cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
Global energy conservation in nonlinear spherical characteristic evolutions
Creators: name: Barreto, W.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Associated to the unique 4-parametric subgroup of translations, normal to the Bondi-Metzner-Sachs group, there exists a generator of the temporal translation asymptotic symmetry. Such a descriptor of the motion along the conformal orbit near null infinity is propagated to finite regions. This allows us to observe the global energy conservation even in extreme situations near the critical behavior of the massless scalar field collapse in spherical symmetry.
description: 6 pages, 7 figures; updated version to appear in Physical Review D
Experimental And Theoretical Characterization of Liquid Jet and Droplet Breakup In High-Speed Flows
Creators: name: Obenauf, Dayna
Publisher: name: Purdue University Graduate School
Year: 2022
Subjects: Aerodynamics (excl. hypersonic aerodynamics)
Fluid mechanics and thermal engineering not elsewhere classified
Mechanical engineering not elsewhere classified

description: The atomization of jets and droplets undergoing breakup in high-speed flows has been experimentally measured and theoretically modeled. Systems for producing individual droplet breakup and full jet breakup were designed, and a wide range of diagnostics were developed and adapted to measure the results with reduced uncertainty.
A detailed methodology for investigating high-speed sprays in the Purdue Experimental Turbine Aerothermal Lab is presented. Optical diagnostic techniques were carefully selected and optimized for the test section geometries and flow features, such that images could be collected at high frequencies of 20 kHz with high resolutions. Developed image processing routines are outlined to demonstrate how backlit imaging with specialized lenses allowed for more accurate spray depth measurements in supersonic conditions, which were then used in regression modeling routines to derive empirical correlations that factored in test section geometry, flow conditions, and injector design. A Mie scattering imaging technique was used for quantitative analysis of the supersonic spray plume profile and measurement of the spray width. 20 kHz shadowgraphy provided sufficient gradients for analysis of the unsteadiness of the spray and surrounding supersonic flow at the point of injection. Droplet sizes and velocities were measured in subsonic conditions using digital in-line holography, in which recent advancements to the reconstruction algorithm were implemented to reduce out-of-plane measurement uncertainty, and phase Doppler particle analysis.
The breakup of a single drop undergoing multi-mode breakup was analytically characterized, with the proposal of a new breakup criterion in the Taylor analogy breakup model. Hill vortices within the drop were proposed as a new flow mechanism promoting multi-mode breakup. Product drop sizes from the ring breakup were predicted and compared with experimental results.
Ruinous Monument': Transporting Objects in Herbert's Persepolis
Creators: name: Mehdizadeh, Nedda
Publisher: name: punctum books
Year: 2012

description: As part of his journey to Persia in 1626, travel writer Sir Thomas  Herbert  visits  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  political center  of  the  Persian  Empire,  Persepolis.  Rather  than narrating    the    customs,    dress,    or    histories    of    the inhabitants  as  he  does  elsewhere  in  his  travelogue, A Relation   of   Some   Yeares   Travaile,   Herbert   gives   a detailed  account  of  the  size,  structure,  and  material  of the palace. He sifts through the stones of the rubble and imagines  what  they  would  have  looked  like  when  the structure  was  intact  before  Alexander  the  Great’s  con-quest.  Herbert’s  account  describes  an  encounter  with Persia’s  past,  and  is  defined  by  the  objects  that  remain after its fall. In a narrative primarily concerned with the inhabitants  of  a  foreign  place—whether  the  natives  of the  early  modern  period  or  the  ghosts  of  the ancient past—why  does  Herbert  dwell  on  the  stones  that  once made up the palace of Persepolis? This   moment   in   Herbert’s   narrative   is   one   he cannot  escape.  In  fact,  he  goes  back  to  the  section “Persepolis”    with    each    successive    edition    of    his travelogue,    reimagining    it    by    linguistically    recon-structing   it   through   narrative.   The   fragments,   then, continue to call to him long after its first publication in 1634. As the contributors to this volume suggest in their essays  about  non-human  literature  and  culture,  these seemingly  mundane  objects  are  in  fact  full  of  potential and power. Like the objects that called to Jane Bennett, inspiring  her  book Vibrant  Matter  and  resurfacing  in her   essay “Powers   of   the   Hoard,”   Herbert’s   stones beckon  to  him  to  return  to  Persia  and  to  dwell  in  its past. Persepolis—as a term, concept, space—withstands  the  test  of  time, carrying with  it  a  layered story that resides in the stones which “draw us near and provoke our deep attachments to them.”
Analysis and Approximation of Stochastic Nerve Axon Equations
Creators: name: Sauer, Martin
name: Stannat, Wilhelm
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Probability (math.PR)
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: Primary 60H15, 60H35, Secondary 35R60, 65C30, 92C20

description: We consider spatially extended conductance based neuronal models with noise described by a stochastic reaction diffusion equation with additive noise coupled to a control variable with multiplicative noise but no diffusion. We only assume a local Lipschitz condition on the nonlinearities together with a certain physiologically reasonable monotonicity to derive crucial $L^\infty$-bounds for the solution. These play an essential role in both the proof of existence and uniqueness of solutions as well as the error analysis of the finite difference approximation in space. We derive explicit error estimates, in particular a pathwise convergence rate of $\sqrt{\frac{1}{n}}-$ and a strong convergence rate of $\frac1n$ in special cases. As applications, the Hodgkin-Huxley and FitzHugh-Nagumo systems with noise are considered.
description: 25 pages
title: Conservation of the Seychelles paradise flycatcher
Creators: name: Bristol, Rachel M
Publisher: name: University of Kent
Year: 2023

