bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Method for analysing of wind power wave nature based on kernel density estimation
Authors: Luo Hongmei , Zhou Yi , Pei Lijie , Xu Hao , Fan Dongqi , Tang Yida , Gao Jianing , Liu Jiachen
Published: March 2024

It is beneficial for improving the accuracy of wind power output prediction by analysing and mastering the inherent laws of the fluctuation characteristics of wind power output, guiding the power grid dispatching department to reasonably arrange power generation plans, and improving the economic efficiency of system operation. In order to characterize the probability density distribution of wind power output fluctuation, two adaptive bandwidth kernel density estimation models are established by correcting the fixed bandwidth obtained from the empirical method and unbiased cross-validation method respectively, and then the two models are combined and optimized, and ultimately, the probability density distribution model of wind power output fluctuation based on Hybrid Adaptive Kernel Density Estimation (HAKDE) is established. A variety of probability density distribution models are used to fit the wind power output fluctuations at different spatial and temporal scales in a province in North China, and the example results show that the hybrid adaptive kernel density estimation model has the best fitting effect, thus verifying the effectiveness of the hybrid adaptive kernel density estimation model.
An improved resonant DC link inverter with a simple structure
Authors: Xia Wen , Jia Xiaodong , Song Jiaxiang
Published: March 2024

To further streamline the architecture of the resonant DC link inverter, this article shows an improved resonant DC link inverter with straightforward architecture. There is no oscillating capacitor on the main tubes. Part of the resonant current during resonance is detached from the main tubes. The soft-switching action of all the tubes of this topology can be effectuated by using a set of resonant cavities, and its topology is simple. It has main tubes for ZVS movement and auxiliary tubes for ZCS movement. Also, the circuit has a controllable zero voltage notch duration. The article will elaborate on the operating scheme of the circuit. Eventually, the simulation outcomes are given to validate the effectiveness of the circuit.
Research on simultaneous switch and multiple switch processing methods
Authors: Su Yinsheng , Ma Qian , Yao Haicheng , Shao Lei , Yao Shujun
Published: March 2024

In the simulation of complex power electronic equipment containing multiple power electronic switches, it is often encountered that the same switch occurs several times in one step, or there are multiple switch actions in one step, that is, multiple switches. When the switching event occurs between two moments, because the voltage value can only be updated at the end of the simulation step, there is a cumulative error in the current obtained by the integration. In traditional electromagnetic transient simulation, the interpolation algorithm and its deformation are commonly used to solve this problem. However, due to the complexity of the conventional interpolation algorithm, it will seriously affect the efficiency in large-scale power grid simulation, and can only be applied to offline simulation, which cannot meet the needs of real-time simulation. In this paper, a method is presented to deal with synchronous switches and multiple switches, which can reliably solve the problem of synchronous switches and multiple switches encountered in real-time simulation of complex power electronic systems.
Coordinated DC voltage control strategy for the receiving end hybrid LCC-VSC system
Authors: Zhou Yi , Luo Hongmei , Xu Hao , Xie Yan , Fan Dongqi , Li Zaihua , Tang Yida , Gao Jianing , Liu Jiachen
Published: March 2024

The receiving end hybrid line commutated converter (LCC) — voltage source converter (VSC) system has the obstacle that when an AC fault occurs at the sending LCC side, the DC voltage of the rectifier side will fall, resulting in the power transmission reduction of the whole system. Particularly, when the rectifier side DC voltage falls below the inverter side DC voltage, the power transmission is interrupted, posing a huge threat to the stability of the power grid at both the sending and receiving ends. To tackle these problems, a coordinated DC voltage control strategy for the receiving end is proposed. By controlling the DC voltage of the receiving VSC, the proposed method can improve the DC system power transmission capability when voltage drops at the sending side. The proposed control strategy is simple but practical, which is good for the stable and secure operation of both the sending and the receiving power system.
Error state prediction of capacitor voltage transformer based on TimesNet and gate control unit
Authors: Wang Shoukun , Song Zhen , Yang Lin , Dai Rui , Wang Weiguang , Zhang Wenting , Zhang Zhilong , Ge Chunmeng
Published: March 2024

The stability and reliability of the error state of capacitor voltage transformer (CVT) are poor, which affects the fairness of electricity trade settlement and the safe operation level of power grid. However, the CVT error data is superimposed by different periodic information such as daily period, monthly period and quarterly period, which makes the prediction of transformer error state challenging. In this paper, a CVT error state prediction method based on TimesNet and gate control unit (GRU) is proposed. The TimesNet network is employed to capture the intraperiod-variation and interperiod-variation characteristics of the ratio difference data of a-phase, b-phase and c-phase, and the feature data and GRU model are employed to predict the output. The simulation results demonstrate that the mean square error (MSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) of the proposed model are 0.0002 and 0.0101, respectively, indicating that this model has lower prediction error and higher prediction accuracy.
A fault location method for distribution network feeder terminal based on SABSO algorithm
Authors: Wang Pengfei , Ruan Xiaofei , She Lizhen
Published: March 2024

