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56,135,961 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalyst%20transfer%20polymerization | Catalyst transfer polymerization (CTP), or catalyst transfer polycondensation, is a type of living chain-growth polymerization that is used for synthesizing conjugated polymers. Benefits to using CTP over other methods are low polydispersity and control over number average molecular weight in the resulting polymers. Very few monomers have been demonstrated to undergo CTP.
History
The first reports of CTP came simultaneously from the labs of Yokozawa and McCullough in 2004, with the recognition that polythiophene can be synthesized with low dispersity and with control over molecular weight. This recognition sparked interest in polymerization mechanism so that it could be expanded to other monomers. Few polymers can be synthesized via CTP, so most conjugated polymers are synthesized via step-growth using palladium catalyzed cross-coupling reactions.
Characteristics
CTP is exclusively performed on arene monomers to give conjugated polymers. The polymers obtained from CTP are often low dispersity due to its living, chain growth nature. Mass spectrometry can be used to identify end-groups on the polymer to determine if the polymer was synthesized via chain growth.
Types
CTP utilizes cross coupling reactions (see Mechanism below) with monomers containing magnesium-, zinc-, boron-, and tin-based transmetallating groups, giving rise to Kumada CTP, Negishi CTP, Suzuki CTP, and Stille CTP reactions.
Mechanism
The mechanism of CTP has been debated. The living chain-growth nature of CTP can be explained by the existence of a π-complex (as described in this section) but can also be explained via polymer reactivity.
Initiation
Initiation from a metal(II) species (either Ni or Pd) involves two monomers transmetalating onto the metal center to form a complex that can undergo reductive elimination. The complex formed after reductive elimination is referred to as a π-complex because the catalyst bound to the π system of the monomer. The catalyst can isomerize to other π-complexes via a process known as "ring-walking" to the π-bond adjacent to a C-X bond at the end of the chain allowing oxidative addition to occur. The product of oxidative addition is an active polymer-metal(II)-halide, and it can react with monomers in the propagation reaction.
Propagation
The propagation steps of CTP occurs through a cycle of transmetalation, reductive elimination, ring walking, and oxidative addition. The existence of a π-complex allows for the polymerization to be controlled as it ensures that the catalyst cannot dissociate from the polymer chain (and start new chains). This means that the number of polymer chains at the end of the polymerization should be equal to the number of catalysts in solution, and that the average degree of polymerization of the sample at the end of polymerization should be equal to the ratio of monomers to catalysts in solution.
Termination
A characteristic of CTP is living chain-growth character, meaning that the catalyst will have a reactive chain end for the entirety of the polymerization. Therefore, to terminate the polymerization, a quenching agent must be added, such as a strong acid to protonate the polymer, or a nucleophile to add an end cap the polymer.
If the π-complex is too weakly bound, termination of polymer chains can occur before a quenching agent is added, causing lower molecular weight polymers to form. Current research into CTP focuses on finding catalysts that form strong catalyst-polymer π-complexes such that the polymerization remains living.
Analysis
Success of CTP is often evaluated using gel permeation chromatography, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. GPC characterization enables determination of average molecular weight. MALDI and NMR allow for identification of end groups of the polymer chain.
Polymer reactivity versus π-complex
The chain growth nature of CTP can also be described without invoking a catalyst-polymer π-complex. If we assume that no π-complex forms and instead every time a monomer was added to a polymer, the polymer becomes more reactive, we would also see chain growth since the largest polymers in the reaction would be the most reactive and would react with monomers preferentially. The presence of this mechanism and one mediated by a π-complex can be elucidated by studying the end groups of the polymers using mass spectrometry.
Polymers that can be synthesized by CTP
A non-exhaustive list of the polymers that can be synthesized using CTP:
Polythiophene
Polyphenylene
Polyselenophene
Polytellurophene
Polythiazole
Polybenzothiadiazole
Polypyrrole
Polyfluorene
References
Polymerization reactions | Catalyst transfer polymerization | [
"Chemistry",
"Materials_science"
] | 1,007 | [
"Polymerization reactions",
"Polymer chemistry"
] |
56,137,857 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylenediaminediacetic%20acid | Ethylenediaminediacetic acid (EDDA) is the organic compound with the formula C2H4(NHCH2CO2H)2. It is a derivative of two molecules of glycine, wherein the amines are linked. It is a white solid. It is one of several aminopolycarboxylic acids.
The conjugate base is a tetradentate ligand. A representative complex is Na[Co(EDDA)(CO3)].
Related compounds
ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid
References
Chelating agents
Dicarboxylic acids
Tetradentate ligands | Ethylenediaminediacetic acid | [
"Chemistry"
] | 131 | [
"Chelating agents",
"Process chemicals"
] |
56,138,152 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR%20J2032%2B4127 | PSR J2032+4127, sometimes abbreviated as J2032, is a pulsar. It is accompanied by a massive Be star named MT91 213 (also 2MASS J20321312+4127243). The system is located in the constellation Cygnus (constellation) at a distance of about 1.4 kpc (~ 4570 al ) from the Sun. The system is part of the Cygnus OB2 association.
It is expected that the coming together of the two stars in early 2018 will generate high-energy phenomena.
The System has an orbital period of around 45-50 yr.
References
External links
Astronomers Predict Fireworks from Rare Stellar Encounter in 2018 NASA
Coming Soon: Closest Approach - movie-style "preview" video from NASA about the far-ranging explorations expected during close encounter in 2018
Pulsars
Cygnus (constellation) | PSR J2032+4127 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 185 | [
"Cygnus (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
56,138,626 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nut%20shell%20filter | A nut shell filter is a device to remove oil from water. In the oil and gas industry, the term walnut shell filter is common since black walnuts are most often used. Typically nut shell filters are designed for loadings under 100 mg/L oil and 100 mg/L suspended solids and operate with 90–95% removal efficiency. High oil and solids loadings reduce run times between backwashes and results in reduced effluent quality.
Design
A bed of nut shell media is contained in a vessel. Vessels are typically vertical, but may also be horizontal. Particles are captured as flow penetrates through the media bed. Although it is possible to use other medias for this purpose, walnut and pecan shells are most commonly used since they have several desirable properties making them well suited for oil removal. First, nut shells are hard with a high modulus of elasticity, resulting in a low attrition rate and minimal media replacement, typically <5% per year. Nut shells also have an equal affinity for water and oil, allowing oil to be adsorbed during normal operation, but also enable oil removed from the bed during agitation allowing for media reuse. During normal operation, water typically flows down through the media bed where oil is coalesced and attracted to the nut shells and accumulates in the interstitial spaces between the media. Typical nut shell media is 12/20 (0.8 to 1.7 mm) and 12/16 mesh (1.2 to 1.7 mm). Although not designed for solids removal, an added benefit is that solids accumulate in the bed. As solids are collected, the differential pressure across the bed increases.
Periodical backwashes are initiated to regenerate the media. Typically, backwash is triggered by one of the following:
Differential pressure
Timer (often 24 hours)
Operator initiated (often due to exceeding limit for effluent quality)
Backwash occurs through mechanical agitation such as
Backwash through draft tube
Backwash through external media scrubber
Mechanical mixer
If backwash is not sufficient, oil can cause media to agglomerate, known as mudballing.
Typical flux of nut shell filters is 7 to 27 gpm/ft2. Commercial vessels are sized to accommodate the flow rate of water and range up to 14 feet in diameter. For continuous operation, multiple vessels are frequently used so flow can continue to be treated while backwash occurs in one vessel. For large flows, several vessels may be used. Unlike some oil / water separators, no chemicals are required for oil removal in nut shell filters.
Uses
Nut shell filters were designed to separate crude oil from oilfield produced water in the 1970s, which remains the principal use. Nut shell filters can be used onshore and offshore, but are more common onshore where the treatment requirements are typically more stringent and footprint is not limited. Nut shell filters are used for tertiary treatment following primary and secondary treatment which removes the bulk of the oil and suspended solids. Typically, effluent is reinjected for reuse or disposal or discharged to a surface body of water.
Categories
Media filter
References
Filters
Water filters
Walnut | Nut shell filter | [
"Chemistry",
"Engineering"
] | 637 | [
"Water filters",
"Water treatment",
"Chemical equipment",
"Filters",
"Filtration"
] |
74,580,200 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise%20Vet | Louise Elisabeth Maria Vet (born in Haarlem on 9 January 1954) is a Dutch biologist and emeritus professor of ecology at Wageningen University. In addition to her scientific career, she focuses on increasing environmental awareness among the general public and promoting environmentally friendly initiatives.
Life and work
Vet studied biology in Leiden, did research in Meijendel and completed her study in 1978. She then conducted research at the University of California and Leiden University, where she obtained her PhD in 1984 with her thesis Comparative ecology of hymenopterous parasitoids on the ecology and behavior of hymenopteran insects.
In 1997 she became a professor at Wageningen University and Research and in 1999 was named director of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), one of the largest institutes of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. She led that organization until 2019.
Her research, both at NIOO and at Wageningen University, focuses on the ecology and evolution of plant-insect relationships, partly aimed at shaping sustainable agriculture - agro-ecosystems based on the prevention of diseases and plagues.
Social commitment
Vet gives public lectures about the interactions of ecology and evolution and she emphasizes the societal impact of ecological science, stimulating a positive interaction between ecology and economy.
She was very involved in the design of the new NIOO building, which has been called the most sustainable laboratory and office complex in the Netherlands.
Selected awards
1996: Silverstein - Simeone Award of the International Society of Chemical Ecology
2004: Elected as a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)
2006: British Rank Prize for Nutrition (jointly with Joop van Lenteren and Marcel Dicke)
2012: Golden Pyramid State Prize for outstanding commissioned work in architecture
2017: Honorary Membership of the British Ecological Society
2018: Voted among the Sustainable 100 by the daily newspaper Trouw
2019: Named Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion
References
1954 births
Living people
Ecologists
Dutch ecologists
Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Academic staff of Wageningen University and Research
Dutch biologists | Louise Vet | [
"Environmental_science"
] | 424 | [
"Ecologists",
"Environmental scientists"
] |
74,580,636 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macronovirus | Macronovirus is the only genus of the family Sarthroviridae and only contains the species Macrobrachium satellite virus 1
It is found in The French West Indies, Thailand, Taiwan, China, and India.
Etymology
The genus name, Macronovirus, is a combination of Macro, from type species host Macrobrachium rosenbergii and no, from helper virus nodavirus.
The family name, Sarthroviridae, is a combination of S, from Small and arthro, from host arthropoda.
Hosts
Macronovirus'''s cell tropism is muscle and connective cells of diseased animals, and its natural hosts are arthropods
Structure
The virion Macrobrachium satellite virus 1 has a genome consisting of linear single-stranded RNA of positive polarity, 0.8kb in size, with two genes. This encodes two capsid proteins, CP-17 and CP-16. The virion is non-enveloped, spherical, with a capsid of about 15 nm with icosahedral symmetry. The virion is constructed from two capsid proteins CP-17 and CP-16. It has a Monopartite, linear, ssRNA(+) genome.
Gene expression
The virion RNA is infectious and serves as both the genome and viral messenger RNA.
Replication
Its replication is cytoplasmic, and has 8 steps.
Attachement to host receptors mediates entry into the host cell.
Uncoating, and release of the viral genomic RNA into the cytoplasm.
Viral RNA is translated in a polyprotein to produce replication proteins.
Replication by helper virus occurs in viral factories made of membrane vesicles derived from the ER. A dsRNA genome is synthesized from the genomic ssRNA(+).
The dsRNA genome is transcribed/replicated thereby providing viral mRNAs/new ssRNA(+) genomes.
Expression of the capsid proteins.
Assembly of new virus particles.
Virus release.
Disease
Whitish muscle disease, which develops in post-larvae of freshwater prawn Macrobrachium rosenbergii and is caused by Macrobrachium rosenbergii nodavirus (MrNV) and its associate Macrobrachium satellite virus 1''. Main symptom is a whitish appearance of the muscles, particularly noticeable in the abdomen. Mortalities can reach 100%.
References
Virus genera
Riboviria | Macronovirus | [
"Biology"
] | 497 | [
"Viruses",
"Riboviria"
] |
74,580,752 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery%20Flesh%20Pit%20National%20Park | The Mystery Flesh Pit National Park is an ongoing science fiction/horror project by artist Trevor Roberts that blends multimedia illustrations, writings and immersive world building. The story revolves around the fictional Mystery Flesh Pit, a colossal, ancient superorganism discovered beneath the town of Gumption, Texas, during an oil excavation. The pit was then transformed into a tourism destination and harvested for raw materials, until a catastrophic disaster in 2007 forced its closure.
Format and multimedia elements
Roberts has since posted fictional letters, diagrams, posters, and advertisements that emulate the style of National Park Service publications. The artworks are in a realistic style, which plays into the grotesque nature of a living superorganism being utilised as a national park.
The park operated for about thirty years, before being shut down due to the events of the Fourth of July in 2007. During the evening celebrations, unseasonably rainy weather and an electrical fault caused the Permian Basin Superorganism to choke and 'swallow' the structures inside the park; subsequent attempts to subdue the Superorganism caused it to vomit. The incident was said to have taken the lives of over 750 people.
Reception and impact
A tabletop RPG is currently being developed in a partnership with Ganza Gaming. A book is also currently being created by Roberts. Once the book is published, which is set to contain expanded lore and art, Roberts says he will be done with the project. A video game based on Mystery Flesh Pit was in the process of creation, however the project was scrapped for numerous reasons, including fan feedback and creative differences.
Features of the Pit
The Permian Basin Superorganism is home to a wide variety of "Geo-biological" structures that were popular hiking destinations during the park's tenure. Examples included the Bronchial forests, or the lungs, the Gastric seas, or the digestive areas, the throat of the organism, and more exotic organs such as the 'Ballast pods', which contained a potent aphrodisiac and were operated by the park as hot springs. A troglobitic ecosystem of organisms lives inside the Permian Basin Superorganism, having been completely cut off from the rest of the world. The majority of the parks fauna include arthropods, echinoderms, mollusks, cnidarians, worms, and several vertebrate species.
See also
Roadside attraction — one of the influences on the aesthetic of the project
References
External links
2019 hoaxes
fictional locations in the United States
fictional monsters
Internet hoaxes
speculative evolution | Mystery Flesh Pit National Park | [
"Biology"
] | 520 | [
"Biological hypotheses",
"Speculative evolution",
"Hypothetical life forms"
] |
74,581,736 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trine%205%3A%20A%20Clockwork%20Conspiracy | Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy is a platform-puzzle video game developed by Frozenbyte and published by THQ Nordic. It is the fifth installment in the Trine series. The game was released on August 31, 2023, for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and Series S.
Gameplay
Like Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince, its predecessor, A Clockwork Conspiracy is a 2.5D side-scrolling video game. The game features 20 levels and three playable characters: Amadeus the Wizard, Zoya the Thief, and Pontius the Knight. The game introduces new abilities for the returning characters: Amadeus can now reverse gravity, Zoya has access to ricochet arrows, and Pontius can use a throwing sword, creating new anchor points for traversal. As players progress in the game and complete quests, they will collect experience, allowing them to unlock more abilities for each character. According to the developer, combat in Trine 5 is more challenging than Trine 4, with the game introducing multi-phase boss fights. As with previous games in the series, the game has a large focus on physics puzzles. New elements, including air, light, magnets, and electricity, are introduced in Trine 5.
The game's campaign supports both local and online multiplayer. There is also a four-player cooperative multiplayer mode, allowing players to utilize different combinations of characters. Difficulty of the game's puzzle, combat and resurrection can be adjusted separately.
Story
The kingdom is thriving, defended by Amadeus, Pontius and Zoya, whose powers of Trine allows them to swap places and cheat death. However, Lady Sunny and inventor Lord Goderic plot a coup. They convince the Great Council to replace the kingdom's knights with Goderic's clockwork automata, then incapacitate the Astral Academy's wizards with a machine that steals minds and magic. Sunny tricks the heroes to extract their magic of Trine, but the attempt fails, leading Sunny to use a bomb that destroys the Academy and blaming the trio.
The three rush to the Great Council to warn them of Sunny, but finds them missing. Goderic, pretending to be an ally, tricks them into triggering another bomb that disintegrates all buildings in the city but leaves people unharmed. Sunny accuses the heroes, while also implying she has kidnapped Amadeus's three children. They surrender and are thrown in the dungeons, while Sunny declares herself queen.
The heroes escape with the help of librarian Nenet, who Zoya met during an earlier heist. Amadeus realizes the Astral Observatory, an outpost of the Astral Academy, might still have wizards able to help them. There, they learn that Goderic has been stealing magic from wizards (including the students seen in Nine Parchments and Trine 4) to power his own automata. After assisting the Observatory wizards, one of them, seeress Barbara, divines that Amadeus's children are being taken to Goderic's factory on a floating archipelago by airship. Sunny and Goderic plan to extract the children's minds and powers, but at the last moment, the heroes use the power of Trine to swap places with the triplets. Cornered, the villains attempt to escape, but seemingly fall to their deaths.
With Sunny and Goderic defeated, the wizards are restored, the kingdom begins rebuilding, Amadeus reunites with his children, Zoya goes on an expedition with Nenet, and Pontius wonders about the future.
Development
Series developer Frozenbyte and publisher THQ Nordic officially announced the game in April 2023.
According to the team, combat in the game is "organic", and more similar to Trine 2 than Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince. The game was released on August 31, 2023, for Windows PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X and Series S.
Reception
According to review aggregator Metacritic, the game received "generally positive reviews" upon release.
References
External links
2023 video games
Action-adventure games
Asymmetrical multiplayer video games
Cooperative video games
Fantasy video games
Frozenbyte games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
Nintendo Switch games
PlayStation 4 games
PlayStation 5 games
Puzzle-platformers
Side-scrolling platformers
THQ Nordic games
Video game sequels
Video games developed in Finland
Video games scored by Ari Pulkkinen
Video games featuring female protagonists
Video games with 2.5D graphics
Windows games
Xbox One games
Xbox Series X and Series S games | Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy | [
"Physics"
] | 923 | [
"Asymmetrical multiplayer video games",
"Symmetry",
"Asymmetry"
] |
74,581,976 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptosperin | Leptosperin (originally but no longer "leptosin") is a bioactive component of Mānuka honey. It is the gentiobiose glycoside of syringic acid methyl ester. It is named for the genus Leptospermum, the shrubs from which bees harvest nectar to make this type of honey. This bioactive component is the source of antibacterial property of Manuka honey or other Leptospermum species derived honey.
Leptosperin content can be used as a marker for the quality of the honey.
References
Glycosides
Methoxy compounds
Methyl esters
Gallotannins | Leptosperin | [
"Chemistry"
] | 139 | [
"Glycobiology",
"Carbohydrates",
"Glycosides",
"Biomolecules"
] |
74,583,588 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell%20Painting | The Cell Painting assay is a high-content, high-throughput imaging technique used to capture a wide array of cellular phenotypes in response to diverse perturbations. These phenotypes, often termed "morphological profiles", can be used to understand various biological phenomena, including cellular responses to genetic changes, drug treatments, and other environmental changes. This has been adopted by many pharmaceutical companies in profiling compounds including Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Bayer, and AstraZeneca
Methodology
In the Cell Painting assay, cells are stained with six fluorescent dyes that mark different cellular compartments, including nuclei, cytoplasm, endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, mitochondria, and actin. High-resolution images are then captured using automated fluorescence microscopy, and image analysis algorithms are applied to extract thousands of morphological features. These features form the basis of the morphological profile for each perturbation.
Applications
Given its ability to capture a wide array of cellular responses, the Cell Painting assay has become a powerful tool in the field of drug discovery. By comparing the morphological profiles of cells treated with different compounds, researchers can identify potential drug candidates, toxicity or understand the mechanism of action of existing drugs. In combination with genetic perturbations, the assay can be used to determine the function of genes or to understand the underlying mechanisms of genetic diseases. By observing how cells from disease models differ in their morphological profiles from healthy cells, researchers can gain insights into disease mechanisms and potential therapeutic interventions.
Limitations and Challenges
While the Cell Painting assay offers a wealth of information, it's not without its challenges. The high dimensionality of the data requires sophisticated computational tools for analysis. Additionally, the interpretation of morphological profiles in terms of underlying biology can sometimes be non-trivial. With advancements in imaging technology and machine learning, the resolution and depth of morphological profiles are expected to increase, allowing for even more detailed insights into cellular biology. Additionally, as the scientific community continues to generate data using the Cell Painting assay, there's a push towards creating shared repositories to facilitate collaborative research and data-driven discoveries.
Notable Scientists and Contributions
Anne E. Carpenter
Thouis (Ray) Jones
Shantanu Singh
Beth A Cimini
Sigrun M Gustafsdottir
See also
High-content screening
High-throughput screening
Functional genomics
Phenotype microarray
Notable Works
Bray, Mark-Anthony; Singh, Shantanu; Han, Han; Davis, Chadwick T; Borgeson, Blake; Hartland, Cathy; Kost-Alimova, Maria; Gustafsdottir, Sigrun M; Gibson, Christopher C; Carpenter, Anne E (2016-08-25). "Cell Painting, a high-content image-based assay for morphological profiling using multiplexed fluorescent dyes". Nature Protocols. 11 (9): 1757–1774. doi:10.1038/nprot.2016.105. ISSN 1754-2189.
Seal, S.; Trapotsi, M.-A.; Spjuth, O.; Singh, S.; Carreras-Puigvert, J.; Greene, N.; Bender, A.; Carpenter, A. E. (2024). A Decade in a Systematic Review: The Evolution and Impact of Cell Painting. bioRxiv, doi:10.1101/2024.05.04.592531.
References
Microscopy | Cell Painting | [
"Chemistry"
] | 718 | [
"Microscopy"
] |
74,583,808 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pines%27%20demon | In condensed matter physics, Pines' demon or, simply demon is a collective excitation of electrons which corresponds to electrons in different energy bands moving out of phase with each other. Equivalently, a demon corresponds to counter-propagating currents of electrons from different bands. Named after David Pines, who coined the term in 1956, demons are quantum mechanical excited states of a material belonging to a broader class of exotic collective excitations, such as the magnon, phason, or exciton. Pines' demon was first experimentally observed in 2023 by A. A. Husain et al. within the transition-metal oxide distrontium ruthenate (Sr2RuO4).
History
Demons were originally theorized in 1956 by David Pines in the context of multiband metals with two energy bands: a heavy electron band with large effective mass and a light electron band with effective mass . In the limit of , the two bands are kinematically decoupled, so electrons in one band are unable to scatter to the other band while conserving momentum and energy. Within this limit, Pines pointed out that the two bands can be thought of as two distinct species of charge particles, so that it becomes possible for excitations of the two bands to be either in-phase or out-of-phase with each other. The in-phase excitation of the two bands was not a new type of excitation, it was simply the plasmon, an excitation proposed earlier by David Pines and David Bohm in 1952 which explained peaks observed in early electron energy-loss spectra of solids. The out-of-phase excitation was termed the "demon" by Pines after James Clerk Maxwell, since he thought Maxwell "lived too early to have a particle or excitation named in his honor." Pines explained his terminology by making the term a half backronym because particles commonly have suffix "-on" and the excitation involved distinct electron motion, resulting in D.E.M.on, or simply demon for short.
The demon was historically referred to as an acoustic plasmon, due to its gapless nature which is also shared with acoustic phonons. However, with the rise of two-dimensional materials (such as graphene) and surface plasmons, the term acoustic plasmon has taken on a very different meaning as the ordinary plasmon in a low-dimensional system. Such acoustic plasmons are distinct from the demon because they do not consist of out-of-phase currents from different bands, do not exist in bulk materials, and do couple to light, unlike the demon. A more detailed comparison of plasmons and demons is shown in the table below.
The demon excitation, unlike the plasmon, was only discovered many decades later in 2023 by A. A. Husain et al. in the unconventional superconducting material Sr2RuO4 using a momentum-resolved variant of high-resolution electron energy-loss spectroscopy.
Relationship with the plasmon
The plasmon is a quantized vibration of the charge density in a material where all electron bands move in-phase. The plasmon is also massive (i.e., has an energy gap) in bulk materials due to the energy cost needed to overcome the long-ranged Coulomb interaction, with the energy cost being the plasma frequency . Plasmons exist in all conducting materials and play a dominant role in shaping the dielectric function of a metal at optical frequencies. Historically, plasmons were observed as early as 1941 by G. Ruthemann. The behavior of plasmons has widespread implications,as they play a role as a tool for biological microscopy (surface plasmon resonance microscopy), plasmon-based electronics (plasmonics), and underlay the original formulation of the transmission-line with a junction plasmon (transmon) device now used in superconducting qubits for quantum computing.
The demon excitation on the other hand holds a number key distinctions from the plasmon (and acoustic plasmon), as summarized in the table below.
Theoretical significance
Early studies of the demon in the context of superconductivity showed, under the two band picture presented by Pines, that superconducting pairing of the light electron band can be enhanced through the existence of demons, while the pairing of the heavy electrons would be more or less unaffected. The implication being that demons would allow for orbital-selective effects on superconducting pairing. However, for the simple case of spherically symmetric metals with two bands, natural realizations of demon-enhanced superconductivity seemed unlikely, as the heavy (d-)electrons play the dominant role in superconductivity of most transition metal considered at the time. However, more recent studies on high-temperature superconducting metal hydrides, where light electron bands participate in superconductivity, suggest demons may be playing an active role in such systems.
References
Quasiparticles | Pines' demon | [
"Physics",
"Materials_science"
] | 1,046 | [
"Quasiparticles",
"Subatomic particles",
"Condensed matter physics",
"Matter"
] |
74,583,874 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomyosamine | Isomyosamine, also known as MyMD-1 or MYMD-1, is a synthetic derivative of tobacco plant alkaloids being developed as a metabolic- and immunomodulator by MyMD Pharmaceuticals. To date, isomyosamine has been shown to suppress the production of IFN-γ, IL-2, IL-10, and TNF-α, and decrease the severity of experimental thyroiditis in a murine model. Trials in humans are being planned, and some are underway, examining the potential benefits of isomyosamine in autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, and in sarcopenia and frailty.
MyMD Pharmaceuticals claim that MYMD-1 is not immunosuppressive, and thus should not be associated with the dangerous side effects such as infections that are seen in currently used TNF-α inhibitors such as adalimumab. While it is true that there currently is no evidence of immunosuppression in isomyosamine recipients, this has not yet been tested in large clinical trials.
Scientific studies
Preclinical studies
One preliminary murine study comparing isomyosamine to rapamycin, the best-characterised drug slowing the progression of aging, reported an increase in lifespan in the isomyosamine cohort, indicating anti-aging activity. Isomyosamine's anti-proliferative effects were similar to those of rapamycin.
Clinical trials
A phase I randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial on healthy volunteers examining the safety and pharmacokinetic properties of different amounts of isomyosamine found no serious adverse events, but 3 cases of mild dysgeusia in the highest-dose (600 mg) cohort. A preliminary decrease in TNF-α levels was reported in the lowest-dose (150 mg) cohort, but not in the placebo cohort.
References
Immunomodulating drugs
Pyridines
Pyrrolines
Anti-aging substances
Experimental drugs | Isomyosamine | [
"Chemistry",
"Biology"
] | 415 | [
"Senescence",
"Anti-aging substances"
] |
74,584,706 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartFIX40 | SmartFIX40 was a major transportation improvement project coordinated by the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) along Interstate 40 (I-40) in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. The project, referred to as the most ambitious TDOT project at the time, consisted of two separate phases and contracts, started construction in 2005 and was completed in June 2009 at a cost of $190 million. The second phase of the project required the closure of 1.5 miles of I-40 in downtown for a 14-month period, rerouting traffic onto the Interstate 640 (I-640) northern bypass of downtown. At the time of its completion, SmartFIX40 was the largest awarded contract and construction project in Tennessee history, and in retrospective documentation has received acclaim for its methods of accelerated construction and project delivery, including nationwide awards from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).
Background
The current freeway system in Knoxville originated from a 1945 plan commissioned by the city that recommended a series of controlled-access highways be constructed to relieve congestion on surface streets. Planners intended these routes to be integrated into the then-planned nationwide freeway network that became the Interstate Highway System. This plan included three major arteries out of the city; and east–west route known as the West Expressway and East Expressway, and a north–south route known as the North–South Expressway. These three routes would come together at a junction near downtown. A northern beltway known as the Dutch Valley Loop would bypass downtown to the north. The plan was expanded in 1951 to include a square-shaped freeway loop around downtown known as the Downtown Loop. The northern leg of this loop included the East–West Expressway, which became known as the Magnolia Avenue Expressway at this time, and was the first freeway in Tennessee.
With the passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 most of the freeway system in Knoxville became part of the Interstate Highway System. In 1957, the East Expressway became part of I-40, the North-South Expressway part of I-75, and the West Expressway a concurrency of both routes. The following year, the Dutch Valley Loop became I-640, and the Downtown Loop was designated SR 158. Part of the section of I-40 that was reconstructed in SmartFix40 was a long viaduct that was originally part of the eastern leg of the Magnolia Avenue Expressway, opened to traffic on December 10, 1955. The remainder of the section, including the interchanges with SR 158 and Hall of Fame Drive, opened on April 11, 1967. The controlled-access section of SR 158 directly south of this interchange opened on June 23, 1964, and the adjacent section to the south opened on September 15, 1973. This route was renamed James White Parkway in 1991. The completion of I-40/75 in West Knoxville resulted in the commercial center of the city shifting to the west, and as a result, the original plans for a complete beltway around downtown were never realized.
Within a few years of the completion of I-40 and I-75 in Knoxville, the city's highway network was already starting to suffer from congestion and a high accident rate. The interchange between I-40 and SR 158, which included left-hand entrance and exit ramps on I-40 westbound, became a particularly hazardous point. Reconstruction of this interchange was suggested as early as 1971. Improving the section of I-40 west of where SmartFIX40 would take place became a more urgent priority as the city began to expand to the west. By the mid-1970s, the cloverleaf interchange between I-40 and I-75 was suffering from severe congestion, and had earned the nickname "Malfunction Junction". Between May 1980 and March 1982, TDOT undertook a massive $250 million (equivalent to $ in ) project that reconstructed Malfunction Junction, widened sections of I-40 and I-75 approaching downtown, reconstructed and improved interchanges on these Interstates, and completed I-640. I-75 was also rerouted from downtown Knoxville onto the western leg of I-640 during this time, and the freeway section between I-40 and I-640 became I-275. This project was undertaken on an accelerated timescale in preparation for the 1982 World's Fair. The two-lane section of I-40 east of downtown was not included in this project, but nevertheless, TDOT began making preparations for improvements to this problematic spot.
Preliminary planning and design
TDOT would embark on a constructability analysis of the reconstruction of I-40 through downtown in a meeting with federal, state, and local leaders in February 2003.
In April 2004, TDOT hosted a workshop meeting, dubbed the Accelerated Construction Technology Transfer (ACTT) workshop. The ACTT involved 82 transportation engineering professionals across 19 states discussing methods to satisfy TDOT's main goal of minimizing time during the construction phase of SmartFIX40. Several areas of concern were addressed such as structures such as retaining walls and bridges, materials, accelerated testing of materials, geotechnical issues, intelligent transportation systems, and constructability. The closure of I-40 through downtown Knoxville and utilizing the I-640 bypass as a detour route was recommended.
Transportation engineering firm Wilbur-Smith Associates was selected by TDOT as the consultant tasked with the planning and design of the SmartFIX40 corridor. With initial projections of four years to complete SmartFIX40, Wilbur-Smith drafted a design and construction plan that reduced the project's schedule to just 14 months, saving more than $20 million in state funding. The outsourcing of the engineering work for SmartFIX40 also reduced the need for additional hiring of engineers at TDOT if the project was performed in-house.
Construction
Due to its size, the SmartFIX40 project was broken into two phases, and awarded in separate contracts. Both phases would be awarded to BB SmartFIX Constructors, a joint venture of two heavy highway construction general contractors, Ray Bell & Associates of Brentwood, Tennessee, and Charles Blalock & Sons of Sevierville, Tennessee. The first contract was awarded at a price over $80 million, and the second at a price of $104.6 million.
For the first time in the history of TDOT, it would enforce a "no excuse" deadline, requiring both phases to be completed by BB SmartFIX Constructors at or before the contract's documented day of completion. If neither phase met its deadline, TDOT would issue fines of $25,000 per day as liquidated damages for late completion.
Completion and legacy
References
Engineering projects
Road construction
Road infrastructure in Tennessee
Construction in the United States | SmartFIX40 | [
"Engineering"
] | 1,350 | [
"Construction",
"nan",
"Road construction"
] |
74,585,024 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puccinia%20gansensis | Puccinia gansensis is a species of fungus and a plant pathogen.
It was originally found on the leaves of on Achnatherum inebrians (species of needlegrass) in Gansu, China.
See also
List of Puccinia species
References
External links
USDA ARS Fungal Database
Fungal plant pathogens and diseases
gansensis
Fungi described in 2010
Fungus species | Puccinia gansensis | [
"Biology"
] | 78 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
74,586,960 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptosin | Leptosin is an aurone glycoside derived from Flemengia strobilifera leaves, also known as "kusrunt".
References
Glycosides
Aurones | Leptosin | [
"Chemistry",
"Biology"
] | 44 | [
"Carbohydrates",
"Glycosides",
"Biotechnology stubs",
"Biochemistry stubs",
"Biomolecules",
"Biochemistry",
"Glycobiology"
] |
74,588,451 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartonegtaviriform | Bartonegtaviriform is a genus of viriforms in the family Bartogtaviriformidae. It includes one species: Bartonegtaviriform andersoni (BaGTA), which is a gene transfer agent, found within bacteria of the genus Bartonella.
Name
The family name, Bartogtaviriformidae, is a portmanteau of Barto, from "host" Bartonella, gta from gene transfer agent and viriformidae, the fact that it is a viriform.
The genus name, Bartonegtaviriform, is a combination of Bartone, from "host" Bartonella, gta from gene transfer agent and viriform, the fact that it is a viriform.
The species name, andersoni is named after GTA researcher Burt Anderson, who first discovered BaGTA particles.
Gene transfer agents
GTAs can be considered as a form of “domesticated” prophage—that is, ancestrally derived from a bacteriophage genome, but altered by the host to confer an adaptive benefit—and thus represent one of many phage-derived adaptive functions observed in bacterial genomes.
Phylogeny
Genomic sequence analysis revealed that all bacteria of the genus Bartonella are characterized by the presence of a Bartonella-specific GTA (BaGTA), which shares no homologies to previously described GTA systems. BaGTA is encoded upstream from an origin of run-off replication (ROR), another conserved feature of Bartonella genomes that has been suggested to be linked to BaGTA activity. Phylogenetic analyses identified BaGTA as a key innovation associated with the adaptive radiation that characterizes these zoonotic bacterial pathogens. Although BaGTA is not directly linked to Bartonella pathogenicity, it has been proposed to drive the exchange and the diversification of host-interaction factors within Bartonella communities such as VirB type IV secretion system (T4SS) and its cognate Bartonella effector proteins. Maintenance of BaGTA is likely driven by selection to increase the likelihood of genetic exchange and facilitates adaptation to host-specific defense systems during infection.
