bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Stories with Queer Identities
Authors: Marklund Anders
Published: January 2019

“Stories with Queer Identities” analyzes representations of queer characters in Bier’s films Like It Never Was Before (Pensionat Oskar, 1995), Once in a Lifetime (Livet är en schlager, 2000), and Love Is All You Need (Den skaldede frisør, 2012), and in her television series The Night Manager (2016). Anders Marklund argues that Bier’s career shift from ‘modest-sized Swedish productions to larger international ones’ parallels a movement away from nuance and toward broad stereotyping in her work’s approach to queer characters. He connects this shift to each film’s specific context and intended audience, linking, for instance, Like It Never Was Before to Sweden’s gay rights movement in the 1990s and considering The Night Manager’s Corky according to the series’ function as mainstream, heteronormative entertainment. Marklund concludes that Bier’s more recent and ‘elegant transnational productions’ re-marginalize queer characters in a manner reminiscent of earlier problematic film stereotypes.
Gender Equity in Screen Culture: On Susanne Bier, the Celluloid Ceiling, and the Growing Appeal of TV Production
Authors: Hjort Mette
Published: January 2019

“Gender Equity in Screen Culture: On Susanne Bier, the Celluloid Ceiling, and the Growing Appeal of TV Production” reflects on Bier’s career in light of the “unprecedented attention” recently directed at gender inequality in the film industry. Mette Hjort foregrounds, in particular, the fact that Bier’s success involved her overcoming challenges posed by both her gender and her nationality. The chapter stresses that Bier’s shifting perception of such challenges is provocative, specifically Bier’s increasingly vocal support of gender equity in screen industries. Hjort concludes by predicting the likely effects of “a broader involvement of women in the film industry,” which Bier’s career harbingers.
Tracing Affect in Susanne Bier’s Dramas
Authors: Nielsen Mimi
Published: January 2019

Mimi Nielsen’s “Tracing Affect in Susanna Bier’s Dramas” proposes two intertwined, extensive themes apparent across much of Bier’s oeuvre stresses particular stylistic and narrative traits that significantly contribute to Bier’s work being both unique and recognizable. Nielsen, in support of her dual argument that Bier’s films evidence a preoccupation with “intensity-as- affect,” draws from four feature films that span much of Bier’s directorial career. Nielsen expounds on the prevalence of attention to affect in Bier’s work, in this instance its role in a character’s self-coherence. She also addresses Bier’s preoccupation with male characters and notes how these two themes coalesce and call into question assumptions of containment and self-sufficiency associated with individualism, especially those allied with concepts of masculinity.
Vision and Ethics in A Second Chance (En chance til)
Authors: Velde Danica van de
Published: January 2019

Danica van de Velde’s “Vision and Ethics in A Second Chance (En chance til, 2014)” addresses Bier’s aesthetics in depth. Reading A Second Chance as a particularly poignant example because of how it forefronts the “intertwining of image and psychology” so recognizable in Bier’s work, van de Velde argues that Bier’s approach functions as “a visual strategy that, among other things, highlights the dynamic between spectator- ship and ethicsVan de Velde’s analysis also provides thought-provoking insight into Bier’s use of shots resembling photographic stills and the function of literal photographs in the film, demonstrating how they problematize perception. Van de Velde shows that while Bier’s visual strategies compel viewer-attention to the characters’ inner states, they also ultimately both “disrupt the moral equilibrium of right and wrong” and call into question “the very ethics of spectatorship.”
Danish Privilege and Responsibility in the Work of Susanne Bier
Authors: Shriver-Rice Meryl
Published: January 2019

Meryl Shriver-Rice interprets Brothers, After the Wedding, and In a Better World in terms of the shared trope of the white male sojourner who travels from Denmark to locations that feature non-white, non-Western citizens. This chapter situates the Bier/Jensen trilogy within a wider trend of contemporary Scandinavian narratives of guilt. In assessing potential critiques of the trilogy on postcolonial grounds, Shriver-Rice argues that the “elsewheres” of these films do not ignore geographic location specifics and cultural contexts in order to assert a universalizing morality. Instead, the ethical trajectories of these films are not universal, and the idea that universalist ethics will inevitably fail takes precedence. Shriver-Rice argues that Bier’s drawing from non-industrialized non-Western space has more to do with speaking to the privileged-world guilt in the Danish viewer, and reminding him or her of the world at large beyond Western space.
“Past ruin’d Ilion”: The Classical Ideal and the Romantic Voice in Landor’s Poetry
Authors: Stryer Steven
Published: January 2019

This article argues that throughout his long career, Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) looked back to the classical past as both the source and the fullest embodiment of his literary ideal. It contends that besides the stylistic classicism often attributed to him, Landor brought the values of the classical and the Romantic into tension, engagement, and alignment with each other. In order to examine the interplay between these complementary visions of life, the article traces how Landor makes use of references and allusions to the classical past within his shorter lyric poems. As a case in point, it examines the group of poems written to and about his beloved Ianthe, analyzing the means—ranging from extended conceits to brief allusions and offhand or submerged references—by which Landor brought together the Romantic expression of personal experience with the universality, authority, and permanence that he associated with Greek and Latin literature.
Changes of Address: Epic Invocation in Anglophone Romanticism
Authors: Tucker Herbert F.
Published: January 2019

