 /3. Hence, K 11 / ≈ 14D, or, D 2 ≈ K 11 D/14. Within a second-virial approximation, which admittedly is not very accurate for rods of aspect ratio below 20, we expect K 11 D ≈ 0.9 to hold near the transition 39. Hence, for the interfacial tension between the rods and the spheres we obtain the estimate D 2 ≈ 0.07. According to our scaling estimate cited in the Appendix, we have D 2 ≈ 0.25/D with a prefactor that should be of order 0.1 35 and the interfacial width. If ≈ L, this then implies that ≈ 0.03, which is somewhat smaller than expected 35. In order to go beyond this quantitative analysis, simulation data of the elastic constants of the bulk nematic and of the surface tension between the co-existing bulk fluids would be necessary. Unfortunately, these are not available yet for spherocylinders of aspect ratio 11, as, in particular, simulations to determine elastic constants are computationally rather expensive. (To our knowledge, elastic constants have been computed only for spherocylinders of aspect ratio 6 40.) IV. SUMMARY By means of computer simulations we have shown that fluid droplets of hard rods, osmotically compressed by the presence of spherical particles, undergo an isotropic-nematic transition at sufficiently high osmotic stress. We find the nematic droplets not to be spherical but elongated. The director field of the drops is uniform if smaller than a critical size and bipolar if larger than that. We interpret our findings in terms of the predictions of continuum mechanical theory that minimizes the combined effect of an elastic deformation of the director field and an anchoring frustration of this director field at the surface of the drops. Although in our simulations the drops are not at all large on the scale of the rods, and continuum theory should perhaps not be expected to be accurate, results from both levels of description seem to be consistent with each other down to drop sizes that are as small as a few times the particle length. V. APPENDIX An estimate for the rod density in the droplet as a function of the number N rods of rods and the density of spheres sp can be obtained by presuming complete demixing of the two components and by presuming that the interface between them is sharp. Let R be the radius of the drop, assumed perfectly spherical, then = 3N rods /4R 3 is the density of the rods in drop. The bulk pressure of the hard rods is to a very good approximation equal to the expression put forward by Parsons and by Lee 7 at least in the isotropic phase, where = (D 3 /6+LD 2 /4) denotes the packing fraction, = (L/D) 2 /(1+3L/2D) for slender rods is proportional to their aspect ratio and denotes the reciprocal thermal energy 1/k B T with k B Boltzmann's constant and T the absolute temperature. The pressure of the ideal gas of spheres obeys Mechanical equilibrium between the gas of hard rods and that of ideal spheres demands that where the second term on the left-hand side is the contribution from the Laplace pressure across the curved interface, with the interfacial tension that presumably depends on the bulk densities of both the rods and the spheres. For any given number of rods N rods, this equation sets the equilibrium size of the drop. An estimate of the magnitude of the Laplace pressure may be given by making use of the scaling Ansatz ≈ P sp, with ≈ L the actual interfacial width 35. Hence, P/P sp ≈ 1 − 2/R with a constant of proportionality that we estimate to be of order 0.1 35. So, the presence of the interface reduces the pressure in the drop relative to that in the reservoir of spheres and hence postpones the onset of the nematic phase to higher densities of spheres the smaller the drop. From Table I of Lee 41, we deduce by linear extrapolation that for rods of L/D = 10 the bulk nematic phase sets in at a dimensionless pressure P D 3 ≈ 0.247, corresponding to a sphere fraction of sp D 3 ≈ 0.247, in reasonable agreement with what we find in the simulations. See fig. 1. FIG. 1: "Shape" diagram of hard spherocylinder droplets immersed in a fluid of spherical particles. The horizontal axis shows the volume of the droplet of spherocylinders in units of cylinder thickness cubed, D 3, and the vertical axis the number density of the spheres far away from the droplet. The letters "a" to "l" are used in the main text to refer to specific points on the diagram. The sketches show schematically the shape and the interal structure of the droplets, and distinguish spherical isotropic droplets, elongated nematic droplets with either a homogeneous or a bipolar director field. The numbers in the boxes indicate the aspect ratios of the droplets. The boundaries of the boxes distinguish between: isotropic (dashed), transition region (dash-dotted), bipolar (dotted) and homogeneous (solid). System "a" System "b" System "c" System "f" System "i" System "k" FIG. 5: The shapes of droplets consisting of 500 spherocylinders at different pressures of spheres (conditions "a", "b", "c", "f", "i", and "k" indicated in the schematic of fig. 1). Droplets "a" and "b" are those of isotropically oriented rods, and hence more or less spherical. Drop "c" is in the transition zone from the isotropic to the nematic state. Drops "f", "i" and "k" are nematic drops, with "i" and "k" exhibiting more or less uniform director fields and "f" a more bipolar one.. The r-and z-profiles of the eigenvalues of the orientational tensor Q for the systems "i", "f", and "c" (each consisting of 500 spherocylinders). |
Clinical Experience of Male Primary Choriocarcinoma at the Samsung Medical Center Purpose The objective of this study was to describe and analyze the clinicopathological features of primary choriocarcinoma (PCC) observed in male patients treated at the Samsung Medical Center between 1996 and 2020. Materials and Methods We reviewed the clinical records of 14 male patients with PCC retrospectively to assess their demographic, histological, and clinical characteristics at the time of diagnosis as well as identify the treatment outcomes. Results The median age of the patients was 33 years. The primary tumor site was the testicles in seven cases (50%), the mediastinum in six cases (43%), and the brain in one case (7%). The most common metastatic site was the lungs (79%), followed by the brain (43%). All patients with PCC received cytotoxic chemotherapy. Twelve patients had records of their response to cytotoxic chemotherapy; of these 12 patients, eight (8/12, 67%) achieved an objective response, and four (4/12, 33%) achieved stable disease response as the best response during chemotherapy. Conclusion It is known that most male PCC patients eventually develop resistance to cytotoxic chemotherapy and die. Factors such as poor response to chemotherapy, high disease burden, brain metastasis, and hemoptysis at the time of diagnosis are associated with shorter survival time in male PCC patients. Programmed death-1/programmed death-ligand 1 blockade therapy can be a salvage treatment for chemotherapy-resistant male PCC patients. Introduction Testicular germ cell tumors (TGCTs) are the most common solid tumors in young men between the ages of 20 and 34. Although TGCTs most commonly arise in the testicles, occasionally they develop in extragonadal sites without the presence of a primary tumor in the testicles. Extragonadal TGCTs mainly develop in midline locations of the body, such as the anterior mediastinum, retroperitoneum, and pineal gland. TGCTs are divided into two major histological types: pure classic seminoma and non-seminomatous germ cell tumors (NSGCTs). NSGCTs can be of four subtypes, embryonal carcinoma, yolk sac tumor, teratoma, and choriocarcinoma, and can present a mix of seminomatous and nonseminomatous components. Seminoma often demonstrates indolent behavior, while NSGCTs tend to occur at a younger age and confer higher mortality. Choriocarcinoma is a rare cancer composed of cytotrophoblasts, intermediate trophoblasts, and syncytiotrophoblast cells. In embryology, these trophoblast cells are known to contribute to the implantation and subsequent placental development and secrete human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) to promote the maintenance of the corpus luteum. Therefore, hCG is used as a tumor marker of choriocarcinoma. Choriocarcinoma is classified as gestational or nongestational. Gestational choriocarcinoma refers to choriocarcinoma originating from the trophoblast of any type of gestational event, such as hydatidiform mole, spontaneous abortion, and normal pregnancy. Nongestational choriocarcinoma refers to choriocarcinoma that does not arise from a pregnancy event. Nongestational choriocarcinoma, also called primary choriocarcinoma (PCC), can occur in men, but it is extremely rare. In men, choriocarcinoma is the subtype of NSGCTs with the worst prognosis that presents with high levels of hCG, often widespread metastatic disease, and rapid progression of disease. Moreover, some high-risk patients with very advanced choriocarcinoma develop choriocarcinoma syndrome, which is associated with hemorrhage from the metastatic sites, especially lungs, and has very high mortality rates. To date, the mechanism of male PCC development is not well understood, but the following three hypotheses have been suggested : PCC may arise from retained primordial germ cells that migrate abnormally during embryogenesis; PCC may be a testicular choriocarcinoma metastasis that regressed spon-taneously or not; and PCC may initially develop as a nontrophoblastic neoplasm and then transform into a choriocarcinoma. Male PCC is extremely rare, and only few case reports have been published. The clinical features and prognostic factors of male PCC are not well known. Recently, Jiang et al. analyzed data from 113 male patients with PCC and described their clinicopathological features. In this retrospective study, we describe and analyze the clinicopathological features of 14 cases of male PCC, over the age of 20, diagnosed and treated at the Samsung Medical Center (SMC) between 1996 and 2020. Study population and design A total of 20 male patients with PCC were treated at SMC between 1996 and 2020. Five patients were under the age of 20, and one was diagnosed at another hospital. We excluded these six patients and, finally, 14 male patients with PCC, all aged over 20 years, were included in this retrospective study. All patients were diagnosed on a pathological examination. The medical records of the patients were reviewed, and information on patient death was acquired from census data. The demographic, histological, and clinical characteristics of the patients at diagnosis were described and used for the analysis. Treatment and clinical outcomes of the patients were obtained from medical records. Statistical analysis Statistical analysis was performed to identify the clinical factors affecting overall survival (OS). Briefly, patients were divided into two groups according to clinical characteristics that were expected to influence OS. The OS for each group was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. The difference in OS between the two groups was evaluated with the log-rank test. The estimated median OS was used as a representative value for the survival rate. Additionally, the chisquare test was used to confirm association between two different clinical factors used to divide patients into two groups (data not shown). Among many factors, only the association between histologic finding and hemoptysis at the time of diagnosis was statistically significant (p=0.031). All statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS ver. 22 statistical software (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. Demographic, histological, and clinical characteristics of 14 male patients with PCC at the time of diagnosis The demographic, histological, and clinical characteristics of 14 male patients with PCC at the time of diagnosis are presented in Table 1. The median age was 33 years (range, 23 to 62 years), and most of the patients were between 20 and 40 years old. Histologically, nine cases (64%) were pure choriocarcinoma, and five cases (36%) were mixed germ cell tumors (MGCTs) including choriocarcinoma and seminoma, germinoma, teratoma, endodermal sinus tumor, and embryonal carcinoma. hCG levels were elevated in all cases, and lactate dehydrogenase levels were elevated in all examined patients (not shown). -Fetoprotein (AFP) was elevated only in some cases (6/14, 43%). The primary tumor site was the testicles in seven cases (50%), mediastinum in six cases (43%), and brain in one case (7%). In a study by Jiang et al., the testicles were the most common primary tumor site (36.2%), and mediastinal PCC only accounted for 11% of the 113 PCC male patients assessed. Due to the small number of cases in our study, caution is needed in interpreting these results. As previously mentioned, there is a hypothesis that PCC might be a testicular choriocarcinoma metastasis that has either spontaneously regressed or not. Among our cases, one patient described that right testicular swelling occurred about a year ago and had improved at the time of diagnosis. However, testicular sonography revealed that a small testicular mass still existed in his right testis. On the other hand, there was no history of testicular swelling in the other patients with extragonadal PCC. Except for one patient with brain PCC, all other patients had metastatic diseases. The most common metastatic site Cancer Res Treat. 2021;53:874-880 was the lungs (11/14, 79%), followed by the brain (6/14, 43%), liver (4/14, 29%), and retroperitoneum (4/14, 29%). Initial symptoms varied and were related to the primary and metastatic sites of tumors. Hemoptysis, which is related to the choriocarcinoma syndrome, was present only in some patients with lung metastasis, at the time of diagnosis (6/11, 55%). Interestingly, all patients with hemoptysis at the time of diagnosis had pure choriocarcinoma histology. Treatment and clinical outcomes of 14 male patients with PCC The treatment and clinical outcomes of the patients with PCC are also presented in Table 2. Of the seven patients with testicular PCC, four (4/7, 57%) underwent orchiectomy. In addition, one patient with brain tumor underwent surgical tumor removal, and one patient with small bowel tumor underwent small bowel resection because of excessive bleeding. Excluding these six patients, the remaining patients only underwent biopsy without surgical tumor removal. Among three patients achieving CR during the first course of chemotherapy, two survived for more than five years. Compared to the deceased patients, the two long-term survivors did not have lung metastasis, and their tumor burden was also much lower with fewer metastatic lesions. Furthermore, the two long-term survivors had their primary tumor surgically removed. Specifically, one patient had a brain tumor without a distant metastatic lesion and underwent surgical tumor removal and two courses of cytotoxic chemotherapy due to relapse after the first course of chemotherapy. The other patient had a testicular tumor with only some retroperitoneal lymph nodes involved and underwent radical orchiectomy and one course of cytotoxic chemotherapy. On the other hand, one patient who died after achieving CR during the first course of chemotherapy had a testicular tumor with lung metastasis and hemoptysis. He died due to the progression of lung metastasis and subsequent respiratory failure despite receiving subsequent chemotherapy. Furthermore, all patients who achieved PR or SD to cytotoxic chemotherapy eventually died after developing resistance to chemotherapy. We analyzed the association between clinical characteristics and OS (Table 3). The median OS was similar between the testicular and mediastinal PCC patients (13 months vs. 8 months, p=0.294). The median OS was lower in patients with hCG levels higher than 100,000 mIU/mL compared to those with hCG levels lower than 100,000 mIU/mL (5 months vs. 20 months, p=0.021). This means that patients with lower tumor burden are more likely to live longer because the level of hCG reflects the tumor burden of the choriocarcinoma. On the other hand, the median OS was similar between patients with increased AFP levels and those with normal AFP levels (12 months vs. 13 months, p=0.493). The median OS was lower in patients with pure choriocarcinoma compared to those with MGCTs containing choriocarcinoma, but not statistically significant (8 months vs. 17 months, p=0.092). This result may be derived from the association between hemoptysis at the time of diagnosis and pure choriocarcinoma histology (p=0.031). Indeed, the median OS was lower in patients with hemoptysis at the time of diagnosis compared to those without hemoptysis (4 months vs. 15 months, p=0.045). Additionally, there was no hemoptysis in patients with MGCTs containing choriocarcinoma at the time of diagnosis. Except for one patient with a brain tumor without distant metastatic lesions, the median OS was lower in patients with brain metastasis than in those without brain metastasis (4 months vs. 15 months, p=0.040). In the case of lung metastasis, only one of the deceased patients was free of lung metastasis at the time of diagnosis, but lung metastasis occurred during treatment. These results suggest that survival is shorter in patients with metastasis to organs that are prone to cause clinically threatening symptoms, such as the lungs and brain. Among patients whose response to chemotherapy could be evaluated, median OS was higher in patients who achieved an objective response to cytotoxic chemotherapy compared to those who did not (17 months vs. 4 months, p=0.043). Indeed, one patient with hemoptysis at the time of diagnosis survived for 20 months, probably due to achieving CR with cytotoxic chemotherapy. Discussion To date, there is no standard treatment for the management of male patients with PCC. Cytotoxic chemotherapy is considered an essential treatment, although a variety of treatment strategies, such as surgery and radiotherapy, are also considered. In our study, all 14 patients received cytotoxic chemotherapy, of whom 12 patients with recorded responses achieved either objective response or SD as the best response to chemotherapy. However, 10 of the patients eventually died after developing resistance to chemotherapy. These results suggest that most male patients with PCC will become resistant to chemotherapy during therapy, leading to treatment failure. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have been used in the treatment of many types of cancer. ICIs typically include anti-cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4 antibodies, anti-programmed death-1 (PD-1) antibodies, and anti-programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) antibodies. Among those, anti-PD-1 antibodies and anti-PD-L1 antibodies target the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway. Blocking the PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitory pathway is thought to activate T cells in the tumor microenvironment, releasing inflammatory cytokines and cytotoxic granules to eliminate tumor cells. Currently, the expression levels of PD-L1 in tumor tissues is considered as a biomarker for predicting the responsiveness to PD-1/PD-L1 blockade therapy. Recently, Veras et al. reported PD-L1 expression in human placentas and gestational trophoblastic diseases, including choriocarcinoma. In human placentas, syncytiotrophoblasts highly express PD-L1, whereas cytotrophoblasts do not, and intermediate trophoblasts express little or no PD-L1. The authors suggested that trophoblastic cells in the placenta contribute to the creation of a tolerogenic feto-maternal interface by upregulating PD-L1 in syncytiotrophoblasts and intermediate trophoblasts. The authors also reported that 22 of 30 choriocarcinoma specimens (73%) showed intense and diffuse PD-L1 immunoreactivity in syncytiotrophoblasts. The other samples showed weak or no PD-L1 staining, which was attributed to the fact that most of the tissues were necrotic, and only a few viable trophoblasts were present. The typical pattern of choriocarcinoma is known as a plexiform arrangement of syncytiotrophoblast cells with mononucleated, mostly cytotrophoblast cells around the foci of the hemorrhage, although some cases may have a relatively inconspicuous syncytiotrophoblast component. These findings suggest that PD-L1 expression from syncytiotrophoblast cells in choriocarcinoma might contribute to immune tolerance against anti-tumor T cells. Several studies have been conducted on the efficacy of PD-1/PD-L1 blockade therapy on trophoblastic neoplasia, including choriocarcinoma. Ghorani et al. repor-ted four cases of drug-resistant gestational trophoblastic neoplasia treated with pembrolizumab. In this study, all four cases had PD-L1 overexpression, but three out of four patients achieved remission. It was thought that one patient did not respond to pembrolizumab due to the absence of tumorinfiltrating lymphocytes. Moreover, there are some reports on the efficacy of PD-1/ PD-L1 blockade therapy on male PCC. Chi et al. reported that one male patient with PCC achieved a partial but durable response to nivolumab treatment. Loh and Fung reported that one male patient with PCC did not respond to pembrolizumab treatment and progressed rapidly. In these two cases, both PD-L1 overexpression and the presence of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes were not evaluated. Han et al. reported that one male patient with PCC achieved remission after pembrolizumab treatment combined with cytotoxic chemotherapy. In this study, PD-L1 overexpression on tumor cells was confirmed. On the other hand, in a study by Adra et al., only one of three male PCC patients showed PD-L1 overexpression, and none of the three patients achieved an objective response to pembrolizumab treatment. These results suggest that PD-1/PD-L1 blockade therapy is not effective in all male patients with PCC. It is thought that the therapeutic efficacy of PD-1/PD-L1 blockade varies depending on some clinicopathological features such as PD-L1 overexpression and the presence of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. In summary, there is no established standard treatment for male PCC, and cytotoxic chemotherapy is used as a mainstay treatment. Although some patients with low tumor burden and only few metastases can be cured by cytotoxic chemotherapy, most male PCC patients will eventually develop resistance to cytotoxic chemotherapy and die from disease progression. Factors such as poor response to chemotherapy, high disease burden, brain metastasis, and hemoptysis at the time of diagnosis might all be poor prognostic factors associated with shorter survival time. ICIs, such as anti-PD-1 antibodies and anti-PD-L1 antibodies, can be a salvage treatment for chemotherapy-resistant male PCC patients. PD-L1 overexpression and the presence of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes can be used as biomarkers for predicting the efficacy of PD-1/PD-L1 blockade therapy. Ethical Statement Study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Samsung Medical Center (Seoul, Korea) institutional review board (2020-05-072-001). Informed consent was waived by the institutional review board due to the retrospective study design. Author Contributions Conceived and designed the analysis: Ji YS, Park SH. Collected the data: Ji YS, Park SH. Contributed data or analysis tools: Ji YS, Park SH. Performed the analysis: Ji YS, Park SH. Wrote the paper: Ji YS, Park SH. Conflicts of Interest Conflict of interest relevant to this article was not reported. |
Experimental and numerical investigation of a swirl-stabilized premixed methane/air flame Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the validity of Weller's b- flamelet model for practical swirl-stabilized combustion applications. Design/methodology/approach Swirl-stabilized premixed flame behavior is investigated utilizing an atmospheric combustor test rig. Swirl number of the flow is 0.74 with a cold flow Reynolds number of 19,400 based on the hydraulic diameter at the inlet pipe. Operating condition corresponds to an equivalence ratio of 0.7 at a thermal load of 20.4 kW. Reacting flow was seeded with TiO2 particles, and velocity distribution at the center plane was measured utilizing particle image velocimetry. These results serve as a validation dataset for numerical simulations. An open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code library (OpenFOAM) is used for numerical computations. These unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) computations were performed at the same load condition corresponding to experimental data. Parallel numerical simulations were carried out on 128 processor cores. To resolve turbulence, Menter's k- shear stress transport model was utilized; flame behavior, on the other hand, was described by Weller's b- flamelet model. A block-structured all-hexahedral mesh was used. Findings It is observed that two counter-rotating vortices in the main recirculation zone are responsible for flame stabilization. Weak secondary recirculation zones are also present at the sides above the dump plane. Flame front location was inferred from Mie scattering images. Experimental findings show that the flame anchors both on the tip of the center body and also at the rim of the outlet pipe. Numerical simulations capture the complex interactions between the flame and the turbulent flow. These results qualitatively agree with the flame structure observed experimentally. Practical implications Swirl-stabilized combustion systems are used in many practical applications ranging from aeroengines to land-based power generation systems. There are implications regarding the understanding of these combustion systems. Social implications Better understanding of combustion systems contributes to better performing turbine engines and reduced emissions with implications for the entire society. Originality/value The paper provides experimental insight into the application of a combustion model for a flame configuration of practical interest. |
/**
* @brief Print the seven segment data for debugging
*
* @param data data to be printed
*/
void PrintSevenSegmentData(
const std::vector<std::pair<std::array<std::set<char>, 10>,
std::array<std::string, 4>>>& data)
{
for (const auto& line : data)
{
for (const auto& word : line.first)
{
std::copy(word.begin(), word.end(),
std::ostreambuf_iterator<char>(std::cout));
std::cout << " ";
}
std::cout << "| ";
for (const auto& word : line.second)
{
std::copy(word.begin(), word.end(),
std::ostreambuf_iterator<char>(std::cout));
std::cout << " ";
}
std::cout << "\n";
}
} |
Allen Iverson did not show up to the BIG3’s Dallas event, which put the 3-on-3 basketball league’s leadership in a precarious position: What do you do when your big-ticket star doesn’t show up?