With the increasingly prominent problem of faults at the end of distribution network feeders, a fault area localization method based on simulated annealing Tianniu swarm optimization (SABSO) algorithm is proposed to address the shortcomings of traditional fault localization methods. This method achieves rapid and accurate location of fault areas by collecting and analyzing fault information at the end of the distribution network feeder. The experimental results show that this method has higher accuracy and can accurately locate the fault area at the end of the distribution network feeder, providing strong support for the safe and stable operation of the distribution network.
Optimized scheduling of energy-transport coupling systems considering uncertain traffic flow
Authors: Hou Yongkang , Xu Xu
Published: March 2024

To address energy and nature-related issues, the development of new energy vehicles has been rapid in recent years, gradually replacing traditional vehicles. This paper specifically focuses on the uncertainty of traffic flow for new energy vehicles within the transport system. We analyze the consequence of output from various equipment units in the energy system and their optimized scheduling. We construct an optimization scheduling model for integrating the electric-gas network and the transportation network, known as the energy-transport coupling system (ETCS). By incorporating the uncertainty of traffic flow and utilizing a data-driven approach to generate a set of uncertain traffic flow, we conduct a case study using an improved ETCS consisting of an IEEE-33 node distribution network, a 7-node natural gas network, and a 12-node transportation network to validate the scheduling method. The results demonstrate that the uncertainty of traffic flow does indeed affect the output of equipment units in the ETCS. Furthermore, through optimized scheduling, we can achieve positive interactions between different systems.
Construction of short-term electricity demand streaming forecasting model in demand-side dynamic response
Authors: Li Jie , Wu Yiming , He Yong , Wei Hang
Published: March 2024

In the context of demand-side dynamic response, the electricity supply-demand relationship undergoes constant changes, and short-term electricity load exhibits strong randomness and volatility, making load conditions challenging to predict. Hence, this paper proposes a short-term electricity demand streaming forecasting model that combines wavelet decomposition with Random Forest to enhance the accuracy of short-term electricity load forecasting. This model establishes a load feature system, utilizing a three-scale wavelet decomposition algorithm to break down the load sequence into several sub-sequences of different frequency bands. Subsequently, Random Forest load forecasting models are separately established for these sub-sequences. The final load prediction is obtained through reconstruction. This approach enables quasi-real-time short-term forecasting analysis of demand-side electricity demand.
Power system topological node tamper detection method based on fuzzy graph theory
Authors: Tan Huijuan , Guo Wenxin , Li Shiming , Zheng Wenjie , Li Qian
Published: March 2024

Power system involves a large number of nodes and lines, and the topology is very complex. In such a complex network, node tamper detection needs to consider a variety of combinations and connection modes, which increases the complexity of the problem. Therefore, a new method of topological node tamper detection based on fuzzy graph theory is proposed. The feature difference values of topological nodes are extracted according to the node tampering feature vector. Detection of topological node similarity based on fuzzy graph-neural network. Based on this, the cost function of topological node tampering is established to obtain the Bayesian estimate of the tampering coefficient of the topological node transmission channel, and the detection of topological node tampering is completed. The experimental results show that the application time of the research method is shorter, the detection of power node tampering behavior is more comprehensive, and the tampering success rate is higher.
Research on multiple calibration methods for measuring error of indicator value of withstand voltage tester
Authors: Liu Xiaoze , Sui Jiarui , Qin Yuewei , Han Bo , Guo Linlang
Published: March 2024

Voltage resistance testing often needs to be carried out under specific environmental conditions, such as high pressure and high temperature. These complex environments may interfere with the test equipment and calibration process, thus affecting the accuracy of calibration results. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that the tester can adapt to various environmental conditions and make calibration adjustments accordingly. Therefore, a multi-calibration method based on the BP neural network is proposed to calibrate the error of the indicator value of the voltage tester. The power input and output characteristic function of the withstand voltage tester is established, and the output of each layer is described as the input of the BP neural network. Based on the adjustment results, multiple calibration steps for the measuring error of the voltage tester are designed. The experimental results show that the method can calibrate the measuring error of the voltage tester at different positions at the same time, and the application effect is good.
Monolithic HV-CMOS sensors for a beam monitoring system of therapeutic ion beams
Authors: Topko B. , Balzer M. , Dierlamm A. , Ehrler F. , Husemann U. , Koppenhöfer R. , Perić I. , Pittermann M. , Naumann J.
Published: March 2024