Role
Despite clear genomics-based arguments pointing to a central role for BaGTA in Bartonella biology, direct experimental evidence for its activity are scarce and the molecular mechanisms underlying its activity and regulation remain elusive.
Genome
BaGTA particles are larger than RcGTA and contain 14 kb DNA fragments. Although this capacity could in principle allow BaGTA to package and transmit its 14 kb GTA cluster, DNA coverage measurements show reduced coverage of the cluster. An adjacent region of high coverage is thought to be due to local DNA replication.
References
Virus genera | Bartonegtaviriform | [
"Biology"
] | 545 | [
"Virus stubs",
"Viruses"
] |
74,589,966 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VITO%20experiment | The Versatile Ion polarisation Technique Online (VITO) experiment is a permanent experimental setup located in the ISOLDE facility at CERN, in the form of a beamline. The purpose of the beamline is to perform a wide range of studies using spin-polarised short-lived atomic nuclei. VITO uses circularly-polarised laser light to obtain polarised radioactive beams of different isotopes delivered by ISOLDE. These have already been used for weak-interaction studies, biological investigations, and more recently nuclear structure research. The beamline is located at the site of the former Ultra High Vacuum (UHV) beamline hosting ASPIC.
Beamline setup
Radioactive ion beams (RIBs) are produced by the ISOLDE facility, using a beam of high-energy protons from the ProtonSynchrotron Booster (PSB) incident on a target. The interaction of the beam and the target produces radioactive species, which are extracted through thermal diffusion by heating the target. The beam of radioactive ions is then separated by mass number by one of the two mass separators at the facility. The resulting low-energy beam is delivered to the various experimental stations.
The VITO beamline is modular. The first part is common for all projects and is devoted to atomic polarisation via optical pumping with circularly polarised laser light. The singly-charged ion beam of short-lived isotopes from ISOLDE (RIB) is Doppler-tuned in resonance with the laser light provided by a continuous-wave tunable laser. Next, the beam may be neutralised, before it reaches a 1.5 m long section in which the ion or atom beam is overlapped with the laser and they interact many times (many excitation-decay cycles take place), leading to the polarisation of the atomic spins.
The polarised beam is then transported to one of the setups that can be placed behind the polarisation line. At this point the polarised beam is implanted into a solid or liquid host. A strong magnetic field surrounding the sample allowing the nuclear spin polarisation to be maintained for dozens of milliseconds to seconds, by decoupling the electron and nuclear spin. In these conditions, the degree of spin polarisation and its changes can be monitored extremely efficiently by observing the spatial asymmetry in the emission of beta particles by the decaying short-lived nuclei. This is possible, because the weak force that is responsible for the beta decay does not conserve parity. As few as several thousands decays might be enough to record a good signal.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is a technique that provides information on the environment of a nucleus, from calculations based on the shift in Larmor frequency or relaxation time. β-NMR is a modification of this basic technique using the idea that beta decay from polarised radioactive nuclei is anisotropic (directional) in space. The resonances are detected as change in the beta-decay asymmetry which gives it a much higher signal strength than conventional NMR (up to 10 orders of magnitude).
Results
One of the first experiments using polarised beams at VITO was devoted polarisation of a mirror-nucleus argon-35. The scientific motivation for this project was provided by the weak interaction studies and the determination of the Vud matrix element in the CKM quark mixing matrix.
The next, gradually upgraded, setup is centred around a high-field magnet, liquid samples and radio frequency excitations. The aim is to develop a method of beta-detected Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (β-NMR) to investigate the interaction of metal ions with biomolecules in liquids.
The most recent studies at VITO concern the determination of spins and parities in excited nuclear states, poplulated by beta decay. In this case, the setup consists of a solid sample, surrounded by a compact magnet that allows for gamma radiation and neutrons to reach the decay spectroscopy setup.
External links
VITO page on the ISOLDE website
References
Physics experiments
CERN experiments | VITO experiment | [
"Physics"
] | 822 | [
"Experimental physics",
"Physics experiments"
] |
74,590,040 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucocoprinus%20minutulus | Leucocoprinus minutulus is a species of mushroom producing fungus in the family Agaricaceae.
Taxonomy
It was first described in 1941 by the German mycologist Rolf Singer who classified it as Leucocoprinus minutulus.
Description
Leucocoprinus minutulus is a small dapperling mushroom with thin white flesh.
Cap: 1.2cm wide with a brown surface and darker umbo. The margins are scaly and lacerated. Stem: 3cm long and 2-3mm wide with a slightly bulbous base. The surface is smooth and shiny and the interior is filled with white. The exterior colour is only described when dry, when it is brownish. The movable, double stem ring is very wide at 7mm, horizontally flat and is white-brown with light fringes at the edges. Gills: Free and remote from the stem, crowded and moderately wide at approximately 2mm. They are white but dry to a brownish colour. Spores: 7.5-11 x 5.8-6 μm. Hyaline with an apical germ pore and double membrane. Basidia: 28-33 x 8-9 μm. Four spored. Cheilocystidia: Numerous. 42-65 x 10-16.5 μm with an appendix that is 9-12 μm long. Clavato-appendiculatis (ampulliformibus).
Habitat and distribution
L. minutulus is scarcely recorded and little known. The specimens studied by Singer were found in mixed forest containing Abies Nordmanniana and Fagus orientalis, in the valley of the river in the Krasnodar region of Russia.
References
Leucocoprinus
Taxa named by Rolf Singer
Fungi described in 1941
Fungus species | Leucocoprinus minutulus | [
"Biology"
] | 367 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
60,949,828 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal%20of%20Astronomical%20Instrumentation | The Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers astronomical instruments and its various components being proposed, developed, under construction, and in use. The journal focuses on astronomical instrumentation topics in all wavebands (radio wave to gamma ray) and includes the disciplines of heliophysics, space weather, lunar and planetary science, exoplanet exploration, and astroparticle observation (cosmic rays, cosmic neutrinos, etc.). It was established in 2012 and is published by World Scientific. The journal occasionally publishes thematic issues on specific topics or projects.
Abstracting and indexing
The journal is abstracted and indexed in:
Astrophysics Data System
EBSCO databases
Emerging Sources Citation Index
InfoTrac databases
INSPIRE-HEP
Scopus
References
External links
Astronomy journals
Academic journals established in 2012
World Scientific academic journals
English-language journals
Quarterly journals
Engineering journals | Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation | [
"Astronomy"
] | 179 | [
"Astronomy journals",
"Works about astronomy"
] |
60,951,296 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine%20learning%20in%20video%20games | Artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques are used in video games for a wide variety of applications such as non-player character (NPC) control and procedural content generation (PCG). Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence that uses historical data to build predictive and analytical models. This is in sharp contrast to traditional methods of artificial intelligence such as search trees and expert systems.
Information on machine learning techniques in the field of games is mostly known to public through research projects as most gaming companies choose not to publish specific information about their intellectual property. The most publicly known application of machine learning in games is likely the use of deep learning agents that compete with professional human players in complex strategy games. There has been a significant application of machine learning on games such as Atari/ALE, Doom, Minecraft, StarCraft, and car racing. Other games that did not originally exists as video games, such as chess and Go have also been affected by the machine learning.
Overview of relevant machine learning techniques
Deep learning
Deep learning is a subset of machine learning which focuses heavily on the use of artificial neural networks (ANN) that learn to solve complex tasks. Deep learning uses multiple layers of ANN and other techniques to progressively extract information from an input. Due to this complex layered approach, deep learning models often require powerful machines to train and run on.
Convolutional neural networks
Convolutional neural networks (CNN) are specialized ANNs that are often used to analyze image data. These types of networks are able to learn translation invariant patterns, which are patterns that are not dependent on location. CNNs are able to learn these patterns in a hierarchy, meaning that earlier convolutional layers will learn smaller local patterns while later layers will learn larger patterns based on the previous patterns. A CNN's ability to learn visual data has made it a commonly used tool for deep learning in games.
Recurrent neural network
Recurrent neural networks are a type of ANN that are designed to process sequences of data in order, one part at a time rather than all at once. An RNN runs over each part of a sequence, using the current part of the sequence along with memory of previous parts of the current sequence to produce an output. These types of ANN are highly effective at tasks such as speech recognition and other problems that depend heavily on temporal order. There are several types of RNNs with different internal configurations; the basic implementation suffers from a lack of long term memory due to the vanishing gradient problem, thus it is rarely used over newer implementations.
Long short-term memory
A long short-term memory (LSTM) network is a specific implementation of a RNN that is designed to deal with the vanishing gradient problem seen in simple RNNs, which would lead to them gradually "forgetting" about previous parts of an inputted sequence when calculating the output of a current part. LSTMs solve this problem with the addition of an elaborate system that uses an additional input/output to keep track of long term data. LSTMs have achieved very strong results across various fields, and were used by several monumental deep learning agents in games.
Reinforcement learning
Reinforcement learning is the process of training an agent using rewards and/or punishments. The way an agent is rewarded or punished depends heavily on the problem; such as giving an agent a positive reward for winning a game or a negative one for losing. Reinforcement learning is used heavily in the field of machine learning and can be seen in methods such as Q-learning, policy search, Deep Q-networks and others. It has seen strong performance in both the field of games and robotics.
Neuroevolution
Neuroevolution involves the use of both neural networks and evolutionary algorithms. Instead of using gradient descent like most neural networks, neuroevolution models make use of evolutionary algorithms to update neurons in the network. Researchers claim that this process is less likely to get stuck in a local minimum and is potentially faster than state of the art deep learning techniques.
Deep learning agents
Machine learning agents have been used to take the place of a human player rather than function as NPCs, which are deliberately added into video games as part of designed gameplay. Deep learning agents have achieved impressive results when used in competition with both humans and other artificial intelligence agents.
Chess
Chess is a turn-based strategy game that is considered a difficult AI problem due to the computational complexity of its board space. Similar strategy games are often solved with some form of a Minimax Tree Search. These types of AI agents have been known to beat professional human players, such as the historic 1997 Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov match. Since then, machine learning agents have shown ever greater success than previous AI agents.
Go
Go is another turn-based strategy game which is considered an even more difficult AI problem than chess. The state space of is Go is around 10^170 possible board states compared to the 10^120 board states for Chess. Prior to recent deep learning models, AI Go agents were only able to play at the level of a human amateur.
AlphaGo
Google's 2015 AlphaGo was the first AI agent to beat a professional Go player. AlphaGo used a deep learning model to train the weights of a Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS). The deep learning model consisted of 2 ANN, a policy network to predict the probabilities of potential moves by opponents, and a value network to predict the win chance of a given state. The deep learning model allows the agent to explore potential game states more efficiently than a vanilla MCTS. The network were initially trained on games of humans players and then were further trained by games against itself.
AlphaGo Zero
AlphaGo Zero, another implementation of AlphaGo, was able to train entirely by playing against itself. It was able to quickly train up to the capabilities of the previous agent.
StarCraft series
StarCraft and its sequel StarCraft II are real-time strategy (RTS) video games that have become popular environments for AI research. Blizzard and DeepMind have worked together to release a public StarCraft 2 environment for AI research to be done on. Various deep learning methods have been tested on both games, though most agents usually have trouble outperforming the default AI with cheats enabled or skilled players of the game.
Alphastar
Alphastar was the first AI agent to beat professional StarCraft 2 players without any in-game advantages. The deep learning network of the agent initially received input from a simplified zoomed out version of the gamestate, but was later updated to play using a camera like other human players. The developers have not publicly released the code or architecture of their model, but have listed several state of the art machine learning techniques such as relational deep reinforcement learning, long short-term memory, auto-regressive policy heads, pointer networks, and centralized value baseline. Alphastar was initially trained with supervised learning, it watched replays of many human games in order to learn basic strategies. It then trained against different versions of itself and was improved through reinforcement learning. The final version was hugely successful, but only trained to play on a specific map in a protoss mirror matchup.
Dota 2
Dota 2 is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game. Like other complex games, traditional AI agents have not been able to compete on the same level as professional human player. The only widely published information on AI agents attempted on Dota 2 is OpenAI's deep learning Five agent.
OpenAI Five
OpenAI Five utilized separate LSTM networks to learn each hero. It trained using a reinforcement learning technique known as Proximal Policy Learning running on a system containing 256 GPUs and 128,000 CPU cores. Five trained for months, accumulating 180 years of game experience each day, before facing off with professional players. It was eventually able to beat the 2018 Dota 2 esports champion team in a 2019 series of games.
Planetary Annihilation
Planetary Annihilation is a real-time strategy game which focuses on massive scale war. The developers use ANNs in their default AI agent.
Supreme Commander 2
Supreme Commander 2 is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game.
The game uses Multilayer Perceptrons (MLPs) to control a platoon’s reaction to encountered enemy units. Total of four MLPs are used, one for each platoon type: land, naval, bomber, and fighter.
Generalized games
There have been attempts to make machine learning agents that are able to play more than one game. These "general" gaming agents are trained to understand games based on shared properties between them.
AlphaZero
AlphaZero is a modified version of AlphaGo Zero which is able to play Shogi, chess, and Go. The modified agent starts with only basic rules of the game, and is also trained entirely through self-learning. DeepMind was able to train this generalized agent to be competitive with previous versions of itself on Go, as well as top agents in the other two games.
Strengths and weaknesses of deep learning agents
Machine learning agents are often not covered in many game design courses. Previous use of machine learning agents in games may not have been very practical, as even the 2015 version of AlphaGo took hundreds of CPUs and GPUs to train to a strong level. This potentially limits the creation of highly effective deep learning agents to large corporations or extremely wealthy individuals. The extensive training time of neural network based approaches can also take weeks on these powerful machines.
The problem of effectively training ANN based models extends beyond powerful hardware environments; finding a good way to represent data and learn meaningful things from it is also often a difficult problem. ANN models often overfit to very specific data and perform poorly in more generalized cases. AlphaStar shows this weakness, despite being able to beat professional players, it is only able to do so on a single map when playing a mirror protoss matchup. OpenAI Five also shows this weakness, it was only able to beat professional player when facing a very limited hero pool out of the entire game. This example show how difficult it can be to train a deep learning agent to perform in more generalized situations.
Machine learning agents have shown great success in a variety of different games. However, agents that are too competent also risk making games too difficult for new or casual players. Research has shown that challenge that is too far above a player's skill level will ruin lower player enjoyment. These highly trained agents are likely only desirable against very skilled human players who have many of hours of experience in a given game. Given these factors, highly effective deep learning agents are likely only a desired choice in games that have a large competitive scene, where they can function as an alternative practice option to a skilled human player.
Computer vision-based players
Computer vision focuses on training computers to gain a high-level understanding of digital images or videos. Many computer vision techniques also incorporate forms of machine learning, and have been applied on various video games. This application of computer vision focuses on interpreting game events using visual data. In some cases, artificial intelligence agents have used model-free techniques to learn to play games without any direct connection to internal game logic, solely using video data as input.
Pong
Andrej Karpathy has demonstrated that relatively trivial neural network with just one hidden layer is capable of being trained to play Pong based on screen data alone.
Atari games
In 2013, a team at DeepMind demonstrated the use of deep Q-learning to play a variety of Atari video games — Beamrider, Breakout, Enduro, Pong, Q*bert, Seaquest, and Space Invaders — from screen data. The team expanded their work to create a learning algorithm called MuZero that was able to "learn" the rules and develop winning strategies for over 50 different Atari games based on screen data.
Doom
Doom (1993) is a first-person shooter (FPS) game. Student researchers from Carnegie Mellon University used computer vision techniques to create an agent that could play the game using only image pixel input from the game. The students used convolutional neural network (CNN) layers to interpret incoming image data and output valid information to a recurrent neural network which was responsible for outputting game moves.
Super Mario
Other uses of vision-based deep learning techniques for playing games have included playing Super Mario Bros. only using image input, using deep Q-learning for training.
Minecraft
Researchers with OpenAI created about 2000 hours of video plays of Minecraft coded with the necessary human inputs, and then trained a machine learning model to comprehend the video feedback from the input. The researchers then used that model with 70,000 hours of Minecraft playthroughs offered on YouTube to see how well the model could create the input to match that behavior and learn further from it, such as being able to learn the steps and process of creating a diamond pickaxe tool.
Machine learning for procedural content generation in games
Machine learning has seen research for use in content recommendation and generation. Procedural content generation is the process of creating data algorithmically rather than manually. This type of content is used to add replayability to games without relying on constant additions by human developers. PCG has been used in various games for different types of content generation, examples of which include weapons in Borderlands 2, all world layouts in Minecraft and entire universes in No Man's Sky. Common approaches to PCG include techniques that involve grammars, search-based algorithms, and logic programming. These approaches require humans to manually define the range of content possible, meaning that a human developer decides what features make up a valid piece of generated content. Machine learning is theoretically capable of learning these features when given examples to train off of, thus greatly reducing the complicated step of developers specifying the details of content design. Machine learning techniques used for content generation include Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN), Generative Adversarial networks (GAN), and K-means clustering. Not all of these techniques make use of ANNs, but the rapid development of deep learning has greatly increased the potential of techniques that do.
Galactic Arms Race
Galactic Arms Race is a space shooter video game that uses neuroevolution powered PCG to generate unique weapons for the player. This game was a finalist in the 2010 Indie Game Challenge and its related research paper won the Best Paper Award at the 2009 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games. The developers use a form of neuroevolution called cgNEAT to generate new content based on each player's personal preferences.
Each generated item is represented by a special ANN known as a Compositional Pattern Producing Network (CPPNs). During the evolutionary phase of the game cgNEAT calculates the fitness of current items based on player usage and other gameplay metrics, this fitness score is then used decide which CPPNs will reproduce to create a new item. The ending result is the generation of new weapon effects based on the player's preference.
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. has been used by several researchers to simulate PCG level creation. Various attempts having used different methods. A version in 2014 used n-grams to generate levels similar to the ones it trained on, which was later improved by making use of MCTS to guide generation. These generations were often not optimal when taking gameplay metrics such as player movement into account, a separate research project in 2017 tried to resolve this problem by generating levels based on player movement using Markov Chains. These projects were not subjected to human testing and may not meet human playability standards.
The Legend of Zelda
PCG level creation for The Legend of Zelda has been attempted by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz. This attempt made use of a Bayesian Network to learn high level knowledge from existing levels, while Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to represent the different low level features of these levels. The researchers used PCA to compare generated levels to human made levels and found that they were considered very similar. This test did not include playability or human testing of the generated levels.
Music generation
Music is often seen in video games and can be a crucial element for influencing the mood of different situations and story points. Machine learning has seen use in the experimental field of music generation; it is uniquely suited to processing raw unstructured data and forming high level representations that could be applied to the diverse field of music. Most attempted methods have involved the use of ANN in some form. Methods include the use of basic feedforward neural networks, autoencoders, restricted boltzmann machines, recurrent neural networks, convolutional neural networks, generative adversarial networks (GANs), and compound architectures that use multiple methods.
VRAE video game melody symbolic music generation system
The 2014 research paper on "Variational Recurrent Auto-Encoders" attempted to generate music based on songs from 8 different video games. This project is one of the few conducted purely on video game music. The neural network in the project was able to generate data that was very similar to the data of the games it trained off of. The generated data did not translate into good quality music.
References
External links
Machine learning
Game artificial intelligence | Machine learning in video games | [
"Mathematics",
"Engineering"
] | 3,490 | [
"Artificial intelligence engineering",
"Game theory",
"Game artificial intelligence",
"Machine learning"
] |
60,951,772 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial%20relict | A glacial relict is a population of a species that was common in the Northern Hemisphere prior to the onset of glaciation in the late Tertiary that was forced by climate change to retreat into refugia when continental ice sheets advanced. They are typically cold-adapted species with a distribution restricted to regions and microhabitats that allow them to survive despite climatic changes.
Examples
There are a wide variety of plant species which fit the category of glacial relict. The ones given here are a small selection of the much larger group.
A tall deciduous tree genus, Liriodendron, was widespread across temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere until the onset of continental glaciations. The genus took refuge in southeast Asia and southeast North America, expanding to occupy today's temperate habitats. The east-west orientation of mountains in Europe is thought to be the geographic barrier that prevented the genus from migrating far enough southward to avoid extinction.
The biogeography of various aquatic species deemed glacial relicts that are found in Lake Sommen is likely related to a different geography during the early history of the lake. One theory claims that aquatic species were transferred from the Baltic Ice Lake through a natural lock system in connection with a temporary advance of the ice-front during the Younger Dryas. On land, the unusual occurrence of dwarf birch near Sund is also judged to be a leftover from a cold geological past.
The Franklin tree (Franklinia alatamaha) was a glacial relict in the American Southeast and endemic to the Altamaha River valley in Georgia before going extinct in the wild in the early part of the 19th century. Like various other plants in this region of the United States, it grew in a lowland glacial refuge. Due to changing temperatures in the Holocene, it was unable to survive - it likely originally dispersed as seeds floating down the Altamaha River, but due to the nature of rivers, it was unable to make the reverse journey to cooler upland climes and survive rising temperatures. This species was the subject of a number of enthusiastic searches to locate potential wild populations in the 20th century, but it was never found in the wild after its original extinction and reintroduction efforts in the early 21st century failed.
Examples of other endemic plants in the Southeastern USA which were limited by the same environmental factors include the Florida torreya, the Florida yew, and the now-extinct Critchfield spruce.
See also
Biodiversity hotspot
Ecological island
Last Glacial Maximum refugia
Nunatak hypothesis
Rapoport's rule
Relict (biology)
Sky island
Wrangel Island (home to last population of mammoths)
References
Phytogeography
Biogeography
Ice ages
Prehistory of the Arctic
Younger Dryas | Glacial relict | [
"Biology"
] | 551 | [
"Biogeography"
] |
60,953,954 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schl%C3%BCsselger%C3%A4t%2041 | The Schlüsselgerät 41 ("Cipher Machine 41"), also known as the SG-41 or Hitler mill, was a rotor cipher machine, first produced in 1941 in Nazi Germany, that was designed as a potential successor for the Enigma machine. It saw limited use by the Abwehr (military intelligence) towards the end of World War II.
History
The SG-41 was created under order of the Heereswaffenamt (Inspectorate 7/VI organisation) as a collaboration between German cryptographer Fritz Menzer and Wanderer, a leading typewriter manufacturer. The machine also acquired the nickname "Hitler mill" because of the large crank attached to the side of the unit. Instead of using a lampboard like the Enigma, the SG-41 printed both the plaintext and ciphertext of the message onto two paper tapes. Due to wartime shortages of light metals such as aluminium and magnesium, the SG-41 weighed approximately , which made it unsuitable for the front lines.
Menzer intended for the SG-41 to fully replace Enigma, which he considered to no longer be secure; the Luftwaffe and Heer ordered around 11,000 units.
A total of 1,000 units were produced. Various sources have reported production figures as low as 500 units due to materiel shortages, but production was halted after 1,000 units, as it was considered too heavy for use on the front. In December 1943, General Fritz Thiele ordered production to cease by the end of 1944. Beginning on 12 October 1944, the first deliveries to the Abwehr began. In the final months of the war, the SG-41 was used instead of the Abwehr Enigma.
Function
Functionally, the machine had greater similarities with the Boris Hagelin C-Series. The SG-41 had six encryption rotors, compared to the Enigma, which had either three or four, in addition to a number of advanced features, making it much more resistant to cryptanalysis than the Enigma or other contemporary Hagelin machines. While the Enigma rotors advanced by one for each letter enciphered, the SG-41's wheels interacted with each other and moved irregularly. Similar functionality was not adopted in a mass-produced cipher machine until 1952 with the advent of the Hagelin CX-52.
Cryptanalysis
The Allied codebreakers in Bletchley Park considered the device a "mystery". Only a handful of messages were able to be deciphered during the war, namely when two messages were "in depth" i.e. encrypted with the same key. The inner workings of the device were unclear until after the war, so it was not possible to perform a systematic cryptanalysis on the messages. Allied codebreakers referred to it as a "remarkable machine".
SG-41Z
In the final months of the war, an additional 550 units were built, which are referred to as the SG-41Z. This model only allowed the numbers 0–9 to be enciphered and was used by the Luftwaffe for weather reports.
Find near Aying
On 5 May 2017, two hobbyist treasure hunters found an SG-41 using a metal detector in a forest near the Bavarian city of Aying, buried approximately deep. The hobbyists donated their find to the Deutsches Museum in Munich instead of selling it privately. The museum intends to conserve it in its current condition and display it in a new permanent exhibit, BildSchriftCodes.
See also
Schlüsselgerät 39
References
Products introduced in 1941
Broken stream ciphers
Cryptographic hardware
Rotor machines
History of telecommunications in Germany
Signals intelligence of World War II
World War II military equipment of Germany
Encryption devices
Enigma machine
Military communications of Germany | Schlüsselgerät 41 | [
"Physics",
"Technology"
] | 754 | [
"Physical systems",
"Machines",
"Rotor machines"
] |
60,956,303 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-U%20ratio | The K/U Ratio is the ratio of a slightly volatile element, potassium (K), to a highly refractory element, uranium (U). It is a useful way to measure the presence of volatile elements on planetary surfaces. The K/U ratio helps explain the evolution of the planetary system and the origin of Earth's moon.
Volatile and refractory elements
In planetary science, volatiles are the group of chemical elements and chemical compounds with low boiling points that are associated with a planet's or a moon's crust or atmosphere.
Very low boiling temperature examples include nitrogen, water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen, methane and sulfur dioxide.
In contrast with volatiles, elements and compounds with high boiling points are known as refractory substances.
On the basis of available data, which is sparse for Mars and very uncertain for Venus, the three inner planets then become progressively more depleted in K passing from Mars to Earth to Venus.
Planetary gamma-ray spectrometers
Some elements like potassium, uranium, and thorium are naturally radioactive and give off gamma rays as they decay. Electromagnetic radiation from these isotopes can be detected by a Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (GRS) dropped toward the planetary surface or observed from orbit. An orbiting instrument can map the surface distribution of many elements for an entire planet.
Uncrewed spacecraft programs such as Venera and the Vega program have flown to Venus and sent back data allowing estimates of the K/U ratio of the surface rocks.
The Lunar Prospector mission used a GRS to map the Earth's Moon.
To determine the elemental makeup of the Martian surface, the Mars Odyssey used a GRS and two neutron detectors.
These GRS readings can be compared to direct elemental measurements of chondrites meteorites, Earth, and Moon samples brought back from Apollo program missions, as well as to meteorites that are believed to have come from Mars.
Ratios of solar system bodies
K and U move together during geochemical processes and have long-lived radioisotopes that emit gamma rays. It is calculated as a ratio of one to the other on an equal mass basis which is often .
This creates a compelling explanation for the evolution of the solar system.
This result is consistent with an increasing temperature toward the sun during its early protoplanetary nebula phase.
The temperature at the early stage of solar system formation was in excess of 1,000K at the distance of Earth from the sun, and as low as 200–100K at the distances of Jupiter and Saturn.
Earth
At the high temperatures for Earth, no volatiles would be in the solid state, and the dust would be made up of silicate and metal.
The continental crust and lower mantle have average K/U values of about 12,000. mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB) or upper mantle have more volatiles and have a K/U ratio of about 19,000.
Volatile depletion explains why Earth's sodium (volatile) content is about 10% of its calcium (refractory) content, despite the similar abundance in chondrites.
Earth's Moon's origin
The Moon stands out as being very depleted in volatiles.
The Moon not only lacks water and atmospheric gases, but also lacks moderately volatile elements such as K, Na, and Cl. The Earth's K/U ratio is 12,000, while the Moon has a K/U ratio of only 2,000. This difference suggests that the material that formed the Moon was subjected to temperatures considerably higher than the Earth.
The prevailing theory is that the Moon formed out of the debris left over from a collision between Earth and an astronomical body the size of Mars, approximately 4.5 billion years ago, about 20 to 100 million years after the Solar System coalesced. This is called the Giant-impact hypothesis.
It is hypothesized that most of the outer silicates of the colliding body would be vaporized, whereas a metallic core would not. Hence, most of the collisional material sent into orbit would consist of silicates, leaving the coalescing Moon deficient in iron. The more volatile materials that were emitted during the collision probably would escape the Solar System, whereas silicates would tend to coalesce.
The ratios of the Moon's volatile elements are not explained by the giant-impact hypothesis. If the giant-impact hypothesis is correct, they must be due to some other cause.
Meteorites
Farther from the sun, the temperature was low enough that volatile elements would precipitate as ices. The two are separated by a snow line controlled by the temperature distribution around the Sun.
Formed farthest from the sun, the carbonaceous chondrites have the highest K/U ratios. Ordinary chondrites which form closer in are only about 10% depleted in K relative to U.
The fine-grained matrix which fills spaces between the chondrules, however, appears to have formed at rather different temperatures in the various classes of chondrites. For this reason the volatile abundances of different classes of chondrites can vary. One particularly important class is the carbonaceous chondrites because of their high carbon content. In these meteorites, chondrules coexist with minerals that are only stable below 100 °C, so they contain materials that formed in both high- and low-temperature environments and were only later collected together. Further evidence for the primordial attributes of carbonaceous chondrites comes from the fact that they have compositions very similar to the nonvolatile element composition of the sun.
Controversy of Mercury
Mercury was surveyed by the MESSENGER mission with its Gamma-Ray Spectrometer. The K/U ratios for Mercury could range between 8,000 and 17,000 which would imply a volatile rich planet. However, metal/silicate partitioning data for K and U still needs additional experiments at the conditions of Mercury's core formation to understand this unusual high ratio.
References
Planetary geology
Petrology
Structure of the Earth
Volcanology
Astrobiology
Origins
Prebiotic chemistry | K-U ratio | [
"Chemistry",
"Astronomy",
"Biology"
] | 1,236 | [
"Origin of life",
"Speculative evolution",
"Prebiotic chemistry",
"Astrobiology",
"Biological hypotheses",
"Astronomical sub-disciplines"
] |
60,956,894 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRENE%20%28technology%29 | IRENE (Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc.) is a digital imaging technology designed to recover analog audio stored on fragile or deteriorating phonograph cylinders, records, and other grooved audio media. It is in use by several archives and preservation institutions in the United States seeking to preserve and digitize historical audio.
History
The technology was developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory by Carl Haber and Vitaliy Fadeyev and was announced in a publication of the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society in 2003. It grew out of Haber's research in particle physics; in the 1990s, he had worked on Higgs boson detection experiments, and realized that the cameras he was using to set the detectors could also be used for detailed imaging of grooved audio recordings. The name IRENE is a backronym of the phrase "Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc.", and was chosen because the first audio recovered by the system was a recording of the song "Goodnight, Irene" by The Weavers. By 2005, Haber and Fadeyev had developed two-dimensional and three-dimensional machines, capable of recovering audio from vertically-cut and laterally-cut grooved media. Soon after, Haber and Fadeyev were contacted by the Library of Congress, which began operating its own machine in 2006. In 2013, Haber was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship to continue development of the system. , IRENE machines are operated by three institutions – Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Library of Congress, and the Northeast Document Conservation Center.
Design and operation
The IRENE system uses a high-powered confocal microscope that follows the groove path as the disc or cylinder (i.e. phonograph cylinder) rotates underneath it, thereby obtaining detailed images of the audio information. Depending on whether the groove is cut laterally, vertically, or in a V-shape, the system may make use of tracking lasers or different lighting strategies to make the groove visible to the camera. The resulting images are then processed with software that converts the movement of the groove into a digital audio file.
An advantage of the system over traditional stylus playback is that it is contactless, and so avoids damaging the audio carrier or wearing out the groove during playback. It also allows for the reconstruction of already broken or damaged media such as cracked cylinders or delaminating lacquer discs, which cannot be played with a stylus. Media played on machines which are no longer produced can also be recovered. Many skips or damaged areas can be reconstituted by IRENE without the noises that would be created by stylus playback. However, it can also result in the reproduction of more noise, as imperfections in the groove are also more finely captured than with a stylus.
Uses
The IRENE system has been used to recover audio such as:
The earliest recovered audio (1860), of Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville singing "Au clair de la lune"
Volta Laboratory recordings from the 1880s, including an 1885 recording of Alexander Graham Bell's voice
A set of cylinders for talking dolls issued by the Edison Company in 1890
Wax cylinder recordings from 1914–1916, documenting more than 78 Indigenous languages of the Americas, including some that are no longer spoken. They include the only known recordings of Ishi, the last survivor of the Yahi people. These were collected by anthropologist A.L. Kroeber and linguist Edward Sapir, and are held by the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology (formerly the anthropology museum of University of California, Berkeley)
Transcription discs from the Woody Guthrie Foundation
A transcription disc containing rare recordings of the Stanley Brothers
Disc recordings from the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University, of poets (including T.S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, Robert Frost, Muriel Rukeyser, Ezra Pound, and Sylvia Plath) reading their own poems
See also
Laser turntable
VisualAudio
References
Bibliography
Fadeyev, Vitaliy, and Carl Haber. "Reconstruction of mechanically recorded sound by image processing." Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 51.12 (2003): 1172-1185.
McCann, M., P. Calamia, and N. Ailon. "Audio Extraction from Optical Scans of Records." (2004).
Tian, Baozhong, and John L. Barron. "Reproduction of sound signal from gramophone records using 3d scene reconstruction." Irish Machine Vision and Image Processing Conference. 2006.
Stotzer, Sylvain. Phonographic record sound extraction by image processing. Diss. Université de Fribourg, 2006.
Cornell, Earl W., et al. "Using optical metrology to reconstruct sound recordings." Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment 579.2 (2007): 901-904.
Li, Beinan, Simon de Leon, and Ichiro Fujinaga. "Alternative Digitization Approach for Stereo Phonograph Records Using Optical Audio Reconstruction." ISMIR. 2007.
Boltryk, P. J., et al. "Noncontact surface metrology for preservation and sound recovery from mechanical sound recordings." Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 56.7/8 (2008): 545-559.
Aleksandrović, Vesna. "Analog/digital sound. National Library of Serbia digital collection of 78 rpm gramophone records." Review of National Center for Digitization 12 (2008): 37-42.
Li, Beinan, Jordan BL Smith, and Ichiro Fujinaga. "Optical Audio Reconstruction for Stereo Phonograph Records Using White Light Interferometry." ISMIR. 2009.
Tian, Baozhong, Samuel Sambasivam, and John Barron. "Practical digital playback of gramophone records using flat-bed scanner images." Audio Engineering Society Convention 131. Audio Engineering Society, 2011.
Tian, Baozhong, and John L. Barron. "Using computer vision technology to play gramophone records." Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 59.7/8 (2011): 514-538.