Apparently you give him another week off. BIG3 commissioner Roger Mason Jr. announced during Wednesday’s weekly teleconference that Iverson was suspended for one week, meaning he will not be in attendance for the regular season’s penultimate weekend in Lexington, Ky. The expectation is that he will be coaching — if not playing — at the regular-season finale in Los Angeles.
If this sounds weird, it absolutely is. But BIG3 founder Ice Cube explained what his conversation with Iverson was like and why he ended up feeling obligated to suspend the Philadelphia 76ers legend from his traveling league of former NBA players.
“Well, we talked about holding up the legitimacy of the league and he knows that him not showing up hurts us,” Ice Cube said. “Who’s happy to be suspended? Nobody. But he understands that it’s a necessary step in the development of the BIG3 who don’t believe what we’re doing and what we’re going to do in the future. Our league is bigger than one man, and we’ve got Hall-of-Famers, champions, All-Stars, first-round picks, and we have to think about them. He understands that.”
BIG3 continued its policy of not revealing any specifics, though Mason did say they’ve disciplined players in the past. The controversy again returns to the league’s desire to be taken seriously as a professional basketball league.
“It does mean that he will not be there,” BIG3 co-founder Jeff Kwatinetz said. “He’s a star, and — of course we want all our players to be there. Things happen in sports, and this isn’t the first sport that had someone suspended or missing a game. What I do know is we saw some of the best basketball of the season last week.”
Ice Cube added, “We don’t want to be a league of nostalgia and not a league of competitive basketball. Just with the names we have, nostalgia comes with it. But getting these guys to play hard is key.”
Iverson also caused a flurry of controversy when he pulled out of playing in Philadelphia only 25 minutes before the opening tipoff, leaving many fans hanging around the arena through three games to wait to see their favorite player. Those fans booed, chanted for Iverson and left early when he didn’t play.
Kwatinetz, a persistent glass-half-full optimist, denies that fans have been upset. “Dallas saw his team play what might have been the most exciting game of the season, so I don’t know who allegedly is upset in Dallas,” he said, referring to Iverson’s 3’s Company team pulling off a 53-49 victory against Power. He also doesn’t expect Iverson’s absence to have a significant effect on ticket sales in Lexington.
Still, there’s no denying the league is in an awkward position — one that seems solvable for next season, assuming the solid ticket sales and TV ratings are enough to bring this league back for another year. Ice Cube already has positioned himself for that by saying he would love to bring BIG3 basketball back to Philadelphia and Dallas as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
He also knows how awkward this situation is: Iverson has been the player face of the league since Day One, and his presence alone attracted many to the league. Week after week, Iverson throwback jerseys are the most popular apparel worn by fans.
“We are thankful and grateful to Allen Iverson for being a part of this league,” Ice Cube said. “A lot of people feel like having him be part of this league really got us over a lot of humps. A lot of players feel like that. … I think people — everybody’s rooting for Allen, the players are rooting for Allen, everybody’s rooting for him to be a part of this league, to play. Everybody understands it’s part of it. Nobody’s looking at it as a distraction. We just look at it as we’re trying to bring great basketball every week.”
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Intact &bgr;-Adrenergic Response and Unmodified Progression Toward Heart Failure in Mice With Genetic Ablation of a Major Protein Kinase A Phosphorylation Site in the Cardiac Ryanodine Receptor Increased phosphorylation of the cardiac ryanodine receptor (RyR)2 by protein kinase A (PKA) at the phosphoepitope encompassing Ser2808 has been advanced as a central mechanism in the pathogenesis of cardiac arrhythmias and heart failure. In this scheme, persistent activation of the sympathetic system during chronic stress leads to PKA hyperphosphorylation of RyR2-S2808, which increases Ca2+ release by augmenting the sensitivity of the RyR2 channel to diastolic Ca2+. This gain-of-function is postulated to occur with the unique participation of RyR2-S2808, and other potential PKA phosphorylation sites have been discarded. Although it is clear that RyR2 is among the first proteins in the heart to be phosphorylated by &bgr;-adrenergic stimulation, the functional impact of phosphorylation in excitationcontraction coupling and cardiac performance remains unclear. We used gene targeting to produce a mouse model with complete ablation of the RyR2-S2808 phosphorylation site (RyR2-S2808A). Whole-heart and isolated cardiomyocyte experiments were performed to test the role of &bgr;-adrenergic stimulation and PKA phosphorylation of Ser2808 in heart failure progression and cellular Ca2+ handling. We found that the RyR2-S2808A mutation does not alter the &bgr;-adrenergic response, leaves cellular function almost unchanged, and offers no significant protection in the maladaptive cardiac remodeling induced by chronic stress. Moreover, the RyR2-S2808A mutation appears to modify single-channel activity, although modestly and only at activating . Taken together, these results reveal some of the most important effects of PKA phosphorylation of RyR2 but do not support a major role for RyR2-S2808 phosphorylation in the pathogenesis of cardiac dysfunction and failure. |
From the growth in food banks to the Bedroom Tax, 2013 was in many ways and for many people in the UK a year to forget. There are, however, many moments from the last twelve months worth remembering for all the right reasons. So, to celebrate the end of the year Red Pepper has picked out a few of its favourite campaigns and victories of the last year.
On July 31 the High Court ruled that the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, had acted unlawfully in attempting to cut services and close departments at Lewisham Hospital. Three months later, on October 29, Hunt’s appeal against the decision was rejected and the original judgement upheld.
The court ruling represented a major victory for all those involved in the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign—a coalition of community campaigners, hospital workers and supporting organisations—which has for over a year been holding regular meetings, demonstrations, days of actions, vigils and engaging in a number of creative stunts (The hunt for Hunt) to protest against service reductions at a hospital that is not in financial difficulty and is considered high achieving.
The largest demonstration was held in Lewisham on January 26, attracting over 25,000, a remarkable number for a local issue campaign and the largest local demonstration in defence of the NHS in British history. The success of the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign, which is wholly against the privatisation and marketisation of the NHS, is a testament to the power of community organising in the face of austerity and a rare highlight in a year that has witnessed the acceleration of cuts to public services across the country.
One of the most widely reported on and exciting industrial campaigns in the UK of the last few years, the 3Cosas campaign was launched over a year ago to fight for sick pay, holidays and pensions for outsourced cleaners at the University of London (UoL) and has displayed a consistent and unwavering militancy, a remarkable feat considering that not only are the outsourced cleaners at the UoL highly precarious but almost all are immigrants, few of whom speak English.
Following a two-day strike on November 27 and 28 the employer of outsourced cleaners at the UoL, Balfour Beatty Workplace, announced concessions over sick pay and holiday pay. Although not in line with those received by directly employed staff these improved terms represent a major victory for a campaign that, although appearing as an overnight success, is a product of exhaustive organising and confidence building.
Impressively, despite its recent success, the 3Cosas campaign has recently announced a three-day strike for the 27, 28 and 29 January 2014, beginning what will they hope will be a year as successful as the one that preceded it. The demands for the January strike are not only the third ‘cosa’, pensions, but also union recognition for the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain—the syndicalist union which represents the majority of outsourced cleaners at the UoL—and guarantees of job security for workers at the Garden Halls accommodation, which the University is closing for refurbishment.
Militant, creative and technologically savvy, the 3Cosas campaign, it has been suggested, provides a vision for the labour movement that moves beyond the conservative approach it is today overwhelmingly associated with.
Below is Novara Media’s report from a 3Cosas demonstration held at Senate House on October 24, followed by the video appeal to donate to the online strike fund that made financially possible the recent victorious November strike.
In recent months Red Pepper has published a number of articles on blacklisting, those organising against it and what you can do if your name ends up on such a list.
Blacklisting hit headlines in 2009 following a raid by the Information Commissioner’s Office on the offices of the shadowy Consulting Association, who, it turned out, were being paid by companies for ‘intelligence’ on workers who were later denied work for demanding adequate health and safety standards on site and general union activity.
Frank Morris found himself in precisely this situation when in September 2012, after raising concerns about health and safety on site, he was sacked from his job on Crossrail by his employer, the Bam, Ferrovial and Kier (BFK) consortium.
Yet as Ewa Jasiewicz explained: ‘taking the fight to the gate, often on his own, he spent six months protesting before Unite’s organisation and leverage department began an anti-blacklisting campaign to get his job back and union access onto all Crossrail sites’.
A combination of lobbying and participation in government select committees by Unite alongside rank and file direct action involving the blocking of roads in London and Manchester cost BFK not only its reputation but over £1 billion in lost work. Better still, in September of this year Frank Morris was reinstated.
The fight against blacklisting, however, is far from over. Formed in the aftermath of the raid on the offices of the Consulting Association and organised and led by blacklisted workers, The Blacklist Support Group is now leading the charge against those companies that engage in this systematic practice of disciplining and exclusion.
Much has been written on the decline of the student movement following the explosion of activity that followed the Government’s announcement in 2010 of plans to raise the cap on tuition fees to £9,000. Despite mass mobilisation, fees were raised and the student movement lost. Or so the story goes.
Although the last two years have been a relatively quiet period for student activism in the UK the closing months of 2013 suggest that something may be brewing once more.
At the beginning of December over ten universities, from Birmingham to Liverpool and beyond, were simultaneously occupied by students. Students at the University of Ulster are still in occupation, despite University management cutting of power and water.
The spate of occupations, although at an organisational level unrelated, appear to share a common set of demands that transcend any immediate single issue. The overriding focus, however, is undoubtedly on the privatisation and marketisation of universities and its corrosive effect on campus community life and academic integrity.
As befitting a more comprehensive vision for the future of higher education students across the country are increasingly supporting workers’ struggles. In contrast to 2010, links between students and campus workers are becoming increasingly visible, perhaps nowhere more so than at Sussex University, where for over a year students under the rubric of ‘Sussex Against Privatisation‘ and the infamous Occupy Sussex have been campaigning against the outsourcing of hundreds of campus jobs, even assisting in the creation of a campus-wide ‘pop up union‘. More recently, the occupation of Senate House by students at the University of London (UoL) was launched off the back of the 3Cosas strike victory and had as its first demand that the UoL and Balfour Beatty Workplace provide all outsourced cleaners with pensions, sick pay and holiday pay in line with that of in-house staff. ‘Workers and students, unite and fight’ is increasingly finding form in more than mere rhetoric.
Informal, horizontal, flexible and non-dogmatic are words so far used to describe the networks of student activists that are increasingly asserting themselves on campuses across the country. Although activity has largely been localised the #march25 national demonstration against outsourcing and privatisation at Sussex University, the recent #copsoffcampus demonstration at the UoL and simultaneous demonstrations held in solidarity in Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield, amongst other universities, hints at the capacity of these networks to coordinate on a national scale.
Although concrete victories for the student movement have been sparse in recent years, and 2013 was admittedly no exception, the wave of occupations and protests that have swamped university campuses in the UK of late, and more importantly the resurgent networks that organised them, are reason enough to hope that 2014 will be different.
Below is a video from the #march25 national demonstration at Sussex University followed by You and I Films‘ video report from the #copsoffcampus demonstration held at UoL on December 11.
For a little more end of year festive cheer, here are some additional but by no means less significant success stories from 2013. |
Smoking and subsequent risk of early retirement due to permanent disability. BACKGROUND Smoking is the most important single preventable cause of a variety of common diseases, and a considerable share of premature death is attributable to smoking. Although the effects of smoking on morbidity and mortality are widely recognized, little is known about the impact of smoking on early retirement due to chronic disease. The objective of the study is to determine the effects of smoking behaviour on early retirement due to permanent disability in a large sample of the general population. METHODS Follow-up study based on data from three longitudinal population studies conducted in the Copenhagen area. The final study population comprised 9,053 persons, 5,623 men and 3,430 women. Endpoint was grant of disability pension in the period 1980-1985. Baseline information was obtained from a self-administered questionnaire. Information about disability pensions was obtained from Statistics Denmark. Data analysis was performed by univariate and multiple logistic regression analyses. RESULTS Smoking was found to be strongly associated with the risk of being granted a disability pension after adjustment for various confounders. The risk increased with daily consumption reaching a maximum odds ratio of 5.66 (1.88-17.00) and 5.61 (2.11-14.92) in heavily smoking men and women, respectively, who were below age 60. CONCLUSIONS Smokers are at considerably higher risk of early retirement due to chronic disease. In addition to the burden of disease, this leads to social and economic problems for the individual and has a significant economic impact on society. |
<gh_stars>1-10
// timewindow.hh
// created by tekky on 2021.3.2.
// Copyright © 2021 tekky. All rights reserved.
#ifndef __QTVIEWER_TIMEWINDOW_HH__
#define __QTVIEWER_TIMEWINDOW_HH__
#include <QSharedMemory>
#include <QTextEdit>
#include <QWidget>
class TimeWindow : public QWidget {
Q_OBJECT
public:
explicit TimeWindow(QWidget *parent = nullptr);
~TimeWindow();
private slots:
void show_time() noexcept;
private:
QTextEdit *text_;
};
#endif // __QTVIEWER_TIMEWINDOW_HH |
//! Exports metrics over HTTP.
//!
//! This exporter can utilize observers that are able to be converted to a textual representation
//! via [`Drain<String>`]. It will respond to any requests, regardless of the method or path.
//!
//! Awaiting on `async_run` will drive an HTTP server listening on the configured address.
#![deny(missing_docs)]
use hyper::{
service::{make_service_fn, service_fn},
{Body, Error, Response, Server},
};
use metrics_core::{Builder, Drain, Observe, Observer};
use std::{net::SocketAddr, sync::Arc};
/// Exports metrics over HTTP.
pub struct HttpExporter<C, B> {
controller: C,
builder: B,
address: SocketAddr,
}
impl<C, B> HttpExporter<C, B>
where
C: Observe + Send + Sync + 'static,
B: Builder + Send + Sync + 'static,
B::Output: Drain<String> + Observer,
{
/// Creates a new [`HttpExporter`] that listens on the given `address`.
///
/// Observers expose their output by being converted into strings.
pub fn new(controller: C, builder: B, address: SocketAddr) -> Self {
HttpExporter {
controller,
builder,
address,
}
}
/// Starts an HTTP server on the `address` the exporter was originally configured with,
/// responding to any request with the output of the configured observer.
pub async fn async_run(self) -> hyper::error::Result<()> {
let builder = Arc::new(self.builder);
let controller = Arc::new(self.controller);
let make_svc = make_service_fn(move |_| {
let builder = builder.clone();
let controller = controller.clone();
async move {
Ok::<_, Error>(service_fn(move |_| {
let builder = builder.clone();
let controller = controller.clone();
async move {
let mut observer = builder.build();
controller.observe(&mut observer);
let output = observer.drain();
Ok::<_, Error>(Response::new(Body::from(output)))
}
}))
}
});
Server::bind(&self.address).serve(make_svc).await
}
}
|
#Problem 9:
#A Pythagorean triplet is a set of three natural numbers, a < b < c, for which, a2 + b2 = c2
#For example, 32 + 42 = 9 + 16 = 25 = 52.
#There exists exactly one Pythagorean triplet for which a + b + c = 1000.
#Find the product abc.
