cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
Predicting the evolution of life history using inclusive fitness : the evolution of death, aging, and variable birth rates explained through multisets and graph theory
Creators: name: Newman, Saul Justin
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2015

description: This thesis explores the capacity for a new measurement of inclusive fitness to explain previously unsolved problems in evolutionary biology. It presents an empirically validated solution to several problems. We explain the evolution of organism aging, post-reproductive survival and infant mortality in humans, predicting 90% of the variation in the age-specific probability of human mortality. This approach also provides an explanation for 40% of the variation in reproductive success within a captive population, and demonstrates why Alzheimer's disease persists in spite of severe phenotypic costs in humans.
A Degenerate Bose-Fermi Mixture of Metastable Atoms
Creators: name: McNamara, J. M.
name: Jeltes, T.
name: Tychkov, A. S.
name: Hogervorst, W.
name: Vassen, W.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2006
Subjects: subject: Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We report the observation of simultaneous quantum degeneracy in a dilute gaseous Bose-Fermi mixture of metastable atoms. Sympathetic cooling of helium-3 (fermion) by helium-4 (boson), both in the lowest triplet state, allows us to produce ensembles containing more than 10^6 atoms of each isotope at temperatures below 1 micro-Kelvin, and achieve a fermionic degeneracy parameter of T/Tf=0.45. Due to their high internal energy, the detection of individual metastable atoms with sub-nanosecond time resolution is possible, permitting the study of bosonic and fermionic quantum gases with unprecedented precision. This may lead to metastable helium becoming the mainstay of quantum atom optics.
description: 4 pages, 3 figures submitted to PRL
Agglomerative Clustering of Handwritten Numerals to Determine Similarity of Different Languages
Creators: name: Rahat-uz-Zaman, Md.
name: Hye, Shadmaan
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV)
subject: Computation and Language (cs.CL)
subject: Machine Learning (cs.LG)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Handwritten numerals of different languages have various characteristics. Similarities and dissimilarities of the languages can be measured by analyzing the extracted features of the numerals. Handwritten numeral datasets are available and accessible for many renowned languages of different regions. In this paper, several handwritten numeral datasets of different languages are collected. Then they are used to find the similarity among those written languages through determining and comparing the similitude of each handwritten numerals. This will help to find which languages have the same or adjacent parent language. Firstly, a similarity measure of two numeral images is constructed with a Siamese network. Secondly, the similarity of the numeral datasets is determined with the help of the Siamese network and a new random sample with replacement similarity averaging technique. Finally, an agglomerative clustering is done based on the similarities of each dataset. This clustering technique shows some very interesting properties of the datasets. The property focused in this paper is the regional resemblance of the datasets. By analyzing the clusters, it becomes easy to identify which languages are originated from similar regions.
description: Submitted to the 22nd International Conference on Computer and Information Technology (ICCIT), 18-20 December, 2019, 6 pages, 5 figures and 1 table
Data Mining and Domain Knowledge:  An Exploration of Methods to Advance Medical Research
Creators: name: Engle, Kelley M.
Publisher: name: Maryland Shared Open Access Repository
Year: 2013
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence
Classification Rules
Data Mining
Domain Knowledge
Evolutionary Computation
Genetic Algorithms

description: Researchers in the medical domain consider the double-blind placebo controlled clinical trial the gold standard. The data for these clinical trials are collected for a specifically defined hypothesis and there is very little in the realm of secondary data analyses conducted. The underlying purpose of this work is to demonstrate the value and relevance of data mining and artificial intelligence methods for both pre-processing needs and secondary data analyses in medical research. The selected medical domain for this demonstration is autism and in particular the data from IAN (Interactive Autism Network) obtained from Kennedy Krieger.  During the process of predictive model building, numerous research issues were addressed at different phases. Solutions were provided for: (1) Statistical issues with metric-based data mining methods and (2) Provide guidelines for how to incorporate domain knowledge in data mining.  Various statistical methods used in data mining, such as Na?ve Bayes, require metric data to ensure reliable and robust results. Many public data health sources, including the IAN dataset, primarily consist of non-metric data in the form of Likert scales and categorical data. MDS (Multi-Dimensional Scaling) will be presented as method which can effectively transform non-metric data to metric. For incorporating domain knowledge in data mining, the initial work of integrating autism domain knowledge in multi-level association rule mining is presented. Through the use of an external treatment ontology, more interesting association rules were extracted for autism treatments. In order to further explore the role of knowledge guidance, the hypothesis indicated that knowledge-guided mutation applied to classification rules will affect the search trajectory incrementally. This hypothesis builds on the underlying premise of gradualness. A pilot and full-fledged experiments were conducted where knowledge from the autism domain in the form of a drug taxonomy and autism comorbidity semantic net guided the mutation of classification rules. The experiments for the drug taxonomy confirmed the hypothesis that domain knowledge can be utilized to constrain the search space. This research is both novel and significant as it provides a practical resource for health informatics researchers who want to incorporate domain knowledge into data mining and artificial intelligence models.
