cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
Soil Moisture Estimation with Polarimetric SAR Data
Creators: name: Mazaheri Tehrani, Habib
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Remote Sensing
subject: Soil moisture estimation
subject: Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar

description: Soil moisture (SM) is widely used in analyzing the interaction of ground and atmosphere. It has applications in many disciplines including but not limited to weather forecasting and hydrological modeling. Measuring SM is difficult. It has been traditionally carried out by time-consuming field work consisting of direct ground-based soil sampling. Remote sensing seems promising for estimation of SM, because of its unique data gathering specifications. Among different sensors in remote sensing, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors have attracted considerable attention for SM estimation because of their high resolution, independence from weather conditions, and sensitivity to changes in soil dielectric constant, which can be used to quantify SM. The relationship between the observations of a SAR system and the dielectric constant of soil is usually described using a mathematical model known as surface scattering model. A class of information which can be utilized in post-processing the outputs of these models to improve their performance include the information about the spatial variability of SM. Analyzing the spatial variability of SM can help in calibrating the results of the scattering models. A model may be established for predicting the difference between the outputs of a scattering model and the field-measured SM using a set of concurrent SAR data and ground measurements, which may be generalized to SAR data acquired on other dates. In this thesis, the spatial variability of SM estimated by the Integral Equation Model (IEM) is analyzed by the STRAIN multifractal model which is a multi-resolution tool. The IEM is selected because of its superior inversion pattern which is necessary for multifractal analysis. We propose a simple calibration model for improving the quality of the results of the IEM based on the relationship between the parameters of the multifractal model and ground measurements of SM. The results of the experiments in this study show that, the proposed calibration model is, to some extent, robust when considering SAR images acquired on different dates, and can usually improve the agreement between ground measurements of SM and SM estimated by the IEM.
Precise spatial coding is preserved along the longitudinal hippocampal axis
Creators: name: Keinath, Alexander T
name: Wang, Melissa E
name: Wann, Ellen G
name: Yuan, Robin K
name: Dudman, Joshua T
name: Muzzio, Isabel A
Publisher: name: University of Illinois at Chicago
Year: 2023
Subjects: Uncategorized

description: Compared with the dorsal hippocampus, relatively few studies have characterized neuronal responses in the ventral hippocampus. In particular, it is unclear whether and how cells in the ventral region represent space and/or respond to contextual changes. We recorded from dorsal and ventral CA1 neurons in freely moving mice exposed to manipulations of visuospatial and olfactory contexts. We found that ventral cells respond to alterations of the visuospatial environment such as exposure to novel local cues, cue rotations, and contextual expansion in similar ways to dorsal cells, with the exception of cue rotations. Furthermore, we found that ventral cells responded to odors much more strongly than dorsal cells, particularly to odors of high valence. Similar to earlier studies recording from the ventral hippocampus in CA3, we also found increased scaling of place cell field size along the longitudinal hippocampal axis. Although the increase in place field size observed toward the ventral pole has previously been taken to suggest a decrease in spatial information coded by ventral place cells, we hypothesized that a change in spatial scaling could instead signal a shift in representational coding that preserves the resolution of spatial information. To explore this possibility, we examined population activity using principal component analysis (PCA) and neural location reconstruction techniques. Our results suggest that ventral populations encode a distributed representation of space, and that the resolution of spatial information at the population level is comparable to that of dorsal populations of similar size. Finally, through the use of neural network modeling, we suggest that the redundancy in spatial representation along the longitudinal hippocampal axis may allow the hippocampus to overcome the conflict between memory interference and generalization inherent in neural network memory. Our results indicate that ventral population activity is well suited for generalization across locations and contexts.
Friend or foe? Deconstructing the US-Pakistan alliance
Creators: name: Richert, Ruth
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Military Studies
subject: constructivism
subject: Pakistan
subject: United States

description: Are the US and Pakistan friends or foes? A methodological framework of constructivism will be employed to answer this question. First, constructivism will be outlined, and its applicability to the case of the US-Pakistan alliance will be demonstrated. The specific constructivist tools to be used - narrativity and role identity formation - and their applicability to the relationship between Pakistan and the US will be described. The national narrative formation process of both states will then be addressed, and will include such elements as religion, domestic politics, and foreign policy. Interactions between the two states and the process by which role identities are formed will then be described. This will include themes such as victimhood and exceptionalism. Finally, this paper will address the thesis question and conclude that the US and Pakistan are fundamentally foes, not friends.
Project Approval Decisions: Exploring Success Factors
Creators: name: Nada, Diana
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Business Administration--Management
subject: Engineering--Civil
subject: Psychology--Behavioral
subject: Management
subject: neuroeconomics
subject: decision-making
subject: approvals
subject: qualitative
subject: delphi
subject: exploratory
subject: disconnect
subject: Success
subject: Project