description: The main goal of recovery programmes for threatened species is to reverse declines in population trajectory, distribution and abundance that have been caused directly or indirectly by human activities. One conservation strategy increasingly used to reduce the threat of extinction is (re) introduction. However reintroduction is a daunting task, given the complex suite of genetic and demographic factors influencing the ecological and evolutionary processes of natural populations, some of which are still relatively poorly understood. I use the Seychelles paradise flycatcher (SPF) as a study system in order to undertake a series of scientific studies to address questions relevant to the species’ conservation and to the wider field of reintroduction biology. I construct a molecular phylogeny of the Terpsiphone flycatchers of the Indian Ocean and use it to evaluate conservation priorities based on evolutionary distinctiveness and place conservation of the SPF into a wider context. I assess the genetic consequences of reintroductions by comparing the loss of genetic diversity across a historical bottleneck that reduced the SPF to c.28 individuals to the loss of genetic diversity due to a recent conservation introduction. I then assess a suite of individual, ecological, and evolutionary variables on SPF productivity within remnant and reintroduced SPF populations. I find severely depleted genetic diversity following a historical bottleneck does not render a species immune to further genetic erosion upon reintroduction. I find the main drivers of flycatcher productivity are food abundance and predators, and importantly food abundance predicts offspring sex with a bias towards males in low quality habitat. Lastly I combine my findings on the relative influences of genetic, demographic, ecological and evolutionary factors to inform future conservation and reintroduction strategy for the both the SPF and threatened species in general.
Rapid prototyping for sling design optimization
Creators: name: Zaimovic-Uzunovic, Nermina
name: Lemes, Samir
name: Curic, Damir
name: Topcic, Alan
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Computational Engineering, Finance, and Science (cs.CE)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: This paper deals with combination of two modern engineering methods in order to optimise the shape of a representative casting product. The product being analysed is a sling, which is used to attach pulling rope in timber transportation. The first step was 3D modelling and static stress/strain analysis using CAD/CAE software NX4. The slinger shape optimization was performed using Traction method, by means of software Optishape-TS. To define constraints for shape optimization, FEA software FEMAP was used. The mould pattern with optimized 3D shape was then prepared using Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) Rapid prototyping method. The sling mass decreased by 20%, while signifficantly better stress distribution was achieved, with maximum stress 3.5 times less than initial value. The future researches should use 3D scanning technology in order to provide more accurate 3D model of initial part. Results of this research can be used by toolmakers in order to engage FEA/RP technology to design and manufacture lighter products with acceptable stress distribution.
description: ISSN 1854-6250
Editorial Introduction
Creators: name: Austin, Michael (Ed.)
name: Gironi, Fabio (Ed.)
name: Jackson, Robert (Ed.)
name: Ennis, Paul J. (Ed.)
name: Gokey, Thomas (Ed.)
Publisher: name: punctum books
Year: 2012

description: We are proud to say that this third volume of Specula-tions needs very little support from our editorial introduction. We have done our best to collect, in the pages that follow, outstanding contributions covering a wide range of topics (from the philosophy of religion to psychoanalysis, from the philosophy of science to gender studies), formats (articles, interviews, position pieces, translations and review essays) and authors (from well-published authors to the best among a new generation of philosophers).We would like to thank all the contributors and the peer reviewers for their patient collaboration during the editorial phase. We are also very grateful to the Atelier de métaphy-sique et d’ontologie contemporaines at the École Normale Supérieure, and their group of English translators (Mark Ohm, Leah Orth, Jon Cogburn and Emily Beck) for allowing us to publish the translation of one of their publications.
Re-asking the Question of the Gendered Subject after Non-Philosophy
Creators: name: Norris, Benjamin
Publisher: name: punctum books
Year: 2012

description: Is a science of (non-)gender Identity constitution possible? What would be the object and proper method of this science? And, most importantly, what new spaces of (non-)philosophical investigation can be opened in light of such an analysis? At some point in time during its perpetual production and proliferation of problems, philosophy stumbled across a problem it called “the subject.” As time passed and philosophy roared on, the question of the subject has taken many differ-ent forms, been approached with many different methods and has yielded incredibly diverse and distinct answers.We have now come to a point where we no longer need to ask philosophically “what is the subject?” and “how is the subject’s individuality constituted?” but instead ask non-philosophically“how has philosophy produced its hypotheses, conditioned its methods and pre-determined its conclusions regarding the subject?”
An accurate and efficient Lagrangian sub-grid model
Creators: name: Mazzitelli, I. M.
name: Toschi, F.
name: Lanotte, A. S.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn)
subject: Chaotic Dynamics (nlin.CD)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: A computationally efficient model is introduced to account for the sub-grid scale velocities of tracer particles dispersed in statistically homogeneous and isotropic turbulent flows. The model embeds the multi-scale nature of turbulent temporal and spatial correlations, that are essential to reproduce multi-particle dispersion. It is capable to describe the Lagrangian diffusion and dispersion of temporally and spatially correlated clouds of particles. Although the model neglects intermittent corrections, we show that pair and tetrad dispersion results nicely compare with Direct Numerical Simulations of statistically isotropic and homogeneous $3D$ turbulence. This is in agreement with recent observations that deviations from self-similar pair dispersion statistics are rare events.
Alternative Urbanism Between The Formal And Informal: Investigating The Transformative Potential Of Small Urban Interventions In Neoliberal Cairo
Creators: name: Akl, Ameera
Publisher: name: University of Westminster
Year: 2022