Evolution of Ultramassive Stars
Creators: name: Yungelson, L.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2006
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics (astro-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We show that even most massive initial solar composition stars hardly form black holes with mass exceeding about 100 solar mass.
description: 2 pages, contributed talk at JD05, IAU GA XXVI, Prague, August 2006, a typo in equation removed
Restoring Postoperative Natural Killer Cell Function by Targeting the Immunosuppressive Machinery of Surgery-Induced Myeloid Derived Suppressor Cells
Creators: name: Angka, Leonard
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: Immunotherapy
subject: Natural Killer Cells
subject: Myeloid Derived Suppressor Cells
subject: Surgery
subject: Arginine
subject: Perioperative
subject: Immunology
subject: FOS: Clinical medicine
subject: Cancer

description: In the aftermath of cancer surgery, Natural killer (NK) cells are severely suppressed. NK cells are critical for anti-tumour surveillance and their postoperative dysfunction creates an opportunity for metastases. I hypothesized that NK cell suppression is mediated by multiple suppressive mechanisms of surgery-induced Myeloid Derived Suppressor Cells (Sx-MDSCs). In this thesis, I first show that NK cell dysfunction is far worse than previously described. In a cohort of colorectal cancer (CRC) surgery patients (n=42), the ability of NK cells to secrete IFN-gamma in response to stimulation was suppressed for up to 2 months after surgery. Secondly, since Sx-MDSCs have been poorly characterized in humans, I thoroughly phenotyped Sx-MDSCs from cancer surgery patients using flow cytometry (n=32 patient samples) and single-cell RNA sequencing (n=6 patient samples). Additionally, upon screening a library of 150 compounds, I showed that Sx-MDSC rely on PI3K signaling for their suppression of NK cells in ex vivo NK cell suppression assays. The third part of this thesis explores the contribution of Sx-MDSCs to the rapid reduction in postoperative arginine, the perioperative importance of arginine for NK cells, and the therapeutic effects of a perioperative arginine enriched supplement (AES) on metastases in murine models of surgical stress. Here, I showed that perioperative AES attenuates postoperative metastases by accelerating NK cell recovery after surgery. These promising preclinical data combined with evidence from the scientific literature led us to initiate a Phase II randomized-controlled clinical trial assessing the ability of perioperative AES to improve NK cell function after surgery in CRC patients (n=12/arm). In the last part of this thesis, I present the results from our clinical trial, which showed only a transient and, at best, modest improvement in NK cell function. Importantly, this may have been heavily influenced by poor postoperative patient compliance in taking the AES. In conclusion, this body of work describes the multifactorial role that Sx-MDSCs play in mediating postoperative NK cell suppression, and that safe, effective, and targeted perioperative interventions should be further investigated as a strategy to attenuate metastatic disease recurrence after surgery.
Finding topographically-similar regions in a triangulated terrain model
Creators: name: Litchfield, Gwen
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2009

description: Two shortcomings of systems developed to automatically extract the topographic features of terrain are that feature definitions are often based on a single attribute, such as Gaussian curvature or slope, and that interactive queries regarding the similarity of one region to another are rarely supported. We report on a prototype system for triangulated terrain models that attempts to address these two issues. It supports interactive classification of the terrain via a user-controlled classification system. Each classification category is defined in terms of ranges of five key terrain attributes: local relief, slope aspect, slope gradient, plan curvature and profile curvature. The system also supports queries of the type: "Which regions are topographically-similar to the selected region?" We use optimal-monomorphism in attributed graphs so that "topographically-similar" goes beyond simply matching terrain attributes to include the attributes and spatial relations of adjacent regions.
Chiral perturbation theory study of the axial $N\toΔ(1232)$ transition
Creators: name: Geng, L. S.
name: Camalich, J. Martin
name: Alvarez-Ruso, L.
name: Vacas, M. J. Vicente
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2008
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We have performed a theoretical study of the axial Nucleon to Delta(1232) ($N\toΔ$) transition form factors up to one-loop order in covariant baryon chiral perturbation theory within a formalism in which the unphysical spin-1/2 components of the $Δ$ fields are decoupled.