#a<b<c
def isPytha(a,b,c):
if(((a*a)+(b*b)) == (c*c)):
return True
def main():
for i in range(1,1000):
for j in range(1,1000):
k = 1000 - (i+j)
if(isPytha(i,j,k)):
print i*j*k
main()
|
Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell Gene Expression in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: miRNA and mRNA Regulation Introduction The mechanisms underlying chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remain unclear. Genetic and genomic changes may play a significant role in the pathogenesis of COPD. Identification of differentially expressed genes and miRNAs and their regulatory mechanisms at the whole-genome level will provide a comprehensive understanding of the development of COPD. Methods Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 12 patients with COPD and 12 normal controls were examined at the miRNA and mRNA expression levels using Affymetrix GeneChip. Microarray data were analyzed with Affymetrix Transcriptome Analysis Console 2.0 and GeneSpring software. Gene interaction pathways of the differentially expressed genes and miRNA-mRNA regulation were analyzed using the Ingenuity Pathway Analysis software. Four differentially expressed genes and one miRNA were further confirmed using RT-qPCR. Results One hundred and thirty-three upregulated and 973 downregulated genes were identified in PBMCs of patients with COPD. Pathway analysis on the differentially expressed genes in COPD revealed significant enrichment in IL-8 signaling and iCOS-iCOSL signaling in T helper cells. Seventy-seven upregulated miRNAs and 43 downregulated miRNAs were differentially expressed between PBMCs from patients with COPD and normal controls. Among these 120 differentially expressed miRNAs, 42 miRNAs targeting 28 upregulated genes and 69 miRNAs targeting 498 downregulated genes were identified. The expression of CXCR1, HBEGF, TREM-1, and hsa-miR-148a-3p was more elevated in patients with COPD than in normal controls, whereas NFAT5 was decreased. Conclusion miRNAs and mRNAs are differentially expressed in PBMCs of patients with COPD, compared with normal controls. miRNAs regulate the expression of mRNAs, and thus play a role in the pathogenesis of COPD. Investigating these relationships may provide further insight into the mechanisms of COPD. Introduction a significantly increased risk of mortality in patients with GOLD 3 (severe) and GOLD 4 (very severe) COPD. 1 However, the gene expression profiles of GOLD 3 and 4 COPD cases are yet to be established. Recently, the role of microRNA (miRNA/miR) expression has been widely studied in clinical research. miRNAs are a family of small non-coding RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression post-translation. Considerable evidence has revealed that miRNAs may play important roles in the pathogenesis and development of COPD. For instance, the expression level of hsa-miR-664a-3p increased in patients with COPD, and its target gene, four and a half LIM domains 1, was downregulated with positive correlation with forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1)/forced vital capacity (FVC). 11 Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) can function as a critical component of immune response. COPD is a systemic disease, and blood is more accessible for genomic and biomarker studies in clinical trials and practice than lung tissue samples. Several studies on gene expression in COPD were completed through PBMC experiments. This study sought to establish dual profiles for differentially expressed mRNAs and miRNAs in the PBMCs of patients with GOLD 3 and 4 COPD, and study whether miRNA expression may be linked to mRNA expression and thus biological pathways associated with the pathogenesis of COPD. Patients with COPD and Normal Controls Twelve patients with COPD were recruited from the Xiangya Hospital of Central South University (Changsha, China) between May and September 2016. COPD was diagnosed using the GOLD criteria. Ethics approval was obtained from the Xiangya Hospital, and the experiments were conducted after each patient provided written informed consent. The inclusion criteria were as follows: i) Post-bronchodilator FEV1/FVC <70%; ii) FEV1 <50% predicted; iii) age, 50-75 years; iv) no other co-existing lung disease and no treatment with antibiotics in the past 4 weeks; and v) smokers or ex-smokers of at least 10 pack-years. The exclusion criteria were as follows: i) Primary diagnosis of asthma; ii) chronic inflammatory or infectious disease; iii) cancer; iv) chronic renal failure and chronic liver disease; and v) chronic antibiotic use. The clinical features of patients with COPD included in this study are shown in Table 1. Twelve non-smoking volunteers with normal lung function were concurrently recruited as RNA Isolation Peripheral blood samples were obtained from patients with COPD and normal controls. The PBMCs were isolated from heparinized blood samples by density gradient centrifugation using Ficoll-Paque Plus (GE Healthcare, Piscataway, NJ, USA). Total RNA was isolated from PBMCs by standard phenol-chloroform extraction using the TRIzol ® reagent (Invitrogen Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA, USA), according to the manufacturer's instructions. The concentration was measured on a Nanodrop ND-1000 Spectrophotometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA). RNA quality was assessed using a Bioanalyzer Nanochip (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA), and samples with an RNA integrity number >7 were used for microarray analysis. Gene Expression Microarray According to the standard Affymetrix protocol, 100 ng of each RNA sample was processed using an Affymetrix GeneChip Whole Transcript PLUS Reagent kit (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA, USA). cRNA (15 g) was used during the second cycle of the cDNA reaction. ss-cDNA (5.5 g) was used for fragmentation and labeling. The fragmented cDNA was labeled by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase using the Affymetrix proprietary DNA Labeling reagent, which is covalently linked to biotin. Hybridization cocktails containing fragmented and labeled ss-cDNA were injected into the Affymetrix Human Transcriptome Array 2.0 (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA, USA). Hybridization was performed at 60 rpm for 16 h at 45°C. Following washing and staining, gene chips were scanned using the Affymetrix GeneChip Command Console software (AGCC; Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA, USA). After the scan was completed, AGCC was used to save the imaging data and compute the probe intensity data (.cel file). miRNA Microarray miRNAs were profiled in all patients using the Affymetrix GeneChip 4.0 Array (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA, USA), according to the manufacturer's instructions. Briefly, total RNA was labeled with FlashTag Biotin HSR by Poly(A) tailing and subsequent FlashTag Biotin HSR ligation, and incubated at 99°C for 5 min and 45°C for 5 min in the Hybridization Master Mix. Arrays were hybridized at 48°C and 60 rpm for 16 h, and washed and stained with phycoerythrin-conjugated streptavidin in an Affymetrix 450 Fluidics Station (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA, USA). The arrays were scanned using an Affymetrix GeneChip Scanner 3000 (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA, USA) to generate fluorescent images, as described in the Affymetrix Gene Chip protocol. Cell intensity files were generated using AGCC (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA, USA). Differentially expressed miRNAs were visualized using hierarchical clustering based on average linkage and Euclidean distance, as implemented in Cluster. Gene and miRNA Expression Analysis Microarray data were analyzed using Affymetrix Transcriptome Analysis Console 2.0 and GeneSpring software (Silicon Genetics, Redwood City, CA, USA) successively to identify statistically significant genes (ANOVA P-value; fold change >1.5 or <-1.5). With regards to GeneSpring, raw data were imported as.cel files and underwent RMA normalization using baseline median values of all samples. In the next step, the raw data were filtered by expression signals of 20-100% to eliminate particularly weak signals on the borderline of background noise. Unpaired t-test was used to identify differentially expressed genes and miRNAs at a significance level of P <0.05 between COPD and control groups. Following false discovery rate and significance analyses, fold change (>1.5 or <-1.5) was used as the secondary criterion for the selection of differentially expressed genes and miRNAs. Using Venn diagram analysis, differentially expressed genes and miRNAs that are common between these two analysis databases (TAC and GeneSpring software) were identified. Hierarchical clustering was performed to show the different mRNA and miRNA expression profiles among samples. Pathway and Integrative Analysis of mRNA and miRNA Expression The biological networks, canonical pathways, and functional analyses were generated using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA ®, QIAGEN Redwood City, CA, USA, www.qiagen.com/ingenuity). The canonical pathways in IPA summarized the biological function of differentially expressed genes, and the significance values for the canonical pathways were calculated using Fisher's exact right-tailed test. Significance indicated the probability of an association between differentially expressed genes and the canonical pathway by random chance only, which was referenced in the ratio of the number of genes differentially expressed that mapped to the canonical pathways divided by the total number of molecules in a certain pathway. The lists of the identified candidate genes were uploaded to the IPA site, and IPA core analysis was used to generate a list of activated or inhibited pathways and gene networks with the highest degree of significance. For differentially expressed miRNAs, all predicted targets in human genes overlapping with differentially expressed genes were obtained using the IPA software Target Filter to identify whether the gene was a predicted target of the miRNA. miRNA-mRNA pairs with statistically significant negative correlations were cross-referenced using TargetScan to elucidate the target genes of the miRNAs. Reverse Transcription-Quantitative (RT-q) PCR Validation of the Differential mRNA and miRNA Expression RT-qPCR was performed to verify the expression level of some candidate mRNAs and miRNAs, including C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 1 (CXCR1), heparin-binding EGF-like growth factor (HBEGF), nuclear factor of activated T-cells 5 (NFAT5), triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 1 (TREM-1), and hsa-miR-148a-3p. These differentially expressed genes and miRNA were validated using TaqMan assays on a 7900HT Fast Real-Time PCR system (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.). The assay was performed using a TaqMan RNA-to-CT 1-Step kit (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.) in a volume of 20 L, which contained a final concentration of 900 nM sense and antisense primers, 250 nM TaqMan gene probe, 1X TaqMan RT Enzyme Mix, and 1X TaqMan RT-PCR Mix. The cDNA amplification was monitored using 7900HT Fast Real-Time PCR system under the conditions of 48°C for 15 min, 95°C for 10 min, and 40 cycles of 95°C for 15 sec and 60°C for 1 min. All RT-qPCR procedures were performed in three independent experiments conducted in triplicate. Data are presented as 2 (-Cq) relative to 18s RNA. Unpaired t-test was performed using SPSS version 20.0 (IBM Corp.), and P <0.05 indicated a statistically significant difference. Participant Characteristics PBMC samples were obtained from 12 patients with COPD at GOLD stage 3 (30% ≤ FEV1 <50% predicted; n=7) or stage 4 (FEV1 <30% predicted; n=5) and 12 normal controls without airflow obstruction. The mean age of patients with COPD was 59.8±7.1 years and that of the normal controls was 58.6±6.7 years. No statistical difference in age between the two groups was observed. Participants in each group were 11 males and one female. Clinical characteristics of patients with COPD are presented in Table 1. Identification of Differentially Expressed Genes in COPD The whole-genome transcription profiles, including 67,528 genes (or transcripts), were compared between patients with COPD and normal controls. The differential transcriptome profiles in COPD were analyzed using TAC and Gene Spring software. A total of 2412 upregulated and 2622 downregulated genes were initially identified in patients with COPD using the TAC software (Supplemental Table 1A-C; Table S1A-C). Additionally, 161 upregulated and 1223 downregulated genes were found to be aberrantly expressed in patients with COPD using the GeneSpring software (Supplemental Table 2A-C; Table S2A-C). Integrated comparison by Venn diagram analysis identified 1106 common genes between the two mRNA profiles (Supplemental Table 3A-C; Table S3A-C). As shown in the heat map, the 1106 genes clearly differentiated the COPD cases from the normal controls ( Figure 1). Among the 1106 differentially expressed genes, 133 genes were upregulated, 113 (85%) of which were coding genes, and 973 genes were downregulated, 638 (66%) of which were coding genes. Differentially Expressed miRNAs in COPD The miRNA data were analyzed using the same protocol as in mRNA data analysis. Using the TAC software, 148 miRNAs, which were differentially expressed in COPD, were identified in human PBMCs. Among these 148 miRNAs, 104 miRNAs were upregulated, and 44 miRNAs were downregulated (Supplemental Table 4A-C; Table S4A-S4C). A total of 689 upregulated and 215 downregulated miRNAs were identified using Gene Spring software (Supplemental Table 5A-C; Table S5A-C). Venn diagram analysis revealed 120 common miRNAs, as illustrated in Figure 2. The differentially expressed miRNAs in COPD included 77 upregulated and 43 downregulated miRNAs (Supplemental Table 6A-C; Table S6A-C). Canonical Pathways of Differential Gene Expression by the IPA Software Biological network and pathway analyses were performed using the IPA software to identify canonical biological pathways of the differentially expressed genes. The canonical pathways by which the 133 upregulated genes were mostly enriched are shown in Figure 3. The top five pathways involving the upregulated genes included "granulocyte adhesion and diapedesis", "role of macrophages, fibroblasts, and endothelial cells in rheumatoid arthritis", "interleukin (IL)-8 signaling", "glucocorticoid receptor signaling and role of osteoblasts", and "osteoclasts and chondrocytes in Figure 4 illustrates the canonical pathways by which the 973 downregulated genes were mostly enriched. The top five pathways involving the downregulated genes are "natural killer cell signaling", "crosstalk between dendritic cells and natural killer cells", "inducible co-stimulator (iCOS)-iCOS ligand (iCOSL) signaling in T helper cells", "glucocorticoid receptor signaling", and "role of BRCA1 in DNA damage response". The predicted pathway activation or inhibition was assessed with the z-score and ratio. Among the canonical pathways modulated by aberrantly expressed genes in COPD, the IL-8 signaling pathway showed the highest significance, represented by the upregulated genes in COPD ( Figure 5). Five genes in the IL-8 signaling pathway, including C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 1(CXCR1), C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 2 (CXCR2), heparin binding EGF-like growth factor (HBEGF), insulin receptor substrate 2 (IRS2), and LIM domain kinase 2 (LIMK2), were overexpressed in patients with COPD, as compared with the normal control group (Figure 6). This finding suggests that the activation of the IL-8 signaling pathway may play a significant role in the pathogenesis of COPD. Similarly, downregulated genes were highly enriched in iCOS-iCOSL signaling in the T helper cell pathway in COPD. As shown in Figure 7, the expression levels of AKT serine/threonine kinase 3 (AKT3), ATM serine/threonine kinase (ATM), calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IV (CAMK4), CD40 ligand (CD40LG), lymphocyte cytosolic protein 2 (LCP2), nuclear factor of activated T-cells 5 (NFAT5), nuclear factor of activated T cells 2 (NFATC2), phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase catalytic subunit alpha (PIK3CA), phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate 3-kinase catalytic subunit type 2 alpha (PIK3C2A), and T cell receptor-associated transmembrane miRNA-mRNA Interactions and Target Gene Prediction To elucidate the regulatory role of miRNA on mRNA expression in COPD, the IPA Target Filter was applied to the miRNA and mRNA list based on the source and confidence level of the miRNA-mRNA target relationships. Of the 120 differentially expressed miRNAs, 42 putative miRNAs targeting 28 upregulated genes and 69 putative miRNAs targeting 498 downregulated genes were identified. Among them, 18 high-confidence miRNA-upregulated mRNA pairs and 561 high-confidence miRNA-downregulated mRNA pairs in human PBMCs were identified (Supplemental Table 7A and B; Table S7A and B). Differentially expressed genes involved in the IL-8 signaling and iCOS-iCOSL signaling in T helper cell pathways were also regulated by certain miRNAs (see Tables 2 and 3). Our analysis showed that the expression of hsa-miR-4736 significantly decreased by 2.3-fold, targeting four genes in the IL-8 signaling pathway (CXCR1, CXCR2, HBEGF, and LIMK2). In addition, the expression of hsa-miR-148a-3p increased by 2.54-fold, which was linked to the downregulation of four genes involved in iCOS-iCOSL signaling in the T helper cell pathway (LCP2, NFAT5, PIK3CA, and PIK3C2A). The inverse relationship between the expression level of miRNAs and mRNAs indicated the regulatory role of miRNAs on aberrant gene expression in COPD. RT-qPCR Validation of Differentially Expressed Genes and miRNAs The expression of CXCR1, HBEGF, NFAT5, and TREM-1 was further confirmed using RT-qPCR based on their differential expression in COPD and/or their significant enrichment in the identified pathways. Additionally, hsa-miR-148a-3p was validated by the markedly increased expression in COPD and the finding that it had target genes. As illustrated in Figure 8, the expressions of hsa-miR-148a-3p, CXCR1, HBEGF, NFAT5, and TREM-1 in patients with COPD by RT-qPCR were different (P <0.05) from those in the normal controls, which was consistent with the microarray data. Discussion This study performed a comprehensive analysis of miRNA and mRNA expression in PBMCs obtained from patients with GOLD 3 and 4 COPD, and compared it to that of normal controls. Although multiple studies have been conducted on gene expression in COPD, to the best of our knowledge, no studies on miRNA-mRNA regulation in PBMCs from patients with GOLD 3 and 4 COPD have been conducted. Several genes (133 upregulated and 973 downregulated genes) were found to be differentially expressed in COPD, compared with the controls. Further pathway analysis was performed to elucidate the potential pathways regulated by the aberrantly expressed genes in COPD. As expected, the upregulated genes in COPD were significantly enriched in inflammatory reaction and inflammation regulatory pathways, such as "granulocyte adhesion and diapedesis", "role of macrophages, fibroblasts, and endothelial cells in rheumatoid arthritis", and "IL-8 signaling". Particularly, the 'granulocyte adhesion and diapedesis' and "IL-8 signaling" pathways were found to be strongly associated with COPD. The downregulated genes in COPD were enriched in immune regulatory pathways, such as "iCOS-iCOSL signaling in T helper cells", "natural killer cell signaling", and "crosstalk between dendritic cells and natural killer cells". Several genes that participate in the IL-8 signaling pathway were differentially expressed in the current data. CXCR1, CXCR2, HBEGF, IRS2, and LIMK2 were upregulated. CXCR1 and HBEGF expression was validated by RT-qPCR. IL-8 is a member of the C-X-C family of chemokines that play a significant role in inflammation and angiogenesis. The cell surface receptors for IL-8, which are coupled to G proteins, include CXCR1 and CXCR2. CXCR1 is selectively activated by IL-8 only. IL-8 induces NF-B through a TNF receptor-associated factor 6-dependent pathway, leading to inflammation and angiogenesis. Activation by IL-8 can trigger inflammation in cells, leading to chemotaxis, respiratory burst, granule release, and increased cell adhesion. IL-8 has been the subject of several prior investigations in COPD. Studies have shown that IL-8 levels are significantly elevated in the blood of patients with COPD, and that IL-8 levels directly correlate with mortality, exacerbation rate, and BODE scores, and inversely correlate with FEV1 and diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide. In summary, several factors in COPD cause an increase in IL-8 expression, which in turn further induces an inflammatory response, leading to persistent chronic inflammation. Similarly, iCOS-iCOSL signaling in the T helper cell pathway is another molecular pathway in which downregulated genes were found to be enriched in COPD in the present study. In total, 10 downregulated genes were involved in the regulation of iCOS-iCOSL signaling in the T helper cell pathway. Among them, NFAT5 was an important member of the pathway, and its expression was validated using RT-qPCR. During an immune response, T cells are optimally activated to appropriately migrate into areas of inflamed tissues. iCOS-mediated signaling plays important physiological roles in the regulation of T helper type 1 (Th1) cells in the endothelium and control of the selective entry of Th1 cells into inflamed peripheral tissues. The potency of iCOS is enhanced following its ligation to iCOSL. Despite its inflammatory etiology, COPD is considered an immune-deficient state, since the abundant activated T cells in the airways of patients with COPD do not eradicate bacterial infections. Although Th1 cells are crucial for immune responses to bacterial infections, 23 they display impaired immune response in COPD, such as the production of interferon- and phagocytosis. 23-26 Impaired Th1 function is implicated in the susceptibility of patients with COPD to respiratory infections, which are common causes of acute exacerbation of COPD (AECOPD). 26 The present data revealed aberrant gene expression in iCOS-iCOSL signaling in the T helper cell pathway in COPD, suggesting a potential mechanism of impaired T cell response in COPD. This implied that patients with GOLD 3 and 4 COPD are more susceptible to infections and acute exacerbations, which may be due to impaired immune function. TREM-1 is an activating receptor on neutrophil, monocyte, and macrophage subsets. Its expression is upregulated by microbial products. 27 TREM-1 is considered to amplify both infectious and non-infectious inflammation 28 and to elicit the release of TNF-, IL-8 myeloperoxidase, and nitric oxide by innate immune cells. 29 According to previous reports, levels of soluble TREM-1 in the serum of patients with stable COPD and AECOPD significantly increase. 27,30 Furthermore, serum levels of sTREM-1 were shown to be significantly negatively correlated with lung function impairment. 30 In the present study, TREM-1 was highly expressed in the PBMCs of patients with COPD. Therefore, we hypothesized that TREM-1 plays a significant role in the pathogenesis of COPD. However, the mechanism remains unclear and requires further research. Following miRNA expression analysis at the whole-genome level, a group of miRNAs that were differentially expressed in COPD subjects, compared with normal controls, was identified. Due to the distinct characteristics of participants and the different methods used, it was possible for results to be different. The present study compared the obtained list of differentially expressed miRNAs with those previously reported in COPD. The miRNAs that were differentially expressed in this study and previous studies, included hsa-miR-19a-3p, 31 hsa-miR-29b-3p, 32,33 hsa-miR-183-5p, 31 hsa-miR-223, 31,34 hsa-miR-142-5p, 31 hsa-miR-451, 35 hsa-miR-664, 35 hsa-miR-148a, 35 and hsa-miR-99b. 35 Following integrated analysis of gene transcription and miRNA expression, 42 miRNAs targeting 28 upregulated genes and 69 miRNAs targeting 498 downregulated genes were identified, suggesting that miRNAs may have a regulatory effect on most of the differentially expressed genes in COPD. This study validated the significant upregulation of hsa-miR-148a-3p in PBMCs from patients with COPD, but its functional role in COPD has not been studied. Downregulated genes, including LCP2, NFAT5, PIK3CA, and PIK3C2A, were predicted to be targeted genes of hsa-miR-148a-3p, and were involved in iCOS-iCOSL signaling in the T helper cell pathway. Therefore, hsa-miR-148a-3p and its targeted genes may play a significant role in COPD; however, the exact mechanisms require further study. Profiling mRNA and miRNA expression in the same set of COPD and control samples enabled us to investigate the complexity of gene dysregulation in the context of this disease. Investigating these relationships may provide further insight into the mechanisms of COPD. Conclusion In conclusion, miRNAs and mRNAs are differentially expressed in PBMCs of patients with COPD, compared with normal controls. miRNAs regulate the expression of mRNAs, and, therefore, play a role in the pathogenesis of COPD. This study had limitations. First, it included a relatively small sample size, and the participants were almost exclusively male (91.7%). Second, the study was restricted to participants at relatively high-risk; 58.3% of patients with COPD were at GOLD stage 3 and 41.7% were at stage 4. Further studies are required to confirm the role of certain differentially expressed genes and miRNAs and the underlying regulatory mechanism. Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate The study was approved by the Xiangya Hospital of Central South University Institutional Review Board Committees. Patients provided written informed consent before participation. Consent for Publication All patient data were de-identified. |
<reponame>OpenSourceConsulting/playce-chameleon
//
// This file was generated by the JavaTM Architecture for XML Binding(JAXB) Reference Implementation, v2.0-b52-fcs
// See <a href="http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxb">http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxb</a>
// Any modifications to this file will be lost upon recompilation of the source schema.
// Generated on: 2012.09.17 at 02:39:44 오후 KST
//
package com.athena.chameleon.engine.entity.xml.application.jeus.v5_0;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import javax.xml.bind.JAXBElement;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlAccessorType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlElement;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlElementRef;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlElementRefs;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlRootElement;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.XmlType;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.adapters.CollapsedStringAdapter;
import javax.xml.bind.annotation.adapters.XmlJavaTypeAdapter;
/**
* <p>Java class for applicationType complex type.
*
* <p>The following schema fragment specifies the expected content contained within this class.