description: Little research has explored the critical point where a project is created: the sanctioning of the money to invest. This research is an exploratory investigation into this key point in the evolution of a project. Specifically, it focuses on the context within which the investment decision is made. This research investigated the interaction between the decision makers, the executives, and the project management (PM) groups from just before the decision is made to just after the project team gets its mandate. The qualitative investigation considered expert opinion that was solicited from two groups: executives and project managers. Modified Delphi surveys and semi-structured interviews were used. The findings of this thesis show that there is a disconnection between the decisions made at the executive level, and their interpretation by those who deliver the project. The context in which both groups communicate and share information is split into two distinct worlds when justifying fund approvals and delivering projects. One that is politically correct and visible, and a pragmatic one that is needed to get the job done –generally kept invisible. Key discoveries included identifying seven key factors that influence the success of a project investment decision, identification of a critical disconnect between the decision makers and the project implementers resulting from a number of factors that culminate in key observation and recommendation. The observation is that missing critical information is not transferred from one group to the other because it appears to be 'so obvious' to that group that it does not occur to the group to share it and because it is sufficiently opaque – or of little interest – to the other group that they do not require this important information. Both groups should work on bridging this disconnect. Value creation should be a reflective focus under a common understanding of the business and project intent and setting minimum expectation for the quality of the information shared and communicated. One possible part of a solution is creating a new and more diverse career path that exposes executives to their realities of project management and project managers to the world of executive decision-making.
Fluctuation driven phenomena in spinor Bose gas
Creators: name: Song, Junliang
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2010

description: In this thesis, we have investigated several fluctuation-driven phenomena in ultracold spinor Bose gases. In Bose-Einstein condensates of hyperfine spin-two (F=2) atoms, it is shown that zero-point quantum fluctuations completely lift the accidental continuous degeneracy in quantum spin nematic phases predicted by mean field analysis, and these fluctuations select out two distinct spin nematic states with higher symmetries. It is further shown that fluctuations can drive a novel type of coherent spin dynamics which is very sensitive to the variation of quantum fluctuations controlled by magnetic fields or potential depths in optical lattices. These results have indicated fundamental limitations of precision measurements based on mean field theories. In addition, fluctuation-driven coherent spin dynamics studied here is a promising tool to probe correlated fluctuations in many body systems. In another system -- a two-dimension superfluid of spin-one (F=1) Na²³ atoms -- we have investigated spin correlations associated with half quantum vortices. It is shown that when cold atoms become superfluid below a critical temperature a unique nonlocal topological order emerges simultaneously due to fluctuations in low dimensional systems. Our simulation have indicated that there exists a nonlocal softened pi-spin disclination structure associated with a half-quantum vortex although spin correlations are short ranged. We have also estimated fluctuation-dependent critical frequencies for half-quantum vortex nucleation in rotating optical traps. These results indicate that the strongly fluctuating ultracold spinor system is a promising candidate for studying topological orders that are the focus of many other fields.
Perspectives and practices in sharing data-centric adaptations in the biology classroom: How, why, when, and where are instructors sharing these high-impact pedagogies?
Creators: name: Bonner, Kaitlin
name: Fleming-Davies, Arietta
name: Grayson, Kristine
name: Wu, Ben
name: Pacheco, Raisa
Publisher: name: QUBES Educational Resources
Year: 2020

description: Poster presented at the 2019 meeting of the National Association of Biology Teachers on barriers to fully utilizing the complete Open Education Resources lifecycle
Triggering On Hadronic Tau Decays: A challenge met by ATLAS
Creators: name: Morgenstern, Marcus M.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been able to collect 5.25 fb-1 of data in 2011. For many physics analyses both in context of the Standard Model (SM) and Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) theories such as Higgs boson searches, tau leptons play an important role. Thus, triggering on hadronic tau decays is an essential ingredient for the success of those measurements. This contribution will summarize the developed efforts to meet this challenge. Efficiency measurements using data taken in 2011 at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV are described and results are presented. An outlook on further developments of the tau trigger algorithms, to match future requirements and higher instantaneous luminosities are summarised in the end.
description: Presented at the 2011 Hadron Collider Physics symposium (HCP-2011), Paris, France, November 14-18 2011, 3 pages, 6 figure
DG–CA3 circuitry mediates hippocampal representations of latent information
Creators: name: Keinath, Alexandra T
name: Nieto-Posadas, Andrés
name: Robinson, Jennifer C
name: Brandon, Mark P
Publisher: name: University of Illinois at Chicago
Year: 2023
Subjects: Uncategorized