Nowadays, cancer treatment with ion beam is well established and studied. This method allows to deposit the maximum dose to the tumor and minimize the damage to healthy tissue, due to the Bragg peak of the ion energy deposition near the end of the particle range. During the treatment, it is possible to provide volumetric dose delivery by changing the particle energy (penetration depth) and adjusting the beam position via a magnetic system. For the beam monitoring system, the precise measurement of the beam direction, shape and fluence in real time becomes crucial to provide effective and safe dose delivery to the tumor. Additionally, the system should work for beam intensities up to 1010 s-1 for protons, be tolerant to 1 MeV neutron equivalent fluences up to 1015 cm-2 per year and be to tolerant to magnetic fields (for MR-guided ion beam).

The studies presented in this article are focused on the application of the HitPix sensor family with counting electronics and frame-based readout for such a beam monitoring system. The HitPix sensors are monolithic pixelated silicon sensors based on HV-CMOS technology and have been developed at the ASIC and Detector Lab (ADL, KIT). Recent measurements with ion beams and a multi-sensor readout as well as future developments are discussed.
Imaging performance of wide-field X-ray Transient Localization Experiment onboard microsatellite KOYOH
Authors: Sawano T. , Suzuki T. , Yonetoku D. , Arimoto M. , Yoshida T. , Mihara T. , Takahashi N.
Published: March 2024

We designed a flight model of the wide field X-ray imager on board the microsat
KOYOH, referred to as T-LEX, and investigated its imaging performance
through laboratory beam tests. T-LEX employs the coded mask method, wherein
the aperture pattern of the mask was selected and fabricated from 50,000 patterns
using a Monte Carlo approach. Utilizing the obtained mask along with a silicon
strip detector, we examined the angular response by varying the incident
angle with a stage during X-ray irradiation. The resulting angular response
exhibited deviations from the design values, yet it confirmed that the targeted
position accuracy of 15 arcminutes is maintained across a range from -20deg to
+20deg with the best fit calibrated model.
Metal wire embrittlement monitoring by the measurement of wire oscillation frequency
Authors: Arutunian S.G. , Harutyunyan G.S. , Lazarev L.M. , Margaryan A.V. , Manukyan N.M. , Lazareva E.G. , Mirzoyan G.V. , Gevorgyan R.S. , Chung M. , Korzhik M.V.
Published: March 2024

In the process of irradiation of materials by fluxes of heavy particles (protons, neutrons, alpha particles), damage to material structure is often observed. As a result of the accumulation of such damages, there is a subsequent change in the properties of materials, in particular, its embrittlement and hardening. Monitoring of the embrittlement process is important for nuclear reactor vessels exposed to high neutron fluxes. In this work, to observe the effect of heavy irradiation particles on the mechanical properties of metals, we propose to use vibrating wire resonators, in which the natural frequency of oscillations of the wire strongly depends on its tension. The change in the elastic characteristics of the wire alters the value of the natural frequency of wire oscillations. The natural oscillations are generated by a special circuit. Preliminary experiments to study the embrittlement effect of a stretched wire are performed by heating the wire with an electric current. In the case of short pulses, a significant increase in frequency is achieved, which is explained by the process of hardening of the material as a result of the thermal impact on the wire (rapid heating and cooling).
An insight into potential phosphate bioremediation and renewable energy from agricultural waste via integrated wastewater treatment systems in Indonesia
Authors: Asih Devi R , Handayani Windri , Ananda Alyssa Z , Yuniati Ratna , Hirota Ryuichi , Summerfield Tina C , Eaton-Rye Julian J
Published: March 2024

Indonesia is renowned as an agricultural powerhouse, ranking first globally in oil palm production. This prominence in agriculture leads to the consistent generation of agro-industrial waste, notably Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME). Effectively addressing these waste concerns is important due to their adverse impacts on aquatic ecosystems and the nation’s health and economy. Anthropogenic wastewater with excessive phosphorus content can trigger eutrophication and toxic algal blooms, posing environmental risks and potentially precipitating a future clean water crisis. Thus, a comprehensive approach is necessary to restore the environment and biogeochemical cycles. Treatment efforts involving bioremediation agents aim to recycle organic and inorganic pollutants in the environment. Photosynthetic organisms like plants and microalgae serve as effective bioremediation agents, capable of absorbing excess phosphorus. They can utilize phosphate as an energy source to boost biomass. Integrating these bioremediation agents with bioengineering technology optimizes the treatment efficacy while simultaneously producing valuable biomass for products and bioenergy. This review article explores photosynthetic organisms’ multifunctional role as phosphorus bioremediation agents for wastewater treatment, minimizing environmental pollutant impacts, and providing biomass for fertilizers, polymers, bioplastics, and renewable energy. Furthermore, this study unveils opportunities for future technological advancements in this field.
Real-space multiple-scattering approach to the van der Waals interaction
Authors: Rehr J J , Kas J J
Published: March 2024

