Excitation of the 3p^4(4s,3d,4p) Ar^+ states during Ar photoionization:Intensity, alignment, and orientation

Ar photoionization is studied using the R-matrix formalism with emphasis on the simultaneous excitation of the residual A^r+ ion. Cross sections have been obtained for excitation of the 3p^4(3d,4s,4p) states. A comparison with experiments having a resolution of 70 meV shows reasonable agreement for the position and shape of resonance structures. The relative magnitude of the resonances proves to be more elusive. The partial cross section for excitation of the 3p^4(3Pe)4p(2P_3/2^o) and (2D_3/2^o) levels is treated in more detail. A comparison of LS-coupling calculations with high-resolution experimental results shows good agreement for both the excitation cross sections and the polarization of the fluorescence. We also predict the orientation for both levels. We demonstrate that the polarization of the fluorescence originating from the (2D_3/2^o) level can be employed to study spin-orbit effects in Ar photoionization.

Reinventing a New Wheel: The Films of Norman Mailer

This article covers the connections between Norman Mailer's four films, as well as their influence on such film genres as mockumentary cinema.

Examining the presence of Arching-Action in Edge Stiffened Bridge Deck Cantilever Overhangs Subjected to a Wheel Load

Engineers have proposed the idea that there may be some arching action present in bridge deck cantilever overhangs stiffened along their longitudinal free edge, via a traffic barrier, subjected to a wheel load. This paper includes the details of a full-scale corrosion-free bridge deck with cantilever overhangs stiffened along their longitudinal free edge by a traffic barrier wall that has been constructed and tested under static and fatigue wheel loads at the University of Manitoba. It also reviews experimental test results and postulates various discussions that suggest the presence of arching-action in cantilever slab overhangs. Test results indicated static ultimate load capacities significantly greater than the ultimate capacity if the mode of failure and behavior of the cantilever overhang was completely flexural. These early results confirm and indicate the presence of arching-action resulting in a significant break-through in cantilever behavior when subjected to a wheel load. The theory to account for this arching-action is not yet developed and further research should be conducted.

Towards Multi-Sensor Spectral Alignment Through Post Measurement Calibration Correction

Semiconductor manufactures are increasing reliant on optical emission spectroscopy (OES) to source information on plasma characteristics and process change. However, nonlinearities in the response of OES sensors and errors in their calibration lead to discrepancies in observed wavelength detector response. This paper presents a technique for the retrospective spectral calibration of multiple OES sensors. Underlying methodology is given, and alignment performance is evaluated using OES recordings from a semiconductor plasma process. The paper concludes with a discussion of results and suggests avenues for future work.

On the alignment of debris discs and their host stars' rotation axis - implications for spin-orbit misalignment in exoplanetary systems

It has been widely thought that measuring the misalignment angle between the orbital plane of a transiting exoplanet and the spin of its host star was a good discriminator between different migration processes for hot-Jupiters. Specifically, well-aligned hot-Jupiter systems (as measured by the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect) were thought to have formed via migration through interaction with a viscous disc, while misaligned systems were thought to have undergone a more violent dynamical history. These conclusions were based on the assumption that the planet-forming disc was well-aligned with the host star. Recent work by a number of authors has challenged this assumption by proposing mechanisms that act to drive the star-disc interaction out of alignment during the pre-main-sequence phase. We have estimated the stellar rotation axis of a sample of stars which host spatially resolved debris discs. Comparison of our derived stellar rotation axis inclination angles with the geometrically measured debris-disc inclinations shows no evidence for a misalignment between the two.

A well-to-wheel analysis of electric vehicles in the all-island Single Electricity Market

The European Union has set a target for 10% renewable energy in transport by 2020 to be met using biofuels and electric vehicles. In the case of biofuels, the biofuel must achieve greenhouse gas savings of 35% relative to the fossil fuel replaced. For biofuels, greenhouse gas savings can be calculated using life cycle analysis or the European Union default values. In contrast, all electricity used in transport is considered to be the same, regardless of the source or the type of electric vehicle. However, the choice of the electric vehicle and electricity source will have a major impact on the greenhouse gas saving. In this paper the initial findings of a well-to-wheel analysis of electric vehicle deployment in Northern Ireland are presented. The key finding indicates that electric vehicles require least amount of energy per mile on a well-to-wheel basis, consume the fewest resources, even accommodating inefficient fuel production, in comparison to standard internal combustion engine and hybrid vehicles.

