bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Black hole mass estimate in OJ 287 based on the bulk-motion comptonization model
Authors: Kuznetsov Sergey
Published: November 2024

The multiwavelength outburst activity in the BL Lacertae source OJ 287 has sparked a lot of controversy about whether the source contains one or two black holes (BHs) and what characteristics of this BH binary would be. In this article, we present the results of analysis of the X-ray flaring activity of OJ 287 using the data of Swift/XRT observations. We discovered that the energy spectra in all spectral states can be adequately fit with the XSPEC bulk-motion Comptonization (BMC) model. As a result, we found that the X-ray photon index of the BMC model, $\Gamma$ correlates with the mass accretion rate, $\dot{M}$. We found the photon index $\Gamma$ to increase monotonically with accretion rate $\dot{M}$ from $\Gamma \sim 2$ in the intermediate state (IS) to $\Gamma \sim 2.5$ the high/soft state (HSS) with subsequent saturation at $\Gamma \sim$ 2.6 level at higher luminosities. This type of behaviour of the spectral index is remarkably similar to the pattern observed in a number of established stellar-mass BH candidates. Assuming the universality of the observed pattern of the correlation between the photon index and mass accretion rate and using the well-studied stellar-mass binaries GX 339–4 and XTE J1859–226 to calibrate the model, we estimate a BH mass $\sim 2\times 10^8$ solar masses, which likely pertains to the secondary component of the BH binary in OJ 287.
BindingDB in 2024: a FAIR knowledgebase of protein-small molecule binding data
Authors: Liu Tiqing , Hwang Linda , Burley Stephen K , Nitsche Carmen I , Southan Christopher , Walters W Patrick , Gilson Michael K
Published: November 2024

BindingDB (bindingdb.org) is a public, web-accessible database of experimentally measured binding affinities between small molecules and proteins, which supports diverse applications including medicinal chemistry, biochemical pathway annotation, training of artificial intelligence models and computational chemistry methods development. This update reports significant growth and enhancements since our last review in 2016. Of note, the database now contains 2.9 million binding measurements spanning 1.3 million compounds and thousands of protein targets. This growth is largely attributable to our unique focus on curating data from US patents, which has yielded a substantial influx of novel binding data. Recent improvements include a remake of the website following responsive web design principles, enhanced search and filtering capabilities, new data download options and webservices and establishment of a long-term data archive replicated across dispersed sites. We also discuss BindingDB’s positioning relative to related resources, its open data sharing policies, insights gleaned from the dataset and plans for future growth and development.
Determination of urine volume and glomerular filtration rate using d-serine and d-asparagine
Authors: Tanaka Ryo , Sakai Shinsuke , Taniguchi Ayumu , Kawamura Masataka , Higa-Maegawa Yoko , Matsumura Soichi , Fukae Shota , Nakazawa Shigeaki , Kimura-Ohba Shihoko , Horio Masaru , Takahara Shiro , Imamura Ryoichi , Nonomura Norio , Mizui Masayuki , Isaka Yoshitaka , Kakuta Yoichi , Kimura Tomonori
Published: November 2024

Background

Measurement of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is subject to inaccurate urine collection. Clearances of d-serine and d-asparagine, rare enantiomers of amino acids, are the measures of GFR since they are almost free of tubular secretion and reabsorption. We hypothesize that d-serine and d-asparagine can accurately determine urine volume and GFR.

Methods

This cross-sectional observational study included 209 living kidney transplant donors and recipients for whom GFR was measured using the clearance of inulin. Assuming that urine excretions of d-serine and d-asparagine are constant and using urine levels of d-serine and d-asparagine from each urine collection, an equation for estimated urine volume (eUV) was established. Based on the eUV, the abnormal urine volume was replaced with an estimate with which the GFR was re-evaluated.

Result

Clearances of d-serine and d-asparagine were minor in proportional biases when compared with that of creatinine. Using 627 urine collections, the equation for eUV (mL/min) was established as 21.88/urine d-Ser(0.40 + 0.20 × log10(urine d-Asn)). Using eUV, we identified 20 instances where urine collection volumes varied significantly from the estimated values. After replacement with eUV, measured GFR (mGFR) was corrected to adjusted mGFR, which was within approximately 20 mL/min/1.73 m2 of the mGFR.