description: Over the past two decades, there has been a growing research interest in community-based small urban interventions that have been activating and reshaping urban spaces in many cities around the world. The study engages with the arguments regarding the transformative potential of these alternative modes of intervention discussed in the literature under various titles such as tactical urbanism, temporary urbanism, or everyday urbanism. Although originally emerging informally, these urban practices have recently taken on a more mainstream character especially in European and North American cities after the global financial crisis of 2008. While attending to the development of such practice and the corresponding theorisation attempts in the North, this study opens a further line of investigation by situating this alternative approach of intervention in Cairo providing insights from the global South. In this context, the study presents ‘alternative urbanism’ as an overarching frame for such practices delineating a nuanced approach to urban design that lies at the interface between the formal and informal. Drawing on Lefebvre’s concept of differential space coupled with the theory of coproduction, the study explores the dynamics of this approach using three case studies within different problematic localities in Cairo. Extensive fieldwork, based mainly on observations, semi-structured interviews and mapping spatial practices, revealed how small collaborative interventions transformed an underpass, a vacant land, and in-between spaces into meaningful places nurturing local lived experiences. However, despite the positive spatial and socioeconomic impact, numerous challenges arose limiting the potential of the intervention and affecting sustaining improvements over time. Many challenges stemmed from the lack of supportive planning system and the narrow window of opportunity to test new ideas. Local resources, priorities and cultural norms also influenced the level of proactive engagement of residents. Findings revealed that the success of such projects is linked to creating a network of local actors that have the capacity to sustain activism and respond to opportunities. The study demonstrates the crucial role designers and planners can play acting as mediators and facilitators enabling unlikely collaborations between multiple stakeholders. This thesis argues, using empirical evidence from Cairo, that small urban interventions can embrace existing informality, respond to local needs, and enhance the use and quality of deteriorated settings without imposing change or displacing inhabitants.
The Other Face of God: Lacan, Theological Structure, and the Accursed Remainder
Creators: name: Bryant, Levi R.
Publisher: name: punctum books
Year: 2012

description: Reading the work of Christo-pher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett, one gets the impression that questions of religion and theology revolve around whether or not these beliefs are accurate represen-tations of the world. However, as Levi-Strauss shows in The Savage Mind, the difference between mythological thought and scientific thought is not to be understood in terms of whether it is an accurate representation of the world, but rather both are variations of a common structural order. As Levi-Strauss understands it, both myth and scientific thought are characterized by identical mental operations, but are merely applied to different materials. While not wishing to follow Levi-Strauss all the way in arguing that structures are ahistorical invariants of the human mind, in this paper I do wish to argue—drawing heavily on Lacanian psychoanalytic theory—that religion is a particular structure of thought and human social formations. From this I will draw some struc-tural or systemic consequences that follow from this structural organization. In particular, I wish to identify some structural features characteristic of a particular type of religious thought and social organization pertaining to monotheism in terms of the subject’s precarious relationship to language, masculine sexuation, and the role that objet a plays in our economy of desire. I will argue that these features are not accidental by-products of unique historical conditions, but rather properties of a particular structural organization. While these structures might themselves be products of particular socio-historical conditions, these features will be seen to be part and parcel of these particular forms of structural organization, such that where these structural organizations are present, these features will be present as well in much the same way that the hypotenuse of a right-triangle is a ratio of its relation to the other two sides.
O CUBO MÁGICO COMO FERRAMENTA PEDAGÓGICA: MÉTODOS E ESTRATÉGIAS DE ENSINO
Creators: name: Jefferson Feitosa Almeida
Publisher: name: Jefferson Feitosa Almeida
Year: 2025
Subjects: Cubo Mágico

description: O presente livro explora o uso do cubo mágico como uma ferramenta pedagógica inovadora no ensino de matemática. Ao longo do texto, são discutidos os benefícios de integrar este enigma tridimensional no currículo escolar, destacando como ele pode estimular o desenvolvimento do raciocínio lógico, habilidades espaciais, e a prática de conceitos matemáticos essenciais, como permutações, sequências e geometria. O cubo mágico, além de desafiar os alunos a pensar estrategicamente, promove habilidades cognitivas como atenção, memória e concentração, além de incentivar a persistência e paciência.

O autor, Jefferson Feitosa Almeida, professor de matemática, propõe uma abordagem lúdica e interativa, mostrando como o cubo mágico pode tornar a matemática mais acessível e interessante, conectando teoria e prática de forma envolvente. Este livro também explora a integração de tecnologias educacionais, como aplicativos e plataformas online, que podem complementar o ensino do cubo mágico.

