Topology design of three-dimensional structures using hybrid finite elements

Conventional three-dimensional isoparametric elements are susceptible to problems of locking when used to model plate/shell geometries or when the meshes are distorted etc. Hybrid elements that are based on a two-field variational formulation are immune to most of these problems, and hence can be used to efficiently model both "chunky" three-dimensional and plate/shell type structures. Thus, only one type of element can be used to model "all" types of structures, and also allows us to use a standard dual algorithm for carrying out the topology optimization of the structure. We also address the issue of manufacturability of the designs.

The Hybrid Consumer: Exploring the Drivers of a New Consumer Behaviour Type

A dramatically different consumption pattern seems to be emerging among a vast group of consumers. This may mean that conventional consumer stereotypes and segmentation theory are becoming outdated. The so called hybrid consumers seem to increasingly opt for both premium and budget alternatives in various product and service categories while mid-priced alternatives are losing share in their consumption basket. Although this type of polarisation, or dispersion, is already recognized as an important change, hybrid behaviour is still largely under-researched. The present study aims to analyze the possible drivers of hybrid consumption and by identifying typical categories and situations of trading up versus trading down derive tentative characteristics of hybrid consumption for further research on the topic. A tentative pattern of hybrid consumption was identified, which relates trading up to high-involvement, discretional spending and trading down to low-involvement necessities. However, it was also found that hybrid consumption transcends product category boundaries and may thus be less straightforward than previously perhaps assumed. In addition, a purchase pattern continuum was developed, accounting for various degrees of hybrid consumption.

Chemical Aspects of the Synergistic Hypergolic Ignition in Hybrid Systems with N2O4 as Oxidizer

Synergistic hypergolic ignition with nitrogen tetroxide ( N2O4) as oxidizer has been observed in hybrid systems comprising of a mixture of magnesium and Schiff bases as fuels. The ignition delays (IDs) measured using a modified device, have been compared with those of magnesium-Schiff base-WFNA systems under identical conditions. The ID has been found to vary with the nature of the substitution in both the benzene rings. A linear relationship emerges when the ignition delays are plotted against the Hammett substitution constants (σ). The preignition products of the reaction of N2O4 with magnesium and benzylidineaniline have been analysed to be Mg(NO3)2, benzenediazonium salt and benzaldehyde. Based on the preignition products isolated, a probable reaction mechanism has been proposed. The previously proposed preignition mechanism for the Schiff base-magnesium-WFNA system has been further supported from the present ignition delay data.

Which Narrative? The Case of the Narrative Subject in Fifteenth-Century Altarpieces

The development of the altarpiece towards the end of the late medieval period added a new decorous and conspicuously visual element to the church interior. The altarpiece became the prime location for iconic – i.e. non-narrative – images, but almost from the beginning narrative images were part of the altarpiece in the form of small-scale pictures placed underneath or next to an iconic image in the centre. In the fifteenth century the format of the altarpiece gradually changed, and simultaneously with the development of the unified picture field some new narrative subjects began to appear on the central panel as the main subject of the altarpiece. During the course of the fifteenth century, narrative subjects became increasingly frequent and accepted subjects for altarpieces. In this article I will focus on the problem of the narrative altarpiece, a seeming contradiction of terms. As narrative subjects were transferred from their usual location to the central field of the altarpiece, traditionally reserved for the iconic image, the narrative was included in a new context and expected to assume the function of the altarpiece. How did a narrative image function in this context, and what kind of audience did it serve? Since the questions involved in the issue are complex, I will focus on the biblical narrative of The Visitation as a case study, and use two well-known Florentine altarpieces from the fifteenth century as examples of the interpretative choices open to the viewers of these altarpieces.

The Narrative Turn in the French Novel of the 1970s

The most important French literary movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the nouveau roman, radically questioned the idea of the novel as storytelling, claiming that narratives create a false illusion of the world’s intelligibility. However, in the 1970s storytelling finds its way back into the French novel – a shift that has been characterized as the “return of the narrative”. In my article, I argue that the “narrative turn” in the French novel of the 1970s can be seen as a turn towards a fundamentally hermeneutic view of the narrative mediatedness of our relation to the world. From a hermeneutic perspective, the nouveaux romanciers – insofar as they reject the narrative in order to disclose the discontinuous, fragmentary and chaotic nature of reality – hang onto the positivistic idea that “real” is only that which is independent of human meaning-giving processes. By contrast, the hermeneutists, such as Paul Ricoeur, consider also the human experience of the world to be real, and largely narrative in form. This view is shared by the principal novelists associated with the narrative turn, such as Michel Tournier to whom man is a “mythological animal”. However, after the nouveau roman , narratives have lost their innocence: they no longer appear as “natural” but are conscious of their own narrativity, historicity, and the way they represent only one possible – inevitably ethically and politically charged – perspective into reality. By making storytelling thematic and by telling “counter-stories” that question prevailing models of sense-making, Tournier and other “new storytellers” strive to promote critical reflection on the stories on the basis of which we orient to the world and narrate our lives – both as individuals and as communities.