Conclusion

d-Serine and d-asparagine are nearly completely excreted in urine after glomerular filtration, enabling the estimation of urine volume and correct mGFR. Besides reflecting GFR, d-serine and d-asparagine can be used to estimate urine volume. By applying the eUV method, mGFR determined using clearance methods becomes more accurate.
LTBK-02. EVALUATION OF PAXALISIB IN GBM AGILE PHASE 3 REGISTRATION PLATFORM TRIAL FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED AND RECURRENT GLIOBLASTOMA
Authors: Mellinghoff Ingo K , Cloughesy Timothy , Alexander Brian , Berry Donald A , Buxton Meredith , Cavenee Webster , Colman Howard , de Groot John , Ellingson Benjamin M , Gordon Gary B , Lassman Andrew B , Lim Michael , Khasraw Mustafa , Perry James , Sulman Erik P , Weller Michael , Wen Patrick , Yung W K Alfred , Berry Nicholas , Graves Todd , Detry Michelle , Hyddmark E M Viktoria , Johnsson Adam , Kling Heather , McGlothlin Anna , Powell Ashley , Untch Sarah , Aquilanti Elisa , Blondin Nicholas , Boulmay Brian , de la Fuente Macarena , Drappatz Jan , Jordan Justin , Kaley Thomas J , Lobbous Mina , Mikkelsen Tom , Newton Herbert , Owen Scott , Peters Katherine , Schiff David , Sherman Wendy , Weathers Shiao-Pei , Youssef Michael , Friend John , Lee Eudocia
Published: November 2024

GBM AGILE(NCT03970447) is a phase 2/3 Bayesian adaptive registration platform trial testing multiple therapies against a common control. Paxalisib, a PI3K/mTOR inhibitor, is the 3rd arm in the trial to conclude evaluation.

METHODS

Paxalisib was open to patients with newly diagnosed unmethylated (NDU) and recurrent (RD) glioblastoma, with three possible signatures: NDU, RD, and All(NDU+RD). Arm enrollment occurred Dec2020 through May2022. Control patients were enrolled from study initiation (July2019) and were treated with temozolomide(NDU) or lomustine(RD). GBM AGILE investigational arms have 1 or 2 stages, with adaptive randomization in stage 1 and fixed randomization if arms continue to stage 2. Efficacy is based on OS hazard ratio(HR) of Arm/Control. Efficacy goal is final Bayesian probability ≥ 98% for HR<1.00 in combined Stages. An Arm continues to Stage 2 if Bayesian predictive power (PP) ≥ 0.8. An Arm stops accruing in Stage 1 if it reaches maximal sample size(N) or does not meet a minimum efficacy threshold (PP<0.25 for all signatures when N>50). Clinical cut-off is 12 months after accrual stops. The maximum N for paxalisib was approximately 150(Stage 1) and 50(Stage 2).

RESULTS

After paxalisib reached >150 patients in Stage 1, accrual stopped [Paxalisib/control N 54/75(NDU), 100/188(RD)]. Neither PP thresholds for moving to Stage 2 nor stopping for minimum efficacy were met. Following an unplanned public disclosure that the arm did not continue to stage 2, clinical cut-off for final analysis (planned May2023) was updated to public disclosure date (August2022). At final analysis mean HRs were 0.89(NDU), 1.25(RD), 1.05(All), probabilities of HR<1.00 of 0.72(NDU), 0.076(RD), 0.398(All). Model estimated median OS paxalisib/control (months) were 14.77/13.84(NDU) and 8.58/10.06(RD).

CONCLUSION

Paxalisib did not show survival benefit over cumulative control in final primary analysis; additional secondary analyses are being considered. GBM AGILE continues to rapidly and efficiently assess therapies in ND and RD glioblastoma.
Regional Planning Association of America
Authors: Ekman Peter
Published: November 2024

The Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA) was formed in 1923, appalled by what its members saw as the demonstrable failures of unregulated growth at both the congested centers and distended fringes of the urban United States. Over the ensuing two decades, the RPAA agitated for its vision of a properly planned settlement pattern—substantially dispersed and polycentric—in which the most ruinous consequences of advanced capitalism would be held at bay; agricultural landscapes would survive and thrive between compact but growth-limited cities; solidaristic forms of “community,” last enjoyed prior to the Industrial Revolution, would be reconstituted for an age of new technologies; and “life” itself would thereby be renewed. Its organization remained loose. At times the RPAA spoke in one voice, but its constituent members had complex intellectual lives, professional commitments, and opinions all their own. As a consequence, to study the RPAA involves striking a balance between the group’s core and many peripheries, its consistent principles and a range of endeavors pursued by one member or a subset of the core group—minimally, Lewis Mumford, Clarence Stein, Benton MacKaye, and Catherine Bauer. For scholars of urban studies, planning, architecture, geography, and adjacent fields, it also means dividing attention between the few tangible, localized instances in which the group built new neighborhoods from scratch—famously the Garden City experiments at Sunnyside, New York, and Radburn, New Jersey—and their broader project of diagnosis, conceptualization, and critique. Though difficult to categorize politically or philosophically, the RPAA remains an inescapable point of passage between Progressive Era approaches to planning and those dominant in the period following the Second World War, when widespread automobility and other technologies unmade American cities even more thoroughly than before. For urban observers ill at ease with prevailing styles of development, the RPAA’s work remains a perennial source of unrealized possibilities.
Early Christianity and Slavery
Authors: Bonar Chance E.
Published: November 2024