description: Survival in complex environments necessitates a flexible navigation system that incorporates memory of recent behavior and associations. Yet, how the hippocampal spatial circuit represents latent information independent of sensory inputs and future goals has not been determined. To address this, we image the activity of large ensembles in subregion CA1 via wide-field fluorescent microscopy during a novel behavioral paradigm. Our results demonstrate that latent information is represented through reliable firing rate changes during unconstrained navigation. We then hypothesize that the representation of latent information in CA1 is mediated by pattern separation/completion processes instantiated upstream within the dentate gyrus (DG) and CA3 subregions. Indeed, CA3 ensemble recordings reveal an analogous code for latent information. Moreover, selective chemogenetic inactivation of DG–CA3 circuitry completely and reversibly abolishes the CA1 representation of latent information. These results reveal a causal and specific role of DG–CA3 circuitry in the maintenance of latent information within the hippocampus.
Forward physics hard processes and saturation: theory and phenomenology review
Creators: name: Kutak, Krzysztof
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Selected aspects of the theory and phenomenology of production of forward jets at the LHC and RHIC are overviewed. In the theory part we discuss basics of frameworks originating from the BFKL dynamics while in the phenomenology part we present results for forward-central jet correlations at the LHC and forward di-jet production at RHIC.
description: contribution to proceedings of ISMD 2011, Sept. 26-30, Miyajima Island, Hiroshima; submitted to Progr. Theor. Phys. Suppl
Facilitating Programming-by-Demonstration for Bioinformatics using Semantic Web Resources.
Creators: name: Gordon, Paul-Michael
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Computer Science
subject: Programming-by-Demonstration
subject: Bioinformatics
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences
subject: Semantic Web

description: Many software applications have “macro” capabilities, allowing users to record keystrokes, then replay them verbatim to save time performing repetitive tasks. Programming by demonstration (PbD) is a more sophisticated technique where the application translates the semantics (i.e. meaning) of users’ actions into programming language notation. The PbD engine generalizes to a functional level, rather than simply being rote sets of keystrokes. This can help nonprogrammers robustly automate their computer based tasks. Most extant PbD systems have user actions based on physical phenomena such as maze traversal, but automating gaming tasks is of limited interest to most computer users. One user group that could benefit from task automation without programming is molecular biologists, analyzing large genetics datasets ("bioinformatics") but typically having no programming skills. Visual workflow systems help automate bioinformatics, but using empirical studies I show five significant barriers to their use. I propose here that a domain-savvy PbD system can mitigate these barriers by inferring data analysis workflows from molecular biologists' Web browsing sessions. I call this technique Workflow by Demonstration (WbD). The success of this approach depends on replacing the typical physical phenomenon model of PbD with a biology-specific data model and hypertext interface. Emerging informatics standards ("Semantic Web" technologies) facilitate the use of common data models across different data providers on the Web. Many molecular biology resources are Web based, therefore this work implements Semantic Web technologies to facilitate WbD. Biologists were given pen-and-paper workflow design tasks, revealing the types of data flow they intuitively understood. These defined the types of workflow "code" a WbD system should support, and the corresponding hypertext demonstration actions were modeled. A browser (Seahawk) implements these action to code mappings. User studies evaluating Seahawk show that biologists could 1) demonstrate Web based analysis for realistic tasks, 2) understand the automatically generated workflows, and 3) use them in the workflow environment Taverna. This suggests WbD is a viable technique for bioinformatics. Although the data model used was biology-specific, the underlying semantic technologies used are domain agnostic. Techniques described here may therefore be applicable to novice programmers in other domains.
Non-perturbative analysis of the constraints and the positivity of the energy of the complete Horava theory
Creators: name: Bellorin, Jorge
name: Restuccia, Alvaro
name: Sotomayor, Adrian
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We perform a non-perturbative analysis to the Hamiltonian constraint of the lowest-order effective action of the complete Horava theory, which includes a (\partial_i \ln N)^2 term in the Lagrangian. We cast this constraint as a partial differential equation for N and show that the solution exists and is unique under a condition of positivity for the metric and its conjugate momentum. We interpret this condition as the analog of the positivity of the spatial scalar curvature in general relativity. From the analysis we extract several general properties of the solution for N: an upper bound on its absolute value and its asymptotic behavior. In particular, we find that the asymptotic behavior is different to that of general relativity, which has consequences on the evolution of the initial data and the calculus of variations. Similarly, we proof the existence and uniqueness of the solution of the equation for the Lagrange multiplier of the theory. We also find a relationship between the expression of the energy and the solution of the Hamiltonian constraint. Using it we prove the positivity of the energy of the effective action under consideration. Minkowski spacetime is obtained from Horava theory at minimal energy.
description: Changes in the title, some comments added
Additional file 2 of Characterization of oral and cloacal microbial communities of wild and rehabilitated loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta)
Creators: name: Filek, Klara
name: Trotta, Adriana
name: Gračan, Romana
name: Di Bello, Antonio
name: Corrente, Marialaura
name: Bosak, Sunčica
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: Microbiology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: Genetics
subject: Ecology

