Ideal Case Research Articles

Suspicious Minds? Media effects on the perception of disability benefit claimants

Abstract The media are often blamed for widespread perceptions that welfare benefit claimants are undeserving in Anglo-Saxon countries – yet people rarely justify their views through media stories, instead saying that they themselves know undeserving claimants. In this paper, I explain this contradiction by hypothesising that the media shapes how we interpret ambiguous interpersonal contact. I focus on disability benefit claimants, which is an ideal case given that disability is often externally unobservable, and test three hypotheses over three studies (all using a purpose-collected survey in the UK and Norway, n=3,836). In Study 1, I find strong evidence that a randomly-assigned ‘benefits cheat’ story leads respondents to interpret a hypothetical disability claimant as less deserving. Study 2 examines people’s judgements in everyday life, finding that readers of more negative newspapers in the UK are much more likely to judge neighbours as non-genuine – but with effectively no impact on judgements of close family claimants, where ambiguity is lower. However, contra my expectations, in Study 3 I find that Britons are no more likely than Norwegians to perceive known claimants as non-genuine (despite more negative welfare discourses), partly because of different conceptions of what ‘non-genuineness’ means in the two countries.

Extraction Method for Unique Determination of Complex Permittivity From Graphical Analysis of Natural Frequencies

A time-domain free-space extraction procedure is proposed to uniquely determine the relative complex permittivity ϵr(ω) based on two-sets of natural frequencies of a metal- and air-backed dielectric sample. A graphical analysis is applied for evaluating whether unique ϵr(ω) can be extracted by using such natural frequencies. The method is numerically validated by using two dielectric samples with different ϵ(ω) for the ideal case (no noise) and under the influence of noise with different signal-to-noise ratios.

Ideal Case Study of Adaptive Localization in Storm-scale Ensemble Kalman Filter Assimilation

Ideal Case Study of Adaptive Localization in Storm-scale Ensemble Kalman Filter Assimilation

From Ideal to Stack-like Contacting of an SOC

The cell performance of a solid oxide cell strongly depends on the testing environment and conditions. In case of an inert testing set-up with ceramic (Al2O3) flow fields and gold (cathode) and nickel (anode) contact grids the losses inside the cell determine the performance [1]. For an electrolyte-supported cell with a nickel / gadolinium-doped ceria (Ni/CGO) fuel electrode and LSCF air electrode, the ideal cell behavior has been characterized by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and the subsequent analysis of the distribution of relaxation times (DRT) considering technically meaningful operating conditions. Furthermore, the deconvolution and quantification of the gas diffusion polarization has been shown with the help of ternary fuel gas mixtures with different gas diffusion coefficients. [2-4]In this contribution, the electrochemical characterization is now extended to a stack-like contacting of the solid oxide cell with different metallic interconnectors, protective coatings and contact layers. The resulting contact loss is quantified with a method by Kornely et al. [5] using potential probes at the interconnector and the air electrode in order to enable voltage loss measurements. The stack-like contacting leads to gas transport conditions different from the ideal case which is investigated at the fuel and air side with modified gas diffusion coefficients by using gas mixtures containing nitrogen and helium as well [2].The positive effect of the protective coating towards the cell performance is evaluated by current-voltage characteristics and EIS measurements. Further, the electrode electrochemistry influenced by effects like chromium-poisoning will be shown and compared to the ideal contact set-up [2].

Connected domination in graphs and v-numbers of binomial edge ideals

AbstractThe v-number of a graded ideal is an algebraic invariant introduced by Cooper et al., and originally motivated by problems in algebraic coding theory. In this paper we study the case of binomial edge ideals and we establish a significant connection between their v-numbers and the concept of connected domination in graphs. More specifically, we prove that the localization of the v-number at one of the minimal primes of the binomial edge ideal $$J_G$$ J G of a graph G coincides with the connected domination number of the defining graph, providing a first algebraic description of the connected domination number. As an immediate corollary, we obtain a sharp combinatorial upper bound for the v-number of binomial edge ideals of graphs. Lastly, building on some known results on edge ideals, we analyse how the v-number of $$J_G$$ J G behaves under Gröbner degeneration when G is a closed graph.