Slavery was a ubiquitous system of domination in the Roman world, with various permutations that impacted every corner of the Roman Empire. The New Testament and other early Christian literature were written within the historical, social, and literary realities of the Roman imperial world. Consequently, such literature is shaped by the ubiquity and treatment of enslaved people in the ancient Mediterranean and provides a small glimpse into the dynamic between enslavers and the enslaved. Academic interest in what the New Testament can tell us about Roman slavery became especially prominent in the mid-nineteenth century as Americans debated and warred over the legal right to enslave Black people. Particularly since the 1960s, due to the civil rights and Black Power movements, scholarly interest in slavery has been renewed, leading biblical and early Christian scholars to reexamine stereotypes of ancient Roman slavery as benign. Scholarship of the last few decades has especially moved away from exclusive focus on legal definitions and functions of enslavement which were prominent for much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, highlighting instead how enslaved people were so ubiquitous in the ancient Mediterranean world that their presence is often rendered invisible in our ancient literature, making it difficult to reconstruct the historical realities of their lives. We find in scholarship of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century a move toward viewing ancient literature on enslavement and enslaved people as literary products of the elite, rather than as transparent windows into the lives of the enslaved. Additionally, material culture has become important in recent decades in an attempt to write “history from below” and uncover enslaved life-practices and experiences beyond the limits of literary sources. Often what we find in New Testament literature are literary depictions of the enslaved that use them as examples to think with—such as in Jesus’ parables or Paul’s theological comparisons of Jews and Gentiles. We also find examples of the types of tasks enslaved people were expected to accomplish: doorkeepers, farmers, domestic workers, religious specialists, and more. Beyond those enslaved to humans, New Testament literature offers scholars with textual material in which Christians talk about being enslaved to non-human entities like God, Christ, or sin. Enslavement to non-humans has allowed for extensive debate regarding whether such enslavement is metaphorical or real in the minds of early Christians, and is a continued question for scholars of late ancient Christianity. Like with other geographic and temporal specializations in slavery studies, those who work in early Christian slavery studies explore whether Christianity has any particularly exceptional role in the history of abolition, what agency looked like for people enslaved to Christians, and how our textual material offers a biased view into the lives of the enslaved.
Community Forest Management
Authors: Lele Sharachchandra , Mokashi Shruti , Date Anuja , Joshi Atul
Published: November 2024

Historically, some form of local management of forests existed in many parts of the world in the precolonial era. Enclosures, invasions, colonization, or policies of postcolonial states led to the takeover of most of these forests and a breakdown in local or community management. Traditional forms of such community forestry are perhaps now present only in some parts of South America and Southeast Asia. However, since the 1980s, community forest management (CFM) has (re-)emerged as an important element of forest policy, especially in countries in the Global South, and this forms the focus of this review. CFM has taken many forms involving varying degrees of autonomy for communities and, conversely, state involvement (see General Overview). These variations emerge from the varying rationales for CFM, ranging from arguments from the common pool resource literature (see the Oxford Bibliographies article Common Pool Resources) such as administrative efficiency or conservation effectiveness to rights-based arguments that invoke human rights, rights of indigenous peoples, and democratic rights of local communities over their resources. This diversity, in turn, means that there are diverse definitions of what constitutes successful CFM and ways of measuring it (see subsection on Defining and Measuring Success). Explaining why CFM may succeed or fail is even more challenging and involves economic, institutional, and power-related factors (see section on Factors Influencing Outcomes). Gender discrimination is a particular power-laden process that affects CFM (see section on Gender and Community Forestry). The forms, outcomes, and explanations for CFM also vary enormously by region. Given this diversity and size of the literature, we provide a sampling of the literature from four countries or regions from the Global South (countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Mexico, Nepal, and India) where CFM has been extensive, and provide one section on North America and Europe as representing the Global North, where some pockets of CFM exist.
Blogs
Authors: Chu Donna
Published: November 2024

Blogs refers to websites that share certain common features. The basic unit of a blog is typically called a post or an entry. In the early days, each post was time-stamped, and later posts were presented before the earlier ones in the form of a weblog. The reverse chronological order is one of the defining features of blogs, especially when compared to other websites with more static content. Blogging is a cumulative process that can be initiated and maintained by individuals, commercial enterprises, or organizations. While content varies greatly across individual blogs, the design of blogs assumes that bloggers connect and interact with one another. Technological features, including links in the form of blogrolls, trackback, and threaded comments, encourage and facilitate community-building. A communitarian spirit is implied in the popular notion of blogosphere. It is commonly agreed that blogs first appeared in the mid-1990s. Peter Merholz is often credited as the person who coined the term blog by shortening weblog in 1999. Powered by web technologies and later blogging platforms, the number of blogs grew exponentially over a short period of time. Accurate estimates were lost, however, when tracking sites like Technocrati stopped indexing blogs in 2014. Statistics from major blog platforms suggest that millions of new blog posts continue to be posted daily. With the sheer number of blogs and their diverse use, blogging has generated much research interest regarding the types and content of blogs, as well as their uses and impact, particularly in their first decade of existence. Blogs constitute an important part of the participatory culture in the networked society. Individuals produce and share a massive amount of user-generated content through blogging. Contrary to practices in mass media, such as traditional journalism, blogging has changed how information is produced, gatekept, and distributed. Blogs are also outlets for different forms of personal expression. From creative works to social campaigns, blogs have become avenues where voices are heard, causes are seen, identities are formed, and communities are developed. In the mid-2000s, blogs became increasingly commonplace, as reflected by the ever-growing statistics and their diverse usage. It also coincided with a period when social networking sites were launched, leading to new practices later known as microblogging, in which short posts with quick updates become common and popular. In addition to maintaining their own blogs, Internet users could now share their thoughts in the form of newsfeed, vlogging, podcasting, and tweets in various social media platforms like X (previously Twitter) and the Chinese microblogging site Weibo. The essence of blogging, with practices including personal expressions and social connections, is still evident, yet not necessarily in the format of blogs as they first appeared. New terms like social media influencers and debates centering around digital labor and the nature of participation have instead generated new research agendas.
Media Streaming
Authors: Lotz Amanda , Chowdhury Mohammed Foysal
Published: November 2024