*
* <pre>
* <complexType name="applicationType">
* <complexContent>
* <restriction base="{http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema}anyType">
* <sequence>
* <element name="absolute-path" type="{http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema}token" minOccurs="0"/>
* <sequence maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="0">
* <element name="name" type="{http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema}token" minOccurs="0"/>
* <element name="path" type="{http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema}token" minOccurs="0"/>
* <element name="deployment-type" type="{http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus}deployment-typeType" minOccurs="0"/>
* <element name="client-component" type="{http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus}client-componentType" maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="0"/>
* <element name="connector-component" type="{http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus}connector-componentType" maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="0"/>
* <element name="ejb-component" type="{http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus}ejb-componentType" maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="0"/>
* <element name="web-component" type="{http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus}web-componentType" maxOccurs="unbounded" minOccurs="0"/>
* </sequence>
* <element name="absolute-ejb-jar" type="{http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema}token" minOccurs="0"/>
* <element name="absolute-jeus-ejb-dd" type="{http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema}token" minOccurs="0"/>
* <group ref="{http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus}application-propertyGroup"/>
* <element name="auto-deploy" type="{http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus}auto-deployType" minOccurs="0"/>
* <element name="deploy-when-booting" type="{http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema}boolean" minOccurs="0"/>
* </sequence>
* </restriction>
* </complexContent>
* </complexType>
* </pre>
*
*
*/
@XmlRootElement
@XmlAccessorType(XmlAccessType.FIELD)
@XmlType(name = "applicationType", propOrder = {
"absolutePath",
"nameAndPathAndDeploymentType",
"absoluteEjbJar",
"absoluteJeusEjbDd",
"deploymentTarget",
"classloading",
"classFtpUnit",
"securityDomainName",
"rolePermission",
"javaSecurityPermission",
"keepGenerated",
"fastDeploy",
"autoDeploy",
"deployWhenBooting"
})
public class ApplicationType {
@XmlElement(name = "absolute-path", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus")
@XmlJavaTypeAdapter(CollapsedStringAdapter.class)
protected String absolutePath;
@XmlElementRefs({
@XmlElementRef(name = "web-component", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus", type = JAXBElement.class),
@XmlElementRef(name = "name", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus", type = JAXBElement.class),
@XmlElementRef(name = "ejb-component", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus", type = JAXBElement.class),
@XmlElementRef(name = "deployment-type", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus", type = JAXBElement.class),
@XmlElementRef(name = "client-component", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus", type = JAXBElement.class),
@XmlElementRef(name = "path", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus", type = JAXBElement.class),
@XmlElementRef(name = "connector-component", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus", type = JAXBElement.class)
})
protected List<JAXBElement<?>> nameAndPathAndDeploymentType;
@XmlElement(name = "absolute-ejb-jar", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus")
@XmlJavaTypeAdapter(CollapsedStringAdapter.class)
protected String absoluteEjbJar;
@XmlElement(name = "absolute-jeus-ejb-dd", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus")
@XmlJavaTypeAdapter(CollapsedStringAdapter.class)
protected String absoluteJeusEjbDd;
@XmlElement(name = "deployment-target", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus")
protected DeploymentTargetType deploymentTarget;
@XmlElement(namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus")
protected ClassloadingType classloading;
@XmlElement(name = "class-ftp-unit", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus", defaultValue = "JAR")
protected ClassFtpUnitType classFtpUnit;
@XmlElement(name = "security-domain-name", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus")
@XmlJavaTypeAdapter(CollapsedStringAdapter.class)
protected String securityDomainName;
@XmlElement(name = "role-permission", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus", required = true)
protected List<RolePermissionType> rolePermission;
@XmlElement(name = "java-security-permission", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus")
protected SecurityPermissionType javaSecurityPermission;
@XmlElement(name = "keep-generated", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus")
protected Boolean keepGenerated;
@XmlElement(name = "fast-deploy", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus")
protected Boolean fastDeploy;
@XmlElement(name = "auto-deploy", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus")
protected AutoDeployType autoDeploy;
@XmlElement(name = "deploy-when-booting", namespace = "http://www.tmaxsoft.com/xml/ns/jeus", defaultValue = "true")
protected Boolean deployWhenBooting;
/**
* Gets the value of the absolutePath property.
*
* @return
* possible object is
* {@link String }
*
*/
public String getAbsolutePath() {
return absolutePath;
}
/**
* Sets the value of the absolutePath property.
*
* @param value
* allowed object is
* {@link String }
*
*/
public void setAbsolutePath(String value) {
this.absolutePath = value;
}
/**
* Gets the value of the nameAndPathAndDeploymentType property.
*
* <p>
* This accessor method returns a reference to the live list,
* not a snapshot. Therefore any modification you make to the
* returned list will be present inside the JAXB object.
* This is why there is not a <CODE>set</CODE> method for the nameAndPathAndDeploymentType property.
*
* <p>
* For example, to add a new item, do as follows:
* <pre>
* getNameAndPathAndDeploymentType().add(newItem);
* </pre>
*
*
* <p>
* Objects of the following type(s) are allowed in the list
* {@link JAXBElement }{@code <}{@link WebComponentType }{@code >}
* {@link JAXBElement }{@code <}{@link String }{@code >}
* {@link JAXBElement }{@code <}{@link EjbComponentType }{@code >}
* {@link JAXBElement }{@code <}{@link DeploymentTypeType }{@code >}
* {@link JAXBElement }{@code <}{@link ClientComponentType }{@code >}
* {@link JAXBElement }{@code <}{@link String }{@code >}
* {@link JAXBElement }{@code <}{@link ConnectorComponentType }{@code >}
*
*
*/
public List<JAXBElement<?>> getNameAndPathAndDeploymentType() {
if (nameAndPathAndDeploymentType == null) {
nameAndPathAndDeploymentType = new ArrayList<JAXBElement<?>>();
}
return this.nameAndPathAndDeploymentType;
}
/**
* Gets the value of the absoluteEjbJar property.
*
* @return
* possible object is
* {@link String }
*
*/
public String getAbsoluteEjbJar() {
return absoluteEjbJar;
}
/**
* Sets the value of the absoluteEjbJar property.
*
* @param value
* allowed object is
* {@link String }
*
*/
public void setAbsoluteEjbJar(String value) {
this.absoluteEjbJar = value;
}
/**
* Gets the value of the absoluteJeusEjbDd property.
*
* @return
* possible object is
* {@link String }
*
*/
public String getAbsoluteJeusEjbDd() {
return absoluteJeusEjbDd;
}
/**
* Sets the value of the absoluteJeusEjbDd property.
*
* @param value
* allowed object is
* {@link String }
*
*/
public void setAbsoluteJeusEjbDd(String value) {
this.absoluteJeusEjbDd = value;
}
/**
* Gets the value of the deploymentTarget property.
*
* @return
* possible object is
* {@link DeploymentTargetType }
*
*/
public DeploymentTargetType getDeploymentTarget() {
return deploymentTarget;
}
/**
* Sets the value of the deploymentTarget property.
*
* @param value
* allowed object is
* {@link DeploymentTargetType }
*
*/
public void setDeploymentTarget(DeploymentTargetType value) {
this.deploymentTarget = value;
}
/**
* Gets the value of the classloading property.
*
* @return
* possible object is
* {@link ClassloadingType }
*
*/
public ClassloadingType getClassloading() {
return classloading;
}
/**
* Sets the value of the classloading property.
*
* @param value
* allowed object is
* {@link ClassloadingType }
*
*/
public void setClassloading(ClassloadingType value) {
this.classloading = value;
}
/**
* Gets the value of the classFtpUnit property.
*
* @return
* possible object is
* {@link ClassFtpUnitType }
*
*/
public ClassFtpUnitType getClassFtpUnit() {
return classFtpUnit;
}
/**
* Sets the value of the classFtpUnit property.
*
* @param value
* allowed object is
* {@link ClassFtpUnitType }
*
*/
public void setClassFtpUnit(ClassFtpUnitType value) {
this.classFtpUnit = value;
}
/**
* Gets the value of the securityDomainName property.
*
* @return
* possible object is
* {@link String }
*
*/
public String getSecurityDomainName() {
return securityDomainName;
}
/**
* Sets the value of the securityDomainName property.
*
* @param value
* allowed object is
* {@link String }
*
*/
public void setSecurityDomainName(String value) {
this.securityDomainName = value;
}
/**
* Gets the value of the rolePermission property.
*
* <p>
* This accessor method returns a reference to the live list,
* not a snapshot. Therefore any modification you make to the
* returned list will be present inside the JAXB object.
* This is why there is not a <CODE>set</CODE> method for the rolePermission property.
*
* <p>
* For example, to add a new item, do as follows:
* <pre>
* getRolePermission().add(newItem);
* </pre>
*
*
* <p>
* Objects of the following type(s) are allowed in the list
* {@link RolePermissionType }
*
*
*/
public List<RolePermissionType> getRolePermission() {
if (rolePermission == null) {
rolePermission = new ArrayList<RolePermissionType>();
}
return this.rolePermission;
}
/**
* Gets the value of the javaSecurityPermission property.
*
* @return
* possible object is
* {@link SecurityPermissionType }
*
*/
public SecurityPermissionType getJavaSecurityPermission() {
return javaSecurityPermission;
}
/**
* Sets the value of the javaSecurityPermission property.
*
* @param value
* allowed object is
* {@link SecurityPermissionType }
*
*/
public void setJavaSecurityPermission(SecurityPermissionType value) {
this.javaSecurityPermission = value;
}
/**
* Gets the value of the keepGenerated property.
*
* @return
* possible object is
* {@link Boolean }
*
*/
public Boolean isKeepGenerated() {
return keepGenerated;
}
/**
* Sets the value of the keepGenerated property.
*
* @param value
* allowed object is
* {@link Boolean }
*
*/
public void setKeepGenerated(Boolean value) {
this.keepGenerated = value;
}
/**
* Gets the value of the fastDeploy property.
*
* @return
* possible object is
* {@link Boolean }
*
*/
public Boolean isFastDeploy() {
return fastDeploy;
}
/**
* Sets the value of the fastDeploy property.
*
* @param value
* allowed object is
* {@link Boolean }
*
*/
public void setFastDeploy(Boolean value) {
this.fastDeploy = value;
}
/**
* Gets the value of the autoDeploy property.
*
* @return
* possible object is
* {@link AutoDeployType }
*
*/
public AutoDeployType getAutoDeploy() {
return autoDeploy;
}
/**
* Sets the value of the autoDeploy property.
*
* @param value
* allowed object is
* {@link AutoDeployType }
*
*/
public void setAutoDeploy(AutoDeployType value) {
this.autoDeploy = value;
}
/**
* Gets the value of the deployWhenBooting property.
*
* @return
* possible object is
* {@link Boolean }
*
*/
public Boolean isDeployWhenBooting() {
return deployWhenBooting;
}
/**
* Sets the value of the deployWhenBooting property.
*
* @param value
* allowed object is
* {@link Boolean }
*
*/
public void setDeployWhenBooting(Boolean value) {
this.deployWhenBooting = value;
}
}
|
/*
* Copyright (c) 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
* DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.
*
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* under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as
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package com.sun.glass.ui.monocle;
import com.sun.glass.ui.Size;
import java.nio.Buffer;
import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
import java.nio.ByteOrder;
/**
* Provides an implementation of NativeCursor that overlays a cursor image on
* top of a software-rendered framebuffer.
*/
class SoftwareCursor extends NativeCursor {
private ByteBuffer cursorBuffer;
private int renderX;
private int renderY;
private int hotspotX;
private int hotspotY;
@Override
Size getBestSize() {
return new Size(16, 16);
}
@Override
void setVisibility(boolean visibility) {
if (visibility != isVisible) {
isVisible = visibility;
MonocleWindowManager.getInstance().repaintAll();
}
}
@Override
void setImage(byte[] cursorImage) {
cursorBuffer = ByteBuffer.allocate(cursorImage.length);
NativeCursors.colorKeyCursor(cursorImage, cursorBuffer.asIntBuffer(), 32, 0);
cursorBuffer = cursorBuffer.order(ByteOrder.nativeOrder());
}
@Override
void setLocation(int x, int y) {
int renderX = x - hotspotX;
int renderY = y - hotspotY;
if (renderX != this.renderX || renderY != this.renderY) {
this.renderX = renderX;
this.renderY = renderY;
MonocleWindowManager.getInstance().repaintAll();
}
}
@Override
void setHotSpot(int hotspotX, int hotspotY) {
this.hotspotX = hotspotX;
this.hotspotY = hotspotY;
}
@Override
void shutdown() {
}
int getRenderX() {
return renderX;
}
int getRenderY() {
return renderY;
}
Buffer getCursorBuffer() {
cursorBuffer.clear();
return cursorBuffer;
}
}
|
import { ReactNode } from "react";
interface ContainerProps {
children: ReactNode;
}
export function Container(props: ContainerProps) {
return <div style={{ display: 'flex', flexDirection: 'row' }}>
{props.children}
</div>
}
|
Thermal Expansibility of 310S Steel-Based PVD Coating in Presence of Metastable Phase The paper discusses the examination of the thermal expansibility of a coating composed of the austenitic steel 310S using the X-ray diffraction technique. Temperature measurements were made in the temperature interval of Tamb200°C, in which the transition of the metastable bcc phase forming the as-applied coating into an fcc-type phase occurred in the coating. The values of the coefficients of thermal expansion of both phases were determined by using the weighted average of the intensities of diffraction reflections recorded. The values of the coefficients of thermal expansion of both phases within the entire examination range (Tamb200°C), determined as the weighed averages with the weight allowing for the intensities of individual reflections, were found to be, respectively, 0.910-5 K-1 for the bcc phase and 1.510-5 K-1 for the fcc phase, and by approx. 0.110-5 K-1 lower than the values typical of the phases of austenite and ferrite in conventional steels. |
A Comparison of Searching Functionality of a VuFind Catalogue Implementation and the Traditional Catalogue As of spring semester 2010, Georgia Southern University began using a VuFind implementation as the default access to the library catalogue on the library Web page while maintaining a secondary link to the traditional Voyager "classic" catalogue. VuFind is an open-source product that has been adopted and adapted by all the state universities and colleges in the state of Georgia. For approximately ten years, Georgia libraries have used Voyager as their catalogue, and it remains available to users as the "classic" search option. This report examines the local VuFind implementation compared to the more traditional Voyager implementation, emphasizing the differences in the searching capabilities of each. |
import datetime
import logging
import os
import time
from docopt import DocoptExit
from colony.commands.base import BaseCommand
from colony.exceptions import BadBlueprintRepo
from colony.sandboxes import SandboxesManager
from colony.utils import BlueprintRepo, get_blueprint_working_branch, parse_comma_separated_string
logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
class SandboxesCommand(BaseCommand):
"""
usage:
colony (sb | sandbox) start <blueprint_name> [options]
colony (sb | sandbox) status <sandbox_id>
colony (sb | sandbox) end <sandbox_id>
colony (sb | sandbox) [--help]
options:
-h --help Show this message
-d, --duration <minutes> Sandbox will automatically deprovision at the end of the provided duration
-n, --name <sandbox_name> Provide name of Sandbox. If not set, the name will be generated using timestamp
-i, --inputs <input_params> Comma separated list of input parameters. Example: key1=value1, key2=value2.
By default Colony CLI will try to take default values for inputs from blueprint
definition yaml file (if you are inside a git-enabled folder of blueprint repo).
Use this option to override them.
-a, --artifacts <artifacts> Comma separated list of artifacts with paths where artifacts are defined per
application. The artifact name is the name of the application.
Example: appName1=path1, appName2=path2.
By default Colony CLI will try to take artifacts from blueprint definition yaml
file (if you are inside a git-enabled folder of blueprint repo).
Use this option to override them.
-b, --branch <branch> Specify the name of remote git branch. If not provided, we will try to
automatically detect the current working branch if the command is used in a
git enabled folder.
-c, --commit <commitId> Specify commit ID. It's required to run sandbox from a blueprint from an
historic commit. Must be used together with the branch option.
If not specified then the latest commit will be used
-w, --wait <timeout> Set the timeout in minutes for the sandbox to become active. If not set, command
will not block terminal and just return the ID of started sandbox
"""
RESOURCE_MANAGER = SandboxesManager
def get_actions_table(self) -> dict:
return {"status": self.do_status, "start": self.do_start, "end": self.do_end}
def do_status(self):
sandbox_id = self.args["<sandbox_id>"]
try:
sandbox = self.manager.get(sandbox_id)
except Exception as e:
logger.exception(e, exc_info=False)
sandbox = None
self.die()
status = getattr(sandbox, "sandbox_status")
self.success(status)
def do_end(self):
sandbox_id = self.args["<sandbox_id>"]
try:
self.manager.end(sandbox_id)
except Exception as e:
logger.exception(e, exc_info=False)
self.die()
self.success("End request has been sent")
def do_start(self):
bp_name = self.args["<blueprint_name>"]
branch = self.args.get("--branch")
commit = self.args.get("--commit")
name = self.args["--name"]
timeout = self.args["--wait"]
if timeout is not None:
try:
timeout = int(timeout)
except ValueError:
raise DocoptExit("Timeout must be a number")
if timeout < 0:
raise DocoptExit("Timeout must be positive")
if name is None:
suffix = datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%b%d%Y-%H:%M:%S")
name = f"{bp_name}-{suffix}"
try:
duration = int(self.args["--duration"] or 120)
if duration <= 0:
raise DocoptExit("Duration must be positive")
except ValueError:
raise DocoptExit("Duration must be a number")
if commit and branch is None:
raise DocoptExit("Since commit is specified, branch is required")
inputs = parse_comma_separated_string(self.args["--inputs"])
artifacts = parse_comma_separated_string(self.args["--artifacts"])
if branch:
working_branch = branch
else:
try:
working_branch = get_blueprint_working_branch(os.getcwd(), blueprint_name=bp_name)
self.message(f"Automatically detected current working branch: {working_branch}")
except BadBlueprintRepo as e:
working_branch = None
logger.warning(
f"No branch has been specified and it could not be identified from the working directory; "
f"reason: {e}. A branch of the Blueprints Repository attached to Colony Space will be used"
)
# TODO(ddovbii): This obtaining default values magic mast be refactored
logger.debug("Trying to obtain default values for artifacts and inputs from local git blueprint repo")
try:
repo = BlueprintRepo(os.getcwd())
if not repo.is_current_branch_synced():
logger.debug("Skipping obtaining values since local branch is not synced with remote")
else:
for art_name, art_path in repo.get_blueprint_artifacts(bp_name).items():
if art_name not in artifacts and art_path is not None:
logger.debug(f"Artifact `{art_name}` has been set with default path `{art_path}`")
artifacts[art_name] = art_path
for input_name, input_value in repo.get_blueprint_default_inputs(bp_name).items():
if input_name not in inputs and input_value is not None:
logger.debug(f"Parameter `{input_name}` has been set with default value `{input_value}`")
inputs[input_name] = input_value
except Exception as e:
logger.debug(f"Unable to obtain default values. Details: {e}")
try:
sandbox_id = self.manager.start(name, bp_name, duration, working_branch, commit, artifacts, inputs)
except Exception as e:
logger.exception(e, exc_info=False)
sandbox_id = None
self.die()
if timeout is None:
self.success(sandbox_id)
else:
start_time = datetime.datetime.now()
logger.debug(f"Waiting for sandbox {sandbox_id}...")