Towards a Conceptual History of Narrative

The article outlines a conceptual history of narrative, in particular the changes over the movement called “narrative turn” in the social sciences. According to Quentin Skinner, conceptual changes may take place on three separate levels: by changing the criteria of the concept, by changing the range of reference, and by changing the appraisal of the concept. Recent theorizing on narrative epitomizes all of these levels, but unevenly. In spite of the rhetoric of interdisciplinarity, two almost totally separate traditions of narrative theory persist: the narratological and the narrative-turn theories. Paradoxically, the narrative turn literature has radicalized the range of reference of narrative by attaching the concept to life and identity, but has left the criteria of the concept practically intact. This has extended the reign of a simplified Aristotelian concept of narrative as a chain of beginnings, middles, and ends. The narratological tradition of theorizing, instead, has debated extensively on the correct criteria of the concept, but enlarged the range of reference rather in the direction of cognition.

Narratives of Travel and the Travelling Concept of Narrative: Genre Blending and the Art of Transformation

In this article I shall argue that understandings of what constitutes narrative, how it functions, and the contexts in which it applies have broadened in line with cultural, social and intellectual trends which have seen a blurring, if not the dissolution, of boundaries between ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’; ‘literary’ and ‘non-literary’ narrative spaces; history and story; concepts of time and space, text and image, teller and tale, representation and reality.To illustrate some of the ways in which the concept of narrative has travelled across disciplinary and generic boundaries, I shall look at The Art of Travel (de Botton 2003), with a view to demonstrating how the blending of genres works to produce a narrative that is at once personal and philosophical; visual and verbal; didactic and poetic. I shall show that such a text constitutes a site of interrogation of concepts of narrative, even as it depends on the reader’s ability to narrativize experience.

On the Epistemology of Narrative Theory: Narratology and Other Theories of Fictional Narrative

In this article, I propose to analyze narrative theory from an epistemological standpoint. To do so, I will draw upon both Genettian narratology and what I would call, following Shigeyuki Kuroda, “non-communicational” theories of fictional narrative. In spite of their very unequal popularity, I consider these theories as objective, or, in other words, as debatable and ripe for rational analyses; one can choose between them. The article is made up of three parts. The first part concerns the object of narrative theory, or the narrative as a constructed object, both in narratology (where narrative is likened to a narrative discourse) and in non-communicational narrative theories (where fictional narrative and discourse are mutually exclusive categories). The second part takes up the question of how the claims of these theories do or do not lend themselves to falsification. In particular, Gérard Genette’s claim that “every narrative is, explicitly or not, ‘in the first person’”, will be considered, through the lens of Ann Banfield’s theory of free indirect style. In the third part the reductionism of narrative theory will be dealt with. This leads to a reflection on the role of narrative theory in the analysis of fictional narratives.

Concepts of Narrative

Transposed to media like film, drama, opera, music, and the visual arts, “narrative” is no longer characterized by either temporality or an act of telling, both required by earlier narratological theories. Transposed to other disciplines, “narrative” is often a substitute for “assumption”, “hypothesis”, a disguised ideological stance, a cognitive scheme, and even life itself. The potential for broadening the concept lay dormant in narratology, both in the double use of “narrative” for the medium-free fabula and for the medium-bound sjuzet, and in changing interpretations of “event”. Some advantages of the broad use of “narrative” are an evocation of commonalities among media and disciplines, an invitation to re-think the term within the originating discipline, a constructivist challenge to positivistic and foundational views, an emphasis on a plurality of competing “truths”, and an empowerment of minority voices. Conversely, disadvantages of the broad use are an illusion of sameness whenever the term is used and the obliteration of specificity. In a Wittgensteinian spirit, the essay agrees that concepts of narrative are mutually related by “family resemblance”, but wishes to probe the resemblances further. It thus postulates two necessary features: double temporality and a transmitting (or mediating) agency, and an additional cluster of variable optional characteristics. When the necessary features are not dominant, the configuration may have “narrative elements” but is not “a narrative”.

Narrative, Memory and the Crisis of Mimesis: the Case of Adam Elsheimer and Giordano Bruno

The triangular space between memory, narrative and pictorial representation is the terrain on which this article is developed. Taking the art of memory developed by Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600) and the art of painting subtly revolutionised by Adam Elsheimer (1578 – 1610) as test-cases, it is shown how both subvert the norms of mimesis and narration prevalent throughout the Renaissance, how disrupted memory creates “incoherent” narratives, and how perspective and the notion of “place” are questioned in a corollary way. Two paintings by Elsheimer are analysed and shown to include, in spite of their supposed “realism”, numerous incoherencies, aporias and strange elements – often overlooked. Thus, they do not conform to two of the basic rules governing both the classical art of memory and the humanist art of painting: well-defined places and the exhaustive translatability of words into images (and vice-versa). In the work of Bruno, both his philosophical claims and the literary devices he uses are analysed as hints for a similar (and contemporaneous) undermining of conventions about the transparency and immediacy of representation.