Ideal para educadores, estudantes e todos aqueles que buscam inovar no processo de ensino-aprendizagem, esta obra oferece uma nova perspectiva sobre o ensino da matemática, promovendo uma educação mais dinâmica, colaborativa e focada no desenvolvimento de habilidades críticas para o sucesso acadêmico e pessoal.
Speculative Realism: After finitude, and beyond?
Creators: name: Morelle, Louis
Publisher: name: punctum books
Year: 2012

description: Presented as the first signifi-cant movement in continental philosophy since structuralism, speculative realism (SR) vociferously announces the end of correlationism and anthropocentrism in philosophy in favor of a “speculative turn.” By accommodating things, matter, sci-ence, and the real qua objects as important as (if not more so than) language, thought, the phenomenal, and the social, SR has garnered attention and criticism from all sides these past few years. “Speculative Realism” was originally the title of a conference in 2007 that brought together four lesser-known but promising philosophers, and then it subsequently spread like wildfire via the Internet through blogs and open-access publishers, in addition to the traditional journal articles, books, colloquia, conferences and other official channels of academia. It has now become a “legitimate” subject of scholarship, taught in certain departments of contemporary philosophy and aesthetics and acquiring a section on the website Phil-papers. And yet, what is SR? For SR seems to have become, in Anglo-Saxon “continental” circles, a buzzword, one of these fashionable terms whose meaning is obscured the more it spreads. Originally naming a philosophically diverse core of young philosophers seeking to emphasize themes that have become relatively marginal in continental philosophy such as metaphysical speculation, the inorganic, or the absolute, and united by a common refusal to attend solely to textual objects or phenomenal experience, this vague designation has sparked a diffuse desire among continental intellectuals to break with some presuppositions inherited from previous generations. Crystallizing a Zeitgeist, the term has lost its specificity, becoming the generic name for all those among the philosophical “young guard” who are laying claim to a “new metaphysics.”
Of Realist Turns: A conversation with Stathis Psillos
Creators: name: Gironi, Fabio
Publisher: name: punctum books
Year: 2012

description: Stathis Psillos is Professor of Philosophy of Science and Meta-physics in the Department of Phi-losophy and History of Science in the University of Athens, former president of the European Philosophy of Science Association and editor of the review journal Metascience. Psillos is one of the most prominent defenders of scientific realism in contemporary philosophy of science, and he for-mulated his arguments in defense of realism in two impor-tant monographs: Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth(1999) and Knowing the Structure of Nature: Essays on Realism and Explanation (2009). Psillos’ investigation begins with the identification of three core theses of scientific realism:  The Metaphysical Thesis: the world has a definite and mind-independent natural-kind structure; The Semantic Thesis: scientific theories should be taken at face-value, being truth-conditioned descriptions of their intended domain, both observable and unobservable; The Epistemic Thesis: mature and predictively successful scientific theories are to be considered well-confirmed and approximately true descriptions of the world.
In Defense of Unfashionable Causes
Creators: name: Sacilotto, Daniel
Publisher: name: punctum books
Year: 2012

description: the democracyof objects is Levi Bryant’s first full-blown mono-graph since enlisting in the ranks of the recent philosophical movement known as Object Oriented Philosophy (oop). It offers an outline of what is a broadly novel metaphysical system which, following the work of Graham Harman, describes a reality composed of objects all throughout, and nothing besides. Seeking to displace the primacy of the relation between the human and the world, oop follows the basic intuitions of Quentin Meillassoux’s work in proposing an alternative to idealist and correlationist philosophies, in the arduous process of stepping out of the post-Kantian shadow of critique, wherein Continental theory and thought is said to have circularly roamed, imprisoned, for the past few centuries.1 However, unlike some of its fel-low Continental realists, oop’s approach for overcoming the putative force of the “circle of correlation” is to adopt a de-flationary strategy, in which the question about how humans access the world is construed as being just one more relation between objects in a metaphysical account. In that regard oop is not entirely new, in that it remains continuous with the trivialization of epistemology sought by many Continental thinkers during the 20th Century, promoting rather the restitution of the primacy of ontological questioning, i.e. the kind of radicalization of the critique of metaphysics of which Heidegger, Deleuze, and more recently Badiou, are perhaps the tradition’s most emblematic figures. However, rather than exacerbating the epistemological question of access to the point where strict epistemology becomes displaced in favor of an examination of its linguistic, historical, or socio-cultural conditions, oop proposes to dislodge philosophy from its human cohort altogether, the better to rehabilitate an exploration of “the great outdoors” philosophy had sown shut in favor of critique, making the world relative to our own faculties in some form or other.
Gas bulk motion in the Perseus cluster measured with SUZAKU
Creators: name: Tamura, Takayuki
name: Yamasaki, N.
name: Iizuka, R.
name: Fukazawa, Y.
name: Hayashida, K.
name: Ueda, S.
name: Matsushita, K.
name: Sato, K.
name: Nakazawa, K.
name: Ota, N.
name: Takizawa, M.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2013
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We present the results from Suzaku observations of the Perseus galaxy cluster, which is relatively close, the brightest in the X-ray sky and a relaxed object with a cool core. A number of exposures of central regions and offset pointing with the X-ray Imaging Spectrometer cover a region within radii of 20'-30'. The central data are used to evaluate the instrumental energy-scale calibration with accuracy confirmed to within around 300 km/s, by the spatial and temporal variation of the instruments. These deep and well-calibrated data are used to measure X-ray redshifts of the intracluster medium. A hint of gas bulk motion, with radial velocity of about -(150-300) km/s, relative to the main system was found at 2-4 arcmin (45-90kpc) west of the cluster center, where an X-ray excess and a cold front were found previously. No other velocity structure was discovered. Over spatial scales of 50-100kpc and within 200kpc radii of the center, the gas-radial-velocity variation is below 300 km/s, while over scales of 400 kpc within 600 kpc radii, the variation is below 600 km/s. These X-ray redshift distributions are compared spatially with those of optical member galaxies for the first time in galaxy clusters. Based on X-ray line widths gas turbulent velocities within these regions are also constrained within 1000-3000 km/s. These results of gas dynamics in the core and larger scales in association with cluster merger activities are discussed and future potential of high-energy resolution spectroscopy with ASTRO-H is considered.
description: Accepted to ApJ
Retrieval Study of Brown Dwarfs Across the L-T Sequence
Creators: name: Lueber, Anna
name: Kitzmann, Daniel
name: Bowler, Brendan P.
name: Burgasser, Adam J.
name: Heng, Kevin
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Brown Dwarfs
Atmospheric Retrievals