description: 4 pages
hyper-sinh: An Accurate and Reliable Function from Shallow to Deep Learning in TensorFlow and Keras
Creators: name: Parisi, Luca
name: Ma, Renfei
name: RaviChandran, Narrendar
name: Lanzillotta, Matteo
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV)
subject: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)
subject: Computation and Language (cs.CL)
subject: Machine Learning (cs.LG)
subject: Neural and Evolutionary Computing (cs.NE)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences
subject: I.2.1; I.2.7; I.2.10; I.4.9; I.5.1; I.5.4; I.5.5
subject: 68T07, 68T10, 68T45, 68T50, 68U35

description: This paper presents the 'hyper-sinh', a variation of the m-arcsinh activation function suitable for Deep Learning (DL)-based algorithms for supervised learning, such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). hyper-sinh, developed in the open source Python libraries TensorFlow and Keras, is thus described and validated as an accurate and reliable activation function for both shallow and deep neural networks. Improvements in accuracy and reliability in image and text classification tasks on five (N = 5) benchmark data sets available from Keras are discussed. Experimental results demonstrate the overall competitive classification performance of both shallow and deep neural networks, obtained via this novel function. This function is evaluated with respect to gold standard activation functions, demonstrating its overall competitive accuracy and reliability for both image and text classification.
description: 19 pages, 6 listings/Python code snippets, 4 figures, 5 tables
Chirality Dynamics for a fermionic particle non-minimally coupling with an external magnetic field
Creators: name: Bernardini, Alex E.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2006
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We proceed with the construction of normalizable Dirac wave packets for treating chiral oscillations in the presence of an external magnetic field. Both chirality and helicity quantum numbers correspond to variables of fundamental importance in the study of chiral interactions, in particular, in the context of neutrino physics. In order to clarify a subtle aspect in the confront of such concepts which, for massive particles, represent different physical quantities, we are specifically interested in quantifying chiral oscillations for a {\em fermionic} Dirac-{\em type} particle (neutrino) non-minimally coupling with an external magnetic field {\boldmath$B$} by solving the correspondent interacting Hamiltonian (Dirac) equation. The viability of the intermediate wave packet treatment becomes clear when we assume {\boldmath$B$} orthogonal/parallel to the direction of the propagating particle.
description: 10 pages
Dust dynamics in planet-driven spirals
Creators: name: Sturm, Ardjan
name: Rosotti, Giovanni
name: Dominik, Carsten
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Context. Protoplanetary disks are known to host spiral features that are observed in scattered light, ALMA continuum and more recently in CO gas emission and gas dynamics. It is however unknown if spirals in gas and dust trace the same morphology. Aims. We study the morphology and amplitude of dusty spirals as function of Stokes number and the underlying mechanisms causing a difference from gas spirals. We then construct a model to relate the deviation from Keplerian rotation in the gas to a perturbation in surface density of gas and dust. Methods. We use FARGO-3D with dust implementation to numerically study the spirals, after which the results are interpreted using a semi-analytical model. This model is tested on observational data to predict the perturbation of the spiral in gas dynamics based on the continuum data. Results. We find that the pitch angle of a spiral does not differ significantly between gas and dust. The amplitude of the dust spiral decreases with Stokes number (St) and starts to fade out at a typical St > 0.1 as the dust becomes decoupled from the gas. The semianalytical model provides an accurate and fast representation of the spiral in surface density of the dust from the gas. We find a spiral in the TW Hya velocity residual map, never seen before, which is a feature in the vertical velocity and has a kink at the continuum gap, yielding strong evidence for a planet at 99 au. Conclusions. We built a model that gives an estimate of the underlying dynamics of dust in a spiral, which can serve as a proof of planetary origin of spirals and can be a probe for the Stokes number in the disk.
description: 11 pages, 8 figures, appendices, accepted to A&A 14 September 2020
A Conclusive Experimentation Evidences that Mental States Follow Quantum Mechanics. Further Experimentation Indicates that in Mind States Bell Inequality Violation is Possible
Creators: name: Conte, Elio
name: Khrennikov, Andrei Yuri
name: Todarello, Orlando
name: Federici, Antonio
name: Zbilut, Joseph P.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2008
Subjects: subject: General Physics (physics.gen-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: In the first part of the paper we reach an experimental final confirmation that mental states follow quantum mechanics. In the second part further experimentation indicates that in mind states Bell inequality violation is possible.