Janukiewicz, Kristofer. "A Laser Triangulation Approach for Optical Audio Reconstruction of Phonograph Records." (2016).
Chenot, Jean-Hugues, Louis Laborelli, and Jean-Etienne Noiré. "Saphir: Digitizing broken and cracked or delaminated lacquer 78 rpm records using a desktop optical scanner."
Chenot, Jean-Hugues, Louis Laborelli, and Jean-Étienne Noiré. "Saphir: optical playback of damaged and delaminated analogue audio disc records." Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage 11.3 (2018): 14-1.
Hawkins, Julia, and Bryce Roe. "IRENE audio preservation at the Northeast Document Conservation Center: Developing workflows and standards for preservation projects that use innovative technology." Journal of Digital Media Management 9.3 (2021): 262-278.
Chenot, Jean-Hugues, and Jean-Etienne Noiré. "Challenges in Optical Recovery of Otherwise Unplayable Analogue Audio Disc Records." Audio Engineering Society Conference: AES 2023 International Conference on Audio Archiving, Preservation & Restoration. Audio Engineering Society, 2023.
Using Optical Metrology to Restore Sound Recordings
Using Physics to Restore Early Sound Recordings
Reconstruct Sound Recordings
External links
IRENE website, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories
American inventions
Audio engineering
Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage
Digital preservation
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Library of Congress | IRENE (technology) | [
"Engineering"
] | 1,532 | [
"Electrical engineering",
"Audio engineering"
] |
60,956,909 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropattern%20gaseous%20detector | Micropattern gaseous detectors (MPGDs) are a group of gaseous ionization detectors consisting of microelectronic structures with sub-millimeter distances between anode and cathode electrodes. When interacting with the gaseous medium of the detector, particles of ionizing radiation create electrons and ions that are subsequently drifted apart by means of an electric field. The accelerated electrons create further electron-ion pairs in an avalanche process in regions with a strong electrostatic field. The various types of MPGDs differ in the way this strong field region is created. Examples of MPGDs include the microstrip gas chamber, the gas electron multiplier and the Micromegas detector.
The main advantages of MPGDs over previous types of gaseous detectors, such as the multiwire proportional chamber, are their count rate capability, time and position resolution, granularity, stability and radiation hardness.
References
Particle detectors
Ionising radiation detectors | Micropattern gaseous detector | [
"Technology",
"Engineering"
] | 195 | [
"Ionising radiation detectors",
"Radioactive contamination",
"Particle detectors",
"Measuring instruments"
] |
60,958,267 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reshetikhin%E2%80%93Turaev%20invariant | In the mathematical field of quantum topology, the Reshetikhin–Turaev invariants (RT-invariants) are a family of quantum invariants of framed links.
Such invariants of framed links also give rise to invariants of 3-manifolds via the Dehn surgery construction. These invariants were discovered by Nicolai Reshetikhin and Vladimir Turaev in 1991, and were meant to be a mathematical realization of Witten's proposed invariants of links and 3-manifolds using quantum field theory.
Overview
To obtain an RT-invariant, one must first have a -linear ribbon category at hand. Each -linear ribbon category comes equipped with a diagrammatic calculus in which morphisms are represented by certain decorated framed tangle diagrams, where the initial and terminal objects are represented by the boundary components of the tangle. In this calculus, a (decorated framed) link diagram , being a (decorated framed) tangle without boundary, represents an endomorphism of the monoidal identity (the empty set in this calculus), or in other words, an element of . This element of is the RT-invariant associated to . Given any closed oriented 3-manifold , there exists a framed link in the 3-sphere so that is homeomorphic to the manifold obtained by surgering along . Two such manifolds and are homeomorphic if and only if and are related by a sequence of Kirby moves. Reshetikhin and Turaev used this idea to construct invariants of 3-manifolds by combining certain RT-invariants into an expression which is invariant under Kirby moves. Such invariants of 3-manifolds are known as Witten–Reshetikhin–Turaev invariants (WRT-invariants).
Examples
Let be a ribbon Hopf algebra over a field (one can take, for example, any quantum group over ). Consider the category , of finite dimensional representations of . There is a diagrammatic calculus in which morphisms in are represented by framed tangle diagrams with each connected component decorated by a finite dimensional representation of . That is, is a -linear ribbon category. In this way, each ribbon Hopf algebra gives rise to an invariant of framed links colored by representations of (an RT-invariant).
For the quantum group over the field , the corresponding RT-invariant for links and 3-manifolds gives rise to the following family of link invariants, appearing in skein theory. Let be a framed link in with components. For each , let denote the RT-invariant obtained by decorating each component of by the unique -dimensional representation of . Then
where the -tuple, denotes the Kauffman polynomial of the link , where each of the components is cabled by the Jones–Wenzl idempotent , a special element of the Temperley–Lieb algebra.
To define the corresponding WRT-invariant for 3-manifolds, first of all we choose to be either a -th root of unity or an -th root of unity with odd . Assume that is obtained by doing Dehn surgery on a framed link . Then the RT-invariant for the 3-manifold is defined to be
where is the Kirby coloring, are the unknot with framing, and are the numbers of positive and negative eigenvalues for the linking matrix of respectively. Roughly speaking, the first and second bracket ensure that is invariant under blowing up/down (first Kirby move) and the third bracket ensures that is invariant under handle sliding (second Kirby move).
Properties
The Witten–Reshetikhin–Turaev invariants for 3-manifolds satisfy the following properties:
where denotes the connected sum of and
where is the manifold with opposite orientation, and denotes the complex conjugate of
These three properties coincide with the properties satisfied by the 3-manifold invariants defined by Witten using Chern–Simons theory (under certain normalization)
Open problems
Witten's asymptotic expansion conjecture
Pick . Witten's asymptotic expansion conjecture suggests that for every 3-manifold , the large -th asymptotics of is governed by the contributions of flat connections.
Conjecture:
There exists constants and (depending on ) for and for such that the asymptotic expansion of in the limit is given by
where are the finitely many different values of the Chern–Simons functional on the space of flat -connections on .
Volume conjecture for the Reshetikhin–Turaev invariant
The Witten's asymptotic expansion conjecture suggests that at , the RT-invariants grow polynomially in . On the contrary, at with odd , in 2018 Q. Chen and T. Yang suggested the volume conjecture for the RT-invariants, which essentially says that the RT-invariants for hyperbolic 3-manifolds grow exponentially in and the growth rate gives the hyperbolic volume and Chern–Simons invariants for the 3-manifold.
Conjecture:
Let be a closed oriented hyperbolic 3-manifold. Then for a suitable choice of arguments,
where is odd positive integer.
References
External links
https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Reshetikhin-Turaev+construction
Quantum groups
Quantum field theory | Reshetikhin–Turaev invariant | [
"Physics"
] | 1,072 | [
"Quantum field theory",
"Quantum mechanics"
] |
60,958,361 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelia%20Zangari%20Bandi | Cornelia Zangari Bandi (20 July 1664 – 15 March 1731) was an Italian noblewoman, generally known for the circumstances surrounding her mysterious death, which is frequently described as a possible case of spontaneous human combustion.
Biography
Family
Cornelia Zangari was born in Longiano (Emilia-Romagna), Papal States, to Count Francesco Maria Zangari and his wife Margherita. She married Count Francesco Bandi, who by his marriage to Colomba Leonardelli had Giovanni Carlo (future Cardinal of the Catholic Church), Maria Colomba, Margherita Felice, Giuseppe, Anna Teresa, Elisabetta and Anna Margherita. Anna Teresa married Marco Aurelio Tommaso Braschi, Count of Falcino, giving birth in 1717 to Giovanni Angelo, future Pope Pius VI (1775 – 1799).
Death
According to the 1745 issue by the correspondent Paul Rolli (who translated, for the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, a 1731 study by the Veronese historian Giuseppe Bianchini: Parere Sopra la Cagione della Morte della Signora Contessa Cornelia Zangari Ne' Bandi Cesenate (Opinion on cause of death of Lady Countess Cornelia Zangari), during her last dinner, the 66 year-old countess was "dull and heavy". Some accounts report that she was a brandy drinker, and that she used to sprinkle camphorated brandy on her body to relieve physical pain. The maid accompanied her to her room, and the two spent over three hours chatting and praying. The maid left her mistress already asleep. The next day, when she did not get up at the usual time, she went to wake her and found the remains of the countess. The room was full of soot. The body of the countess had been reduced to a pile of ashes that was a little more than from the bed, although her lower legs below the knee, three fingers and front of her skull were relatively intact. The bed and the rest of the furniture had not been affected by the fire, but were covered by a greasy and smelly layer. On the floor there was an oil lamp covered with ashes, but without oil. The way the sheets were found seemed to indicate that the countess had risen at some point during the night. The full account by Paul Rolli:
In popular culture
Charles Dickens, in his preface to his novel Bleak House (1852/1853), writes about the Countess (whom he misnames Countess Cornelia de Baudi Cesenate) with regard to the "possibility of what is called spontaneous combustion."
See also
List of unsolved deaths
Gallery
References
1664 births
1731 deaths
Noblewomen of the Papal States
Nobility of the Papal States
18th-century Italian women
Countesses
Deaths from fire
Paranormal
People from Cesena
Unsolved deaths in Italy
Spontaneous human combustion | Cornelia Zangari Bandi | [
"Chemistry"
] | 593 | [
"Combustion",
"Spontaneous human combustion"
] |
60,958,781 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal%20fan | In mathematics, specifically convex geometry, the normal fan of a convex polytope P is a polyhedral fan that is dual to P. Normal fans have applications to polyhedral combinatorics, linear programming, tropical geometry and other areas of mathematics.
Definition
Given a convex polytope P in Rn, the normal fan NP of P is a polyhedral fan in the dual space, (Rn)* whose cones consist of the normal cone CF to each face F of P,
Each normal cone CF is defined as the set of linear functionals w such that the set of points x in P that maximize w(x) contains F,
Properties
NP is a complete fan, meaning the union of its cones is the whole space, (Rn)*.
If F is a face of P of dimension d, then its normal cone CF has dimension n – d. The normal cones to vertices of P are full dimensional. If P has full dimension, the normal cones to the facets of P are the rays of NP and the normal cone to P itself is CP = {0}, the zero cone.
The affine span of face F of P is orthogonal to the linear span of its normal cone, CF.
The correspondence between faces of P and cones of NP reverses inclusion, meaning that for faces F and G of P,
Since NP is a fan, the intersection of any two of its cones is also a cone in NP. For faces F and G of P,
where H is the smallest face of P that contains both F and G.
Applications
If polytope P is thought of as the feasible region of a linear program, the normal fan of P partitions the space of objective functions based on the solution set to the linear program defined by each. The linear program in which the goal is to maximize linear objective function w has solution set F if and only if w is in the relative interior of the cone CF.
If polytope P has the origin in its interior, then the normal fan of P can be constructed from the polar dual of P by taking the cone over each face of the dual polytope, P°.
For f a polynomial in n variables with coefficients in C, the tropical hypersurface of f is supported on a subfan of the normal fan of the Newton polytope P of f. In particular, the tropical hypersurface is supported on the cones in NP of dimension less than n.
References
.
Geometric objects | Normal fan | [
"Mathematics"
] | 498 | [
"Mathematical objects",
"Geometric objects",
"Geometry"
] |
60,958,967 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss%20SP-202 | The Boss Dr. Sample SP-202 is a discontinued sampling workstation made by Boss Corporation, a division under Roland Corporation. Released in the year of 1998, it is the premier installment to the SP family, which includes Boss's popular SP-303 and Roland's SP-404 installments. The sampler is also successor to Roland's MS-1 Digital Sampler.
Features
Being an early installment, the SP-202 has a limited number of features which were later improved and expanded on through future installments/upgrades of the SP lineage:
8 large pads, 4 banks, two control knobs, with overall display and operation that was later enhanced with the Boss SP-303
Compact, easy-to-use portable sampler—perfect for club DJs, hip-hop and dance music artists, and other sampling musicians
Innovative BPM function calculates BPM from sample length for easy looping*
6 built-in effects including Pitch Shift, Filter 1 & 2, Time Stretch, Delay, Ring Modulation
Sampling time — 4 min. 20 sec. internal, up to 37 min. using optional 5 volt SmartMedia card (2mb or 4mb supported)
User-selectable sampling grade programmable for each pad
Built-in microphone for sampling any time, any place
Import/export WAV/AIF via SmartMedia card slot
Runs on battery or AC power
Musicians
A number of musicians have used the SP-202 as part of their production and performance. Several artists include Fatboy Slim, as well as Tobacco.
References
Further reading
External links
SP-202: Dr. Sample
SP-Forums.com - An active forum dedicated to Roland's SP range
Samplers (musical instrument)
Boss Corporation
Roland synthesizers
Grooveboxes
Music sequencers
Sound modules
Music workstations
Hip-hop production
Japanese inventions | Boss SP-202 | [
"Engineering"
] | 366 | [
"Music sequencers",
"Automation"
] |
60,961,511 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watch%20Dogs%3A%20Legion | Watch Dogs: Legion is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Toronto and published by Ubisoft. It is the sequel to 2016's Watch Dogs 2 and the third installment in the Watch Dogs series. Set within a fictionalised representation of a futuristic, dystopian London, the game's story follows the hacker syndicate DedSec as they seek to clear their names after being framed for a series of terrorist bombings. While searching for the true culprits, DedSec also attempt to liberate London's citizens from the control of Albion, an oppressive private military company that has turned the city into a surveillance state following the bombings.
While the core gameplay is similar to its predecessors, consisting of a combination of shooting, driving, stealth, and hacking puzzles, Legion introduces a multiple playable characters system, allowing players to recruit virtually any non-player character found in the game's open world. Each playable character has their own unique skills and backgrounds, and can be lost permanently if players enable the option of permadeath before starting a new game. There are multiple ways to complete missions depending on which playable character is selected. In March 2021, a cooperative multiplayer mode was added to the game, allowing up to four players to complete missions or explore London together.
Watch Dogs: Legion was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One, and Stadia on 29 October 2020 and as a launch title for Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 in November. Upon release, the game received mixed reviews from critics. They were polarized over the multiple playable characters aspect, with some appreciating its diversity and the inclusion of permadeath for allowing emotional attachment from players, while others criticised the characters' lack of personality and the imbalance between their abilities. Criticism was further aimed at the game's world, driving mechanics, inconsistent difficulty, repetitive missions, online features and technical problems.
Ubisoft supported Legion after its launch, releasing a number of updates for both the single-player and multiplayer modes that added new missions, game modes, and playable characters; a crossover event with the Assassin's Creed franchise; and a paid story expansion, Bloodline, which continues the storylines of Aiden Pearce, the protagonist of the first Watch Dogs game, and Wrench, a major supporting character from Watch Dogs 2.
Gameplay
Watch Dogs: Legion is an action-adventure game played from a third-person perspective, and taking place within an open world setting based upon London, which can be explored either on foot─utilizing parkour moves─vehicles, or fast-travelling via the city's Underground stations. Eight of London's Boroughs are represented in game: Westminster, Wandsworth (specifically the Nine Elms area), Lambeth, Southwark, Camden, Islington, Hackney and Tower Hamlets, in addition to the City of London. The game is composed of several missions, including those that progress the main story, liberation missions aimed at freeing the city's boroughs featured in the setting, recruitment missions for new playable characters, and various side-activities, with players able to freely pursue a mission or activity, or explore the city for secrets and collectibles. Each mission's objectives can be handled via one or several different approaches: an open-combat approach utilizing a variety of weapons; a stealth approach utilizing the environment to avoid detection and monitoring enemy patterns; or a hacking approach using any hackable object to subdue enemies with traps or distractions, while seeking out objectives via cameras and remotely accessing them. Combat includes a mixture of gun fights─involving lethal and non-lethal firearms─and hand-to-hand combat moves, with enemies making use of different methods depending on how the player acts against them in combat (e.g., a guard hit with a punch will use melee attacks, but will begin shooting if the player draws their firearm). Players can be pursued by enemies when escaping, including hostile drones, but can lose them by utilizing hack-able environmental objects (e.g., vents) and avoiding line of sight with pursuers.
Unlike previous games in the series, Legion features the ability to use multiple characters during a playthrough, each of whom can be recruited from around the game's setting. While the player must choose a character to begin with after the story's prologue chapter, others may be recruited upon completing the initial story missions of the game from anywhere around the game's setting, which can include those working for hostile factions. Those recruited become operatives that the player can freely switch to at any time, as well as customize with different clothing options, with each recruit-able character maintaining their own lifestyle and occupation when not active (e.g., spending time drinking at a pub). Each character that can be recruited has different traits and skills, based upon their background─a spy operative has access to a silenced pistol and can summon a special spy vehicle to travel around with, armed with rockets; a hooligan operative can summon friends to help in a fist-fight; a builder operative can make use of large drones for heavy-lifting and a nail-gun for combat; while an "adrenaline junkie" operative can deal more damage, but risk the possibility of being knocked out/dying at random moments. Operatives can gain experience when used by the player, which allows them to gain additional skills and abilities to improve them, with the player able to provide additional upgrades for all characters by spending "tech points"─a collectible scattered around the city, which can be spent on weapon and gadget upgrades. In addition to standard recruitable NPCs, the player can also acquire special NPCs to their roster, known as "Prestige Operatives"; these unique characters possess exceptional weapons and gain access to stronger perks as they improve in level than standard operatives.
All potential recruits have an additional statistic, which details whether they can be recruited when approached─their thoughts on DedSec. Some recruits may not join if either they favour those that oppose them (such as a hostile faction), if the player has a character in their roster whom they hate, or if DedSec did something to harm another NPC they have good relations with. If a recruit can be brought in, players will be required to complete a mission from them related to a problem they need resolving. Examples of such a mission include sneaking into a government building to find a missing person, recovering confiscated or stolen equipment or simply helping the potential recruit determine why they are experiencing invasive surveillance. Any character that can be recruited can be killed during a playthrough, whether in combat, accidental death, or from their own traits, and permanently removed from the player's roster of playable characters if the player has the permadeath option enabled. If in permadeath mode the player loses all their characters from death or arrest, the game ends. In games with permadeath disabled, operatives will be incarcerated or hospitalised after being arrested or 'critically injured'; the time these characters spend being unable to be used can be reduced if the player recruits certain characters, such as medical or legal staff. In addition, some operatives may still die permanently, but only if they have certain traits that lead to a random and unexpected death.
Multiplayer
The online component of the game, introduced in March 2021, allows for four-player cooperative gameplay, which aimed to share progression between the single-player and multiplayer modes. The multiplayer experience offers several different activities for players to engage in, including city events, co-operative missions (including the more complex "Tactical Ops"), and the "Spiderbot Arena" competitive mode, where players controlling miniature spiderbot gadgets fight in free for all matches. The asymmetrical multiplayer mode "Invasion" from the previous two Watch Dogs games made a return several months after release, with several changes.
Like the single-player mode, players can freely explore London and recruit new operatives to their team; however, rather than completing short missions for each character, this is done by spending "Influence" (an in-game form of currency). Influence is also used to unlock gadgets and character upgrades, and can be earned from completing missions and daily/weekly objectives, bought with real-life money from the in-game store, or found across the map, along with masks and experience points (the locations of collectibles change weekly).
Watch Dogs: Legion Online uses a seasonal approach to introduce new content to the game. During each season, a different roadmap with various rewards (Influence, weapon skins, character clothing etc.) is featured. As players complete missions and other activities, they gain experience points and rank up, unlocking the next reward in the roadmap. When a season ends, the next one automatically starts and the player's rank is reset to 0.
Synopsis
Setting
Watch Dogs: Legion takes place within a fictionalised representation of London in the "near future" (suggested to be the year 2029 or 2030 by the Bloodline expansion). The setting encompasses notable landmarks, boroughs, and cultural styles of the city, such as the Palace of Westminster, Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, The Shard and more. Since the events of Watch Dogs 2, technology has undergone a rapid acceleration as a result of the proliferation of automation and artificial intelligence (AI), which has effectively improved Britain's economy at the cost of many blue and white collar jobs. The use of cryptocurrency has also become abundant, with an unofficial currency by the name of 'ETO' having almost replaced the pound sterling entirely within London. AR and VR systems are commonplace across the city, accompanied by an increase in drones and electric cars, an established 6G mobile network, and the introduction of self-driving cars much of which is enhanced through the use of ctOS (central Operating System)─the centralized computer network developed by technology company Blume, featured in Watch Dogs and Watch Dogs 2.
The game focuses on DedSec, a hacker group consisting of various branches across the world, who fight against authority regimes and groups that utilise ctOS for their own selfish goals at the expense of ordinary citizens. Their main enemies include Zero Day, a rogue hacker group that frames DedSec for a series of terrorist bombings; Albion, a private military company that takes over as law enforcement across London and supersedes the British government's control over the city; Clan Kelley, an East End criminal syndicate that has monopolised the use of the dark web, conducting human and organ trafficking operations; Broca Tech, a corrupt biotechnology corporation; and Signals Intelligence Response (SIRS), an intelligence agency formed from the consolidation of Britain's intelligence network.
Plot
The London branch of DedSec, led by Sabine Brandt and her newly crafted AI, Bagley, detect armed intruders planting explosives in the Houses of Parliament. DedSec operative Dalton Wolfe goes to defuse the bombs and discovers the intruders are members of a rogue hacker group called "Zero Day". Although Dalton manages to prevent Parliament's destruction, he is gunned down by drones commanded by Zero Day's leader, who detonates additional explosives around London and orders an attack on DedSec's main hideout, forcing Sabine to shut down Bagley and go into hiding. In the wake of the bombings, the British government contract Albion with restoring order to London and hunting down DedSec, who are held responsible for the chaos, effectively causing social and political unrest.
Months later, Albion enforces the law without political oversight, transforming London into a surveillance state with the aid of its ctOS network and SIRS, a conglomerate of Britain's intelligence agencies. As a result, citizens have their personal liberties severely restricted and their lives constantly monitored, while those who question Albion's methods are either convicted or deported to Continental Europe. Organised crime is also on the rise, despite Albion's presence. Although most DedSec members have been arrested or killed by Albion, Sabine resurfaces when she finds a new recruit through ctOS, who is sent to reactivate the group's safehouse and Bagley. DedSec slowly rebuild their strength as they find more recruits who, under Sabine's co-ordination and with Bagley's help, liberate London's boroughs by encouraging citizens to rise up in defiance of their oppressors.
During this time, DedSec investigate the bombings and discover that both Albion's CEO Nigel Cass and Clan Kelley, London's biggest crime syndicate, were involved, and are taking advantage of London's current situation for their own ends: Clan Kelley is using people from Albion's deportation centers for their trafficking operations, while Cass plans to enforce peace across London with 'Project THEMIS', an oppressive army of combat drones that can identify and neutralize threats before they occur. After their investigation reaches a dead end, DedSec decide to follow other leads, such as technology company Broca Tech, whose CEO Skye Larsen has been conducting inhumane experiments to convert human minds into AI programs; and Richard Malik, a SIRS whistleblower who enlists DedSec's help in proving SIRS leader Emma Child was behind the Zero Day bombings, only to later be revealed that he was trying to take over SIRS, which he accomplishes after killing Child in an explosion that DedSec are framed for.
DedSec eventually deal with both Larsen and Malik, before infiltrating a slave auction hosted by Clan Kelley's leader, Mary Kelley, where they discover Kelley helped Zero Day smuggle their explosives into the country. After gathering enough evidence to get Kelley convicted, DedSec and Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Detective Kaitlyn Lau attempt to capture her, but after realizing that Kelley will walk free regardless, they leave her to be killed by her former slaves. DedSec next sabotage Cass's drone project and expose his crimes to the public, prompting him to take refuge at Albion's headquarters in the Tower of London. Fearing Cass will attempt to retaliate against his enemies, DedSec storm the Tower and kill Cass.
As DedSec celebrate their successes, Zero Day hacks the group, stealing the tech they had acquired. Tracing the hack, they discover that Sabine was behind the bombings and Zero Day, and that Cass helped her until double-crossing her for control of data gathering technology. In response, Sabine restarted DedSec simply to get revenge on Cass, recover what he had stolen, and seek out other components. DedSec discover Sabine intends to use the stolen technology to create a patch for Bagley and take control of Britain's ctOS infrastructure, plunging the country into chaos in hopes it will force society to forgo technology and restart. To prevent this, Bagley agrees to be shut down. Avoiding the chaos caused by Sabine, a DedSec operative goes to hack Blume's radio tower, to prevent the patch from being spread. Sabine confronts them, but the operative lowers the tower's fins and sends her falling to her apparent death. Meanwhile, another operative shuts down Bagley's primary server at Broca Tech, ending the crisis.
While the British government reviews its contract with Albion and the MPS begins work to resume operations, DedSec finally clear their names and are praised for exposing considerable crimes and corruption across London. In an epilogue scene, they manage to restore Bagley to his original state, and continue to rely on him to help them finish off loose ends around London.
Bloodline
Some time after the Zero Day bombings, but prior to DedSec's resurgence in London, former vigilante Aiden Pearce accepts a contract from his fixer partner, Jordi Chin, in London, believing it will allow him to reunite with his estranged nephew Jackson, who is attending college there. Aiden's assignment is to infiltrate Broca Tech and acquire photographic evidence of a new robot design project headed by Thomas Rempart, as well as retrieve a device called the "BrocaBridge". However, his attempt is foiled by Reginald "Wrench" Blechman, a former member of DedSec San Francisco, who also seeks the BrocaBridge. A struggle ensues between the two, which results in Wrench escaping with the BrocaBridge and Aiden being captured by Rempart's men. Aiden soon escapes and makes contact with Jackson. Despite not wanting to get involved, Jackson guides Aiden toward a DedSec contact, Connie Robinson, who helps him get set up in exchange for helping out with several tasks. Rempart also contacts Aiden, ordering him to retrieve the BrocaBridge while threatening to harm Jackson.
With Jackson's help, Aiden finds Wrench at his hideout and confronts him. Wrench reveals that he was hired by Rempart to design the robots for his project, but was ultimately betrayed, so he took revenge by stealing the BrocaBridge, which Rempart needs for the next phase of his project. Meanwhile, Rempart finds and captures Jackson to ransom him for the BrocaBridge. After obtaining the device from Wrench, Aiden delivers it to Rempart, unaware that it is an explosive fake created by Wrench. The explosion disfigures Rempart's face and allows Aiden and Jackson to escape, though Aiden is shot in the process and falls into a coma. Wrench allows Aiden and Jackson to stay at his hideout and obtains medical supplies to help Aiden recover. During this time, he also becomes acquainted with Jordi and agrees to carry out several fixer contracts for him in Aiden's place.
Later, Wrench is contacted by Skye Larsen, who offers to help with Aiden's recovery in exchange for retaking control of her facilities from Rempart. Upon doing so, Larsen proposes an experimental trial on Jackson using the BrocaBridge to link his mind with Aiden's. Jackson enters Aiden's mind and, after revisiting several memories from his past, helps him overcome his guilt for his role in the death of Jackson's sister Lena seventeen years ago. Deciding to leave his vigilante persona behind, Aiden awakens from the coma and makes amends with Jackson. With Aiden saved, Wrench works with him and Jackson to defeat Rempart, who is attempting to escape London on his personal barge. Wrench boards the barge and destroys Rempart's robot army before subduing Rempart and leaving him to be arrested by Albion authorities.
In the aftermath, Aiden and Wrench decide to continue working together for the time being. Connie later calls them to invite them to join DedSec after finding a contact who survived the London attacks, leading into the events of the main campaign.
Assassin's Creed expansion
This non-canonical crossover with the Assassin's Creed franchise focuses on DedSec helping Darcy Clarkson, a member of the Assassin Brotherhood and a descendant of renowned 19th-century Assassins Jacob and Evie Frye. After intercepting a conversation between Darcy and a Templar, Graham Westerly, DedSec learn about the secret war between the Assassins and Templars, and that the former have been forced to leave London after being hunted to near-extinction. They also discover that Darcy returned to London to rescue her brother Lucas, who was captured while trying to free the city from the Templars' control like their ancestors had done nearly two centuries prior. After tracking down Darcy, DedSec agree to help her rescue Lucas, who is being tortured by Graham to learn the location of a hidden Assassin Tomb in London. However, Westerly murders Lucas after obtaining the information he wanted.
After finding the Tomb on the grounds of the Buckingham Palace, DedSec help Darcy get inside to investigate. She discovers statues of several Assassins, including Jacob, Evie and Edward Kenway, and a vault containing advanced technology and an Assassin outfit, which she dons. Westerly arrives moments later, accompanied by a platoon of Albion soldiers, but Darcy manages to kill them. Before dying, Westerly claims that the Templars will remain in control of London for as long as the Assassins are too afraid to fight back. After leaving the tomb, Darcy decides to stay in London to continue fighting the Templars, and accepts DedSec's invite to join them.
Development
Watch Dogs: Legion was developed by Ubisoft Toronto, with additional work provided by sister studios Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Paris, Ubisoft Bucharest, Ubisoft Kyiv and Ubisoft Reflections. The development team was headed by creative director Clint Hocking, who was recruited to assist on the game's creation due to Ubisoft moving development from their studio in Montreal to Toronto, and recruiting developers who had previously worked with him on Far Cry and Far Cry 2.
Upon its reveal at E3 2019, many outlets described the futuristic London setting as post-Brexit, what could potentially happen following the expected departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union. This choice of setting became a point of debate in the media, as there are several political questions related to post-Brexit. Hocking stated that they had come onto the idea of this setting around a year and a half before the actual Brexit vote in 2016, and that while the game does involve Brexit, the intent was not to try to debate the nature of Brexit, but to show and debate elements already existing in the world today that lead to events such as Brexit. On 25 January 2020, Hocking pointed out that, as a "creator of culture", the aim of including real-world elements such as Brexit is to provide a means of engagement for players about the world around them, though with the development team taking considerable thought on how to implement these and other events occurring in the real-world within Legions setting.
Ubisoft partnered with British rapper Stormzy for a special in-game mission named "Fall on My Enemies" that would be available at the game's launch. Stormzy also recorded a music video for "Rainfall", from his album Heavy Is the Head, using motion capture for the game.
The game supports Deep learning super sampling DLSS (Nvidia GPU) and ray tracing technology.
Source leak
In 2020, Legion's 560 GB source was reportedly leaked by hackers on the Dark Web.
Release
Watch Dogs: Legion was teased by Ubisoft via Twitter on 5 June 2019, before its announcement at E3 2019. The game was initially scheduled for release on 6 March 2020, with the Windows versions being exclusive titles for the Epic Games Store over a year-long period, but Ubisoft delayed the launch in October 2019. By July 2020, they announced during their "Ubisoft Forward" event, that the game would be released on 29 October 2020, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Stadia, Windows, and Xbox One. Release dates for versions of the game for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, unveiled during this same announcement, were made over the course of September and October: the Series X/S version was announced as a launch title for the platform after Microsoft confirmed the console's launch date for 10 November 2020; while the PlayStation 5 version was confirmed to release as a digital launch title on 12 November, with a physical copy on 24 November. A version for Amazon Luna was officially announced on 29 October, and was made available on 23 November.
In January 2020, BBC reporter Marc Cieslak conducted an interview with Hocking about the game for Click, which, in a world's first, involved using the studio's motion capture software to allow it to take place within the virtual setting of the game.
Additional content
The game's multiplayer component was initially scheduled for a 3 December release, but was pushed back to early 2021 due to numerous game-breaking glitches and bugs that needed to be fixed. The multiplayer mode was added on 9 March 2021 for most platforms, and 18 March for Microsoft Windows. However, the Tactical Ops missions weren't added until 23 March due to technical issues.
On 4 May 2021, the first major content update for the game was released, adding two new types of playable characters (DJs & First Responders), five special abilities, two gadgets, character customization options, and missions for the multiplayer mode. Season Pass exclusive content included a new mission for the single-player mode, "Swipe Right", and a new playable character, Mina Sidhu, a former test subject who has gained mind control powers. On 1 June, a new series of Tactical Ops and a free character were released. Additionally, a zombie survival horror game mode titled Legion of the Dead was made available in alpha on the Windows version of the game.
A story expansion titled Bloodline was released on 6 July 2021, both individually and as part of the Season Pass. It is a prequel to Legion, set several months before the events of the main game, and features the return of Aiden Pearce, the protagonist of the first Watch Dogs, and Wrench, a main character from Watch Dogs 2, who also become playable in the normal campaign and the online mode. The expansion adds ten story missions, and side content in the form of "Resistance Missions" for Aiden and "Fixer Contracts" for Wrench.
An update released on 24 August 2021 added Assassin's Creed-themed missions, weapons, abilities, and gadgets, as well as a new playable character, Darcy Clarkson, a member of the Assassin Brotherhood, who is available through the Season Pass. The update also introduced two new online game modes, "Invasion" and "Extraction", and a New Game Plus mode titled "Resistance Mode", which allows players to replay the single-player campaign on a higher difficulty while retaining all their previous upgrades. Furthermore, the Legion of the Dead mode was made available on consoles as well. On 30 August, as part of a crossover with the television series Money Heist, Ubisoft added a multiplayer heist mission and outfits based on the disguises worn by the show's protagonists. In January 2022, Ubisoft announced that following the release of update 5.6, the team will cease developing major content updates.
Tie-in media
A Watch Dogs: Legion prequel novel, titled Day Zero, and a companion book, titled Resistance Report, were published by Aconyte Book and Insight Editions, respectively, prior to the game's release. A spin-off comic book series was released monthly beginning in November 2021 by Behemoth in the United States and in two collected editions in France by Glénat. A prequel novel to the Bloodline expansion, titled Stars and Stripes, which follows Aiden Pearce and bridges the gap between the events of Watch Dogs and Legion, was published by Aconyte Books in April 2022.
Reception
Critical response
Watch Dogs: Legion received "mixed or average" reviews from critics, while the Xbox One version received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.
Electronic Gaming Monthly Michael Goroff, who gave one of these reviews, remarked that the game "offers a novel way to experience an open world, with its interconnected NPCs and the introduction of permadeath to the genre", noting that in this aspect the game provided a real relationship between players and the characters they recruited, particularly in ensuring their survival during a playthrough. However, Goroff noted that this aspect had a flaw, pointing out that other NPCs already recruited wouldn't react like allies when the current operative runs into them while dealing with hostiles, and that there were limitations in that players would need to search amongst considerable numbers of NPCs to find those with skills they wanted.
VG247s Lauren Aitken was critical of the background of the game's story and the repetitive nature of missions, noting how their structure remains the same even when the "difficulty suddenly ramps up after the 404 and Skye Larsen storylines", while pointing out that each mission strand's storyline was relatively "short". The lack of uniqueness in the NPCs' accents was also criticised, with Aitken adding that players would mostly find it useful to go primarily for those with hacking skills, due to how much of the game requires these. Overall, they found that the game would be of interest mostly to "Watch Dogs fans and more die-hard anarchists".
