Voices of Occupiers/Liberators: The BBC's Radio Propaganda in Italy between 1942 and 1945

The ambiguity of the role played by British propaganda in Italy during the Second World War is clearly reflected in the phenomenon of Radio London. While Radio London raised the morale of the Italian civilians living under the Fascist regime and provided them with alternative information on the conflict, the microphones of the BBC were also used by the British government to address a country they were planning to occupy. In this article, I will analyse the occupation/liberation operations that were run at the BBC Italian Service from two separate angles. On the one hand, the analysis of the programmes broadcast between the months preceding the Allies’ landing in Sicily and the actual occupation shows how the Allies built their image as liberators and guarantors of better living conditions. On the other, the analysis of the relationships between the Foreign Office and the anti-Fascist exiles reveals that the Italian BBC broadcasters were not always allowed to freely express their political opinion or to dispose of their own lives.

Advanced functionality for radio analysis in the Offline software framework of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The advent of the Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) necessitates the development of a powerful framework for the analysis of radio measurements of cosmic ray air showers. As AERA performs ""radio-hybrid"" measurements of air shower radio emission in coincidence with the surface particle detectors and fluorescence telescopes of the Pierre Auger Observatory, the radio analysis functionality had to be incorporated in the existing hybrid analysis solutions for fluorescence and surface detector data. This goal has been achieved in a natural way by extending the existing Auger Offline software framework with radio functionality. In this article, we lay out the design, highlights and features of the radio extension implemented in the Auger Offline framework. Its functionality has achieved a high degree of sophistication and offers advanced features such as vectorial reconstruction of the electric field, advanced signal processing algorithms, a transparent and efficient handling of FFTs, a very detailed simulation of detector effects, and the read-in of multiple data formats including data from various radio simulation codes. The source code of this radio functionality can be made available to interested parties on request. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The role of media networks in compensating political biases: evidence from radio networks in Brazil

A central question in political economy is how to incentivize elected socials to allocate resources to those that need them the most. Research has shown that, while electoral incentives lead central governments to transfer fewer funds to non-aligned constituencies, media presence is instrumental in promoting a better allocation of resources. This study evaluates how these two phenomena interact by analyzing the role of media in compensating political biases. In particular, we analyze how media presence, connectivity and ownership affect the distribution of federal drought relief transfers to Brazilian municipalities. We find that municipalities that are not aligned with the federal government have a lower probability of receiving funds conditional on experiencing low precipitation. However, we show that the presence of radio stations compensates for this bias. This effect is driven by municipalities that have radio stations connected to a regional network rather than by the presence of local radio stations. In addition, the effect of network-connected radio stations increases with their network coverage. These findings suggests that the connection of a radio station to a network is important because it increases the salience of disasters, making it harder for the federal government to ignore non-allies. We show that our findings are not explained by the ownership and manipulation of media by politicians.

Investigation of flat spectrum radio sources by the interplanetary scintillation method at 111 MHz

Abstract. Interplanetary scintillation observations of 48 of the 55 Augusto et al. (1998) flat spectrum radio sources were carried out at 111 MHz using the interplanetary scintillation method on the Large Phased Array (LPA) in Russia. Due to the large size of the LPA beam (1◦ × 0.5◦) a careful inspection of all possible confusion sources was made using extant large radio surveys: 37 of the 48 sources are not confused. We were able to estimate the scintillating flux densities of 13 sources, getting upper limits for the remaining 35. Gathering more or improving extant VLBI data on these sources might significantly improve our results. This proof-of-concept project tells us that compact (<1 ) flat spectrum radio sources show strong enough scintillations at 111 MHz to establish/constrain their spectra (low-frequency end). Key words. galaxies: general – galaxies: active – galaxies: quasars: general

Multilayer optimization in radio resource allocation for the packet transmission in wireless networks

