bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Radiation force and torque on an elliptical cylinder illuminated by a TE-polarized non-paraxial focused Gaussian light sheet with arbitrary incidence
Authors: Mitri F. G.
Published: December 2019

Predicting and computing the optical radiation force and torque experienced by an elliptical cylinder illuminated by a structured finite light-sheet beam in two dimensions (2D) remains a challenge from the standpoint of light–matter interactions in electromagnetic (EM) optics, tweezers, laser trapping, and scattering theory. In this work, the partial-wave series expansion method in cylindrical coordinates (which utilizes standard Bessel and Hankel wave functions) is proposed, verified, and validated. Exact expressions for the longitudinal and transverse radiation force components (per length) as well as the axial radiation torque component (per length) are derived analytically without any approximations. The example of a TE-polarized non-paraxial focused Gaussian light sheet illuminating a perfect electrically conducting (PEC) elliptical cylinder is considered. The scattering coefficients of the elliptical cylinder are determined by imposing the Neumann boundary condition and numerically solving a linear system of equations by matrix inversion. The structural functions are determined using a single numerical angular integration procedure to enforce the orthogonality and thus validity of the solution, making the proposed method semi-analytical. Calculations are performed for the non-dimensional longitudinal and transverse radiation force efficiencies (or functions) as well as the axial radiation torque efficiency. Emphases are given to varying the ellipticity of the cylindrical particle, its non-dimensional size, the non-paraxial beam waist (i.e., focusing), and the angle of incidence in the polar plane. Suitable convergence plots confirm the validity of the partial-wave series method to evaluate accurately the radiation force and torque with no limitation to a particular frequency range or particle size. The results are mostly relevant in understanding the fundamentals of the optical/EM radiation force and torque theories for structured focused light sheets and related applications dealing with the interactions of EM waves with elongated tubular particles with elliptical surfaces in particle manipulation and other areas. The analogy with the acoustical counterpart is also noted, which shows the universal character of the radiation force and torque phenomena.
Improving macroscopic entanglement with nonlocal mechanical squeezing
Authors: Hu Chang-Sheng , Lin Xin-Yu , Shen Li-Tuo , Su Wan-Jun , Jiang Yun-Kun , Wu Huaizhi , Zheng Shi-Biao
Published: December 2019

We report an efficient mechanism to generate mechanical entanglement in a two-cascaded cavity optomechanical system with optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) inside the two coupled cavities. We use the especially tuned OPAs to squeeze the hybrid mode composed of two mechanical modes, leading to strong macroscopic entanglement between the two movable mirrors. The squeezing parameter as well as the effective mechanical damping are both modulated by the OPA gains. The optimal degree of mechanical entanglement therefore depends on the balanced process between coherent hybrid mode squeezing and dissipation engineering. The mechanical entanglement is robust to strong cavity decay, going beyond simply resolved sideband regime, and is resistant to reasonable high thermal noise. The scheme provides an alternative way for generating strong macroscopic entanglement in cascaded optomechanical systems.
Manipulation of optomechanically induced transparency and absorption by indirectly coupling to an auxiliary cavity mode
Authors: Qin Guo-qing , Yang Hong , Mao Xuan , Wen Jing-wei , Wang Min , Ruan Dong , Long Gui-lu
Published: December 2019

We theoretically study the optomechanically induced transparency (OMIT) and absorption (OMIA) phenomena in a single microcavity optomechanical system, assisted by an indirectly coupled auxiliary cavity mode. We show that the interference effect between the two optical modes plays an important role and can be used to control the multiple-pathway induced destructive or constructive interference effect. The three-pathway interference could induce an absorption dip within the transparent window in the red sideband driving regime, while we can switch back and forth between OMIT and OMIA with the four-pathway interference. The conversion between the transparency peak and absorption dip can be achieved by tuning the relative amplitude and phase of the multiple light paths interference. Our system proposes a new platform to realize multiple pathways induced transparency and absorption in a single microcavity and a feasible way for realizing all-optical information processing.
Adiabatic nonlinear optical frequency conversion based on the electro-optic effect
Authors: Liu Xun , Shen Xueju , Rui Ting , He Lei , Zhou Bing , Zheng Nan
Published: December 2019

We propose a novel, to the best of our knowledge, adiabatic nonlinear optical frequency conversion method based on the electro-optic effect, which can be applied in a plethora of bulky nonlinear crystals. Within our method, an electric field gradient is applied on the crystal, which causes the phase mismatch to also gradually vary in space, thus achieving adiabatic frequency conversion. We demonstrate the validity and feasibility of this new approach by providing a theoretical framework and experimental evidence. In the experiment, the second harmonic generation of 532 nm is conducted in

