Intermediate Reference Research Articles

Improved method of calculatingab initiohigh-temperature thermodynamic properties with application to ZrC

Thermodynamic properties of ZrC are calculated up to the melting point (${T}^{\mathrm{melt}}\ensuremath{\approx}3700\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\text{K}$), using density functional theory (DFT) to obtain the fully anharmonic vibrational contribution, and including electronic excitations. A significant improvement is found in comparison to results calculated within the quasiharmonic approximation. The calculated thermal expansion is in better agreement with experiment and the heat capacity reproduces rather closely a CALPHAD estimate. The calculations are presented as an application of a development of the upsampled thermodynamic integration using Langevin dynamics (UP-TILD) approach. This development, referred to here as two-stage upsampled thermodynamic integration using Langevin dynamics (TU-TILD), is the inclusion of tailored interatomic potentials to characterize an intermediate reference state of anharmonic vibrations on a two-stage path of thermodynamic integration between the original DFT quasiharmonic free energy and the fully anharmonic DFT free energy. This approach greatly accelerates the convergence of the calculation, giving a factor of improvement in efficiency of $\ensuremath{\sim}50$ in the present case compared to the original UP-TILD approach, and it can be applied to a wide range of materials.

On equatorial inclination of parking orbits in transfers to lunar halo orbits

This paper presents a detailed analysis on the equatorial inclination of Earth parking orbits associated with transfer trajectories to lunar libration point orbits. Orbital inclination in this work is defined with respect to the Earth’s equator other than the lunar orbital plane as commonly adopted in previous works. This definition connects to the convention widely adopted in current aerospace industry, and therefore has practical meanings. By introducing a number of intermediate reference frames, an algorithm to compute the parking orbit’s equatorial inclination is presented. Numerical results show that, for the same transfer trajectory designed in the autonomous framework of CR3BP (circular restricted three-body problem), the value of the equatorial inclination of the departure LEO largely depends on the choice of departure time at which the spacecraft is injected into the transfer trajectory. Two types of major periodicity, both due to the natural motion of the Moon and the Earth, are discovered to play a role in this time dependency. It is concluded that the equatorial inclination of the departure LEO can be varied by as much as 57° through changing the departure times within half a month. Extensive results obtained in this work should provide good reference for the selections of both launch sites and launch windows in all missions involving Earth–Moon libration point orbits.

Multi‐decadal water table manipulation alters peatland hydraulic structure and moisture retention

AbstractA peatland complex disturbed by berm construction in the 1950s was used to examine the long‐term impact of water table (WT) manipulation on peatland hydraulic properties and moisture retention at three adjacent sites with increasing depth to WT (WET, INTermediate reference and DRY). Saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) was found to decrease with depth by several orders of magnitude over a depth of 1–1.5 m at all sites. The depth dependence of WT response to rainfall was similar across sites: WT response increased from 1 : 1 at the surface, to 5 : 1 at 50 cm depth. While surface specific yield (Sy) values were similar across all sites, it decreased with depth at a rate of 0.014 cm−1 in hollows and 0.007 cm−1 in hummocks. Bulk density (ρb) exhibited similar depth‐dependent trends as Sy and explains a high amount of variance (r2 > 0.69) in moisture retention across a range of pore water pressures (−15 to −500 cm H2O). Because of higher ρb, hollow peat had greater moisture retention, where site effects were minimal. However, the estimated residual water content for surface Sphagnum samples, while on average lower in hummocks (0.082 m3 m−3) versus hollows (0.087 m3 m−3), increased from WET (0.058 m3 m−3) to INT (0.088 m3 m−3) to DRY (0.108 m3 m−3) which has important implications for moisture stress under conditions of persistent WT drawdown. Given the potential importance of microtopographic succession for altering peatland hydraulic structure, our findings point to the need for a better understanding of what controls the relative height and proportional coverage of hummocks in relation to long‐term disturbance‐response dynamics. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reporting the Unreported- A Case of Neglected Errors of Supervisors in Random Blinded Rechecking of AFB Smears

Reporting the Unreported- A Case of Neglected Errors of Supervisors in Random Blinded Rechecking of AFB Smears

Estimation of stochastic signals under partially missing information

A new method for the estimation of a large set of stochastic signals is proposed and justified. A specific restriction is that a priori information on the set of input–output signal pairs can only be obtained, in the form of covariance matrices (or their estimates), for a small subset of signal pairs. Nevertheless it is required to estimate each reference signal. We call this procedure signal estimation under partially missing information. The conceptual foundation of the proposed filter is an optimal least squares Hadamard-quadratic estimate of the incremental change to the observed signal pairs, extended by a natural linear interpolation to an estimated value for each intermediate reference signal. The new filter is expressed in terms of Moore–Penrose pseudo-inverse matrices and therefore is always well-defined.