Investigating electromagnetically induced transparency spectral lineshape distortion due to non-uniform fields in Rydberg-atom electrometry

We investigate the effects of spatially non-uniform radio-frequency electric (E) field amplitudes on the spectral line shapes of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) signals in Rydberg atomic systems used in electrometry (i.e., the metrology of E-field strengths). Spatially non-uniform fields distort the EIT spectra from that of an ideal case, and understanding this distortion is important in the development of Rydberg atom-based sensors, as these distortions can limit accuracy and sensitivity. To characterize this distortion, we present a model that approximates the atom vapor as multi-layered media and then uses Beer’s law to combine the absorption through its many discrete thin segments. We present a set of expected line distortions caused by various RF electric-field distributions found in practice. This provides an intuitive diagnostic tool for experiments. We compare this model to measured experimental atomic spectra in both two-photon and three-photon excitation schemes in the presence of non-uniform radio-frequency fields. We show that we can accurately model and reproduce the EIT lineshape distortion observed in these experimental data.

Multiclustering needlet ILC for CMB B-mode component separation

ABSTRACT The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) primordial B-mode signal is predicted to be much lower than the polarized Galactic emission (foregrounds) in any region of the sky pointing to the need for sophisticated component separation methods. Among them, the blind Needlet Internal Linear Combination (NILC) has great relevance given our current poor knowledge of the B-mode foregrounds. However, the expected level of spatial variability of the foreground spectral properties complicates the NILC subtraction of the Galactic contamination. We therefore propose a novel extension of the NILC approach, the Multiclustering NILC (MC-NILC), which performs NILC variance minimization on separate regions of the sky (clusters) properly chosen to have similar spectral properties of the B-mode Galactic emission within them. Clusters are identified thresholding either the ratio of simulated foregrounds-only B modes (ideal case) or the one of cleaned templates of Galactic emission obtained from realistic simulations. In this work we present an application of MC-NILC to the future LiteBIRD satellite, which targets the observation of both reionization and recombination peaks of the primordial B-mode angular power spectrum with a total error on the tensor-to-scalar ratio δr < 0.001. We show that MC-NILC provides a CMB solution with residual foreground and noise contamination that is significantly lower than the NILC one and the primordial signal targeted by LiteBIRD at all angular scales for the ideal case and at the reionization peak for a realistic ratio. Thus, MC-NILC will represent a powerful method to mitigate B-mode foregrounds for future CMB polarization experiments.

Combining remote sensing, habitat suitability models and cellular automata to model the spread of the invasive shrub Ulex europaeus

Modeling the past or future spread patterns of invasive plant species is challenging and in an ideal case requires multi-temporal and spatially explicit data on the occurrences of the target species as well as information on the habitat suitability of the areas at risk of being invaded. Most studies either focus on modeling the habitat suitability of a given area for an invasive species or try to model the spreading behavior of an invasive species based on temporally or spatially limited occurrence data and some environmental variables. Here we suggest a workflow that combines habitat suitability maps, occurrence data from multiple time steps collected from remote sensing data, and cellular automata models to first reconstruct the spreading patterns of the invasive shrub Ulex europaeus on the island Chiloé in Chile and then make predictions for the future spread of the species. First, U. europaeus occurrences are derived for four time steps between 1988 and 2020 using remote sensing data and a supervised classification. The resulting occurrence data is combined with occurrence data of the native range of U. europaeus from the GBIF database and selected environmental variables to derive habitat suitability maps using Maxent. Then, cellular automata models are calibrated using the occurrence estimates of the four time steps, the suitability map, and some additional geo-layer containing information about soils and human infrastructure. Finally, a set of calibrated cellular automata models are used to predict the potential spread of U. europaeus for the years 2070 and 2100 using climate scenarios. All individual steps of the workflow where reference data was available led to sufficient results (supervised classifications Overall Accuracy > 0.97; Maxent AUC > 0.85; cellular automata Balanced Accuracy > 0.91) and the spatial patterns of the derived maps matched the experiences collected during the field surveys. Our model predictions suggest a continuous expansion of the maximal potential range of U. europaeus, particularly in the Eastern and Northern part of Chiloé Island. We deem the suggested workflow to be a good solution to combine the static habitat suitability information—representing the environmental constraints—with a temporally and spatially dynamic model representing the actual spreading behavior of the invasive species. The obtained understanding of spreading patterns and the information on areas identified to have a high invasion probability in the future can support land managers to plan prevention and mitigation measures.