K
D

2

P
O

4

. Conversion efficiency approaching 47.2% is achieved, with a corresponding temperature acceptance bandwidth of 4.56°C, which is about 4.3 times the temperature without the external electric field. We argue that the approach based on the electro-optic effect is promising for extending the range of applications of adiabatic frequency conversion and, consequently, for achieving efficient and robust frequency conversion.
Terahertz dual phase gradient metasurfaces: high-efficiency binary-channel spoof surface plasmon excitation
Authors: Yin Li-Zheng , Huang Tie-Jun , Wang Di , Liu Jiang-Yu , Sun Yan , Liu Pu-Kun
Published: December 2019

Spoof surface plasmon meta-couplers are compact antennas that link propagating waves and surface waves. However, most of them are designed with a fixed phase gradient and channel for the incident waves with specific polarization, which limits their further applications in multichannel scenarios. In this Letter, a new, to the best of our knowledge, method that combines the Brillouin zone folding theory with the generalized Snell’s law is proposed. We demonstrate that when the phase gradient of the metasurface is large enough, Brillouin zone folding effect will occur, which will create dual phase gradient space in a single metasurface. With this method, we design two novel terahertz meta-couplers with functionalities of symmetrical and asymmetrical binary-channel spoof surface plasmon (SSP) excitation. Furthermore, finite element method simulations are performed to demonstrate their functionalities. Considering the orthogonality of the incident waves, there can be a total of four independent space channels to excite SSPs on one metasurface. This work may open up new routes in multichannel SSP meta-couplers and multibeam surface wave antennas.
Flexible chirp-free probe pulse amplification for kHz fs/ps rotational CARS
Authors: Rahman K. Arafat , Braun Erik L. , Slipchenko Mikhail N. , Roy Sukesh , Meyer Terrence R.
Published: December 2019

The sensitivity of high-repetition-rate hybrid femtosecond/picosecond (fs/ps) rotational coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (RCARS) is strongly influenced by the energy available for the ps probe pulse. In this work, a high-energy ps probe pulse that is time-synchronized with the fs pump/Stokes pulse is achieved by using a diode-pumped Nd:YAG amplifier seeded at 1064.4 nm by the output of a fs optical parametric amplifier. Nearly transform-limited, 10 ps pulses with up to 800 µJ/pulse and a bandwidth of

1.9

c
m

−
1

were generated at the second harmonic 532.2 nm and used for kilohertz-rate fs/ps RCARS thermometry up to 2400 K with accuracies of 1–2%. We furthermore demonstrate the amplification of variable pulsewidths for flexible single-mode (chirp-free) RCARS signal generation.
The essay and psychogeography: Negotiating Marxism in the essays of Iain Sinclair and Will Self
Authors: Brown Will
Published: December 2019

In their essays for the London Review of Books (LRB), Iain Sinclair and Will Self draw on two legacies in particular – that of the essays of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, and that of Psychogeography and the work of the Situationist International. This article reviews a selection of these LRB essays – appearing between 2002 and 2015. It traces and analyses a dialectical tension within them – inherited from Benjamin and Adorno – as to the commensurability of 'the essayistic' with the delivery of serious, effective Marxist criticism; whether (as Self himself says, noting an analogous tension in the films of Patrick Keiller) they are to see their own work 'as part of a strategy of resistance to the spatial forms of late capitalism, or only as incorporations of the everyday into a bourgeois calculus of the arty-factual'. It is argued that this tension is itself not only characteristic of, but in some way fundamental to their work and its impetus, concluding with a consideration of how the essay form might offer a means of moving beyond ideology (which is the constraint of both capitalism and Marxism alike) – to find a literary analogue to, and vehicle for, the imaginative spatial possibilities and practices that the psychogeographic legacy represents.
#MeToo in Spain and France: Stopping the abuse towards ordinary women
Authors: Arriaza Ibarra Karen , Berumen Regina
Published: December 2019

In Spain and France, a lot of attention was initially given to the #Me Too initiative that Alyssa Milano started in October 2017 and was later fuelled by Oprah Winfrey and her #Time’s Up claim in January 2018. However, in both Southern European countries the #MeToo was focused as a way for ordinary women to denounce the sexual abuse and harassment they had been suffering, sometimes for decades, in the past. Unlike Hollywood, the implication of well-known actors or powerful personalities was almost non-existent in Spain and France, but on the other hand the #MeToo movement did play a significant role when supporting women, individually or collectively, in their way to denounce, stop and overcome sexual abuse and harassment.
#MeToo, feminism and femicide in Brazil
Authors: Paiva Raquel
Published: December 2019

In this article the international #MeToo movement is analysed from the perspective of Brazil: characteristics of the Brazilian feminist movement, historical paths and new approaches using social networks; #MeToo as one expression of new feminism; related movements and collectives and #EleNão (NotHim) as an offshoot of #MeToo and its failed attempt to avoid the 2018 election of a misogynist and chauvinist movement in Brazil. The campaign to denounce cases of assault neither prevent nor reduce the high femicide rates, with the country ranking fifth in the world and being qualified as one of the most dangerous places for women. Violence against women in Brazil continues to grow. The data from 2018 is alarming, and the country is losing only to El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala and Russia. The trend will only increase given Brazil’s new political outlook. On the other hand, in the social networks Brazilian women have found the only possibility for being heard, and have slowly begun to make their voices heard by the judiciary system and traditional media. The return to feminist protest in the 2000s was marked by the rise of committees and marches with specifically feminist themes, such as the World Women’s March, the Marcha das Margaridas and SlutWalk.
Digitally mediated martyrdom: The role of the visual in political Arab activist culture
Authors: Lewis Kelly
Published: December 2019

