Controversy Total War

Total war is a controversial term used in the past by politicians, publicists and military officers as well as by computer specialists and academics in the present. Since its conception by French politicians during the First World War in a time of severe crisis (1916/17), it has become a term used by historians and other academics to cover a wide array of elements when looking at wars of the past. A real total war was and is impossible. Elements of total war – total war aims, total methods of warfare, total mobilization and total control – can, however, be identified and can serve as a useful tool for further transnational research on war.

«…die Schweiz mobilisiert; der Weltkrieg ist da!»: Gedanken zu Historiographie und Narrativen vom «Grossen Krieg» zwischen 1914 und 2014

Auf dem Hintergrund der Tatsache, dass sich die Termine für Spezialisten der Geschichte des Ersten Weltkrieges im Jahr 2014 kaum mehr zählen lassen, versucht der vorliegende Vortrag danach zu fragen, wo die Wissenschaft und die Öffentlichkeit heute mit den Ereignissen der Jahre 1914-1918 umgehen, welche Perspektiven sich aufgetan haben, beziehungsweise sich hoffentlich in der Zeit, die kommen wird, noch auftun werden. Diese Perspektiven der Gegenwart sollen dabei mit der Historiographie und den Narrativen vom «Grossen Krieg» in den letzten 100 Jahren verknüpft werden.

Imperialismustheorien und Geschichte: Eine empirische Annäherung

For decades, if not centuries, the term imperialism has been used in manifold and ambivalent ways. Some historians, such as William Hancock, therefore shied away from using it in their texts, while others set up theories to explain as much as possible with regard to the European expansion into the non-European world – and in some cases even beyond. Taking the three cases of German colonial policy before 1890, the granting of “responsible government” to the so-called British dominions and the expansion of British power in South Asia from the mid-eighteenth century to 1914, this article seeks to show to what extent a knowledge of both older and more recent theories of imperialism can still be useful for empirical research in the humanities and the social sciences.

Prospective randomised comparison of diagnostic confidence and image quality with normal-dose and low-dose CT pulmonary angiography at various body weights.

OBJECTIVES To find a threshold body weight (BW) below 100 kg above which computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA) using reduced radiation and a reduced contrast material (CM) dose provides significantly impaired quality and diagnostic confidence compared with standard-dose CTPA. METHODS In this prospectively randomised study of 501 patients with suspected pulmonary embolism and BW <100 kg, 246 were allocated into the low-dose group (80 kVp, 75 ml CM) and 255 into the normal-dose group (100 kVp, 100 ml CM). Contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) in the pulmonary trunk was calculated. Two blinded chest radiologists independently evaluated subjective image quality and diagnostic confidence. Data were compared between the normal-dose and low-dose groups in five BW subgroups. RESULTS Vessel attenuation did not differ between the normal-dose and low-dose groups within each BW subgroup (P = 1.0). The CNR was higher with the normal-dose compared with the low-dose protocol (P < 0.006) in all BW subgroups except for the 90-99 kg subgroup (P = 0.812). Subjective image quality and diagnostic confidence did not differ between CT protocols in all subgroups (P between 0.960 and 1.0). CONCLUSIONS Subjective image quality and diagnostic confidence with 80 kVp CTPA is not different from normal-dose protocol in any BW group up to 100 kg. KEY POINTS • 80 kVp CTPA is safe in patients weighing <100 kg • Reduced radiation and iodine dose still provide high vessel attenuation • Image quality and diagnostic confidence with low-dose CTPA is good • Diagnostic confidence does not deteriorate in obese patients weighing <100 kg.

Search for new resonances in Wѵ and ℤѵ final states in pp collisions at √s=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This Letter presents a search for new resonances decaying to final states with a vector boson produced in association with a high transverse momentum photon, Vγ, with V=W(→ℓν)or Z(→ℓ+ℓ−), where ℓ =e or μ. The measurements use 20.3fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of √s=8TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector. No deviations from the Standard Model expectations are found, and production cross section limits are set at 95% confidence level. Masses of the hypothetical aT and ωT states of a benchmark Low Scale Technicolor model are excluded in the ranges [275, 960] GeVand [200, 700] ∪[750, 890] GeV, respectively. Limits at 95% confidence level on the production cross section of a singlet scalar resonance decaying to Zγ final states have also been obtained for masses below 1180 GeV.

Time variable Earth’s gravity field from SLR satellites

The time variable Earth’s gravity field contains information about the mass transport within the system Earth, i.e., the relationship between mass variations in the atmosphere, oceans, land hydrology, and ice sheets. For many years, satellite laser ranging (SLR) observations to geodetic satellites have provided valuable information of the low-degree coefficients of the Earth’s gravity field. Today, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission is the major source of information for the time variable field of a high spatial resolution. We recover the low-degree coefficients of the time variable Earth’s gravity field using SLR observations up to nine geodetic satellites: LAGEOS-1, LAGEOS-2, Starlette, Stella, AJISAI, LARES, Larets, BLITS, and Beacon-C. We estimate monthly gravity field coefficients up to degree and order 10/10 for the time span 2003–2013 and we compare the results with the GRACE-derived gravity field coefficients. We show that not only degree-2 gravity field coefficients can be well determined from SLR, but also other coefficients up to degree 10 using the combination of short 1-day arcs for low orbiting satellites and 10-day arcs for LAGEOS-1/2. In this way, LAGEOS-1/2 allow recovering zonal terms, which are associated with long-term satellite orbit perturbations, whereas the tesseral and sectorial terms benefit most from low orbiting satellites, whose orbit modeling deficiencies are minimized due to short 1-day arcs. The amplitudes of the annual signal in the low-degree gravity field coefficients derived from SLR agree with GRACE K-band results at a level of 77 %. This implies that SLR has a great potential to fill the gap between the current GRACE and the future GRACE Follow-On mission for recovering of the seasonal variations and secular trends of the longest wavelengths in gravity field, which are associated with the large-scale mass transport in the system Earth.

Modelling and Validation of a Mass Imbalance Oscillation Generator to Harvest Heart Motion Energy

An autonomous energy source within a human body is of key importance in the development of medical implants. This work deals with the modelling and the validation of an energy harvesting device which converts the myocardial contractions into electrical energy. The mechanism consists of a clockwork from a commercially available wrist watch. We developed a physical model which is able to predict the total amount of energy generated when applying an external excitation. For the validation of the model, a custom-made hexapod robot was used to accelerate the harvesting device along a given trajectory. We applied forward kinematics to determine the actual motion experienced by the harvesting device. The motion provides translational as well as rotational motion information for accurate simulations in three-dimensional space. The physical model could be successfully validated.