The entire process of creating, circulating, and consuming media content experienced swift and substantial changes due to the widespread adoption of Internet-based distribution, especially since 2010. Researchers have analyzed the rapidly evolving media ecosystem from different perspectives using a variety of analytical tools. This article aims to orient the readers with the key debates and deliberations of media streaming scholarship. Significant studies of the field are sorted into twelve major themes: theories and methods, industry, audience, policy, content, globalization, national contexts, service case studies, algorithms, technology, YouTube, and music streaming. Section descriptions and article annotations highlight the key arguments and findings of different studies and indicate how they are contributing to the growing body of media streaming scholarship. Together, these sections sketch out a broad overview of the important concepts and concerns of media streaming to make sense of key media transformation in the Internet era.
Carpal tunnel syndrome severity and work: a case-control study
Authors: Curti S , Ginanneschi F , Salce C , Argentino A , Mattioli S , Mondelli M
Published: November 2024

Background

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a socially relevant condition. Risk factors associated with CTS severity and work have not been explored.

Aims

This case-control study aims to investigate the association between CTS severity and occupational biomechanical overload considering personal anthropometric risk factors.

Methods

We consecutively enrolled one CTS case for two controls. CTS cases were grouped into three classes of progressive clinical and electrophysiological severity according to two validated scales. Job titles were coded according to the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO 88) and grouped into two broad socio-occupational categories: blue-collar and white-collar workers.

The associations between CTS (or CTS severity) and blue-collar status were assessed using unconditional (or multinomial) logistic regression models adjusted for age, gender, centre and two anthropometric indexes: wrist-palm ratio and waist-stature ratio. Odds ratios (OR) or relative risk ratio and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated, as appropriate.

Results

We included 183 cases and 445 controls. Blue-collar status was a risk factor for CTS (OR 2.4; 95% CI 1.5–3.8). Among job titles, vine and/or olive tree growers (OR 6.0; 95% CI 2.0–17.9) and food processing workers (OR 4.8; 95% CI 1.5–15.2) were at higher risk. At multinomial logistic regression analysis, blue-collar status and the two anthropometric indexes were associated with moderate/severe CTS, after mutual adjustment.

Conclusions

Blue-collar workers showed a higher risk of CTS than white-collar workers, adjusting for anthropometric and body measures as well. Preventive interventions should be addressed to decrease the biomechanical overload of the upper limbs and limit the overweight.
Pragmatist Instrumentalism as a Paradigm of Intercultural Legal Semiotics
Authors: Langner-Pitschmann Annette
Published: November 2024

The project of intercultural legal semiotics faces the dilemma between the situational character of legal meaning and its cross-situational claim to validity. This article examines the extent to which John Dewey’s conception of cultural naturalism can contribute to further exploration of this inherent conflict. Guided by the assumption that the question of the intercultural comprehensibility of legal meanings refers to the linguistic paradigm of the pragmatic turn, it sets out with a look at Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. Against this backdrop, Dewey’s concepts of inquiry and imagination are discussed, revealing their potential for the project of cross-cultural production of legal meaning. In light of Dewey’s theory of religion, in which the implications of these concepts are condensed, this potential is examined more closely. It becomes apparent that Dewey’s deep trust in the human ability to interpret experience appropriately and meaningfully is a crucial prerequisite for a sustainable perspective on the challenge of an intercultural semiotics of law.
Songs, Diction, Lyrics, IPA, and Translations
Authors: Ulloa Juanita
Published: November 2024