Gravity influences the visual representation of object tilt in parietal cortex.

Sensory systems encode the environment in egocentric (e.g., eye, head, or body) reference frames, creating inherently unstable representations that shift and rotate as we move. However, it is widely speculated that the brain transforms these signals into an allocentric, gravity-centered representation of the world that is stable and independent of the observer's spatial pose. Where and how this representation may be achieved is currently unknown. Here we demonstrate that a subpopulation of neurons in the macaque caudal intraparietal area (CIP) visually encodes object tilt in nonegocentric coordinates defined relative to the gravitational vector. Neuronal responses to the tilt of a visually presented planar surface were measured with the monkey in different spatial orientations (upright and rolled left/right ear down) and then compared. This revealed a continuum of representations in which planar tilt was encoded in a gravity-centered reference frame in approximately one-tenth of the comparisons, intermediate reference frames ranging between gravity-centered and egocentric in approximately two-tenths of the comparisons, and in an egocentric reference frame in less than half of the comparisons. Altogether, almost half of the comparisons revealed a shift in the preferred tilt and/or a gain change consistent with encoding object orientation in nonegocentric coordinates. Through neural network modeling, we further show that a purely gravity-centered representation of object tilt can be achieved directly from the population activity of CIP-like units. These results suggest that area CIP may play a key role in creating a stable, allocentric representation of the environment defined relative to an "earth-vertical" direction.

SU-E-T-370: Measurement of Conical Cone Output Factors for the Varian Edge Linear Accelerator

Purpose: To quantify the impact of detector type, SSD/depth, and intermediate reference on conical cone output factor (OF) measurements for the Varian Edge linac. Methods: OF's for 4, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, 15, and 17.5 mm diameter cones relative to 10cmx10cm field were measured for the 6X FFF and 10X FFF energies, with jaws set to 5cmx5cm. Measurements were performed with an Edge diode (0.8mmx0.8mmx0.03mm WxLxT), stereotatic diode SFD, photon diode, CC01 and pinpoint chambers (2mm diameter for both). 95cm SSD/5cm depth were used in a water tank. For the measurement with diodes, OF's were cross-referred to CC13 ion chamber measurements with 3cmx3cm field, as recommended, to help mitigate the energy variation in diode response with field size. Results were compared to the representative data from Varian measured with Edge detector. With SFD, OF's at 98.5cm SSD/1.5cm depth and 90cm SSD/10cm depth were also measured. Results: OF's measured with the Edge detector matched within 1.3% (max diff) with the representative data from Varian. For the SFD, OF's matched within 1.3% for the 4, 5 and 17.5 mm cones and within 3.7% for the other cones. OF's with photon diode were within 1.3% except for the 4 and 5 mm conesmore » where they were 8.1% and 3.7%, respectively. OF's for the CC01 and pinpoint chamber deviated up to 36% and 44%, respectively for the 4 mm cone. OF's after intermediate reference with 3cmx3cm field changed by 3.7% for SFD, 0.8% for photon diode, and 0.6% for Edge detector. OF's at 98.5cm SSD/1.5cm depth were 10.8% higher than that at 95cm SSD/5cm depth, and OF's at 90cm SSD/1.5cm depth were 7.5% lower. Conclusion: OF's measured with the Edge detector appear to be reliable. CC01 and pinpoint chambers do not appear suitable for measuring the small cone OF's. SSD/depth affects OF measurements significantly.« less

Transatlantic interpretations of Das Lied in mir/El día que no nací (Cossen, 2010): The appropriation of children in Argentina as narrated in German cinema