The van der Waals (vdW) interaction between non-overlapping systems arises from long-range correlations in electronic systems due to the attraction between their coupled density fluctuations. Here we present a treatment based on a generalized real-space multiple-scattering approach which is applicable to both spherical and non-spherical geometries. The method is tested for the vdW interactions between two isolated atoms.
A critical review on biomaterials using powder metallurgy method
Authors: Abraham Adarsh Mathew , Venkatesan S
Published: March 2024

Implants play a vital role in a person’s life because losing any body part to function less actively, which makes the sufferer uncomfortable. Implants should be both biocompatible and non-toxic to the body is essential to achieve its biocompatibility nature. To create orthopaedic, dental, and surgical implants, biomaterials were divided into three categories: metallic, polymeric, and ceramic. Materials based on polymers indicate their degree of adaptability in terms of sutures, medication delivery, etc. Ceramic materials are known for their high compressive strength and inert behaviour, which combine aesthetic qualities. Metallic biomaterials are enhanced by their high strength and resistance to fracture. One of the most promising techniques for improving a material’s mechanical qualities is powder metallurgy. Powder metallurgy involves blending of powders, compaction of blended powder, sintering and mechanical test. Samples with varying compact pressures, sintering temperatures, and sintering times were created using the powder metallurgy process. The aim of the research work is to get the concept of powder metallurgy, biomaterials commercially available for orthopaedic and dental applications, properties of biomaterial and methods to fabricate the material effectively.
High-resolution, open-source modeling of inland flooding impacts on the North Carolina bulk electric power grid
Authors: Prieto-Miranda Luis , Kern Jordan D
Published: March 2024

Although damages to local distribution systems from wind and fallen trees are typically responsible for the largest fraction of electricity outages during hurricanes, outages caused by flooding of electrical substations pose a unique risk. Electrical substations are a key component of electric power systems, and in some areas, the loss of a single substation can cause widespread power outages. Before repairing damaged substations, utilities must first allow floodwaters to recede, potentially leaving some customers without power for weeks following storms. As economic losses from flooding continue to increase in the U.S., there has been increasing attention paid to the potential impacts of flooding on power systems. Yet, this attention has mostly been limited to geospatial risk assessments that identify what assets are in the path of flooding. Here, we present the first major attempt to understand how flooding from hurricanes and other extreme precipitation events affects the dynamic behavior of power networks, including losses of demand and generation, and altered power flows through transmission lines. We use North Carolina, hit by major hurricanes in three of the past seven years, as a test case. Using open-source data of grid infrastructure, we develop a high-resolution direct current optimal power flow model that simulates electricity production and generators and power flows through a network consisting of 662 nodes and 790 lines. We then simulate grid operations during the historical (2018) storm Hurricane Florence. Time series of flooding depth at a discrete set of ‘high water’ mark points from the storm are used to spatially interpolate flooding depth across the footprint area of the storms on an hourly basis. Outages of substations and solar farms due to flooding are translated to location-specific losses of demand and solar power production throughout the network. We perform sensitivity analysis to explore grid impacts as a function of the height of sensitive equipment at substations. Results shed light on the potential for localized impacts from flooding to have wider impacts throughout the grid (including in areas not affected by flooding), with performance tracked in terms of transmission line flows/congestion, generation outputs, and customer outages.
Personality Disorder: A Contested and Evolving Construct
Authors: O'Loughlin Ailbhe
Published: March 2024

This chapter analyses the scientific, ethical, and legal debates surrounding the psychiatric construct of personality disorder. It sets the scene for the examination in subsequent chapters of attempts in England and Wales to address the legal and policy problems posed by ‘dangerous’ offenders and ‘difficult’ patients or prisoners. It shows that personality disorder should be regarded as a risk factor for offending rather than a cause, and that current risk assessment technologies cannot yet accurately identify which individuals in a high-risk group will go on to offend. As a result, policies of preventive detention may be expected to result in the over-use of detention. While there is a growing consensus that personality disorder is not necessarily untreatable, there is a continuing lack of robust evidence for the effectiveness of current treatments for antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy. This casts doubt on the idea that access to rehabilitative interventions will limit the use of preventive detention powers. While some jurisdictions have confined the use of mental health law powers to patients with treatable mental illnesses, the UK Government continues to resist calls to introduce stronger safeguards against the long-term detention of people who are unlikely to benefit from treatment. This approach is questionable in light of the principles governing mental health law developed by the European Court of Human Rights.
The Pilot DSPD Programme
Authors: O'Loughlin Ailbhe
Published: March 2024