The epic poet’s invocation to the Muse is no sooner underway than it must demonstrate that the power it seeks has been conferred already. Inspiration is as inspiration does: this generic tautology came under chronic pressure within the dispensation of Romanticism, when epic greatness migrated into the psyche, creativity became heroism, and bards emerged as their own protagonists. This chapter analyzes variations on the classical template that were executed on either side of 1800 by poets major and minor, female and male, British and American. It shows how the convention of claiming the Muse’s favors became a feat that epitomized, at the threshold of the text, Romanticism’s epic adventure.
Thoreau’s Epic Ambitions: “A Walk To Wachusett” and the Persistence of the Classics in an Age of Science
Authors: Van Anglen K. P.
Published: January 2019

The piece is the earliest example in Thoreau of a prose genre now known as the excursion, which combines a brief autobiographical account of an experience of nature with broader philosophical meditations on the natural world. Moreover, in “A Walk to Wachusett,” Thoreau also uses quotations from and allusions to Virgil's own earliest extant poems (the eclogues) to recreate in prose the tension found throughout Virgil's poetry between the themes of the pastoral and those of epic. Thoreau also thereby allies his own literary career to the progression first followed by Virgil, from pastoral to georgic to epic, known as the cursus honorum. This renders problematic any simple notion that he became a scientist later in his career. Rather, his interests in natural science merged with his original goal of writing epic poetry, in his treatment of Pliny the Elder's Natural History.
The Classics and American Political Rhetoric in a Democratic and Romantic Age
Authors: Richard Carl J.
Published: January 2019

This essay demonstrates that during the same period when new grammar schools, academies, and colleges were introducing the Greek and Roman classics to the western frontier of the United States, to a rising middle class, to girls and women, and to African Americans, states were expanding the voting population to include all free adult white males. While the spread of manhood suffrage led to a more democratic style of politics, the expansion of classical education ensured that American speeches continued to bristle with classical allusions. Political leaders took advantage of every opportunity to showcase their classical learning, even to broader audiences they hoped might respect, if not fully comprehend, their allusions. Classically trained, American politicians lived a double rhetorical life, attempting to assure common voters of their ability to empathize with their concerns while demonstrating their wisdom and virtue to constituents of all classes through their knowledge of the classics.
Introduction: Gertrude Stein’s Transmasculinity
Authors: Coffman Chris
Published: January 2019

The Introduction provides an overview of Gertrude Stein’s Transmasculinity as well as a theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between Stein’s writings and her gender. By using psychoanalysis to complicate historicist imperatives and engaging recent debates over queer temporalities and relationalities, the Introduction lays the groundwork for the book’s argument that Stein ultimately rejected early twentieth-century gender formations in favor of a flexible, feminist, and anti-identitarian mode of transsubjectivity inscribed in texts that cross genres. Pushing back against formalist and materialist critiques of biographical interpretation, the Introduction also makes the case for readings that trace visual artworks’ and her writings’ roles as nodal points for intersubjective desire. The Introduction concludes with an overview of the book’s seven chapters and coda: four chapters that identify signs of Stein’s transmasculinity in her writings and others’ representations of her; three that track her masculine homosocial bonds with Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Carl Van Vechten; and a coda that points to possibilities for examining the implications of Stein’s masculine homosocial bonds with Vichy collaborator Bernard Fäy.
Seeing Stein’s Masculinity
Authors: Coffman Chris
Published: January 2019

“Seeing Stein’s Masculinity” analyses the shifting significance of visual images of and written texts about Stein. Driven by recent reinterpretations of Jacques Lacan’s theory of the gaze, this chapter reads his theories against the grain to counter arguments about the visual that reproduce binary thinking about gender. Queering his account of the gaze makes it possible to register the expanded array of masculinities mobilized in photographs of Stein by George Platt Lynes, Henri Manuel, and Man Ray as well as in their recent reception during the 2011 Seeing Gertrude Stein exhibit in San Francisco. Moreover, Stein’s own comments in The Autobiography about being photographed by Man Ray queer the heteronormative gaze that drives James Agee’s review of that book in the September 11, 1933 issue of Time whose cover featured Lynes’s image of Stein in profile. Tracking changes that have taken place between the early twentieth century and the present in attitudes toward her queer sexuality and masculinity, this chapter argues that traces of abjection remain in contemporary reactions to Stein despite greater acceptance of her gender, sexuality, and innovative writing.
Visual Economies of Queer Desire in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
Authors: Coffman Chris
Published: January 2019