description: This poster is about my recently published paper entitled 'Retrieval Study of Brown Dwarfs Across the L-T Sequence': https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022ApJ...930..136L/abstract A large suite of 228 atmospheric retrievals is performed on a curated sample of 19 brown dwarfs spanning the L0 to T8 spectral types using the open-source Helios-r2 retrieval code, which implements the method of short characteristics for radiative transfer and a finite-element description of the temperature-pressure profile. Surprisingly, we find that cloud-free and cloudy (both gray and non-gray) models are equally consistent with the archival SpeX data from the perspective of Bayesian model comparison. Only upper limits for cloud properties are inferred if log-uniform priors are assumed, but the cloud optical depth becomes constrained if a uniform prior is used.
 Water is detected in all 19 objects and methane is detected in all of the T dwarfs, but no obvious trend exists across effective temperature. As carbon monoxide is only detected in a handful of objects, the inferred carbon-to-oxygen ratios are unreliable. The retrieved radius generally decreases with effective temperature, but the values inferred for some T dwarfs are implausibly low and may indicate missing physics or chemistry in the models. For the early L dwarfs, the retrieved surface gravity depends on whether the gray or non-gray cloud model is preferred. Future data are necessary for constraining cloud properties and the vertical variation of chemical abundances, the latter of which is needed for distinguishing between the chemical instability versus traditional cloud interpretation of the L-T transition.
description: {"references": ["Burgasser, A. J. 2014, in Astronomical Society of India Conference Series, Vol. 11, Astronomical Society of India Conference Series, 7\u201316. https://arxiv.org/abs/1406.4887", "Dupuy, T. J., & Liu, M. C. 2012, ApJS, 201, 19, doi: 10.1088/0067-0049/201/2/19", "Kitzmann, D., Heng, K., Oreshenko, M., et al. 2020, ApJ, 890, 174, doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab6d71", "Lueber, A., Kitzmann, D., Bowler, B. P., Burgasser, A. J., & Heng, K. 2022, ApJ, 930, 136, doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac63b9", "Trotta, R. 2008, Contemporary Physics, 49, 71, doi: 10.1080/00107510802066753"]}
A New Element, A New Force, A New Input: Antonio Stoppani's Anthropozoic
Creators: name: Turpin, Etienne
name: Federighi, Valeria
Publisher: name: punctum books
Year: 2012

description: The Italian geologist Antonio Stoppani is a remarkable but little known figure in the history of  science  and  the  theoretical  humanities.  Recently,  following  debates  about  the  Anthropo-cene initiated by the Dutch chemist Paul Crutzen, some scholars have returned to Stoppani’s writing for its eloquent argument regarding the appearance of human activity in the archive of deep time—the earth. Born in Lecco in 1824, the young Stoppani studied to become a priest of the order of the Rosminiani, and was ordained in 1848. In the same year, Stoppani partici-pated in the resistance during the Cinque giornate di Milano (Siege of Milan), where he both fought on the barricades and, fantastically, invented and fabricated aerostats that were used to communicate with the periphery and the provinces, sending revolutionary messages to the countryside from inside a barricaded Milano. In this endeavor, he was helped by the typographer Vincenzo Guglielmini, who worked with Stoppani to ensure that the aerostat balloons would travel from the Seminario Maggiore di Porta Orientale over the walls erected around the city (and the Austrians trying to shoot them from the sky) to encourage Italians to revolt against the Austrian Empire.
Synergistic Effects of Alpelisib (PI3K inhibitor) and Ribociclib (CDK4/6 inhibitor) Combination in Preclinical Colorectal Cancer Models
Creators: name: Aslam, Razia
Publisher: name: Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 321104
subject: Cancer therapy (excl. chemotherapy and radiation therapy)