On the other hand, IGN's Dan Stapleton praised the diversity of NPCs in the game, remarking that which NPCs the player decides to recruit can have a significant effect on the overall gameplay, and that this diversity enables numerous possibilities and encourages the player to use their creativity. Nevertheless, Stapleton argued that more could have been made of this diversity, and that the game didn't do enough to encourage the player to recruit weaker characters. Similarly, Keza MacDonald of The Guardian declared that the game includes "the most diverse cast in gaming history" and praised the ability to recruit any non-player character but criticised that the characters do not meaningfully interact with one another. Furthermore, she noted that the game's willingness to be political was "refreshing" and commended the "impressively well-written speeches about the forces of populism and the sinister influence of the world's data giants" but noted the disparity between the writing "pantomime evil" of the game's villains, noting that the storyline "doesn't gel with the script or voice acting, which are wacky, stuffed with puns and British slang and of wildly variable quality". She concluded that "unlike the glossy, beautiful, but samey open-worlds that have dominated the genre in the past few years, [Legion] is ambitious, imperfect and unashamedly weird" and gave it 4/5 stars.
Another point of criticism was the game's driving mechanics, which VideoGamer's Josh Wise called "chunky".
Awards
Watch Dogs: Legion was nominated for Innovation in Accessibility at The Game Awards 2020.
Sales
During its first week on sale, Watch Dogs: Legion was the best-selling game in the UK when counting physical and digital sales, the second best-selling retail game in Switzerland at the all-format charts, and the fourth best-selling retail game in Japan at the individual-format charts. 40,962 physical copies of the PlayStation 4 version were sold that week in Japan.
Notes
References
External links
2020 video games
Action-adventure games
Asymmetrical multiplayer video games
Brexit in fiction
Fiction about photography
Crossover video games
Cyberpunk video games
Dystopian video games
Hacking video games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
Open-world video games
Organized crime video games
Parkour video games
PlayStation 4 games
PlayStation 4 Pro enhanced games
PlayStation 5 games
Postcyberpunk
Stadia games
Stealth video games
Ubisoft games
Video game sequels
Video games about mass surveillance
Video games developed in Canada
Video games scored by Stephen Barton
Video games set in 2030
Video games set in London
Windows games
Xbox One games
Xbox One X enhanced games
Xbox Series X and Series S games
Legion | Watch Dogs: Legion | [
"Physics"
] | 6,340 | [
"Asymmetrical multiplayer video games",
"Symmetry",
"Asymmetry"
] |
60,962,370 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebrahim%20Mamdani | Ebrahim (Abe) H. Mamdani (1 June 1942 – 22 January 2010) was a mathematician, computer scientist, electrical engineer and artificial intelligence researcher. He worked at the Imperial College London.
Life
Abe Mamdani was born in Tanzania in June 1942. He was educated in India and in 1966 he went to the UK.
He obtained his PhD at Queen Mary College, University of London. After that he joined its Electrical Engineering Department
In 1975 he introduced a new method of fuzzy inference systems, which was called 'Mamdani-Type Fuzzy Inference'. Mamdani-Type Fuzzy Inference have elements like human instincts, working under the rules of linguistics, and has a fuzzy algorithm that provides an approximation to enter mathematical analysis.
In July 1995, he moved from Queen Mary College to Imperial College London.
Awards and honors
Abe Mamdani was an Emeritus Professor at Imperial College London. He received the "European Fuzzy Pioneer Award" from the European Society for Fuzzy Logic and Technology (EUSFLAT) in 1999, and the "Fuzzy Systems Pioneer Award" from the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society in 2003. He was also a Fellow of the IEEE, the International Fuzzy Systems Association, and of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the IEE in the UK.
References
Control theorists
Fellows of the IEEE
British computer scientists
1942 births
2010 deaths
Artificial intelligence researchers
British logicians
20th-century British mathematicians
Systems scientists
Academics of Imperial College London
Academics of the University of London
Alumni of Queen Mary University of London
Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering
Fellows of the Institution of Electrical Engineers
Tanzanian Ismailis
British Ismailis | Ebrahim Mamdani | [
"Engineering"
] | 321 | [
"Control engineering",
"Control theorists"
] |
60,962,435 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photothermal%20ratio | The photothermal ratio (PTR), also named photothermal quotient, is a variable that characterizes the amount of light available to plants relative to the temperature level. It is used in plant biology to characterize the growth environment of plants.
Rationale
Both light and temperature are important environmental variables that determine the growth and development of plants. Light is especially important in driving photosynthesis and producing sugars. Temperature is a strong driver of cell division, where available sugars are converted to produce new leaf, stem, root or reproductive biomass. As such, both are important factors – along with nutrient and water availability – in determining the source:sink balance of a plant, the amount of sugar available for plant in relation to its growth potential. The photothermal ratio is a quantitative descriptor that can be used to approximate this balance.
Calculation and units
The photothermal ratio is calculated by dividing the Daily Light Integral (photosynthetic photon flux density integrated over a day; DLI) plants are exposed to by a baseline daily temperature(Tb). PTR = DLI / Tb. Units are therefore mol quanta m−2 day−1 °C−1. Alternatively, the number of degree days have been used rather than Tb per se, with units of the form mol degree-day−1. The PTR concept has been introduced in detailed studies of growth and productivity of a particular species. For these species, a baseline temperature Tb is chosen for which it is known than no leaf elongation takes place below that temperature, which for many temperate species will be a temperature around 5 °C.
In characterizing the growth environment of a broad range of plants without reference to any specific species, Tb has been taken to be zero °C.
Normal ranges
The photothermal ratio is relatively constant over the year in the tropics, with lowland values around 1.3 mol m−2 day−1 °C−1. At higher latitudes PTR changes with seasons, being high in spring, and low in autumn. Averaged over the growing season, PTR values are around 3 in boreal zones, and around 2 in temperate zones. Plants growing in glasshouses often grow at a PTR of ~1, experiments with Arabidopsis are often carried out at a PTR around 0.2.
Effects on plants
Many effects that have been ascribed to light are actually dependent on temperature as well. For example, strong stem elongation at low light will only take place when temperatures are high, but not when temperatures are close to 0 °C. In wheat, PTR in the month before anthesis strongly determines the number of kernels. In horticulture, plants grown at a high PTR generally have thicker stems, shorter internodes and more flowers, and therefore have higher marketable yield.
See also
Daily light integral
Climate
References
Plants
Light
Botany | Photothermal ratio | [
"Physics",
"Biology"
] | 576 | [
"Physical phenomena",
"Spectrum (physical sciences)",
"Plants",
"Electromagnetic spectrum",
"Waves",
"Light",
"Botany"
] |
60,962,477 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%204694 | NGC 4694 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Virgo. Its velocity with respect to the cosmic microwave background is 1481 ± 23km/s, which corresponds to a Hubble distance of . However, six non redshift measurements give a distance of . The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on March 15, 1784.
According to the SIMBAD database, NGC 4694 has an Active Galaxy Nucleus, i.e. it has a compact region at the center of a galaxy that emits a significant amount of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, with characteristics indicating that this luminosity is not produced by the stars.
M49 Group
According to A.M. Garcia, NGC 4694 is one of 127 galaxies in the M49 group (also known as LGG 292). This group includes 63 galaxies from the New General Catalogue, including NGC 4382 (M85), NGC 4472 (M49), NGC 4516, NGC 4649 (M60) and 20 galaxies from the Index Catalogue.
See also
List of NGC objects (4001–5000)
Gallery
References
External links
Lenticular galaxies
Virgo (constellation)
4694
043241
+02-33-023
07969
12457+1115
17840315
Discoveries by William Herschel | NGC 4694 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 269 | [
"Virgo (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
64,450,643 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V957%20Scorpii | V957 Scorpii is a variable star in the constellation of Scorpius. It is a blue straggler in the open cluster Messier 7, a star that is unexpectedly hot compared to other members of the cluster. A 6th magnitude star, it is faintly visible to the naked eye under very good observing conditions.
Spectrum
V957 Scorpii shows a peculiar B5 or B6 spectrum. Its luminosity class has been given as main sequence (V), subgiant (IV), giant (III), and supergiant (Ib). From its position in the H-R diagram, it is actually thought to be a main sequence star. With a helium abundance 25 times lower than that of the sun, it is classified as helium-weak. It also has a low carbon abundance and a strong magnetic field.
Messier 7
Messier 7 is a naked eye open cluster. Except for one obvious orange giant star, its brightest members are mostly early A and late B main sequence stars and giants. Several of them are also chemically peculiar stars. However, two stars are hotter than the others and lie to the left of the isochrone for the cluster. These are the blue stragglers HD 162586 and V957 Scorpii. V957 Scorpii is considered 92% likely to be a member of M7. M7 has an age around 220 million years, but the apparent age of V957 Scorpii is less than 100 million years.
Variability
V957 Scorpii varies in brightness by about 0.05 magnitudes. This is thought to be due to its rotation and variations in its surface brightness. It is classified as an SX Arietis variable, also known as helium variables. Their spectral lines also vary as the stars rotate.
References
B-type giants
SX Arietis variables
Scorpius
162374
Scorpii, V957
087460
Durchmusterung objects
6647 | V957 Scorpii | [
"Astronomy"
] | 417 | [
"Scorpius",
"Constellations"
] |
64,450,867 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vobtusine | Vobtusine is an alkaloid found in several different plants in the genus Voacanga.
See also
Apparicine
Affinisine
Voacamine
Lochnericine
References
Indole alkaloids
Alkaloids found in Apocynaceae | Vobtusine | [
"Chemistry"
] | 54 | [
"Alkaloids by chemical classification",
"Indole alkaloids"
] |
64,454,850 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAT-P-23 | HAT-P-23 is a G-type main-sequence star 1192 light-years away. It has a rapid rotation (rotation period equal to 7 days) for its advanced age of 4 billion years, and exhibits a strong starspot activity. The star may be in the process of being spun up by the giant planet on close orbit. The star is enriched in heavy elements, having about 140% amount of metals compared to solar abundance.
Naming
In 2019, the HAT-P-23 star has received a proper name Moriah and planet HAT-P-23b - Jebus at an international NameExoWorlds contest. These names mean the ancient name of the mount at the center of Jerusalem city, and ancient (pre-Roman) name of Jerusalem itself, respectively.
Planetary system
In 2010 a transiting hot Jupiter like planet was detected. It has a measured dayside temperature of 2154 K. The planet is believed to be on an unstable orbit, and expected to be engulfed by its parent star about 7.5 million years from now, although timing measurements of multiple transits since the discovery have been unable to detect any reduction in the orbital period. The planetary orbit is probably aligned with the equatorial plane of the star, misalignment equal to 15°. The color of planetary atmosphere is grey. The atmosphere is mostly devoid of clouds, and shows tentatively a presence of Titanium(II) oxide.
References
Delphinus
G-type main-sequence stars
Planetary systems with one confirmed planet
Planetary transit variables
J20242972+1645437 | HAT-P-23 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 320 | [
"Delphinus",
"Constellations"
] |
64,456,774 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How%20Round%20Is%20Your%20Circle%3F | How Round Is Your Circle? Where Engineering and Mathematics Meet is a book on the mathematics of physical objects, for a popular audience. It was written by chemical engineer John Bryant and mathematics educator Chris Sangwin, and published by the Princeton University Press in 2008.
Topics
The book has 13 chapters, whose topics include:
Lines, the thickness of physically drawn or cut lines, and the problem of testing straightness of physical objects
The construction of physical measuring and calculating devices including rulers, protractors, pantographs, planimeters, integrators, and slide rules
Mechanical linkages, pantographs, four-bar linkages, and the problem of converting rotary to linear motion, solved by the Peaucellier–Lipkin linkage and by Hart's inversor
Geometric dissections, straightedge and compass constructions, angle trisection, and mathematical origami
The catenary and the tractrix, curves formed from physical forces, and their use in bridges and bearings
Approximation by rational numbers, discretization and pixelization, gear ratios, and the approximations involved in calendar systems
The roundness of objects, non-circular objects of constant width, including the Reuleaux triangle and certain coins, and their use in drilling square holes
Stability and mechanical equilibrium of objects, overhanging objects and the block-stacking problem, supereggs, and objects with only one stable resting position (unfortunately not including the Gömböc, which was discovered too recently to be included)
The book emphasizes the construction of physical models, and includes many plates of the authors' own models, detailed construction plans, and illustrations.
Audience and reception
Doug Manchester characterizes the topic of the book as "recreational engineering". It only requires a standard background in mathematics including basic geometry, trigonometry, and a small amount of calculus. Owen Smith calls it "a great book for engineers and mathematicians, as well as the interested lay person", writing that it is particularly good at laying bare the mathematical foundations of seemingly-simple problems. Similarly, Ronald Huston recommends it to "mathematicians, engineers, and physicists", as well as interested members of the general public.
Matthew Killeya writes approvingly of the book's intuitive explanations for its calculations and the motivation it adds to the mathematics it applies.
However, although reviewer Tim Erickson calls the book "exuberant and eclectic", reviewers Andrew Whelan and William Satzer disagree, both finding fault with the book's lack of focus.
References
Applied mathematics
Mathematics books
2008 non-fiction books | How Round Is Your Circle? | [
"Mathematics"
] | 520 | [
"Applied mathematics"
] |
64,456,956 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solemoviridae | Solemoviridae is a family of non-enveloped, positive-strand RNA viruses which infect plants. Solemoviridae is a member of the order Sobelivirales.
Structure
Member viruses are non-enveloped and have a viral capsid with T=3 symmetry.
Genome
Solemoviruses have a positive-sense, single-strand RNA genome. The length of the genome is 4652 bp. The 3' terminus does not have a polyA-tail. The 5' terminus has a genome-linked viral protein (VPg).
Taxonomy
The family contains four genera and seven species unassigned to a genus:
Genera:
Enamovirus
Polemovirus
Polerovirus
Sobemovirus
Species unassigned to a genus:
Barley yellow dwarf virus GPV
Barley yellow dwarf virus SGV
Chickpea stunt disease associated virus
Groundnut rosette assistor virus
Indonesian soybean dwarf virus
Sweet potato leaf speckling virus
Tobacco necrotic dwarf virus
References
Sobemoviruses
Virus families | Solemoviridae | [
"Biology"
] | 205 | [
"Virus stubs",
"Viruses"
] |
64,457,494 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20medieval%20churches%20on%20Gotland | There are 92 well-preserved churches from the Middle Ages on the Swedish island of Gotland, more than in any other part of Sweden and unusually many compared with other parts of Europe. Benefiting from its location in the middle of the Baltic Sea, the island enjoyed an increase in wealth thanks to expanding trade between Western and Eastern Europe, giving the inhabitants the means to build large and prestigious churches. The preserved churches date from between the early 12th century and the middle of the 14th century. The first churches were stave churches, but of these only fragments remain. The oldest substantially preserved churches on Gotland are simple Romanesque churches. Church architecture remained conservative on Gotland, and, while Gothic forms eventually replaced Romanesque, it never acquired the structurally light character it did elsewhere in Europe. The churches built during the first half of the 14th century on Gotland are sometimes referred to as "counter-Gothic" () in Swedish literature.
The churches were often decorated inside with paintings on walls and vaults and stained-glass windows, as well as decorative sculptures both inside and outside. In the Gothic period particularly, the portals of the churches were adorned with stone sculptures. Workshops specialising in the production of decorated baptismal fonts established themselves on Gotland during the 12th century and supplied the churches with fonts, which in many cases still exist in the churches. Wooden sculptures were also produced from an early time, including rood crosses and sculptures of saints like the Viklau Madonna.
In the middle of the 14th century, Gotland entered a period of decline and turmoil, and suffered a loss of trade from which the island would never recover. No new churches were built on the island after around 1350. In Visby, only Visby Cathedral was maintained, while other churches, of which there were at least twelve, were left to decay. The systematic study of the churches on Gotland began in the 19th century.
Background
The Christianisation of Scandinavia, whereby Norse religion was gradually replaced by Christianity, began in the 9th century. During the 11th century, a church organisation with bishops and dioceses was established, and Norse religion was finally abandoned. Gotland became a part of the Diocese of Linköping, probably during the middle of the 12th century, and would remain so until the creation of the Diocese of Visby in 1572. Thanks to its location within the Baltic Sea, Gotland benefited economically from an increase in trade between Eastern and Western Europe during the Middle Ages giving the inhabitants the financial means to construct large, prestigious churches.
The first churches on Gotland were wooden stave churches, but they were used for a relatively short time before stone churches began to replace them. Traces of around ten stave churches have been found on Gotland. The most well-preserved remains are those of Hemse stave church, whose timber had been re-used as floor boards in a later stone church. Wooden churches were built over a time span of a bit less than 100 years, 1120–1200. These first churches were probably not parish churches in the modern sense, but erected on private initiative adjacent to rich farmsteads by members of the local elite. (However, Gotland differed from much of Europe in that there was no land-owning aristocracy of the island.) Later, church building became a communal undertaking, where several peasants joined forces to finance a church. In the Hanseatic town of Visby the situation differed from that in the countryside. There, many of the churches were constructed by religious orders, confraternities or foreign merchants; present-day Visby Cathedral originally served the German traders of the city. More churches were eventually built in Visby than in any other city in medieval Sweden, and there were at least 12 churches within the city wall. Only Visby Cathedral remains, the rest having been preserved as ruins only.
Architecture
The first stone churches on Gotland were built in the first half of the 12th century. They were simple Romanesque churches. They were constructed without a socle or base, and had undecorated, narrow, round-arched portals. Sometimes they were decorated with friezes of reliefs depicting religious or possibly mythological subjects; some of these have been preserved by being re-used and incorporated in later, Gothic structures. These earliest churches display stylistic influences from both Western and Eastern Europe, the latter especially evident in the Russo-Byzantine church murals in Garde Church. During the second half of the 12th century, stylistic tendencies shifted decisively towards Western Europe. The construction site of Lund Cathedral in Scania spread influences from present-day Germany. The establishment of the Cistercian Roma Abbey on Gotland in 1164 would have a lasting influence on church architecture on Gotland, which came to incorporate several elements from Cistercian architecture. These include both certain notable details, such as chancels lacking apses, with straight walls facing east containing three lancet windows, but also a general tendency towards a relatively austere architecture. Inside, these churches were probably all decorated with murals, but very few of these have been preserved. A greater number of Romanesque furnishings have been preserved. Workshops specialising in making sculpted baptismal fonts were established on Gotland during the 12th century and not only supplied the churches on Gotland with decorated fonts, but also exported fonts to the entire Baltic region. Several of these workshops have been given notnames by later art historians, such as Majestatis and Byzantios, while other labels, such as Sigraf and Hegvald, derive from inscriptions found on the fonts. A number of wooden sculptures have also been preserved from this time, including the Viklau Madonna, one of the most well-preserved 12th-century wooden sculptures in Europe, and a number of rood crosses from the same workshop.
A boom in church building began on Gotland around 1225. New churches were erected and older churches were rebuilt. During this period, a local variant of Gothic architecture would replace the earlier Romanesque style. The churches became considerably larger, with vaults supported by pillars and divided into several bays. Apses were no longer built. Another peculiarity is that the north side of the churches almost always lacked windows; whether for practical, religious or superstitious reasons is not known. Stylistically, a conservative Early Gothic style, still strongly reminiscent of Romanesque through its heavy volumes and often round arches, would prevail until the end of the 13th century. Influences came from Westphalia, conveyed via Visby, an indication of the trade connections of the time. At the end of the 13th and early 14th century the style shifted towards what is often referred to as High Gothic In contrast to earlier churches, these churches have decidedly Gothic forms such as larger, pointed arch windows and more slender pillars supporting higher vaults. Several of them are decorated with murals. Also more stained glass windows are preserved from this period, and the churches of Gotland contain the largest amount of medieval stained glass in Sweden, with Lye Church containing the largest intact set in the Nordic countries. From 1320 until around 1360, the last great building period took place on Gotland. Stylistically, there is a change towards a heavier architecture, which in Swedish literature sometimes is referred to as "counter-Gothic" (). While purely Gothic in details such as windows and portals, the architecture does not strive for lighter volumes and soaring heights, with walls dissolved into large expanses of windows supported by buttresses and pilasters. Structurally, the churches instead again tended towards more closed-in, darker spaces and heavier volumes. During the entire Gothic period, the main portals of the churches were often richly decorated. During the Early and High Gothic period, this decoration often consisted of stylised floral decoration. During the 14th century, the decoration became more profuse and also narrative, often depicting religious or mythological scenes on the capitals of the portal columns. These sculptures were originally painted in vivid colours. The church towers erected during this period are also considerably taller than before. A single workshop, today known by its notname as after some of the sculptures that have features vaguely reminiscent of the art of ancient Egypt, appears to have been employed in a large number of churches.
In the middle of the 14th century, Gotland entered a period of economic decline and a loss in trade from which it would never recover. At the same time, the Black Death struck Gotland in 1350. The invasion of Gotland by Valdemar IV of Denmark and the Battle of Visby (1361) led to further disruptions. All these factors appear to have contributed to decreasing building activity, even though it remains difficult to pinpoint exact causes and effects in the building histories of individual churches. Many churches were left unfinished, and the abrupt halt in construction is often still visible in the buildings. Archaeologist Anders Andrén writes that it is "as if the stone masons had left the construction site for the day and never returned". Many churches on Gotland thus have a peculiar form, where often the chancel is disproportionally large in comparison with the rest of the church. In such cases, a planned reconstruction of the entire church had started during the 14th century with the chancel, but was brought to a halt before the whole reconstruction scheme could be finished.
After the second half of the 14th century, no new churches were built on Gotland. Inside, some churches did receive further embellishment in the form of new altarpieces or murals into the 15th and 16th centuries. Following the Reformation, changes in the liturgy led to the installation of new types of fittings, including pulpits and different kinds of altarpieces. Many altarpieces were made locally in Burgsvik during the 17th century and today often give a Baroque touch to the medieval churches. While the churches on Gotland have attracted interest since at least the 17th century, a more scientific approach to them started only during the 19th century. Art historian Johnny Roosval presented a first systematic study in Die Kirchen Gotlands ("The churches of Gotland"), published in German in 1911. Roosval dated the different churches on Gotland mainly on stylistic grounds. The timeline he established has subsequently been revised in individual cases, both by Roosval and by others. Overall, Roosval's assumptions about the age of the churches on Gotland are still widely accepted. Archaeological examinations in connection with renovations of the churches in particular during the 20th century served to further tweak the dates in individual cases but also to confirm the overall timeline. In a few cases where contemporary scientific methods have been used to examine the churches, radiocarbon dating and to a lesser extent dendrochronology have also lent some support to the established timeline.
The churches
See also
List of churches and chapels on Gotland
References
Works cited
Further reading
External links
Sweden religion-related lists
Gotland
Architecture lists
Gotland, Mediaeval
Churches on Gotland
Gotland | List of medieval churches on Gotland | [
"Engineering"
] | 2,206 | [
"Architecture lists",
"Architecture"
] |
64,458,178 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combination%20antibiotic | A combination antibiotic is one in which two ingredients are added together for additional therapeutic effect. One or both ingredients may be antibiotics.
Antibiotic combinations are increasingly important because of antimicrobial resistance. This means that individual antibiotics that used to be effective are no longer effective, and because of the absence of new classes of antibiotic, they allow old antibiotics to be continue to be used. In particular, they may be required to treat multiresistant organisms, such as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae. Some combinations are more likely to result in successful treatment of an infection.
Uses
Antibiotics are used in combination for a number of reasons:
to treat multiresistant organisms, such as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae.
Amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, which includes the beta lactam amoxicillin with the suicide inhibitor clauvanic acid, which helps the amoxicillin overcome the action of beta lactamase
because a person may be infected with more than one microbe simultaneously, for example infections of the abdominal cavity after bowel perforation.
because antibiotics used together may act synergistically to increase the efficacy of both,
because antibiotics used together may have a broader spectrum than each antibiotic used individually.
Examples
Examples of combinations include:
Amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, which includes the beta lactam amoxicillin with the suicide inhibitor clauvanic acid, which helps the amoxicillin overcome the action of beta lactamase
Trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole
Research
Research into combination antibiotics is ongoing.
References
Antibiotics | Combination antibiotic | [
"Biology"
] | 338 | [
"Antibiotics",
"Biocides",
"Biotechnology products"
] |
64,458,750 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applications%20of%20sensitivity%20analysis%20in%20epidemiology | Sensitivity analysis studies the relation between the uncertainty and the uncertainties in the model assumptions. Sensitivity analysis can play an important role in epidemiology, for example in assessing the influence of the unmeasured confounding on the causal conclusions of a study. It is also important in all mathematical modelling studies of epidemics.
Sensitivity analysis can be used in epidemiology, for example in assessing the influence of the unmeasured confounding on the causal conclusions of a study. The use of sensitivity analysis in mathematical modelling of infectious disease is suggested in on the Coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak. Given the significant uncertainty at play, the use of sensitivity analysis to apportion the output uncertainty into input parameters is crucial in the context of Decision-making. Examples of applications of sensitivity analysis to modelling of COVID-19 are and. in particular, the time of intervention time in containing the pandemic spread is identified as a key parameter.
References
Mathematical modeling
Mathematical analysis
Epidemiology | Applications of sensitivity analysis in epidemiology | [
"Mathematics",
"Environmental_science"
] | 205 | [
"Mathematical analysis",
"Mathematical modeling",
"Applied mathematics",
"Epidemiology",
"Environmental social science"
] |
64,459,170 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video%20imprint%20%28computer%20vision%29 | Proposed as an extension of image epitomes in the field of video content analysis, video imprint is obtained by recasting video contents into a fixed-sized tensor representation regardless of video resolution or duration. Specifically, statistical characteristics are retained to some degrees so that common video recognition tasks can be carried out directly on such imprints, e.g., event retrieval, temporal action localization. It is claimed that both spatio-temporal interdependences are accounted for and redundancies are mitigated during the computation of video imprints.
The option of computing video imprints exploiting the epitome model has the advantage of more flexible input feature formats and more efficient training stage for video content analysis.
See also
Epitome (data processing)
Image epitomes
References
Data processing
Image processing
Computer vision | Video imprint (computer vision) | [
"Technology",
"Engineering"
] | 167 | [
"Packaging machinery",
"Computer science stubs",
"Computer science",
"Artificial intelligence engineering",
"Computing stubs",
"Computer vision"
] |
54,570,531 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MK-386 | MK-386, also known as 4,7β-dimethyl-4-aza-5α-cholestan-3-one, is a synthetic, steroidal 5α-reductase inhibitor which was first reported in 1994 and was never marketed. It is a 4-azasteroid and a potent and selective inhibitor of 5α-reductase type I and shows high selectivity for inhibition of human 5α-reductase type I over 5α-reductase type II, with IC50 values of 0.9 nM and 154 nM, respectively. The drug was under investigation for potential treatment of androgen-dependent conditions such as acne and pattern hair loss (androgenic alopecia or baldness), but was discontinued in early clinical trials due to observations of hepatotoxicity such as elevated liver enzymes.
MK-386 has been found to decrease circulating concentrations of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) in men by 20 to 30%, which is in accordance with the fact that 5α-reductase type II is responsible for 70 to 80% of DHT production while 5α-reductase type I is responsible for 20 to 30%. In contrast to MK-386, the selective 5α-reductase type II inhibitor finasteride has been found to decrease DHT levels by about 70%, while the non-selective 5α-reductase inhibitor dutasteride decreases DHT levels by up to 98%. Co-administration of MK-386 and finasteride was found to produce near-complete (~95%) suppression of circulating DHT levels.
MK-386 has been found to significantly decrease concentrations of DHT in sebum, similarly to the selective 5α-reductase type II inhibitor finasteride. However, whereas finasteride results in only a modest reduction in sebum DHT levels of 15%, MK-386 has been found to produce a significantly greater reduction of 55%. While finasteride decreases semen DHT levels by approximately 88%, MK-386 has been found to have no effect on levels of DHT in semen. These findings are in accordance with the known tissue distribution of 5α-reductase isoforms.
MK-386 was assessed in the treatment of acne but failed to separate from placebo in effectiveness and was significantly inferior to antibiotic therapy with minocycline. In addition, the addition of MK-386 to minocycline failed to increase effectiveness relative to minocycline alone. A study of MK-386 treatment for one year in stumptail macaques found that the drug failed to increase scalp hair weight in a model of androgenic alopecia, in contrast to finasteride.
References
5α-Reductase_inhibitors
Abandoned drugs
Cholestanes | MK-386 | [
"Chemistry"
] | 605 | [
"Drug safety",
"Abandoned drugs"
] |
54,571,234 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunza%20diet | The Hunza cuisine, also called the Burusho cuisine (), consists of a series of selective food and drink intake practiced by the Burusho people (also called the Hunza people) of northern Pakistan. Alternative medicine and natural health advocates have argued without providing any scientific evidence that the Hunza diet can increase longevity to 120 years. The diet mostly consists of raw food including nuts, fresh vegetables, dry vegetables, mint, fruits and seeds added with yogurt. The cooked meal, daal included with chappati, is included for dinner.
Longevity myth
In the 1930s, Swiss-German physician Ralph Bircher conducted research on the Hunza diet. In his book about the Hunza, Jay Hoffman argued that, by the ratio to cats, dogs and horses, humans should live up to 120 to 150 years, and argues the Hunza diet to be the key to this longevity. Such ideas also promoted by natural health advocates have been discredited. There is no reliable documentation validating the age of alleged Hunza supercentenarians.
In 2005, the Encyclopedia of World Geography stated that "to date there is no credible evidence that determines that the Hunzakut diet of old, not to mention the current diet of the past four decades, contributes to longevity."
Another myth associated with the Hunza people is that because their diet is alleged to be high in apricot seeds they are free from disease. This has proven to be untrue as medical scientists have found that the Hunzas suffer from a variety of disease including cancer.
See also
Longevity myths
Pakistani cuisine
References
Further reading
Kinji Imanishi. (1963). Personality and Health in Hunza Valley. Kyoto University.
Gerontology
Hunza
Longevity myths
Nutrient-rich, low calorie diets
Pakistani cuisine | Hunza diet | [
"Biology"
] | 367 | [
"Gerontology"
] |
54,572,000 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%207073 | NGC 7073 is a spiral galaxy located about 230 million light-years away in the constellation of Capricornus. NGC 7073 was discovered by astronomer Albert Marth on August 25, 1864.
See also
List of NGC objects (7001–7840)
NGC 7019
References
External links
Spiral galaxies
Capricornus
7073
66847
Astronomical objects discovered in 1864
Markarian galaxies | NGC 7073 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 83 | [
"Capricornus",
"Constellations"
] |
54,572,283 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE%20Std%20260.1-2004 | IEEE Std 260.1-2004 was a standard from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers that provided standard letter symbols for units of measurement for use in all applications in multiple contexts. It has been withdrawn.
It covers primarily SI units and customary inch–pound units. The symbols are sorted in alphabetical order of name from ampere (symbol A) to zetta (symbol Z), including barrel (symbol bbl), bit (symbol b), foot (symbol ft), inch (symbol in), microinch (symbol μin), kibibyte (symbol KiB), kilowatthour (symbol kWh), quart (symbol qt), slug (symbol slug) and year (symbol a). In some cases the same symbol is used for different units. Examples are the symbols B (for bel and byte), Gb (for gigabit and gilbert), L (for liter and lambert) and rad (for rad and radian).
See also
ISO 80000
References
IEEE standards
Units of measurement | IEEE Std 260.1-2004 | [
"Mathematics",
"Technology"
] | 220 | [
"Computer standards",
"Quantity",
"IEEE standards",
"Units of measurement"
] |
54,572,661 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOI8-B | KOI8-B is the informal name for an 8-bit Roman / Cyrillic character set constituting the common subset of the major KOI-8 variants (KOI8-R, KOI8-U, KOI8-RU, KOI8-E, KOI8-F). Accordingly, it is closely related to KOI8-R, but defines only the letter subset in the upper half. As such it was implemented by some font vendors for PC Unixes like Xenix in the late 1980s.
Character set
The following table shows the KOI8-B encoding. Each character is shown with its equivalent Unicode code point.
See also
KOI character encodings
References
External links
http://czyborra.com/charsets/koi8-b.txt.gz
http://czyborra.com/charsets/koi8-b.bdf.gz
Character sets
Computing in the Soviet Union | KOI8-B | [
"Technology"
] | 206 | [
"Computing in the Soviet Union",
"History of computing"
] |
54,572,724 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workshop%20on%20Numerical%20Ranges%20and%20Numerical%20Radii | Workshop on Numerical Ranges and Numerical Radii (WONRA) is a biennial workshop series on numerical ranges and numerical radii which began in 1992.
About
Numerical ranges and numerical radii are useful in the study of matrix and operator theory.
These topics have applications in many subjects in pure and applied mathematics, such as
quadratic forms, Banach spaces, dilation theory, control theory, numerical analysis, quantum information science.
History
In the early 1970s, numerical range workshops were organized by Frank Bonsall and John Duncan. More activities were started in early 1990s, including the biennial workshop series, which began in 1992,
and special issues devoted to this workshop were published.
Workshops
Symposium in conferences
References
External links
WONRA 2008 – Williamsburg, VA, USA
WONRA 2010 – Krakow, Poland
WONRA 2012 – Kaohsiung, Taiwan
WONRA 2014 – Sanya, China
WONRA 2016 – Taipei, Taiwan
WONRA 2018 – Munich, Germany
WONRA 2019 - Kawagoe, Japan
WONRA 2023 - Coimbra, Portugal
Mathematics conferences
Matrix theory
Operator theory
Functional analysis
Mathematical analysis | Workshop on Numerical Ranges and Numerical Radii | [
"Mathematics"
] | 223 | [
"Mathematical analysis",
"Functions and mappings",
"Functional analysis",
"Mathematical objects",
"Mathematical relations"
] |
54,572,993 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian%20M.%20Hoffman | Brian M. Hoffman (born August 7, 1941 in Chicago) is an American bioinorganic and physical chemist.
Career
Hoffman is a graduate of Lane Tech High School in Chicago and then studied chemistry at the University of Chicago receiving a bachelor's degree in 1962 and at Caltech with a PhD in chemistry in 1966 under the direction of Harden M. McConnell. Hoffman was briefly a postdoctoral scholar with Alexander Rich at MIT. In 1967 he started his appointment at Northwestern University, where he has remained throughout his career.
Research and recognition
Using electron-nuclear double-resonance (ENDOR) spectroscopy, Hoffman has investigated many enzyme mechanisms. Subject of this work include nitric oxide synthase, cytochrome P450, nickel-iron hydrogenase, and nitrogenase.
In 2012, he received the Joseph Chatt Award, in 2013 the F. A. Cotton Medal. He also received the Bruker Award He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (2006), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2002) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1983). He was a Sloan Fellow.