This chapter uses The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas to frame and advance this book’s central argument about Stein’s masculine homosocial relationships with her colleagues. Tracking the dynamics of vision that animate The Autobiography, I argue that it uses Toklas’s loving gaze to establish and recognize Stein’s masculinity, as well as to highlight the importance to modernism of her masculine homosocial bonds. The Autobiography depicts those ties as very congenial with men such as Sherwood Anderson and with masculine women such as Jane Heap, but more fraught—and more likely to induce perspectival vacillation—with Hemingway and Picasso. This multiperspectivalism structures the book and mobilizes multiple narratives of modernism’s emergence. In so doing, The Autobiography reframes Stein’s masculinity and relationship with Toklas as part of the appearance of the new that the text initially attributes solely to the formal properties of modern art and writing.
Peter Fairbairn: Highland Factor and Caribbean Plantation Manager, 1792–1822
Authors: McKichan Finlay
Published: January 2019

This chapter is a case study in the transnational transfer of land agent skills. Peter Fairbairn was first chief factor on the Seaforth estate in Ross-shire, in which position his ability, energy and honesty were much admired by his employer. From 1801 he was attorney of the Seaforth cotton plantations in Berbice, the results of which were so disappointing that by 1811 Lord Seaforth for a time considered dismissing him. The chapter compares his performance in Ross-shire and Berbice, examine how far his skills as a land agent were transferable between the two locations and consider how far the problems in Berbice were due to issues beyond his control.
The Evolution of the Irish Land Agent: The Management of the Blundell Estate in the Eighteenth Century
Authors: Reilly Ciarán
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the management of the 14,000 acre Blundell estate in Ireland during the period 1700-80 and in particular the career of father and son combination, Henry and John Hatch, agents between them for over fifty years. Their agency of the Blundell estate offers an insight into the complexities and evolution of the land agency business in eighteenth-century Ireland. In 1786, a somewhat despondent John Hatch requested to be relieved of his duties as land agent of the Blundell estate in King’s County (Offaly) insisting that the town of Edenderry was ‘dwindling into ruin’. In particular, Hatch, who had replaced his father Henry as agent, highlighted that both distress and poverty were endemic at Edenderry and in general there was not much he could do to overturn circumstances. Faced with the unenviable task of managing an Irish landed estate in decline, Hatch was just one of five agents appointed to the Blundell estate throughout the eighteenth century. He remained in this position until his death in 1797, at which time irregularities were found with his management of the estate. However, this was a frequent occurrence and was something which befell many eighteenth-century landed estates (and indeed later). The reason for such dilatory practice was believed to have stemmed from the fact that the nature of the agents duties was largely imprecise and that the role lacked any professionalism.
‘Between two interests’: Pennant A. Lloyd’s Agency of the Penrhyn Estate, 1860–77
Authors: Evans Shaun
Published: January 2019

This chapter uses the Penrhyn estate in Wales as a case study to examine the land agent’s sense of dualism and impartiality, of having responsibility for representing and intermediating between two factions – rich and poor. In this respect, the chapter reinforces one of the central themes highlighted across the case studies featured within this collection; that of the challenges land agents had to face. Though landlords and tenants usually had a strong mutual interest in sustaining good relations, maintaining a balance between their priorities could be fraught with difficulties. On top of this complex role specification, Penrhyn and its environs was emerging as a primary theatre for the playing out of a fierce confrontation about the nature and future of Welsh society.
The Land Agent in Fiction
Authors: Rees Lowri Ann , Reilly Ciarán , Tindley Annie
Published: January 2019

As many of the chapters have touched upon individually, the legacy and memory of the land agent in Britain and Ireland made a strong impression on both contemporary and subsequent poetry, fiction, drama and folklore. This is unsurprising, given the wide range of powers, personalities and activities of land agents in all corners of the British and Irish isles, as well as the sheer scale of their dominion. Despite the urbanisation and industrialisation overtaking much of society in this period, large sections of it remained rural and agricultural, and the power of the landed and aristocratic classes, though subject to challenge, remained strong. Ireland – Belfast, Dublin and Cork aside – remained a fundamentally rural society and agricultural economy well into the twentieth century. As such, the requirements for, and scope of activities of, land agents, remained significant and the raw materials for fictional presentations of such powerful figures prevalent, as discussed in this chapter.
Toward a Continuous Field: Folded Subjectivities and Control in the Affective Networks of Upstream Colour
Authors: Miner Kyle
Published: January 2019