Palynostratigraphic alignment chronology versus independent dating methods. 14C, OSL and tephra: an example from Lake Fimon, northern Italy

New independent dating evidence is presented for a lacustrine record for which an age-depth model had already been derived through the interpretation of the pollen signal. Quartz OSL ages support radiocarbon ages that were previously considered to suffer an underestimation due to contamination, and imply a younger chronology for the core. The successful identification of the Campanian Ignimbrite as a cryptotephra within the core also validates this younger chronology, as well as extending the known geographical range of this tephra layer within Italy. These new results suggest that care should always be taken when building chronologies from proxy records that are correlated to the tuned records from which the global signal is often derived (i.e. double tuning). We do not offer this as the definitive chronology for Lake Fimon, but multiple lines of dating evidence show that there is sufficient reason to seriously consider it. The Quaternary dating community should always have all age information available, even when significant temporal offsets are apparent between various lines of evidence to be: 1) better informed when they face similar dilemmas in the future and 2) allow multiple working hypotheses to be considered.

Coreference resolution for portuguese using parallel corpora word alignment

A área de Extração da Informação tem como objetivo essencial investigar métodos e técnicas para transformar a informação não estruturada presente em textos de língua natural em dados estruturados. Um importante passo deste processo é a resolução de correferência, tarefa que identifica diferentes sintagmas nominais que se referem a mesma entidade no discurso. A área de estudos sobre resolução de correferência tem sido extensivamente pesquisada para a Língua Inglesa (Ng, 2010) lista uma série de estudos da área, entretanto tem recebido menos atenção em outras línguas. Isso se deve ao fato de que a grande maioria das abordagens utilizadas nessas pesquisas são baseadas em aprendizado de máquina e, portanto, requerem uma extensa quantidade de dados anotados.

Ideally Reality: Alignment of Deaccession Policy and Emerging Practice in History Museums

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2012

Elements of a methodology to assess the alignment of core-values in collaborative networks

Collaborative networks are typically formed by heterogeneous and autonomous entities, and thus it is natural that each member has its own set of core-values. Since these values somehow drive the behaviour of the involved entities, the ability to quickly identify partners with compatible or common core-values represents an important element for the success of collaborative networks. However, tools to assess or measure the level of alignment of core-values are lacking. Since the concept of 'alignment' in this context is still ill-defined and shows a multifaceted nature, three perspectives are discussed. The first one uses a causal maps approach in order to capture, structure, and represent the influence relationships among core-values. This representation provides the basis to measure the alignment in terms of the structural similarity and influence among value systems. The second perspective considers the compatibility and incompatibility among core-values in order to define the alignment level. Under this perspective we propose a fuzzy inference system to estimate the alignment level, since this approach allows dealing with variables that are vaguely defined, and whose inter-relationships are difficult to define. Another advantage provided by this method is the possibility to incorporate expert human judgment in the definition of the alignment level. The last perspective uses a belief Bayesian network method, and was selected in order to assess the alignment level based on members' past behaviour. An example of application is presented where the details of each method are discussed.

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference" : further exploration of attitude alignment in the context of close relationship dyads /

One hundred and five primarily Caucasian undergraduate couples were tested to study the phenomenon of attitude alignment, or the way in which individuals change their opinions to achieve greater attitudinal congruence with their romantic partners, and the hypotheses that relationship closeness, affect, attachment, social desirability, and centrality are each related to attitude alignment for individuals in close couples. The couples filled out an attitude questionnaire consisting of 50 issues in which they were asked to give their attitude on a scale from 1 to 9 as well as to rate the centrality, or importance, of that issue on a scale from 1 to 9. Before discussing four of these issues with each other - 2 were more central to the man and less central, or peripheral, to the woman, whereas the other 2 were central to the woman and peripheral to the man - the individuals completed established measures of relationship closeness, affect, attachment, and social desirability. The couples then filled out the identical attitudes questionnaire again, and their answers on the four discussion issues were compared to their prediscussion answers to determine whether attitude alignment had occurred. There were two experimental groups: a social desirability group, where the couples were told it was natural and normal to disagree with their partners, and a control group. Results indicated that attitude alignment did significantly occur across all couples, but most other variables - including centrality, relationship closeness, and affect - did not predict attitude alignment behaviour. As well, the social desirability experimental groups did not significantly differ on attitude alignment behaviours, but higher scores on the social desirability scale, specifically self-deception, significantly predicted higher attitude alignment scores across all couples. Large differences between individuals' frequency.