Generalizations of the projective reconstruction theorem
Creators: name: Nasihatkon, Behrooz
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: Geometry, projective
subject: Computer vision
subject: Image reconstruction
subject: Image processing Mathematics

description: We present generalizations of the classic theorem of projective reconstruction as a tool for the design and analysis of the projective reconstruction algorithms. Our main focus is algorithms such as bundle adjustment and factorization-based techniques, which try to solve the projective equations directly for the structure points and projection matrices, rather than the so called tensor-based approaches. First, we consider the classic case of 3D to 2D projections. Our new theorem shows that projective reconstruction is possible under a much weaker restriction than requiring, a priori, that all estimated projective depths are nonzero. By completely specifying possible forms of wrong configurations when some of the projective depths are allowed to be zero, the theory enables us to present a class of depth constraints under which any reconstruction of cameras and points projecting into given image points is projectively equivalent to the true camera-point configuration. This is very useful for the design and analysis of different factorization-based algorithms. Here, we analyse several constraints used in the literature using our theory, and also demonstrate how our theory can be used for the design of new constraints with desirable properties. The next part of the thesis is devoted to projective reconstruction in arbitrary dimensions, which is important due to its applications in the analysis of dynamical scenes. The current theory, due to Hartley and Schaffalitzky, is based on the Grassmann tensor, generalizing the notions of Fundamental matrix, trifocal tensor and quardifocal tensor used for 3D to 2D projections. We extend their work by giving a theory whose point of departure is the projective equations rather than the Grassmann tensor. First, we prove the uniqueness of the Grassmann tensor corresponding to each set of image points, a question that remained open in the work of Hartley and Schaffalitzky. Then, we show that projective equivalence follows from the set of projective equations, provided that the depths are all nonzero. Finally, we classify possible wrong solutions to the projective factorization problem, where not all the projective depths are restricted to be nonzero. We test our theory experimentally by running the factorization based algorithms for rigid structure and motion in the case of 3D to 2D projections. We further run simulations for projections from higher dimensions. In each case, we present examples demonstrating how the algorithm can converge to the degenerate solutions introduced in the earlier chapters. We also show how the use of proper constraints can result in a better performance in terms of finding a correct solution.
A portable real time threads environment
Creators: name: Mechler, Roland
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2009

description: Real Time Threads (RT Threads) is a threads package which provides real time scheduling semantics, application portability to a variety of host operating systems and hardware architectures, and support for distributed application programming via location transparent message passing between threads in distinct address spaces. RT Threads was initially designed as a programming environment for the development of the Continuous Media File System (CMFS), a distributed multimedia application requiring real time scheduling of asynchronous tasks. In particular, real time scheduling is required for timely disk reading and network transmission of continuous media data at the server nodes, as well as for synchronization of multiple media streams at clients. The goal of this thesis is to show that RT Threads has performance characteristics making it practical for use both as a general purpose threads package, and as a platform for developing applications requiring real time scheduling. In fact, it will be shown that RT Threads peforms acceptably well (for non-critical applications), even in a non-real time operating system environment.
4D Superfield Reduction of 5D Orbifold SUGRA and Heterotic M-theory
Creators: name: Correia, Filipe Paccetti
name: Schmidt, Michael G.
name: Tavartkiladze, Zurab
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2006
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We present a detailed study of the reduction to 4D of 5D supergravity compactified on the S^1/Z_2 orbifold. For this purpose we develop and employ a recently proposed N=1 conformal superfield description of the 5D supergravity couplings to abelian vector and hypermultiplets. In particular, we obtain a unique relation of the "radion" to chiral superfields as in global 5D SUSY and we can embed the universal hypermultiplet into this formalism. In our approach, it is transparent how the superconformal structure of the effective 4D actions is inherited from the one of the original 5D supergravity. We consider both ungauged and gauged 5D supergravities. This includes compactifications in unwarped geometries, generalizations of the supersymmetric Randall-Sundrum (RS) model as well as 5D heterotic M-theory. In the unwarped case, after obtaining the effective Kaehler potentials and superpotentials, we demonstrate that the tree-level 4D potentials have flat and/or tachyonic directions. One-loop corrections to the Kaehler potential and gaugino condensation are presented as suitable tools for moduli stabilization to be discussed in subsequent work. Turning to the RS-like models, we obtain a master formula for the Kaehler potential for an arbitrary number of vector and hyper moduli, which we evaluate exactly for special cases. Finally, we formulate the superfield description of 5D heterotic M-theory and obtain its effective 4D description for the universal (h^(1,1)=1) case, in the presence of an arbitrary number of bulk 5-branes. We present, as a check of our expressions, time-dependent solutions of 4D heterotic M-theory, which uplift to 5D solutions generalizing the ones recently found in hep-th/0502077.