Mexican Spanish is immediately identifiable to Spanish speakers all over the world. Mexico has many regional variants within its thirty-two states as well. Why study Mexican Spanish lyric diction? All, including advanced singers, train constantly to develop a discerning ear for varying pronunciation depending on the region. The northern Mexico corrido will have a slightly different pronunciation, brighter intonation, and resonance than a bolero or huapango, for example. The system of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is introduced with lesson plans and practice sheets using mariachi word examples. IPA appears in every dictionary in parentheses after each word, allowing readers to sound it out. Singers learn to research and study their songs through history studies. Tips on how to memorize lyrics are provided. Twenty songs are presented with song guide sheets with melody and chords, full IPA, and literal and poetic translations.
The Ontology of Attitudinal and Modal Objects
Authors: Moltmann Friederike
Published: November 2024

This chapter elaborates the ontology of attitudinal and modal objects, and more generally the ontology of ‘satisfiable objects’, or ‘satisfiables’, which include intensional objects like debts and searches. It distinguishes different types of attitudinal objects and discusses modal and intensional objects as entities both similar to and distinct from attitudinal objects. It introduces the characteristic properties of satisfiables, properties of concreteness and three content-related properties: having satisfaction conditions, having a part structure based on partial content, and entering similarity relations on the basis of being the same in content. It distinguishes different types of satisfaction conditions that different types of satisfiables come with. It clarifies the ways in which satisfiables differ from corresponding actions (claims vs. acts of claiming, assumptions vs. acts of assuming), distinguishing products from results of acts. It distinguishes state-related attitudinal objects (e.g., beliefs) from the corresponding states (belief states). It critically discusses Twardowski’s distinction between actions and products.
Levels of Linguistic Acts and the Semantics of Saying and Quoting
Authors: Moltmann Friederike
Published: November 2024

This chapter extends the semantics of attitude reports based on attitudinal objects to verbs of saying and quotation. It does so by positing objects that correspond to Austin’s hierarchy of speech acts: phonetic, phatic, locutionary, and locutionary objects. It argues for the semantic importance of the distinction between locutionary and illocutionary objects and shows that that-clause complements of verbs of saying act as predicates of locutionary objects, not illocutionary objects. It argues that pure quotations have primarily the status of predicates, predicated phatic of objects. Direct quotes are analyzed as predicates of illocutionary objects as well as of the phatic objects on which the locutionary objects are based. The chapter gives a semantic analysis of special quantifiers with verbs of saying, including words-NPs (a few words). It outlines a novel compositional semantics of quotation based on a syntactic structure that includes lower-level linguistic structures as input to semantic interpretation.
Conclusions and Avenues for Further Development
Authors: Moltmann Friederike
Published: November 2024

This chapter summarizes the main features of the approach developed in the book. It relates the overall view to Michael Devitt’s motto ‘metaphysics first’ and contrasts it with that of ‘descriptive metaphysics first’. It lists a range of issues that invites further elaboration of both philosophical and linguistic sorts. On the philosophical side, they concern the ontology of attitudinal and modal objects, which displays both features of concreteness and abstractness as well as a particular connection to normativity. On the linguistic side, they concern the need of accounting for the semantics of other types of clausal complements than that-clauses, such as infinitival clauses and interrogative clauses, as well as the need to develop proper syntactic theories within which the analyses can be cast that in the book were formulated within what has been called ‘simplified syntax’ .
The Temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel
Authors: Holliday Peter J.
Published: November 2024

Chapter 2 examines how Egyptian political history begins with its art history in the Palette of Narmer. Hieroglyphic inscriptions distinguish the portrayal of persons and events. Innovations to Egyptian artistic conventions facilitated the commemorative function of relief programs during the New Kingdom, as demonstrated by the decoration of the temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel, which celebrates the putative Egyptian victory over the Hittites at Battle of Kadesh. Descriptive details rather than hierarchical proportions, landscape features, and varied orientation of the figures contrast with typical Egyptian compositions to lend the imagery specificity and realism while maintaining their rhetorical, propagandistic function. Passages from the Poem of Pentaur are placed within the continuous narrative to render a moving account of the battle.
The Bayeux Embroidery
Authors: Holliday Peter J.
Published: November 2024

Chapter 5 examines the controversies surrounding the Bayeux Embroidery, commissioned to commemorate Duke William’s eleventh-century conquest of England. These include the reliability of its sequential narrative, which betrays Norman and English biases; who was responsible for commissioning it (suggested patrons range from English or Norman queens to English and Norman clerics); and who made it. This chapter examines the evidence for where it was designed, either England or France, and where it was crafted. It considers how scholars have viewed the detail of its visual narrative as a primary source rivalling written accounts in reliability, and how its mixed messages may have been designed to forge a new national identity incorporating both the English and Norman peoples. The changing fortunes of its reception are introduced as further material for modern interpretation.
Nonlinear Dispersive Wave Equations
Authors: Carretero-González R. , Frantzeskakis D.J. , Kevrekidis P.G.
Published: November 2024