Digitally mediated images depicting death and martyrdom as a trope of resistance and contestation against oppressive regimes emerged as recurring and critical instruments of dissent during the Arab uprisings of 2010–11. While the trope of death and martyrdom as a form of political expression and resistance is not a new phenomenon in the Middle East, the affordances of digital and social media technologies have brought forth new opportunities for activists and everyday citizens to construct, circulate and communicate martyr narratives. Drawing from literature in visual politics, digital activist culture, and media and communication, this textual and iconographical analysis of visual tropes focuses on the brutal killing of Egyptian youth Khaled Said, on his construction as a posthumous injustice symbol, and on his subsequent transformation as a martyr of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Activists and everyday citizens participated in symbolically resurrecting Said in and through digitally mediated images and transforming him into a martyr to represent the popular struggle for social justice and universal human rights. The article examines how Said is made a martyr through complex creative processes of recurrent visual appropriation, mediation, re-appropriation and remediation. It shows that the creative authorship of martyrdom is increasingly hybridized, decentralized and driven by a memetic protest dynamic. The article proposes the term ‘digitally mediated martyrdom’ to designate the emergence of a new kind of visually oriented, socially constructed and ritualized protest dynamic. It develops the conceptual framework for understanding digitally mediated martyrdom as a contemporary political practice within activist cultures and popular social justice movements. It also argues digitally mediated martyrdom represents the emergence of a new and transnational protest dynamic.
Beyond the ‘online’: Iranian women’s non-movement of resistance
Authors: Asgari Helia , Sarikakis Katharine
Published: December 2019

In many undemocratic countries where conservative law and patriarchal ideas are in place, women are considered second-class citizens particularly in domains of public life. After Iran’s Islamic revolution, Iranian women were confronted with a theocratic regime, which imposed laws and norms, which limited women’s activities and violated earned liberties. The activities of women under non-democratic states and patriarchal systems are thwarted by the repressive measures of authoritarian states as well as patriarchal society and hostile attitudes of ordinary men and women. New normative frameworks and practices imposed gender segregation in various aspects. During these years, women attempt to resist these policies, not by deliberate, organized campaigns but through daily practices in public life. Asef Bayat calls these kinds of resistance and activities ‘social non-movement’. This article focuses on a rather under-researched form of social activism and attempts to describe the way in which social media might be supportive tools for women aiming to build active networks and communicative spaces to deliberate on challenges to their lives. At the same time, these spaces function as the civic training ground where representations of political demands for social change are put forth. This article discusses ways in which social media have been used as platforms where women’s demands, among others, hold identity dimensions as well as violation of their basic and human rights.
Past as future: The discourse of Chuantong in twentiethcentury China1
Authors: Li Pi
Published: December 2019

This article discusses the approaches of Chinese intellectuals and artists to tradition throughout the twentieth century. Tradition in China is understood, on the one hand, as a notion born in a framework constructed by twentieth-century Chinese intellectuals and their realm of senses and concept of time, on the other hand as a notion driven by modernity and capitalism to anchor a work of art to a distinguishable point of time. Hence, the article will first review a series of debates on old and new culture that have taken place since the May Fourth Movement. It will then move on to discuss how contemporary artists made peace with tradition since the '85 New Wave, a new era when artists are also subject to market forces of supply and demand.
Tradition and transmission: Shifting epistemological and (art-)historical grounds of contemporary art's relation to the past
Authors: Hopfener Birgit
Published: December 2019

This article takes artworks by Ai Weiwei that engage with traditions, art historical, art critical and curatorial receptions of these works, and (art-)historical discourses on the 'critical problem of tradition' as the starting point to re-consider contemporary art's relationship with tradition. It adopts a critical global art historical perspective decentring universalized modern western frameworks and uncovering how contemporary art's relation to the past in today's spatially and temporally disjunctive global world has to be read from multiple and transculturally entangled historical, epistemological and geo-cultural perspectives.
Translation, transformation and refiguration: The significance of Jingdezhen and the materiality of porcelain in the work of two contemporary Chinese artists1
Authors: Guest Luise
Published: December 2019