Abstract In this article I analyse the German movie Das Lied in mir/El día que no nací by Florian Cossen (2010) as an example of the European narration of crimes committed by the last Argentinian military junta. Latin American dictatorships are symbolic places of memory which suggest and permit a moral reflection about the crimes of the state in global terms. My point of departure is that the movie, which deals with the illegal appropriation of children, has various potential receptions that are enabled by both the story and intermedial references. I focus on how the film introduces a new approach in the discussion about the politics of memory by relating it to other Argentinian movies and intellectual discourses about this topic. Against this background, the article discusses two different interpretations: first, from an intercontinental perspective, the movie reminds us of the ignominious European responsibility for crimes committed by South American dictatorships. Second, without this historic-political reflection, it suggests an existentialist meaning directed at an international public.

Sliding and Nonsliding Joint Constraints of B-Spline Plate Elements for Integration With Flexible Multibody Dynamics Simulation

In this investigation, a numerical procedure for modeling sliding and nonsliding joint constraints for the B-spline thin plate element is developed for the large deformation analysis of multibody systems. A concept of intermediate reference coordinates proposed for the absolute nodal coordinate formulation is generalized for B-spline elements such that a wide variety of joint constraints can be modeled using existing joint constraint libraries already implemented in multibody dynamics codes. This procedure allows for modeling sliding joints for B-spline elements that requires a solution to moving boundary problems by introducing time-variant surface parameters in the B-spline parametric domain. Since surface parameters treated as knot variables in the basis function are defined in the entire parametric domain rather than the element domain, the location of the constraint definition point can be determined without knowing in which elements the sliding point is located. Furthermore, using the B-spline recurrence formula, control points used for describing the constraint equations can be systematically extracted. It is shown that many types of nonsliding joints fixed on the flexible body can also be modeled as a special case of the sliding joint formulation developed in this investigation, leading to a unified joint constraint formulation for B-spline elements. Several numerical examples are presented in order to demonstrate the use of the numerical procedure developed in this investigation.

The Vertigo of the Single Image: From the Classic Narrative “Glitch” to the Post-Cinematic Adaptations of Paintings

Abstract As a possible cross section of cinematic narratology and the theory of intermediality the following essay assesses some of the effects of foregrounding the single, intermedial image within film. Specific figurations of intermediality that are experienced via the consciousness of single images, or some kind of “imageness” (i.e. as “intermedial references”) are presented as well as the modes in which they can interact with the narrative structure of a film. This interaction ranges from a momentary interference with the narrative structure of a film to disrupting it altogether; it may consist in constituting the gravity centre of a plot, or even in becoming the “canvas” for a palimpsest of narrative modes and narratives

Narrative ludology: intermediality in adventure games

<p>This paper proposes to discuss how adventure games, a subgenre of video games, have become a new medium that manages to combine elements from literature, comics, and movies in order to present highly complex interactive narratives of their own. The phenomenon of intermediality within this plurimedial medium is discussed using Irina Rajewsky’s definitions of medial transposition, media combination and intermedial reference.</p>

Atmospheric Nutrient Input to the Baltic Sea from 1850 to 2006: A Reconstruction from Modeling Results and Historical Data

In this study, a consistent basin-wise monthly time series of the atmospheric nutrient load to the Baltic Sea during 1850-2006 was compiled. Due to the lack of a long time series (1850-1960) of nutrient deposition to the Baltic Sea, the data set was compiled by combining a time series of deposition data at the Baltic Nest Institute from 1970 to 2006, published historical monitoring data and deposition estimates, as well as recent modeled Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) emission estimates. The procedure for nitrogen compounds included estimation of the deposition in a few intermediate reference years, linear interpolation between them, and the decomposition of annual deposition into a seasonal deposition pattern. As no reliable monitoring results were found for the atmospheric deposition of phosphorus during the early period of our study, we used published estimates for the temporal and spatial pattern of the phosphorus load.