description: Bakcground: Multiple activating genetic mutations in the phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K) and the mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways have been implicated in the development of resistance to anti-cancer therapies.CDk4/6 inhibitors have limited activity as a single agent in CRC. However, combining Ribociclib with targeted therapies of the MAPK and PI3K pathways may be a promising treatment strategy in CRC.
Mehtods: We explored the in vitro efficacy of drug combinations (Ribociclib (CDK4/6 inhibitor and Alpelisib (PI3K inhibitor) in four CRC cell lines with different mutational status; CACO2 (PIK3CA/KRAS wild-type), LS1034 (KRAS mutated A146T), SNUC4 (PIK3CA mutated) and DLD1 (PIK3CA/KRAS mutated). Drug combination index (CI) was calculated using Calcusyn Biosoft software. A western immunoblotting method was used for protein analysis. The Chick Chorio-Allantoic Membrane (CAM) assay was used for in-vivo analysis of the effect of the drug combination.
Results: IC50s for Ribociclib and Alpelisib were calculated for all four cell lines. CACO2 and DLD1 cells were resistant to Ribociclib (IC50 >15µM).  The cell lines had varying sensitivity to both drugs. Drug combination analysis showed that the combination of Ribociclib and Alpelisib has a synergistic anti-proliferative effect in all CRC cell lines tested. The  combination of Ribociclib and Alpelisib is highly synergistic in LS1034 cells which harbour a KRAS mutation (CI=0.16). 
Relative expression of the proteins Cyclin D1, E2F-1, p-BCL-2, p-AKT, p-Rb and p-S6 was determined by measuring the density of each band from the western blot experiments and normalizing to β-actin. Combined inhibition of CDK4/6 and PI3Kα caused a simultaneous reduction of p-RB, p-AKT and p-S6 and a more complete inhibition of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway in all four cell lines tested. There was also an increase in expression of  in the apoptotic marker pBCL2 in cells treated with the combination of Ribociclib and Alpelisib compared to vehicle control. Tumour viability was measured by presence or absence of tumour visually (macroscopically) before CAM extraction. A macroscopic reduction of visible tumour was observed in all cell lines treated with the Ribociclib and Alpelisib combination compared to control. Microscopic examination also showed less Ki67 staining and negative cytokeratin staining in the Ribociclib and Alpelisib combination treated groups. 
Conclusion: A synergistic response to treatment with the combination of Ribociclib and Alpelisib is seen in all cell lines and this combination may be a rational treatment strategy in colorectal cancer.
Experimental realization of fast ion separation in segmented Paul traps
Creators: name: Ruster, Thomas
name: Warschburger, Claudia
name: Kaufmann, Henning
name: Schmiegelow, Christian T.
name: Walther, A.
name: Hettrich, Max
name: Pfister, Andreas
name: Kaushal, Vidyut
name: Schmidt-Kaler, Ferdinand
name: Poschinger, Ulrich G.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
subject: Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We experimentally demonstrate fast separation of a two-ion crystal in a microstructured segmented Paul trap. By the use of spectroscopic calibration routines for the electrostatic trap potentials, we achieve the required precise control of the ion trajectories near the \textit{critical point}, where the harmonic confinement by the external potential vanishes. The separation procedure can be controlled by three parameters: A static potential tilt, a voltage offset at the critical point, and the total duration of the process. We show how to optimize the control parameters by measurements of ion distances, trap frequencies and the final motional excitation. At a separation duration of $80 μ$s, we achieve a minimum mean excitation of $\bar{n} = 4.16(0.16)$ vibrational quanta per ion, which is consistent with the adiabatic limit given by our particular trap. We show that for fast separation times, oscillatory motion is excited, while a predominantly thermal state is obtained for long times. The presented technique does not rely on specific trap geometry parameters and can therefore be adopted for different segmented traps.
From Rock Art To Land Art/From Pleistocene To Anthropocene
Creators: name: Fox, William L.
Publisher: name: punctum books
Year: 2012