In December 2016 a group of researchers led by Professor Jiang Jiehong travelled to Jingdezhen as fieldwork for the Everyday Legend research project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Representing the White Rabbit Collection of Contemporary Chinese Art, Australia, I was invited to participate. This article developed from reflections on the fieldwork component of the research project, as well as the formal and informal discussions that took place, at the time and subsequently, in Shanghai, Birmingham, Groningen and London. In 2018, as a further development of this process of reflection, I conducted semi-structured interviews with two artists of different generations: the article examines how Liu Jianhua and Geng Xue approach the use of porcelain as a contemporary art material. Each has spent extensive periods of time in Jingdezhen and each is immersed in this particularly Chinese tradition. At the same time, each is identified (and identifies themselves) as practising in a global contemporary art context and participates in exhibitions and exchanges internationally. Considered in the context of current and historical discourses around global contemporaneity and its manifestations in twenty-first-century China, their work illuminates the key question that the Everyday Legend project was designed to examine: how can contemporary art and traditional Chinese craft practices intersect, informing and enriching each other? As representatives, respectively, of the generation who emerged into the first years of the post-Cultural Revolution Reform and Opening period, and of a younger generation educated partly outside China, they reveal how Chinese artists strategically negotiate local and global in positioning their work as contemporary reinventions of traditional forms and materiality.
Chasing the sun: Qu Leilei's serial images in early post-Mao China
Authors: Lee Jennifer Dorothy
Published: December 2019

'You always treat the sun as though it were yours.' Lining the frame of a pen-and-ink sketch, these words reflect conditions of possibility particular to the contemporaneity of early post-Mao China. Included in his Visual Diary series from the early 1980s, Qu Leilei's image-text turns inward the heavily socialized forms of visual and political expression from the revolutionary era. As instances of the artist's emerging private practice, such works, including etchings, line drawings, and fragments of prose poetry, are seldom addressed in existing scholarship on contemporary Chinese art. This article takes up a selective examination of Qu's diaristic ephemera from this historical moment following the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) to explore how Qu's entries both maintain and transform aspects of revolutionary-era media and visuality. The article further considers the following questions: In what ways does Qu's Visual Diary reconfigure the serial images of revolutionary state-driven practices in the social landscape of still-Maoist Beijing? How do Qu's transfigured image-texts complicate the rejection of Maoist visual vanguardism in cultural practices after the revolution?
Metamorphosis of a butterfly: Neo-liberal subjectivation and queer autonomy in Xiyadie's papercutting art
Authors: Bao Hongwei
Published: December 2019

Celebrated as 'China's Tom of Finland', Xiyadie is probably one of the best-known queer artists living in China today. His identity as a gay man from rural China and his method of using the Chinese folk art of papercutting for queer artistic expression make him a unique figure in contemporary Chinese art. As the first academic article on the artist and his works, this article examines Xiyadie's transformation of identity in life and his representation of queer experiences through the art of papercutting. Using a critical biographical approach, in tandem with an analysis of his representative artworks, I examine the transformation of Xiyadie's identity from a folk artist to a queer artist. In doing so, I delineate the transformation and reification of human subjectivity and creativity under transnational capitalism. Meanwhile, I also seek possible means of desubjectivation and human agency under neo-liberal capitalism by considering the role of art in this picture. This article situates Xiyadie's life and artworks in a postsocialist context where class politics gave way to identity politics in cultural production. It calls for a reinvigoration of Marxist and socialist perspectives for a nuanced critical understanding of contemporary art production and social identities.
Reverie through Ma Yansong's shanshui city to evoke and re-appropriate China's urban space
Authors: Mirra Federica
Published: December 2019

Meandering rivers, elevated walkways and high-rise buildings revive traditional landscape paintings in an attempt to re-establish a connection between Chinese citizens and their urban space. Since the Open Door Policy in 1978 and the consequent period of reforms, introduced by Deng Xiaoping, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has been focusing on the economic and urban development of the nation to affirm its modernization and global role. Particularly, since 2001, urbanization has been driven by economic and political goals that have overshadowed Chinese cultural and historical specificity and residents' needs. Cities and metropolises have become the symbol of the country's modernization and globalization, attracting foreign capital and visibility. At the same time, the frenetic and unprecedented scale of urbanization in Mainland China has caused the loss of historical and cultural areas, forced evictions, social instability and worsened pollution, among other issues. By presenting the case study of Beijing-based architect and artist, Ma Yansong, I will illustrate how tradition and culture could be reinvented and implemented in the contemporary urban realities. To do that, Chinese painter Xie He's treatise on the aesthetics of traditional landscape painting will provide with an original framework to understand Ma's urban concept of shanshui city. Aiming to re-connect everyday individuals with their urban space and cultural and historical background, this article responds to the urgency to envision future cities that are conceived by and for Chinese citizens and stem from China's ancient tradition and cultural specificity. Moreover, it intends to question the current urbanizing process and foster alternative urban imaginaries for future Chinese cities.
Más allá del aprendizaje escolar: el rol de la subjetividad en el enfoque de los fondos de identidad
Authors: Subero Tomás David , Esteban-Guitart Moisés
Published: December 2019