References
External links
Faculty page
1941 births
21st-century American chemists
American inorganic chemists
University of Chicago alumni
California Institute of Technology alumni
Northwestern University faculty
Scientists from Chicago
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Living people | Brian M. Hoffman | [
"Chemistry"
] | 280 | [
"American inorganic chemists",
"Inorganic chemists"
] |
54,573,792 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loweomyces%20fractipes | Loweomyces fractipes is a species of poroid fungus in the family Steccherinaceae, and the type species of the genus Loweomyces. It is a widely distributed species, found in North America, Europe, Central America, South America, and Korea.
Taxonomy
The fungus was originally described in 1872 as Polypores fractipes by Miles Berkeley and Moses Ashley Curtis. The type specimens had been sent to Berkeley by American botanist Henry William Ravenel. It has been transferred to many different polypore genera in its taxonomic history. William Murrill moved it to Grifola in 1904, while it was later transferred to Abortiporus (Bondartsev, 1959), Heteroporus (Fidalgo, 1969), and Spongipellis (Kotlaba & Pouzar, 1976). In 1982, Walter Jülich transferred it to Loweomyces, originally a subgenus of Spongipellis but elevated to generic status by Jülich.
Heterotypic synonyms (having different types) of Loweomyces fractipes include Abortiporus tropicalis Murrill (1910), Polyporus delicatus Berk. & M.A.Curtis (1872), and Polyporus humilis Peck (1874).
Description
The fruit bodies of Loweomyces fractipes can be quite variable in form. The stipe is placed centrally to laterally, dimidiate with fan- to kidney-shaped caps or almost effused-reflexed, 1–4 cm wide, 1–5 mm thick, soft when fresh, brittle when dry. The upper surface of the cap is white in young specimens, but becomes yellowish with age, at first finely tomentose, with age more adpressed and semi-glabrous, often somewhat wrinkled, usually azonate. When the stipe is present it is white to yellowish, measuring up to 4 cm long, and it is cylindric to flattened and expanded towards the cap. The colour of the pore surface is white to cream, and consists of tiny, angular pores numbering 4–5 per millimetre. The context in cap and stipe are white and comprise two layers: a hard inner or lower layer that is covered with a much looser layer, which may be agglutinated on the surface with age. The tube layer is the same colour as the pore surface, and up to 3 mm thick.
The hyphal system is monomitic, containing only generative hyphae. These hyphae have clamp connections, which in the subhymenium and trama are thin-walled and 3–5 μm in diameter. In the context and especially the stipe, the hyphae are much more thick-walled and reminiscent of skeletal hyphae, but with scattered clamps. These hyphae are interpreted by Ryvarden as sclerified generative hyphae. Cystidia are variably present in the hymenium. They are often difficult to observe during microscopy. Their shape is ventricose to cylindrical, and they are thin-walled, measuring 15–25 by 5–6.5 μm. The basidia are broadly club-shaped, and have four sterigmata. They have a basal clamp, and measure 15–20 by 6–9 μm. The shape of the spores ranges from broadly ellipsoid to egg-shaped to more or less spherical, and measure 4.5–6 by 4–5 μm. They are slightly thick-walled, smooth, hyaline (translucent), and are non-reactive with Melzer's reagent.
Habitat and distribution
Loweomyces fractipes is found in Europe, North America, Costa Rica, South America (Brazil), and Korea.
References
Fungi described in 1872
Fungi of Asia
Fungi of Europe
Fungi of Central America
Fungi of North America
Fungi of South America
Taxa named by Miles Joseph Berkeley
Taxa named by Moses Ashley Curtis
Fungus species | Loweomyces fractipes | [
"Biology"
] | 824 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
54,575,530 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Fran%C3%A7ois%20Quint | Jean-François Quint is a French mathematician, specializing in dynamical systems theory for homogeneous spaces.
He studied at the École normale supérieure de Lyon and then received his Ph.D. from École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris under Yves Benoist with Thèse de Doctorat: Sous-groupes discrets des groupes de Lie semi-simples réels et p-adiques.
In 2002 he joined the faculty of the Institut Camille Jordan as Chargé de recherche of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). In 2005 he joined the staff working on "Ergodic theory and dynamics systems" of Laboratoire Analyse, Géométrie et Applications (LAGA) at the Institut Galilée of the University of Paris 13. Since 2012 he has worked as CNRS Directeur de recherche at the University of Bordeaux.
In 2011, Yves Benoist and Jean-François Quint received the Clay Research Award for their collaborative research (and Jonathan Pila also received the 2011 Clay Research Award for unrelated research).
Selected publications
Mesures de Patterson-Sullivan en rang supérieur. Geom. Funct. Anal. 12 (2002), no. 4, 776–809.
with Benoist: Mesures stationnaires et fermés invariants des espaces homogènes, Parts 1,2, Comptes Rendus Mathématiques, vol. 347, 2009, pp. 9–13, vol. 349, 2011, pp. 341–345; and Annals of Mathematics, vol. 174, 2011, pp. 1111–1162
with Benoist: Random walks on finite volume homogeneous spaces, Inventiones Mathematicae, vol. 187, 2012, pp. 37–59
with Benoist: Stationary measures and invariant subsets of homogeneous spaces (II). J. Amer. Math. Soc. 26 (2013), no. 3, 659–734.
with Benoist: Stationary measures and invariant subsets of homogeneous spaces (III). Ann. of Math. (2) 178 (2013), no. 3, 1017–1059.
with Benoist:
References
External links
Jean-François Quint - Institut de Mathématiques de Bordeaux website
Jean-François Quint - 1/6 Mesures stationnaires et fermés invariants des espaces homogènes, YouTube
Jean-François Quint - 2/6 Mesures stationnaires et fermés invariants des espaces homogènes
Jean-François Quint - 3/6 Mesures stationnaires et fermés invariants des espaces homogènes
Jean-François Quint - 4/6 Mesures stationnaires et fermés invariants des espaces homogènes
Jean-François Quint - 5/6 Mesures stationnaires et fermés invariants des espaces homogènes
Jean-François Quint - 6/6 Mesures stationnaires et fermés invariants des espaces homogènes
21st-century French mathematicians
Dynamical systems theorists
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people) | Jean-François Quint | [
"Mathematics"
] | 676 | [
"Dynamical systems theorists",
"Dynamical systems"
] |
54,575,571 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explainable%20artificial%20intelligence | Explainable AI (XAI), often overlapping with interpretable AI, or explainable machine learning (XML), is a field of research within artificial intelligence (AI) that explores methods that provide humans with the ability of intellectual oversight over AI algorithms. The main focus is on the reasoning behind the decisions or predictions made by the AI algorithms, to make them more understandable and transparent. This addresses users' requirement to assess safety and scrutinize the automated decision making in applications. XAI counters the "black box" tendency of machine learning, where even the AI's designers cannot explain why it arrived at a specific decision.
XAI hopes to help users of AI-powered systems perform more effectively by improving their understanding of how those systems reason. XAI may be an implementation of the social right to explanation. Even if there is no such legal right or regulatory requirement, XAI can improve the user experience of a product or service by helping end users trust that the AI is making good decisions. XAI aims to explain what has been done, what is being done, and what will be done next, and to unveil which information these actions are based on. This makes it possible to confirm existing knowledge, challenge existing knowledge, and generate new assumptions.
Machine learning (ML) algorithms used in AI can be categorized as white-box or black-box. White-box models provide results that are understandable to experts in the domain. Black-box models, on the other hand, are extremely hard to explain and may not be understood even by domain experts. XAI algorithms follow the three principles of transparency, interpretability, and explainability. A model is transparent "if the processes that extract model parameters from training data and generate labels from testing data can be described and motivated by the approach designer." Interpretability describes the possibility of comprehending the ML model and presenting the underlying basis for decision-making in a way that is understandable to humans. Explainability is a concept that is recognized as important, but a consensus definition is not yet available; one possibility is "the collection of features of the interpretable domain that have contributed, for a given example, to producing a decision (e.g., classification or regression)".
In summary, Interpretability refers to the user's ability to understand model outputs, while Model Transparency includes Simulatability (reproducibility of predictions), Decomposability (intuitive explanations for parameters), and Algorithmic Transparency (explaining how algorithms work). Model Functionality focuses on textual descriptions, visualization, and local explanations, which clarify specific outputs or instances rather than entire models. All these concepts aim to enhance the comprehensibility and usability of AI systems.
If algorithms fulfill these principles, they provide a basis for justifying decisions, tracking them and thereby verifying them, improving the algorithms, and exploring new facts.
Sometimes it is also possible to achieve a high-accuracy result with white-box ML algorithms. These algorithms have an interpretable structure that can be used to explain predictions. Concept Bottleneck Models, which use concept-level abstractions to explain model reasoning, are examples of this and can be applied in both image and text prediction tasks. This is especially important in domains like medicine, defense, finance, and law, where it is crucial to understand decisions and build trust in the algorithms. Many researchers argue that, at least for supervised machine learning, the way forward is symbolic regression, where the algorithm searches the space of mathematical expressions to find the model that best fits a given dataset.
AI systems optimize behavior to satisfy a mathematically specified goal system chosen by the system designers, such as the command "maximize the accuracy of assessing how positive film reviews are in the test dataset." The AI may learn useful general rules from the test set, such as "reviews containing the word "horrible" are likely to be negative." However, it may also learn inappropriate rules, such as "reviews containing 'Daniel Day-Lewis' are usually positive"; such rules may be undesirable if they are likely to fail to generalize outside the training set, or if people consider the rule to be "cheating" or "unfair." A human can audit rules in an XAI to get an idea of how likely the system is to generalize to future real-world data outside the test set.
Goals
Cooperation between agents – in this case, algorithms and humans – depends on trust. If humans are to accept algorithmic prescriptions, they need to trust them. Incompleteness in formal trust criteria is a barrier to optimization. Transparency, interpretability, and explainability are intermediate goals on the road to these more comprehensive trust criteria. This is particularly relevant in medicine, especially with clinical decision support systems (CDSS), in which medical professionals should be able to understand how and why a machine-based decision was made in order to trust the decision and augment their decision-making process.
AI systems sometimes learn undesirable tricks that do an optimal job of satisfying explicit pre-programmed goals on the training data but do not reflect the more nuanced implicit desires of the human system designers or the full complexity of the domain data. For example, a 2017 system tasked with image recognition learned to "cheat" by looking for a copyright tag that happened to be associated with horse pictures rather than learning how to tell if a horse was actually pictured. In another 2017 system, a supervised learning AI tasked with grasping items in a virtual world learned to cheat by placing its manipulator between the object and the viewer in a way such that it falsely appeared to be grasping the object.
One transparency project, the DARPA XAI program, aims to produce "glass box" models that are explainable to a "human-in-the-loop" without greatly sacrificing AI performance. Human users of such a system can understand the AI's cognition (both in real-time and after the fact) and can determine whether to trust the AI. Other applications of XAI are knowledge extraction from black-box models and model comparisons. In the context of monitoring systems for ethical and socio-legal compliance, the term "glass box" is commonly used to refer to tools that track the inputs and outputs of the system in question, and provide value-based explanations for their behavior. These tools aim to ensure that the system operates in accordance with ethical and legal standards, and that its decision-making processes are transparent and accountable. The term "glass box" is often used in contrast to "black box" systems, which lack transparency and can be more difficult to monitor and regulate.
The term is also used to name a voice assistant that produces counterfactual statements as explanations.
Explainability and interpretability techniques
There is a subtle difference between the terms explainability and interpretability in the context of AI.
Some explainability techniques don't involve understanding how the model works, and may work across various AI systems. Treating the model as a black box and analyzing how marginal changes to the inputs affect the result sometimes provides a sufficient explanation.
Explainability
Explainability is useful for ensuring that AI models are not making decisions based on irrelevant or otherwise unfair criteria. For classification and regression models, several popular techniques exist:
Partial dependency plots show the marginal effect of an input feature on the predicted outcome.
SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) enables visualization of the contribution of each input feature to the output. It works by calculating Shapley values, which measure the average marginal contribution of a feature across all possible combinations of features.
Feature importance estimates how important a feature is for the model. It is usually done using permutation importance, which measures the performance decrease when it the feature value randomly shuffled across all samples.
LIME approximates locally a model's outputs with a simpler, interpretable model.
Multitask learning provides a large number of outputs in addition to the target classification. These other outputs can help developers deduce what the network has learned.
For images, saliency maps highlight the parts of an image that most influenced the result.
Systems that are expert or knowledge based are software systems that are made my experts. This system consists of a knowledge based encoding for the domain knowledge. This system is usually modeled as production rules, and someone uses this knowledge base which the user can question the system for knowledge. In expert systems, the language and explanations are understood with an explanation for the reasoning or a problem solving activity.
However, these techniques are not very suitable for language models like generative pretrained transformers. Since these models generate language, they can provide an explanation, but which may not be reliable. Other techniques include attention analysis (examining how the model focuses on different parts of the input), probing methods (testing what information is captured in the model's representations), causal tracing (tracing the flow of information through the model) and circuit discovery (identifying specific subnetworks responsible for certain behaviors). Explainability research in this area overlaps significantly with interpretability and alignment research.
Interpretability
Scholars sometimes use the term "mechanistic interpretability" to refer to the process of reverse-engineering artificial neural networks to understand their internal decision-making mechanisms and components, similar to how one might analyze a complex machine or computer program.
Interpretability research often focuses on generative pretrained transformers. It is particularly relevant for AI safety and alignment, as it may enable to identify signs of undesired behaviors such as sycophancy, deceptiveness or bias, and to better steer AI models.
Studying the interpretability of the most advanced foundation models often involves searching for an automated way to identify "features" in generative pretrained transformers. In a neural network, a feature is a pattern of neuron activations that corresponds to a concept. A compute-intensive technique called "dictionary learning" makes it possible to identify features to some degree. Enhancing the ability to identify and edit features is expected to significantly improve the safety of frontier AI models.
For convolutional neural networks, DeepDream can generate images that strongly activate a particular neuron, providing a visual hint about what the neuron is trained to identify.
History and methods
During the 1970s to 1990s, symbolic reasoning systems, such as MYCIN, GUIDON, SOPHIE, and PROTOS could represent, reason about, and explain their reasoning for diagnostic, instructional, or machine-learning (explanation-based learning) purposes. MYCIN, developed in the early 1970s as a research prototype for diagnosing bacteremia infections of the bloodstream, could explain which of its hand-coded rules contributed to a diagnosis in a specific case. Research in intelligent tutoring systems resulted in developing systems such as SOPHIE that could act as an "articulate expert", explaining problem-solving strategy at a level the student could understand, so they would know what action to take next. For instance, SOPHIE could explain the qualitative reasoning behind its electronics troubleshooting, even though it ultimately relied on the SPICE circuit simulator. Similarly, GUIDON added tutorial rules to supplement MYCIN's domain-level rules so it could explain the strategy for medical diagnosis. Symbolic approaches to machine learning relying on explanation-based learning, such as PROTOS, made use of explicit representations of explanations expressed in a dedicated explanation language, both to explain their actions and to acquire new knowledge.
In the 1980s through the early 1990s, truth maintenance systems (TMS) extended the capabilities of causal-reasoning, rule-based, and logic-based inference systems. A TMS explicitly tracks alternate lines of reasoning, justifications for conclusions, and lines of reasoning that lead to contradictions, allowing future reasoning to avoid these dead ends. To provide an explanation, they trace reasoning from conclusions to assumptions through rule operations or logical inferences, allowing explanations to be generated from the reasoning traces. As an example, consider a rule-based problem solver with just a few rules about Socrates that concludes he has died from poison:
By the 1990s researchers began studying whether it is possible to meaningfully extract the non-hand-coded rules being generated by opaque trained neural networks. Researchers in clinical expert systems creating neural network-powered decision support for clinicians sought to develop dynamic explanations that allow these technologies to be more trusted and trustworthy in practice. In the 2010s public concerns about racial and other bias in the use of AI for criminal sentencing decisions and findings of creditworthiness may have led to increased demand for transparent artificial intelligence. As a result, many academics and organizations are developing tools to help detect bias in their systems.
Marvin Minsky et al. raised the issue that AI can function as a form of surveillance, with the biases inherent in surveillance, suggesting HI (Humanistic Intelligence) as a way to create a more fair and balanced "human-in-the-loop" AI.
Explainable AI has been recently a new topic researched amongst the context of modern deep learning. Modern complex AI techniques, such as deep learning, are naturally opaque. To address this issue, methods have been developed to make new models more explainable and interpretable. This includes layerwise relevance propagation (LRP), a technique for determining which features in a particular input vector contribute most strongly to a neural network's output. Other techniques explain some particular prediction made by a (nonlinear) black-box model, a goal referred to as "local interpretability". We still today cannot explain the output of today's DNNs without the new explanatory mechanisms, we also can't by the neural network, or external explanatory components There is also research on whether the concepts of local interpretability can be applied to a remote context, where a model is operated by a third-party.
There has been work on making glass-box models which are more transparent to inspection. This includes decision trees, Bayesian networks, sparse linear models, and more. The Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAccT) was established in 2018 to study transparency and explainability in the context of socio-technical systems, many of which include artificial intelligence.
Some techniques allow visualisations of the inputs to which individual software neurons respond to most strongly. Several groups found that neurons can be aggregated into circuits that perform human-comprehensible functions, some of which reliably arise across different networks trained independently.
There are various techniques to extract compressed representations of the features of given inputs, which can then be analysed by standard clustering techniques. Alternatively, networks can be trained to output linguistic explanations of their behaviour, which are then directly human-interpretable. Model behaviour can also be explained with reference to training data—for example, by evaluating which training inputs influenced a given behaviour the most.
The use of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) in pain research, specifically in understanding the role of electrodermal activity for automated pain recognition: hand-crafted features and deep learning models in pain recognition, highlighting the insights that simple hand-crafted features can yield comparative performances to deep learning models and that both traditional feature engineering and deep feature learning approaches rely on simple characteristics of the input time-series data.
Regulation
As regulators, official bodies, and general users come to depend on AI-based dynamic systems, clearer accountability will be required for automated decision-making processes to ensure trust and transparency. The first global conference exclusively dedicated to this emerging discipline was the 2017 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence: Workshop on Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI). It has evolved over the years, with various workshops organised and co-located to many other international conferences, and it has now a dedicated global event, "The world conference on eXplainable Artificial Intelligence", with its own proceedings.
The European Union introduced a right to explanation in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to address potential problems stemming from the rising importance of algorithms. The implementation of the regulation began in 2018. However, the right to explanation in GDPR covers only the local aspect of interpretability. In the United States, insurance companies are required to be able to explain their rate and coverage decisions. In France the Loi pour une République numérique (Digital Republic Act) grants subjects the right to request and receive information pertaining to the implementation of algorithms that process data about them.
Limitations
Despite ongoing endeavors to enhance the explainability of AI models, they persist with several inherent limitations.
Adversarial parties
By making an AI system more explainable, we also reveal more of its inner workings. For example, the explainability method of feature importance identifies features or variables that are most important in determining the model's output, while the influential samples method identifies the training samples that are most influential in determining the output, given a particular input. Adversarial parties could take advantage of this knowledge.
For example, competitor firms could replicate aspects of the original AI system in their own product, thus reducing competitive advantage. An explainable AI system is also susceptible to being “gamed”—influenced in a way that undermines its intended purpose. One study gives the example of a predictive policing system; in this case, those who could potentially “game” the system are the criminals subject to the system's decisions. In this study, developers of the system discussed the issue of criminal gangs looking to illegally obtain passports, and they expressed concerns that, if given an idea of what factors might trigger an alert in the passport application process, those gangs would be able to “send guinea pigs” to test those triggers, eventually finding a loophole that would allow them to “reliably get passports from under the noses of the authorities”.
Adaptive integration and explanation
Many approaches that it uses provides explanation in general, it doesn't take account for the diverse backgrounds and knowledge level of the users. This leads to challenges with accurate comprehension for all users. Expert users can find the explanations lacking in depth, and are oversimplified, while a beginner user may struggle understanding the explanations as they are complex. This limitation downplays the ability of the XAI techniques to appeal to their users with different levels of knowledge, which can impact the trust from users and who uses it. The quality of explanations can be different amongst their users as they all have different expertise levels, including different situation and conditions
Technical complexity
A fundamental barrier to making AI systems explainable is the technical complexity of such systems. End users often lack the coding knowledge required to understand software of any kind. Current methods used to explain AI are mainly technical ones, geared toward machine learning engineers for debugging purposes, rather than toward the end users who are ultimately affected by the system, causing “a gap between explainability in practice and the goal of transparency”. Proposed solutions to address the issue of technical complexity include either promoting the coding education of the general public so technical explanations would be more accessible to end users, or providing explanations in layperson terms.
The solution must avoid oversimplification. It is important to strike a balance between accuracy – how faithfully the explanation reflects the process of the AI system – and explainability – how well end users understand the process. This is a difficult balance to strike, since the complexity of machine learning makes it difficult for even ML engineers to fully understand, let alone non-experts.
Understanding versus trust
The goal of explainability to end users of AI systems is to increase trust in the systems, even “address concerns about lack of ‘fairness’ and discriminatory effects”. However, even with a good understanding of an AI system, end users may not necessarily trust the system. In one study, participants were presented with combinations of white-box and black-box explanations, and static and interactive explanations of AI systems. While these explanations served to increase both their self-reported and objective understanding, it had no impact on their level of trust, which remained skeptical.
This outcome was especially true for decisions that impacted the end user in a significant way, such as graduate school admissions. Participants judged algorithms to be too inflexible and unforgiving in comparison to human decision-makers; instead of rigidly adhering to a set of rules, humans are able to consider exceptional cases as well as appeals to their initial decision. For such decisions, explainability will not necessarily cause end users to accept the use of decision-making algorithms. We will need to either turn to another method to increase trust and acceptance of decision-making algorithms, or question the need to rely solely on AI for such impactful decisions in the first place.
However, some emphasize that the purpose of explainability of artificial intelligence is not to merely increase users' trust in the system's decisions, but to calibrate the users' level of trust to the correct level. According to this principle, too much or too little user trust in the AI system will harm the overall performance of the human-system unit. When the trust is excessive, the users are not critical of possible mistakes of the system and when the users do not have enough trust in the system, they will not exhaust the benefits inherent in it.
Criticism
Some scholars have suggested that explainability in AI should be considered a goal secondary to AI effectiveness, and that encouraging the exclusive development of XAI may limit the functionality of AI more broadly. Critiques of XAI rely on developed concepts of mechanistic and empiric reasoning from evidence-based medicine to suggest that AI technologies can be clinically validated even when their function cannot be understood by their operators.
Some researchers advocate the use of inherently interpretable machine learning models, rather than using post-hoc explanations in which a second model is created to explain the first. This is partly because post-hoc models increase the complexity in a decision pathway and partly because it is often unclear how faithfully a post-hoc explanation can mimic the computations of an entirely separate model. However, another view is that what is important is that the explanation accomplishes the given task at hand, and whether it is pre or post-hoc doesn't matter. If a post-hoc explanation method helps a doctor diagnose cancer better, it is of secondary importance whether it is a correct/incorrect explanation.
The goals of XAI amount to a form of lossy compression that will become less effective as AI models grow in their number of parameters. Along with other factors this leads to a theoretical limit for explainability.
Explainability in social choice
Explainability was studied also in social choice theory. Social choice theory aims at finding solutions to social decision problems, that are based on well-established axioms. Ariel D. Procaccia explains that these axioms can be used to construct convincing explanations to the solutions. This principle has been used to construct explanations in various subfields of social choice.
Voting
Cailloux and Endriss present a method for explaining voting rules using the axioms that characterize them. They exemplify their method on the Borda voting rule .
Peters, Procaccia, Psomas and Zhou present an algorithm for explaining the outcomes of the Borda rule using O(m2) explanations, and prove that this is tight in the worst case.
Participatory budgeting
Yang, Hausladen, Peters, Pournaras, Fricker and Helbing present an empirical study of explainability in participatory budgeting. They compared the greedy and the equal shares rules, and three types of explanations: mechanism explanation (a general explanation of how the aggregation rule works given the voting input), individual explanation (explaining how many voters had at least one approved project, at least 10000 CHF in approved projects), and group explanation (explaining how the budget is distributed among the districts and topics). They compared the perceived trustworthiness and fairness of greedy and equal shares, before and after the explanations. They found out that, for MES, mechanism explanation yields the highest increase in perceived fairness and trustworthiness; the second-highest was Group explanation. For Greedy, Mechanism explanation increases perceived trustworthiness but not fairness, whereas Individual explanation increases both perceived fairness and trustworthiness. Group explanation decreases the perceived fairness and trustworthiness.
Payoff allocation
Nizri, Azaria and Hazon present an algorithm for computing explanations for the Shapley value. Given a coalitional game, their algorithm decomposes it to sub-games, for which it is easy to generate verbal explanations based on the axioms characterizing the Shapley value. The payoff allocation for each sub-game is perceived as fair, so the Shapley-based payoff allocation for the given game should seem fair as well. An experiment with 210 human subjects shows that, with their automatically generated explanations, subjects perceive Shapley-based payoff allocation as significantly fairer than with a general standard explanation.
See also
References
External links
Quality control tools
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence engineering | Explainable artificial intelligence | [
"Engineering"
] | 5,054 | [
"Software engineering",
"Artificial intelligence engineering"
] |
54,576,033 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant%20and%20toddler%20safety | Infant and toddler safety are those actions and modifications put into place to keep babies and toddlers safe from accidental injury and death. Many accidents, injuries and deaths are preventable.
Infants begin to crawl around six to nine months of age. When they crawl, they are exposed to many dangers. Anticipating the development of the baby and toddler aids caregivers in identifying hazards before they are discovered by the child.
General recommendations
US government agencies recommend that caregivers take the following precautions:
Covering all unused electrical sockets with outlet plugs.
Keeping cords out of baby's reach. Tack up cords to vertical blinds and move furniture, lamps, or electronics to hide cords.
Securing furniture and electronics, such as bookcases and TVs, so they cannot be pulled down on top of the baby.
Using protective padding to cover sharp edges and corners, such as from a coffee table or fireplace hearth.
Installing safety gates at the bottom and top of stairwells or to block entry to unsafe rooms.
Using safety latches on cabinets and doors.
Storing all medicines, cleaning products, and other poisons out of the baby's reach.
Removing rubber tips from doorstops or replace with one-piece doorstops.
Looking for and removing all small objects. Objects that easily can pass through the center of a toilet paper roll might cause choking.
Keeping houseplants out of the baby's reach. Some plants can poison or make your babies sick.
Setting the water heater temperature to no higher than 125 degrees Fahrenheit. Water that is hotter can cause bad burns.
Closely supervising the baby around pets. Even family pets have been known to harm familiar children.
Furniture
Toddlers typically enjoy climbing up things with steps. This includes furniture. Heavy furniture in the home is often not secured to the wall. These pieces of furniture can include bookcases and dressers that can weigh hundreds of pounds. Heavy objects like televisions that are on the furniture can also fall onto the child. If the toddler climbs up the furniture it is likely to fall onto the child. This has resulted in the deaths and injuries of children. Even if the children appears uninjured, it is possible that internal injuries have occurred with serious consequences. Often these injuries are not apparent to caregivers and as a consequence treatment can be delayed. Serious head injuries have also occurred.
Caregivers can prevent accidents related to furniture by securing the furniture to the wall. Placing heavier objects into the lowest drawers. Not placing toys on top of the furniture. Constantly monitoring the activities of the toddler. Putting drawer stops onto the drawers to prevent the toddler from opening the drawer. Mount flat-screen televisions out-of-reach and onto the wall.
Lead poisoning
No safe levels of lead in the body of a child is considered safe and can cause problems for the rest of their life. Children living in low-income families are more likely to have levels of lead in their bodies. Questions regarding the testing procedures have been called into question. Children are at greater risk as they are more likely to put objects in their mouth such as those that contain lead paint and absorb a greater proportion of the lead that they eat. Treatment is available but prevention is better.
Sleep
Bumper pads installed in cribs have been improved so that an infant cannot get caught between the pad and the bars of the crib.
However, new guidelines advise against them since they pose suffocation hazard.
Infant and toddler food safety
Infant food safety is the identification of risky food handling practices and the prevention of illness in infants. The most simple and easiest to implement is handwashing. Food for young children, including formula and baby food can contain pathogens that can make the child very ill and even die.
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
Sudden infant death syndrome can cause the death of an infant and often no cause is found. There are some preventative measures that can be taken to reduce the risk of SIDS. These are:
Lay the infant on his back for sleeping.
Breastfeeding
Keeping the mattress free of all objects and instead dress the infant warmly.
Immunizations.
Use a pacifier.
Using a 'sleep sack' which prevents the infant from turning over and sleeping on her stomach.
Child abuse
It is important that caregivers recognize the potential of the abuse of their infant or toddler. An infant or toddler is potentially vulnerable to physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse and neglect and has inability to verbalize the details of the abuse. Child grooming can be a concern and occurs when a perpetrator wins the trust of caregivers for the purpose of creating an opportunity for them to sexually abuse an infant or toddler. Shaken baby syndrome can often result in serious and permanent brain damage to an infant or toddler. There are preventative measures that can be taken to reduce the risk of injuring a child this way. Those who care for infants and toddlers may benefit from stress reduction. Becoming educated on normal child development can help someone understand that crying is a normal thing for babies and toddlers, especially if they hungry or need a diaper change. Caregivers can contact another person who is willing to give them a break. Those who are drinking alcohol are more likely to injure the infant or toddler. Carefully choosing someone else to watch the infant or toddler can also reduce the risk of injury.
Car accidents
Children under the age of 3 were 43% are less likely to be injured in a car crash if their car seat was placed in the center of the car. The center position is the safest but the least used position.
Hyperthermia and hypothermia
Forgetting that an infant or toddler is in the car and leaving them where they are exposed to high temperatures can result in death.
Toddlers can wander off and fall through ice or be left out in cool or cold weather and experience hypothermia. This low body temperature is often fatal but instances of survival after a near drowning occur. Of all drowning deaths in 2013, 82,000 occurred in children less than five years old.
Drowning
Toddlers have wandered off and drowned in ponds. Toddlers can easily drown in small, shallow ornamental ponds.
Animal attacks
An infant or toddler is more likely than other family members to be injured by an animal because they cannot defend themselves and are lower to the ground. Familiar family pets with no prior history of aggression are more likely to attack the child than unfamiliar pets from other households.
Choking
Toddlers and infants who can hold objects can choke when a small object is inhaled and blocks the trachea.
Falls
High chairs can be hazardous due to the risk of falls.
References
External links
Grooming Children for Sexual Molestation, written by Gregory M. Weber, the Assistant Attorney General for the State of Wisconsin who specializes in the prosecution of crimes committed against children.
Baby-Proofing Your Home. Guidelines from the National Safety Council
Human development
Pediatrics
Injuries
Infancy | Infant and toddler safety | [
"Biology"
] | 1,404 | [
"Behavioural sciences",
"Behavior",
"Human development"
] |
54,577,116 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green%20Bank%20Observatory | The Green Bank Observatory (previously National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank) is an astronomical observatory located in the National Radio Quiet Zone in Green Bank, West Virginia, U.S. It is the operator of the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope.
The observatory was established as the National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in 1956 and made its first observations in 1958. It served as the NRAO's headquarters until 1966, after which the facility was known as the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank.
In October 2016, the observatory became an independent institution following a 2012 recommendation that the NSF fully divest itself from the facility by October 1, 2016.
Green Bank Observatory subsequently retained partial NSF funding, established private contracts, and formed a partnership with West Virginia University. It is operated by the nonprofit Associated Universities, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.
Active telescopes
Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope
140 Foot (43m) Telescope
20 Meter Telescope
40 Foot Telescope
Historic and other telescopes
300 Foot Radio Telescope – the world's largest moving telescope, suddenly collapsed in November 1988 from the loss of a gusset plate
Green Bank Interferometer
Reber Radio Telescope – designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989
Howard E. Tatel Radio Telescope — utilized in Project Ozma in 1960, the first search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) with a radio telescope
45 Foot Telescope
Popular culture
Green Bank Observatory is a location in Fallout 76, as National Isolated Radio Array
See also
List of astronomical observatories
References
External links
Astronomical observatories in West Virginia
Radio observatories
Astronomy institutes and departments
Organizations based in West Virginia
Research institutes in West Virginia
Research institutes established in 1956
Scientific organizations established in 1956
1956 establishments in West Virginia
National Science Foundation
Buildings and structures in Pocahontas County, West Virginia | Green Bank Observatory | [
"Astronomy"
] | 391 | [
"Astronomy organizations",
"Astronomy institutes and departments"
] |
54,577,180 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcello%20Conversi | Marcello Conversi (August 25, 1917 – September 22, 1988) was an Italian particle physicist. He is best known for his 1946 cosmic ray experiment where he showed that the "mesotron", now known as the muon, was not a strongly interacting particle.
Conversi studied under Enrico Fermi at the University of Rome, and received his doctorate in 1940, doing his thesis under Bruno Ferretti. During World War II, Conversi remained in Italy, doing research and teaching at the University of Rome. Together with Oreste Piccioni and Ettore Pancini he conducted the experiment that Luis Walter Alvarez, Nobel Prize laureate of 1968, called the "start of modern particle physics" in his Nobel lecture. In 1946, they showed that the "mesotron", now known as the muon, which had been discovered in 1937 by Seth Neddermeyer and Carl David Anderson, was not the particle predicted by Hideki Yukawa as mediator of the strong force. If the "mesotron", a cosmic ray particle of negative charge, was indeed the meson postulated by Yukawa, it should be captured without decaying.
Conversi, Piccioni and Pancini moved their experiment to a high school to avoid air raids. In their experimental setup negative and positive particles were separated by large pieces of magnetized iron on the roof of the high school. The negative particles were absorbed in matter. After switching from iron to graphite absorbers, the 1946 experiment dramatically showed that the negatively charged component of cosmic rays decayed radioactive rather than being captured by the graphite.
From 1947 to 1946 Conversi held a position as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago, before he returned to Italy as a Professor of Experimental Physics and Director of the Physics Institute at the University of Pisa. During his time in Pisa, he founded the Centro Studi Calcolatrici Elettroniche (CSCE), where the first Italian computer was built. For this work he received the gold medal of the President of Italy in 1961. He also developed a new track detector, known as the flash chamber — a precursor to the spark chamber — which went on to become the standard tool in particle and cosmic ray physics.
In 1958 he returned to the University of Rome, as a Professor of Advanced Physics. He had two appointments as director of the institute, one from 1960 to 1962 and the second from 1964 to 1966. His influential school, from 1950 at Pisa and from 1958 at Rome, produced many famous Italian particle physicists, such as Marcello Cresti, Carlo Rubbia and Luigi Di Lella.
From 1962 to 1964, and again from 1975 to 1977, Conversi was affiliated CERN. At CERN, Conversi was a member of the Scientific Committee from 1969 to 1975, becoming its vice-president. From 1959, he participated in a series of quests at the Synchro-Cyclotron (CERN) for “forbidden” processes in weak interaction. When the new Super Proton Synchrotron began its operation in 1976 he played a prominent role in searches for short-lived particles using a stack of nuclear emulsion coupled to the BEBC bubble chamber.