# Waiting loop
while (datetime.datetime.now() - start_time).seconds < timeout * 60:
sandbox = self.manager.get(sandbox_id)
status = getattr(sandbox, "sandbox_status")
if status == "Active":
self.success(sandbox_id)
elif status == "Launching":
progress = getattr(sandbox, "launching_progress")
for check_points, properties in progress.items():
logger.debug(f"{check_points}: {properties['status']}")
time.sleep(30)
else:
self.die(f"Sandbox {sandbox_id} started with {status} state")
# timeout exceeded
logger.error(f"Sandbox {sandbox_id} is not active after {timeout} minutes")
self.die()
|
Into the shadows: sanctions, rentierism, and economic informalization in Venezuela This article studies the effects of sanctions on different economic sectors in Venezuela, framed as a rentier capitalist state. We analyse four sectors: hydrocarbons, agriculture, manufacturing, and what we call emerging sectors (mining and cryptocurrency activities). We argue that sanctions and counter-strategies employed by the state have produced multiple transformations, such as the informalization and criminalization of the economy, which undercut the recovery of Venezuelan economic development and democracy. These effects manifest themselves in an increase in the barter-economy, de facto dollarization, the expansion of activities such as mining and cryptocurrency use, and the spread of illegal actors and military intervention in critical sectors. This study is inscribed in comparative and international politics traditions, related to the interactions of international constraints with domestic political economy actors and structures. Through a qualitative approach, we fill an important gap both in the literature on Venezuelan sanctions, and on sanctions more broadly. Introduction The consequences of the use of sanctions to support regime change or achieve other policy goals is highly contested (Hufbauer et al 2007;Peksen 2019a). This is no less so regarding the sanctions introduced against the regime of Nicols Maduro between 2006 and 2019. Particularly the financial and oil sanctions imposed by the United States in 2017 and 2019 generated a heated debate about their economic impact and social cost (;Weisbrot & Sachs 2019;Rodrguez 2019). Sanctions is the deliberate government-inspired withdrawal or threat of withdrawal of trade or financial relations (: 3). The literature generally distinguishes between comprehensive and targeted sanctions, the latter being sanctions directed toward individuals or specific sectors. Venezuela is the object of targeted sanctions. However, it is our contention that due to the extreme level of dependence on oil and domination of state owned companies in strategic sectors, in Venezuela sanctions have an effect similar to comprehensive sanctions. In this article, we study the effects of sanctions on different sectors and their relationship to the Venezuelan state. The starting point for our discussion is an understanding of Venezuela as a case of rentier-capitalism. Oil rents are distributed to other sectors through subsidies and an overvalued currency. Because of the nature of the Venezuelan oil economy, sanctions on the oil sector affect other sectors, making them rather comprehensive in their effects. These other sectors are also dependent on a number of additional factors, including the evolution of the rule of law, the availability of credits and tax burdens. We analyse four sectors: hydrocarbons, agriculture, manufacturing, and what we call "emerging sectors" (most notably mining and cryptocurrency activities, which have thrived in part because of the crisis). We argue that it is difficult to disentangle the effects of sanctions from the counter-strategies employed by the Venezuelan state. However, combined, they have produced multiple transformations in an economy that was already deeply affected by adverse economic trends and governmental policies. The most general and alarming effect of the sanctions is further informalization and partly criminalization of the economy that undercut the recovery of Venezuelan economic development and return to democracy. Informalization takes place in the form of increase in the barter-economy, de facto dollarization, the expansion of informal activities such as mining and cryptocurrency use, as well as the spread of illegal actors and military intervention in critical sectors. This study is inscribed in comparative and international politics traditions, especially related to the interactions of international constraints, such as sanctions, with domestic political economy actors and structures. The article em-ploys a combination of official numbers for production and GDP in different sectors, and 55 formal in-depth interviews in Venezuela and Colombia from October 2018 to July 2019. We collected information from business chamber representatives, individual business leaders as well as public officials. In addition, we have conducted a number of interviews on Skype from Oslo, throughout 2018 and 2019. Through a qualitative approach, we fill an important gap not only in the literature on Venezuelan sanctions, but in the literature on sanctions that tend to be based on static quantitative data, which overlooks the effect of the dynamics between sanctions and government-business reactions to them (Peksen 2019a). Existing contributions seek to establish the impact of sanctions based on the comparison with other non-sanctioned oil producing nations (Rodrguez 2019). Rather, we seek to understand how sanctions and governmental policies interact with the long-term political economic dynamics in each sector. Inevitably, we also analyse the private sector's strategies to confront government policies and adapt to sanctions. The article is outlined as follows. The first section briefly summarizes the sanctions imposed on Venezuela. The second section discusses what to expect from the sanctions based on recent literature, highlighting an increasingly well-established connection between sanctions, deepening authoritarianism and informalization. In the empirical part, we discuss the hydrocarbons sector, agriculture, manufacturing and finally emerging sectors including mining of minerals and cryptocurrency. Sanctions imposed on Venezuela The United States, the European Union, and Canada are the main jurisdictions imposing sanctions on Venezuela. Some Latin American countries also imposed sanctions limiting entry to their territories of high officials from Venezuela's government. The United States has engaged in sanctions for over a decade, first as a result of a crackdown on lack of compliance with policies regarding drug trafficking, terrorism and human trafficking. Venezuela's defiant foreign policy to United States' interests and alternative defence doctrine, including building alliances with Colombian armed groups, prompted mistrust on United States' authorities. Sanctions began in 2005 and 2006 and eventually mounted to banning all United States' commercial arms sales and retransfers to Venezuela. In Table 1, we show a systematic view of the sanctions imposed on Venezuela to-date. Due to the 2014 protests and repression, the United States' Congress enacted the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act. In consequence, the president imposed sanctions (asset blocking and visa restrictions) against those deemed responsible for significant acts of violence or serious human rights abuses. In 2015, president Obama issued Executive Order (E.O.) 13692, targeting individuals who are considered responsible for violations of human rights and undermining democracy. After the suspension of the recall referendum signature drive by the opposition in 2016, a mediation effort was launched with the support of UNASUR. The agreements never materialized (see more in Alfaro Pareja, 2020), and in 2017, protests escalated with the government's attempt to close down the National Assembly. The protests were crashed with repression from state and para-state groups and the government's decision to convene a National Constituent Assembly (ANC), in charge of re-writing the constitution and capable of overriding the power of any institution. In this context, the United States expanded the sanctions. President Donald Trump imposed financial sanctions on Venezuela through three additional EOs. First, E.O. 13808 restricts the Venezuelan government's access to United States' debt and equity markets. Second, E.O. 13827 prohibits transactions involving the Venezuelan government's issuance and use of digital currency. Third, E.O. 13835 prohibits transactions related to the purchase of Venezuelan debt. In November 2018, president Trump issued E.O. 13850, setting forth a framework to block the assets of, and prohibit certain transactions with, any person to operate in the gold sector or to be responsible or complicit in transactions involving deceptive practices or corruption. This was followed by the designation of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) after the speaker of the National Assembly asserted that he was the legitimate interim president of Venezuela, the designated PDVSA as subject to sanctions. All property and interests of PDVSA in the United States were blocked. In essence, the Maduro government was blocked from accessing the accounts of CITGO. In 2019, the United States' administration banned United States' individuals and companies from engaging in transactions with the Maduro government and secondary sanctions on third-country parties who do so (with humanitarian exceptions). By that time, the purpose of the sanctions had moved from cracking down on specific violations of United States' regulations, to explicitly seeking regime change through a combination of increased opposition, and the disintegration of the Maduro-regime support coalition, especially within the military. The European Union first agreed on sanctions in November 2017. They consist of an arms' embargo and on material that might be used for repression, as well as a travel ban and assets' freeze. The measures can be reversed depending on the evolution of the situation in the country, in particular the holding of credible and meaningful negotiations, the respect for institutions, the adoption of an electoral calendar and the liberation of political prisoners. The sanctions were extended in November 2018. The effect of sanctions in a crisis-ridden rentier regime Economic sanctions have been controversial ever since their use increased post-World War II. While initially considered a means to reduce the use of force, already in 1967 Galtung criticized their inefficiency and harmfulness. Sanctions, he argued, were based on a "nave theory of economic warfare" positing that the higher the economic hardship inflicted by sanctions, the greater the harm might be on leaders' legitimacy and coercive capacity, which would subsequently pressure them to acquiesce to external demands (Galtung 1967). He argued that this logic overlooked the ability of receiving states to adapt and adjust to new economic realities. Since then, the question of whether sanctions work has been linked to their impact in the target country as well as the ability of recipient states to adapt. Up until the late 1990s, the consensus was that sanctions were inefficient. Hufbauer et al. summarized the reasons for this as follows: sanctions may be inadequate for the task at hand (failing for example to hurt those with power); create their own antidote by unifying the target country; prompt reactions from allies of target countries -so called "sanction busters" offsetting their effect; and alienate allies and business in the sender country. The imposition of sanctions and subsequent invasion of Iraq, led to a concern for sanctions' collateral damage and a general condemnation of the use comprehensive sanctions. As a response, so called targeted sanctions emerged seeking to inflict costs on the target regime and its supporters while reducing social costs (). Later research found that while sanctions are still inefficient means to achieve foreign policy goals (Peksen 2019a), efficiency improve if sanctions are multilateral rather than unilateral (), and if there is a pre-existing foreign-aid relationship between sender and target (Early & Jadoon 2019). Moreover, modest policy changes are achievable, while few successes were found in achieving regime change. Hufbauer et al found that sanctions succeeded in imposing regime change in less than a third of the cases (31 percent). Targeted sanctions have zero success rate in coercing a regime change, unless carefully designed and planned along with other diplomatic measures to influence a negotiated solution (Biersteker 2015). Sanctions are also found to be less efficient when used towards authoritarian regimes (Faulkner 2018), although depending on the number of "vetoplayers" (Jeong & Peksen 2017), and institutional characteristics (Peksen 2019b). Yet, worse, sanctions contribute to more autocratic forms of governance. Measures of political stability, voice and accountability, government effectiveness, and regulatory quality all decline appreciably in the target countries (Rosenberg et al 2016;Peksen 2019b). Along with the decline in the quality of governance, economic sanctions tend to encourage corruption and criminal activity (Biersteker 2015) and strengthen shadow economies in target countries (Early & Peksen 2018). In other words, the literature leaves little hope for success of the mainly unilateral, uncoordinated sanctions imposed on Venezuela in coercing a return to democracy, upon an increasingly authoritarian government. The literature rather predicts a descent into further authoritarianism and informality. However, as noted by Peksen (2019a) the majority of the studies of the impact of sanctions use static data from existing sanctions databases. These approaches limit the understanding of how aspects of state-society rela-tions condition the consequences of sanctions. Furthermore, using static data, they are unable to identify interaction effects between sanctions and governmental responses. This study seeks to contribute to filling this gap. To understand the impact and the possible success of the sanctions, one has to start with the understanding of Venezuela as a rentier economy as this shapes the strategy of adaptation to new constraints of loyalists as well as opponents. Venezuela's political institutions as well as social organizations are reliant on the inflow of considerable rent income from abroad. Despite some disagreements, there is a basic consensus around some of the effects of wealth derived from petroleum rents. According to Ross, dependence on oil rents makes authoritarian regimes more durable; it encourages corruption; and it can lead to violent conflict, especially in ethnic-divisive societies. The most common economic dysfunction of rent dependence is the so-called Dutch disease, which refers to the relative overvaluation of the currency due to windfall revenues in foreign currency, hampering the prospect of diversifying the economy. In terms of political institutions, hydrocarbon rents tend to contribute to a broad weakening of institutional capacities, encouraging the emergence of fiscally autonomous elites associated with powerful cronies (Dunning 2010). The state manages the oil wealth in its dual role of the owner of subsoil resources and main stakeholder in the oil industry. Historically, the government controlled the oil industry through the application of royalties and taxes and then channelled these revenues through budgetary mechanisms. The distribution of revenues occurred in the context of a pacted democracy that was inspired in a corporatist system, comprised of political parties, productive sector interests, and trade unions (Coronil 1997;Urbaneja 2013). Under the Bolivarian Revolution, these mechanisms have been altered. New parallel institutions were established and alternative mechanisms of rent distribution created (Vera 2008;Perez S 2011). A critical one was the manipulation of the exchange rate to channel subsoil rents through foreign currency subsidies to specific constituencies (Rosales 2016; Purcell 2017). In addition, the government created extrabudgetary funds that undermined institutional accountability and contributed to the centralization of power in the president (Corrales & Penfold 2011). In 2012, a crisis began due to the debt-induced fiscal deficit and a growing monetization of that deficit that sparked inflation. Compounded by economic inefficiencies and the decline in oil production, this led to a decreased capacity for redistribution and imports, resulting in scarcity and skyrocketing inflation, and sparking recurrent demonstrations. With the stacking of the Supreme Court in 2015 and the establishment of the ANC in 2017, most institutional checks and balances were eroded (Straka 2017). Rather, the state heavily repressed opposition, in the midst of institutional deterioration and a decline in the rule of the law. By the time sanctions were introduced, Venezuela had fallen into a defensive authoritarian rentierism in which oil rents were used primarily to sustain the government in power and undermine opponents. An example of this strategy is the political use of the food rationing and distribution program Comits Locales de Abastecimiento y Produccin (CLAP), which functions as a mechanism of social control and surveillance (Penfold 2018). The argument that we develop is that the sanctions have hindered existing routes of rent appropriation. The ability to capitalize on oil rents shrunk because external financing is cut off with the financial sanctions; the transfer of oil and gold into rents is hindered due to the oil and gold sanctions, and the individual ability to hoard rent is affected by the individual sanctions. The natural way of adaptation of rent-seekers within and outside governmental circles is to find new sources or new routes for rent-appropriation. Sanctions busters (in this case, Russia, China, and Turkey) may facilitate such new avenues. The strategies applied by the domestic actors will depend on the strength or weakness of formal legal and political institutions, but the rent-seeking impulse will encourage the breaking of both national laws and the limitations imposed by sanctions. This in turn may create new "informal institutions", with the possibility of creating a certain temporary and often local regulation of economic activity adapted to the new circumstances, but with long-term negative consequences for economic development and democracy. Hydrocarbons sector Venezuela's oil sector represents the productive backbone of the country and a great source of rent around which other sectors organize in order to survive and expand. The notion of "sowing the oil" has been present in the country's imaginary and political discourse since the 1930s, as a way to use the benefits of oil revenue to strengthen agriculture and industry (Straka 2019). Sanctions imposed on PDVSA joined pre-existing domestic problems related to governance deficiencies in the industry. The financial sanctions first contributed to a reduction of oil production in PDVSA-managed fields and, later, the oil trade embargo sharply cut Venezuelan oil exports to the United States' market. Venezuela's hydrocarbon industry underwent important transformations in the past decades accounting in part for the wider changes occurring Venezuelan society. 1 In the 1990s, PDVSA successfully internationalized and the oil industry was opened up for upstream investments (Mommer 2002). The internationalization process encompassed the purchasing of major assets abroad, including the United States' operator CITGO (Loung & Sierra 2015), and the establishment of refineries and gas stations in the Caribbean, Europe, and the United States (Hellinger 2016). Nationalist scholars argue, however, that this strategy responded to the desire by managers of isolating PDVSA's revenues from government spending (Mommer 2002). The apertura petrolera translated into investments plans in the Orinoco River belt (heavy and extra-heavy crude) within a flexible framework with lower royalty and corporate taxes and conflict resolution mechanisms that gave international tribunals and arbitration courts pre-eminence (Philip 1999;Manzano & Monaldi 2010). PDVSA's assets abroad (such as CITGO), "shielded" the investments that large foreign companies would be committing (Giusti 1999). With such attractive conditions, investments flowed into these fields. By the end of the 1990s, the corporate logic of the company had been established as the centre of the country's oil policy. Venezuela increased output by about 800,000 bpd to over 3.5 million bpd (Manzano & Monaldi 2010). According to Urbaneja (2013: 352), with the oil opening: "there was a productive philosophy regarding oil -rather than a rentier one -which pointed to the expansion of the industry and production even at the expense of rent per barrel." The Chvez government sought to reverse these policies and bring Venezuela back to its traditional role of defending oil prices. It strengthened the regulatory capacity of the Ministry of Oil over PDVSA, to increase the state's intake of rents via royalties (Lander 2002;Rodrguez Araque 2012). Nonetheless, the Chvez government did not want to fully alienate foreign investors, as it needed their capital and expertise to keep output flowing, especially because the Orinoco belt was considered a crucial bargaining chip to bolster the country's international leverage. The initial changes to the legal framework governing oil approved by executive decree in 2001, raised royalty levels to 33 percent and forcing a major overhaul in the stakeholder structure of private investments. Joint-ventures were forced to have state majority asset and control, although some level of governance autonomy was later permitted (Rosales 2018). PDVSA's managerial elite protested these changes, first joining forces with rebel military leaders in a coup attempt to overthrow Chvez, and later through a devastating strike. Yet, the government assured control and purged PDVSA of dissenting voices, costing the company a great deal of technical expertise (Philip & Panizza 2013). Through direct political control over PDVSA, the Chvez government managed to establish its ambitious social spending programs and rolled out an expansionary spending regime that increased imports and benefited foreign partners through oil bill subsidies. However, it also became more dependent on foreign investors and high oil prices (Monaldi 2018). By 2006, with increasing oil prices, the government decided to retroactively apply the 2001 legal framework on the joint-ventures agreed upon during the oil opening. The forced migration to the new framework and the imposition of progressive taxes in 2008 was received with scepticism by investors, some of whom rejected the deals and launched lawsuits against Venezuela. While oil production never recuperated to the 1990s levels, during most of Chavez's government, the output remained at around 3 million bpd. The migration to the 2001 legal framework was the start of a series of actions that undermined confidence among investors and affected the country's production (interview with authors, July 2019). However, production declines were largely offset by increasing prices from 2003 onward. During Nicols Maduro's tenure, the main problem affecting the sector was related to currency and macroeconomic distortions. The widening gap of the official exchange rate and the market illegal one, made the oil industry suffer, as it was required to sell dollars to the central bank at the official exchange rate while paying for equipment, salaries, and liabilities in an increasingly inflationary context. Investors as well as former policy makers in the oil sector, especially Rafael Ramrez, made calls to abandon the government's currency policy and unify the exchange rate at a competitive rate (Toro 2017). These distortions worsened as the oil price declined in 2014. Maduro's response was to purge PDVSA of personnel close to Ramrez, appointing instead military officers and maduristas to managerial posts. Over 65 PDVSA officials were dismissed and persecuted for corruption charges since 2016. In addition, former Minister of Oil Eulogio del Pino was arrested together with former Citgo CEO Nelson Martnez, in late 2017. The latter died soon after in dubious circumstances (). Ramrez resigned from his post as ambassador to the United Nations in late 2017 and a month later, the government-appointed Attorney General issued an international arrest warrant against Ramrez. General Manuel Quevedo was appointed the company's CEO and Minister of Oil in 2017. The persecution of the managerial elite was combined with desertion from lower ranked workers who saw no economic benefit in working due to rapidly devaluing wages, insecure environments, and threats by superiors and military. According to workers' reports between 25,000 and 40,000 have left their posts in the past years (Buitrago & Ulmer 2018;Ulmer & Parraga 2018). National Guard officers have replaced these workers but their lack of expertise and vulnerability to extortion complicate the industry's recovery. Industry representatives referred to corruption in the supply chain to be an endemic problem, contributing to making daily industry operations extremely cumbersome. 