El aprendizaje ocurre cuando el aprendiz se convierte en sujeto de su propio aprendizaje en contextos tanto formales como informales. La teoría de la subjetividad de González Rey, que parte del enfoque histórico-cultural, afirma que dicho proceso está guiado por la emoción, la imaginación y la creatividad, que a su vez promueve el desarrollo subjetivo. Sin embargo, las actividades de aprendizaje tradicionales han ignorado al aprendiz como sujeto. Los proyectos basados en fondos de identidad favorecen el desarrollo de nuevas formas de reconocer al aprendiz fomentando nuevos modos de intercambiar experiencias de aprendizaje dentro y fuera de la escuela. Los fondos de identidad se erigen de este modo como espacios en donde se reconocen intereses, aficiones, experiencias y vivencias por parte de los jóvenes como recursos importantes para estimular su desempeño académico. Específicamente, la subjetividad permite que el aprendiz se convierta en sujeto a partir de la producción de sus propios procesos de subjetivación mediante la práctica dialógica y comprensiva. El objetivo principal de este artículo es ir un paso más allá en relación con los fondos de identidad ilustrando una serie de experiencias educativas que ayudan a identificar y movilizar dichos fondos mediante el desarrollo de la subjetividad. Estos fondos de identidad subjetivados son integrales para los educadores con el objeto de favorecer posicionamientos reflexivos en los alumnos que encaminen hacia la generación de nuevos procesos de subjetivación. Vehicular espacios de encuentro entre los fondos de identidad y la subjetividad se sugiere una forma pertinente para avanzar hacia mayores cotas de significación y sentido por parte de los jóvenes en la educación del siglo XXI.
Become Boyan: The Arrival and Development of Baweanese in Singapore in the 19-20th Century
Authors: Aziri Mohammad Farihan , Wahyudi Ahmad
Published: December 2019

This article aimes to discuss the arrival and development of Baweanese people who called Boyan in Singapore in the 19-20th century. Boyan is a term for residents of Bawean Island in Singapore and Malaysia which occurs due to an error pronunciation. Baweanese people since the 19th century has visited Singapore to seek for a job. By using historical method with emphasize on the using primary sources, this research has been successfully reveal the motifs of Baweanese people migrated. In its development, Baweanese people who went to Singapore experienced a change of orientation. At the beginning of the 20th century, they preferred to settle in Singapore. The Baweanese’s migration to Singapore increased in the early 20th century after the use of steamers as their mode of transportation to go to Singapore. The emergence of mass passenger transportation routes from service agents using steam vessels has an impact on the mobility of Baweanese who migrate to Singapore. KPM's passenger agent is a catalyst for the growth and activity of Baweanese in Singapore. The aim of this stu is to explain when the Bawean people migrated to Singapore as well as the way they moved and settled in Singapore in the mid 19th century until the 20th century.
Sonic Grounding and Internalizing Structure: Themes of Continuity in the Music of John Coltrane
Authors: Squinobal Jason
Published: December 2019

(Opening paragraph): Examining the musical development of John Coltrane, one often gets a deep sense of change. Respected Coltrane scholar Lewis Porter characterizes Coltrane’s career by the “fact that he was constantly developing and changing.” To account for this perception of change, the tendency is to divide Coltrane's music into segmented stylistic periods. This allows us a greater understanding of Coltrane’s developmental building blocks, and the specific elements that he focused on while creating his music. For example, Eric Nisenson divides Coltrane’s work into “Early Coltrane” including his work with Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and his first recordings for Atlantic, a “Middle Period” including his work with Thelonious Monk and the early Impulse recordings, and finally a “Late Period” including Coltrane’s avant-garde albums.  In The Dawn of Indian Music in the West Peter Lavezzoli states “Coltrane’s music went through more evolutionary stages during his ten years as a solo recording artist than many musicians realize in a fuller lifetime.” Historical and bibliographical references including the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians also characterized Coltrane’s development as moving from one period to the next.
Intertextuality and the Construction of Meaning in Jazz Worlds: A Case Study of Joe Farrell’s “Moon Germs”
Authors: Kluth Andrew J.
Published: December 2019

(Opening paragraph): In this article, I invoke the concept of intermusicality as defined by Ingrid Monson and develop its role in meaning-making in musical worlds. Her groundbreaking book, Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction (1996) offers a sophisticated criticism of jazz improvisation and the construction of meaning therein. In doing so, it explores methods by which to nuance and/or rupture traditional historiographies that construct the jazz canon. More than intermusicality, though, I look to a more general intertextuality as a hermeneutic window disruptive to the “great man” histories that have so often heretofore constructed the jazz tradition. I argue that the notion of intertextuality is particularly useful in mediating questions of essentialism in jazz (racial or otherwise) with considerations of practical competency and an artist’s particular situatedness in that body of texts. Working against positivist taxonomies resultant in definitions of what is/is not jazz, this perspective leaves space for the refiguring work of novelty and experimentation requisite therein. This resonates with Steven B. Elworth’s (1995) claim: “Far from being an unchanging and an easily understood historical field, the jazz tradition is a constantly transforming construction” (58). In my suspicion of linear ideas of history and “progress” (and therefore, telos), I prefer to interrogate and ratify instead the complicated relationship of novelty to tradition. The negotiation of these meta-categories is at the heart of the work improvising musicians do; combining disparate ways of being in the world with musical ideas and practices to create new musico-sociocultural wholes.
The BoLC for Legal Translations: A Trial Lesson
Authors: Giampieri Patrizia
Published: December 2019