In this chapter, we introduce several nonlinear dispersive wave models, which appear generically in a wide range of contexts and applications in physics, engineering, biosciences, and so on. Many of these models will be analyzed in more detail in the next chapters. Our approach is typically characterized by two steps. First, we will construct the linear (or "the linearized") part of the various models via simple (chiefly of polynomial type) dispersion relations. Second, we introduce nonlinearity, via a heuristic approach, relying on the fundamental effect of the phase-velocity dependence on the field-amplitude (this dependence discriminates, in fact, linear and nonlinear waves). The final twist will be the combination of dispersion and nonlinearity, which, as we will see, will lead to a variety of nonlinear dispersive wave equations. The suggested methodology is quite useful in that it provides an intuitive understanding of the structure of these important models.
Burgers and KdV–Burgers Equations – Regularized Shock Waves
Authors: Carretero-González R. , Frantzeskakis D.J. , Kevrekidis P.G.
Published: November 2024

In this chapter, we focus on the so-called viscous Burgers and Korteweg-de Vries Burgers (KdVB) equations, discuss some of their important properties, as well as present their shock wave solutions. To present these models, we start from the more general KdVB equation, which can be regarded as a variant of the KdV equation, but also contains the Burgers equation as well as other important models. The KdVB equation is a prototypical example where the majority of important effects that arise in wave physics are present: nonlinearity, dispersion, as well as a certain form of damping, namely diffusion. It is therefore not surprising to note that the KdVB equation finds many physical applications, describing, e.g., the propagation of undular bores (also known as "dispersive shock waves") in shallow water, the flow of liquids containing gas bubbles, nonlinear waves in plasmas, and so on.
Spectral Methods
Authors: Carretero-González R. , Frantzeskakis D.J. , Kevrekidis P.G.
Published: November 2024

In this chapter we give a brief introduction to the numerical integration of nonlinear waves using spectral methods. By no means do we intend for this chapter to be comprehensive; rather, it is designed to give you a flavor of what is at the core of spectral methods. The avid reader is very much encouraged to read the beautiful book by Nick Trefethen [Lloyd N. Trefethen Spectral Methods in Matlab, (SIAM, Philadelphia, 2000)] which includes succinct Matlab codes for the different covered topics.
Direct Perturbation Theory for Solitons*
Authors: Carretero-González R. , Frantzeskakis D.J. , Kevrekidis P.G.
Published: November 2024

In this chapter, we study the behavior of solitons and traveling waves under the action of weak perturbations. We consider the case of transverse perturbations occurring in higher-dimensional settings. Our prototypical example will be the perturbed KdV equation. In particular, we will present the cases of (i) a KdV incorporating weak linear losses and (ii) a Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (KP) equation, which is the suitable generalization of the KdV to study the transverse dynamics of 2D line solitons. We show how direct perturbation theory can be applied to problems involving dynamics of solitons and, in general, traveling waves under perturbations.
Another Class of Models: Nonlinear Klein–Gordon Equations
Authors: Carretero-González R. , Frantzeskakis D.J. , Kevrekidis P.G.
Published: November 2024

This chapter introduces a new class of models, namely nonlinear Klein-Gordon PDEs and some of their prototypical solitary wave representatives such as kinks and breathers. We start by motivating such models from the realm of applications such as coupled torsional pendula and associated experimental observations. Along the way, we learn how to construct the corresponding heteroclinic and homoclinic solutions and how to boost them to finite speed. We discuss not only such linear transformations, but also nonlinear ones that yield unexpected periodic solutions and bring us back to our familiar territory of cnoidal waves. Lastly, we leverage the opportunity of exploring the corresponding linearization (stability) problem to not only connect to some interesting Schrödinger problems from quantum mechanics (such as the Pöschl-Teller potential), but also to introduce some new and widely used stability tools such as, e.g., the Evans function methodology.
Applications of Conservation Laws – Adiabatic Perturbation Method
Authors: Carretero-González R. , Frantzeskakis D.J. , Kevrekidis P.G.
Published: November 2024

In this chapter, we discuss applications of the invariances and conserved quantities of the NLS, with the ultimate scope to introduce the adiabatic perturbation method for solitons. In particular, we start by showing that the scaling and Galilean invariances provide soliton solutions bearing a number of parameters, which remain constant in the unperturbed NLS. However, as is common in many problems, the NLS also incorporates perturbations (most notably loss terms), and hence a question is how the latter affect the soliton dynamics. To answer this question, we introduce the adiabatic perturbation method, both for bright and dark solitons, according to which the soliton functional shape does not change, while the soliton parameters (amplitude, width, position, phase, etc) become to-be-determined functions of time. Then, the perturbation-induced change of the conserved quantities leads to ODEs describing the evolution of the soliton parameters.
The Gross–Pitaevskii (GP) Equation
Authors: Carretero-González R. , Frantzeskakis D.J. , Kevrekidis P.G.
Published: November 2024

In the next few chapters we cover some further techniques based on NLS-type equations by focusing on a particularly attractive application in atomic physics: Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). The mean-field dynamics of BECs can be modeled by the Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation which is a generalization of the NLS equation that includes an external potential. In this chapter we introduce BECs and some basic properties of the GP equation. In particular, we show how the external potential may render the, originally 3D, BEC into an effective 1D or 2D system. We also describe the large mass (Thomas-Fermi) limit and the low mass (linear) limit.
Stability Analysis in 1D
Authors: Carretero-González R. , Frantzeskakis D.J. , Kevrekidis P.G.
Published: November 2024