Optical diffractometry by rough phase steps

Optical diffractometry (OD) using a phase step is an alternative for interferometry, further, has least sensitivity to environmental vibrations. Therefore, OD has found numerous interesting metrological and technological applications. OD utilizes a phase step to detect the influence of objects under measurement by the changes in the Fresnel diffraction pattern. Recently, we showed that such measurements do not require infinitively sharp phase steps, although fabrication of such sharp elements is also impossible. Here, we address the issue of smoothness of the phase step surfaces. So far, in all of the OD applications the surfaces of the incorporated phase steps are considered to be optically smooth and flat. However, practically, some amount of roughness and unflatness is unavoidable even in precise and careful fabrication process. We show that preserving the OD-diffraction-pattern characteristics of a phase step depends on the level of roughness in the surfaces of the phase step. We define number of detectable fringes and autocorrelation functions of the diffraction patterns as the measures for evaluating the similarity of the rough phase step diffractions to the ideal case. We derive the theoretical description and confirm the results with simulations and experiments.

Life cycle assessment of in‐person, virtual, and hybrid academic conferences: New evidence and perspectives

AbstractThis study contributes to the debate on the environmental impacts of academic conferences by comparing the life cycle impacts of a sample of real‐world in‐person, virtual, and hybrid conferences with different features and organizers. Results show that virtual formats reduce impacts by two to three orders of magnitude across all impact categories (for global warming, averagely from 941.9 to 1.0 kg CO2eq per person). The hybrid case study, with a share of 69% virtual attendees, displays an average 60% reduction in indicator results, less than ideal cases where the farthest attendees join online. The cross‐conference comparison allowed identifying several drivers of impact variation. For in‐person conferences, some never addressed drivers were uncovered, including the energy sources and systems used to supply the venue or the number of non‐local staff members and exhibitors. For virtual conferences, the main impact driver is the average time spent online by delegates, surprisingly more related to virtual experience design (e.g., synchronous vs. asynchronous presentations) than conference duration. The study further summarizes mitigation options from the literature and proposes new ones, such as selecting a venue supplied by a biomass‐fueled district heating system or with a green electricity contract (around −41 and −1.9 kg CO2eq per person, respectively). Lastly, our work highlights some inconsistencies that affect current conference assessments and proposes new research avenues, advocating the need to shift the focus from optimizing single conferences to considering the optimal portfolio of conferences and other activities for academic societies to meet their members’ needs while minimizing environmental impacts.

A socio‐historical analysis of English in Libya

AbstractPolitical instability has been a mainstay in Libya since the Italian occupation in 1911. In the intervening years, the shifting political landscape has had an undeniable influence on the presence of English in the country. In this paper, I argue that Libya presents an ideal case study for Kachru's Concentric Circles of English, where ‘linguistic ammunition’ (Kachru, 1986: 121) is used to manipulate and control the masses and spread anti‐Western sentiment in this expanding circle country. To provide a much‐needed socio‐historical context for a country whose English language and linguistic history remains understudied (Hillman et al., 2020), this paper touches on key events in Libya's political history that have influenced the status of English and language use; from the Italian colonization, to Qaddafi's decade‐long ban of English, to the 2011 Revolution, and beyond. This paper is divided into six sections: (1) critical approaches to language policy (Tollefson, 1991) and Foucault's governmentality approach (1991); (2) demographic and geographic description of Libya; (3) historical and political overview; (4) educational language policy and the development of the education system; (5) English language policy in Libya (the ban on use of English in 1986 following the 1969 coup that brought Qaddafi to power and the reintroduction of English in the mid‐1990s); and will conclude with (6) English language in post‐Qaddafi Libya. Understanding these key moments in Libyan political history will provide the context needed to understand how a generation of Libyans found themselves without the linguistic skills necessary to compete in the global economy.