Dominant Features Identification for Covert Nodes in 9/11 Attack Using their Profile

In recent days terrorism poses a threat to homeland security. The major problem faced in network analysis is to automatically identify the key player who can maximally influence other nodes in a large relational covert network. The existing centrality based and graph theoretic approach are more concerned about the network structure rather than the node attributes. In this paper an unsupervised framework SoNMine has been developed to identify the key players in 9/11 network using their behavioral profile. The behaviors of nodes are analyzed based on the behavioral profile generated. The key players are identified using the outlier analysis based on the profile and the highly communicating node is concluded to be the most influential person of the covert network. Further, in order to improve the classification of a normal and outlier node, intermediate reference class R is generated. Based on these three classes the most dominating feature set is determined which further helps to accurately justify the outlier nodes.

Radiological protection from radioactive waste management in existing exposure situations resulting from a nuclear accident.

In environmental remediation after nuclear accidents, radioactive wastes have to be appropriately managed in existing exposure situations with contamination resulting from the emission of radionuclides by such accidents. In this paper, a framework of radiation protection from radioactive waste management in existing exposure situations for application to the practical and reasonable waste management in contaminated areas, referring to related ICRP recommendations was proposed. In the proposed concept, intermediate reference levels for waste management are adopted gradually according to the progress of the reduction in the existing ambient dose in the environment on the basis of the principles of justification and optimisation by taking into account the practicability of the management of radioactive waste and environmental remediation. It is essential to include the participation of relevant stakeholders living in existing exposure situations in the selection of reference levels for the existing ambient dose and waste management.

Recovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from Löwenstein-Jensen media contaminated with other organisms [Technical note

Growth of contaminating organisms along with Mycobacterium tuberculosis on Löwenstein-Jensen (LJ) medium is common. However, there is no documented evidence on the decontamination procedure adopted in mycobacteriology laboratories to recover M. tuberculosis from the contaminants grown on LJ medium. At the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis, of 1048 LJ slopes with M. tuberculosis received from intermediate reference laboratories, 98 (9%) were contaminated. Of these, 87 (89%) M. tuberculosis cultures were retrieved after decontamination with 1% cetrimide. The use of cetrimide as a decontaminating agent to retrieve M. tuberculosis cultures grown with contaminants is documented.

Fighting the Fever: Archives of Atrocity in Alain Resnais' Nuit et brouillard and David Grossman's See Under: Love

Speaking about the genesis of his novel ’Ayen ’erekh: ahavah (See Under: Love, 1986)1 at a symposium on ‘The Future of the Holocaust’, David Grossman genially teased his audience: ‘Everyone tells you what influenced you, who you learned from, or just stole from.’ And, he added, ‘the learned critics pronounced what had influenced me, and what I had borrowed. When, for the first time, I went and read those books and writers, I discovered that in fact they were right.’2 There is a suggestion, in this quip, of auctorial affinities and, paradoxically, of auctorial self-sufficiency slightly unsettling to the notion of intertextuality. There is, however, also a suggestion of an unacknowledged, pervasive archive, akin to an archival miasma, which the writer shares with others and inadvertently breathes and assimilates into his or her own work. Given his paradoxical suggestion of retrospective influence, it may be pedantic to try to establish if and when Grossman viewed Alain Resnais’ Holocaust documentaryNuit et brouillard (1955), and I will not attempt to do so here. Nevertheless, considering the history of the film’s reception in Israel, it certainly seems plausible that Grossman was aware of it and that it did indeed contribute to the archival miasma out of which his novel emerged and which also becomes a major concern in its narrative. In this article, I wish to suggest that See Under: Love initially delineates an archive of the Holocaust which evokes to some extent the archive presented in the earlier documentary and adopts a similar post-traumatic form of narration. However, exploring the shifts in perspective informing the intermedial reference, and drawing on Derrida’s notion of a mal d’archive (archive fever),3 I argue that Grossman’s novel subsequently engages in charting the case history of what appears to be ‘Holocaust

Intermediality, Intertextuality, and Remediation: A Literary Perspective on Intermediality

The concept of intermediality has come to be part of a fixed critical inventory in the debate on literature and the other arts and media. Although there is relative agreement with respect to a definition of intermediality in a broad sense, the research spectrum becomes much more complex, and often contradictory, when precise formal distinctions and the specification and definition of any one particular concept of intermediality are needed. Based on the current state of the question, the present essay specifies one particular approach to intermediality, introducing three more narrowly conceived subcategories, medial transposition, media combination, and intermedial references. By comparison with the genealogical “remediation” concept of Bolter and Grusin, it is shown with respect to which objects and specific research objectives this subdivided concept gains heuristic and practical value. This is particularly the case when detailed analyses of specific medial configurations, their respective meaning-constitutional strategies, and their overall signification are considered.