Shane Carruth's 2013 film Upstream Colour provides a model for considering identity and subject formation in what Steven Shaviro calls the “network society.” Shaviro argues that our contemporary mode of experience, at least as rendered through popular media, is characterized by “flows of affect” produced to hail us at every turn. Carruth's film offers the possibility that living in the network society means not only that we are subject to such flows, but that individuals are subject to invasive modes of fragmentation and commodification as producers of their own affect (in this case, memory and experience). Building on Shaviro's own definition of a network, I focus on how the mental connections forged between characters represent the nodal connections Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker say characterize network formation and behavior, and how the access rendered over those characters by the primary antagonist (referred to as The Sampler) works as a kind of “protocological control.” I then turn to Deleuze's theorization of the fold to discuss how new modes of subjectivity and relationality are modeled in the characters' phenomenological experience of these mental connections, in which distinctions of personal subjectivity and memory begin to blur and overlap. Finally, I return to Shaviro for implications of this model of experience, and to show how absorption in and by the network poses new possibilities for connection as well as potential for fragmentation and commodification.
An Exploration of a Balanced Up-Downwind Scheme for Solving Heston Volatility Model Equations on Variable Grids
Authors: Sun Chong , Sheng Qin
Published: January 2019

This paper studies an effective finite difference scheme for solving two-dimensional Heston stochastic volatility option-pricing model problems. A dynamically balanced up-downwind strategy for approximating the cross-derivative is implemented and analyzed. Semi-discretized and spatially nonuniform platforms are utilized. The numerical method comprised is simple and straightforward, with reliable first order overall approximations. The spectral norm is used throughout the investigation, and numerical stability is proven. Simulation experiments are given to illustrate our results.
Impact of Bilateral Contracts on Wholesale Electricity Markets: In a Case Where a Market Participant Has Dominant Position
Authors: Dagoumas Athanasios
Published: January 2019

This paper aims at tackling how the bilateral contracts affect wholesale electricity markets. It examines different levels of bilateral contracts among producers and demand aggregators, aiming to quantify their effect. In addition, it focuses on markets where bilateral contracts could be used as a tool by market participants with a dominant position. Further, the paper examined a case with asymmetrical portfolios, namely where a market participant has a dominant position as in case of Greece, aiming to investigate if bilateral contracts can be used as a tool to manipulate the market. The simulations have been done by an optimization model that provides the economic dispatch and clearing of the day-ahead electricity market. The model incorporated bilateral contracts with committed generating capacity from producers, as well as dynamic bidding strategy per market participant. Results provide useful insights on the design of electricity markets, especially in case of designing voluntary energy exchanges where a market participant has a dominant position.
S-O-T Body Repairs: Narrative Pursuits
Authors: Matthias Gayle
Published: January 2019

This paper is a metaphorical extension of my practice of intertwining my conceptual/theoretical development with my personal history. Allowing the autobiographical narrative to become the driver of my practice has had a profound influence on my work. This has resulted in changes in the intention and scale of my work and new approaches to making, with a re-evaluation of the hierarchy of processes and materials. Written as a reflective case study, from a practice-led research perspective, the paper illustrates a realignment in creative methodology from a craft-based practitioner specialising in kiln-formed glass, to that of a mixed media sculptor. This transition was made in response to my desire to break free of my perceived confines as a craft practitioner, with a focus on technical excellence and the predominant language of glass, and place the concept at the forefront of my practice. This enabled me to explore the relationship of personal geographies of landscapes, to inform my prevailing concepts of corporeal vulnerabilities, in a more integral way. S-O-T Body Repairs was the title of a solo exhibition that sprang from this body of research and is discussed in this paper.
Fixed Point Results in Partial Symmetric Spaces with an Application
Authors: Asim Mohammad , Khan A. Rauf , Imdad Mohammad
Published: January 2019

In this paper, we first introduce the class of partial symmetric spaces and then prove some fixed point theorems in such spaces. We use one of the our main results to examine the existence and uniqueness of a solution for a system of Fredholm integral equations. Furthermore, we introduce an analogue of the Hausdorff metric in the context of partial symmetric spaces and utilize the same to prove an analogue of the Nadler contraction principle in such spaces. Our results extend and improve many results in the existing literature. We also give some examples exhibiting the utility of our newly established results.
Proteomic and Phosphoproteomic Analysis in Tobacco Mosaic Virus-Infected Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum)
Authors: Lu Zi-Shu , Chen Qian-Si , Zheng Qing-Xia , Shen Juan-Juan , Luo Zhao-Peng , Fan Kai , Xu Sheng-Hao , Shen Qi , Liu Ping-Ping
Published: January 2019

Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is a common source of biological stress that significantly affects plant growth and development. It is also useful as a model in studies designed to clarify the mechanisms involved in plant viral disease. Plant responses to abiotic stress were recently reported to be regulated by complex mechanisms at the post-translational modification (PTM) level. Protein phosphorylation is one of the most widespread and major PTMs in organisms. Using immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography (IMAC) enrichment, high-pH C18 chromatography fraction, and high-accuracy mass spectrometry (MS), a set of proteins and phosphopeptides in both TMV-infected tobacco and control tobacco were identified. A total of 4905 proteins and 3998 phosphopeptides with 3063 phosphorylation sites were identified. These 3998 phosphopeptides were assigned to 1311 phosphoproteins, as some proteins carried multiple phosphorylation sites. Among them, 530 proteins and 337 phosphopeptides corresponding to 277 phosphoproteins differed between the two groups. There were 43 upregulated phosphoproteins, including phosphoglycerate kinase, pyruvate phosphate dikinase, protein phosphatase 2C, and serine/threonine protein kinase. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first phosphoproteomic analysis of leaves from a tobacco cultivar, K326. The results of this study advance our understanding of tobacco development and TMV action at the protein phosphorylation level.
Acknowledgement to Reviewers of Biomedicines in 2018
Authors:   Biomedicines Editorial Office
Published: January 2019