2 The effect of the imposition of financial sanctions of 2017 that banned both PDVSA and the Venezuelan treasury from rescheduling debt must be understood in the context of these domestic factors. Rodrguez argues that the 2017 financial sanctions had an adverse effect in oil production and export. He estimates that "financial sanctions were associated with economic losses of USD 16.9 billion per year" (Rodrguez 2019: 51). In addition to this loss of revenue from 2017 onward, the trade restrictions imposed in 2019 account for an increased burden as the United Stats' market was sharply closed to Venezuelan production. While PDVSA temporarily attempted to sell its United States-bound oil to India and other international buyers, it has not found enough costumers to substitute for the over 400 thousand bpd that the United States' market represented. Venezuela's output remained around the 700 thousand bpd, which threatens Venezuela's condition of net oil exporter. Agricultural sector The main agricultural-related argument about the impact of sanctions in Venezuela, has been that they contributed to food insecurity. In the following we show that this is not correct as food imports actually increased after oil and financial sanctions. However, the sanctions further informalized and militarized an already deeply crisis-ridden agricultural sector. When Chvez took power, he pledged to ensure both food security and food sovereignty, through productivity increases and redistribution. The agricultural sector was characterized by both low productivity and inequality in land distribution and corresponding underutilization of land. Problems were compounded by the domination of private monopolies, such as Empresas Polar in food and beverage production, and Agroislea in distribution of agricultural inputs. These formed part of the system of rent-distribution, as they received subsidized raw material and foreign exchange from the government (Purcell 2017). From the start, Chvez' attempts at transforming the agricultural sector was marked by a deep conflict with existing agricultural producers. This started already with the introduction of the Law on Lands and Agricultural Development from 2001 (Giacalone et al 2017). The purpose of the law was to make uncultivated land available for producing key foods for the Venezuelan diet (), but it set off a number of spontaneous expropriations and invasions of large estates with the government's endorsement. In 2001, the Corporacin Venezolana Agraria (CVA) was established to absorb the expropriated farms. Furthermore, the government created the Mercado de Alimentos CA (MERCAL) that sold basic food from medium and large food producers at below the regulated price at 14.000 outlets across the country. MERCAL was under direct responsibility of PDVSA rather than a regular ministry, adding to the oil company's duties and share of expenses into social policy. In the period after 2002, the government implemented more elaborate plans to expropriate farms, control prices, and later control production through state companies, first in the production of sugar, cereals and oilseeds, and milk. With the adoption of the first national development plan came a change in the laws on food security, price controls and the development of the popular economy, and later also a reform of the Law of Lands. This led to further increases in expropriations that also started to encompass agribusiness industry. In 2007, PDVSA-Agro was created as a subsidiary to participate directly in production of agricultural products as raw material for the food industry. The number of state supported agricultural cooperatives also experienced a steep increase (Purcell 2017). The result was an increase in the percentage of land cultivated, as well as production increase. By 2008, the expropriation of idle land had contributed to an increase of 46 percent in cultivated land compared to 1988, after a reduction the decade before (Chacn 2011). Driven by state subsidies, between 2003 and 2008, production increased as well. However, due to consumption increases, scarcities also increased. In 2007, products in MERCAL were 42 percent more scarce than the commercial establishments (Chacn 2011). The beginning of the end to the production increase was the expropriation of the agricultural supply company Agroislea in 2010 (it was then renamed Agropatria) (Banko 2019). While Agroislea had held a dominating position of around 40-45 percent of the market for agricultural inputs, Agropatria, became a complete monopoly. It soon became the centre of a number of corrupt practices such as reselling or manipulating access to subsidized agrarian inputs. In consequence, only a year after its launch it recorded major losses (Purcell 2017). At the same time, with the government enjoying record high oil prices, imports increased, peaking in the election year of 2012 when they reached a value of 59.000 million dollars (Hernndez 2015) (See figure 2). With the entering of the Maduro government and the drop in oil prices, three additional factors added to production decline: hyperinflation and currency scarcity, increased military control, and the expansion and institutionalization of corrupt practices. The government increasingly blamed the producers themselves for the fall, and started to acquire stronger control over all the parts of the chain of production. In April 2016, the CLAPs were established to bypass private intermediaries in distribution and providing people direct alimentary support. Later in 2016, the Gran Misin Abastecimiento Soberano Seguro was created placing the CLAP under military control, while PDVSA-Agro was transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands. By 2019, 74.9 percent of the population received the CLAP-boxes, and as shown in a series of journalistic reports, they have opened up a new window for corruption for a small group of government aligned business actors. The CLAP policy has also served as a significant mechanism of social control, associated with election manipulation and coercive tool to appease protest. While the distribution networks of Agropatria had long been politicized, later they also became militarized. In 2013, the Agropecuaria de la Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana (AgroFan) had been established to satisfy the food supply needs for the armed forces. By 2018, as both agricultural supplies and foreign currency got increasingly scarce, Agropatria begun to channel the majority of its imports (around 80 percent according to sector representatives) to AgroFan. Furthermore, as one of its first actions after its establishment, the ANC created the agricultural conglomerate Agrosur in September 2017 to control all parts of the agricultural production chain, from distributing input to production and sale. By 2019, it was fully operating and it came to control Import of goods Venezuela 1997-2018, total value US$ million Import of goods Private imports Public imports Public Non-Petroleum around 90 percent of agro-industrial supplies. While private producers previously had been obliged to sell between 20-30 percent of their crops to Agropatria, they now had to sell up to 50-60 percent (depending on state and products) to Agrosur, at prices decided by the government. 3 While state control expanded formally, it also did so informally through the increasingly precarious situation of accessing currency for agricultural input, leaving any producer that fell out of favour of Agropatria and later Agrosur, with no access to fertilizers and other supplies. Thus, traditional producers increasingly cut down on the cultivated area due to lack of seeds, fertilizers or ability to repair equipment (interviews agri-business representatives, July 2019). The next phase of the troubles for the agricultural sector came with the government's attempt at reducing inflation. In addition to a steep devaluation, in February 2019 the government obliged the banks to maintain a reserve of between 60 and 100 percent of deposits. This radically restrictive monetary policy ended access to credit for the non-government aligned agricultural sector (). The monetary restrictions came only a week after United States had announced the introduction of oil sanctions. These had the immediate consequence of causing gasoline shortages. While in large cities like Caracas, the gasoline crisis was largely overcome within a month, in the agriculture producing areas in the Andean and plains' region (the states of Tchira, Mrida, Barinas, and Portuguesa) the gasoline crisis continued (Ostos 2019;Prez 2019). This prevented farmers from transporting crops to markets and agro-industries, and large amounts of agricultural products decomposed (Herrera & Kurmanaev 2019). The consequences were twofold: First, agricultural producers increasingly used informal channels for food distribution, including selling online through contacts with payments in different currencies; second, since the access to such channels is not generalized, it increased the role of companies established by military officials that controlled territories, had access to transport, and had wide networks of contacts. 4 Manufacturing sector The Venezuelan manufacturing sector has been in a process of long term decline since the late-1970s, with a growth period after 2003, but steeply declining after 2014. By 2019, it produced less than a third of the value it did before Chvez entered power, and less than a fourth compared to the peak years of chavismo. In order to understand the effect of the sanctions, it is necessary to understand the dynamics of the long term decline, as well as the period of increase. Like agribusiness, the manufacturing sector was born at the back of petroleum exploration. The twentieth century saw the rise of three large industrial groups that spread into other sectors: Mendoza, Cisneros, and Polar. These and other groups had achieved privileged access to oil rents and according to some they "captured the Venezuelan state" (Rangel 1972). The post 1958 industrial strategy aimed at reducing oil dependency, modernize the economy, enhance self-sufficiency, and ensure full employment was pursued (Straka 2019). It increased industry output to 17 percent of GDP as of the late 1970s, most of it oriented toward internal consumption. Production was diversified from traditional or basic industries (food processing, beverages, leather, and footwear), to intermediate products (paper, petrochemicals, rubber, plastics, and industrial minerals), and heavier industries (iron, steel, aluminium, transport equipment, and machinery). However, industrialization suffered from dependency on imports of capital goods; geographical and ownership concentration; a weak internal credit market and entrepreneurial sector; lack of export capacity; and lack of internal integration (Bitar & Troncoso 1982). The oil boom of the mid-seventies undermined the growth of industry as imports inundated outcompeted domestic production. The state responded by expanding public ownership, growing from representing 5 to 18 percent of manufacturing output between the early 1970s and the late 1980s (Di John 2014). The consequent collapse in production is explained by the inflow of imports due to the overvaluation of the currency, and negative consequences of state involvement. However, it was also affected by political pressure for a wide distribution of oil rents, jeopardizing a consistent industrialization strategy (Di John 2014). In the 1980s, the industrial slow-down accelerated. Chvez' promised to rebuild industry based on the creation of cooperatives and "social production companies", expropriation of larger companies in strategic sectors, and introduction of work training programs (Vera 2008). These policies took off after Chvez gained control over PDVSA in 2002 and oil prices spiked in 2003. In the years that followed, the combination of an overvaluation of the currency, direct funding and tax-exemptions for the cooperatives led to their multiplication, from 35,000 in 2003 to 130,000 in 2007 (Vera 2007). At the same time, the decline of other non-oil manufacturing companies continued, as Chvez consciously channelled preferential dollars away from those that had supported the coup-attempt (Ellner 2019). Between 1999 and 2006, 3,600 manufacturing companies disappeared and the percentage of the population employed by them declined from 14,3 percent in 1999 to 11 percent in 200611 percent in (Vera 2008. In spite of this, manufacturing output increased after 2003. Extraordinary oil rents allowed for a large subsidy to the importdependent manufacturing sector through an overvalued currency (Dachevsky & Kornblitt 2017). Moreover, the sector benefitted from increased consumption due to the distribution of oil rents through social programs. As expressed in interviews, even business leaders that were exposed to hostile acts from the government, and increasingly rigid price controls, admitted that it was the start of a period of extraordinary profits. 5 The 2007-2013 National development plan (Presidencia 2007) introduced a new phase. Chvez announced the establishment of over 200 Social Production Companies to produce electronics, motorcycles, housing and building materials and more (Carlson 2007), and started a new wave of expropriations, targeting strategic industries such as cement, petrochemicals, and oil supplies. The distribution of cheap dollars was used increasingly strategically. First in line was the state owned companies; then those that imported basic and strategic goods including food and medicine; then those that imported raw material for strategic sectors (including food industries); and finally the rest of the industry. While some industries, such as automotive, were hit hard, others thrived, leading to a concentration of income and ownership in the hands of few, many of which had transnational connections and were able to diversify their investment strategies and business relations. As argued by a Colombian businessperson with 20 years of experience in Venezuela: "whoever says he did not make money until Chvez died is lying. We made a lot of money. There were profit margins in Venezuela that the Colombians could only dream of." 6 The death of Chvez invoked immediate changes. First, imports peaked with Maduro's election campaign in 2013, sucking up much of the dollar surplus and flooding the market with cheap imports. Second, while the debt burden had started to put pressure on liquidity in 2012, inorganic money began flowing, raising inflation. With the oil-prices tumbling in 2014, the access to subsidized dollars became severely limited. The most important effect of the new dollar scarcity was the reduction of access to necessary raw material and other inputs. Transnational companies initially made up for that by taking up internal loans from their headquarters. Over the years, most either closed their doors or reduced their operations to a minimum, awaiting a regime change and better times. National companies that sold their products or services to transnational companies were paid in part in dollars in order to continue operations. 7 The skyrocketing of inflation starting in 2016 hit the manufacturing sector. The steep and unilateral state-imposition of wage increases led many companies to bankruptcy. Moreover, many workers saw no reason to show up for work as wages were worthless. Strategies employed by the companies included paying the employees a portion in bolivares, another in goods, and a third in dollars that was deposited to accounts abroad. Yet, a large number of companies shut down, and the historical decline of industrial output reached a completely different dynamic (see graph). Part of the reason was also that the purchasing power of Venezuelans dropped steeply. Grupo Polar, still the main food-producing company in the country, reported that the consumption in 98 of the most common products was cut in half between 2011 and 2016. 8 The financial sanctions had four main consequences in a sector already in decline. First, they led to difficulties in accessing credits from abroad. Banks would generally seek to avoid transacting with Venezuelans due to fear of being sanctioned. It was mainly private manufacturing companies supplying PDVSA or one of its many subsidiaries that suffered from this, but also other companies reported to have experienced reduced access to credit as a result of what Rodrguez calls "financial toxification", leading banks to stop providing services to the Venezuelan government, often citing increased reputational risk. 9 Second, it led to reductions in access to raw materials. This was partly a result of problems in accessing dollars, but it was compounded by the decline in productivity in agriculture and the fact that most of the raw material producing companies were state-owned, and directly hit by the 2017 sanctions. The oil sanctions of 2019 further closed off credits for the many companies producing goods for some PDVSA-associated company. Third, while the purchasing power of the Venezuelans had been in steep decline for years, the 2017 and later the 2019 oil sanctions limited domestic demand further as they limited governmental spending. Lastly, as the government experienced a decline in income from the hydrocarbons sector, tax pressure increased on the manufacturing and commerce sectors. By 2019, the government demanded weekly tax payments to make up for the loss of income. To access credits, businesses tried to "triangulate", transferring payment in euros or Russian rubles, to bitcoin and from bitcoin to dollars. In this way, they continued to sell to the state with input from abroad. It was, however, estimated to add 10 percent to the cost. A consequence of the combination of increased tax pressure and increasingly randomly implemented regulations and controls, more companies decided to move all or parts of their operations into the informal sector. Some closed the formal doors, but continued to sell on an informal basis. As explained by one business chamber leader, "In the period of CADIVI, there was an 'over-billing' (sobrefacturacin) of 20 percent by private companies, 45 percent by public companies. Today it is the other way around: now we 'under-bill' our customers, as we try to evade taxes". 10 In order to curb inflation, as of August 2018, the government allowed for private access to foreign currency. Over the coming months, the price controls that had been introduced partly to avoid private companies not transferring the advantage given to them through the currency subsidy to their customers, were de-facto lifted. However, by that point the cash flow and access to credit had become so limited that few companies could benefit from it. Emerging sectors The decline in economic output was due mainly to pre-existing and continuing economic policies, but worsened by sanctions. However, the deep crisis has contributed to the emergence of alternative sources of revenue. Alternative enterprises have emerged in the shadow of legality and the state has embraced new rentier practices growing largely outside, at times even against, formal mechanisms and institutions. While gold mining has been a traditional activity in Venezuela for centuries, because of the economic downturn and later the sanctions the government has sought to scale it up. The areas of El Callao and Tumeremo have the longest history of gold extraction, historically dominated by artisanal and small-scale mining (Rosales 2019a). In the second half of last century, industrialized mining emerged in the Bolvar state area focused on iron, steel, bauxite, and aluminium. It was largely controlled by state-owned enterprises that together made up the Corporacin Venezolana de Guayana (CVG), a complex of heavy metal industries geared to support the country's industrialization efforts. In the 1990s, the government privatized the CVG affiliates and opened up the gold sector for foreign investment, especially in Las Cristinas. The opening of gold mining was characterized by legal disputes between different concessionaires and the state. Some attempts of collaboration between large-scale investors and artisanal and small-scale miners emerged but were not successful in the long term (Wotruba & Davidson 2005). Meanwhile, small-scale miners have continuously been present in these areas. At the height of the oil price in 2008, the Venezuelan government revoked the concessions of Crystallex and Gold Reserve on grounds of environmental degradation. Ultimately, in 2011, the government decreed the nationalization of the gold sector. Similar to the renegotiation process of oil contracts, the government sought to increase its participation by securing majority assets in joint ventures (Repblica Bolivariana de Venezuela 2011). While legal disputes between government and companies were taking place in mining concessions, irregular mining spread throughout Bolvar state. After the onset of the deep economic crisis in 2013, irregular mining expanded by the hand of armed groups that control territories. One of the main initiatives to counteract the looming economic crisis was the creation of the Orinoco Mining Arc (OMA) by Nicols Maduro in 2016. The OMA is a special development zone, ruled by flexible fiscal arrangements, labour, and environmental governance to encourage foreign investments. The OMA covers an area of 111,843 square kilometres, and is subdivided into units according to the strategic minerals located in their subsoil (RBV 2016). According to official sources, only 5 percent of this territory is appropriate for mineral exploitation. 11 Executive Decree N 2.248 stipulates the creation of the special development zone and underscores the state of exception that governs this territory. The interests of unions, indigenous communities, and other groups is subordinate to advancement of mining activities defined as being in the "general interest" of the nation (RBV 2016). There are several governance inconsistencies in Maduro's mining policy. First, the OMA is not a prospective policy to open for extraction in the future as much as it is the legalization of existing mines and mining activities in a delineated territory, outside of national parks and protected areas. Second, actual mining taking place is not restricted to the OMA. Much of the Venezuelan Guiana region (southeast of the Orinoco River) is affected by mining activities, including the Amazonas state, national parks, and indigenous lands. Third, rather than encouraging formal investments from foreign capital, the OMA has formalized alliances between the Maduro government, the armed forces, and a network of illegal actors that exert control over mines. Among them are the gangs known as sindicatos, Colombian guerrilla groups, the Ejrcito de Liberacin Nacional (ELN), and factions of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC-EP) (ICG 2019). The withdrawal of state control over these territories and the spread of illegal armed actors further complicate the prospects of a transition to democracy and the rule of law. Territorial disintegration and violence in the context of a criminal economy adds another layer of actors, interests, and material structures to consider. However, the OMA has failed to attract foreign capital. In the words of the deputy minister of ecological mining development, Franklin Ramrez, "attracting foreign capital for a besieged country like Venezuela is very hard, particularly since the United States imposed sanctions on us limiting foreign institutions from making transactions with Venezuela." 12 For this reason, the government decided to focus its efforts on local investors. It has approved setting up 57 cyanidation plants with local capital, and has signed "strategic alliances" with some 700 small-mining cooperatives (RBV 2018). These alliances include traditional small-scale miners and miners subjected to exploitation by armed groups and the Venezuelan military, which is formally present in the mining business via joint-ventures. The result of this is that during the past few years, mining activities have increased. However, mining's share of GDP as well as the gold portion of the country's international reserves have remained stagnant or decreased (see graphs below). The decline suggests the continuation of smuggling or irregular sale of gold with government officials' support. Recently, the Dutch islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaao (ABC) have initiated investigations on the transport of gold from Venezuela to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa through their airports (Boon & Melndez 2019). Curaao's gold exports have become more significant in recent years. With no proven gold reserves of its own, it is sensible to assume that Curaao's increase in gold exports accounts for gold transported from Venezuela. Several gold sales have taken place to Ghana, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates, although the details of the conditions of such operations remain opaque (Pons 2018;Armas 2019;Laya 2019). In the investigations advanced in the ABC islands, the joint-venture Oro Azul, whose main shareholders are former government officials, appears to be the main operator of the sales. The sanctions prohibiting the purchase of gold from Venezuela ushered a deepening of the irregular nature of gold extraction and the expansion of this sector. Nevertheless, the government's participation in the business is unaccounted for and the revenues procured are part of a growing illicit and informal economy. Another consequence of the combination of hyperinflation and financial sanctions has been the gradual abandonment of the bolvar. The use of dollars has become more notorious recently in retail, real estate, and other business. From 2013, as bitcoin prices surged cryptocurrency mining emerged as another emerging sector, and as a safeguard from inflation and a mechanism to obtain scarce foreign currency (Rosales 2019b). As business representatives explained, the use of cryptocurrencies as exchange vehicle from bolvares has been a pivotal strategy to confront monetary restrictions and sanctions. For individual miners, cryptocurrency mining became lucrative. Before 2018, miners reported making profits of at least US$ 300 per month. As it was dependent on cheap subsidized electricity, cryptocurrency mining can be understood as a new way of reaping natural resource rents. As one miner said: "we don't even enter electricity into our cost structure, it is impossible for us to calculate that when all prices hike and the electricity bill doesn't". 13 Much like gold mining, the government followed the lead of common citizens and decided to legalize cryptocurrency mining in 2018 and launch its own cryptocurrency, backed by untapped oil reserves, the petro (RBV 2018). While Monetary gold in foreign reserves (Million US$) it has been difficult for the government to turn the petro into a trustworthy investment, it was used to acquire foreign loans bypassing the regular financial institutions, itself a tool that may attract funds from shady activities. The petro was born because of the financial sanctions and was launched with support of Russian technical expertise (Shuster 2018). Nevertheless, it has not picked up steam and the government attempts to use it as a tool to channel remittances from the Venezuelan diaspora. Sanctions imposed on individuals have become incentives for the private sector as well as individuals linked to officials to use their dollars domestically. But the financial restrictions and domestic controls over currency exchange and lack of cash has also incentivized the use of cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrency banking and other tools have become more common in Venezuela and their use is more frequent at times when the government has imposed policies restricting access to credit. 14 De facto dollarization of the economy as well as the rise in the use of cryptocurrencies ushers informalization, complicating national accounting, and transparency. Conclusion The case of Venezuela confirms many of the conclusions from the literature on sanctions. First, sanctions have strengthened the informalization and criminalization of the economy. As private companies have found it too costly or difficult to operate in the formal sector, they have used emerging financial tools such as cryptocurrency and informal dollarization, or simply moved into the informal sector. The state has lifted or stopped enforcement of laws and regulations in order to benefit the inflow of funds, while also increasing taxes and other burdens on economic sectors to make up for shortfall of revenues. Thereby, they have further increased private companies' incentives for informalization. In that context also criminal activities (such as smuggling, illegal goldmining or cryptocurrency mining) have thrived. Second, sanctions have been imposed largely isolated from -and even contradicting -other strategies, such as negotiations and multilateral diplomacy. This has hampered their options to succeed (see also Smilde & Ramsey's 2020), as they have been strongly undermined by "sanctions-busters" including Cuba, Russia, Turkey, and China. Third, although it is difficult to point to a direct causal mechanism, the imposition of sanctions has coincided with the deepening of authoritarianism, as the literature predicts. However, the case of Venezuela also provides new insights of value to the literature on sanctions. It is important to emphasize that the common distinction between targeted and comprehensive sanctions is of limited value in the case of Venezuela. Since the country's economy is so dependent on one sector and it is largely state-controlled, targeted sanctions directed towards the state may have similar effects to comprehensive sanctions. In spite of this, imports increased after the introduction of sanctions, and thus sanctions cannot be held responsible for either food scarcities or the humanitarian crisis. The ability to increase imports is probably a result of the support provided by close allies, particularly Russia. To explain the failure of sanctions to achieve their goals, we must thus also explain the persistence of the support by key governmental allies. One main explanatory factor is obviously Venezuela's vast oil reserves that makes a partnership a long term proposition. Another factor is not discussed in the sanctions literature, namely an upheaval of the world order (see also Legler, 2020). The sanctions literature is mostly written in an era dominated by the United States. The failure of the sanctions against Venezuela testifies to a shift in the world order in which old means of economic warfare may be obsolete. The Venezuela-case should also serve as a methodological warning. Most of the newer sanctions literature is based on large databases with static data. Through a more dynamic and historical approach to the evolution of different sectors, we have been able to observe how sanctions feed into existing sector dynamics. They have had the effect of further weakening the private sector, while strengthening the militarization of the economy, and the lack of transparency in transactions. The governing elite has managed to adapt to strenuous circumstances by tapping into new sectors and transferring control to key constituents, especially military officials, of productive enterprises with opportunities to reap benefits from foreign currency allocation, import allowances, and mineral extraction. This transferring of control allows increasing interdependence of military officers and the governing elite, which in the face of individual sanctions, increase the costs of defection and promotes loyalty. Ultimately, this increased incentive for loyalty among key constituents, combined with the rise of informal and criminalized operations affect the effectiveness of what the sanctions are trying to achieve. The rise of revenues that are unaccounted for, via gold sales or through dollar transactions, allows for alternative means of survival for the government and for business and cronies. Informalization and criminalization further diminishes incentives for powerful constituents, mainly in the military, to turn against their principals especially because, in the event of a transition, their main sources of income would disappear. * * * Benedicte Bull is professor of political science at the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM) at the University of Oslo, where she leads the Norwegian Network of Latin America Research and the Oslo Academy of Global Governance. Her research focuses on the role of business and elites in development and environmental governance in Latin America and international institutions. Address: Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), Sandakerveien 130, 0484 Oslo, Norway. Email: [email protected] Antulio Rosales is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Centre for Development and the Environment in the University of Oslo. His research focuses on the political economy of natural resource extraction, especially oil and mining in South America. |