description: 39 pages, references added, version to appear in NPB
An Ethnography of Traditional Rural Folk Funeral Practice in Northwestern China
Creators: name: Zhang, Zuotang
Publisher: name: Maryland Shared Open Access Repository
Year: 2014
Subjects: China
folk religion
funeral ritual
Ningxia
shamanic
yin-yang

description: This ethnographic study will analyze data collected through field-based observations, primary ritual texts, and locally conducted interviews of the yin-yang practitioners in the three small villages of Fanmagou, Qijiazhuang, and Wangdazhuang in northwestern China. The practice referred to as yin-yang in this region is part of an archaic folk religious system that can be traced back to at least the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Despite its deep cultural roots, it is becoming endangered due to the impact of national policies (governing religion and culture) and the general adaptation to modernity in China. Due to the localized nature of this cultural system, the main research method used will be qualitative ethnographic description, with a Geertzian thick description approach to interpretive analysis. The collected data is roughly divided into three categories: (1) transcriptions of interviews with yin-yang practitioners and other local villagers; (2) video tapes, photographs, and field notes of local religious rituals, specifically memorial and burial rites that are led by the yin-yang practitioners, and (3) my own translations of yin-yang scriptural texts that are used in leading the rituals themselves, as well as for the teaching and training of young yin-yang apprentices. The interpretive ethnography that is produced from these rich primary sources will also be considered for its curriculum applications in two primary higher education contexts:  1) As a rich primary source for courses in Chinese culture and language - conducted in either Chinese or English language context, and 2) As a source of engaging and culturally relevant texts for courses in content-based ESOL for Chinese students (in China presumably).
Confinement and edge effects on atomic collapse in graphene nanoribbons
Creators: name: Wang, Jing
name: Van Pottelberge, Robbe
name: Jacobs, Amber
name: Van Duppen, Ben
name: Peeters, Francois M.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Atomic collapse in graphene nanoribbons behaves in a fundamentally different way as compared to monolayer graphene, due to the presence of multiple energy bands and the effect of edges. For armchair nanoribbons we find that bound states gradually transform into atomic collapse states with increasing impurity charge. This is very different in zig-zag nanoribbons where multiple quasi-one-dimensional \emph{bound states} are found that originates from the zero energy zig-zag edge states. They are a consequence of the flat band and the electron distribution of these bound states exhibits two peaks. The lowest energy edge state transforms from a bound state into an atomic collapse resonance and shows a distinct relocalization from the edge to the impurity position with increasing impurity charge.
Multivariate spatial anomalous window discovery
Creators: name: Shi, Lei
Publisher: name: Maryland Shared Open Access Repository
Year: 2014
Subjects: multivariate scan statistic
spatial anomalous window discovery
spatial scan statistic

description: This dissertation investigates and formulates a novel multivariate spatial anomalous window discovery method. This novel method discovers linear shaped spatial anomalous windows corresponding to where unusual phenomenon take place. This method also uses a non- parametric multivariate scan statistic model that does not rely on any prior knowledge of the data distribution. Anomaly detection in spatial data has been a challenging research problem as most of the traditional anomaly detection approaches are not suitable to this work. In contrast, scan statistic approaches have proven to be a promising technique in quantifying spatial anomalous windows, where the anomalous window is a contiguous set of objects in a region forming an unusual cluster with respect to the rest of the data. Anomalous windows are found in several real world applications such as accident hubs along highways, disease outbreaks, crime hot spots to name a few. Existing scan statistic approaches have several limitations. First, they do not identify robust, multivariate, linear form, non parametric windows which are critical in studying phenomenon such as traffic accidents. Second, multivariate data may be sparse or noisy, thus, it is important to identify anomalies taking into account the presence of outliers in the data. Third, real world data does not necessarily follow known distributions, thus, it is important to identify anomalies in a non parametric setting such that it does not rely on specific fitted distributions in the data. Extensive experiments on multiple real-world data sets are conducted. The experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of our novel method in discovering critical anomalies in real-world applications. For example, the linear anomalous window discovery on real-world accident datasets for various highways with known issues were validated with existing domain expert reports to prove our results are not only statistically significant, but also identify the real anomalous traffic accident hubs along multiple intersecting highways.
Flavor coupled with chiral oscillations in the presence of an external magnetic field
Creators: name: Bernardini, Alex E.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2006
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: By reporting to the Dirac wave-packet prescription where it is formally assumed the {\em fermionic} nature of the particles, we shall demonstrate that chiral oscillations implicitly aggregated to the interference between positive and negative frequency components of mass-eigenstate wave-packets introduce some small modifications to the standard neutrino flavor conversion formula. Assuming the correspondent spinorial solutions of a ``modified'' Dirac equation, we are specifically interested in quantifying flavor coupled with chiral oscillations for a {\em fermionic} Dirac-{\em type} particle (neutrino) non-minimally coupling with an external magnetic field {\boldmath$B$}. The viability of the intermediate wave-packet treatment becomes clear when we assume {\boldmath$B$} orthogonal/parallel to the direction of the propagating particle.