This chapter examines what happened when a policy that was devised to strike a ‘balance’ between the rights of ‘dangerous people with severe personality disorder’ and those of the public encountered the realities of the prison and secure hospital systems. It investigates whether the pilot Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) Programme lived up to the high expectations of its originators, and the allied question of whether it could have been expected to do so in view of a long history of unsuccessful attempts to tackle seemingly intractable problems. It demonstrates that the sticky labels of dangerousness and personality disorder can impede movement though systems designed to enable prisoners or patients to engage with rehabilitation as a precondition of release. Requiring them to demonstrate change and regarding their efforts to make progress with suspicion creates a double bind from which it is very difficult to escape. The evidence from the DSPD Programme further shows that participation in treatment could cause harm to individuals. Participation could also generate a risk of disproportionate punishment by increasing the length of a prisoner’s detention and imposing greater hard treatment by requiring them to participate in psychological interventions in a coercive environment.
Citizen Science and Crowd Science
Authors: Poetz Marion K. , Sauermann Henry
Published: March 2024

Citizen science and crowd science (CS) projects involve members of the public who participate in response to an open call and who can perform a broad range of research tasks. Scholars using the citizen science lens focus on the fact that many participants do not have formal scientific training, while scholars using the crowd science lens emphasize that participants are often recruited through an open call. CS projects have resulted in large-scale data sets, novel discoveries, and top-tier publications (i.e., scientific impact), but they can also have large societal and practical impacts by increasing the relevance of research or accomplishing other objectives such as science education and building awareness. The diverse landscape of CS projects reflects five underlying paradigms that capture different rationales for involving crowds and that require different organizational setups: crowd volume, broadcast search, user crowds, community production, and crowd wisdom. Within each CS project, the breadth of crowd involvement can be mapped along stages of the research process (e.g., formulating research questions, designing methods, collecting data). Within each stage, the depth of crowd involvement can be mapped with respect to four general types of contributions: activities, knowledge, resources, and decisions. Common challenges of CS projects relate to recruiting and engaging participants, organizational design, resource requirements, and ensuring the quality of contributions. Opportunities for future research include research on the costs and boundary conditions of CS as well as systematic assessments of different aspects of performance and how they relate to project characteristics. Future research should also investigate the role of artificial intelligence both as worker who can take over tasks from crowd members and as manager who can help organize CS activities.
Internationalization Processes
Authors: Welch Catherine , Liesch Peter W.
Published: March 2024

The Uppsala internationalization process (IP) model is one of the few long-standing developments in the international business (IB) field to have maintained pre-eminence into the early 21st century. Scholars at Uppsala University were early proponents of research on firm internationalization processes, advancing a model that defined the “Uppsala School” in IB. The attention that the model has received is justified, attesting to its continued relevance since it was first proposed in the 1970s. While welcomed, this attention has, however, not succeeded in capturing the theoretical essence of this model and its potential in further developing IP theory.

The consequence of this failure in the IB field is profound, as the full promise of research on the internationalizing firm, as well as the firm’s expansion into markets overseas, is yet to be realized. It can be asked, What then is the Uppsala IP model? Answering this question requires addressing common misconceptions about the model that have circulated for decades. These misconceptions continue to circulate, constraining theorizing on this topic. Dispelling these misconceptions and specifying what the IP model is provides the IB field fresh insights into what it could be when developed further in the future.
Cyberterrorism
Authors: Bastug Mehmet F. , Onat Ismail
Published: March 2024

Many real-world crimes have long been transformed into cyberspace, and terrorism is no different. Cyberspace is becoming a new battleground where different rules, strategies, and tactics apply. Cyberterrorism is a form of terrorism that can briefly be described as a form of terrorism that takes place in the cyberspace. However, there has not been a consensus among experts and scholars regarding what exactly constitutes cyberterrorism. In its pure form, cyberterrorism refers to politically or ideologically motivated cyberattacks to coerce or intimidate governments or societies that result in violence, severe economic damage, or significant fear among the public. In a broad sense, it may also incorporate terrorist use of cyberspace, including online information and communication technologies, in furtherance of terrorist objectives. Various taxonomies of cyberterrorism have been developed in the literature, most of which distinguish the terrorist use of the Internet from terrorism in which cyberspace becomes a weapon or a target. The lack of a unified understanding of cyberterrorism hinders the development of effective strategies to prevent or mitigate cyberterrorist activities.
Crossmodal Plasticity, Sensory Experience, and Cognition
Authors: Vinogradova Valeria , Cardin Velia
Published: March 2024