In this chapter we leverage perturbation theory (occasionally in its degenerate form) in order to understand the stability analysis of the 1D Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation problem and its solutions. We employ the understanding of the linear limit of the relevant problem, namely the quantum harmonic oscillator with its eigenvalues and eigenvectors. We observe how nonlinear states emerge from linear eigenstates, but also additionally provide a quantitative estimate on the stability analysis of such eigenstates, corroborating the results by means of direct numerical computations of the spectral problem of the linearization. Importantly, we often find that higher excited states may be unstable via complex eigenvalue quartets in the vicinity of the relevant linear limit.
Transverse Instability of Dark Stripes – Adiabatic Invariant Approach
Authors: Carretero-González R. , Frantzeskakis D.J. , Kevrekidis P.G.
Published: November 2024

In this chapter we present a complementary perspective to the multiple scale transverse instability descriptions of the previous chapter. We explore in particular the Hamiltonian of the NLS model as an adiabatic invariant that can initially be used to describe the motion of 1D dark solitons in the presence of an external potential. We then extend this approach to reduce the dynamics of (2+1)D dark soliton stripes and derive an effective (1+1)D PDE describing the transverse dynamics of the stripe. We also present the ring variant of the dark soliton, where azimuthal modulations become responsible for the emergence of a transverse instability, breaking up the ring pattern into multiple pairs of vortices.
Judgments and Orders
Authors: Sorabji John
Published: November 2024

This Part consolidates rules concerning court judgments and orders. It initially makes provision for their formal and substantive content of judgments and orders. It directs how they are to be issued and, particularly, how they are to be published to give effect to the publicity principle. Rules concerning the perfection, recall, and clarification of judgments and orders are also codified. This Part also makes provision for default and summary judgment. Further rules are provided concerning the nature and effect of judgments by consent, the settlement of proceedings, and judgments in multi-party proceedings. The court’s power to issue judgment after settlement is codified.
Enforcement
Authors: Sorabji John
Published: November 2024

Access to justice includes the ability to secure the effective enforcement of any judgment. This Part simplifies and consolidates the approach to enforcement provided by statute and given effect via the CPR. As with this Code as a whole it is predicated on the primary use of digital procedures. It, initially, simplifies the process by designating the successor to the County Court, as provided for in Part 2 of this Code, as the single court for enforcing judgments and orders. It thereafter articulates the various statutory enforcement methods while also making provision for the use of any authorised digital enforcement method. It provides a uniform process for commencing enforcement and introduces, for the first time, the use of settlement measures during the enforcement process. The latter innovation brings English and Welsh procedure in line with international standards. Rules also make provision for enforcement within and outside the jurisdiction.
Appeals
Authors: Sorabji John
Published: November 2024

The final Part of the Code concerns appeal procedure. Unlike the CPR, this Code identifies the right to appeal as a procedural principle that forms part of the right of access to justice. This Part gives effect to that right. It does so consistently with the CPR’s approach to rationing access to appellate procedure. It thus makes provision for the restatement of the CPR’s test for permission to appeal both in terms of first and second appeals. It does, however, modify and rationalise the second appeal test. It also makes further provision for appeals to the UK Supreme Court.
Marion Milner
Authors: Russell David
Published: November 2024

This book provides an introduction to, and a reading of, the work of the twentieth-century essayist, artist and psychoanalyst, Marion Milner. It explains her life’s project in seeking a ‘life of one’s own,’ and a way of living that Milner felt really to be hers and not handed to her or forced upon her by others. The project traces Milner’s own response to the challenge of creatively relating to the world around her, as she experimented with diary writing, drawing and painting, and in psychotherapy. It is structured in three sections: Reading, Drawing and Getting Better, and it models a way of reading inspired by Milner’s experiment. The central claim of the book is that Milner offers two major propositions about the creative life. The first of these is about attention, and the way it is practised creatively. The second is about mediation, which means the way we shape, and are shaped by, the forms and materials of our lives. The book analyses how Milner’s own techniques of writing and drawing make room for creative experience, as well as the ways she fostered that experience in her clinical work with patients. Finally, the book positions Milner in relation to her important contexts in the histories of literature, art, and philosophy, and in relation to major psychoanalytic thinkers in Britain, like Melanie Klein and Donald Woods Winnicott.
“I” and Self-Consciousness
Authors: Longuenesse Béatrice
Published: November 2024