description: 21 pages
An arrangement for all seasons : the contributions of the Five Power Defence Arrangements to Australian strategic interests, 1971-2010
Creators: name: Henderson, Michael John
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: UA870.H36 2011
subject: Five Power Defence Arrangements
subject: Australia Military policy

description: Australia has been an active member of the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) since 1971, yet there has been no extensive analysis to determine the contributions that FPDA membership has provided to Australia. This is surprising as the FPDA is the second oldest, and only other, multilateral defence organisation in the Asia Pacific after the 1951 Security Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States. This thesis aims to determine the specific ways in which the FPDA has contributed to Australian strategic interests between 1971 and 2010. In order to accomplish this, this study utilises the analytical framework of defence engagement, as this framework is most suited to recognising Australia's distinct diplomatic and military commitments made under the aegis ofthe FPDA. To illustrate these contributions, this thesis looks at three distinct time periods in the history ofthe FPDA: its origins between 1947 and 1971; how the Arrangements fulfilled Australian expectations from 1971 to the late 1980s; and how the Arrangements surpassed Australian expectations from the late 1980s to 2010. In the chapters covering the existence ofthe Arrangements, the Australian commitment is divided into two sections for the purpose of analysis under the defence engagement framework: Australian defence diplomacy and Australian military commitment. The framework of defence engagement is applied to primary and secondary written sources on the Arrangements as well as interviews with key academics and policymakers involved in the FPDA. This study found that the FPDA has been a creative and positive approach to Australia's need to ensure its involvement in regional defence and to contribute to its defence relationships with key allies. Australia's involvement in the FPDA between 1971 and 2010 has received positive support from within its region as well as from traditional allies. Through the Arrangements, Australia took an important role in the security ofthe Association of South East Asian Nations at a critical period in the organisation's history. This role allowed Australia to make a significant regional contribution in the areas of Australian defence expertise, including operating offshore as part of a coalition. Participation also allowed Australia to contribute to its traditional and long-standing defence relationships with the United Kingdom and the United States. As a result, the FPDA has been an unspectacular and under-appreciated but cumulatively significant contribution to Australia's shift in strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific.
Measurement of two-halo neutron transfer reaction p($^{11}$Li,$^{9}$Li)t at 3$A$ MeV
Creators: name: Tanihata, I.
name: Alcorta, M.
name: Bandyopadhyay, D.
name: Bieri, R.
name: Buchmann, L.
name: Davids, B.
name: Galinski, N.
name: Howell, D.
name: Mills, W.
name: Openshaw, R.
name: Padilla-Rodal, E.
name: Ruprecht, G.
name: Sheffer, G.
name: Shotter, A. C.
name: Mythili, S.
name: Trinczek, M.
name: Walden, P.
name: Savajols, H.
name: Roger, T.
name: Caamano, M.
name: Mittig, W.
name: Roussel-Chomaz, P.
name: Kanungo, R.
name: Gallant, A.
name: Savard, G.
name: Thompson, I. J.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2008
Subjects: subject: Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The p(\nuc{11}{Li},\nuc{9}{Li})t reaction has been studied for the first time at an incident energy of 3$A$ MeV delivered by the new ISAC-2 facility at TRIUMF. An active target detector MAYA, build at GANIL, was used for the measurement. The differential cross sectionshave been determined for transitions to the \nuc{9}{Li} ground andthe first excited states in a wide range of scattering angles. Multistep transfer calculations using different \nuc{11}{Li} model wave functions, shows that wave functions with strong correlations between the halo neutrons are the most successful in reproducing the observation.
description: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letters
Structure analysis of high-pressure phase for skyrmion-hosting multiferroic Cu2OSeO3
Creators: name: Nishibori, E.
name: Karatsu, S.
name: Terakura, C.
name: Takeshita, N.
name: Kinoshita, M.
name: Ishiwata, S.
name: Tokura, Y.
name: Seki, S.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Cu2OSeO3 is known as a unique example of insulating multiferroic compounds with skyrmion spin texture, which is characterized by the chiral cubic crystal structure at ambient pressure. Recently, it has been reported that this compound shows pressure-induced structural transition with large enhancement of magnetic ordering temperature Tc. In the present study, we have investigated the detailed crystal structure in the high pressure phase, by combining the synchrotron X-ray diffraction experiment with the diamond anvil cell and the analysis based on the genetic algorithm. Our results suggest that the original pyrochlore Cu network is sustained even after the structural transition, while the orientation of SeO3 molecule as well as the position of oxygen in the middle of Cu tetrahedra are significantly modified. The latter features may be the key for the reported enhancement of Tc and associated stabilization of skyrmion phase at room temperature.
description: 13 pages, 4 figures, 1 table
Measurement master equation
Creators: name: Cresser, James D.
name: Barnett, Stephen M.
name: Jeffers, John
name: Pegg, David T.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2006
Subjects: subject: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We derive a master equation describing the evolution of a quantum system subjected to a sequence of observations. These measurements occur randomly at a given rate and can be of a very general form. As an example, we analyse the effects of these measurements on the evolution of a two-level atom driven by an electromagnetic field. For the associated quantum trajectories we find Rabi oscillations, Zeno-effect type behaviour and random telegraph evolution spawned by mini quantum jumps as we change the rates and strengths of measurement.
