Electrochemical properties and applications of ionic liquids

This book presents the latest research in electrochemical properties and applications of ionic liquids. While there is no universally agreed upon definition, an ionic liquid may be conveniently described as a compound composed entirely of ions that is a liquid at temperatures less than 100 °C. However, this is an arbitrary definition employed to distinguish ionic liquids from classically well-known molten salts. This book addresses a comprehensive overview of the area, because it is obvious that ionic liquids have the ability to offer many advantages, but also some disadvantages, over traditional molecular solvent (electrolyte) media in the field of electrochemistry.

Electrospun nanofibres

This book deals with an emerging nanofibre-making technology, electrospinning, the functionalities of electrospun nanofibres and their wound healing application. An important fundamental issue, fibre morphological evolution during electrospinning, is clarified. Effective techniques to improve the fibre toughness and control the surface wettability of nanofibre membrane have been developed. These functional nanofibre membranes have been used as dressing materials for healing skin wounds, and shown promising results. This work makes electrospun nanofibre membrane an ideal candidate for wound healing application.

Construction of wavelets and multiwavelets basis : a generalized method

Multiwavelets are wavelets with multiplicity r, that is r scaling functions and r wavelets, which define multiresolution analysis similar to scalar wavelets. They are advantageous over scalar wavelets since they simultaneously posse symmetry and orthogonality. In this work, a new method for constructing multiwavelets with any approximation order is presented. The method involves the derivation of a matrix equation for the desired approximation order. The condition for approximation order is similar to the conditions in the scalar case. Generalized left eigenvectors give the combinations of scaling functions required to reconstruct the desired spline or super function. The method is demonstrated by constructing a specific class of symmetric and non-symmetric multiwavelets with different approximation orders, which include Geranimo-Hardin-Massopust (GHM), Daubechies and Alperts like multi-wavelets, as parameterized solutions. All multi-wavelets constructed in this work, posses the good properties of orthogonality, approximation order and short support.

Stereo vision and wavelets/multiwavelets analysis : 3d reconstruction using wavelets/multiwavelets theory and stereo vision

During the image formation process of the camera, explicit 3D information about the scene or objects in the scene are lost. Therefore, 3D structure or depth information has to be inferred implicitly from the 2D intensity images. This problem is com- monly referred to as 3D reconstruction. In this work a complete 3D reconstruction algorithm is presented, capable of reconstructing dimensionally accurate 3D models of the objects, based on stereo vision and multi-resolution analysis. The developed system uses a reference depth model of the objects under observation to improve the disparity maps, estimated. Only a few features are extracted from that reference model, which are the relative location of the discontinuities and the z-dimensional extremes of objects depth. The maximum error deviation of the estimated depth along the surfaces is less than 0.5mm and along the discontinuities is less than 1.5mm. The developed system is invariant to illuminative variations, and orientation, location and scaling of the objects under consideration, which makes the developed system highly robust.

Automatic rule induction in Arabic to English machine translation framework

This chapter addresses the exploitation of a supervised machine learning technique to automatically induce Arabic-to-English transfer rules from chunks of parallel aligned linguistic resources. The induced structural transfer rules encode the linguistic translation knowledge for converting an Arabic syntactic structure into a target English syntactic structure. These rules are going to be an integral part of an Arabic-English transfer-based machine translation. Nevertheless, a novel morphological rule induction method is employed for learning Arabic morphological rules that are applied in our Arabic morphological analyzer. To demonstrate the capability of the automated rule induction technique, we conducted rule-based translation experiments that use induced rules from a relatively small data set. The translation quality of the hybrid translation experiments achieved good results in terms of WER.