description: Additional file 2: Figure S1. Oral (A) and cloacal (B) sampling of loggerhead sea turtle at the Sea Turtle Clinic of the Department of Veterinary Medicine of University of Bari (Italy). Courtesy of Adriana Trotta. Table S2. Alpha diversity measures (Shannon’s diversity, observed ASVs. Faith’s Phylogenetic Diversity) for cloacal, oral and tank water sampling sites with Kruskal–Wallis H test results. Values are represented as mean ± SD, with significance level α
Superfluid to Mott insulator transition in the one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model for arbitrary integer filling factors
Creators: name: Danshita, Ippei
name: Polkovnikov, Anatoli
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We study the quantum phase transition between the superfluid and the Mott insulator in the one-dimensional (1D) Bose-Hubbard model. Using the time-evolving block decimation method, we numerically calculate the tunneling splitting of two macroscopically distinct states with different winding numbers. From the scaling of the tunneling splitting with respect to the system size, we determine the critical point of the superfluid to Mott insulator transition for arbitrary integer filling factors. We find that the critical values versus the filling factor in 1D, 2D, and 3D are well approximated by a simple analytical function. We also discuss the condition for determining the transition point from a perspective of the instanton method.
description: 6 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables
Close packing density and fracture strength of adsorbed polydisperse particle layers
Creators: name: Groot, Robert D.
name: Stoyanov, Simeon D.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The close packing density of log-normal and bimodal distributed, surface-adsorbed particles or discs in 2D is studied by numerical simulation. For small spread in particle size, the system orders in a polycrystalline structure of hexagonal domains. The domain size and the packing density both decrease as the spread in particle size is increased up to 10.5+/-0.5%. From this point onwards the system becomes amorphous, and the close packing density increases again with spread in particle size. We argue that the polycrystalline and amorphous regions are separated by a Kosterlitz-Thouless-type phase transition. In the amorphous region we find the close packing density to vary proportional to the logarithm of the friction factor, or cooling rate. We also studied the fracture behaviour of surface layers of sintered particles. Fracture strength increases with spread in particle size, but the brittleness of the layers shows a minimum at the polycrystalline-amorphous transition. We further show that mixing distributions of big and small particles generally leads to weaker and more brittle layers, even though the close packing density is higher than for either of the particle types. We point out applications to foam stability by the Pickering mechanism.
description: 12 pages, 15 figures
Supplementary document for Room-temperature electroluminescence and light detection from III-V unipolar microLEDs without p-type doping - 6277550.pdf
Creators: name: Bejoys, Jacob
name: Camarneiro, Filipe
name: Borme, Jerome
name: Figueiredo, Jose
name: Nieder, Jana
name: Romeira, Bruno
Publisher: name: Optica Publishing Group
Year: 2023
Subjects: Uncategorized

description: Supplement 1
The Social Organization of Mothering Work for a First Nations Mother
Creators: name: Ingstrup, Andrea
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Nursing
subject: FOS: Health sciences