A hybrid electrochemical-thermal method for the preparation of large ZnO nanoparticles

A simple and efficient two-step hybrid electrochemical-thermal route was developed for the synthesis of large quantity of ZnO nanoparticles using aqueous sodium bicarbonate electrolyte and sacrificial Zn anode and cathode in an undivided cell under galvanostatic mode at room temperature. The bath concentration and current density were varied from 30 to 120 mmol and 0.05 to 1.5 A/dm(2). The electrochemically generated precursor was calcined for an hour at different range of temperature from 140 to 600 A degrees C. The calcined samples were characterized by XRD, SEM/EDX, TEM, TG-DTA, FT-IR, and UV-Vis spectral methods. Rietveld refinement of X-ray data indicates that the calcined compound exhibits hexagonal (Wurtzite) structure with space group of P63mc (No. 186). The crystallite sizes were in the range of 22-75 nm based on Debye-Scherrer equation. The TEM results reveal that the particle sizes were in the order of 30-40 nm. The blue shift was noticed in UV-Vis absorption spectra, the band gaps were found to be 5.40-5.11 eV. Scanning electron micrographs suggest that all the samples were randomly oriented granular morphology.

Monietnisten ihmisten etninen identiteetti suomalaisessa viitekehyksessä : kosmopoliittisuutta, monikulttuurisuutta ja itsensä etsimistä

The purpose of this thesis was to understand the experiences of the multiethnic people in Finland. This study explored the different aspects of the ethnic identity development process. Thesis was done in two phases. First phase studied the question of how is the ethnic identity developed in Finnish context and what aspects had affected their ethnic identity process. The second phase explored questions as what kind of ethnic identity form the multiethnic people have in Finland and do they have developed cosmopolitan global identities. The aim of this qualitative study was not to empirically measure or define the multiethnic identity, but to open new perspectives of the life and experiences through narrative research. Intention of this thesis was to give voice to small stories of the minority people that are so often shadowed by the big stories of the male of the majority. The first phase of this study included narratives from four multiethnic women. The narratives answered to questions who am I and where do I come from. The second phase data collection was made with narrative forms to 12 self-identified multiethnic persons. The multiethnic people were from three backgrounds: ones with parents from different ethnic backgrounds, Finnish who had lived long time abroad and people from non-Finnish backgraound who had lived in Finland for a long time. The analyzing was made by analyzing the narratives with content analysis that based on the theory of the multiethnic people and by narrative analyzing where short narratives were created of each person. In conclusion the multiethnic identity was found to be a continuous process that lasted through lifetime. Different aspects affected the identification process, including family dynamics, social mirroring and belonging. The variety of different ethnic options in multiethnic person identity process, lacking family support for the both ethnic identities and the feeling of otherness experienced by the multiethnic people in Finland cause additional challenges to the ethnic identity process and results in some cases cultural homelessness. On the other hand the variety of cultural contexts brings flexibility to negotiate between different cultures and languages resulting to positive hybrid identity for some of the multiethnic people. Hybrid identity was sub grouped to cosmopolitan identity and multicultural identity.

Synthesis, Structure, and Solid-State Transformation Studies of Phosphonoacetate Based Hybrid Compounds of Uranium and Thorium

Three new phosphonoacetate hybrid frameworks based on the actinide elements uranium and thorium have been synthesized. The compounds [C4N2H14][(UO2)(2)(O3PCH2COO)(2)]center dot H2O, I,[C4N2H14][(UO2)(2)(C2O4)(O3PCH2COOH)(2)], II, and Th(H2O)(2)(O3PCH2COO)(C2O4)(0.5). H2O, III, are built up from the connectivity between the metal polyhedra and the phosphonoacetate/oxalate units. Compound II has been prepared using a solvent-free approach, by a solid state reaction at 150 degrees C. It has been shown that II can also be prepared through a room temperature mechanochemical (grinding) route. The layer arrangement in III closely resembles to that observed in I. The compounds have been characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, IR spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and fluorescence studies.

Photoluminescence spectroscopy and lifetime measurements from self-assembled semiconductor-metal nanoparticle hybrid arrays

We present results of photoluminescence spectroscopy and lifetime measurements on thin film hybrid arrays of semiconductor quantum dots and metal nanoparticles embedded in a block copolymer template. The intensity of emission as well as the measured lifetime would be controlled by varying the volume fraction and location of gold nanoparticles in the matrix. We demonstrate the ability to both enhance and quench the luminescence in the hybrids as compared to the quantum dot array films while simultaneously engineering large reduction in luminescence lifetime with incorporation of gold nanoparticles. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3483162].