An Improved Contextual Advertising Matching Approach based on Wikipedia Knowledge

The current boom of the Web is associated with the revenues originated from Web advertising. As one prevalent type of Web advertising, contextual advertising refers to the placement of the most relevant commercial textual ads within the content of a Web page, so as to provide a better user experience and thereby increase the revenues of Web site owners and an advertising platform. Therefore, in contextual advertising, the relevance of selected ads with a Web page is essential. However, some problems, such as homonymy and polysemy, low intersection of keywords and context mismatch, can lead to the selection of irrelevant textual ads for a Web page, making that a simple keyword matching technique generally gives poor accuracy. To overcome these problems and thus to improve the relevance of contextual ads, in this paper we propose a novel Wikipedia-based matching technique which, using selective matching strategies, selects a certain amount of relevant articles from Wikipedia as an intermediate semantic reference model for matching Web pages and textual ads. We call this technique SIWI: Selective Wikipedia Matching, which, instead of using the whole Wikipedia articles, only matches the most relevant articles for a page (or a textual ad), resulting in the effective improvement of the overall matching performance. An experimental evaluation is conducted, which runs over a set of real textual ads, a set of Web pages from the Internet and a dataset of more than 260Â 000 articles from Wikipedia. The experimental results show that our method performs better than existing matching strategies, which can deal with the matching over the large dataset of Wikipedia articles efficiently, and achieve a satisfactory contextual advertising effect.

Effects of maternal l-tryptophan depletion and corticosterone administration on neurobehavioral adjustments in mouse dams and their adolescent and adult daughters

Major depressive disorder (MDD), a pathology characterized by mood and neurovegetative disturbances, depends on a multi-factorial contribution of individual predisposition (e.g., diminished serotonergic transmission) and environmental factors (e.g., neonatal abuse or neglect). Despite its female-biased prevalence, MDD basic research has mainly focused on male rodents. Most of present models of depression are also devalued due to the fact that they typically address only one of the aforementioned pathogenetic factors. In this paper we first describe the basic principles behind mouse model development and evaluation and then articulate that current models of depression are intrinsically devalued due to poor construct and/or external validity. We then report a first attempt to overcome this limitation through the design of a mouse model in which the genetic and the environmental components of early risk factors for depression are mimicked together. Environmental stress is mimicked through the supplementation of corticosterone in the maternal drinking water while biological predisposition is mimicked through maternal access to an L-tryptophan (the serotonin precursor) deficient diet during the first week of lactation. CD1 dams and their offspring exposed to the L-tryptophan deficient diet (T) and to corticosterone (80mg/l; C) were compared to animal facility reared (AFR) subjects. T and C mice served as intermediate reference groups. Adolescent TC offspring, compared to AFR mice, showed decreased time spent floating in the forced-swim test and increased time spent in the open sectors of an elevated 0-maze. Adult TC offspring showed reduced preference for novelty, decreased breakpoints in the progressive ratio operant procedure and major alterations in central BDNF levels and altered HPA regulation. The route of administration and the possibility to control the independent variables predisposing to depressive-like symptoms disclose novel avenues towards the development of animal models with increased external and construct validity. Furthermore, the observation that, compared to adult subjects, adolescent mice display an opposite profile suggests that peri-pubertal developmental processes may interact with neonatal predispositions to calibrate the adult abnormal phenotype.

Attitude Propagation for a Slewing Angular Rate Vector

Attitude propagation typically involves only two coordinate frames one inertial and the other fixed with the vehicle body. If the angular rate vector maintains a fixed direction, attitude propagation is relatively easy. However, slewing or coning angular rate vectors cause difficulties in propagating attitude. As a result, coning algorithms have been developed to reduce coning error. In this work, a new method to propagate vehicle attitude is proposed. It employs an additional coordinate system that slews with the angular rate vector. In this intermediate slewing reference frame the angular rate vector is fixed, thereby eliminating coning error. The method improves attitude propagation accuracy. For pure coning motion, there is no propagation error using this new method.