description: 14 pages and 8 figures, Optics Communications in press
Nearly all subspaces of a classical polar space arise from its universal embedding
Creators: name: Cardinali, Ilaria
name: Giuzzi, Luca
name: Pasini, Antonio
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Representation Theory (math.RT)
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: 51A50, 51B25, 51E24

description: Let $Γ$ be an embeddable non-degenerate polar space of finite rank $n \geq 2$. Assuming that $Γ$ admits the universal embedding (which is true for all embeddable polar spaces except grids of order at least $5$ and certain generalized quadrangles defined over quaternion division rings), let $\varepsilon:Γ\to\mathrm{PG}(V)$ be the universal embedding of $Γ$. Let $\cal S$ be a subspace of $Γ$ and suppose that $\cal S$, regarded as a polar space, has non-degenerate rank at least $2$. We shall prove that $\cal S$ is the $\varepsilon$-preimage of a projective subspace of $\mathrm{PG}(V)$.
description: 16 pages
A mixed-methods exploration: Refugees' caring relationships as a source of social capital
Creators: name: Pucino, Amy Lynn
Publisher: name: Maryland Shared Open Access Repository
Year: 2014
Subjects: Caring
Education
Immigrantion
Iraq
Refugee
Social Capital

description: The importance of caring relationships between youth and their teachers, mentors, and tutors, for fostering positive academic and socioemotional outcomes is widely recognized in the literature (e.g. Hamre & Pianta, 2005; Hao & Pong, 2008; Wentzel, 2003). However, limited research explores the nature and impact of caring relationships between refugees and their educators. Iraqi refugees make up a growing population in the United States (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 2011). Understanding this growing population and identifying interventions that benefit youths' integration into an unfamiliar world is increasingly important. This research expanded understanding of young Iraqi refugees' notions of caring and the implications of those caring relationships for refugee populations. This study was grounded in a theoretical framework, which integrated caring theory (Noddings, 2001), and social capital theory (Bourdieu, 1983; Putnam, 2000; Stanton-Salazar & Dornbusch, 1995). Data were collected utilizing a multi-method approach. First, qualitative in-depth interviews with Iraqi refugees (ages 14-20) were conducted to examine their caring relationships with educators and the resulting academic and socioemotional benefits. A secondary analysis of a large database from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) (Portes & Rumbaut, 2012) was also conducted, including people whose families came to the United States for political reasons. This research explored caring teacher-student relationships and their impact on students' academic outcomes and self-esteem.  Most of the interview respondents revealed that they had caring educators. Respondents perceived these educators as those who cared for them academically and personally. Students felt particularly cared for by educators who recognized their specific needs as refugees; these care-providers were often English as a Second Language (ESOL) teachers. While not all educators were perceived as caring, those who were caring provided resources for youths. Respondents benefited from caring relationships, as they learned about academic and professional programs, accessed assistance with college admittance, and received emotional support.  The quantitative portion revealed that students who perceived their teachers to be good, fair, and interested, all indicators of caring, had higher self-esteem and Grade Points Averages (GPAs). Overall, this research fills an important gap in the literature and provides important implications for theory and practice.
Identifying the rotation rate and the presence of dynamic weather on extrasolar Earth-like planets from photometric observations
Creators: name: Palle, E.
name: Ford, Eric B.
name: Seager, S.
name: Montanes-Rodriguez, P.
name: Vazquez, M.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2008
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics (astro-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: With the recent discoveries of hundreds of extrasolar planets, the search for planets like Earth and life in the universe, is quickly gaining momentum. In the future, large space observatories could directly detect the light scattered from rocky planets, but they would not be able to spatially resolve a planet's surface. Using reflectance models and real cloud data from satellite observations, here we show that, despite Earth's dynamic weather patterns, the light scattered by the Earth to a hypothetical distant observer as a function of time contains sufficient information to accurately measure Earth's rotation period. This is because ocean currents and continents result in relatively stable averaged global cloud patterns. The accuracy of these measurements will vary with the viewing geometry and other observational constraints. If the rotation period can be measured with accuracy, data spanning several months could be coherently combined to obtain spectroscopic information about individual regions of the planetary surface. Moreover, deviations from a periodic signal can be used to infer the presence of relatively short-live structures in its atmosphere (i.e., clouds). This could provide a useful technique for recognizing exoplanets that have active weather systems, changing on a timescale comparable to their rotation. Such variability is likely to be related to the atmospheric temperature and pressure being near a phase transition and could support the possibility of liquid water on the planet's surface.