Conversi was vice president of Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics from 1967 to 1970.
He was a fellow of the American Physical Society since 1950 and a member of the Italian science academy.
References
External links
List of publications
1917 births
1988 deaths
People associated with CERN
Experimental physicists
20th-century Italian physicists
Particle physicists
University of Pisa alumni
Sapienza University of Rome alumni
People from Tivoli, Lazio | Marcello Conversi | [
"Physics"
] | 743 | [
"Particle physicists",
"Particle physics"
] |
54,577,999 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young%27s%20inequality%20for%20integral%20operators | In mathematical analysis, the Young's inequality for integral operators, is a bound on the operator norm of an integral operator in terms of norms of the kernel itself.
Statement
Assume that and are measurable spaces, is measurable and are such that . If
for all
and
for all
then
Particular cases
Convolution kernel
If and , then the inequality becomes Young's convolution inequality.
See also
Young's inequality for products
Notes
Inequalities | Young's inequality for integral operators | [
"Mathematics"
] | 95 | [
"Mathematical analysis",
"Mathematical analysis stubs",
"Binary relations",
"Mathematical relations",
"Inequalities (mathematics)",
"Mathematical problems",
"Mathematical theorems"
] |
54,580,699 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20tar%20pits | This is a list of notable tar pits throughout the world. Tar pits, which are often covered with dust and leaves, can trap animals that step into them. Over time, the skeletons of such animals become preserved as fossils. Some of the largest deposits of fossils exist within tar pits.
List
Binagadi asphalt lake – cluster of tar pits located 1 km southeast from Binagadi settlement, near Hirda-Girrar hillock in urban Baku, Azerbaijan. Fossils from the species of 41 species of mammals, 110 species of birds, 2 reptiles, 1 amphibian and 107 insects recovered from the pits are on display at the Baku Natural-Historical Museum.
La Brea Tar Pits – group of tar pits around which Hancock Park was formed in urban Los Angeles, California, US. The park is known for producing myriad mammal fossils dating from the Pleistocene epoch, including the La Brea Woman. The George C. Page Museum is dedicated to researching the tar pits and displaying specimens from the animals that died there. See List of fossil species in the La Brea Tar Pits.
Fort Sill Tar Pits - Located near Fort Sill in SW Oklahoma. It features a pool of asphalt that dates back approximately 280 million years in the Permian Period. Native Americans would use the tar as an ointment for their horses.
Carpinteria Tar Pits – series of natural asphalt lakes located in Carpinteria, Santa Barbara County, California, US. The tar pits have trapped and preserved hundreds of Pleistocene Age birds and animals but paleontological studies have not been conducted as the tar pits were mined for asphalt for building a coastal highway and afterwards were converted into a local rubbish dump.
McKittrick Tar Pits – series of natural asphalt lakes situated in McKittrick near Bakersfield, California, US. The tar pits have trapped and preserved many Pleistocene Age animals.
Pitch Lake – largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world, located at La Brea, Trinidad and Tobago. From this source many of the first asphalt roads of New York City, Washington D.C., and other Eastern U.S. cities were paved. In 1887, Amzi Barber, an American businessman known as "The Asphalt King", secured a monopoly concession over the lake from the British Government that lasted 42 years.
Lake Bermudez – world's second largest natural tar pit, located at Libertador, Estado Sucre, Venezuela. It is different from other asphalt lakes as it is covered in vegetation. Tar pits of Venezuela have generated interest over the past decade as the source of a rich fossil record that crosses ecosystems and spans millennia, perhaps several ice ages.
See also
List of fossil sites
References | List of tar pits | [
"Chemistry"
] | 541 | [
"Asphalt",
"Asphalt lakes"
] |
54,582,337 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%207074 | NGC 7074 is an edge-on lenticular galaxy located about 140 million light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus. NGC 7074 was discovered by astronomer Albert Marth on October 16, 1863.
See also
List of NGC objects (7001–7840)
References
External links
Lenticular galaxies
Pegasus (constellation)
7074
66850
Astronomical objects discovered in 1863 | NGC 7074 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 79 | [
"Pegasus (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
67,426,660 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisheries%20and%20Marine%20Ecosystem%20Model%20Intercomparison%20Project | The Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (Fish-MIP) is a marine biology project to compare computer models of the impact of climate change on sea life. Founded in 2013 as part of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP), it was established to answer questions about the future of marine biodiversity, seafood supply, fisheries, and marine ecosystem functioning in the context of various climate change scenarios. It combines diverse marine ecosystem models from both the global and regional scale through a standardized protocol for ensemble modelling in an attempt to correct for any bias in the individual models that make up the ensemble. Fish-MIP's goal is to use this ensemble modelling to project a more robust picture of the future state of fisheries and marine ecosystems under the impacts of climate change, and ultimately to help inform fishing policy.
Background
Ensemble modelling
Ensemble modelling is combining the outputs of multiple models that are all working on the same question. This allows researchers to analyze the different vulnerabilities of each individual model, and weigh the impact of particular inputs. Aggregating all the outputs and then using the outputs with the highest frequency across the models minimizes the error in the projection.
Fish-MIP
Ensemble modelling is generally difficult because of the variety of possible inputs and outputs, which makes it challenging to run different models on the same data and compare results. The Fish-MIP protocols standardize input variables, as well as the names of files and data stores. The inputs are collected from simplified fishing scenarios, models of the climate and how much greenhouse gas will be in the atmosphere. These standardized inputs and scenarios can then be used to drive multiple ecosystem models, and the outputs are then combined through an ensemble modelling approach. The Fish-MIP standardizing protocol allow for these diverse inputs to be collated, thus minimizing projection error.
Some of the models used:
Global
Apex Predators ECOSystem Model (ApeCOSM)
BiOeconomic mArine Trophic Size-spectrum (BOATS)
Regional
Atlantis
Ecopath
OSMOSE
Use in studies
Although at an earlier stage than the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, as of 2021 studies suggest that larger fish species and the tropics are most affected by climate change.
Gómara et al. (2019) used it to predict tropical Pacific fisheries
du Pontavice et al. (2021) used it to examine the impacts of climate on predators and ecosystems
Bryndum-Buchholz et al. (2018) examined the impacts of climate change on animal biomass and ecosystem structure
Bryndum-Buchholz et al. (2020) used the model outputs to investigate the relationship between North Atlantic fisheries and climate change impacts
Boyce et al. 2020 used the modelling outputs to examine socioeconomic gaps that would result from climate induced biomass losses amongst fisheries
Lotze et al. al. 2019 also looked at the impact of climate change via trophic amplification of biomass losses of marine species
References
External links
ISIpedia the outreach channel of ISIMIP where studies may be described in laymans terms
Fish-MIP at GitHub
Ecosystems | Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project | [
"Biology"
] | 628 | [
"Symbiosis",
"Ecosystems"
] |
67,427,082 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunker%20experiment | The bunker experiment was a scientific experiment that began in 1966 to test whether humans, like other species, have an intrinsic circadian clock. It was started by Jürgen Aschoff and Rütger Wever of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology and later taken over by Jürgen Zulley. Participants lived in a bunker for multiple weeks while scientists measured their daily rhythms in many variables. The main conclusion of the experiment was that humans have an intrinsic clock with a period greater than 24 hours. The experiment also established many features of this clock and paved the way for future circadian studies.
Background
Before this experiment, scientists had already discovered that many plant and animal species have intrinsic clocks that can operate independently of external time cues. It is now known that these clocks operate based on molecular oscillations, using transcription-translation feedback loops and metabolic feedback loops. External cues, notably light, interact with this clock by entraining it to match the external time. However, before this experiment, some researchers speculated that human rhythms were driven by these external cues without influence from an internal clock.
To test the hypothesis that humans have an internal clock, Jürgen Aschoff and colleagues had a bunker of reinforced steel built in Andechs, Upper Bavaria, Germany. The bunker contained a bedroom, kitchen, and shower, but no windows, and many participants were students who used the time underground to study. Many participants found the idea of living in a bunker without time cues daunting, but most ended up enjoying the experiment. Aschoff was the first test subject, with Rütger Wever observing. The experiment began in 1966 and continued until the early 1980s. As of 2013, the bunker was still in existence, although quite dilapidated.
Methods
The inside of the bunker was isolated from all time and light cues and subjects lived there for weeks at a time. Subjects prepared their own meals and were asked to eat three meals a day, not nap after lunch, and perform some psychological tasks. Besides this, they could generally do as they pleased, and were able to turn the lights on and off themselves. The bunker was separated from the outside world via two doors, only one of which could be opened at a time. Researchers would place food in the space between the doors, and the subject would leave urine samples here. The experimenters made deliveries at randomized times. The subject could communicate with the outside only through letters. Over about 20 years, the researchers studied various properties of the human biological clock, varying social interaction, light intensity, gong sounds, or electromagnetic radiation to test the impacts on circadian function. They also examined whether male and female clocks function differently. Many measurements were taken on subjects including their sleep-wake activity, bed movements, rectal temperature, urine samples, and time perception. To measure time perception, individuals were asked to press a buzzer at one hour intervals and a minute after the one hour mark.
Results
Length of Intrinsic Period
The bunker experiment conducted by Aschoff demonstrated that the participants' urine excretion, rectal temperature, and circadian rhythm of activity all had a free running period of approximately 25 hours in the absence of external cues. Furthermore, it was established that men typically have a slightly longer period than women. More recent studies conducted suggest that the period of 25 hours found in this experiment may be attributed to the subject's ability to turn the lights on and off when they desire; in controlled lab conditions, researchers have found the human internal period to be approximately 24.2 hours.
Effect of Light Intensity
One variable tested in the bunker experiment was whether light intensity affected the period of the circadian rhythm. To examine this, Aschoff and colleagues manipulated the intensity of light from outside the bunker, exposing subjects to dim light (40 lux), then light of high intensity (200 lux) when the subjects chose to turn on the lights. It was established through these experiments that using intense light caused a decrease of approximately 0.7 hours to 1 hour in the period. When the intensity values were changed and the bright light tested before the dim light, the more intense light still gave a shorter period. Later experiments conducted by Wever using 3000 lux light established that the clock underwent a broader range of entrainment, or synchronization of the clock to external cues, when exposed to more intense light. He also discovered the suppression of melatonin in the presence of intense light, which provided information about the chemical factors that affect sleep.
Desynchronization
The bunker experiment also revealed that some individuals experience a desynchronization of their activity rhythms in relation to their body temperature; for some participants this occurred immediately when they entered the bunker and for other participants it took days to weeks of isolation. The period of the participants' core body temperature typically stayed near 25 hours while their sleep/wake cycle would adopt a different period, for example, the participant may sleep for 12 hours and stay active for 20 hours. This led Aschoff to believe that humans may have more than one circadian clock, however, the biological basis for desynchronization continues to be explored.
Significance
This experiment provided evidence that humans have a circadian clock that can run independently from the 24-hour light-dark cycle and that different people can have unique rhythms.
The demonstration of the human circadian clock led to research that uncovered many of the mechanisms that underlie it. Desynchronization observed in this experiment was replicated by Aschoff and Wever in later experiments and used as evidence for a multi-oscillator model of circadian rhythm control. Scientists also studied the genetic basis of circadian rhythms. Ronald Konopka and Seymour Benzer discovered the period gene in 1971, which disrupted these rhythms when mutated in fruit flies. Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael Young uncovered the underlying cellular mechanism by which the period gene functions, research for which they received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2017.
Many scientists have taken inspiration from the bunker experiment, performing a myriad of studies on the human circadian clock. Maroli Krishnayya Chandrashekaran and Geetha L. replicated Aschoff's findings in 1996 and also showed that the menstrual cycle in a human female in isolation was not coupled to the sleep-wake rhythm. A 2020 case study by Maria-Angeles Bonmati-Carrion and colleagues used a similar bunker protocol to study the human circadian clock in social and environmental isolation under light-dark conditions and in constant dim light, again finding free running periods longer than 24 hours in constant dim light.
The bunker experiment had far-reaching implications in the medical field, for example in understanding problems related to shift work and jet lag. In addition, it allowed for a better understanding of affective disorders in relation to the synchronization of the internal circadian clock and the light-dark and sleep-wake cycles.
References
External links
Max Planck Society website
Physiology | Bunker experiment | [
"Biology"
] | 1,408 | [
"Physiology"
] |
67,427,425 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colacogloea | Colacogloea is a genus of fungi belonging to the class Microbotryomycetes. Most species in the genus are known only from their yeast states. Where known, basidiocarps (fruit bodies) have auricularioid (laterally septate) basidia and occur as parasites on or in the fruit bodies of other fungi.
Taxonomy
The genus was proposed in 1991 by mycologists Franz Oberwinkler and Robert Bandoni to accommodate a species previously referred to the genus Platygloea but not related to Platygloea disciformis, the type of that genus. Unlike P. disciformis, Colacogloea peniophorae (now Colacogloea effusa) produces a yeast state and is parasitic on corticioid fungi, interacting with host hyphae through vesicular bodies called colacosomes. Additional species having yeast states and colacosomes have subsequently been transferred to the genus.
Molecular research, based on cladistic analysis of DNA sequences, has confirmed that Colacogloea is monophyletic (a natural group). It has also shown that a number of yeast species, some of which were previously referred to the genus Rhodotorula, belong in Colacogloea.
Species
Colacogloea aletridis Q.M. Wang, F.Y. Bai & A.H. Li
Colacogloea allantospora Ginns & Bandoni
Colacogloea armeniacae Q.M. Wang, G.S. Wang, Wangmu & Y. Sun
Colacogloea bispora (Hauerslev) Oberw. & R. Bauer
Colacogloea cycloclastica (Thanh, M.S. Smit, Moleleki & Fell) Q.M. Wang, F.Y. Bai, M. Groenew. & Boekhout
Colacogloea demeterae Yurkov, A.M. Schäfer & Begerow
Colacogloea diffluens (Ruinen) Q.M. Wang, F.Y. Bai, M. Groenew. & Boekhout
Colacogloea effusa (J. Schröt.) Malysheva, Schoutteten & Spirin
Colacogloea eucalyptica (C.H. Pohl, M.S. Smit & Albertyn) Q.M. Wang, F.Y. Bai, M. Groenew. & Boekhout
Colacogloea falcata (Nakase, Itoh & M. Suzuki) Q.M. Wang, F.Y. Bai, M. Groenew. & Boekhout
Colacogloea foliorum (Ruinen) Q.M. Wang, F.Y. Bai, M. Groenew. & Boekhout
Colacogloea hydrangeae Q.M. Wang, F.Y. Bai & A.H. Li
Colacogloea papilionacea R. Kirschner & Oberw.
Colacogloea peniophorae (Bourdot & Galzin) Oberw., R. Bauer & Bandoni
Colacogloea philyla (Van der Walt, Klift & D.B. Scott) Q.M. Wang, F.Y. Bai, M. Groenew. & Boekhout
Colacogloea retinophila (Thanh, M.S. Smit, Moleleki & Fell) Q.M. Wang, F.Y. Bai, M. Groenew. & Boekhout
Colacogloea rhododendri Q.M. Wang, F.Y. Bai & A.H. Li
Colacogloea subericola (Belloch, Villa-Carv., Álv.-Rodríg. & Coque) Q.M. Wang & F.Y. Bai
Colacogloea terpenoidalis (Thanh, M.S. Smit, Moleleki & Fell) Q.M. Wang, F.Y. Bai, M. Groenew. & Boekhout
References
Pucciniomycotina
Basidiomycota genera
Taxa named by Franz Oberwinkler
Taxa described in 1991
Yeasts | Colacogloea | [
"Biology"
] | 947 | [
"Yeasts",
"Fungi"
] |
67,427,463 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire%20in%20Little%20Africa | Fire in Little Africa is a music and multimedia project coinciding with the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. The project is made up of more than fifty rappers, singers, producers, and creatives based in the state of Oklahoma and was partially recorded in Tulsa's Skyline Mansion, a former home to Tulsa Ku Klux Klan leader W. Tate Brady. Along with a hip-hop album, the project is also producing a series of podcasts anticipating the release and a documentary on the creation of the project to be released after the album.
Motown Records released the album on its Black Forum imprint May 28, 2021.
Origins of Fire in Little Africa
The collaborative Fire in Little Africa musical project was a concept originally proposed by Woody Guthrie Center and Bob Dylan Archives manager of education and outreach Dr. Stevie Johnson, also known as Dr. View, as a way of commemorating the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, honoring the resilience of Tulsa's Black Wall Street, and shedding light on the Tulsa and broader Oklahoma hip-hop communities that have long been overlooked by national audiences. Johnson's inspiration for the project came partly from his own dissertation work while completing his doctoral program at the University of Oklahoma. In addition to a written paper, Johnson recorded a hip-hop album to accompany the work. The completed project won the 2019 Bobby Wright Dissertation of the Year Award. Johnson was also inspired by the recording of Dreamville's Revenge of the Dreamers III, an organically collaborative hip-hop album recorded over 10 days in the confines of Tree Sound Studios in Atlanta, Georgia.
Johnson began by bringing influential Tulsa area artists Steph Simon and Dialtone into the fold. Simon and Dialtone worked to bring in other artists they knew who fit the mold of the project. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Simon says, "The whole point of making this album is because we need representation from people from here, people who live here, eat here, spend here."
The Fire in Little Africa album was recorded over five days and five nights at both the Greenwood Cultural Center in the heart of historic Black Wall Street and a downtown Tulsa mansion formerly owned by Tulsa Race Massacre mastermind and Ku Klux Klan leader Tate Brady. The home is now called Skyline Mansion and has been repurposed as an event space by its current owner, former NFL player and Tulsa native Felix Jones.
A documentary chronicling the creation of the project and retracing the origins of Tulsa's historic hip-hop community is due for release following the album's debut. In the first episode of the official Fire in Little Africa podcast, Johnson says of the project: "It's not even an album, it's a legacy project that is truly going to transform how people look at hip-hop and how we're truly transforming lives—trying to save black and brown folks, poor people, and people of color."
Affiliated artists
More than fifty artists from Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Lawton took part in the recording of Fire in Little Africa. This includes:
Executive team
Source:
Dr. View, executive producer
Steph Simon, artist lead
Dialtone, artist lead
St. Domonick, artist lead
Thomas Who?, artist lead
Chris Davis, artist manager/marketing director
Ben Lindsey, documentarian
Trey Thaxton, creative director
Other contributing artists
Source:
Chasing Ryan, producer
Verse, rapper
Keeng Cut, rapper
Hakeem Eli'Juwon, rapper
Ayilla, singer
Tizzi, rapper
The Vampire Youth, rapper
Parris Chariz, rapper
M.C., rapper
Medisin, producer
Damion Shade, rapper
Jarry Manna, rapper
T-Mase, singer
Keezy Kuts, rapper
Young DV, rapper
Earl Hazard, rapper
Ausha La Cole, singer
Bambi, rapper
2peece, producer
Krisheena Suarez, singer
'Jimmi' Joe Burner, producer
Playya 1000, rapper
Sneak the Poet, documentarian & poet
iamDES, rapper
Lester Shaw, singer
Creo, singer
The GRAE, rapper
Shyheim, rapper
Omaley B, singer
Papa, producer
Jay Mizz, rapper
Foolie Foolie, rapper
Tea Rush, singer
Savvy Kray, rapper
Sterling Matthews, poet
Jabee, rapper
Doc Free, host
Deezy, rapper
Jacobi Ryan, rapper
SoufWessDes, rapper
Seriously K5ive, producer
Jacc Spade, producer
Original Flow, rapper
Ray June, rapper
Xanvas, producer
Ali Shaw, host
Beetyman, rapper
Tony Foster Jr., singer
Sid Carter, rapper
Malachi Burgess, producer
NOLO, producer
WoRm, producer
Deeksta, producer
4wop, rapper
Bezel 365, rapper
Motown Records
On April 5, 2021, Motown Records announced it would release the Fire in Little Africa album on its Black Forum imprint in conjunction with Tulsa's Bob Dylan Center and Woody Guthrie Center. It will be the first new release by Black Forum since the label's official relaunch in February 2021.
Motown Records Chairman & CEO Ethiopia Habtemariam said she was honored to have Fire in Little Africa on the label and called the album "a powerful and timely project that provides a platform and outlet for the incredibly talented and thriving music community of Tulsa, Oklahoma."
References
Motown compilation albums
Multimedia works
Works about the Tulsa race massacre | Fire in Little Africa | [
"Technology"
] | 1,084 | [
"Multimedia",
"Multimedia works"
] |
67,428,409 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team%20Xecuter | Team Xecuter is a hacker group that makes mod chips, cartridges and jailbreaking software for game consoles. Among console hackers, who primarily consist of hobbyists testing boundaries and believe in the open-source model, Team Xecuter was controversial for selling hacking tools for profit. Console systems targeted by the group include the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo 3DS, GameCube, NES Classic Edition, PlayStation, Xbox and the Xbox 360.
Legal issues
In September 2020, Canadian national Gary Bowser was arrested in the Dominican Republic and French national Max "MAXiMiLiEN" Louarn was detained in Tanzania by order of American authorities to face charges relating to designing and selling "circumvention devices", specifically products to circumvent Nintendo Switch copy protection, and were named, along with Chinese citizen Yuanning Chen, in a federal indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, WA on August 20 of the same year. Each of the three men named in the indictment faced 11 felony counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to circumvent technological measures and to traffic in circumvention devices, trafficking in circumvention devices, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Bowser handled public relations for the group, which has been in operation since "at least" 2013.
On 16 October 16 2020, the Dar es Salaam district court dismissed the extradition request for Max Louarn to the United States on the grounds that his arrest had been illegal. Louarn thereafter traveled to Reunion Island (which is an overseas department of France) by private jet to avoid any further attempts to apprehend him by the American authorities, before finally returning to mainland France itself. While there is still an outstanding international warrant for his arrest, Louarn remains a free man as French law does not allow the extradition of its own citizens.
By October 2021, Bowser pled guilty to conspiracy to circumvent technological measures and trafficking in circumvention devices, agreeing to pay a penalty and to continue to work with authorities in their continued investigation of Team Xecuter in exchange for dropping the other nine charges against him. In December, he was ordered to pay another $10 million to Nintendo. On February 10, 2022, Bowser was sentenced to 40 months in prison.
Nintendo separately filed a civil lawsuit against Bowser in April 2021 related to three counts of copyright infringement, seeking "damages" of $2500 per trafficked device, and $150,000 for each copyright violation.
Nintendo has also successfully prevailed in another lawsuit involving resellers of Team Xecuter devices, winning $2 million with a settlement.
References
Further reading
Hacker groups
Hacking in the 2000s
Hacking in the 2010s
Hacking in the 2020s
Nintendo Switch | Team Xecuter | [
"Technology"
] | 566 | [
"Computer security stubs",
"Computing stubs"
] |
67,429,164 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyembolokoilamania | Polyembolokoilamania is the act of inserting foreign bodies into orifices such as the rectum urethra and vagina. It is often exhibited by patients with Smith–Magenis syndrome. When motivated by a desire for sexual gratification, it can be considered a paraphilia.
References
Further reading
Paraphilias
Self-harm
Foreign body | Polyembolokoilamania | [
"Biology"
] | 77 | [
"Behavior",
"Sexuality stubs",
"Sexuality"
] |
67,429,956 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag%20icons%20for%20languages | The use of flag icons, particularly national flags, for languages is a common practice. Such icons have long been used on tourist attraction signage, and elsewhere in the tourism space, but have found wider use in website localization where UX limitations have become apparent.
Types of flags icons
National flags
National flags are the most commonly used flag icons for representing languages. They are generally chosen because they either represent the language's origin (e.g. the flag of Spain used over the flag of Mexico) or the highest number of native speakers (e.g. the flag of the United States over the Flag of England).
Mixed national flags
A diagonally divided flag between two or more nation states may be used when more than one country is a major user of a language. Examples of this are the flags of the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada to indicate the English language, the flags of China and Taiwan to represent Mandarin, the flags of France, Belgium, and Canada to represent the French language, the flags of Spain and Mexico to represent the Spanish language, and the flags of Portugal and Brazil to represent the Portuguese language.
Linguistic flags
Some international linguistic communities have flags which encompass all the speakers of a language while avoiding the symbolism of national flags, though they are not as widely recognized. Some, like the flag of Esperanto, or the Yiddish flag.
Writing systems
National flags can also be used to distinguish between different written standards for a single language. For example, the Flag of Taiwan is often used for Traditional Chinese and the Flag of the People's Republic of China for Simplified Chinese.
Political motivations
Some Euronet ATMs (automated teller machines) display the Irish flag as a symbol for the English language (usually UK flag or English flag). In the media, this was speculated to be a response to Brexit, with the Republic of Ireland as one of the only two Anglophone nations left in the European Union. The Irish flag is more usually used to signify the Irish language.
Gallery
References
External links
Computer icons
Internationalization and localization
Language identifiers
Pictograms
Representations of flags | Flag icons for languages | [
"Mathematics",
"Technology"
] | 428 | [
"Natural language and computing",
"Symbols",
"Internationalization and localization",
"Pictograms"
] |
67,430,752 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK%20Emergency%20Alert%20System | The United Kingdom's mobile phone alert system is a public population warning system that uses Cell Broadcast technology. The warning system is intended for use in major incidents such as flooding or terror attacks. The Emergency Alert System was launched on 19 March 2023, and tested on a nationwide basis for the first time on 23 April 2023.
On 23 February 2024, the system's first non-test alert was sent to residents of Plymouth advising them to evacuate an area of the city due to the discovery of an unexploded World War II bomb in the back garden of a property.
History
During the Cold War, the UK developed an emergency alert system called the WB400/WB600/WB1400 warning system, operated by the UK Warning and Monitoring Organisation, aimed to alert UK institutions and the public before a catastrophic wartime attack, such as a nuclear warhead detonation or severe bombing. The Wartime Broadcasting Service was to operate after such a catastrophic attack, informing the population. The system was discontinued in 1992.
Early cell broadcast trials
In 2013, the Government of the United Kingdom trialled a system similar to other countries in which cell broadcasts would be simultaneously broadcast to multiple mobile devices. The final project report in 2014 found that "Responders remain very keen to see the implementation of a national mobile alert system" and that "the majority of people (85%) felt that a mobile alert system was a good idea." The report said it was the hope to carry out more trials, however past that point no further trials were conducted. An earlier 2012 report ("Extended Floodline Warnings Direct Trial") by the Cabinet Office using mobile phone calls found that only 12% of recipients acknowledged the alert. During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the government was accused of ignoring its own advice to set up UK emergency alert system and how after seven years of the Cabinet Office's own report showing such systems were successful, there was "no sign of a system being developed."
In 2019 and early 2020, the Environment Agency collaborated with EE, Fujitsu and the University of Hull to trial Cell Broadcasting technologies for the purpose of flood warning.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic
On 24 March 2020, the government collaborated with all UK mobile networks to send a text message to inform people of the new lockdown rules.
On 26 December 2021, the government sent another nationwide text message to inform the population about the availability of COVID-19 booster vaccinations, available for free through the NHS.
Cell broadcast trial and implementation
In 2020, the UK began developing an emergency alert system using Cell Broadcast in collaboration with UK mobile networks.
In March 2021, a test across all networks on the test channels took place in Reading with the British government's Flood Information Service updating a page on its website, stating that the new cell broadcast system is being tested, and some devices may receive test alerts. This page was updated again in April for further operator tests.
A test broadcast was made for customers on O2 on 11 May 2021 at around 8 am to users who had enabled test alerts in their phone's Wireless Alerts settings. A similar trial was run on 20 May for EE customers. Two alerts were sent, received at around 13:21 and 13:48 respectively.
The first test on the public channels for the new Emergency Alerts System was on 25 May in East Suffolk, the second test of the system was on 29 June in Reading, before being rolled out with an introduction Emergency Alert nationwide in October 2022. The system is guaranteed to work on iOS 14.5 and later, and on Android 11 and later, though if Wireless Alerts settings are available on older Android devices, the alerts are very likely to work on those, too. Since the majority of Android devices are already compatible with Cell Broadcast alerts such as the USA's WEA system, most older Android devices should also be compatible.
The alerts will only be available on devices that connect to the UK's 4G and 5G networks, but not 2G or 3G despite Cell Broadcast being part of the GSM specification; the Government's rationale being that the 2G/3G networks will be shut down within 5 years. The loud sound that is played on receiving an alert is exactly the same sound that is used on all comparable emergancy alert systems, such as Wireless Emergency Alerts in the US and EU-Alert variants in Europe. Users can opt out of lower level alerts, but the highest level of alerts will still sound.
UK Emergency Alert System
The alert system is intended to allow government and the emergency services to send a text alert to mobile phones in a situation where there is perceived to be an immediate risk to life. Mobile users will receive an alert accompanied by a siren-like noise, they must acknowledge in order to use the phone's other features. In an emergency, the alert will inform people where the emergency is, and tell them what they need to do in response.
The alert system will be used to warn the public in the event of incidents such as fires, flooding, extreme weather conditions and terrorist attacks.
The Emergency Alert System was nationally launched on 19 March 2023, almost two years after the first public test. The UK government has estimated the Emergency Alert system will cost £25.3m in its first three years of operation.
Local and national tests
Local tests were carried out in East Suffolk and Reading in 2021.
On the day of its launch, the UK Government confirmed plans to conduct a national test of the system at 3 pm on 23 April 2023. About 90% of phones in the UK were expected to receive the test alert.
Prior to the test alert, domestic abuse charities in the UK, including Refuge, expressed their concern that victims of domestic abuse who kept a concealed phone as a safety precaution could be placed at risk by the sounding of the alert. This prompted the UK government to issue advice to people in that particular situation to switch the device off, as the alert would not sound if the phone is switched off. It would also not sound if aeroplane mode was switched on. Refuge also produced a video showing how the alerts could be switched off in a phone's settings.
Sport and entertainment venues confirmed plans to minimise disruption. Sheffield's Crucible Theatre announced that the 2023 World Snooker Championship would be briefly paused to accommodate the test, while the Society of London Theatre said it had advised its members to ask theatregoers to turn off their mobile phones during matinee performances. No theatres planned to alter the time of their performances, although it was reported some planned to briefly pause performances for the test alert. Speaking on the morning of 23 April, Oliver Dowden, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that people would not need to take any action because of the test alert, while the consumer organisation Which? issued a statement ahead of the alert to warn people of potential scams: "Events like this can be a magnet for scammers looking to take advantage of the confusion. Anything that asks you to take action from the alert is a scam."
The test alert was sent to mobile phones on the 5G and 4G networks. During the test alert, the siren sounded for around ten seconds, even on phones set to silent mode. The test alert read as follows:
"This is a test of Emergency Alerts, a new UK government service that will warn you if there's a life-threatening emergency nearby. In a real emergency, follow the instructions in the alert to keep yourself and others safe. Visit gov.uk/alerts for more information. This is a test. You do not need to take any action."
The alert needed to be accepted by the recipient in order for them to continue using their device.
Following the test, some mobile phone users took to social media to complain that the alert had sounded either one minute earlier or one minute later than scheduled, while some reported receiving a message titled with the words "severe alert". Many users of the Three mobile network did not receive the test alert, but some on the O2 and Vodafone networks also reported difficulty. Three said it was aware some of its mobile users had not received the alert: "We are working closely with the government to understand why and ensure it doesn't happen when the system is in use." The Cabinet Office said it would review the outcome of the test and that it was aware a "very small proportion of mobile users on some networks did not receive it". Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden subsequently told Parliament he had initiated the alert at 14:59 BST in order to minimise potential disruption to events starting at 3pm, and that it had remained active until 15:21 BST.
The Welsh alert message included a typo in which the Welsh word for safe – – was misspelt as Vogel; the letter 'v' does not appear in Welsh orthography. Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden told the House of Commons that autocorrect had been to blame for the error, but that the "essence of the message remained unchanged".
The Cabinet Office confirmed that 80% of mobile phones were capable of receiving the alert message, but that 7% had not received it, either because of the issue with the Three network, or because people had either disabled emergency alerts or switched to aeroplane mode. The Cabinet Office also said the test had been successful, and that there would likely be further tests to the alert system in future, but that there were "no current plans" to test it again. Some mobile users received a second, unannounced "mobile network operator test" alert just after 2pm on 2 May 2023.
On 18 July 2023, Roger Hargreaves, director of Cobra, suggested to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee that the emergency alert system should be tested every two years to ensure the technology is working.
On Tuesday 3 September, roughly 2:10pm GMT another test was broadcast in Sunderland.
Operational use
The first live use of the system was on 23 February 2024. Residents in Plymouth, Devon were advised to evacuate part of the city, upon discovery of an unexploded World War II bomb in a back garden in Keyham. Residents were sent an alert at 12.00pm, two hours before it was moved by military convoy for disposal at sea. A second group of residents were thus alerted to leave homes within 300 metres of its journey to Torpoint Ferry slipway.
On 6 December 2024 at 19:00, the system was used to alert around three million people living in Wales and South West England of a potential danger to life as Storm Darragh approached the UK.
On 23 January 2025, an alert was sent out to all of Northern Ireland and the central belt of Scotland at 5:25pm GMT and 5:50pm GMT respectively regarding the red warnings issued by the Met Office relating to Storm Éowyn. This alert was sent to an estimated 4.5 million people in what is the largest use of the system yet.
See also
Cell Broadcast
EU-Alert, an equivalent Cell Broadcast system
Emergency Mobile Alert, an equivalent Cell Broadcast system
Wireless Emergency Alerts, an equivalent Cell Broadcast system
Reverse 1-1-2
Public warning system
Four-minute warning
HANDEL
References
External links
Official website
Public emergency alerts: mobile alerting trials
United Kingdom
Emergency management in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom | UK Emergency Alert System | [
"Technology"
] | 2,335 | [
"Warning systems",
"Emergency population warning systems"
] |
67,431,141 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.%20B.%20Donald | Maxwell Bruce Donald (1897 - 6 January 1978) was a Ramsay professor of chemical engineering at University College London and a historian specialising in mining.
Early career
Donald studied at the Royal College of Science and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1921 he became a Sir Alfred Yarrow Scholar, before becoming a physical chemistry demonstrator for the Royal College of Science. He left the Royal College in 1925 to become a chemical engineer for the Chilean Nitrate Producers Association, before joining Royal Dutch Shell in 1929 as an adviser on bitumen emulsions.
In 1932, Donald joined the chemical engineering department at University College London as a lecturer and researcher under W. E. Gibbs. During the 1930s, Donald worked with the professor of biochemistry, Sir Jack Drummond on the isolation of Vitamin A and B from fish liver oil and wheat germ.
In 1937, Donald was made honorary secretary of the Institution of Chemical Engineers. In addition, Donald was a member of the Royal Institute of Chemistry Council and the Joint Library Committee of the Chemical Society.