description: Our species of primate, Homo Sapiens, has been around for perhaps 200,000 years, and since then humans have witnessed two geologic turns. The Pleistocene Epoch lasted from approximately 2,588,000 years to 12,000 years before the present (BP), a period of repeated glaciation during which ice at maximal times covered as much as 30% of the Earth’s landmasses. The Pleistocene turned into the Holocene as the seemingly perpetual El Niño conditions switched off and the ice retreated. The “Recent Time” of this next epoch saw the spread of humanity into virtually every corner of every continent, save the Antarctic. The second turn we’ve seen is from the Holocene  into  the  Anthropocene,  which  Nobel  Laureate  Paul  Crutzen  proposes  began  with  the late 18th-century rise of industrialism. This “Human Time” is marked by a global layer of carbon laid down by the burning of fossil fuels, the emergence of a global stratigraphic event being a commonly accepted marker of a change in epochs.When Paul Crutzen announced in 2000 that we were no longer living in the Holocene, but in a new geologic epoch, he reformulated not only the equation of anthropic effect on landscape, but the timeline of art as we understand it. Now the Holocene was not simply the epoch of human endeavor and image making, but a bridge from the hominids who scratched marks on rock surfaces to those who now leave larger marks inscribed on the land. Both can be construed as attempts to map environments, be they at the small scale of a valley or the large scale of a cosmos, committed with intent to last for millennia or to wash away in the first rain.
Asymmetries in core-collapse supernovae from maps of radioactive $^{44}$Ti in CassiopeiaA
Creators: name: Grefenstette, B. W.
name: Harrison, F. A.
name: Boggs, S. E.
name: Reynolds, S. P.
name: Fryer, C. L.
name: Madsen, K. K.
name: Wik, D. R.
name: Zoglauer, A.
name: Ellinger, C. I.
name: Alexander, D. M.
name: An, H.
name: Barret, D.
name: Christensen, F. E.
name: Craig, W. W.
name: Forster, K.
name: Giommi, P.
name: Hailey, C. J.
name: Hornstrup, A.
name: Kaspi, V. M.
name: Kitaguchi, T.
name: Koglin, J. E.
name: Mao, P. H.
name: Miyasaka, H.
name: Mori, K.
name: Perri, M.
name: Pivovaroff, M. J.
name: Puccetti, S
name: Rana, V.
name: Stern, D.
name: Westergaard, N. J.
name: Zhang, W. W.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Asymmetry is required by most numerical simulations of stellar core-collapse explosions, but the form it takes differs significantly among models. The spatial distribution of radioactive 44Ti, synthesized in an exploding star near the boundary between material falling back onto the collapsing core and that ejected into the surrounding medium, directly probes the explosion asymmetries. CassiopeiaA is a young, nearby, core-collapse remnant from which 44Ti emission has previously been detected but not imaged. Asymmetries in the explosion have been indirectly inferred from a high ratio of observed 44Ti emission to estimated 56Ni emission, from optical light echoes, and from jet-like features seen in the X-ray and optical ejecta. Here we report spatial maps and spectral properties of the 44Ti in Cassiopeia A. This may explain the unexpected lack of correlation between the 44Ti and iron X-ray emission, the latter being visible only in shock-heated material. The observed spatial distribution rules out symmetric explosions even with a high level of convective mixing, as well as highly asymmetric bipolar explosions resulting from a fast-rotating progenitor. Instead, these observations provide strong evidence for the development of low-mode convective instabilities in core-collapse supernovae.
description: 32 pages, Figures Embedded
What is the Exponential?
Creators: name: Denizen, Seth
Publisher: name: punctum books
Year: 2012

description: The  strange  thing  about  these  exponential  curves,  is  that  the  farther  along  the  curve  one  projects  the  present,  the  shorter  the  time  interval  between  successive  points,  until  time  all but stops, in the midst of an immense acceleration.  This is the point at which the curve challenges  us  to  imagine  a  world  defined  not  by  a  time,  but  by  a  speed:    one  which  cannot  be  merely  an  extension  of  our  own,  a  difference  in  degree,  but  rather  something  which  takes  on  a  difference in kind:  another sea, another wind, another world at right angles to our own
The Dark Flight of Micrometorites
Creators: name: Thompson, Ryan
Publisher: name: punctum books
Year: 2012

description: Every day some 200 tons of extraterrestrial material enter the Earth’s porous atmosphere. The largest of these objects, meteors, become giant fireballs with the ability to light up the daytime sky and can cause local, regional, or global destruction upon impact. Others become shooting stars, neither large enough to survive their fiery trip through the atmosphere, nor small enough to escape their fate. The smallest of these materials, however, make it to the surface of the Earth as micrometeorites without much in the way of fanfare. No fiery explosions in the sky. No damage or destruction. Just a silent fall to Earth.
Multi-Target Regression via Random Linear Target Combinations
Creators: name: Tsoumakas, Grigorios
name: Spyromitros-Xioufis, Eleftherios
name: Vrekou, Aikaterini
name: Vlahavas, Ioannis
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Machine Learning (cs.LG)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Multi-target regression is concerned with the simultaneous prediction of multiple continuous target variables based on the same set of input variables. It arises in several interesting industrial and environmental application domains, such as ecological modelling and energy forecasting. This paper presents an ensemble method for multi-target regression that constructs new target variables via random linear combinations of existing targets. We discuss the connection of our approach with multi-label classification algorithms, in particular RA$k$EL, which originally inspired this work, and a family of recent multi-label classification algorithms that involve output coding. Experimental results on 12 multi-target datasets show that it performs significantly better than a strong baseline that learns a single model for each target using gradient boosting and compares favourably to multi-objective random forest approach, which is a state-of-the-art approach. The experiments further show that our approach improves more when stronger unconditional dependencies exist among the targets.
The Not-So-Sold Earth: Remembering New Madrid
Creators: name: Kagan, Julia
Publisher: name: punctum books
Year: 2012