Rigorous peer-review is the corner-stone of high-quality academic publishing [...]
Real-Time Monitoring of Interactions between Solid-Supported Lipid Vesicle Layers and Short- and Medium-Chain Length Alcohols: Ethanol and 1-Pentanol
Authors: Neupane Shova , Cordoyiannis George , Renner Frank Uwe , Losada-Pérez Patricia
Published: January 2019

Lipid bilayers represent the interface between the cell and its environment, serving as model systems for the study of various biological processes. For instance, the addition of small molecules such as alcohols is a well-known process that modulates lipid bilayer properties, being considered as a reference for general anesthetic molecules. A plethora of experimental and simulation studies have focused on alcohol’s effect on lipid bilayers. Nevertheless, most studies have focused on lipid membranes formed in the presence of alcohols, while the effect of n-alcohols on preformed lipid membranes has received much less research interest. Here, we monitor the real-time interaction of short-chain alcohols with solid-supported vesicles of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) using quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) as a label-free method. Results indicate that the addition of ethanol at different concentrations induces changes in the bilayer organization but preserves the stability of the supported vesicle layer. In turn, the addition of 1-pentanol induces not only changes in the bilayer organization, but also promotes vesicle rupture and inhomogeneous lipid layers at very high concentrations.
Subjective Assessment of Sleep in Infantile Autism: A Comparative Study
Authors: Alfonso-Alfonso Maydelin , Morales-Chacón Lilia María , González-Naranjo Justa Elizabeth
Published: January 2019

Sleep disturbances are very common in children with autism; it is for this reason that instruments that facilitate their evaluation are necessary. Objectives: Perform sleep assessment from a subjective perspective in a group of children with primary autism and compare them with a control group, using the Sleep Habits in Children Survey (CSHQ), with the purpose of determining sleep disturbances according to the subscales used. Method: A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted in a group of 21 patients with primary autism. For the evaluation of sleep disturbances, we chose the CSHQ survey. The differences between the independent groups were calculated by applying a Mann–Whitney U test. Results: In the group of children with autism, higher values of the total scale were observed in comparison with the control group (p = 0.00) which It is congruent with a large sleep dysfunction. Significant differences were observed for all subscales (p = 0.00), with the exception of the subscale number 7. Conclusions: A high presence of sleep disturbances was observed in children with primary autism, with the exception of sleep breathing disorders, which did not show significant differences between the groups.
The Effects of Information Format and Spatial Cognition on Individual Wayfinding Performance
Authors: Verghote Antoine , Al-Haddad Sara , Goodrum Paul , Van Emelen Sylvie
Published: January 2019

Buildings with spatially complex interiors poise unique challenges during operations and maintenance. A complex interior makes wayfinding difficult, which can inhibit daily occupants from finding their desired location. Additionally, it can hamper emergency responders and evacuations during extreme emergency events. An experiment was conducted to analyze the effects of different information formats and spatial cognition on individual wayfinding in unknown environments. Participants were asked to memorize either a set of two-dimensional (2D) drawings or a three-dimensional (3D) model before navigating through a series of checkpoints in an unfamiliar environment. Individual wayfinding is dependent on an individual’s use of route knowledge or survey knowledge. Route knowledge was assessed from the start of the route to Checkpoint A (i.e., the first checkpoint). Meanwhile, survey knowledge was assessed from Checkpoint A to Checkpoint B. Spatial cognition of participants was measured by administering the card rotation and cube comparison tests. The research found that 3D models have a beneficial impact on the success of individual wayfinding. Furthermore, the success rate of the participants with a low spatial cognition improved significantly when using a 3D model rather than a set of 2D drawings. However, the success rates of participants with a high spatial cognition were not affected by the format of information. While the above results are significant, more experimentation is needed to confirm whether 3D information does effectively lower cognitive demand.
Electrochemical Reaction in Hydrogen Peroxide and Structural Change of Platinum Nanoparticle-Supported Carbon Nanowalls Grown Using Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition
Authors: Tomatsu Masakazu , Hiramatsu Mineo , Kondo Hiroki , Ishikawa Kenji , Tsutsumi Takayoshi , Sekine Makoto , Hori Masaru
Published: January 2019