Global education: travel and new imaginaries for teachers' work

This book confirms that globalisation is reshaping educators’ work and lives towards a more global education. Understanding how teachers make meaning from and respond to travel revealed aspects of knowledge creation and identity formation. Set within contexts of globalisation, the study investigated global education through analysis of changing definitions and meanings by taking an historical stance. Teachers revealed that their study tour created new knowledge, teaching pedagogies and greater awareness of stereotypes both held and disclosed from students. The practices and thinking described by participants were consistent with calls for greater cosmopolitan teaching. A collection of ‘travel’ stories written by the author are included. The book sheds light on how teachers embed global imaginaries in their teaching. This in turn builds understanding around how globalisation is reshaping local contexts and individuals’ thinking and being. The findings challenge global education as a discrete framework and suggest teachers’ experiences as influential on education now in a global world.

The occupiers' burden: tackling food shortage and related health problems in post-war Germany 1945-47

The end of the Second World War brought much relief to its combatants, but a range of problems remained that would plague post-war Europe for years to come. Chief among them was food shortage. The breakdown of agricultural systems, essential services, and the state itself laid fertile ground for food shortage to develop in parts of post-war Germany occupied by the victorious powers. There is much to be gained from comparing the occupiers’ responses to this Horseman of the Apocalypse. The most fruitful comparison lies between the Soviets and British. Unlike the Americans whose economic might in the post-war period allowed them to better feed and supply Germans living in their occupation zone, domestic economic weaknesses hamstrung both Soviet and British responses to the more severe advent of food shortage which confronted them. Their responses were very different—some successful, others not—but all instructive for understanding the impacts of natural and policy factors on the development of food shortage and the consequences to the health of the population. The variety of these impacts have been obscured by the absence of this comparison in the literature, which is now made more feasible by the greater availability of the extensive resources that each occupier devoted to recording food and health data, particularly in the Soviet case. The data is not only relevant to the occupation period from 1945 to 1949, as it suggests long-term health impacts on those most exposed to the risk of food shortage then, and most at risk to the consequences of malnutrition decades later. In fact, as the available data defines regional differences in food rations and, accordingly, comparative food shortages in Soviet and British occupation zones, the situation in post-war Germany provides an excellent platform for future research linking differences in early nutrition to adult health outcomes.

Seeing Sarah Bernhardt: performance and silent film

The most famous stage actress of the nineteenth century, Sarah Bernhardt enjoyed a surprising renaissance when the 1912 multi-reel film Queen Elizabeth brought her international acclaim. The triumph capped her already lengthy involvement with cinema while enabling the indefatigable actress to reinvent herself in an era of technological and generational change. Placing Bernhardt at the center of the industry's first two decades, Victoria Duckett challenges the perception of her as an anachronism unable to appreciate film's qualities. Instead, cinema's substitution of translated title cards for her melodic French deciphered Bernhardt for Anglo-American audiences. It also allowed the aging actress to appear in the kinds of longer dramas she could no longer physically sustain onstage. As Duckett shows, Bernhardt contributed far more than star quality. Her theatrical practice on film influenced how the young medium changed the visual and performing arts. Her promoting of experimentation, meanwhile, shaped the ways audiences looked at and understood early cinema.

Photochromic fabrics with improved optical performance

 Photochromism is a fascinating phenomenon which has attracted much commercial interest for applications including sunglasses, optical devices such as memories and switches, and security printing. Photochromic textile is an exciting new application due to its implications for fashion and UV protection. This book explores the phenomenon of photochromism, its application in textiles and ways of improving the performance and durability of photochromic fabrics.