Who will encourage a sustainable diet? Understanding the psychological predictors of relational organizing

Why do (or do not) people encourage others in their social networks to adopt climate-friendly behaviors? Encouragement like this has been referred to as “relational organizing,” and can help scale up climate action across communities. Since relational organizing is a social behavior, it likely has its own specific barriers and motivations beyond what affects personal climate action. Food is a big part of our day-to-day lives and our relationships with people we care about. It also impacts the climate, ecosystems, animal welfare, and our own health. As such, people’s climate-friendly food choices provide an ideal case study to explore drivers of relational organizing. Using an online survey with two North American samples of motivated audiences (one US-wide animal advocacy community, N = 1166, and one environmentally focused community in Boulder, Colorado, N = 363), we sought to identify and categorize the social–psychological barriers to and drivers of relational organizing for climate-friendly food choices. Using exploratory factor analysis and predictive models, we found that self-efficacy in carrying out the personal behavior, response efficacy beliefs, supportive social norms, and personal aptitude in relational organizing (e.g., personal norms) predicted relational organizing action after the survey. People’s sense of personal obligation to engage in relational organizing (i.e., personal norms), beliefs that would make a difference to important causes (i.e. response efficacy), and social identity beliefs around activism were particularly important. We discuss how these findings can help inform interventions related to climate-friendly diets, and what this means more broadly for how relational organizing can support climate action.

Logical and thermodynamical reversibility: Optimized experimental implementation of the not operation.

The not operation is a reversible transformation acting on a 1-bit logical state and should be achievable in a physically reversible manner at no energetic cost. We experimentally demonstrate a bit-flip protocol based on the momentum of an underdamped oscillator confined in a double-well potential. The protocol is designed to be reversible in the ideal dissipationless case, and the thermodynamic work required is inversely proportional to the quality factor of the system. Our implementation demonstrates an energy dissipation significantly lower than the minimal cost of information processing in logically irreversible operations. It is, moreover, performed at high speed: A fully equilibrated final state is reached in only half a period of the oscillator. The results are supported by an analytical model that takes into account the presence of irreversibility. This Research Letter concludes with a discussion of optimization strategies.

Preliminary thermographic and statistical analysis of surface topography non-uniformities produced by laser remelting on metallic surfaces

Surface polishing by laser remelting (SP-LRM aka laser polishing) is a material finishing process that uses the thermal energy of a laser beam tracked across a surface remelting a thin surface layer at the laser incidence. This causes formation of thermodynamic molten material flows within a melt pool leading to the redistribution of the initial surface topography and bulk material with hills flowing into valleys. The effectiveness of this process is highly dependent on a complex combination of the laser-motion-material parameters (e.g., power, speed, focus offset, etc.) and their formation of thermodynamic flows in the laser-material interaction zone. In an ideal case, the chosen process parameter combination forms a stable thermodynamic equilibrium between applied laser energy and convection, conduction and radiation being the triplet of thermal energy components. It is assumed that this stable thermodynamics of laser-material interaction leads to the formation of uniform (in terms of material redistribution) laser remelted tracks. Thermodynamic instabilities on the contrary may cause sudden variations and non-uniformities in the surface topography, such as bulges, cavities, and wide/narrow stripes, negatively affecting the smoothening effect of surface polishing. This study demonstrates the formation of uniform laser tracks from a stable LRM process and non-uniform laser tracks from a non-stable LRM process through the use of statistical analysis of the surface topography measured off-line by white-light interferometry and in-situ thermographic imaging. Through a combination of these techniques, multiple examples of regions containing different types of these undesired surface topography non-uniformities are identified. One of the goals of this study was to find an interdependence between laser-processed surface topography and thermographic response. For this purpose, information data have been synchronized in time and space domain. In detail, stable and non-stable LRM process states, typical thermodynamic instabilities, initial surface defects, and especially the beginning and ending of LRM tracks are analyzed. The results from this preliminary study lay a scientific and engineering basis to better understand the thermodynamics of the LRM process and identify statistical metrics capable of recognizing thermodynamic imbalance for future development of online LRM process monitoring, control, and optimization.