description: Abstract The research described in this thesis investigated the social organization of First Nations (1) mothering as it arose within the ongoing historical and contemporary sequences of events in which mothering work is embedded. The aim of this research is to gain an understanding of how the everyday activities of mothers unfold, what mothers do by looking at the happenings in the daily routines of mothers who are situated within the socio-economic-political position of a First Nations mother. I examined parenting using Institutional Ethnography as a method of inquiry to reveal how activities in the everyday world are socially organized through relations of ruling with professionals, agencies, institutions and the written or spoken communication or discourse, to uncover how those activities arose as supportive of women to develop relationships with their children. This research reveals how programs despite best intentions contribute to relationship disconnection and frustration that these mothers encounter in trying to meet authorized program expectations and professional judgments. 1 As in the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People (Government of Canada, 2006), for the purpose of this research the term First Nations is the reference to indigenous peoples of Canada that are not Metis or Inuit but may fall under the umbrella term Aboriginal people.
Quantum Monte Carlo study of the transverse-field quantum Ising model on infinite-dimensional structures
Creators: name: Baek, Seung Ki
name: Um, Jaegon
name: Yi, Su Do
name: Kim, Beom Jun
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
subject: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: In a number of classical statistical-physical models, there exists a characteristic dimensionality called the upper critical dimension above which one observes the mean-field critical behavior. Instead of constructing high-dimensional lattices, however, one can also consider infinite-dimensional structures, and the question is whether this mean-field character extends to quantum-mechanical cases as well. We therefore investigate the transverse-field quantum Ising model on the globally coupled network and the Watts-Strogatz small-world network by means of quantum Monte Carlo simulations and the finite-size scaling analysis. We confirm that both the structures exhibit critical behavior consistent with the mean-field description. In particular, we show that the existing cumulant method has a difficulty in estimating the correct dynamic critical exponent and suggest that an order parameter based on the quantum-mechanical expectation value can be a practically useful numerical observable to determine critical behavior when there is no well-defined dimensionality.
description: 13 pages, 18 figures
Insight from laboratory measurements on dust in debris discs
Creators: name: Milli, Julien
name: Poch, Olivier
name: Renard, Jean-Baptiste
name: Augereau, Jean-Charles
name: Beck, Pierre
name: Choquet, Elodie
name: Geffrin, Jean-Michel
name: Hadamcik, Edith
name: Lasue, Jérémie
name: Ménard, François
name: Péronne, Arthur
name: Baruteau, Clément
name: Tazaki, Ryo
name: Valencia, Vanesa Tobon
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Extreme adaptive optics instruments have revealed exquisite details on debris discs, allowing to extract the optical properties of the dust particles such as the phase function, the degree of polarisation and the spectral reflectance. These are three powerful diagnostic tools to understand the physical properties of the dust : the size, shape and composition of the dust particles. This can inform us on the population of parent bodies, also called planetesimals, which generate those particles through collisions. It is however very rare to be able to combine all those three observables for the same system, as this requires different high-contrast imaging techniques to suppress the starlight and reveal the faint scattered light emission from the dust. Due to its brightness, the ring detected around the A-type star HR 4796 is a notable exception, with both unpolarised and polarised images covering near-infrared wavelengths. Here, we show how measurements of dust particles in the laboratory can reproduce the observed near-infrared photo-polarimetric properties of the HR 4796 disc. Experimental characterisation of dust allows to bypass the current limitations of dust models to reproduce simultaneously the phase function, the degree of polarisation and the spectral reflectance.
description: 4 pages, 4 figures, Proceedings of the Annual meeting of the French Society of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Glite 3.2 User Guide Manuals Series
Creators: name: Aiftimiei, Cristina
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2013
Subjects: EMI

description: Logging and Bookkeeping (LB for short) is a Grid service that keeps a short-term trace of Grid jobs as they are processed by individual Grid components. The top-level BDII is an instance fetching information from site BDIIs
Examining health service use among adults with cerebral palsy: a mixed-methods approach
Creators: name: Manikandan, Manjula
Publisher: name: Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
Year: 2023
Subjects: classificationCode: 320905
subject: Neurology and neuromuscular diseases
classificationCode: 420305
subject: Health and community services