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) reactions on platinum nanoparticle-decorated carbon nanowalls (Pt-CNWs) under potential applications were investigated on a platform of CNWs grown on carbon fiber paper (CFP) using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Through repeated cyclic voltammetry (CV), measurements of 1000 cycles using the Pt-CNW electrodes in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) solution with 240 μM of H2O2, the observed response peak currents of H2O2 reduction decreased with the number of cycles, which is attributed to decomposition of H2O2. After CV measurements for a total of 3000 cycles, the density and height of CNWs were reduced and their surface morphology changed. Energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) compositional mapping revealed agglomeration of Pt nanoparticles around the top edges of CNWs. The degradation mechanism of Pt-CNWs under potential application with H2O2 is discussed by focusing on the behavior of OH radicals generated by the H2O2 reduction.
Effects of Ion Bombardment Energy Flux on Chemical Compositions and Structures of Hydrogenated Amorphous Carbon Films Grown by a Radical-Injection Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition
Authors: Sugiura Hirotsugu , Kondo Hiroki , Tsutsumi Takayoshi , Ishikawa Kenji , Hori Masaru
Published: January 2019

Hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) films have attracted much attention, because of their excellent physical and chemical properties, such as high mechanical hardness, chemical robustness, a wide variety of optical bandgaps, and so forth. Although an ion bombardment energy has been regarded as essential in the well-know subplantation model, it alone is inadequate especially in complicated reactions of a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition process. In this study, an ion bombardment energy flux (ΓEi) was proposed as a crucial factor to determine chemical compositions and structures of a-C:H films. To obtain the amounts of ΓEi, electron densities, hydrogen (H) excitation temperatures, and negative direct current (DC) self-bias voltage (-VDC) were measured. The deposition rate increased, and sp2-C clusters incorporation was induced by the ΓEi. With increasing ΓEi, photoluminescence (PL) backgrounds in Raman spectra decreased, while spin densities in electron spin resonance (ESR) measurements increased. These results suggested the H content of a-C:H film decreased depending on the amount of ΓEi. The ΓEi is one of the crucial factors to determine the properties of the a-C:H films.
Adaptive Time-Triggered Multi-Core Architecture
Authors: Obermaisser Roman , Ahmadian Hamidreza , Maleki Adele , Bebawy Yosab , Lenz Alina , Sorkhpour Babak
Published: January 2019

The static resource allocation in time-triggered systems offers significant benefits for the safety arguments of dependable systems. However, adaptation is a key factor for energy efficiency and fault recovery in Cyber-Physical System (CPS). This paper introduces the Adaptive Time-Triggered Multi-Core Architecture (ATMA), which supports adaptation using multi-schedule graphs while preserving the key properties of time-triggered systems including implicit synchronization, temporal predictability and avoidance of resource conflicts. ATMA is an overall architecture for safety-critical CPS based on a network-on-a-chip with building blocks for context agreement and adaptation. Context information is established in a globally consistent manner, providing the foundation for the temporally aligned switching of schedules in the network interfaces. A meta-scheduling algorithm computes schedule graphs and avoids state explosion with reconvergence horizons for events. For each tile, the relevant part of the schedule graph is efficiently stored using difference encodings and interpreted by the adaptation logic. The architecture was evaluated using an FPGA-based implementation and example scenarios employing adaptation for improved energy efficiency. The evaluation demonstrated the benefits of adaptation while showing the overhead and the trade-off between the degree of adaptation and the memory consumption for multi-schedule graphs.
Proposal for Endoscopic Ultrasonography Classification for Small Pancreatic Cancer
Authors: Terada Shuzo , Kikuyama Masataka , Kawaguchi Shinya , Kanemoto Hideyuki , Yokoi Yoshihiro , Kamisawa Terumi , Kuruma Sawako , Chiba Kazuro , Honda Goro , Horiguchi Shinichiro , Nakahodo Jun
Published: January 2019

Backgrounds: Endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) is used to observe the stricture of the main pancreatic duct (MPD) and in diagnosing pancreatic cancer (PC). We investigate the findings on EUS by referring to the histopathological findings of resected specimens. Materials and Methods: Six patients with carcinoma in situ (CIS) and 30 patients with invasive carcinoma of 20 mm or less were included. The preoperative EUS findings were classified as follows. A1: Simple stricture type—no findings around the stricture; A2: Hypoecho stricture type—localized hypoechoic area without demarcation around the stricture; A3: Tumor stricture type—tumor on the stricture; B: Dilation type—the dilation of the pancreatic duct without a downstream stricture; C: Parenchymal tumor type—tumor located apart from the MPD. Results: Classes A1 and A2 consisted of 2 CISs, and 4 invasive carcinomas included two cases smaller than 5 mm in diameter. Most of the cancers classified as A3 or C were of invasive carcinoma larger than 5 mm in diameter. All cancers classified as B involved CIS. Serial pancreatic-juice aspiration cytologic examination (SPACE) was selected for all types of cases, with a sensitivity of 92.0%, while EUS-guided fine needle aspiration cytology (EUS-FNA) was only useful for invasive carcinoma, and its sensitivity was 66.7%. Conclusions: Stricture without a tumor could be a finding for invasive PC and pancreatic duct dilation without a downstream stricture could be a finding indicative of CIS. Carcinoma smaller than 5 mm in diameter could not be recognized by EUS. SPACE had a high sensitivity for diagnosing small PC.
Quantifying Data Dependencies with Rényi Mutual Information and Minimum Spanning Trees
Authors: Eggels Anne , Crommelin Daan
Published: January 2019