In the last decade mobile wireless communications have witnessed an explosive growth in the user’s penetration rate and their widespread deployment around the globe. It is expected that this tendency will continue to increase with the convergence of fixed Internet wired networks with mobile ones and with the evolution to the full IP architecture paradigm. Therefore mobile wireless communications will be of paramount importance on the development of the information society of the near future. In particular a research topic of particular relevance in telecommunications nowadays is related to the design and implementation of mobile communication systems of 4th generation. 4G networks will be characterized by the support of multiple radio access technologies in a core network fully compliant with the Internet Protocol (all IP paradigm). Such networks will sustain the stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements and the expected high data rates from the type of multimedia applications to be available in the near future. The approach followed in the design and implementation of the mobile wireless networks of current generation (2G and 3G) has been the stratification of the architecture into a communication protocol model composed by a set of layers, in which each one encompasses some set of functionalities. In such protocol layered model, communications is only allowed between adjacent layers and through specific interface service points. This modular concept eases the implementation of new functionalities as the behaviour of each layer in the protocol stack is not affected by the others. However, the fact that lower layers in the protocol stack model do not utilize information available from upper layers, and vice versa, downgrades the performance achieved. This is particularly relevant if multiple antenna systems, in a MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) configuration, are implemented. MIMO schemes introduce another degree of freedom for radio resource allocation: the space domain. Contrary to the time and frequency domains, radio resources mapped into the spatial domain cannot be assumed as completely orthogonal, due to the amount of interference resulting from users transmitting in the same frequency sub-channel and/or time slots but in different spatial beams. Therefore, the availability of information regarding the state of radio resources, from lower to upper layers, is of fundamental importance in the prosecution of the levels of QoS expected from those multimedia applications. In order to match applications requirements and the constraints of the mobile radio channel, in the last few years researches have proposed a new paradigm for the layered architecture for communications: the cross-layer design framework. In a general way, the cross-layer design paradigm refers to a protocol design in which the dependence between protocol layers is actively exploited, by breaking out the stringent rules which restrict the communication only between adjacent layers in the original reference model, and allowing direct interaction among different layers of the stack. An efficient management of the set of available radio resources demand for the implementation of efficient and low complexity packet schedulers which prioritize user’s transmissions according to inputs provided from lower as well as upper layers in the protocol stack, fully compliant with the cross-layer design paradigm. Specifically, efficiently designed packet schedulers for 4G networks should result in the maximization of the capacity available, through the consideration of the limitations imposed by the mobile radio channel and comply with the set of QoS requirements from the application layer. IEEE 802.16e standard, also named as Mobile WiMAX, seems to comply with the specifications of 4G mobile networks. The scalable architecture, low cost implementation and high data throughput, enable efficient data multiplexing and low data latency, which are attributes essential to enable broadband data services. Also, the connection oriented approach of Its medium access layer is fully compliant with the quality of service demands from such applications. Therefore, Mobile WiMAX seems to be a promising 4G mobile wireless networks candidate. In this thesis it is proposed the investigation, design and implementation of packet scheduling algorithms for the efficient management of the set of available radio resources, in time, frequency and spatial domains of the Mobile WiMAX networks. The proposed algorithms combine input metrics from physical layer and QoS requirements from upper layers, according to the crosslayer design paradigm. Proposed schedulers are evaluated by means of system level simulations, conducted in a system level simulation platform implementing the physical and medium access control layers of the IEEE802.16e standard.

Hydro(radio)chemical relationships in the giant Guarani aquifer, Brazil

This investigation was carried out within the Parana sedimentary basin and involved the sampling of 78 pumped tubular wells for evaluating the hydrochemistry and radioactivity due to the nuclides (238)U, (234)U, (222)Ra, (226)Ra, and (228)Ra in the Brazilian part of Guarani aquifer. Several significant correlations were found involving the geostatic pressure, for instance, specific flow rate, CO(3)(2-), SO(4)(2-) temperature, dissolved O(2), free CO(2), pH, redox potential Eh, conductivity, Na, HCO(3)-, CO(3)(2-) , SI(calcite), Cl(-), F(-), SO(4)(2-), and B. Carbonates precipitation was evidenced by inverse correlation between CO(3)(2-) and Ca, Mg, Sr, and Ba, whereas Na exhibited an opposite trend, dissolving rather than precipitating with increasing CO(3)(2-) concentration. An inverse correlation between 3 and K was found, possibly related to the increasing tendency of K to recombine with the thickness of the clayey layers. HCO(3)-played an important role on Na, Ca, Mg, and Sr dissolution. The dissolved U content and (234)U/(238)U activity ratio data were plotted on a two-dimensional diagram that was successfully utilized on identifying an unreported zone of U accumulation, though not necessarily of economic size and grade. The variability in chemical and radionuclides data indicated an important influence of the underlying Paleozoic sediments in the composition of waters from Guarani aquifer. The available data allowed estimate the groundwater residence time by two U-isotopes disequilibrium methods. Values of 45-61 ka were initially calculated, depending on the adopted porosity (15-20%), but a longer residence time (- 640 ka) was also estimated, which is more compatible with the hydraulic conductivity data in Guarani aquifer and groundwater flow velocity occurring at Milk River aquifer, Alberta, Canada. Such time range agrees with previously reported (14)C ages exceeding 30 ka BP at the more central parts of the Parana sedimentary basin. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Radio luminescence properties of decaoctahedral BaZrO3

Radioluminescence (RL) emissions were obtained for the BaZrO3 self-assembled nanocrystals under decaoctahedral shape, if produced via microwave-assisted hydrothermal method. Trapped F centers created within the band gap are the result of order-disorder effects, which act as key factors supporting significant RL emission through a detrapping process. The influences of size and morphology on RL properties are take into account. No radiation damage or loss of emission intensity was observed. (C) 2010 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.