description: Background: Adults with cerebral palsy (CP) experience ongoing health issues from childhood in addition to issues related to ageing. Thus, adults require services and supports to meet their changing needs. However, there is lack of understanding of health services used by adults with CP, this thesis aimed to examine health service use among adults with CP. Methods: A convergent parallel mixed-methods design was used. Four studies were conducted: a mixed methods systematic review; a secondary analysis of a cross-sectional data; a cross-sectional study using an online survey; and a qualitative study using in-depth semi-structured interviews. The findings were integrated using the Andersen and Newman Model of health care utilisation. The Public and Patient Involvement was integrated throughout this research. Results: The review identified that adults with CP used a wide-range of medical, rehabilitation and support services. Over a 12 month period general practitioner (84%) was the most commonly used medical services. The analysis of Irish data demonstrated that physiotherapy was most commonly used by 57% of adults. Unmet needs were highest for physiotherapy (23%) and occupational therapy services (13%). In the survey, 90% of adults with CP reported a need for physiotherapy but only 35% received the physiotherapy service they needed. The qualitative study demonstrated that adults experience insufficient care to meet their needs, lack of knowledgeable staff, and health system and environmental barriers to accessing services. The integration of findings found both barriers and facilitators to service use; particularly highlighting inequitable services for adults with CP. Conclusion: This thesis addressed the knowledge gap in health service use among adults with CP. The findings highlight a need for services for adults with CP across the lifespan, with an appropriate service delivery model regardless of their personal circumstances, secondary diagnosis or CP complications.
A gauge-invariant approach to interactions in the dark sector
Creators: name: Potter, William J.
name: Chongchitnan, Sirichai
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We outline a gauge-invariant framework to calculate cosmological perturbations in dark energy models consisting of a scalar field interacting with dark matter via energy and momentum exchanges. Focusing on three well-known models of quintessence and three common types of dark-sector interactions, we calculate the matter and dark energy power spectra as well as the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect in these models. We show how the presence of dark-sector interactions can produce a large-scale enhancement in the matter power spectrum and a boost in the low multipoles of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies. Nevertheless, we find these enhancements to be much more subtle than those found by previous authors who model dark energy using simple ansatz for the equation of state. We also address issues of instabilities and emphasise the importance of momentum exchanges in the dark sector.
description: 24 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in JCAP
Detailed study of null and time-like geodesics in the Alcubierre Warp spacetime
Creators: name: Müller, Thomas
name: Weiskopf, Daniel
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: Popular Physics (physics.pop-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The Alcubierre warp spacetime yields a fascinating chance for comfortable interstellar travel between arbitrary distant places without the time dilation effect as in special relativistic flights. Even though the warp spacetime needs exotic matter for its construction and is thus far from being physically feasible, it offers a rich playground for studying geodesics in the general theory of relativity. This paper is addressed to graduate students who have finished a first course in general relativity to give them a deeper inside in the calculation of non-affinely parametrized null and time-like geodesics and a straightforward approach to determine the gravitational lensing effect due to curved spacetime by means of the Jacobi equation. Both topics are necessary for a thorough discussion of the visual effects as observed by a traveller inside the warp bubble or a person looking from outside. The visual effects of the traveller can be reproduced with an interactive Java application.
Exploring literacy pedagogy with digital technologies in teacher education
Creators: name: Vratulis, Vetta Kimon
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2010

description: Despite current emphasis in teacher preparation programs on developing pre-service teachers’ comfort and competence with digital learning technologies (DLT), research suggests that pre-service teachers struggle to transfer innovative applications of technology into their eventual teaching practice. In particular, they resist change from traditional constructs of teaching and learning. In this dissertation, I suggest that disrupting pre-conceived notions of teaching and learning is a requisite step to facilitating change in classroom practice. Neuman (1990) observed that classroom practice is “disrupted” when digital technologies are integrated “in a way that fundamentally alters the instructional environment so that teaching and learning occur differently than before the technology was appropriated” (p. 110). This thesis is composed of five chapters. The first chapter provides the theoretical framework that has informed the study and describes the case study methodology employed to explore the following two research questions: (a) How do pre-service teachers experience DLT in the context of a 12-month elementary teacher education program? (b) How do we disrupt pre-service teachers existing conceptions of literacy pedagogy? Chapters 2-4 are co-authored manuscript chapters. Chapter 2 examines the manner in which a community of learners working collaboratively within a wiki environment establish social hierarchies and negotiate power. Student engagement in this activity revealed much about social negotiation within such settings, and about the affordances of such software for formal education. This paper is included in its published form. Chapter 3 explores the participants’ experiences with “Slowmation” (a form of stop-motion animation). Findings reveal that reluctant uptake of slowmation on practicum by pre-service teachers appeared to be to the result of the weak support structure for the pedagogy and the lack of encouragement from some sponsor teachers. Chapter 4 explores pre-service teachers use of GarageBand™ and an electronic bulletin board in the context of a 3-month curriculum and instruction course in music education. Results reveal that the integration of digital learning technologies facilitates a reconceptualization of music education as well as a sociocultural interpretation of music literacy. In chapter 5, I draw comparisons across each of the manuscript chapters in light of current research in the field.
An exploration of the definitions and measures used when investigating fatigue in adults with Long COVID: a scoping review protocol
Creators: name: Thomas, Bethan
name: Pattinson, Rachael
name: Davies, Jennifer
name: Bundy, Christine
name: Lande, Helena
name: Edwards, Deborah
name: Dale, Carys
name: Jenkins, Benjamin
Publisher: name: OSF Registries
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Medicine and Health Sciences
subject: Fatigue
subject: Long COVID
subject: Post exertional malaise
subject: Scoping Review