This article will explore how consulting the BoLC (Bononia Legal Corpus; Rossini Favretti, Tamburini and Martelli 2007) can be helpful and advantageous when tackling legal translations. To this aim, a 4-hour trial lesson with experienced translators was organized. Before the workshop, the participants translated a 300-word legal document issued within a civil case. Their translations (from English to Italian) were revised during the trial lesson, where the attendants learned how to consult the BoLC. They also used supplementary online resources, such as dictionaries and/or experts’ blogs or fora. The article findings will remark that despite some drawbacks, such as the absence of POS tagging and lemmatization, and a quite complex search syntax, the BoLC helps dispel doubts and deliver outstanding translation work. Its main usefulness lies in the possibility of finding formulaic expressions and collocational use, which can be rather intricate in legal discourse.
Thermography and colour Doppler ultrasound: a potential complementary diagnostic tool in evaluation of rheumatoid arthritis in the knee region
Authors: Umapathy Snekhalatha , Thulasi Rajalakshmi , Gupta Nilkanth , Sivanadhan Suma
Published: December 2019

The aim and objectives of this study were as follows: (i) to perform automated segmentation of knee thermal image using the regional isotherm-based segmentation (RIBS) algorithm and segmentation of ultrasound image using the image J software; (ii) to implement the RIBS algorithm using computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) tools for classification of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and normal subjects based on feature extraction values; and (iii) to correlate the extracted thermal imaging features and colour Doppler ultrasound (CDUS) features in the knee region with the biochemical parameters in RA patients. Thermal image analysis based on skin temperature measurement and thermal image segmentation was performed using the RIBS algorithm in the knee region of RA patients and controls. There was an increase in the average skin temperature of 5.94% observed in RA patients compared to normal. CDUS parameters such as perfusion, effusion and colour fraction for the RA patients were found to be 1.2 ± 0.5, 1.8 ± 0.2 and 0.052 ± 0.002, respectively. CDUS measurements were performed and analysed using the image J software. Biochemical parameters such as erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) showed significant positive correlation with the thermal imaging parameters. The CDUS parameters such as effusion, perfusion and colour fraction correlated significantly with the clinical and functional assessment score. According to the results of this study, both infrared (IR) thermal imaging and CDUS offer better diagnostic potential in detecting early-stage RA. Therefore, the developed CAD model using thermal imaging could be used as a pre-screening tool to diagnose RA in the knee region.
Childhood obesity: an overview of laboratory medicine, exercise and microbiome
Authors: Scudiero Olga , Pero Raffaela , Ranieri Annaluisa , Terracciano Daniela , Fimiani Fabio , Cesaro Arturo , Gentile Luca , Leggiero Eleonora , Laneri Sonia , Moscarella Elisabetta , Mazzaccara Cristina , Frisso Giulia , D’Alicandro Giovanni , Limongelli Giuseppe , Pastore Lucio , Calabrò Paolo , Lombardo Barbara
Published: December 2019

In the last few years, a significant increase of childhood obesity incidence unequally distributed within countries and population groups has been observed, thus representing an important public health problem associated with several health and social consequences. Obese children have more than a 50% probability of becoming obese adults, and to develop pathologies typical of obese adults, that include type 2-diabetes, dyslipidemia and hypertension. Also environmental factors, such as reduced physical activity and increased sedentary activities, may also result in increased caloric intake and/or decreased caloric expenditure. In the present review, we aimed to identify and describe a specific panel of parameters in order to evaluate and characterize the childhood obesity status useful in setting up a preventive diagnostic approach directed at improving health-related behaviors and identifying predisposing risk factors. An early identification of risk factors for childhood obesity could definitely help in setting up adequate and specific clinical treatments.
Improved thermally stable oligoetherols from 6-aminouracil, ethylene carbonate and boric acid
Authors: Chmiel-Szukiewicz Elżbieta
Published: December 2019

Syntheses of oligoetherols with a 1,3-pyrimidine ring and boron atoms using 6-aminouracil, ethylene carbonate and boric acid has been proposed. The structure of the obtained products were determined by instrumental methods (IR,1H-NMR and MALDI-ToF spectra). The physicochemical and thermal properties of oligoetherols were examined. The products were characterized by high thermal stability. Based on the tests performed, it was found that oligoetherols obtained from 6-aminouracil, boric acid and ethylene carbonate are suitable for the manufacturing of polyurethane foams with improved thermal stability and reduced flammability.
Conceptual DFT as a Novel Chemoinformatics Tool for Studying the Chemical Reactivity Properties of the Amatoxin Family of Fungal Peptides
Authors: Flores-Holguín Norma , Frau Juan , Glossman-Mitnik Daniel
Published: December 2019