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export * from "./IfcTextFontName.g"
export * from "./IfcTextTransformation.g"
export * from "./IfcThermalAdmittanceMeasure.g"
export * from "./IfcThermalConductivityMeasure.g"
export * from "./IfcThermalExpansionCoefficientMeasure.g"
export * from "./IfcThermalResistanceMeasure.g"
export * from "./IfcThermalTransmittanceMeasure.g"
export * from "./IfcThermodynamicTemperatureMeasure.g"
export * from "./IfcTime.g"
export * from "./IfcTimeMeasure.g"
export * from "./IfcTimeStamp.g"
export * from "./IfcTorqueMeasure.g"
export * from "./IfcURIReference.g"
export * from "./IfcVaporPermeabilityMeasure.g"
export * from "./IfcVolumeMeasure.g"
export * from "./IfcVolumetricFlowRateMeasure.g"
export * from "./IfcWarpingConstantMeasure.g"
export * from "./IfcWarpingMomentMeasure.g"
export * from "./IfcActionRequestTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcActionSourceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcActionTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcActuatorTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcAddressTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcAirTerminalBoxTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcAirTerminalTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcAirToAirHeatRecoveryTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcAlarmTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcAnalysisModelTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcAnalysisTheoryTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcArithmeticOperatorEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcAssemblyPlaceEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcAudioVisualApplianceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcBSplineCurveForm.g"
export * from "./IfcBSplineSurfaceForm.g"
export * from "./IfcBeamTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcBenchmarkEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcBoilerTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcBooleanOperator.g"
export * from "./IfcBuildingElementPartTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcBuildingElementProxyTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcBuildingSystemTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcBurnerTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCableCarrierFittingTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCableCarrierSegmentTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCableFittingTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCableSegmentTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcChangeActionEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcChillerTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcChimneyTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCoilTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcColumnTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCommunicationsApplianceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcComplexPropertyTemplateTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCompressorTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCondenserTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcConnectionTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcConstraintEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcConstructionEquipmentResourceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcConstructionMaterialResourceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcConstructionProductResourceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcControllerTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCooledBeamTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCoolingTowerTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCostItemTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCostScheduleTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCoveringTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCrewResourceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCurtainWallTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcCurveInterpolationEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDamperTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDataOriginEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDerivedUnitEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDirectionSenseEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDiscreteAccessoryTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionChamberElementTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionPortTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionSystemEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDocumentConfidentialityEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDocumentStatusEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDoorPanelOperationEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDoorPanelPositionEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDoorStyleConstructionEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDoorStyleOperationEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDoorTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDoorTypeOperationEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDuctFittingTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDuctSegmentTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcDuctSilencerTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricApplianceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricDistributionBoardTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricFlowStorageDeviceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricGeneratorTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricMotorTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricTimeControlTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcElementAssemblyTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcElementCompositionEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcEngineTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcEvaporativeCoolerTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcEvaporatorTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcEventTriggerTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcEventTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcExternalSpatialElementTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcFanTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcFastenerTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcFilterTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcFireSuppressionTerminalTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowDirectionEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowInstrumentTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowMeterTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcFootingTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcFurnitureTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcGeographicElementTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcGeometricProjectionEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcGlobalOrLocalEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcGridTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcHeatExchangerTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcHumidifierTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcInterceptorTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcInternalOrExternalEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcInventoryTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcJunctionBoxTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcKnotType.g"
export * from "./IfcLaborResourceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcLampTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcLayerSetDirectionEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcLightDistributionCurveEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcLightEmissionSourceEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcLightFixtureTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcLoadGroupTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcLogicalOperatorEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcMechanicalFastenerTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcMedicalDeviceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcMemberTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcMotorConnectionTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcNullStyle.g"
export * from "./IfcObjectTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcObjectiveEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcOccupantTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcOpeningElementTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcOutletTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcPerformanceHistoryTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcPermeableCoveringOperationEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcPermitTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcPhysicalOrVirtualEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcPileConstructionEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcPileTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcPipeFittingTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcPipeSegmentTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcPlateTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcPreferredSurfaceCurveRepresentation.g"
export * from "./IfcProcedureTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcProfileTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcProjectOrderTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcProjectedOrTrueLengthEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcProjectionElementTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertySetTemplateTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcProtectiveDeviceTrippingUnitTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcProtectiveDeviceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcPumpTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcRailingTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcRampFlightTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcRampTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcRecurrenceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcReflectanceMethodEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcReinforcingBarRoleEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcReinforcingBarSurfaceEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcReinforcingBarTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcReinforcingMeshTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcRoleEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcRoofTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSIPrefix.g"
export * from "./IfcSIUnitName.g"
export * from "./IfcSanitaryTerminalTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSectionTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSensorTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSequenceEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcShadingDeviceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSimplePropertyTemplateTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSlabTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSolarDeviceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSpaceHeaterTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSpaceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSpatialZoneTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcStackTerminalTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcStairFlightTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcStairTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcStateEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralCurveActivityTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralCurveMemberTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralSurfaceActivityTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralSurfaceMemberTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSubContractResourceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceFeatureTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceSide.g"
export * from "./IfcSwitchingDeviceTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcSystemFurnitureElementTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcTankTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcTaskDurationEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcTaskTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcTendonAnchorTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcTendonTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcTextPath.g"
export * from "./IfcTimeSeriesDataTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcTransformerTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcTransitionCode.g"
export * from "./IfcTransportElementTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcTrimmingPreference.g"
export * from "./IfcTubeBundleTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcUnitEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcUnitaryControlElementTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcUnitaryEquipmentTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcValveTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcVibrationIsolatorTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcVoidingFeatureTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcWallTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcWasteTerminalTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcWindowPanelOperationEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcWindowPanelPositionEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcWindowStyleConstructionEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcWindowStyleOperationEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcWindowTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcWindowTypePartitioningEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcWorkCalendarTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcWorkPlanTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcWorkScheduleTypeEnum.g"
export * from "./IfcActionRequest.g"
export * from "./IfcControl.g"
export * from "./IfcActor.g"
export * from "./IfcOccupant.g"
export * from "./IfcObject.g"
export * from "./IfcActorRole.g"
export * from "./IfcActuator.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionControlElement.g"
export * from "./IfcActuatorType.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionControlElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcAddress.g"
export * from "./IfcPostalAddress.g"
export * from "./IfcTelecomAddress.g"
export * from "./IfcAdvancedBrep.g"
export * from "./IfcAdvancedBrepWithVoids.g"
export * from "./IfcManifoldSolidBrep.g"
export * from "./IfcAdvancedFace.g"
export * from "./IfcFaceSurface.g"
export * from "./IfcAirTerminal.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowTerminal.g"
export * from "./IfcAirTerminalBox.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowController.g"
export * from "./IfcAirTerminalBoxType.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowControllerType.g"
export * from "./IfcAirTerminalType.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowTerminalType.g"
export * from "./IfcAirToAirHeatRecovery.g"
export * from "./IfcEnergyConversionDevice.g"
export * from "./IfcAirToAirHeatRecoveryType.g"
export * from "./IfcEnergyConversionDeviceType.g"
export * from "./IfcAlarm.g"
export * from "./IfcAlarmType.g"
export * from "./IfcAnnotation.g"
export * from "./IfcProduct.g"
export * from "./IfcAnnotationFillArea.g"
export * from "./IfcGeometricRepresentationItem.g"
export * from "./IfcApplication.g"
export * from "./IfcAppliedValue.g"
export * from "./IfcCostValue.g"
export * from "./IfcApproval.g"
export * from "./IfcApprovalRelationship.g"
export * from "./IfcResourceLevelRelationship.g"
export * from "./IfcArbitraryClosedProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcArbitraryProfileDefWithVoids.g"
export * from "./IfcProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcArbitraryOpenProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcCenterLineProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcAsset.g"
export * from "./IfcGroup.g"
export * from "./IfcAsymmetricIShapeProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcParameterizedProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcAudioVisualAppliance.g"
export * from "./IfcAudioVisualApplianceType.g"
export * from "./IfcAxis1Placement.g"
export * from "./IfcPlacement.g"
export * from "./IfcAxis2Placement2D.g"
export * from "./IfcAxis2Placement3D.g"
export * from "./IfcBSplineCurve.g"
export * from "./IfcBSplineCurveWithKnots.g"
export * from "./IfcBoundedCurve.g"
export * from "./IfcRationalBSplineCurveWithKnots.g"
export * from "./IfcBSplineSurface.g"
export * from "./IfcBSplineSurfaceWithKnots.g"
export * from "./IfcBoundedSurface.g"
export * from "./IfcRationalBSplineSurfaceWithKnots.g"
export * from "./IfcBeam.g"
export * from "./IfcBeamStandardCase.g"
export * from "./IfcBuildingElement.g"
export * from "./IfcBeamType.g"
export * from "./IfcBuildingElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcBlobTexture.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceTexture.g"
export * from "./IfcBlock.g"
export * from "./IfcCsgPrimitive3D.g"
export * from "./IfcBoiler.g"
export * from "./IfcBoilerType.g"
export * from "./IfcBooleanClippingResult.g"
export * from "./IfcBooleanResult.g"
export * from "./IfcBoundaryCondition.g"
export * from "./IfcBoundaryEdgeCondition.g"
export * from "./IfcBoundaryFaceCondition.g"
export * from "./IfcBoundaryNodeCondition.g"
export * from "./IfcBoundaryCurve.g"
export * from "./IfcOuterBoundaryCurve.g"
export * from "./IfcCompositeCurveOnSurface.g"
export * from "./IfcBoundaryNodeConditionWarping.g"
export * from "./IfcCompositeCurve.g"
export * from "./IfcIndexedPolyCurve.g"
export * from "./IfcPolyline.g"
export * from "./IfcTrimmedCurve.g"
export * from "./IfcCurve.g"
export * from "./IfcCurveBoundedPlane.g"
export * from "./IfcCurveBoundedSurface.g"
export * from "./IfcRectangularTrimmedSurface.g"
export * from "./IfcSurface.g"
export * from "./IfcBoundingBox.g"
export * from "./IfcBoxedHalfSpace.g"
export * from "./IfcHalfSpaceSolid.g"
export * from "./IfcBuilding.g"
export * from "./IfcSpatialStructureElement.g"
export * from "./IfcBuildingElementProxy.g"
export * from "./IfcChimney.g"
export * from "./IfcColumn.g"
export * from "./IfcCovering.g"
export * from "./IfcCurtainWall.g"
export * from "./IfcDoor.g"
export * from "./IfcFooting.g"
export * from "./IfcMember.g"
export * from "./IfcPile.g"
export * from "./IfcPlate.g"
export * from "./IfcRailing.g"
export * from "./IfcRamp.g"
export * from "./IfcRampFlight.g"
export * from "./IfcRoof.g"
export * from "./IfcShadingDevice.g"
export * from "./IfcSlab.g"
export * from "./IfcStair.g"
export * from "./IfcStairFlight.g"
export * from "./IfcWall.g"
export * from "./IfcWindow.g"
export * from "./IfcElement.g"
export * from "./IfcBuildingElementPart.g"
export * from "./IfcElementComponent.g"
export * from "./IfcBuildingElementPartType.g"
export * from "./IfcElementComponentType.g"
export * from "./IfcBuildingElementProxyType.g"
export * from "./IfcChimneyType.g"
export * from "./IfcColumnType.g"
export * from "./IfcCoveringType.g"
export * from "./IfcCurtainWallType.g"
export * from "./IfcDoorType.g"
export * from "./IfcFootingType.g"
export * from "./IfcMemberType.g"
export * from "./IfcPileType.g"
export * from "./IfcPlateType.g"
export * from "./IfcRailingType.g"
export * from "./IfcRampFlightType.g"
export * from "./IfcRampType.g"
export * from "./IfcRoofType.g"
export * from "./IfcShadingDeviceType.g"
export * from "./IfcSlabType.g"
export * from "./IfcStairFlightType.g"
export * from "./IfcStairType.g"
export * from "./IfcWallType.g"
export * from "./IfcWindowType.g"
export * from "./IfcElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcBuildingStorey.g"
export * from "./IfcBuildingSystem.g"
export * from "./IfcSystem.g"
export * from "./IfcBurner.g"
export * from "./IfcBurnerType.g"
export * from "./IfcCShapeProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcCableCarrierFitting.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowFitting.g"
export * from "./IfcCableCarrierFittingType.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowFittingType.g"
export * from "./IfcCableCarrierSegment.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowSegment.g"
export * from "./IfcCableCarrierSegmentType.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowSegmentType.g"
export * from "./IfcCableFitting.g"
export * from "./IfcCableFittingType.g"
export * from "./IfcCableSegment.g"
export * from "./IfcCableSegmentType.g"
export * from "./IfcCartesianPoint.g"
export * from "./IfcPoint.g"
export * from "./IfcCartesianPointList.g"
export * from "./IfcCartesianPointList2D.g"
export * from "./IfcCartesianPointList3D.g"
export * from "./IfcCartesianTransformationOperator.g"
export * from "./IfcCartesianTransformationOperator2D.g"
export * from "./IfcCartesianTransformationOperator3D.g"
export * from "./IfcCartesianTransformationOperator2DnonUniform.g"
export * from "./IfcCartesianTransformationOperator3DnonUniform.g"
export * from "./IfcChiller.g"
export * from "./IfcChillerType.g"
export * from "./IfcCircle.g"
export * from "./IfcConic.g"
export * from "./IfcCircleHollowProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcCircleProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcCivilElement.g"
export * from "./IfcCivilElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcClassification.g"
export * from "./IfcExternalInformation.g"
export * from "./IfcClassificationReference.g"
export * from "./IfcExternalReference.g"
export * from "./IfcClosedShell.g"
export * from "./IfcConnectedFaceSet.g"
export * from "./IfcCoil.g"
export * from "./IfcCoilType.g"
export * from "./IfcColourRgb.g"
export * from "./IfcColourSpecification.g"
export * from "./IfcColourRgbList.g"
export * from "./IfcPresentationItem.g"
export * from "./IfcColumnStandardCase.g"
export * from "./IfcCommunicationsAppliance.g"
export * from "./IfcCommunicationsApplianceType.g"
export * from "./IfcComplexProperty.g"
export * from "./IfcProperty.g"
export * from "./IfcComplexPropertyTemplate.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertyTemplate.g"
export * from "./IfcCompositeCurveSegment.g"
export * from "./IfcReparametrisedCompositeCurveSegment.g"
export * from "./IfcCompositeProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcCompressor.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowMovingDevice.g"
export * from "./IfcCompressorType.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowMovingDeviceType.g"
export * from "./IfcCondenser.g"
export * from "./IfcCondenserType.g"
export * from "./IfcEllipse.g"
export * from "./IfcOpenShell.g"
export * from "./IfcTopologicalRepresentationItem.g"
export * from "./IfcConnectionCurveGeometry.g"
export * from "./IfcConnectionGeometry.g"
export * from "./IfcConnectionPointGeometry.g"
export * from "./IfcConnectionSurfaceGeometry.g"
export * from "./IfcConnectionVolumeGeometry.g"
export * from "./IfcConnectionPointEccentricity.g"
export * from "./IfcConstraint.g"
export * from "./IfcMetric.g"
export * from "./IfcObjective.g"
export * from "./IfcConstructionEquipmentResource.g"
export * from "./IfcConstructionResource.g"
export * from "./IfcConstructionEquipmentResourceType.g"
export * from "./IfcConstructionResourceType.g"
export * from "./IfcConstructionMaterialResource.g"
export * from "./IfcConstructionMaterialResourceType.g"
export * from "./IfcConstructionProductResource.g"
export * from "./IfcConstructionProductResourceType.g"
export * from "./IfcCrewResource.g"
export * from "./IfcLaborResource.g"
export * from "./IfcSubContractResource.g"
export * from "./IfcResource.g"
export * from "./IfcCrewResourceType.g"
export * from "./IfcLaborResourceType.g"
export * from "./IfcSubContractResourceType.g"
export * from "./IfcTypeResource.g"
export * from "./IfcContext.g"
export * from "./IfcProject.g"
export * from "./IfcProjectLibrary.g"
export * from "./IfcObjectDefinition.g"
export * from "./IfcContextDependentUnit.g"
export * from "./IfcNamedUnit.g"
export * from "./IfcCostItem.g"
export * from "./IfcCostSchedule.g"
export * from "./IfcPerformanceHistory.g"
export * from "./IfcPermit.g"
export * from "./IfcProjectOrder.g"
export * from "./IfcWorkCalendar.g"
export * from "./IfcWorkControl.g"
export * from "./IfcController.g"
export * from "./IfcControllerType.g"
export * from "./IfcConversionBasedUnit.g"
export * from "./IfcConversionBasedUnitWithOffset.g"
export * from "./IfcCooledBeam.g"
export * from "./IfcCooledBeamType.g"
export * from "./IfcCoolingTower.g"
export * from "./IfcCoolingTowerType.g"
export * from "./IfcCoordinateOperation.g"
export * from "./IfcMapConversion.g"
export * from "./IfcCoordinateReferenceSystem.g"
export * from "./IfcProjectedCRS.g"
export * from "./IfcRectangularPyramid.g"
export * from "./IfcRightCircularCone.g"
export * from "./IfcRightCircularCylinder.g"
export * from "./IfcSphere.g"
export * from "./IfcCsgSolid.g"
export * from "./IfcSolidModel.g"
export * from "./IfcCurrencyRelationship.g"
export * from "./IfcLine.g"
export * from "./IfcOffsetCurve2D.g"
export * from "./IfcOffsetCurve3D.g"
export * from "./IfcPcurve.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceCurve.g"
export * from "./IfcCurveStyle.g"
export * from "./IfcPresentationStyle.g"
export * from "./IfcCurveStyleFont.g"
export * from "./IfcCurveStyleFontAndScaling.g"
export * from "./IfcCurveStyleFontPattern.g"
export * from "./IfcCylindricalSurface.g"
export * from "./IfcElementarySurface.g"
export * from "./IfcDamper.g"
export * from "./IfcDamperType.g"
export * from "./IfcDerivedProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcMirroredProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcDerivedUnit.g"
export * from "./IfcDerivedUnitElement.g"
export * from "./IfcDimensionalExponents.g"
export * from "./IfcDirection.g"
export * from "./IfcDiscreteAccessory.g"