description: Abstract Objective: The aim of this scoping review is to investigate how fatigue is defined and measured in adults with Long COVID. Introduction: Following COVID-19 infection, 10-20% of individuals go on to experience symptoms persisting a minimum of three months; this is commonly known as Long COVID. Fatigue is one of the most prevalent symptoms of Long COVID, but there is currently no consistently applied definition of Long COVID fatigue. To advance our understanding of Long COVID fatigue, we must first identify the current definitions and measures being used to describe and quantify this condition. Inclusion criteria: This review will consider published and unpublished studies from January 2020 onwards involving adults (≥18years) that define and/or measure Long COVID fatigue. There will be no initial language restrictions and papers using both quantitative and qualitative designs will be included. Conference abstracts, editorials, and opinion papers will be excluded. Methods: Published studies will be searched for across databases MEDLINE (OVID), CINAHL (EBSCO), Embase (OVID), Scopus, PsycINFO (OVID), Web of Science, Epistemonikos and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) and Dimensions, Overton and ProQuest Dissertation & Theses Database for unpublished literature. Eligible records will be de-duplicated, and two independent reviewers will carry out title, abstract and full-text screening. A data extraction tool will be pilot tested on a small number of papers, then modified as necessary. Modifications will be detailed in the scoping review. Findings will be presented in tables and charts, supported by a narrative summary.
Additional file 1 of Hypertension in Guatemala’s Public Primary Care System: A Needs Assessment Using the Health System Building Blocks Framework
Creators: name: Fort, Meredith P.
name: Mundo, William
name: Paniagua-Avila, Alejandra
name: Cardona, Sayra
name: Figueroa, Juan Carlos
name: Hernández-Galdamez, Diego
name: Mansilla, Kristyne
name: Peralta-García, Ana
name: Roche, Dina
name: Palacios, Eduardo Alberto
name: Glasgow, Russell E.
name: Gulayin, Pablo
name: Irazola, Vilma
name: He, Jiang
name: Ramirez-Zea, Manuel
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: Medicine
subject: Biotechnology
subject: Cancer
subject: Science Policy
subject: 110309 Infectious Diseases
subject: FOS: Health sciences

description: Additional file 1: Supplementary file 1. Interview Guide.
Stability of the Ni sites across the pressure-induced metallization in YNiO3
Creators: name: Ramos, A. Y.
name: Piamonteze, C.
name: Tolentino, H. C. N.
name: Bunau, O.
name: Joly, Y.
name: Grenier, S.
name: Itie, J. -P.
name: Massa, N. E.
name: Alonso, J. A.
name: Martinez-Lope, M. J.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The local environment of nickel atoms in Y NiO3 across the pressure- induced insulator to metal (IM) transition was studied using X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) supported by ab initio calculations. The monotonic contraction of the NiO6 units under applied pressure observed up to 13 GPa, stops in a limited pressure domain around 14 GPa, before resuming above 16 GPa. In this narrow pressure range, crystallographic modifications basically occur in the medium/long range, not in the NiO6 octahedron, whereas the evolution of the near-edge XAS features can be associated to metallization. Ab initio calculations show that these features are related to medium range order, provided that the Ni-O-Ni angle enables a proper overlap of the Ni eg and O 2p orbitals. Metallization is then not directly related to modifications in the average local geometry of the NiO6 units but more likely to an inter-octahedra rearrangement. These outcomes provides evidences of the bandwidth driven nature of the IM transition.
description: 6 pages with figures
Representation and Regulation: A Critical Analysis of the Woman in Jail
Creators: name: Milaney, Katrina
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Gender Studies
subject: Gender
subject: Disability
subject: Crime