In this study, we present a novel method for quantifying dependencies in multivariate datasets, based on estimating the Rényi mutual information by minimum spanning trees (MSTs). The extent to which random variables are dependent is an important question, e.g., for uncertainty quantification and sensitivity analysis. The latter is closely related to the question how strongly dependent the output of, e.g., a computer simulation, is on the individual random input variables. To estimate the Rényi mutual information from data, we use a method due to Hero et al. that relies on computing minimum spanning trees (MSTs) of the data and uses the length of the MST in an estimator for the entropy. To reduce the computational cost of constructing the exact MST for large datasets, we explore methods to compute approximations to the exact MST, and find the multilevel approach introduced recently by Zhong et al. (2015) to be the most accurate. Because the MST computation does not require knowledge (or estimation) of the distributions, our methodology is well-suited for situations where only data are available. Furthermore, we show that, in the case where only the ranking of several dependencies is required rather than their exact value, it is not necessary to compute the Rényi divergence, but only an estimator derived from it. The main contributions of this paper are the introduction of this quantifier of dependency, as well as the novel combination of using approximate methods for MSTs with estimating the Rényi mutual information via MSTs. We applied our proposed method to an artificial test case based on the Ishigami function, as well as to a real-world test case involving an El Nino dataset.
Entropy Generation Optimization for Rarified Nanofluid Flows in a Square Cavity with Two Fins at the Hot Wall
Authors: Al-Kouz Wael , Al-Muhtady Ahmad , Owhaib Wahib , Al-Dahidi Sameer , Hader Montasir , Abu-Alghanam Rama
Published: January 2019

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is utilized to study entropy generation for the rarefied steady state laminar 2-D flow of air-Al2O3 nanofluid in a square cavity equipped with two solid fins at the hot wall. Such flows are of great importance in industrial applications, such as the cooling of electronic equipment and nuclear reactors. In this current study, effects of the Knudsen number (Kn), Rayleigh number (Ra) and the nano solid particle’s volume fraction ( ϕ ) on entropy generation were investigated. The values of the parameters considered in this work were as follows: 0 ≤ K n ≤ 0.1 , 10 3 ≤ R a ≤ 10 6 ,   0 ≤ ϕ ≤ 0.2 . The length of the fins (LF) was considered to be fixed and equal to 0.5 m, whereas the location of the fins with respect to the lower wall (HF) was set to 0.25 and 0.75 m. Simulations demonstrated that there was an inverse direct effect of Kn on the entropy generation. Moreover, it was found that when Ra was less than 104, the entropy generation, due to the flow, increased as ϕ increases. In addition, the entropy generation due to the flow will decrease at Ra greater than 104 as ϕ increases. Moreover, the entropy generation due to heat will increase as both the ϕ and Ra increase. In addition, a correlation model of the total entropy generation as a function of all of the investigated parameters in this study was proposed. Finally, an optimization technique was adapted to find out the conditions at which the total entropy generation was minimized.
Discrimination of Non-Local Correlations
Authors: Montina Alberto , Wolf Stefan
Published: January 2019

In view of the importance of quantum non-locality in cryptography, quantum computation, and communication complexity, it is crucial to decide whether a given correlation exhibits non-locality or not. As proved by Pitowski, this problem is NP-complete, and is thus computationally intractable unless NP is equal to P. In this paper, we first prove that the Euclidean distance of given correlations from the local polytope can be computed in polynomial time with arbitrary fixed error, granted the access to a certain oracle; namely, given a fixed error, we derive two upper bounds on the running time. The first bound is linear in the number of measurements. The second bound scales with the number of measurements to the sixth power. The former holds only for a very high number of measurements, and is never observed in the performed numerical tests. We, then, introduce a simple algorithm for simulating the oracle. In all of the considered numerical tests, the simulation of the oracle contributes with a multiplicative factor to the overall running time and, thus, does not affect the sixth-power law of the oracle-assisted algorithm.
An Analysis of Entropy-Based Eye Movement Events Detection
Authors: Harezlak Katarzyna , Augustyn Dariusz R. , Kasprowski Pawel
Published: January 2019