description: “What would happen to our thinking about nature if we experienced [non-human] materialities as actants?” Jane Bennett asks in Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. One result might be a different way of thinking about earthquakes. The stresses and fault lines and tectonic-plate collisions that produce them are material forces whose actions can reshape the world in ways that profoundly affect human life. Earthquakes remind us that human lives take place against a background of geologic time and that human agency, however nature-bending, is ultimately shaped by the non-human context in which it operates. Living in a known quake zone where Earth’s tectonic plates meet means inhabiting a geol-ogy  that  feels  very  much  alive,  not  buried  in  the  remote  past.  Think  Japan,  Chile,  and  the  other  nations  along  the  Pacific  “rim  of  fire,”  not  to  mention  its  eastern  border:  California,  the American northwest and Alaska. This doesn’t mean that those who reside far from plate margins live in safety. Perhaps the strongest earthquakes to hit the United States in recorded history  were  intraplate,  as  geologists  term  it,  not  at  a  tectonic  edge.  They  happened  exactly  200 years ago in the middle of the North American Plate, in a place called New Madrid in the Mississippi  River  Valley.  Three  huge  quakes  hit  from  December  to  February  1811-12,  with  estimated  magnitudes  (the  seismograph  was  not  invented  until  1896)  as  high  as  8.1.  The  anniversary is a reminder that reverberations from immeasurably ancient geologic events can burst into the present without warning.
Intra Cluster Light properties in the CLASH-VLT cluster MACS J1206.2-0847
Creators: name: Presotto, V.
name: Girardi, M.
name: Nonino, M.
name: Mercurio, A.
name: Grillo, C.
name: Rosati, P.
name: Biviano, A.
name: Annunziatella, M.
name: Balestra, I.
name: Cui, W.
name: Sartoris, B.
name: Lemze, D.
name: Ascaso, B.
name: Moustakas, J.
name: Ford, H.
name: Fritz, A.
name: Czoske, O.
name: Ettori, S.
name: Kuchner, U.
name: Lombardi, M.
name: Maier, C.
name: Medezinski, E.
name: Molino, A.
name: Scodeggio, M.
name: Strazzullo, V.
name: Tozzi, P.
name: Ziegler, B.
name: Bartelmann, M.
name: Benitez, N.
name: Bradley, L.
name: Brescia, M.
name: Broadhurst, T.
name: Coe, D.
name: Donahue, M.
name: Gobat, R.
name: Graves, G.
name: Kelson, D.
name: Koekemoer, A.
name: Melchior, P.
name: Meneghetti, M.
name: Merten, J.
name: Moustakas, L.
name: Munari, E.
name: Postman, M.
name: Regős, E.
name: Seitz, S.
name: Umetsu, K.
name: Zheng, W.
name: Zitrin, A.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We aim at constraining the assembly history of clusters by studying the intra cluster light (ICL) properties, estimating its contribution to the fraction of baryons in stars, f*, and understanding possible systematics/bias using different ICL detection techniques. We developed an automated method, GALtoICL, based on the software GALAPAGOS to obtain a refined version of typical BCG+ICL maps. We applied this method to our test case MACS J1206.2-0847, a massive cluster located at z=0.44, that is part of the CLASH sample. Using deep multi-band SUBARU images, we extracted the surface brightness (SB) profile of the BCG+ICL and we studied the ICL morphology, color, and contribution to f* out to R500. We repeated the same analysis using a different definition of the ICL, SBlimit method, i.e. a SB cut-off level, to compare the results. The most peculiar feature of the ICL in MACS1206 is its asymmetric radial distribution, with an excess in the SE direction and extending towards the 2nd brightest cluster galaxy which is a Post Starburst galaxy. This suggests an interaction between the BCG and this galaxy that dates back to t <= 1.5 Gyr. The BCG+ICL stellar content is 8% of M_(*,500) and the (de-) projected baryon fraction in stars is f*=0.0177 (0.0116), in excellent agreement with recent results. The SBlimit method provides systematically higher ICL fractions and this effect is larger at lower SB limits. This is due to the light from the outer envelopes of member galaxies that contaminate the ICL. Though more time consuming, the GALtoICL method provides safer ICL detections that are almost free of this contamination. This is one of the few ICL study at redshift z > 0.3. At completion, the CLASH/VLT program will allow us to extend this analysis to a statistically significant cluster sample spanning a wide redshift range: 0.2
description: 18 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics
Artifacts: Trevor Paglen's Frontier Photography
Creators: name: Belisle, Brooke
Publisher: name: punctum books
Year: 2012

description: The first photograph of Trevor Paglen’s 2010 diptych, Artifacts, is familiar. Picturing ancient ruins nestled in the cliffs of Arizona’s Canyon de Chelly, it echoes a 1873 photograph by Timo-thy O’Sullivan and a 1941 photograph by Ansel Adams. Paglen’s photograph, like its anteced-ents, is rendered in sharp-focus, without color, dominated by dramatic, diagonal striations of the cliff face. It frames the archeological history of the ruin within the geological history of the canyon within the cultural history of photography.Canyon de Chelly is actually the intersection of several canyons, formed by slow erosion over thirty  million  years  ago.  The  angled  striations  seen  in  the  photograph  expose  even  older  geo-logical processes, layers of sediment compressing into strata then shifting, rising, and tilting. Between  the  1st  and  4th  century,  people  now  called  the  Anasazi  settled  in  the  canyon.  They  built  the  structure  in  this  photograph  around  the  year  1000,  and,  300  years  later,  they  had  disappeared.  Navajo  tribes  spreading  across  the  Southwest  discovered  the  ruins  already  500  years old. In the 18th century, Spanish colonists ventured into the canyon and soon they were converting and killing Navajos who lived there