Light Curves from an MHD Simulation of a Black Hole Accretion Disk
Creators: name: Schnittman, Jeremy D.
name: Krolik, Julian H.
name: Hawley, John F.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2006
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics (astro-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We use a relativistic ray-tracing code to calculate the light curves observed from a global general relativistic magneto-hydrodynamic simulation of an accretion flow onto a Schwarzschild black hole. We apply three basic emission models to sample different properties of the time-dependent accretion disk. With one of these models, which assumes thermal blackbody emission and free-free absorption, we can predict qualitative features of the high-frequency power spectrum from stellar-mass black holes in the "Thermal Dominant" state. The simulated power spectrum is characterized by a power law of index Gamma ~ 3 and total rms fractional variance of ~ 1 % near the orbital frequency at the inner-most stable orbit. Initial results indicate the existence of transient QPO peaks with frequency ratios of nearly 2:3 at a 99.9% confidence limit, but they are not generic features because at any given time they are seen only from certain observer directions. Additionally, we present detailed analysis of the azimuthal structure of the accretion disk and the evolution of density perturbations in the inner disk. These "hot spot" structures appear to be roughly self-similar over a range of disk radii, with a single characteristic size δϕ=25 deg and δr/r=0.3, and typical lifetimes T_l ~ 0.3 T_orb.
description: Accepted to ApJ, 43 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables
A Mixed Methods Investigation of ESOL Teacher Advocacy: It's Not Going in and Just Teaching English
Creators: name: Linville, Heather A.
Publisher: name: Maryland Shared Open Access Repository
Year: 2014
Subjects: Advocacy
ELL
NCATE
Standards
Teacher cognition
TESOL

description: It is widely acknowledged that English language learners (ELLs) are a population in need of advocacy in K-12 public schools in the United States. The main professional standards for initial teacher certification call for English to speakers of other languages (ESOL) teachers to be advocates for ELLs. This mixed methods study investigates ESOL teachers' cognitions (beliefs, thoughts, attitudes; Borg, 2006) about advocacy and their actions as advocates. A survey of 511 ESOL teachers in five diverse school districts in one Mid-Atlantic state, and interviews with 15 of those teachers, confirm that ESOL teachers recognize the need for advocacy and have positive cognitions about advocacy. The ESOL teachers believe it is their professional responsibility to advocate, defined by those interviewed as monitoring for obstacles to ELLs' success, speaking up to raise awareness or inform others about ELLs and ESOL, providing resources or services, affirming ELLs' linguistic and cultural diversity, and empowering ELLs to self-advocate. This research found that most ESOL teachers engage in instructional advocacy, while fewer engage in political advocacy. Variables predictive of greater advocacy actions include belief in professional advocacy responsibility, knowledge of the standards, years of ESOL teaching experience, a supportive school context for advocacy, and self-efficacy in advocating. This study also points to the importance of the teacher education program in continuing to develop awareness of the need to speak up for ELLs and in preparing ESOL teachers with the skills needed for advocacy work.  This dissertation proposes a framework for advocacy that identifies the intended recipients of ESOL teacher advocacy to be ELLs, ELL families, and ESOL teachers themselves, and highlights ESOL teachers' potential co-advocates to be ELLs, ELL families, general education teachers, school administrators, and community leaders. Finally, this study clarifies three overarching goals of advocacy: improving ELLs' educational outcomes, enhancing their life chances beyond the school, and challenging societal injustices that continue to make advocacy necessary. Future research could investigate how ESOL teachers who engage in instructional advocacy may also become involved in political advocacy for ELLs, and could probe the distinction between advocacy and activism for ESOL teachers and within the TESOL field.
A closer look at non-interacting He stars as a channel for producing the old population of Type Ia supernovae
Creators: name: Liu, Zheng-Wei
name: Stancliffe, Richard J.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The nature of the progenitors of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) remains a mystery. Binary systems consisting of a white dwarf (WD) and a main-sequence (MS) donor are potential progenitors of SNe Ia, in which a thermonuclear explosion of the WD may occur when its mass reaches the Chandrasekhar limit during accretion of material from a companion star. In the present work, we address theoretical rates and delay times of a specific MS donor channel to SNe Ia, in which a He star+MS binary produced from a common envelope event subsequently forms a WD+MS system without the He star undergoing mass transfer by Roche lobe overflow. By combining the results of self-consistent binary evolution calculations with population synthesis models, we find that the contribution of SNe Ia in this channel is around 2.0e-4 per year. In addition, we find that delay times of SNe Ia in this channel cover a range of about 1.0-2.6 Gyr, and almost all SNe Ia produced in this way (about 97%) have a delay time of > 1 Gyr. While the rate of SN Ia in this work is about 10% of the overall SN Ia rate, the channel represents a possible contribution to the old population (1-3 Gyr) of observed SNe Ia.
description: 6 pages, 4 figures, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A)