description: Abstract Women make up approximately 11% of the total number of incarcerated adults in provincial jails across Canada. While overall crime rates are declining, incarceration rates, particularly at the provincial level, and for women, are growing. Examination of the literature on the experiences of incarcerated women shows complex histories that include physical and sexual violence, poverty, mental health concerns or disabilities and often addictions. The purpose of this study is to understand the complexity of women’s experience and how it is related to the ways in which policies and practices to manage crime emerge within dominant political ideologies. Using institutional ethnography, in-depth interviews and analysis of authorizing and interfacing texts inside the women’s unit of a provincial prison in Alberta, Canada, I examine power and decision making. The following questions guided this study: how specifically do dominant ideologies manifest within the prison experience? Does sustaining a prison system meant to punish and rehabilitate offenders at the same time reduce future crime? How do dominant ideologies construct women offenders? And how do prison processes and decisions rooted in these ideologies impact the women offenders’ experiences in prison? My interdisciplinary approach, using a gendered-disability lens seeks to understand how the ‘woman in jail’ is constructed within the dominant economic philosophy of neoliberalism, as well, how these constructions lead to a particular representation and corresponding regulation of her. The critical analysis reveals that current practices of incarcerating women with histories of trauma has deleterious effects. An alternative approach is theorized
Efficient Algorithms for Realistic Lens Effect Simulation
Creators: name: Liu, Xin
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Computer Science
subject: Computer Graphics
subject: Rendering
subject: Lens Effect Simulation
subject: Ray Tracing
subject: Acceleration Structure
subject: Micro 64-Tree
subject: Sparse View
subject: Bokeh
subject: Pseudo 3D Display
subject: GPU Algorithms

description: Lens effects play an important role in the realism and aesthetics of graphical rendering. Although a wide range of lens effect simulation algorithms have been proposed in computer graphics, we found that realistic lens effect simulation is still very costly in terms of computing time. In this thesis, we have developed efficient algorithms for rendering images with realistic lens effects. We first strived to improve the efficiency of the physically correct distributed ray tracing algorithm by speeding up the fundamental ray-object intersection operations on a GPU. This work brought forth a new acceleration structure built on the top of a uniform grid, called the micro 64-tree, and a new grid traversal algorithm based on the micro 64-tree. The micro 64-tree speeds up the distributed ray tracing by an order of magnitude compared to algorithms based on the uniform grid. However, it does not improve the computational complexity of the distributed ray tracing algorithm, which is proportional to the number of sampling rays per pixel. A main benefit of distributed ray tracing is that it uses correct visibility and thus can render partial occlusions properly. Observing that the visibility of a lens can be mostly covered by a few representative views, we then proposed a new algorithm that synthesizes lens effects from sparse views. The sparse-view based algorithm can produce high quality lens effects close to the result of distributed ray tracing, but at a much higher speed. Realizing the fact that synthesizing realistic lens effects in 2D space is also computationally expensive, we finally proposed a novel lens effect simulation method based on a physical lens, which “calculates” the complicated optics with the instant physical process of lens imaging. Although the algorithm is still not mature partially because of hardware limitations, it is the first attempt in computer graphics that inserts a physical lens into the graphical rendering pipeline. The physical lens based algorithm can synthesize images incorporating various lens effects with a very low computational complexity.
Molecular mechanisms of DNA translocation through a biological nanopore alpha-hemolysin
Creators: name: Markosyan, Suren
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Biochemistry
subject: nanopore sequencing
subject: alpha-hemolysin

description: The transport of genetic material across biomembranes through pore-forming proteins is a process of great biological and medicinal interest (Szabo et al 1998). Alpha-Hemolysin, a pore-forming protein, was identified as a macromolecular device for DNA and RNA transport and detection. This protein may have a potential use in nanopore sequencing. The nanopore sequencing technique measures the effect of the captured single-stranded (ss) DNA blockade on the ion current across the nanopore. However, designing a nanopore that gives an ideal resolution at the single-base level is challenging due to the absence of detailed information on the behaviour of a DNA within the nanopore. This research project was able to confirm that several factors govern DNA behaviour inside the nanopore. In addition, novel software has been developed and validated for DNA-nanopore studies and for fast screening of multiple mutant nanopores.
On the Consistency of the Solutions of the Space Fractional Schrödinger Equation
Creators: name: Bayin, Selcuk S.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Mathematical Physics (math-ph)
subject: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Recently it was pointed out that the solutions found in literature for the space fractional Schrödinger equation in a piecewise manner are wrong, except the case with the delta potential. We reanalyze this problem and show that an exact and a proper treatment of the relevant integral proves otherwise. We also discuss effective potential approach and present a free particle solution for the space and time fractional Schrödinger equation in general coordinates in terms of Fox's H-functions.