Analysis of eye movement has attracted a lot of attention recently in terms of exploring areas of people’s interest, cognitive ability, and skills. The basis for eye movement usage in these applications is the detection of its main components—namely, fixations and saccades, which facilitate understanding of the spatiotemporal processing of a visual scene. In the presented research, a novel approach for the detection of eye movement events is proposed, based on the concept of approximate entropy. By using the multiresolution time-domain scheme, a structure entitled the Multilevel Entropy Map was developed for this purpose. The dataset was collected during an experiment utilizing the “jumping point” paradigm. Eye positions were registered with a 1000 Hz sampling rate. For event detection, the knn classifier was applied. The best classification efficiency in recognizing the saccadic period ranged from 83% to 94%, depending on the sample size used. These promising outcomes suggest that the proposed solution may be used as a potential method for describing eye movement dynamics.
Quasi-Concavity for Gaussian Multicast Relay Channels
Authors: Thakur Mohit , Kramer Gerhard
Published: January 2019

Standard upper and lower bounds on the capacity of relay channels are cut-set (CS), decode-forward (DF), and quantize-forward (QF) rates. For real additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) multicast relay channels with one source node and one relay node, these bounds are shown to be quasi-concave in the receiver signal-to-noise ratios and the squared source-relay correlation coefficient. Furthermore, the CS rates are shown to be quasi-concave in the relay position for a fixed correlation coefficient, and the DF rates are shown to be quasi-concave in the relay position. The latter property characterizes the optimal relay position when using DF. The results extend to complex AWGN channels with random phase variations.
Clustering Financial Return Distributions Using the Fisher Information Metric
Authors: Taylor Stephen
Published: January 2019

Information geometry provides a correspondence between differential geometry and statistics through the Fisher information matrix. In particular, given two models from the same parametric family of distributions, one can define the distance between these models as the length of the geodesic connecting them in a Riemannian manifold whose metric is given by the model’s Fisher information matrix. One limitation that has hindered the adoption of this similarity measure in practical applications is that the Fisher distance is typically difficult to compute in a robust manner. We review such complications and provide a general form for the distance function for one parameter model. We next focus on higher dimensional extreme value models including the generalized Pareto and generalized extreme value distributions that will be used in financial risk applications. Specifically, we first develop a technique to identify the nearest neighbors of a target security in the sense that their best fit model distributions have minimal Fisher distance to the target. Second, we develop a hierarchical clustering technique that utilizes the Fisher distance. Specifically, we compare generalized extreme value distributions fit to block maxima of a set of equity loss distributions and group together securities whose worst single day yearly loss distributions exhibit similarities.
Information Geometric Duality of ϕ-Deformed Exponential Families
Authors: Korbel Jan , Hanel Rudolf , Thurner Stefan
Published: January 2019

In the world of generalized entropies—which, for example, play a role in physical systems with sub- and super-exponential phase space growth per degree of freedom—there are two ways for implementing constraints in the maximum entropy principle: linear and escort constraints. Both appear naturally in different contexts. Linear constraints appear, e.g., in physical systems, when additional information about the system is available through higher moments. Escort distributions appear naturally in the context of multifractals and information geometry. It was shown recently that there exists a fundamental duality that relates both approaches on the basis of the corresponding deformed logarithms (deformed-log duality). Here, we show that there exists another duality that arises in the context of information geometry, relating the Fisher information of ϕ -deformed exponential families that correspond to linear constraints (as studied by J.Naudts) to those that are based on escort constraints (as studied by S.-I. Amari). We explicitly demonstrate this information geometric duality for the case of ( c , d ) -entropy, which covers all situations that are compatible with the first three Shannon–Khinchin axioms and that include Shannon, Tsallis, Anteneodo–Plastino entropy, and many more as special cases. Finally, we discuss the relation between the deformed-log duality and the information geometric duality and mention that the escort distributions arising in these two dualities are generally different and only coincide for the case of the Tsallis deformation.
SURROGATES: Virtual OBUs to Foster 5G Vehicular Services
Authors: Santa José , Fernández Pedro , Ortiz Jordi , Sanchez-Iborra Ramon , Skarmeta Antonio
Published: January 2019

Virtualization technologies are key enablers of softwarized 5G networks, and their usage in the vehicular domain can provide flexibility and reliability in real deployments, where mobility and processing needs may be an issue. Next-generation vehicular services, such as the ones in the area of urban mobility and, in general, those interconnecting on-board sensors, require continuous data gathering and processing, but current architectures are stratified in two-tier solutions in which data is collected by on-board units (OBU) and sent to cloud servers. In this line, intermediate cache and processing layers are needed in order to cover quasi-ubiquitous data-gathering needs of vehicles in scenarios of smart cities/roads considering vehicles as moving sensors. The SURROGATES solution presented in this paper proposes to virtualize vehicle OBUs and create a novel Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) layer with the aim of offloading processing from the vehicle and serving data-access requests. This deals with potential disconnection periods of vehicles, saves radio resources when accessing the physical OBU and improves data processing performance. A proof of concept has been implemented using OpenStack and Open Source MANO to virtualize resources and gather data from in-vehicle sensors, and a final traffic monitoring service has been implemented to validate the proposal. Performance results reveal a speedup of more than 50% in the data request resolution, with consequently great savings of network resources in the wireless segment. Thus, this work opens a novel path regarding the virtualization of end-devices in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) ecosystem.