Wine putrescine abatement by bentonites: From ideal case to practice.

Herein, we demonstrated that bentonites can be incisively used to reduce wine BAs content, especially putrescine molecules. Pioneering kinetic and thermodynamic studies of putrescine adsorption onto two commercially available bentonites (optimal concentration of 0.40gdm-3) were performed resulting in ca. 60% removal by physisorption mechanism. Both bentonites showed also promising results in more complex systems, resulting in a lower putrescine adsorption due to the competition with other molecules (as proteins, polyphenols), typically present in wines. Nonetheless, we managed to reduce the putrescine content below 10ppm both in red and white wines.

NUMERICAL MODELLING OF ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE SCATTERING ON GRATINGS WITH ONE-DIMENSIONAL QUASI-FRACTAL PERIOD STRUCTURE

Numerical modelling of the properties of E-polarised and H-polarised waves scattered on periodic screened quasi-fractal gratings is carried out. The location of the band system at each period is determined by the principle of constructing a generalized symmetric Cantor set at a certain step of the algorithm. A mathematical model of the problems based on systems of boundary singular integral equations of the first kind was used in the study. These systems of equations were obtained using the method of parametric representations of singular and hypersingular integral operators. The systems of singular integral equations were solved numerically using the computational schemes of the method of discrete singularities. The solutions of these equations are used to obtain the main characteristics of the electric and magnetic fields. This experiment proved the possibility of using the MDS computational scheme to analyse systems containing 8 – 16 bands at different distances from each other. Graphs of the dependence of harmonic amplitudes on the wavenumber, point plots of absolute values of all non-zero harmonics at resonant wavenumber values, and maps of electric and magnetic field components in the region above the grating were obtained. It is confirmed that the overall field structure in the case of normal incidence is significantly influenced by all harmonics with absolute numbers from 0 to 50. The harmonics had a large number of resonances that were observed at different values of the wavenumber. This led to a complex structure of the isolines of absolute values of the scattered electric and magnetic field amplitudes in the region above the structure, and a significant difference in amplitude values with small changes in coordinates. In the future, it is planned to carry out computer simulations for imperfectly conducting structures and compare the results with the numerical results for the ideal case considered in this paper. The proposed structure may be of interest for the design of multimode broadband antennas.

Collective bulk excitations in the QGP: From the weakly non‐ideal case to the strong correlation limit

AbstractCollective bulk excitation propagating in the medium of a quark‐gluon plasma are studied. The quark‐gluon plasma medium is described with two different models to investigate the effect of binary collisions and shear viscosity to account for damping and non‐ideality. To find the dispersion relation the longitudinal dielectric functions of the quark‐gluon plasma are used within quantum hydrodynamics and transport equation approaches. The results were obtained numerically by finding the roots of the dispersion relations. Both models are compared with the hard thermal loop approximation as the ideal case for both models.