The chemical structures and molecular reactivities of the Amatoxin group of fungi-derived peptides have been determined by means of the consideration of a model chemistry that has been previously validated as well-behaved for our purposes. The reactivity descriptors were calculated on the basis of a methodological framework built around the concepts that are the outcome of the so called Conceptual Density Functional Theory (CDFT). This procedure in connection with the different Fukui functions allowed to identify the chemically active regions within the molecules. By considering a simple protocol designed by our research group for the estimation of the pKa of peptides through the information coming from the chemical hardness, these property has been established for the different molecular systems explored in this research. The information reported through this work could be of interest for medicinal chemistry researchers in using this knowledge for the design of new medicines based on the studied peptides or as a help for the understanding of the toxicity mechanisms exerted by them.
Noch einmal: Zum Verhältnis von Moralität und Sittlichkeit
Authors: Habermas Jürgen
Published: December 2019

Ever since Hegel made poignant the difference between morality and ethical life (“Sittlichkeit”), philosophical discourse in the traditions that developed subsequently, up to and including the Frankfurt school, has oscillated between those poles. This paper starts out with a short exposition of autonomy as one of the few large-scale innovations in the history of philosophy and then proceeds to discuss Hegel’s concept of “Sittlichkeit” and the objections to be raised against it from a Kantian point of view. Political theory, however, has to move beyond pure normativism and consider actual social relations of power, as Marx disclosed. Mapping out this winding trajectory from Kant to Marx provides some perspective that may be illuminating for challenging present-day issues.
Wie viel Geschichte steckt in sprachlichen Bedeutungen?
Authors: Reuter Gerson
Published: December 2019

Certainly, we sometimes use language creatively and think really new thoughts. However, can we think and speak regardless of the manner in which we have spoken and thought in the past? This seems to be highly improbable. Consequently, nobody would assert something like this. But that being a given, what are the exact reasons that prevent us from radically detaching ourselves from our past practices of thinking and speaking? What roles do past facts play in determining what we are able to think and speak today? This essay looks at the motivation for examining and determining the impact of ‘our history’ on semantics. If possible, these ideas should appeal independently of special or contentious theoretical presuppositions.
Epistemologie der Medialität
Authors: Krämer Sybille
Published: December 2019

The logic of media usage is determined by the self-blinding of the materiality of the medium in the act of its transmitting function. According to the traditional topos of the ‘dying messenger’, a messenger-oriented model of mediality is developed. Contrary to the appearance of the ‘vanishing’ medium, a critical media philosophy has to depict that and how media always shape and constitute what they represent. One phenomenon mostly being invisible in our normal use of texts and pictures is the medium of ‘artificial flatness’ within the framework of a ‘cultural technique of flattening’: scientific, technical and artistic creativity is inconceivable without two-dimensional inscriptions in the form of writings, graphs, diagrams and maps. But how can this imprinting power of inscribed and illustrated surfaces be grasped if at the same time the role of media is understood in terms of transmission, connection, intermediation? Our suggestion is to describe the shaping power of media by the concept of ‘transfiguration’: From a transfigurative perspective, the medium only reveals itself as a trace on its content. Traces are visible transformations in the mode of latency. To manifest this latency, to make the implicit explicit, is then a task of media philosophy. As examples of such a critical-epistemological reflection, the relationship between writing and language, as well as between map and territory, is discussed.
Restructuring Non-Performing Loans for Bank Recovery: Private Workouts and Securitisation Mechanisms
Authors: Miglionico Andrea
Published: December 2019

Resolving regimes of non-performing loans (NPLs) have raised concerns among supervisory authorities and banking regulators. NPLs play a central role in the linkages between poor lending and credit risks. This has implications for the management of asset quality and for the stability of the firm and the financial sector. A high stock of NPLs is undesirable to investors which can lead a decrease in the stock price, profitability loss and potentially to a distressed scenario. In the aftermath of the global crisis, the early resolution of NPLs requires coordinated insolvency proceedings and harmonised restructuring tools. The EU legislation introduced minimum loss coverage layers of capital for NPLs to address newly formed losses. Specifically, the supervisory toolkit implemented in the European Banking Union aims to improve the classification of loan quality and establish common practices to monitor non-performing exposures. This article argues that there is a need to enhance private arrangements within the resolution of distressed debts – alternative to public support such as asset management companies and securitisation mechanisms – which in turn would make it more manageable to reduce the NPL on banks’ balance sheet.
Use of simulation model for measurement of MilkRun system performance
Authors: Fedorko Gabriel , Vasil Martin , Bartosova Michaela
Published: December 2019