During the Second World War, Donald was part of the Special Operations Executive Inter Services Research Bureau under Dudley Newitt. He also continued to lecture, joining Imperial College London after the bombing of the Ramsay Laboratory at UCL.
Later career
During 1947 Donald became a reader in the department at University College London. In 1950, Donald was promoted to vice president of the Institution of Chemical Engineers.
In 1951 Donald replaced H. E. Watson as the Ramsay professor of Chemical engineering at University College London. During this time the department greatly increased, with Donald overseeing the design and construction of a new building.
Donald was the initial academic liaison and member of the editorial board of the journal Chemical Engineering Science which launched in October 1951. At UCL, Donald worked with Eric Mitchell Crook on developing the discipline of biochemical engineering, including the production the first coenzyme A in Britain from yeast as part of a Medical Research Council project. With Ernest Baldwin, head of biochemistry, Donald set up a joint diploma in 1959, later a masters programme in biochemical engineering at UCL.
Donald retired in 1965 and was replaced as the Ramsay professor of Chemical Engineering by P. N. Rowe.
Historian
Donald was a keen historian and published a number of works: History of the Chile nitrate industry (1936), Burchard Kranich (c. 1515–1578), miner and queens physician, Cornish mining stamps, antimony and, Frobishers gold (1950), Elizabethan Copper:The History of the Company of the Mines Royal 1568-1605 (1955) and Elizabethan Monopolies: The History of the Company of Mineral and Battery Works from 1565 to 1604 (1961). Donald was the historian of the Society of Mines Royal. His work on mining history was recognised by being elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Donald had planned to restore a Cornish tin mine but due to bad health he had to abandon his plans.
Awards
In 1937, Donald won the Institution of Chemical Engineers senior Moulton Medal. Donald was awarded the Osborne Reynolds medal in 1940, for his most meritorious long-term contribution to the progress of the Institution.
The Institution of Chemical Engineers named its award for to an individual for outstanding services in biochemical engineering. The Donald Medal has been awarded by the Biochemical Engineering Special Interest Group since 1989.
References
Date of birth unknown
1897 births
1978 deaths
Alumni of Imperial College London
Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni
Academics of University College London
Academics of Imperial College London
British chemical engineers
Chemical engineering academics
Fellows of the Institution of Chemical Engineers
Fellows of the Royal Historical Society | M. B. Donald | [
"Chemistry"
] | 719 | [
"Chemical engineering academics",
"Chemical engineers"
] |
67,431,410 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM%20PS/2%20Model%20CL57%20SX | The IBM Personal System/2 Model CL57 SX (stylized as PS/2 Model CL57 SX) is the first notebook computer with a color TFT screen released by IBM in 1992. It was released a few months before the introduction of the ThinkPad series.
Background
It was developed by a joint venture between IBM and Toshiba. The sibling model in a PS/55 line was a PS/55 N27sx laptop.
Specifications
It is based on the Micro Channel Architecture. It contains a 386SX at 20MHz, between 2 and 16 MB RAM, a 10.4" color TFT, weighed and has a trackball.
It can run IBM OS/2.
It was priced at and available from April 1992.
Reception
It was not favorably received by the market.
References
External links
Laptop.pics
Product info
PS/2 Color Laptop 57 SX
Color Laptop 57 SX
Computer-related introductions in 1992 | IBM PS/2 Model CL57 SX | [
"Technology"
] | 194 | [
"Computing stubs",
"Computer hardware stubs"
] |
67,432,182 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticoa | Ticoa is an extinct genus originally assigned to the Cycadales from the Early Cretaceous of Argentina, Chile, and Antarctica. Other authors view this genus as a member of the polyphyletic "seed ferns".
Taxonomy
The genus was erected by Sergio Archangelsky based on material from the Anfiteatro de Ticó formation.
The genus first comprised two species, T. harrisii and T. magnipinnulata, with T. lamellata being described from the Bajo Grande locality in Patagonia, Argentina. The species T. magallanica was described from the Springhill formation in Chile. T. jeffersonii was described from Hope Bay in Antarctica. T. lanceolata was described much later from the Anfiteatro de Ticó formation .
Description
Ticoa includes large, bipinnate or tripinnate leaves with pecopteroid pinnules and a robust rachis. The cuticle, either hypostomatous or amphistomatous, presents large stomata sunken in a pit formed by multiple subsidiary and encircling cells.
References
Pteridospermatophyta
Controversial plant taxa | Ticoa | [
"Biology"
] | 243 | [
"Biological hypotheses",
"Controversial plant taxa",
"Controversial taxa"
] |
67,432,215 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agra%20gauze | Agra gauze was a thin, translucent fabric with a loose open weave. The material was made of silk with a plain weave. Agra gauze was also known as Agre. The fabric is named after the Agra city. The cloth was used in trimmings.
Structure
The Agra gauze is a stiffened silk gauze. It is very fine and transparent but strong, the structure is similar to a gauze fabric that is loose and open in weave. It is finished with a stiffener to make it a stiffened material.
See also
Trim (sewing)
Lace
Mesh
Ninon
References
Woven fabrics
Silk
Parts of clothing | Agra gauze | [
"Technology"
] | 125 | [
"Components",
"Parts of clothing"
] |
67,432,243 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convex%20compactification | In mathematics, specifically in convex analysis, the convex compactification is a compactification which is simultaneously a convex subset in a locally convex space in functional analysis. The convex compactification can be used for relaxation (as continuous extension) of various problems in variational calculus and optimization theory. The additional linear structure allows e.g. for developing a differential calculus and more advanced considerations e.g. in relaxation in variational calculus or optimization theory. It may capture both fast oscillations and concentration effects in optimal controls or solutions of variational problems. They are known under the names of relaxed or chattering controls (or sometimes bang-bang controls) in optimal control problems.
The linear structure gives rise to various maximum principles as first-order necessary optimality conditions, known in optimal-control theory as Pontryagin's maximum principle. In variational calculus, the relaxed problems can serve for modelling of various microstructures arising in modelling Ferroics, i.e. various materials exhibiting e.g. Ferroelasticity (as Shape-memory alloys) or Ferromagnetism. The first-order optimality conditions for the relaxed problems leads Weierstrass-type maximum principle.
In partial differential equations, relaxation leads to the concept of measure-valued solutions.
The notion was introduced by Roubíček in 1991.
Example
The set of Young measures arising from bounded sets in Lebesgue spaces.
The set of DiPerna-Majda measures arising from bounded sets in Lebesgue spaces.
See also
Young measures
References
Notes
Sources
convex analysis
Compactification (mathematics) | Convex compactification | [
"Mathematics"
] | 325 | [
"Topology",
"Compactification (mathematics)"
] |
67,432,373 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toukh%20train%20accident | On 18 April 2021, a train derailed in the city of Toukh in Qalyubiyya Governorate, Egypt. The accident left 23 people dead and another 139 injured, trapping several under overturned carriages. It was the third major train accident in Egypt recorded in less than a month. Considering the commonality of train wrecks and mishaps in Egypt, prosecutors blamed the negligence of railway employees and the country’s mismanagement.
Investigation
Preliminary investigations attributed the incident to the increased speed of the Toukh train, which was travelling at 120 km/h on a stretch not designed for speeds exceeding 30 km/h. The train's driver, the driver's assistant, and all of the workers of the signs and towers in the area where the crash took place, were taken into custody as part of the investigation.
Response
President Abdel Fattah Sisi commissioned Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly to form a committee, to be made up of members of the Administrative Control Authority, the Armed Forces Engineering Authority, and the Military Technical College, to determine the cause of the accident. The transport minister, Kamel Al -Wazir, visited the site of the crash, and declared that those responsible would be held to account. The Ministry of Health redirected 58 ambulances to the scene to transport the injured. Ashraf Raslan, head of the Egyptian railway authority, was fired in the aftermath of the incident.
See also
Sohag train collision, another train crash which took place in Egypt three weeks earlier
List of rail accidents in Egypt
References
2021 disasters in Egypt
2021 in Egypt
April 2021 events in Egypt
Derailments in Egypt
Qalyubiyya Governorate
Railway accidents in 2021 | Toukh train accident | [
"Technology"
] | 349 | [
"Railway accidents and incidents",
"Rail accident stubs"
] |
67,433,501 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalized%20renewal%20process | In the mathematical theory of probability, a generalized renewal process (GRP) or G-renewal process is a stochastic point process used to model failure/repair behavior of repairable systems in reliability engineering. Poisson point process is a particular case of GRP.
Probabilistic model
Virtual age
The G-renewal process is introduced by Kijima and Sumita through the notion of the virtual age.
where:
and is real and virtual age (respectively) of the system at/after the i repair,
is the restoration factor (a.k.a., repair effectiveness factor),
, represents the condition of a perfect repair, where the system age is reset to zero after the repair. This condition corresponds to the Ordinary Renewal Process.
, represents the condition of a minimal repair, where the system condition after the repair remains the same as right before the repair. This condition corresponds to the Non-Homogeneous Poisson Process.
, represents the condition of a general repair, where the system condition is between perfect repair and minimal repair. This condition corresponds to the Generalized Renewal Process.
Kaminskiy and Krivtsov extended the Kijima models by allowing q > 1, so that the repair damages (ages) the system to a higher degree than it was just before the respective failure.
G-renewal equation
Mathematically, the G-renewal process is quantified through the solution of the G-renewal equation:
where,
f(t) is the probability density function (PDF) of the underlying failure time distribution,
F(t) is the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the underlying failure time distribution,
q is the restoration factor,
is the vector of parameters of the underlying failure-time distribution.
A closed-form solution to the G-renewal equation is not possible. Also, numerical approximations are difficult to obtain due to the recurrent infinite series. A Monte Carlo based approach to solving the G-renewal Equation was developed by Kaminiskiy and Krivtsov.
Statistical estimation
The G–renewal process gained its practical popularity in reliability engineering only after methods for estimating its parameters had become available.
Monte Carlo approach
The nonlinear LSQ estimation of the G–renewal process was first offered by Kaminskiy & Krivtsov. A random inter-arrival time from a parameterized G-Renewal process is given by:
where,
is the cumulative real age before the i inter-arrival,
is a uniformly distributed random variable,
is the CDF of the underlying failure-time distribution.
The Monte Carlo solution was subsequently improved and implemented as a web resource.
Maximum likelihood approach
The maximum likelihood procedures were subsequently discussed by Yañez, et al., and Mettas & Zhao. The estimation of the G–renewal restoration factor was addressed in detail by Kahle & Love.
Regularization method in estimating GRP parameters
The estimation of G–renewal process parameters is an ill–posed inverse problem, and therefore, the solution may not be unique and is sensitive to the input data. Krivtsov & Yevkin suggested first to estimate the underlying distribution parameters using the time to first failures only. Then, the obtained parameters are used as the initial values for the second step, whereat all model parameters (including the restoration factor(s)) are estimated simultaneously. This approach allows, on the one hand, to avoid irrelevant solutions (wrong local maximums or minimums of the objective function) and on the other hand, to improve computational speed, as the number of iterations significantly depends on the selected initial values.
Limitations
One limitation of the Generalized Renewal Process is that it cannot account for "better-than-new" repair. The G1-renewal process has been developed which applies the restoration factor to the life parameter of a location-scale distribution to be able to account for "better-than-new" repair in addition to other repair types.
References
Engineering
Statistical theory
Point processes | Generalized renewal process | [
"Mathematics"
] | 796 | [
"Point processes",
"Point (geometry)"
] |
67,434,035 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc%20cycle | The zinc cycle is a biogeochemical cycle that transports zinc through the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere.
Natural Cycle
Lithosphere
Zinc-containing minerals in the Earth's crust exist primarily as sulfides, such as sphalerite and wurtzite, and carbonates such as smithsonite. Zinc minerals enter the terrestrial environment through weathering and human activities. Zinc is used by plants and other organisms, and then enters aquatic systems where it either settles into sediments or eventually enter the oceans.
Oceans
Zinc is a marine micronutrient that tends to be in higher concentration in the deep ocean and is transformed into organic zinc which enters the food chain by diatom blooms during upwelling events in the Southern Ocean. Zinc settles to the ocean floor and is returned to the mantle from the subduction of marine sediments.
The zinc cycle has historically been characterized by episodic changes in zinc deposits. Major global events such as the formation or breakup of supercontinents and periods of significant volcanic activity tend to create new deposits of zinc in the lithosphere. In between these events, zinc tends to cycle through the biosphere at a lower rate of change.
Anthropogenic influences
The anthropogenic effect on the zinc cycle has been significant. Zinc is mined as a mineral resource used by humans at a rate of 9800 Gg/yr for use in metal alloys including brass and nickel silver, for galvanizing steel, and in zinc compounds such as zinc oxide. Half of zinc waste from industrial use is from tailings and slag; the rest comes from the oxidation of zinc metals and landfill waste. Scientists estimate that 85% of all zinc that has been mined for human use is still in use; therefore, the amount of zinc waste going into landfills is expected to increase.
Zinc is a trace nutrient present in fertilizers, which contribute to 21 Gg/yr in agricultural cycling. Commercial fertilizers contain as much as 36% zinc. Only a small portion of the zinc that enters the agricultural system is removed in crops that are consumed by humans; a significant portion is recycled in manure and compost, and accumulates in the soil.
References
Zinc
Biogeochemical cycle | Zinc cycle | [
"Chemistry"
] | 464 | [
"Biogeochemical cycle",
"Biogeochemistry"
] |
67,434,894 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KBD%20algorithm | The KBD algorithm is a cluster update algorithm designed for the fully frustrated Ising model in two dimensions, or more generally any two dimensional spin glass with frustrated plaquettes arranged in a checkered pattern. It is discovered in 1990 by Daniel Kandel, Radel Ben-Av, and Eytan Domany, and generalized by P. D. Coddington and L. Han in 1994. It is the inspiration for cluster algorithms used in quantum monte carlo simulations.
Motivation
The SW algorithm is the first non-local algorithm designed for efficient simulation of ferromagnetic spin models. However, it is soon realized that the efficiency of the algorithm cannot be extended to frustrated systems, due to an overly large correlation length of the generated clusters with respect to the underlying spin system. The KBD algorithm is an attempt to extend the bond-formation rule to the plaquettes of the lattice, such that the generated clusters are informed by the frustration profile, resulting in them being smaller than the SW ones, thereby making the algorithm more efficient in comparison. However, at the current stage, it is not known whether this algorithm can be generalized for arbitrary spin glass models.
Algorithm
We begin by decomposing the square lattice down into plaquettes arranged in a checkered pattern (such that the plaquettes only overlap vertex-wise but not edge-wise). Since the spin model is fully-frustrated, each plaquette must contain exactly one or three negative interactions. If the plaquette contains three negative interactions, then no bonds can be formed. However, if the plaquette contains one negative interaction, then two parallel bonds can be formed (perpendicular to the negative edge) with probability , where is the inverse temperature of the spin model.
The bonds will then form clusters on the lattice, on which the spins can be collectively flipped (either with the SW rule or the Wolff rule ). It can be shown that the update satisfies detailed balance, meaning that correctness is guaranteed if the algorithm is used in conjunction with ergodic algorithms like single spin-flip updates.
Topological features
At zero temperature, or the limit, all the plaquettes will contain exactly one negative edge. In this case, on each checkered plaquette, the KBD algorithm will always open two parallel bonds perpendicular to the negative edge, meaning that the bond will be closed on the negative edge along with the edge opposite to it. If we were to track the closed bonds in the dual lattice, by drawing a straight/bent line inside each plaquette such that it intersects with the closed bonds, then it can be shown that a path following the lines must form a cycle.
Furthermore, it can be shown that there must be at least two such cycles, and that the cycles cannot intersect. Most importantly, each cycle cannot be contracted to a point in the underlying surface that the lattice is embedded in. On a periodic lattice (or a torus), this means that the cycles of closed bonds must wind around the torus in the same direction, from which one can show that the largest cluster (which must be "squeezed" between these cycles) at zero temperature cannot span a finite fraction of the lattice size in the thermodynamic limit.
References
Statistical mechanics
Monte Carlo methods | KBD algorithm | [
"Physics"
] | 652 | [
"Monte Carlo methods",
"Statistical mechanics",
"Computational physics"
] |
67,436,219 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billions%20at%20Play | Billions at Play: The Future of African Energy and Doing Deals is a book by Nj Ayuk, an attorney and entrepreneur. The book discusses the nature of African oil and gas where it highlighted the present situations and ways to developing and enhancing energy resources in African countries, expanding relationship and negotiation to other developed countries in the world. The book foreword was written by OPEC Secretary-General, H.E. Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo.
The book was published in 2019 and revised in 2021 as second edition (2nd ed). It has been published in French, Germany and Spanish.
References
Books about Africa
Books about petroleum | Billions at Play | [
"Chemistry"
] | 128 | [
"Petroleum",
"Books about petroleum",
"Chemical engineering books",
"Petroleum stubs"
] |
67,437,670 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replica%20cluster%20move | Replica cluster move in condensed matter physics refers to a family of non-local cluster algorithms used to simulate spin glasses. It is an extension of the Swendsen-Wang algorithm in that it generates non-trivial spin clusters informed by the interaction states on two (or more) replicas instead of just one. It is different from the replica exchange method (or parallel tempering), as it performs a non-local update on a fraction of the sites between the two replicas at the same temperature, while parallel tempering directly exchanges all the spins between two replicas at different temperature. However, the two are often used alongside to achieve state-of-the-art efficiency in simulating spin-glass models.
The Chayes-Machta-Redner representation
The Chayes-Machta-Redner (CMR) representation is a graphical representation of the Ising spin glass which extends the standard FK representation. It is based on the observation that the total Hamiltonian of two independent Ising replicas α and β,
can be written as the Hamiltonian of a 4-state clock model. To see this, we define the following mapping
where is the orientation of the 4-state clock, then the total Hamiltonian can be represented as
In the graphical representation of this model, there are two types of bonds that can be open, referred to as blue and red. To generate the bonds on the lattice, the following rules are imposed:
If , or when the interactions on edge are satisfied on both replicas, then a blue bond is open with probability .
If , or when the interaction on edge is satisfied in exactly one replica, then a red bond is open with probability .
Otherwise, a closed bond is formed.
Under these rules, it can be checked that a cycle of open bonds can only contain an even number of red bonds. A cluster formed with blue bonds is referred to as a blue cluster, and a super-cluster formed together with both blue and red bonds is referred to as a grey cluster.
Once the clusters are generated, there are two types of non-local updates that can be made to the clock states independently in the clock clusters (and thus the spin states in both replicas). First, for every blue cluster, we can flip (or rotate ) the clock states with some arbitrary probability. Following this, for every grey cluster (blue clusters connected with red bonds), we can rotate all the clock states simultaneously by a random angle.
It can be shown that both updates are consistent with the bond-formation rules, and satisfy detailed balance. Therefore, an algorithm based on this CMR representation will be correct when used in conjunction with other ergodic algorithms. However, the algorithm is not necessarily efficient, as a giant grey cluster will tend to span the entire lattice at sufficiently low temperatures (e.g. even at paramagnetic phases of spin-glass models).
Houdayer cluster move
The Houdayer cluster move is a simpler cluster algorithm based on a site percolation process on sites with negative spin overlaps. It is discovered by Jerome Houdayer in 2001. For two independent Ising replicas, we can define the spin overlap as
and a cluster is formed by randomly selecting a site and percolating through the adjacent sites with (with a percolation ratio of 1) until the maximal cluster is formed. The spins in the cluster are then exchanged between the two replicas. It can be shown that the exchange update is isoenergetic, meaning that the total energy is conserved in the update. This gives an acceptance ratio of 1 as calculated from the Metropolis-Hastings rule. In other words, the update is rejection-free.
Suppressing percolation of large clusters
The efficiency of this algorithm is highly sensitive to the site percolation threshold of the underlying lattice. If the percolation threshold is too small, then a giant cluster will likely span the entire lattice, resulting in the trivial update of exchanging nearly all the spins between the replicas. This is why the original algorithm only performs well in low dimensional settings (where the site percolation ratio is sufficiently high). To efficiently extend this algorithm to higher dimensions, one has to perform certain algorithmic interventions.
For instance, one can restrict the cluster moves to low-temperature replicas where one expects only a few number of negative-overlap sites to appear (such that the algorithm does not percolate supercritically). In addition, one can perform a global spin-flip in one of the two replicas when the number of negative-overlap sites exceeds half the lattice size, in order to further suppress the percolation process.
The Jorg cluster move is another way to reduce the sizes of the Houdayer clusters. In each Houdayer cluster, the algorithm forms open bonds with probability , similar to the Swensden-Wang algorithm. This will form sub-clusters that are smaller than the Houdayer clusters, and the spins in these sub-clusters can then be exchange between replicas in a similar fashion as a Houdayer cluster move.
References
Statistical mechanics
Monte Carlo methods
Condensed matter physics | Replica cluster move | [
"Physics",
"Chemistry",
"Materials_science",
"Engineering"
] | 1,041 | [
"Monte Carlo methods",
"Phases of matter",
"Materials science",
"Computational physics",
"Condensed matter physics",
"Statistical mechanics",
"Matter"
] |
67,437,771 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD%20terminology | This is a glossary of terms common in multi-user dungeon (MUD) multiplayer virtual worlds.
A–Z
See also
Glossary of video game terms
References
Bibliography
Computing terminology
Video game terminology
Video game lists
Glossaries of computers
Wikipedia glossaries using description lists | MUD terminology | [
"Technology"
] | 53 | [
"Computing terminology",
"Video game terminology",
"Video game lists",
"Computing-related lists",
"Glossaries of computers"
] |
77,537,529 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting%20science | The meeting science is an emerging scientific discipline dedicated to the study, analysis, and optimization of professional meetings. Its primary goal is to enhance the effectiveness, productivity, and satisfaction of participants by applying scientific methods and principles.
History
Meetings have always been a central element of management, and interest in their optimization developed in the early 21st century with an increasing number of meetings in professional environments. This interest grew significantly after the global COVID-19 crisis, which led many organizations to adopt hybrid work modes. Previously, various economic sectors had initiated efforts to define and formalize meeting practices.
The universality of the principles and practices of meeting science facilitates its adoption beyond the corporate world. It is integrated into diverse organizations, including local governments, military, associations, and foundations.
Simultaneously, a related field called facilitation emerged. Unlike meeting science, which aims to make operators autonomous in applying best practices, facilitation involves methodological experts who intervene in a targeted manner during events to improve efficiency.
Origins
Lean management
Inspired by Toyota's practices in Japan, lean management introduced the principle of short-interval meetings to manage operations, often associated with visual management.
Agile approaches
With the publication of the Agile Manifesto in 2001, these approaches spread through the implementation of frameworks like Scrum, which includes specific meetings such as sprint planning and retrospectives, and the daily stand-up.
Sociocracy and holacracy
Sociocracy and holacracy are governance models introduced in the 1970s and early 2000s, respectively, focused on putting people at the center of performance. They define precise meeting modalities. Sociocracy is based on four principles: decision-making by consent, organization in circles, double-linking between circles, and election without candidates. Holacracy proposes governance meetings and tactical meetings.
United States
In the United States, meeting science emerged in the 2000s. Steven Rogelberg and Joseph Allen are pioneers, laying the foundations of this scientific discipline. Their academic work is summarized in The Cambridge handbook of meeting science, which explores various meeting aspects, including the meeting recovery syndrome, a concept that explores to the conditions individuals experience post-meeting.
Many American authors have published works on meeting science. Rogelberg's The surprising science of meetings offers insights into agenda setting, participant engagement, and decision processes. Joseph Allen, a student of Rogelberg, continues research at the University of Utah on entitativity, a concept developed by Donald T. Campbell in the 1960s. Allen has also written about remote meetings in the context of hybrid work. Patrick Lencioni, in Death by meeting (2004), proposes a simple committee model for executive teams, describing necessary rituals. Elise Keith, in Where the action is, presents a periodic table of meetings with 16 different formats. Paul Axtell, in Meetings matter (2015), provides a humanistic perspective on meetings.
The Harvard Business Review is also a resource on meeting science, featuring articles by experts such as Roger Schwartz on effective agenda writing, Eunice Eun on reducing unnecessary meetings, Steven Rogelberg on improving meetings, Sabina Nawaz on creating norms for executive teams, and Paul Axtell on questions to improve meetings.
McKinsey has published articles offering insights on meeting organization and efficiency.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom Alan Palmer published Talk Lean in 2014, describing an approach developed in France in the 1990s by Philippe de Lapoyade and Alain Garnier, called Discipline Interactifs. This approach emphasizes precisely formulating the goal of an exchange, whether it is a managerial act, a sales interview, or a meeting. Helen Chapman, in The meeting book (2016), presents concepts and illustrations contributing to meeting success.
France
In France, Alain Cardon proposed an original approach called delegated processes in the late 1990s to improve recurring meeting practices, particularly for executive committees and hierarchical teams. In 2001, Michel Guillou coined the term réuniologie as "the art of organizing effective meetings."
In 2017 the École Internationale de Réuniologie, International School of Meeting Science in English, was founded and registered the trademark réuniologie with the National Institute of Industrial Property in France. The school assists organizations in improving their meeting practices and combating meeting-itis. Louis Vareille, the founder, defined the meeting-itis and proposed solutions in his book Meeting-itis, make it stop!.
In his work, Louis Vareille develops concepts related to meeting science from various authors:
William Schutz's human element theory: analyzes individual behavior in groups and measures to ensure active contribution.
Amy Edmondson's psychological safety: influences team dynamics and meeting functioning. Her book The fearless organization (2018) is a key reference.
Max Ringelmann's social loafing: describes the optimal number of meeting participants.
Other French authors have also contributed to the discipline. Romain David and Didier Noyé, in Réinventez vos réunions, provide a synthetic and operational vision of the levers to activate for meeting efficiency. Sacha Lopez, David Lemesle, and Marc Bourguignon offer practical perspectives in their Guide de survie aux réunions, drawing on their expertise in facilitation.
Study areas
The meeting science explores various aspects of meetings:
Planning and structure: designing, defining objectives, structuring the agenda, and preparing meetings.
Group dynamics: analyzing participant interactions, roles, and behaviors.
Technologies and tools: impact of digital tools and communication technologies.
Productivity and efficiency: measuring productivity.
Participant satisfaction: surveys on participant satisfaction and engagement, and evaluating decisions and outcomes. Agile development approaches like return on time invested (ROTI) facilitate these practices.
Methods
Meeting science uses various methodologies to improve practices:
Observation: analyzing behaviors and interactions during meetings.
Surveys: collecting data on participant perceptions and satisfaction.
Experiments: controlled conditions to test meeting techniques' effectiveness.
Training and transformation: training programs to adjust practices.
Governance: analyzing and adjusting committee structures for optimal efficiency.
Meeting science also integrates techniques to ensure participant engagement in remote and hybrid meetings, using digital tools for meeting design, facilitation, and evaluation. Since 2023, artificial intelligence offers new features for meetings, including agenda design, translation, transcription, and summary writing.
Contexts
Meeting science can be applied to various contexts, including:
Team meetings
Executive and management committees
Project meetings
Steering committees
One-to-one meetings
All hands meetings
References
Further reading
External links
École Internationale de Réuniologie (in French)
Meeting science in Welcome to the jungle (in French)
Meetings
Interdisciplinary subfields
Behavioural sciences
Management science | Meeting science | [
"Biology"
] | 1,334 | [
"Behavioural sciences",
"Behavior",
"Management science"
] |
77,538,178 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosulfocarb | Prosulfocarb is a pre-emergent herbicide used agriculturally in Australia, the EU, Japan, New Zealand, (since 2020), Morocco and Iran, for control of annual ryegrass and toad rush in wheat and barley crops. It was introduced to the EU in 1988 and is rapidly growing in use, with sales increasing by over 500% in France since 2008.
Prosulfocarb is a thiocarbamate, and is absorbed by the roots of germinating seedlings to inhibit growth in the meristem by inhibiting fat synthesis, of resistance HRAC Group J, (Aus), K3/N, (Global), 15. (numeric) Applying prosulfocarb repeatedly builds weed resistance but undoes trifluralin (Group 3) resistance, as they have opposing mechanisms: prosulfocarb is resisted by decreasing pesticide metabolism; trifluralin is resisted by increasing metabolism.
Application
To target annual ryegrass, 2.5L/ha (of 800 g/L emulsifiable concentrate) is prepared and sprayed before sowing. It can be applied to barley post-emergence, but if applied wrongly may cause crop damage. Prosulfocarb does not need much moisture to be applied efficably, due to low volatility.
Prosulfocarb is often applied alongside s-Metolachlor and pyroxasulfone, or in Australia with trifluralin, with which it more efficiently circumvents weed resistance.
Prosulfocarb prevents target weeds from germinating, or failing that, the shoots grow swollen and bright green.
Toxicology
Prosulfocarb's LD50 toxicity is 1820 mg/kg orally for rats, which is comparable to paracetamol. The human toxicological effect is low. Prosulfocarb itself is not a combustible, but formulations can be due to other components. (e.g. solvent naphtha) Prosulfocarb is an irritant.
What limited mammalian toxicity exists, seems to affect the liver and kidneys, and in long-term studies, reduces appetite. Evidence does not show any carcinogenicity or genotoxicity. No toxic effect on the reproduction is shown. Prosulfocarb may have weak teratogenic potential, though there is no convincing evidence for it.
Environmental effect
Prosulfocarb is toxic to aquatic organisms; it is mandatory in Australia not to spray it within 20 metres upwind of aquatic or wetland areas or to apply by air. Nor if heavy rain is expected, to prevent runoff. It is not persistent in soil, with a halflife of 35 days. Prosulfocarb bioaccumulates, and has slight mobility in soil. Prosulfocarb's halflife in water (measured in ditches) is only 2.9 days.
Prosulfocarb was detectable in 97% of beeswax samples in a Swiss study, to a maximum level of 21 μg/kg, and was detectable in 27% of pollen.
Production
Global herbicide production is in TGAC form, typically 95-98% purity, whence it is shipped and locally formulated into commercially practical formulations, a mix with a solvent such as solvent naptha and other agents to make good mixing behaviour. Tech production is often in the USA, Japan, China, and India, the top four global agrochemical producers. Hermani, in Bharuch, India, has the capacity for 5000 tonnes of technical per year; Punjab Chemicals, in Dera Bassi, another 3000; Weifang Sino-Agri, China, another 1000 tonnes per year.
Synthesis
Prosulfocarb is synthesised by combination of dipropyl amine and phosgene, the amine replacing a chlorine atom, and this is then combined with benzyl mercaptan which takes the place of phosgene's other chlorine atom. The other order, adding the mercaptan to phosgene first, is also possible.
Uses
Target weeds
Prosulfocarb has been used to control the following weeds: annual ryegrass, Lolium rigidum, which is highly resistant to other herbicides, notably glyphosate, barley grass, toad rush, red and white fumitory, paradoxa grass (canary
grass), Phalaris spp., sand fescue, silver grass
(Vulpia spp.), soil surface wild oats, wireweed
(hogweed), suppression of brome grass, deadnettle,
rough poppy and yellow burr weed.
Crops
Prosulfocarb has been applied to the following crops: wheat and barley, and experimentally, in China on faba beans.
Tradenames
Prosulfocarb has been sold under these tradenames: Prosulfocarb 800, (4Famers, Genfarm, Reylon), Profuse, Arcade, (Syngenta), Countdown, Boxer Gold, (combination with s-Metolachlor), Defi, and Dian.
References
Links
Herbicides
Preemergent herbicides
Thiocarbamates
Carbamates
Products introduced in 1988 | Prosulfocarb | [
"Biology"
] | 1,087 | [
"Herbicides",
"Biocides"
] |
77,538,436 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combustion%20efficiency | Combustion efficiency refers to the effectiveness of the burning process in converting fuel into heat energy. It is measured by the proportion of fuel that is efficiently burned and converted into useful heat, while minimizing the emissions of pollutants.
Specifically, it may refer to:
fuel efficiency
engine efficiency
depending on whether the level of efficiency is determined by the fuel itself or the combustion chamber or engine.
References
Energy conversion
Combustion engineering | Combustion efficiency | [
"Engineering"
] | 84 | [
"Combustion engineering",
"Industrial engineering"
] |
77,538,555 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%206676 | NGC 6676 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation of Draco. Its velocity with respect to the cosmic microwave background is 6707 ± 12 km/s, which corresponds to a Hubble distance of 98.92 ± 6.93 Mpc (∼323 million light-years). It was discovered by American astronomer Lewis Swift on 30 May 1886.
One supernova has been observed in NGC 6676: SN 2023txu (type Ia, mag 18.96) was discovered by ATLAS on 3 October 2023.
See also
List of NGC objects (6001–7000)
References
External links
6676
11286
062021
Draco (constellation)
18860530
Discoveries by Lewis Swift
+11-22-054
Spiral galaxies
18331+6655 | NGC 6676 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 162 | [
"Constellations",
"Draco (constellation)"
] |
77,538,633 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoalbatrellus%20caeruleoporus | Neoalbatrellus caeruleoporus is a species of fungus in the family Albatrellaceae.
References
Russulales
Fungus species
Taxa named by Charles Horton Peck
Fungi described in 1874
Fungi of North America | Neoalbatrellus caeruleoporus | [
"Biology"
] | 45 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
77,538,830 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NanoTritium%20batteries | NanoTritium batteries are ultra-low-power, long-life betavoltaic devices developed by City Labs, Inc. These nanowatt-to-microwatt batteries utilize the natural decay of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, to generate continuous power for over 20 years.
History
The first NanoTritium battery prototypes were developed in 2008 for encryption security memory backup power by City Labs, Inc., a regulatory-licensed R&D and manufacturing facility located in Miami, Florida. The company originated at Florida International University in 2003 as part of the Office of Entrepreneurial Science founded by current City Labs CEO, Peter Cabauy. The company was eventually joined by Larry C. Olsen, founder of Betacel, who served as Director of Research.
NanoTritium batteries were released commercially in 2012. This marked the first time tritium batteries could be purchased without requiring a radiation license. To date, this is the only General License granted to the betavoltaic industry.
Technology
NanoTritium batteries employ principles of betavoltaic conversion and radioactive beta decay rather than conventional electrochemical cells to generate power, harnessing electrons released as the contained tritium naturally decays into helium-3, a non-radioactive isotope. Current models are capable of producing an output voltage of 0.8 to 1.1 V with a current density of 150 nA/cm2. Tritium's 12.32-year half-life and the relatively low amount of radiation emitted allow these batteries to safely output electrical power for decades.
Testing performed by Lockheed Martin during an industry-wide survey found NanoTritium batteries to be resistant to vibration, altitude, and temperatures ranging from -55°C to +150°C. Repeated temperature cycling has been shown to have no effect on the performance of the batteries.
While current P100 series NanoTritium batteries are limited to powering low-power microelectronic devices, future batteries are expected to produce a larger power output to expand use cases for higher-power devices.