A Resource Centric Approach For Advancing Collaboration Through Hydrologic Data And Model Sharing

HydroShare is an online, collaborative system being developed for open sharing of hydrologic data and models. The goal of HydroShare is to enable scientists to easily discover and access hydrologic data and models, retrieve them to their desktop or perform analyses in a distributed computing environment that may include grid, cloud or high performance computing model instances as necessary. Scientists may also publish outcomes (data, results or models) into HydroShare, using the system as a collaboration platform for sharing data, models and analyses. HydroShare is expanding the data sharing capability of the CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System by broadening the classes of data accommodated, creating new capability to share models and model components, and taking advantage of emerging social media functionality to enhance information about and collaboration around hydrologic data and models. One of the fundamental concepts in HydroShare is that of a Resource. All content is represented using a Resource Data Model that separates system and science metadata and has elements common to all resources as well as elements specific to the types of resources HydroShare will support. These will include different data types used in the hydrology community and models and workflows that require metadata on execution functionality. The HydroShare web interface and social media functions are being developed using the Drupal content management system. A geospatial visualization and analysis component enables searching, visualizing, and analyzing geographic datasets. The integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS) is being used to manage federated data content and perform rule-based background actions on data and model resources, including parsing to generate metadata catalog information and the execution of models and workflows. This presentation will introduce the HydroShare functionality developed to date, describe key elements of the Resource Data Model and outline the roadmap for future development.

Collaboration Is the New Black

Orange may be the new black, but as I have seen only five minutes of that show, I can’t really use it here. Besides, based on the five minutes I saw, I would assume it is a series written by males. Not since the Victoria’s Secret catalog have I seen so many women wearing fewer clothes, or engaging in so many unmentionable acts. I’ll stop there because my Victorianism is showing, I’m sure.

Caracterização de remanescentes de aglomerados abertos na galáxia

o presente trabalho busca ampliar o conhecimento das relações entre aglomerados abertos de estrelas e seus remanescentes. Do ponto de vista observacional, um remanescente pode ser definido como uma concentração pouco povoada de estrelas resultante da evolução dinâmica de um sistema inicialmente mais massivo. Apesar do avanços no conhecimento teórico a respeito desses objetos e, nos últimos anos, da busca pela identificação observacional dos mesmos ter aumep.tado, muitas questões permanecem em aberto. Assim, no presente estudo serão analisados 23 candidatos a remanescentes através de dados fotométricos, espectroscópicos e de movimentos próprios. Esses dados fornecem informações sobre os objetos e seus campos. Por meio destas, buscam-se estabelecer critérios de definição de remanescentes de aglomerados abertos, levando-se em conta incertezas observacionais. Os dados fotométricos no infravermelho oriundos do catálogo The Two Micron Ali sky Survey possibilitam, nesse estudo, (i) estudar as propriedades estruturais dos objetos por meio dos perfis de densidade radial de estrelas; (ii) testar a semelhanças entre objetos e campos através de um método estatístico de comparação entre distribuições de estrelas no plano do diagrama cor-magnitude e, (iii) obter idades, avermelhamentos e distâncias com o uso de diagramas cor-magnitude, além de distinguir os objetos em função de um índice de ajuste de isócronas. Os dados espectroscópicos obtidos através de observações óticas no Complejo Astronómico EI Leoncito (Argentina) fornecem para 12 objetos da amostra informações adicionais de avermelhamentos e idades. Os dados cinemáticos extraídos do The Second U. S. Naval Observatory CCD Astrograph Catalog permitem, por sua vez, uma comparação objetiva entre a distribuição de movimentos próprios dos objetos e campos próximos de grande ângulo sólido O emprego desses métodos complementares se mostra essencial no estudo em função da carência de dados completos para os candidatos a remanescentes. No que diz respeito à amostra, em geral não é possível afirmar individualmente qual objeto caracteriza-se de forma definitiva como um remanescente de aglomerado aberto devido à incompleteza dos dados, às incertezas observacionais e à baixa estatística. Entretanto, os métodos desenvolvidos permitem uma análise objetiva e sugerem a presença de remanescentes de aglomerados abertos na amostra. Além disso, há evidência da presença de binarismo, o que é esperado para sistemas evoluídos dinamicamente. Portanto, pode-se inferir sobre estágios evolutivos para remanescentes a partir das distribuições de movimento próprio de suas estrelas e de seu mapeamento no diagrama cor-magnitude.