Crossmodal plasticity occurs when sensory regions of the brain adapt to process sensory inputs from different modalities. This is seen in cases of congenital and early deafness and blindness, where, in the absence of their typical inputs, auditory and visual cortices respond to other sensory information. Crossmodal plasticity in deaf and blind individuals impacts several cognitive processes, including working memory, attention, switching, numerical cognition, and language. Crossmodal plasticity in cognitive domains demonstrates that brain function and cognition are shaped by the interplay between structural connectivity, computational capacities, and early sensory experience.
Tibetan Exiles in India
Authors: Gupta Sonika
Published: March 2024

Since 1959, after the flight of the Dalai Lama from Tibet, thousands of Tibetans have lived in protracted exile in India. India hosts the largest number of Tibetan exiles in the world and is also the seat of the Central Tibetan Administration (formerly known as the Tibetan Government in Exile) and the Tibetan Parliament in Exile. The Indian government has made a long-term commitment to Tibetan rehabilitation by setting up tens of designated Tibetan settlements in different parts of the country. These settlements are grouped into agricultural, handcraft-based, and cluster communities. While there has been definite economic and educational progress for the exile community in India, Tibetans continue to be stateless. Since 2000, there has been increased migration from Tibetan settlements in India to North America, Europe, and Australia as people search for a more stable legal status and better life opportunities. The Tibetan settlements in India, with their network of monasteries, schools, and other cultural institutions, remain the primary site of the Tibetan struggle for the homeland that is focused on the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet under conditions of genuine autonomy. Therefore, sustaining these settlements is becoming a critical issue for the Central Tibetan Administration. As the Tibetan struggle for its homeland reaches its seventh decade in exile, it is undergoing parallel processes of institutionalized democratization and political fragmentation along regional and other lines.
The Second Intermediate Period
Authors: Candelora Danielle
Published: March 2024

The Second Intermediate Period of ancient Egypt was the second of three eras of political fragmentation in pharaonic history, traditionally spanning from approximately 1773 to 1550 bce. It encompasses the late 13th–17th dynasties of Egypt, which ruled semi-contemporaneously from several different political centers. The beginning of the era was a continuation of the proceeding unified period, the Middle Kingdom, and was also marked by the increased influx of immigrants from Southwest Asia, the Eastern Desert, and Nubia. At the height of the Second Intermediate Period, a dynasty of foreign kings known as the Hyksos (Dynasty 15) ruled the north of Egypt from Avaris, modern Tell el Dabʿa, in the Eastern Delta, while a native Egyptian dynasty ruled from Thebes (Dynasty 17). These Theban kings began a war to expel the Hyksos from Egypt, formally ending this period and ushering in the New Kingdom. Although this period has long been characterized as one of decline and crisis, it actually featured an unprecedented level of innovation and regionalism, not least of all due to the impact of immigrants on Egyptian society and culture.
History of Nigeria
Authors: Heaton Matthew M.
Published: March 2024

The region of West Africa currently delineated by the boundaries of the independent country of Nigeria has a long, rich, and complex history exhibiting dramatic political, economic, social, and cultural change over time. Archaeological evidence of indigenous communities dates back to at least 8000 bce. Early states and societies took a variety of different forms and developed significant interaction among each other and through long-distance trade networks in the savannahs and coastal regions. The 19th century saw the encroachment of British colonialism, which ultimately produced the territory of Nigeria in 1914. Nigeria achieved independence in 1960, but the country has been beset by significant political instability and economic underdevelopment. As a result, the process of developing a national historical narrative has been complex and contested in a country whose borders were largely established by alien colonial rulers and that has since been beset by a variety of internal divisions with differing relationships to Nigeria as a corporate entity. This complexity is reflected in the dynamics of Nigerian historiography and the primary source bases upon which historical scholarship has relied.
Africa and Its Diasporas under Slavery
Authors: Hawthorne Walter
Published: March 2024

Diasporas result when people from the same place, real or imagined, migrate to another place, settle together, and produce new generations. African diasporas before 1900 resulted from forced migrations, spurred by the trade in enslaved people from the continent into the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, Red Sea, and across the Sahara Desert. The identities that Africans in diasporas professed and cultures that they created and recreated differed across time and space. Among the things that shaped African diasporic cultures were the nature of linkages to African homelands and the political, economic, religious, and social structures of the broader societies in which African diasporas were situated. These and other factors meant that African diasporas in Indian Ocean societies were very different from those in Atlantic Ocean societies. Generally, over time enslaved Africans in diaspora around the Indian Ocean sought to become part of broader cosmopolitan communities and did not associate themselves with an African homeland. Enslaved Africans in diaspora around the Atlantic Ocean built communities that were apart from those of their enslavers and identified with African homelands. However, in some periods, societies with slaves in the Americas offered opportunities for enslaved people to become part of dominant institutions, and some enslaved people could take advantage of those opportunities to forge new lives for themselves and others. Everywhere African diasporas formed, those people who composed them shaped local and global histories in ways that are evident today.
Slavery and the Making of West African Muslim Empires in the 19th Century
Authors: Naylor Paul
Published: March 2024

