This article explores the mechanisms that shape how race is represented in online TV interfaces by analyzing Netflix's personalized cover art, an essential digital paratext designed to attract viewers through individualized images. Netflix has previously been accused of using its personalized cover art or thumbnails in racially biased ways, displaying either Black or white characters based on the presumed race of users. To further existing research on this digital feature, this article focuses not just on whether Black characters are represented, but also on how they are represented. Through an exploratory pilot study that involves the creation of different algorithmic identities with disparate viewing histories, I trace the distinct and divergent representational patterns generated by Netflix's personalized thumbnails, and point to how aesthetic patterns, such as changes in color palette, composition, and facial expressions, subvert as well as reproduce stereotypical imagery, thereby providing new insights into the racialized dimensions of SVODs.
In the social world, our lives are informed, impacted, and controlled by time. Behind this grand saying there is the phenomenon of making time. More precisely, there are acts and processes, largely conventional and oftentimes institutional, that create temporal fiat objects (TFOs for short). A TFO is an abstract entity set with temporal boundaries, much like a national park is a creatable spatial fiat object with spatial boundaries. In this paper, I construct an ontology of TFOs and argue that it is explanatorily useful for understanding how TFOs are created and maintained (often at the hands of those in power) and for solving justice issues that arise from TFOs generated in morally problematic ways. The explanatory utility of the theory provides one reason to believe that the theory is true. A comprehensive social metaphysics should make room for such temporal entities in the social world.
This study computes the fin efficiency of thick, cylindrical pin fins with insulated tips, that is, cylindrical pin fins where radial-direction conduction within the fin is significant. For such fins, two-dimensional analyses are required as traditional one-dimensional (i.e., thin fin) solutions are inapplicable. Curves of constant thick fin efficiency are mapped on plots of the Biot number versus fin aspect ratio, which are the only two parameters in the thick fin problem. The efficiency is also conveniently calculated by adjusting the analogous thin fin efficiency utilizing a correction factor. Curves of constant correction factors are thus similarly mapped. The thick fin efficiency is therefore easily determined directly from knowledge of only those two parameters, thereby allowing the direct, manual computation of the thick fin performance.
We present a new determination of the primordial helium abundance based on new, high-quality Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) observations of 54 metal-poor H II regions. These regions have been observed and analyzed uniformly. We also describe a number of updates to our methodology, including updated helium emissivities. Enabled by the large, high-quality dataset, we examine our sample targets for potential systematic errors, which could bias their results. We perform a standard 95
We present the first robust helium (He) abundance measurements in star-forming galaxies at redshifts 1.6 ≲ z ≲ 3.3 using deep, moderate-resolution JWST/NIRSpec spectroscopy from the AURORA survey. We establish a high- z He sample consisting of 20 galaxies with multiple high-signal-to-noise-ratio (>5 σ ) He i emission-line detections, including the critical near-infrared λ 10833 line. This is the first study at high redshift leveraging λ 10833 to break degeneracies between temperature, electron density, optical depth, and He ^+ /H ^+ , enabling reliable He abundance determinations in the early Universe. We use a custom Markov Chain Monte Carlo framework incorporating direct-method electron temperature priors, extended optical depth ( τ _λ _3890 ) model grids up to densities of 10 ^6 cm ^−3 , and simultaneous fits of the physical conditions and He i /H i line ratios to derive ionic He ^+ /H ^+ abundances. Most of the AURORA galaxies follow the extrapolated z ∼ 0 He/H–O/H trend, indicating modest He enrichment by z ∼ 2–3. However, we identify a subpopulation of four galaxies that exhibit elevated He mass fractions (Δ Y > 0.03) without corresponding enhancements in N/O or α -elements (∼20% of the sample). This abundance pattern is inconsistent with enrichment from asymptotic giant branch stars, but favors early He enrichment from very massive stars ( M ≳ 100 M _⊙ ), which can eject He-rich, N-poor material via stellar winds and binary stripping in young stellar populations. We speculate that these elevated-He systems may represent an early phase of globular cluster (GC) formation where N enrichment is still lagging behind He production. This work demonstrates the power of JWST multi-line He i spectroscopy for tracing early stellar feedback, enrichment pathways, and GC progenitor signatures in the high-redshift Universe.