Elizabeth Anscombe argues that “I”-thoughts are “unmediated agent-or-patient conceptions of states, actions, motions, etc. …in this object here.” This characterization of “I”-thoughts bears striking similarities to Jean-Paul Sartre’s account of non-thetic or non-positional self-consciousness and its relation to our use of “I.” Of course, the methods are very different: phenomenological description for Sartre, semantic analysis for Anscombe. Those differences notwithstanding, Sartre’s account of our use of “I” in expressions of non-thetic (self)-consciousness foreshadows Anscombe’s view in significant respects. At the same time, Sartre’s phenomenological approach allows him to provide a unified account of self-consciousness as consciousness of mental states and actions, on the one hand; and as consciousness of bodily states and actions, on the other: a unified account which, Anscombe acknowledges, is somewhat elusive in the context of the analysis she proposes. Finally, Sartre’s and Anscombe’s accounts both amend and complete each other. Calling on Anscombe’s semantic unwrapping of the use of “I” brings a sobering new light on some of the more grandiose metaphysical formulations Sartre offers, including the statement that for non-thetic self-consciousness, “existence precedes essence.” Conversely, calling on Sartre’s phenomenological description of consciousness and self-consciousness usefully complements Anscombe’s semantic analysis even while providing support for rejecting her conclusion that “I” is not a referring expression and that “I am Elizabeth Anscombe” is not an identity proposition.
The Phonology of Turkish
Authors: Özçelik Öner
Published: November 2024

The Phonology of Turkish offers a comprehensive overview and analysis of the phonological structure of modern Turkish. While phenomena at both segmental and suprasegmental levels are discussed, the emphasis is on the latter, analyzing phonological processes extending over a number of different domains. Couched within a primarily constraint-based framework, lower-level prosodic constituents, including syllables, feet, and prosodic words, are incorporated into a general theory with higher-level constituents, the Phonological Phrase and the Intonational Phrase, assuming that phonological structure is hierarchical in nature and that phonological representations consist of more than a single linear sequence of segments. The approach employed here, thus, uses tools from both Prosodic Phonology and Autosegmental Phonology (theories of representation), as well as Optimality Theory (OT) (a theory of computation). More specifically, with regard to the representation of the internal structure of segments, Autosegmental Phonology, and in some cases a more refined variant, Feature Geometry, is used, while Prosodic Phonology is employed for levels of the Prosodic Hierarchy beyond the segment, such as feet, prosodic words and phonological phrases. The book strives to achieve two things; it provides a critical synthesis of research in Turkish phonology, as well as offering new analyses and data in a theoretically oriented approach. One repetitive and overarching theme emerging in every chapter throughout the book is that not only regular but also exceptional phonological forms demonstrate a systematic pattern, despite conveniently being referred to as “exceptional,” and can be captured by the same grammar as regular forms, be it a segmental process (Chapter 2), a syllable repair process (Chapter 3), vowel harmony (Chapter 4), word stress (Chapter 5), or phrasal prominence (Chapter 6). I maintain that exceptional information in phonology should be captured via prespecification, but of a special type that puts minimal information in underlying forms. Prespecification of the type defended here does not place language-specific restrictions on inputs/underlying representations; rather, inputs can have any shape, and all possible inputs are accounted for by the same grammar/phonology. Phonology on this view essentially acts as a filter to only give surface representations that are actually utterable by speakers of the Turkish language.
Electrifying Ethiopia, Consolidating Power
Authors: Lavers Tom , Gebresenbet Fana
Published: November 2024

The Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front’s (EPRDF’s) dam building was part of a national development strategy tasked not only with socioeconomic development but also with securing the political position of the ruling party. Hydroelectric dams were expected to support industrial employment creation, deliver mass electricity access, and boost foreign exchange earnings. To do so required not just expanding generation capacity but also ensuring that hydroelectricity reached key users. This chapter examines the extent to which the EPRDF succeeded in realizing its political-economic goals for the sector. Despite expanding the grid to nearly 60 per cent of the country, the chapter concludes that the EPRDF ultimately failed to realize any of its key objectives. Indeed, progress was undermined by poor planning and political influence on decision making, with household connections remaining very low, while limited provision to new industrial parks undermined efforts to promote foreign investment. Moreover, hopes of large-scale electricity exports remain unrealized.
‘Cum magna solicitudine’
Authors: Butterfield Ardis
Published: November 2024

John Grimestone’s notebook seems to offer the tantalizing perspective of a friar in mid-thought. It is a holograph, with a colophon of 1372. At first sight, it consists of a rather unprepossessing collection of preaching topics, but what makes it unusual is the sheer number of English items: 246. This is far higher than any other comparable collection. These verses in English range from short distinctiones resembling cues in note form or compressed couplets, to much longer poems: stanzaic lullabies and dialogue poems, poems in long lines, and others in short quatrains. The book is remarkable for almost concealing its purpose as a sermon resource under the guise of lyric anthology (or is it the other way round?). This essay will provide a close study of sections of the manuscript, and consider not ‘are these lyrics?’, but other more oblique things—what expectations and uses are made of verse in these works? What happens when we try to read this book? The very unlikeliness of the context—the embeddedness of the verse in a preaching matrix—has the potential to help us see what kinds of formal, structural, exegetical, and devotional distinctions were important to a notion of English verse in the period, and especially for this friar.