Intra-plant transport systems within their operation directly impact on the performance of production systems. For their effective operation, it is, therefore, necessary to realize evaluation of operational performance and effectivity. For the realization of this type of evaluation, in addition to a wide range of sensors that can be difficult for installation and operation, we can also use indirect methods that are equally able to provide reliable operational characteristics. Indirect analytical methods are presented above all by the approach which is based on the use of simulation methods. The method of computer simulation provides a wide range of options for the evaluation of efficiency and performance. The paper describes the use of a simulation model created in the program Tecnomatix Plant Simulation for analyzing the supply of production workplaces within the MilkRun system.
Design of clamping structure for material flow monitor of pipe conveyors
Authors: Molnár Vieroslav , Lipovcová Katarína
Published: December 2019

In terms of monitoring the material and volume flow of pipe conveyors, the conveyor is considered to be a volumetric machine that does not have a "self-defence" function - in most cases, material needs to be dosed and monitored in the critical parts of the conveyor for smooth transportation and quick detection of deficiencies and errors. Appropriate attachment of the material flow sensor to the pipe conveyor structure plays an important role for efficient material monitoring on the pipe conveyor belt. The paper specifies and subsequently analyzes selected methods of mounting an optical material flow monitor - the Bulkscan LMS511, based on the ratio index method by analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of individual variants. The optimal variant is modelled in the PTC Creo Parametric program and the estimated costs for its implementation are evaluated.
Cardiac strains as a tool for optimization of cardiac resynchronization therapy in non-responders: a pilot study
Authors: Šipula David , Kozák Milan , Šipula Jaroslav , Homza Miroslav , Plášek Jiří
Published: December 2019

Background

Approximately 30% of patients do not respond to implantation of Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy – Defibrillators (CRT-D). The aim of this study was to investigate the potential for cardiac strain speckle tracking to optimize the performance of CRT-D in non-responding patients.

Methods

30 patients not responding to Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy-Defibrillators after 3 months were randomly divided into control and intervention groups. Atrioventricular interval was adjusted so that E and A waves did not overlap, the interventricular interval was subsequently optimized to yield maximum improvement of the sum of longitudinal+radial+circumferential strains. The left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and NYHA improvement 3 months after optimization were evaluated and use of other strain combinations assessed.

Results

A significant correlation between the (combined) strain change and LVEF improvement was detected (p<0.01). 75% of patients with non-ischemic etiology of heart failure who did not respond to the original CRT-D reacted favorably with significant LVEF and NYHA improvement. The area strain was the best predictor of LVEF/NYHA improvement in those patients. No significant improvement was recorded in patients with ischemic etiology.

Conclusions

AV and VV optimization based on speckle tracking is a very promising method potentially leading to a significant improvement of the outcome of CRT-D, especially in patients with non-ischemic etiology of heart failure.
A FacileIn-SituDevelopment of L-Valine Film onto the Surface of Carbon Paste Electrode Towards the Detection of Environmentally Hazardous 4-Amino Phenol
Authors: Gopal T. Venu , Reddy Tukiakula Madhusudana , Shaikshavali P. , Venkataprasad G. , Gopal P.
Published: December 2019

A small scale of environmentally hazardous 4-aminophenol can show significant impact on human health. Hence, in the present work, we have designed L-Valine film (Vf) modified carbon paste electrode (Vf/CPE) for the determination of 4-aminophenol. Herein, a facilein-situL-Valine film was developed by electrochemical polymerization method onto the surface of bare carbon paste electrode (BCPE) with the help of cyclic voltammetry (CV) technique. A two-folds of electrochemical peak current enhancement was achieved at Vf/CPE in comparison with BCPE towards the determination of 4-aminophenol in optimum pH 7.0 of phosphate buffer solution (PBS). This was achieved due to the large surface area and conductive nature of Vf/CPE, which was concluded through the techniques of cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The effect of pH of buffer and scan rate studies were successfully studied. Morphological changes of BCPE and Vf/CPE was studied with the help of scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The formation of Vf on CPE was also analyzed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra. Under the optimized conditions, the limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) values of 4-aminophenol were estimated with the aid of chronoamperometry (CA) technique and was found to be 9.8 μM and 32 μM, respectively. Finally the proposed method was found to have satisfactory repeatability, reproducibility and stability results with low relative standard deviation (RSD) values.
Sorption Studies of Chromate by Iron Oxide from Drinking Water
Authors: Sultana Qamar , Naeem A. , Mahmood Tahira , Ud Din Israf , Saeed Tooba , Khan Nadir , Ahmad Tauqeer
Published: December 2019

Chromium is well-thought-out heavy metal which is one of the enormously lethal due to its cancer-causing nature. In this study, iron oxide is used as adsorbent for chromate removal from aqueous solution as a function of pH, time, temperature, concentration of adsorbate and media dosage. The influence of pH on Cr (VI) sorption by iron oxide reveals that adsorption is significantly increased as pH is decreased from 8 to 2. The sorption rate is detected to be higher in the beginning and then it remains constant after 120 min of equilibrium time. The removal of Cr (VI) is found to be greater at higher temperature, which confirms the endothermic nature of Cr (VI) adsorption by iron oxide. Whereas, the kinetic investigations confirm that the chromate adsorption follows the pseudo second order with kinetic energy in the range of 8.4–83.7 kJ mol−1.