The various Muslim theocratic states that emerged in West Africa over the 18th and 19th centuries (including Sokoto, Masina, and, later, the Umarian state) came to power in a series of conflicts, or jihads, against political systems in which slavery preexisted as the basic system of labor extraction and population control and in which slaves were the medium of exchange in wider Atlantic and trans-Saharan economic networks. The conflicts promised emancipation for Muslims enslaved in these systems but also involved the capture and enslavement of large numbers of people. The economic and political rationales for mass enslavement remained. However, for the first time they were framed within a written, Islamic discursive tradition, circulated by the leaders of the jihads. These texts enforced a new policy of enslavement that drew upon Islamic legal traditions but, for the most part, recycled preexisting arrangements of slave raiding in non-Muslim areas. Over time, what emerged were societies in which slavery was essential to the growth, functions, and reproduction of state power and in which slave labor of various kinds fueled the majority of economic, political, and social activity. Because of the multidimensional uses of slavery, the institution continued well into the European colonial period and continues to inform social dynamics in the early 21st century.
International Law, Technology, and Gender-Based Violence
Authors: Rigotti Carlotta
Published: March 2024

Although information and communication technologies (ICTs) and artificial intelligence (AI) offer a unique opportunity to help personal autonomy flourish and promote diversity in society, their deployment has increasingly proved to channel new harm. Generally speaking, online and technology-facilitated violence comes to mean any abusive act that is committed, facilitated, or amplified via ICTs and other AI-based technologies. Also, it appears that this abuse is gender-based and intersectional, is experienced as a continuum of offline violence, and negatively affects the individual, as well as society. Accordingly, because online and technology-facilitated violence is borderless, and the same rights that people have offline must likewise be respected online, the international community has started undertaking some joint action. This is the case, for example, of the Platform of Independent Expert Mechanisms on the Elimination of Discrimination and Violence Against Women, as well as the European Commission and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. At the same time, a growing body of diverse literature suggests several courses of action for the international response to online and technology-facilitated violence against women. More precisely, greater effort is considered to be necessary to fill the terminological and data gaps that counteract the effectiveness of legal, policy, and other measures addressing online and technology-facilitated violence against women. Furthermore, numerous scholars make concrete and/or original suggestions that could facilitate the prevention and support of victims of online and technology-facilitated violence, such as the engagement of pop feminism in social media campaigns and the adoption of bystander intervention models. In terms of legal reform, there is common agreement that it should keep up with the continuous development of technology and the personal experiences of the victims, while going beyond the mere criminalization of the wrongdoings. Special emphasis is also put on the necessary regulation and engagement with internet platforms, to strengthen the legal and policy responses, as well as to hold them accountable.
Energy-Efficient Particle Accelerators for Research
Authors: Seidel M.
Published: March 2024

Particle accelerators are the drivers for large-scale research infrastructures for particle physics but also for many branches of condensed matter research. The types of accelerator-driven research infrastructures include particle colliders, neutron, muon or neutrino sources, synchrotron light sources and free-electron lasers, as well as medical applications. These facilities are often large and complex and have a significant carbon footprint, both in construction and operation. In all facilities grid power is converted to beam power and ultimately to the desired type of radiation for research. The energy efficiency of this conversion process can be optimized using efficient technologies, but also with optimal concepts for entire facilities.
Calorie Counting
Authors: Mackert Nina
Published: March 2024

[This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Food Studies. Please check back later for the full article.]

In the 21st century, calorie counts are ubiquitous in weight-loss advice, but historically they are a fairly recent phenomenon. In the late 19th century, a transatlantic coalition of researchers and reformers began to understand food as energy for human motors that could help to optimize human and social productivity, even on a global scale.

It was not until the early 20th century that calorie counting was introduced into weight-loss diets. This contributed to the emergence of fat shaming by suggesting that an individual’s excess body weight was the direct and causal result of eating more than their caloric needs, placing the responsibility for their body and health in the hands of that individual. Recent diagnoses of “the death of the calorie” confirm that the history of the calorie is a political one, in that they perpetuate the calorie’s legacy of framing weight loss as a capability of self-governing citizens.
Fat
Authors: Chellappoo Azita
Published: March 2024

[This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Food Studies. Please check back later for the full article.]