Improving Short DNA Sequence Alignment with Parallel Computing

Variations in different types of genomes have been found to be responsible for a large degree of physical diversity such as appearance and susceptibility to disease. Identification of genomic variations is difficult and can be facilitated through computational analysis of DNA sequences. Newly available technologies are able to sequence billions of DNA base pairs relatively quickly. These sequences can be used to identify variations within their specific genome but must be mapped to a reference sequence first. In order to align these sequences to a reference sequence, we require mapping algorithms that make use of approximate string matching and string indexing methods. To date, few mapping algorithms have been tailored to handle the massive amounts of output generated by newly available sequencing technologies. In otrder to handle this large amount of data, we modified the popular mapping software BWA to run in parallel using OpenMPI. Parallel BWA matches the efficiency of multithreaded BWA functions while providing efficient parallelism for BWA functions that do not currently support multithreading. Parallel BWA shows significant wall time speedup in comparison to multithreaded BWA on high-performance computing clusters, and will thus facilitate the analysis of genome sequencing data.

The regulation of adult hippocampal neurogenesis by wheel running and environmental enrichment

Introduction: Chez les mammifères, la naissance de nouveaux neurones se poursuit à l’âge adulte dans deux régions du cerveau: 1) l’hippocampe et 2) la zone sous-ventriculaire du prosencéphale. La neurogenèse adulte n’est pas un processus stable et peut être affectée par divers facteurs tels que l’âge et la maladie. De plus, les modifications de la neurogenèse peuvent être à l’origine des maladies de sorte que la régulation ainsi que le rétablissement de la neurogenèse adulte doivent être considérés comme d’importants objectifs thérapeutiques. Chez la souris saine ou malade, la neurogenèse hippocampale peut être fortement régulée par l’enrichissement environnemental ainsi que par l’activité physique. Cependant, lors même que l’activité physique et l’enrichissement environnemental pourraient contribuer au traitement de certaines maladies, très peu d’études porte sur les mécanismes moléculaires et physiologiques responsables des changements qui sont en lien avec ces stimuli. Objectifs et hypothèses: Les principaux objectifs de cette étude sont de caractériser les effets de stimuli externes sur la neurogenèse et, par le fait même, d’élucider les mécanismes sous-jacents aux changements observés. En utilisant le modèle d’activité physique volontaire sur roue, cette étude teste les deux hypothèses suivantes: tout d’abord 1) qu’une période prolongée d’activité physique peut influencer la neurogenèse adulte dans le prosencéphale et l’hippocampe, et 2) que l’activité volontaire sur roue peut favoriser la neurogenèse à travers des stimuli dépendants ou indépendants de la course. Méthodes: Afin de valider la première hypothèse, nous avons utilisé un paradigme incluant une activité physique volontaire prolongée sur une durée de six semaines, ainsi que des analyses immunohistochimiques permettant de caractériser l’activité de précurseurs neuronaux dans la zone sous-ventriculaire et l’hippocampe. Ensuite, pour valider la seconde hypothèse, nous avons utlisé une version modifiée du paradigme ci-dessous, en plaçant les animaux (souris) soit dans des cages traditionnelles, soit dans des cages munies d’une roue bloquée soit dans des cages munies d’une roue fonctionnelle. Résultats: En accord avec la première hypothèse, l’activité physique prolongée volontaire a augmenté la prolifération des précurseurs neuronaux ainsi que la neurogenèse dans le gyrus dentelé de l’hippocampe comparativement aux animaux témoins, confirmant les résultats d’études antérieures. Par ailleurs, dans ce paradigme, nous avons aussi observé de la prolifération acrue au sein de la zone sous-ventriculaire du prosencéphale. De plus, en accord avec la seconde hypothèse, les souris placées dans une cage à roue bloquée ont montré une augmentation de la prolifération des précurseurs neuronaux dans l’hippocampe comparable à celle observée chez les souris ayant accès à une roue fonctionnelle (coureurs). Cependant, seuls les animaux coureurs ont présenté une augmentation de la neurogenèse hippocampale. Conclusions: Ces résultats nous ont permis de tirer deux conclusions nouvelles concernant les effets de l’activité physique (course) sur la neurogenèse. Premièrement, en plus de la prolifération et de la neurogenèse dans le gyrus dentelé de l’hippocampe, la prolifération dans la zone sous-ventriculaire du prosencéphale peut être augmentée par l’activité physique sur roue. Deuxièmement, l’environnement dans lequel l’activité physique a lieu contient différents stimuli qui peuvent influencer certains aspects de la neurogenèse hippocampale en l’absence d’activité physique sur roue (course).