export * from "./IfcDiscreteAccessoryType.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionChamberElement.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionFlowElement.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionChamberElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionFlowElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionCircuit.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionSystem.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowInstrument.g"
export * from "./IfcProtectiveDeviceTrippingUnit.g"
export * from "./IfcSensor.g"
export * from "./IfcUnitaryControlElement.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionElement.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowInstrumentType.g"
export * from "./IfcProtectiveDeviceTrippingUnitType.g"
export * from "./IfcSensorType.g"
export * from "./IfcUnitaryControlElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowStorageDevice.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowTreatmentDevice.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowStorageDeviceType.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowTreatmentDeviceType.g"
export * from "./IfcDistributionPort.g"
export * from "./IfcPort.g"
export * from "./IfcDocumentInformation.g"
export * from "./IfcDocumentInformationRelationship.g"
export * from "./IfcDocumentReference.g"
export * from "./IfcDoorStandardCase.g"
export * from "./IfcDoorLiningProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcPreDefinedPropertySet.g"
export * from "./IfcDoorPanelProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcDoorStyle.g"
export * from "./IfcTypeProduct.g"
export * from "./IfcDraughtingPreDefinedColour.g"
export * from "./IfcPreDefinedColour.g"
export * from "./IfcDraughtingPreDefinedCurveFont.g"
export * from "./IfcPreDefinedCurveFont.g"
export * from "./IfcDuctFitting.g"
export * from "./IfcDuctFittingType.g"
export * from "./IfcDuctSegment.g"
export * from "./IfcDuctSegmentType.g"
export * from "./IfcDuctSilencer.g"
export * from "./IfcDuctSilencerType.g"
export * from "./IfcEdge.g"
export * from "./IfcEdgeCurve.g"
export * from "./IfcOrientedEdge.g"
export * from "./IfcSubedge.g"
export * from "./IfcEdgeLoop.g"
export * from "./IfcLoop.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricAppliance.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricApplianceType.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricDistributionBoard.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricDistributionBoardType.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricFlowStorageDevice.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricFlowStorageDeviceType.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricGenerator.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricGeneratorType.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricMotor.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricMotorType.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricTimeControl.g"
export * from "./IfcElectricTimeControlType.g"
export * from "./IfcElementAssembly.g"
export * from "./IfcFeatureElement.g"
export * from "./IfcFurnishingElement.g"
export * from "./IfcGeographicElement.g"
export * from "./IfcTransportElement.g"
export * from "./IfcVirtualElement.g"
export * from "./IfcElementAssemblyType.g"
export * from "./IfcFastener.g"
export * from "./IfcMechanicalFastener.g"
export * from "./IfcReinforcingElement.g"
export * from "./IfcVibrationIsolator.g"
export * from "./IfcFastenerType.g"
export * from "./IfcMechanicalFastenerType.g"
export * from "./IfcReinforcingElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcVibrationIsolatorType.g"
export * from "./IfcElementQuantity.g"
export * from "./IfcQuantitySet.g"
export * from "./IfcFurnishingElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcGeographicElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcTransportElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcPlane.g"
export * from "./IfcSphericalSurface.g"
export * from "./IfcToroidalSurface.g"
export * from "./IfcEllipseProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcEngine.g"
export * from "./IfcEvaporativeCooler.g"
export * from "./IfcEvaporator.g"
export * from "./IfcHeatExchanger.g"
export * from "./IfcHumidifier.g"
export * from "./IfcMotorConnection.g"
export * from "./IfcSolarDevice.g"
export * from "./IfcTransformer.g"
export * from "./IfcTubeBundle.g"
export * from "./IfcUnitaryEquipment.g"
export * from "./IfcEngineType.g"
export * from "./IfcEvaporativeCoolerType.g"
export * from "./IfcEvaporatorType.g"
export * from "./IfcHeatExchangerType.g"
export * from "./IfcHumidifierType.g"
export * from "./IfcMotorConnectionType.g"
export * from "./IfcSolarDeviceType.g"
export * from "./IfcTransformerType.g"
export * from "./IfcTubeBundleType.g"
export * from "./IfcUnitaryEquipmentType.g"
export * from "./IfcEvent.g"
export * from "./IfcProcess.g"
export * from "./IfcEventTime.g"
export * from "./IfcSchedulingTime.g"
export * from "./IfcEventType.g"
export * from "./IfcTypeProcess.g"
export * from "./IfcExtendedProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcProfileProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertyAbstraction.g"
export * from "./IfcLibraryInformation.g"
export * from "./IfcExternallyDefinedHatchStyle.g"
export * from "./IfcExternallyDefinedSurfaceStyle.g"
export * from "./IfcExternallyDefinedTextFont.g"
export * from "./IfcLibraryReference.g"
export * from "./IfcExternalReferenceRelationship.g"
export * from "./IfcExternalSpatialElement.g"
export * from "./IfcExternalSpatialStructureElement.g"
export * from "./IfcSpatialElement.g"
export * from "./IfcExtrudedAreaSolid.g"
export * from "./IfcExtrudedAreaSolidTapered.g"
export * from "./IfcSweptAreaSolid.g"
export * from "./IfcFace.g"
export * from "./IfcFaceBasedSurfaceModel.g"
export * from "./IfcFaceBound.g"
export * from "./IfcFaceOuterBound.g"
export * from "./IfcFacetedBrep.g"
export * from "./IfcFacetedBrepWithVoids.g"
export * from "./IfcFailureConnectionCondition.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralConnectionCondition.g"
export * from "./IfcFan.g"
export * from "./IfcFanType.g"
export * from "./IfcFeatureElementAddition.g"
export * from "./IfcFeatureElementSubtraction.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceFeature.g"
export * from "./IfcProjectionElement.g"
export * from "./IfcOpeningElement.g"
export * from "./IfcVoidingFeature.g"
export * from "./IfcFillAreaStyle.g"
export * from "./IfcFillAreaStyleHatching.g"
export * from "./IfcFillAreaStyleTiles.g"
export * from "./IfcFilter.g"
export * from "./IfcFilterType.g"
export * from "./IfcFireSuppressionTerminal.g"
export * from "./IfcFireSuppressionTerminalType.g"
export * from "./IfcFixedReferenceSweptAreaSolid.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowMeter.g"
export * from "./IfcProtectiveDevice.g"
export * from "./IfcSwitchingDevice.g"
export * from "./IfcValve.g"
export * from "./IfcFlowMeterType.g"
export * from "./IfcProtectiveDeviceType.g"
export * from "./IfcSwitchingDeviceType.g"
export * from "./IfcValveType.g"
export * from "./IfcJunctionBox.g"
export * from "./IfcPipeFitting.g"
export * from "./IfcJunctionBoxType.g"
export * from "./IfcPipeFittingType.g"
export * from "./IfcPump.g"
export * from "./IfcPumpType.g"
export * from "./IfcPipeSegment.g"
export * from "./IfcPipeSegmentType.g"
export * from "./IfcTank.g"
export * from "./IfcTankType.g"
export * from "./IfcLamp.g"
export * from "./IfcLightFixture.g"
export * from "./IfcMedicalDevice.g"
export * from "./IfcOutlet.g"
export * from "./IfcSanitaryTerminal.g"
export * from "./IfcSpaceHeater.g"
export * from "./IfcStackTerminal.g"
export * from "./IfcWasteTerminal.g"
export * from "./IfcLampType.g"
export * from "./IfcLightFixtureType.g"
export * from "./IfcMedicalDeviceType.g"
export * from "./IfcOutletType.g"
export * from "./IfcSanitaryTerminalType.g"
export * from "./IfcSpaceHeaterType.g"
export * from "./IfcStackTerminalType.g"
export * from "./IfcWasteTerminalType.g"
export * from "./IfcInterceptor.g"
export * from "./IfcInterceptorType.g"
export * from "./IfcFurniture.g"
export * from "./IfcSystemFurnitureElement.g"
export * from "./IfcFurnitureType.g"
export * from "./IfcSystemFurnitureElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcGeometricCurveSet.g"
export * from "./IfcGeometricSet.g"
export * from "./IfcGeometricRepresentationContext.g"
export * from "./IfcGeometricRepresentationSubContext.g"
export * from "./IfcRepresentationContext.g"
export * from "./IfcLightSource.g"
export * from "./IfcPlanarExtent.g"
export * from "./IfcSectionedSpine.g"
export * from "./IfcShellBasedSurfaceModel.g"
export * from "./IfcTessellatedItem.g"
export * from "./IfcTextLiteral.g"
export * from "./IfcVector.g"
export * from "./IfcRepresentationItem.g"
export * from "./IfcGrid.g"
export * from "./IfcGridAxis.g"
export * from "./IfcGridPlacement.g"
export * from "./IfcObjectPlacement.g"
export * from "./IfcInventory.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLoadGroup.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralResultGroup.g"
export * from "./IfcPolygonalBoundedHalfSpace.g"
export * from "./IfcIShapeProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcImageTexture.g"
export * from "./IfcIndexedColourMap.g"
export * from "./IfcIndexedPolygonalFace.g"
export * from "./IfcIndexedPolygonalFaceWithVoids.g"
export * from "./IfcIndexedTextureMap.g"
export * from "./IfcIndexedTriangleTextureMap.g"
export * from "./IfcTextureCoordinate.g"
export * from "./IfcIntersectionCurve.g"
export * from "./IfcIrregularTimeSeries.g"
export * from "./IfcTimeSeries.g"
export * from "./IfcIrregularTimeSeriesValue.g"
export * from "./IfcLShapeProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcLagTime.g"
export * from "./IfcLightDistributionData.g"
export * from "./IfcLightIntensityDistribution.g"
export * from "./IfcLightSourceAmbient.g"
export * from "./IfcLightSourceDirectional.g"
export * from "./IfcLightSourceGoniometric.g"
export * from "./IfcLightSourcePositional.g"
export * from "./IfcLightSourceSpot.g"
export * from "./IfcLocalPlacement.g"
export * from "./IfcPolyLoop.g"
export * from "./IfcVertexLoop.g"
export * from "./IfcMappedItem.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterial.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialDefinition.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialClassificationRelationship.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialConstituent.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialConstituentSet.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialLayer.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialLayerSet.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialProfile.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialProfileSet.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialDefinitionRepresentation.g"
export * from "./IfcProductRepresentation.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialLayerWithOffsets.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialLayerSetUsage.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialUsageDefinition.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialList.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialProfileWithOffsets.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialProfileSetUsage.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialProfileSetUsageTapering.g"
export * from "./IfcMaterialRelationship.g"
export * from "./IfcMeasureWithUnit.g"
export * from "./IfcMemberStandardCase.g"
export * from "./IfcMonetaryUnit.g"
export * from "./IfcSIUnit.g"
export * from "./IfcTypeObject.g"
export * from "./IfcRoot.g"
export * from "./IfcOpeningStandardCase.g"
export * from "./IfcOrganization.g"
export * from "./IfcOrganizationRelationship.g"
export * from "./IfcOwnerHistory.g"
export * from "./IfcRectangleProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcTShapeProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcTrapeziumProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcUShapeProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcZShapeProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcPath.g"
export * from "./IfcPermeableCoveringProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcPerson.g"
export * from "./IfcPersonAndOrganization.g"
export * from "./IfcPhysicalComplexQuantity.g"
export * from "./IfcPhysicalQuantity.g"
export * from "./IfcPhysicalSimpleQuantity.g"
export * from "./IfcQuantityArea.g"
export * from "./IfcQuantityCount.g"
export * from "./IfcQuantityLength.g"
export * from "./IfcQuantityTime.g"
export * from "./IfcQuantityVolume.g"
export * from "./IfcQuantityWeight.g"
export * from "./IfcPixelTexture.g"
export * from "./IfcPlanarBox.g"
export * from "./IfcPlateStandardCase.g"
export * from "./IfcPointOnCurve.g"
export * from "./IfcPointOnSurface.g"
export * from "./IfcPolygonalFaceSet.g"
export * from "./IfcTessellatedFaceSet.g"
export * from "./IfcPreDefinedItem.g"
export * from "./IfcPreDefinedTextFont.g"
export * from "./IfcPreDefinedProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcReinforcementBarProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcSectionProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcSectionReinforcementProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcReinforcementDefinitionProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcWindowLiningProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcWindowPanelProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertySetDefinition.g"
export * from "./IfcTextStyleFontModel.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceStyleLighting.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceStyleRefraction.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceStyleShading.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceStyleWithTextures.g"
export * from "./IfcTextStyleForDefinedFont.g"
export * from "./IfcTextStyleTextModel.g"
export * from "./IfcTextureVertex.g"
export * from "./IfcTextureVertexList.g"
export * from "./IfcPresentationLayerAssignment.g"
export * from "./IfcPresentationLayerWithStyle.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceStyle.g"
export * from "./IfcTextStyle.g"
export * from "./IfcPresentationStyleAssignment.g"
export * from "./IfcProcedure.g"
export * from "./IfcProcedureType.g"
export * from "./IfcTask.g"
export * from "./IfcProxy.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralActivity.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralItem.g"
export * from "./IfcProductDefinitionShape.g"
export * from "./IfcSimpleProperty.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertyEnumeration.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertyBoundedValue.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertyDefinition.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertyTemplateDefinition.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertyDependencyRelationship.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertyEnumeratedValue.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertyListValue.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertyReferenceValue.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertySet.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertySetTemplate.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertySingleValue.g"
export * from "./IfcPropertyTableValue.g"
export * from "./IfcSimplePropertyTemplate.g"
export * from "./IfcRectangleHollowProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcRoundedRectangleProfileDef.g"
export * from "./IfcRecurrencePattern.g"
export * from "./IfcReference.g"
export * from "./IfcRegularTimeSeries.g"
export * from "./IfcReinforcingBar.g"
export * from "./IfcReinforcingBarType.g"
export * from "./IfcReinforcingMesh.g"
export * from "./IfcTendon.g"
export * from "./IfcTendonAnchor.g"
export * from "./IfcReinforcingMeshType.g"
export * from "./IfcTendonAnchorType.g"
export * from "./IfcTendonType.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAggregates.g"
export * from "./IfcRelDecomposes.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssigns.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssignsToActor.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssignsToControl.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssignsToGroup.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssignsToProcess.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssignsToProduct.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssignsToResource.g"
export * from "./IfcRelationship.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssignsToGroupByFactor.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssociates.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssociatesApproval.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssociatesClassification.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssociatesConstraint.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssociatesDocument.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssociatesLibrary.g"
export * from "./IfcRelAssociatesMaterial.g"
export * from "./IfcRelConnects.g"
export * from "./IfcRelConnectsElements.g"
export * from "./IfcRelConnectsPortToElement.g"
export * from "./IfcRelConnectsPorts.g"
export * from "./IfcRelConnectsStructuralActivity.g"
export * from "./IfcRelConnectsStructuralMember.g"
export * from "./IfcRelContainedInSpatialStructure.g"
export * from "./IfcRelCoversBldgElements.g"
export * from "./IfcRelCoversSpaces.g"
export * from "./IfcRelFillsElement.g"
export * from "./IfcRelFlowControlElements.g"
export * from "./IfcRelInterferesElements.g"
export * from "./IfcRelReferencedInSpatialStructure.g"
export * from "./IfcRelSequence.g"
export * from "./IfcRelServicesBuildings.g"
export * from "./IfcRelSpaceBoundary.g"
export * from "./IfcRelConnectsPathElements.g"
export * from "./IfcRelConnectsWithRealizingElements.g"
export * from "./IfcRelConnectsWithEccentricity.g"
export * from "./IfcRelDeclares.g"
export * from "./IfcRelNests.g"
export * from "./IfcRelProjectsElement.g"
export * from "./IfcRelVoidsElement.g"
export * from "./IfcRelDefines.g"
export * from "./IfcRelDefinesByObject.g"
export * from "./IfcRelDefinesByProperties.g"
export * from "./IfcRelDefinesByTemplate.g"
export * from "./IfcRelDefinesByType.g"
export * from "./IfcRelSpaceBoundary1stLevel.g"
export * from "./IfcRelSpaceBoundary2ndLevel.g"
export * from "./IfcRepresentation.g"
export * from "./IfcShapeModel.g"
export * from "./IfcStyleModel.g"
export * from "./IfcStyledItem.g"
export * from "./IfcRepresentationMap.g"
export * from "./IfcResourceApprovalRelationship.g"
export * from "./IfcResourceConstraintRelationship.g"
export * from "./IfcResourceTime.g"
export * from "./IfcRevolvedAreaSolid.g"
export * from "./IfcRevolvedAreaSolidTapered.g"
export * from "./IfcTaskTime.g"
export * from "./IfcWorkTime.g"
export * from "./IfcSeamCurve.g"
export * from "./IfcShapeAspect.g"
export * from "./IfcShapeRepresentation.g"
export * from "./IfcTopologyRepresentation.g"
export * from "./IfcSite.g"
export * from "./IfcSlabElementedCase.g"
export * from "./IfcSlabStandardCase.g"
export * from "./IfcSlippageConnectionCondition.g"
export * from "./IfcSweptDiskSolid.g"
export * from "./IfcSpace.g"
export * from "./IfcSpaceType.g"
export * from "./IfcSpatialStructureElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcSpatialZone.g"
export * from "./IfcSpatialElementType.g"
export * from "./IfcSpatialZoneType.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralAction.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralCurveAction.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralPointAction.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralSurfaceAction.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralReaction.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralAnalysisModel.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralConnection.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralCurveConnection.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralPointConnection.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralSurfaceConnection.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLinearAction.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralCurveMember.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralCurveMemberVarying.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralMember.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralCurveReaction.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLoad.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLoadConfiguration.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLoadOrResult.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLoadCase.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLoadLinearForce.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLoadStatic.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceReinforcementArea.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLoadPlanarForce.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLoadSingleDisplacement.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLoadSingleDisplacementDistortion.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLoadSingleForce.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLoadSingleForceWarping.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralLoadTemperature.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralSurfaceMember.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralPlanarAction.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralPointReaction.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralSurfaceReaction.g"
export * from "./IfcStructuralSurfaceMemberVarying.g"
export * from "./IfcStyledRepresentation.g"
export * from "./IfcSweptSurface.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceCurveSweptAreaSolid.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceOfLinearExtrusion.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceOfRevolution.g"
export * from "./IfcSurfaceStyleRendering.g"
export * from "./IfcSweptDiskSolidPolygonal.g"
export * from "./IfcZone.g"
export * from "./IfcTable.g"
export * from "./IfcTableColumn.g"
export * from "./IfcTableRow.g"
export * from "./IfcTaskTimeRecurring.g"
export * from "./IfcTaskType.g"
export * from "./IfcTriangulatedFaceSet.g"
export * from "./IfcTextLiteralWithExtent.g"
export * from "./IfcTextureCoordinateGenerator.g"
export * from "./IfcTextureMap.g"
export * from "./IfcTimePeriod.g"
export * from "./IfcTimeSeriesValue.g"
export * from "./IfcVertex.g"
export * from "./IfcWindowStyle.g"
export * from "./IfcUnitAssignment.g"
export * from "./IfcVertexPoint.g"
export * from "./IfcVirtualGridIntersection.g"
export * from "./IfcWallElementedCase.g"
export * from "./IfcWallStandardCase.g"
export * from "./IfcWindowStandardCase.g"
export * from "./IfcWorkPlan.g"
export * from "./IfcWorkSchedule.g"
export * from "./BaseIfc"
export * from "./Select"
|
import { IDesignSystem, withDesignSystemDefaults } from "../design-system";
import { ComponentStyles, ComponentStyleSheet } from "@microsoft/fast-jss-manager";
import { ITextFieldClassNameContract } from "@microsoft/fast-components-class-name-contracts-base";
import { adjustContrast, contrast, toPx } from "@microsoft/fast-jss-utilities";
import { get } from "lodash-es";
import { applyType } from "../utilities/typography";
import { fontWeight } from "../utilities/fonts";
import { disabledContrast, ensureForegroundNormal, ensuresBackgroundNormal, foregroundNormal, hoverContrast } from "../utilities/colors";
import { density } from "../utilities/density";
/**
* Retrieves the disabled color
*/
function disabledColor(config: IDesignSystem): string {
const designSystem: IDesignSystem = withDesignSystemDefaults(config);
return disabledContrast(designSystem.contrast, foregroundNormal(designSystem), designSystem.backgroundColor);
}
function hoverColor(config: IDesignSystem): string {
const designSystem: IDesignSystem = withDesignSystemDefaults(config);
return hoverContrast(designSystem.contrast, foregroundNormal(designSystem), designSystem.backgroundColor);
}
const styles: ComponentStyles<ITextFieldClassNameContract, IDesignSystem> = (
config: IDesignSystem
): ComponentStyleSheet<ITextFieldClassNameContract, IDesignSystem> => {
const designSystem: IDesignSystem = withDesignSystemDefaults(config);
return {
textField: {
...applyType("t7", "vp1"),
color: ensureForegroundNormal,
background: ensuresBackgroundNormal,
fontWeight: fontWeight.light.toString(),
border: "1px solid transparent",
borderColor: foregroundNormal,
boxSizing: "border-box",
borderRadius: "2px",
padding: "10px",
margin: `${density(designSystem.designUnit * 3)(designSystem)} 0`,
"&:hover": {
borderColor: hoverColor(designSystem)
},
"&:focus": {
outline: "none",
boxShadow: `0 0 0 1px inset ${foregroundNormal(designSystem)}`
},
"&:disabled": {
borderColor: disabledColor(designSystem),
color: disabledColor(designSystem),
cursor: "not-allowed"
}
}
};
};
export default styles;
|
UPDATE: It is official. It’s been confirmed by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations that a Douglas Fir tree standing alone in a clearcut near Port Renfrew is the second largest tree in the country. ‘Big Lonely Doug’ has been measured and found to be 230 feet high, with a circumference of 39 feet.
An ancient giant that has been discovered in a logging clearcut area on southern Vancouver Island could be the second largest Douglas fir tree in Canada.
The tree that was named “Big Lonely Doug” was found standing alone among dozens of giant stumps in a 20-hectare clearcut area that was logged two years ago near Port Renfrew.
Preliminary measurements of the tree found it stands 69 meters (226 feet) tall, nearly twice the size of the B.C. Legislature building (130 feet).
It also measures 12 meters (39 feet) in circumference and four meters (13 feet) in diameter.
Official measurements will be made next month by the Ministry of Forests.
The Big Lonely Doug grows in the Gordon River Valley on southern Vancouver Island, known as the “Tall Trees Capital” of Canada.
It comes in second behind the world’s largest Douglas fir, the Red Creek Fir, located just 20 kilometers to the east of Big Lonely Doug in the San Juan River Valley.
It has been measured to be 13.28 meters (44 feet) in circumference or 4.3 meters (14 feet) in diameter, and 73.8 meters (242 feet) tall.
“It is pretty incredible that Port Renfrew is becoming known as the big trees capital of Canada,” says TJ Watt with the Ancient Forest Alliance, an organization that works to protect endangered, old-growth trees in B.C.
It is estimated Big Lonely Doug is around a thousand years old.
Watt says Big Lonely Doug’s longevity could be explained by the fact it is growing in a prime spot at the valley bottom alongside the river.
But its largest branch was torn off in a storm just a few weeks ago.
“Whereas before, it would have been sheltered in the woods,” says Watt.
Activists with the Ancient Forest Alliance say provincial government should do more to protect the province’s biggest trees.
“There is an urgency to protect these areas because old-growth logging continues right near Port Renfrew,” says Watt.
The organization has been calling for provincial legislation to protect big trees and monumental groves.
“This tree could receive some special recognition, but ideally we would be finding them and protecting them before they are left alone in a clearcut,” says Watt.
The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations told Global News the tree will not be cut down.
It says there are more than 25 million hectares of old-growth forests in B.C. and about 4.5-million hectares are fully protected.
“Old-growth forests are protected from logging in parks, protected areas and old-growth management areas. The intent of these areas is to conserve biodiversity and species associated with old-growth forests,” said the ministry in a statement.
As to the 2011 promise by the province to develop a new “legal tool” to protect the province’s biggest old-growth trees and grandest groves, the ministry says it is a complicated issue, but it is continuing to look at different options and has been having continued discussions with the Ancient Forest Alliance about it. |
Subsets and Splits