Analysis of the Current Transport Characteristics (CTCs) in the Au/n-Si Schottky Diodes (SDs) with Al2O3 Interfacial Layer over Wide Temperature Range

Temperature dependent electrical-parameters and CTCs in Au/Al2O3/n-Si SDs have been analysed between 200 K and 400 K using current/voltage (IV) characteristics. While the value of quality/ideality factor (n) decreases, zero bias potential barrier height (BH, ΦB0) increases with increasing temperature. The value of Richardson constant (A*) and activation energy (Ea) were also derived from the conventional Richardson plot (RP) as 0.567 eV and 7.34 × 10−3 A.cm−2K−2, respectively. This low A* value shows that deviation from standard thermionic-emission (TE) model and to determine whether this situation may be described by Gaussian-distribution (GD) model or not, ΦBo vs n and ΦBo vs q/(2kT) curves were illustrated. The Φ ¯ B value was found as 1.19 eV from the linear ΦB0 vs n plot for ideal case (n = 1). The mean-value of BH ( Φ ¯ B 0 ) and standart deviation (σ s) values were found from the ΦBo vs q/(2kT) curve as 1.130 eV and 0.127 V, respectively. By using value of σ s, RP was modified and then Φ ¯ B 0 and A* values were found as 1.128 eV and 108.88 Acm−2K−2, respectively, and this value of A* very close to its theoretical value (=112 Acm−2K−2). The surface state density (Nss) were also obtained from the forward bias IV data for three-temperatures.

A study based on boundary layer and entropy generation in MHD flow of micropolar fluid with variable viscosity and thermal conductivity: A non-Darcy model approach

This paper aims to analyze the problem with the study of thermal and momentum transport with entropy generation in view of the second law of thermodynamics in Magneto hydrodynamics (MHD) micropolar fluid through porous medium under the consideration of the non-Darcy model, temperature-dependent viscosity and thermal conductivity. In practical situations at higher temperatures and high speed fluid flow, it becomes reasonable to consider variable fluid flow parameters. The governing boundary layer flow equations are first converted into a coupled system of the ordinary differential equations (ODE) under the assumption of differing plate temperatures by applying appropriate similarity transformations. A shooting method has been applied to solve ordinary differential equations numerically. The last effect of microrotation, magnetic field, variable viscosity coefficient, variable thermal conductivity, etc. on momentum and thermal transport has been depicted through various graphs. The table for skin friction coefficient and Nusselt number for ideal cases has been shown to validate the model by previous findings. It is seen that K and m enhance the velocity profile on their increment opposite to this M, [Formula: see text], F and Da have been found to reduce the velocity profile. Table 3 is constructed for numerical values of skin friction coefficient and Nusselt number for different values of parameters where it can be concluded that magnetic parameter M has a tendency to enhance the skin friction and heat transfer, while variable viscosity parameters have a tendency to decline the skin friction and heat transfer.

Analysis of risk factors and development of a nomogram prediction model for lupus nephritis in systemic lupus erythematosus patients

Background This study aimed to explore risk factors for lupus nephritis (LN) in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients and establish a Nomogram prediction model based on LASSO-logistic regression. Methods The clinical and laboratory data of SLE patients in Meishan People’s Hospital from July 2012 to December 2021 were analyzed retrospectively. All SLE patients were divided into two groups with or without LN. Risk factors were screened based on LASSO-logistic regression analysis, and a Nomogram prediction model was established. The receiver operating characteristic curve, calibration curves, and decision curve analysis were adopted to evaluate the performance of the Nomogram model. Results A total of 555 SLE patients were enrolled, including 303 SLE patients with LN and 252 SLE patients without LN. LASSO regression and multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that ESR, mucosal ulcer, proteinuria, and hematuria were independent risk factors for LN in SLE patients. The four clinical features were incorporated into the Nomogram prediction model. Results showed that calibration curve was basically close to the diagonal dotted line with slope 1 (ideal prediction case), which proved that the prediction ability of the model was acceptable. In addition, the decision curve analysis showed that the Nomogram prediction model could bring net clinical benefits to patients when the threshold probability was 0.12–0.54. Conclusion Four clinical indicators of ESR, mucosal ulcer, proteinuria, and hematuria were independent risk factors for LN in SLE patients. The predictive power of the Nomogram model based on LASSO-logistic regression was acceptable and could be used to guide clinical work.