Research into the social and cultural dimensions of body size has been rapidly growing, including within the interdisciplinary field of fat studies. Fat studies scholars contest and critique mainstream ideas about body size or weight, including the view that “obesity” is fundamentally pathological or inherently unhealthy, or that individuals can control their body size. Researchers have also challenged negative stereotypes and highlighted the harms of moralizing and stigmatizing discourses about larger bodies. Research within this area often draws upon ideas produced within fat liberation activist movements, including rejecting the term “obesity” as overly medicalizing and pathologizing, and instead reclaiming “fat” and “fatness” as neutral descriptors.

Research has identified and characterized the pervasiveness of anti-fatness (weight stigma, or anti-fat discrimination) within and across societies. Anti-fatness has interpersonal and structural dimensions, both of which can have far-reaching effects on fat people’s lives, including effects on health outcomes. Scholars have traced the historical emergence of anti-fatness, the connection between anti-fatness and racial hierarchy, and the ways in which anti-fatness contributes to the moralization of food and the prevalence of dieting practices. Additionally, policies and clinical guidelines developed to address the “obesity epidemic,” such as calorie labeling and the use of body mass index (BMI), have been a target of critical examination. Researchers have suggested that these interventions can function as potentially harmful practices of control and surveillance that reinforce anti-fat attitudes and structures. Similarly, frameworks and understandings of food environments, food justice, and health have been evaluated in terms of the ways in which these discourses can continue to problematize fat bodies and contribute to discrimination or marginalization.

There has been increasing recognition of the harms of anti-fatness in fields such as public health, which has led to attempts to move away from stigmatizing language and interventions, and to reject placing responsibility on individuals. However, these attempts have been criticized for continuing to medicalize and pathologize fatness, and therefore continuing to perpetuate harm. As the language and policies around “obesity” or fatness shift, in part driven by the introduction of novel weight-loss interventions such as Ozempic, research into social attitudes toward fatness and the experiences of people with larger bodies continues to evolve.
Indentured Servitude in Colonial America
Authors: Suranyi Anna
Published: March 2024

Indentured servitude was a constitutive factor in the development of colonial America and helped shape patterns of immigration, labor relationships, citizenship, and the economy of the colonies. During the 16th through the 18th centuries, about 320,000 indentured servants, primarily from England but also from Scotland, Ireland, and elsewhere, crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the British colonies in the Americas, making up about 80 percent of white immigrants. About three-quarters of them were male, a quarter were female, and approximately a tenth were children. Most indentured servants were impoverished individuals, aged 18 to 25, who had agreed to a term of four to seven years of servitude with a payment of “freedom dues” at the end, but some were shipped or “transported” overseas involuntarily by the government, as vagrants or to serve criminal sentences, or were trafficked into servitude by kidnappers. Even those servants who had nominally agreed to indentured servitude had little understanding of what awaited them on the North American continent, because the indenture relationship gave their masters and mistresses much greater control over servants’ lives than employers had in Britain. Once indentured servants began their term of labor, many found themselves in abusive situations, with women and children particularly vulnerable to mistreatment. However, their circumstances were better than that of enslaved people of African ancestry, as a consequence of the limited duration of indentured servitude as opposed to lifelong enslavement and because indentured servants possessed legally and culturally defined rights as members of British society that were unavailable to the enslaved, including guidelines regulating their terms of labor, protections against abuses, and the ability to sue in court if mistreatment occurred. After servitude was completed, indentured servants were expected to join colonial society, and while many remained in dire poverty, some prospered.
Latin American Feminisms
Authors: Olcott Jocelyn
Published: March 2024

Latin American feminisms have roots stretching back to before the independence period and have, since arriving on the intellectual scene in the late 19th century, reflected diverse contexts and with distinct strategies and objectives. While the earliest uses of the term feminism emerged from debates over liberalism, with its universalist imaginaries, these early challenges to patriarchal authority promptly generated multiple feminisms alongside movements that engage feminist ideas but eschew the label. Over the past 150 years, these fractures along lines of class, race, culture, and location have both challenged and revitalized feminist campaigns for social, cultural, and political change. Throughout, Latin America has remained a particularly dynamic region for feminist activism, leading the way on the world stage to draw attention to issues such as human rights, maternalist politics, and decoloniality. While Latin American feminism, in the singular, continues to defy any tidy definition or description, Latin American feminisms, in their multiplicity, have consistently fostered creative and effective challenges to patriarchy, particularly in the areas of legal rights, reproductive justice, freedom from violence, and recognition of subsistence labors.