Applications
NanoTritium batteries have been employed for various applications where accessibility is limited and long-term power is beneficial, including powering components on COMSEC devices, satellites, unattended sensors, and implantable medical devices. Despite containing radioactive materials, the batteries are considered safe for implants due to their engineering and inherently low radiation levels, which prevent an individual from receiving a dose higher than the set 15 rem whole body limit even in the event of catastrophic failure.
City Labs is also designing tritium-powered devices for NASA applications, including autonomous sensors for the Moon.
References
Nuclear technology
Battery types | NanoTritium batteries | [
"Physics"
] | 531 | [
"Nuclear technology",
"Nuclear physics"
] |
77,539,149 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrocybe%20acericola | Agrocybe allocystis is a species of agaric fungus in the family Strophariaceae.
References
Strophariaceae
Fungus species
Taxa named by Charles Horton Peck
Fungi described in 1873 | Agrocybe acericola | [
"Biology"
] | 43 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
77,541,366 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheath%20instability | Sheath instability is an instability in a plasma where ions form sheaths near an electrode, making the plasma unstable. It is a type of Rayleigh–Taylor instability.
Formula
References
Plasma instabilities
Stability theory
Plasma physics stubs
Plasma phenomena
Systems theory | Sheath instability | [
"Physics",
"Mathematics"
] | 51 | [
"Physical phenomena",
"Plasma physics",
"Plasma phenomena",
"Plasma instabilities",
"Stability theory",
"Plasma physics stubs",
"Dynamical systems"
] |
77,541,515 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%202305 | NGC 2305 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation of Volans. Its velocity with respect to the cosmic microwave background is 3605 ± 21 km/s, which corresponds to a Hubble distance of 53.17 ± 3.75 Mpc (∼174 million light-years). It was discovered by British astronomer John Herschel on 30 November 1834.
The galaxy NGC 2305 forms a physical pair with NGC 2307, collectively named RR 143, with a distance of at least 51 kpc between the galaxies.
Two supernovae have been observed in NGC 2305:
SN 2011fn (type I, mag 17.9) was discovered by Stu Parker on 29 June 2011. There is some uncertainty about this supernova; it was classified as either type Ia or type Ic, and it is possible that the host galaxy of this supernova was not NGC 2305, but instead the nearby galaxy 2MASS J06483060-6415588.
SN 2023txv (type Ia, mag 17.4) was discovered by ATLAS on 3 October 2023.
See also
List of NGC objects (2001–3000)
References
External links
2305
019641
Volans
18341130
Discoveries by John Herschel
Elliptical galaxies
087- G 044 | NGC 2305 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 263 | [
"Volans",
"Constellations"
] |
77,542,818 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%206078 | NGC 6078 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation of Hercules. Its velocity with respect to the cosmic microwave background is 9459 ± 44 km/s, which corresponds to a Hubble distance of 139.52 ± 9.81 Mpc (∼455 million light-years). It was discovered by French astronomer Édouard Stephan on 21 June 1876.
Very close to NGC 6078 are the galaxies PGC 57459 and SDSS J161206.68+141210.3.
One supernova has been observed in NGC 6078: SN 2011dv (type Ia, mag 16.2) was discovered by the Italian Supernovae Search Project on 28 June 2011.
See also
List of NGC objects (6001–7000)
References
External links
6078
057460
+02-41-017
Hercules (constellation)
18760621
Discoveries by Édouard Stephan
Elliptical galaxies | NGC 6078 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 189 | [
"Hercules (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
77,543,573 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%201086 | NGC 1086 is a spiral galaxy in the constellation of Perseus. Its velocity with respect to the cosmic microwave background is 3848 ± 14 km/s, which corresponds to a Hubble distance of 56.76 ± 3.98 Mpc (∼185 million light-years). It was discovered by American astronomer Lewis Swift on 20 August 1885.
One supernova has been observed in NGC 1086: SN 2023rix (type II, mag 18.2) was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility on 5 September 2023.
NGC 1086 Group
NGC 1086 is the largest galaxy of the four member NGC 1086 Group (also known as LGG 78). The other three galaxies are: NGC 1106, UGC 2349, and UGC 2350.
See also
List of NGC objects (1001–2000)
References
External links
1086
10587
+07-06-071
2258
02447+4102
Perseus (constellation)
18850820
Discoveries by Lewis Swift
Spiral galaxies | NGC 1086 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 207 | [
"Perseus (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
77,545,569 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20investigational%20social%20anxiety%20disorder%20drugs | This is a list of investigational social anxiety disorder drugs, or drugs that are currently under development for clinical use in the treatment of social anxiety disorder (SAD; or social phobia) but are not yet approved.
Chemical/generic names are listed first, with developmental code names, synonyms, and brand names in parentheses.
This list was last comprehensively updated in August 2024. It is likely to become outdated with time.
Under development
Phase 3
BNC-210 (IW-2143) – α7-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor negative allosteric modulator
Fasedienol (Aloradine; AM-005; PH-94B; 4-androstadienol) – vomeropherine
Phase 2/3
Riluzole sublingual (BHV-0223; Nurtec) – complex mechanism of action or glutamatergic modulator
Phase 2
Cannabidiol (CBD; ATL5; RLS103) – cannabinoid receptor modulator and other actions
FKW00GA (FKW-00GA; TGW-00AA; TGW00AA) – serotonin 5-HT1A receptor partial agonist and serotonin 5-HT2A receptor antagonist
JNJ-42165279 (JNJ-5279) – fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) inhibitor
Oxytocin (intranasal potentiated oxytocin; TI-001; TI-114; TNX-1900; TNX-2900) – oxytocin receptor agonist
Vilazodone (Viibryd) – serotonin 5-HT1A receptor partial agonist and serotonin reuptake inhibitor
Phase 1
(R)-Midomafetamine ((R)-MDMA; R-MDMA; EMP-01) – serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine releasing agent, weak serotonin 5-HT2A, 5-HT2B, 5-HT2C receptor agonist, entactogen, and weak psychedelic hallucinogen
Preclinical
Dimethyltryptamine (DMT; N,N-Dimethyltryptamine; N,N-DMT) – non-selective serotonin receptor agonist and psychedelic hallucinogen
PSYLO-3001 (Psylo-3001) – non-selective serotonin receptor agonist and psychedelic hallucinogen
Phase unknown
Fluvoxamine extended-release – selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
Venlafaxine controlled-release – serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor
Not under development
No development reported
Bupropion (Wellbutrin) – norepinephrine–dopamine reuptake inhibitor and nicotinic acetylcholine receptor negative allosteric modulator
EX-597 (KDS-4103; ORG-231295; URB-597) – fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) inhibitor`
Guanfacine extended-release (Connexyn; Intuniv; Intuniv XR; S-877503; SHP 503; SPD-503) – α2-adrenergic receptor agonist
Development discontinued
AV-608 (CGP-60829; NK-608; NKP-608C; NKP608) – neurokinin NK1 receptor antagonist
Tradipitant (LY-686017; VLY-686) – neurokinin NK1 receptor antagonist
Verucerfont (GSK-561679; NBI-77860) – corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor 1 (CRF1) antagonist
Formal development never or not yet started
Small-molecule oxytocin receptor agonists (e.g., LIT-001)
Clinically used drugs
Approved drugs
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors
Escitalopram (Lexapro; Cipralex) – selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
Fluvoxamine (Depromel; Luvox) – selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
Paroxetine (Dropax; Serestill; Paxil; Seroxat) – selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
Sertraline (Zoloft; Lustral) – selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
Serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors
Venlafaxine (Dobupal; Effexor; Effexor XR; Elafax) – serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor
Monoamine oxidase inhibitors
Moclobemide (Manerix) – reversible inhibitor of monoamine oxidase A
Off-label drugs
Alcohol (over-the-counter self-medication) – GABAA receptor positive allosteric modulator
Atypical antipsychotics (e.g., olanzapine, quetiapine) – monoamine receptor modulators
Benzodiazepines (e.g., alprazolam, chlordiazepoxide, clonazepam, diazepam, lorazepam, oxazepam) – GABAA receptor positive allosteric modulators
Beta blockers (e.g., atenolol, propranolol) – β-adrenergic receptor antagonists
Bupropion (Wellbutrin) – norepinephrine–dopamine reuptake inhibitor and nicotinic acetylcholine receptor negative allosteric modulator
Cannabidiol (CBD) – cannabinoid receptor modulator and other actions, found in cannabis
Gabapentinoids (e.g., gabapentin, pregabalin) – α2δ subunit-containing voltage-dependent calcium channel blockers
Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (e.g., phenelzine, selegiline, tranylcypromine)
NMDA receptor antagonists (e.g., ketamine)
Other anticonvulsants (besides gabapentinoids) (e.g., topiramate, valproic acid, tiagabine)
Psychostimulants (e.g., amphetamine, methylphenidate)
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (non-licensed) (e.g., citalopram, fluoxetine)
Serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (non-licensed) (e.g., desvenlafaxine, duloxetine)
Serotonin 5-HT1A receptor agonists (e.g., buspirone)
Tricyclic antidepressants (e.g., clomipramine, imipramine)
See also
List of investigational drugs
List of investigational anxiolytics
List of investigational autism and pervasive developmental disorder drugs
References
Further reading
External links
AdisInsight - Springer
Social anxiety disorder drugs, investigational
Dynamic lists
Experimental psychiatric drugs | List of investigational social anxiety disorder drugs | [
"Chemistry"
] | 1,529 | [
"Drug-related lists"
] |
77,546,073 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%207808 | NGC 7808 is an lenticular galaxy in the constellation of Cetus. Its velocity with respect to the cosmic microwave background is 8521 ± 24 km/s, which corresponds to a Hubble distance of 125.67 ± 8.80 Mpc (∼410 million light-years). It was discovered by American astronomer Frank Muller in 1886.
NGC 7808 is an active Seyfert 1 galaxy.
One supernova has been observed in NGC 7808: SN2023qnz (type Ia, mag 20.14) was discovered by Pan-STARRS on 22 August 2023.
Star-forming ring
NGC 7808 contains an outer star-forming ring, observed in ultraviolet rays. According to a 2019 study, the star formation is only above one solar mass per year. It is expected to decrease overtime. Nevertheless, star-forming rings like in NGC 7808 still contain enigmatic features and can help astronomers to learn more about the evolutionary processes taken by these galaxies.
See also
List of NGC objects (7001–7840)
References
External links
7808
000243
-02-01-013
F00009-1101
Cetus
Astronomical objects discovered in 1886
Discoveries by Frank Muller (astronomer)
Lenticular galaxies | NGC 7808 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 252 | [
"Cetus",
"Constellations"
] |
77,546,623 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%205032 | NGC 5032 is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation of Coma Berenices. Its velocity with respect to the cosmic microwave background is 6675 ± 18 km/s, which corresponds to a Hubble distance of 98.45 ± 6.90 Mpc (∼321 million light-years). It was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on 11 April 1785.
NGC 5032 was used by Gérard de Vaucouleurs as a galaxy of morphological type (R′)SAB(rs)b in his atlas of galaxies.
NGC 5032 is classified as a LINER galaxy, i.e. it has a type of nucleus that is defined by its spectral line emission which has weakly ionized or neutral atoms, while the spectral line emission from strongly ionized atoms is relatively weak.
NGC 5032 forms a interacting galaxy pair with PGC 45940 (sometimes called NGC 5032B). Erik Holmberg included the group in his catalog of double and multiple galaxies, with the designation Holm 513. NGC 5032 is also on the outskirts of the Coma Cluster, identified as ComaFC 370.
Supernovae
Two supernovae have been observed in NGC 5032:
SN 2016iuc (type Ia, mag 16.7) was discoverd by the Gaia Photometric Science Alerts on 7 December 2016.
SN 2024rkc (type Ia, mag. 18.704) was discovered by ATLAS on 5 August 2024.
See also
List of NGC objects (5001–6000)
References
External links
7808
045947
+05-31-160
08300
F00009-1101
Coma Berenices
17850411
Discoveries by William Herschel
Barred spiral galaxies
Coma Cluster
LINER galaxies | NGC 5032 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 357 | [
"Coma Berenices",
"Constellations"
] |
77,546,775 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger%20H.%20French | Roger Harquail French is a materials scientist, engineer, academic and author. He is the Kyocera Professor in the Case School of Engineering at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU).
French's research interests at CWRU span optical properties and electronic structure, degradation science of materials in outdoor-exposed technologies such as photovoltaics, and employing data science and deep learning using distributed and high-performance computing. While at DuPont he worked on semiconductor lithography, phase shift masks, pellicles, and photoresists, registering multiple patents. His publications comprise research articles and a book entitled Durability and Reliability of Polymers and Other Materials in Photovoltaic Modules. He received the 2020 Faculty Distinguished Research Award and the 2023 Innovation Week Inventor Award from Case Western Reserve University, in addition to being honored as a Senior Member of the IEEE and as a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society.
Education
French graduated with a Bachelor of Science with Distinction in Materials Science and Engineering from Cornell University in 1979, and in 1985 obtained a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working with doctoral advisor Robert L. Coble.
Career
French began his research career in 1985 in Central Research and Development at DuPont. From 1993 to 2002, while still working at DuPont, he was a Visiting Scientist for a month a year in Manfred Rühle's lab at Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung in Stuttgart, Germany. His academic career began as an adjunct professor in the Materials Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania in 1996. In 2010, he joined Case Western Reserve University as the F. Alex Nason Professor and has been the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics at CWRU since 2016. He is also the director of the DOE-NNSA Center of Excellence for Materials Data Science for Stockpile Stewardship, and a Co-Principal Investigator of both the NSF Materials Data Science for Reliability and Degradation Center (MDS-Rely) and the NSF-sponsored IUCRC Center for Advancing Sustainable and Distributed Fertilizer Production (CASFER).
Research
French has studied optical properties and electronic structures of ceramics, polymers, and biomolecules, employing spectroscopy and computational optics, and has explored radiation durability, photochemical degradation, and data-driven approaches to predict lifetime performance and enhance energy efficiency in outdoor-exposed technologies. His group has utilized VUV and optical spectroscopies, along with spectroscopic ellipsometry, to investigate the optical properties, electronic structure, and radiation durability of optical materials, polymers, ceramics, and liquids. He has earned patents for phase shift photomasks, transparent fluoropolymers for pellicles, photoresists and immersion fluids, and optical elements for photovoltaics. His research has contributed to the understanding of how these optical properties influence van der Waals quantum electrodynamical interactions, crucial in governing wetting phenomena and mesoscale assembly in nanotubes and biomolecular materials like DNA and proteins.
French has developed non-relational, distributed computing environments based on Hadoop, Hbase, Ozone, Impala, and Spark for data science and analytics of complex systems. Through this framework, he has integrated real-world performance data with lab-based experimental datasets to elucidate degradation mechanisms and pathways active over the lifespan of technologies. His methods encompass network modeling, structural equations, and graphs to quantify and simulate global spatio-temporal systems such as PV power plants.
In the area of Lifetime and Degradation Science (L&DS), French's focus has extended to examining long-lived environmentally-exposed materials, components, and systems, including PV technologies, roofing, and building exteriors. For projects under DOE-SETO, he has researched the lifetime performance and reliability of mono- and bi-facial silicon PERC modules and modeling PV fleet performance using spatio-temporal Graph Neural Networks (stGNNs). Under his leadership, the SDLE Research Center has applied data science methodologies across a broad spectrum of energy and materials projects, including a DOE ARPA-E funded initiative on building energy efficiency.
Personal life
He is the son of James Bruce French.
Awards and honors
1989 – R&D Award for LPLS-521 VUV-LPLS Spectrophotometer, Research & Development World
1998 – Fulrath Award, American Ceramics Society
2020 – Faculty Distinguished Research Award, Case Western Reserve University
2023 – Innovation Week Inventor Award, Case Western Reserve University
Publications
Software packages
Bryant, C., Wheeler, R. N., Rubel, F., & French, H. R. (2017, December 20). “kgc: Koeppen-Geiger Climatic Zones.” SDLE Res. Cntr., Case Western Reserve University.
Karimi, M. A., Pierce, G. B., Fada, S, J., Parrilla, A. N., French, H. R., Braid, L. J. (2020, May 8). “PVimage: Package for PV Image Analysis and Machine Learning Modeling.” SDLE Res. Cntr., Case Western Reserve University.
Huang, W. H., et al. (2021, April 14). “ddiv: Data Driven I-V Feature Extraction.” SDLE Res. Cntr., Case Western Reserve University.
Wang, M., et al. (2021, April 30). “SunsVoc: Constructing Suns-Voc from Outdoor Time-series I-V Curves.” SDLE Res. Cntr., Case Western Reserve University. h
Huang, W. H., et al. (2023, September 6). “netSEM: Network Structural Equation Modeling.” SDLE Res. Cntr., Case Western Reserve University.
Fan, Y., Yu, Xuanji., Weiser, R., Wu, Y., French, H. R. (2023). “PVplr-stGNN: Python.” SDLE Res. Cntr., Case Western Reserve University.
Bradley, H. A., et al. (2024, June 18). “FAIRmaterials: Python.” SDLE Res. Cntr., Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland OH, USA.
Gordon, E. J., et al. (2024, June 18). “FAIRmaterials: R.” SDLE Res. Cntr., Case Western Reserve University.
Books
Durability and Reliability of Polymers and Other Materials in Photovoltaic Modules (2019) ISBN 978-0-12-811545-9
Selected articles
French, R. H. (1990). Electronic band structure of AlO, with comparison to AlO and AIN. Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 73(3), 477–489.
McNeil, L. E., Grimsditch, M., & French, R. H. (1993). Vibrational spectroscopy of aluminum nitride. Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 76(5), 1132–1136.
French, R. H., Glass, S. J., Ohuchi, F. S., Xu, Y. N., & Ching, W. Y. (1994). Experimental and theoretical determination of the electronic structure and optical properties of three phases of ZrO. Physical Review B, 49(8), 5133.
Van Benthem, K., Elsässer, C., & French, R. H. (2001). Bulk electronic structure of SrTiO: Experiment and theory. Journal of applied physics, 90(12), 6156–6164.
French, R. H., Parsegian, V. A., Podgornik, R., Rajter, R. F., Jagota, A., Luo, J., ... & Zemb, T. (2010). Long range interactions in nanoscale science. Reviews of Modern Physics, 82(2), 1887–1944.
French, R. H., & Tran, H. V. (2009). Immersion lithography: photomask and wafer-level materials. Annual Review of Materials Research, 39(1), 93–126.
Karimi, A. M., Wu, Y., Koyuturk, M., & French, R. H. (2021, May). Spatiotemporal graph neural network for performance prediction of photovoltaic power systems. In Proceedings of the AAAI conference on artificial intelligence, 35(17), 15323–15330.
Ciardi, T. G., Nihar, A., Chawla, R., Akanbi, O., Tripathi, P. K., Wu, Y., ... & French, R. H. (2024). Materials data science using CRADLE: A distributed, data-centric approach. MRS Communications, 1–11.
Yue, W., Mehdi, M. R., Tripathi, P. K., Willard, M. A., Ernst, F., & French, R. H. (2024). Exploring 2D X-ray diffraction phase fraction analysis with convolutional neural networks: Insights from kinematic-diffraction simulations. MRS Advances, 1–8.
Akanbi, O. D., Bhuvanagiri, D. C., Barcelos, E. I., Nihar, A., Gonzalez Hernandez, B., Yarus, J. M., & French, R. H. (2024). Integrating multiscale geospatial analysis for monitoring crop growth, nutrient distribution, and hydrological dynamics in large-scale agricultural systems. Journal of Geovisualization and Spatial Analysis, 8(1), 9.
References
Materials scientists and engineers
21st-century science writers
Fellows of the American Ceramic Society
Case Western Reserve University faculty
Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni
Cornell University alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people | Roger H. French | [
"Materials_science",
"Engineering"
] | 2,105 | [
"Materials scientists and engineers",
"Materials science"
] |
77,547,459 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tearing%20mode | Tearing mode is distruptions seen in Tokamak in which Ideal MHD Instability grow of the order of 10−1 microsec.
Types of Tearing mode
Rayleigh–Taylor instability
Magnetic reconnection
Ballooning instability
Resistive ballooning mode
Universal instability
Kelvin–Helmholtz instability
Disruption instability
Edge-localized mode
Transport barrier mode
References
Plasma instabilities
Stability theory | Tearing mode | [
"Physics",
"Mathematics"
] | 76 | [
"Physical phenomena",
"Plasma phenomena",
"Plasma instabilities",
"Stability theory",
"Dynamical systems"
] |
77,548,143 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James%20Haglund | James Haglund is an American mathematician who specializes in algebraic combinatorics and enumerative combinatorics, and works as a professor of mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Education
Haglund received his Ph.D. in 1993 from the University of Georgia, with the dissertation Compositions, Rook Placements, and Permutations of Vectors supervised by Earl Rodney Canfield.
Research contributions
In 2005, together with M. Haiman and N. Loehr gave the first proof of a combinatorial interpretation of the Macdonald polynomials. In 2007, Haglund, Haiman and Loehr gave a combinatorial formula for the non-symmetric Macdonald polynomials.
Haglund is the author of The -Catalan Numbers and the Space of Diagonal Harmonics: With an Appendix on the Combinatorics of Macdonald Polynomials.
Academic talks
In 2024, Haglund gave a talk at KAIST on Superization of Symmetric Functions.
In 2015, together with Alexandre Kirillov and Ching-Li Chai, Haglund gave a talk at Penn Wharton China Center on Penn Math Day, sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania and Peking University.
In 2006, he gave a Plenary Address at the 18th International Conference on Formal Power Series and Algebraic Combinatorics (FPSAC '06), San Diego (USA).
Editorial
Haglund was on the editorial boards of Transactions of the AMS, Journal of Combinatorics, and a few other academic journals.
Students
Among the Ph.D. students supervised by Haglund are Frederick M. Butler, Mahir Bilen Can, Logan Crew, Sarah Katherine Mason, Anna Pun, Chunwei Song, and Meesue Yoo.
Recognition
In 2013, Haglund became an inaugural Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
References
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
Combinatorialists
University of Georgia alumni
University of Pennsylvania faculty
Fellows of the American Mathematical Society. | James Haglund | [
"Mathematics"
] | 400 | [
"Combinatorialists",
"Combinatorics"
] |
77,548,418 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pianpang | Pianpangs () are components in Chinese character internal structures. A compound character is normally divided into two pianpangs according to their relationship in sounds and meanings.
Originally, the left side component of the character was called pian, and the right side pang. Nowadays, it is customary to refer to the left and right, upper and lower, outer and inner parts of compound characters as pianpangs.
Radicals () are indexing components of Chinese characters, and are usually pianpangs representing the meanings of the characters.
Classification
There are three categories of pianpangs in modern Chinese characters:
A component related to (or representing) the meaning of the character is a semantic pianpang (形旁, 義旁 or 意符). For example: component "扌" (hand) in characters "推" (push) and "拉" (pull), and "心" (heart) in "思" (think) and "忠" (loyal).
A component related to the pronunciation of the character is a phonetic pianpang (聲旁, 音旁 or 音符). For example, "包" (bāo) in "抱" (bào) and "苞" (bāo).
A component related to neither the meaning nor the pronunciation of the character is a pure sign (or form) pianpang ( 記號, 符號). For example: "多" (duō, a lot) in "移" (yí, move), and "又" (yòu, again, also) in "鸡" ( jī, chicken).
Combinations
In pianpang analysis, modern Chinese compound characters are formed by the following combinations.
Semantic-semantic characters (表意字; biǎoyìzì), or Compound ideographs (, 'joined meaning character'), combine two or more semantic pianpangs to indicate the meaning of the character. For example,
(take): (close) (hands) together to take;
(break apart): (separate) with two (hands);
(tears): (water) from (eyes).
Phonetic-phonetic characters () are composed of phonetic pianpangs. For example,
was originally a semantic-phonetic character, but its modern meaning of "new" has nothing to do with the original semantic component of (meaning "0.5kg" in modern Chinese), though the sounds are similar. In this way, (sounds "xīn") then has two phonetic components: (qīn) and (jīn).
Vietname Chinese character (; 'Moon') was created as a compound of () and ().
Form-form characters () are composed of pure form pianpangs, which neither represent the sound nor the meaning of the characters. For example:
: in oracle bones script the character is like an arrow shooting to the ground. According to the current glyph, the original meaning can no longer be seen, let alone the modern meaning of the word.
(deer): The oracle form resembled a deer, which is no longer true for the modern character.
Semantic-phonetic characters () consist of semantic and phonetic components.
For example:
(sound: gān, meaning: liver; semantic pianpang 月 meat; phonetic pianpang 干 gān);
江 (river, semantic 氵, phonetic 工);
河 (river, semantic 氵, phonetic: 可).
Semantic-form characters () are composed of semantic components and pure form components.
Many of these characters were originally semantic-phonetic characters. Due to subsequent changes in the shape or pronunciation of the phonetic components or the characters, the phonetic components could not effectively represent the pronunciation of the character and became pure form. For example:
(bù, cloth): used to have semantic (scarf) and phonetic (fù), the phonetic component is no longer .
(jí, urgent): used to have semantic (heart) and phonetic (jí). Now the upper component no longer looks like .
(jī, chicken), is a (bird), but not read as (yòu).
Phonetic-form characters () are composed of phonetic components and pure form components. They mostly came from ancient semantic-phonetic characters, where the semantic components lost their functions and became pure form. For example,
(qiú, ball): Originally refers to a kind of beautiful jade, with semantic component (玉, jade). Later, it was borrowed to represent a ball, and then extended to any spherical object, and (jade) became a pure form component, while (qiú) remains a phonetic component.
(bèn, stupid): Originally refers to the inner white layer of bamboo, with semantic component (bamboo) and phonetic (běn). Later, the character was borrowed by sound to mean 'stupid', an adjective not related to bamboo.
(huá, magnificent): This is a simplified character with phonetic and pure form component .
Positions
Pianpangs appear in different positions of Chinese characters, including:
Left meaning (semantic) and right sound (phonetic), such as (gān, liver): semantic pianpang 月 (meat), phonetic pianpang 干 (gān); (jīng, fear): semantic 心 (heart), phonetic 京 (jīng); (hú, lake): semantic 氵 (water), phonetic 胡 (hú).
Right meaning and left sound, such as (wǔ, parrot): semantic 鳥 (bird), phonetic 武 (wǔ); (shēng, nephew): semantic 男 (male), phonetic 生 (shēng);雌 (cí, female): semantic 隹 (bird), phonetic 此 (cǐ);
Upper meaning and lower sound, such as (lín, rain), semantic 雨 (rain), phonetic 林 (lín); (máo, cogongrass), semantic 艹 (grass), phonetic 矛 (máo); (gān, pole), semantic 竹 (banboo), phonetic 干 (gān).
Lower meaning and upper sound, such as (yú, bowl), semantic 皿 (bowl), phonetic 于 (yú); (dài, Mount Tai), semantic 山 (mountain), phonetic 代 (dài); (shā, shark), semantic 鱼 (fish), phonetic 鲨 (shā).
Outer meaning and inner sounds, such as (yuán, garden), semantic 囗 (frame), phonetic 袁 (yuán); (zhōng, sincere, inner feeling), semantic 衣 (clothes (inside)), phonetic 中 (zhōng); (yǎng, itchy), semantic 疒 (ill), phonetic 羊 (yáng).
Inner meaning and outer sound, such as (biàn, braid), semantic 糸 (thread), phonetic 辡 (biàn); (mèn, dull), semantic 心 (heart), phonetic 門 (mén); (mó, imitation), semantic 手 (hand), phonetic 莫 (mò).
Phonetic corner, such as (qí, flag), phonetic 其 (qí); 徒 (tú, on foot), semantic 辵 (foot), phonetic 土 (tǔ).
Semantic corner, such as (jiāng, border), semantic 土, phonetic 彊 (jiàng); (xiū, repair), semantic 彡 (beard), phonetic 攸 (yōu).
Some variant characters have the same pianpangs arranged in different ways. For example,
够夠 (gòu, sufficient);
鵝䳘 (é, goose);
拿㧱 (ná, take);
蟹蠏 (xiè, crab);
群羣 (qún, group);
翄翅 (chì, wings);
啓啟 (qǐ, open).
Relationship with radicals and components
Pianpangs and radicals are components. The three concepts of pianpangs (), radicals () and components () often get confused among Chinese language learners.
Pianpangs are internal structural components. A compound character is normally divided into two pianpangs in internal structure, but only has one radical, usually the semantic pianpang. For example, character is decomposed into pianpang 氵 and 工, where semantic 氵(水, water) is the radical.
Radicals are indexing components used for sorting and retrieving Chinese characters. According to the glyph structure of Chinese characters, the common components of a group of characters are selected as their radical. For example, "" share radical .
In addition to radicals and pianpangs, a character may have other components. For example, character is divided into pianpangs , where semantic is the radical. And can be further decomposed into three primitive components in Chinese character external structures.
See also
Chinese character components
Chinese character structures
Chinese character classification
Notes
References
Citations
Works cited
Appendix: Names of Chinese character pianpangs
The following table is based on the tables of pianpangs and bushous from Xiandai Hanyu Cidian and Xiandai Hanyu Guifan Cidian (现代汉语规范词典), including the frequently used pianpangs which exist in the Unicode character set. (Character Pianpangs are usually called by the sounds of the characters, and are not included in the table.)
Radical | Pianpang | [
"Technology"
] | 1,903 | [
"Components",
"Chinese character components"
] |
77,548,966 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot%20Flight%20F-77 | Aeroflot Flight F-77 was an An-24B operating from Moscow to Bugulma with an intermediate stop in Cheboksary that crashed near Bugulma on 2 March 1986, resulting in the deaths of all 38 occupants on board.
Aircraft
The An-24B with tail number 46423 (serial number 87304108) was manufactured by the Antonov factory on February 20, 1968. At the time of the accident, the airliner had accumulated a total of 31,570 flight hours and 23,765 landings.
Preceding circumstances
The aircraft was operating flight F-77 from Moscow to Bugulma with an intermediate stop in Cheboksary. It was piloted by a crew from the 61st Flight Detachment, consisting of Captain V. A. Pastukhov, co-pilot A. S. Cheprasov, and flight engineer A. B. Shtein. Flight attendant N. A. Baskakova was working in the cabin. At 02:02 Moscow time, the An-24 took off from Cheboksary Airport and, after climbing, leveled off at a cruising altitude of 4,500 meters. There were 34 passengers on board: 32 adults and 2 children.
According to the weather forecast available to the crew, Bugulma was expected to have overcast conditions with a cloud base at 120 meters and an upper boundary at 3,000 meters, fresh southeast winds (160° 5 m/s), heavy snowfall, mist, and visibility of 1,500 meters. Occasionally, fog was expected, reducing horizontal visibility to 800 meters and vertical visibility to 80 meters. The actual weather in Bugulma almost matched the forecast, with visibility even reaching 4,000 meters — more than twice the expected. This weather was within the meteorological minimum for the captain.
As the aircraft approached Bugulma, at 02:54 Moscow time (52 minutes into the flight), the crew, after receiving clearance from the dispatcher, disconnected the autopilot and began descending to the circuit altitude of 400 meters, which they reached 20 kilometers from Bugulma airport. Following the dispatcher's instructions, the approach was made with a right turn according to ILS with a landing course of 192°. At 16 kilometers from the runway threshold, the crew made the fourth turn and aligned with the final approach. Without deviation from the operating manual, the landing gear and flaps were deployed to 15°. The flight speed was 230 km/h, and the engine mode was initially set to 28-30° on the thrust lever position indicator. At 03:04 Moscow time (63 minutes into the flight), the crew extended the flaps to the landing position (38°) as per the manual. Due to the increased aerodynamic drag, the engine mode was increased to 40° on the thrust lever position indicator.
Accident
However, a second after increasing the mode, at a speed of 225 km/h, the left engine's automatic feathering system spontaneously activated, feathering the left propeller. This caused asymmetrical thrust, resulting in a right yawing moment, and the aircraft began to bank to the left, reaching a 20° bank angle within 5 seconds, and deviated to the left. The crew noticed the failure of the left power unit almost immediately and attempted to counter the left bank by deflecting the ailerons to 19° for a right bank and pressing the right rudder pedal forcefully to turn the rudder right. However, by pressing the right pedal, the pilots only neutralized the rudder, as the aircraft began slipping to the left. The forces applied to the pedal (15 kg) merely held the rudder in a neutral position, failing to counteract the yawing moment. However, through aileron deflection, the crew managed to reduce the left bank to 9°.
Due to the high sideslip angle, speed began to decrease, prompting the pilots to push the control yokes forward, attempting to increase speed by pointing the nose down. However, this measure was ineffective, so the crew moved the remaining operational right engine to takeoff mode, forgetting that, according to the manual, they should first level the aircraft out of the left bank and into a right one. As a result, the left bank increased, exceeding 50°, and the sideslip and pitch angles also increased. Aerodynamic drag increased by 1.5 times, causing speed to drop. The crew attempted to correct the bank with full aileron and rudder deflection, but these measures were too late. By this time, the airliner was flying at a speed of 155 km/h with a sideslip angle of 18-21° and had deviated 50° from the landing course (to 142°).
At a speed of 140 km/h, the An-24 stalled, and its bank angle rapidly reached 110°. Twenty-five seconds after the left engine shutdown, the aircraft, with a 40° nose-down angle and a 3° left bank, flying at a heading of 15°, hit the ground at a forward speed of 320 km/h and a vertical speed of 40 m/s, 8 kilometers from the runway threshold on an azimuth of 15° (500 meters from the runway centerline). The airliner was completely destroyed on impact, and the debris scattered over an area of 136 by 40 meters, but no fire ensued. All 38 people on board perished.
Causes
According to data from the flight recorder, when the crew increased the engine mode after extending the flaps at 03:04, the left engine's feathering pump activated, leading to the feathering of the left power unit. Thus, the engine shutdown and propeller feathering occurred not due to engine failure but because of an electrical signal, with no reverse thrust applied during the flight.
The commission determined that this electrical signal was caused by a malfunction in the left engine's automatic feathering sensor DAF-24, as the micro switch KV-9-1's contacts closed due to wear on its stop and contact spring. The KV-9-1 micro switch in actual operational conditions within DAF-24 was not reliable against vibration loads, and from 1981 to 1985, there had been 22 cases of such failures. On the crashed An-24 CCCP-46423, there were also two previous cases of automatic feathering of the propeller on the left engine: on January 28, 1985, in level flight at an altitude of 6,000 meters and on February 21, 1986 (nine days before the crash) on the ground during takeoff preparation. The cause in the latter case was not identified and rectified. During periodic inspections of the DAF-24, conducted every 300±30 hours, detecting all instances of KV-9-1 micro switch wear was impossible, and the failures were not eliminated even after the industry implemented special measures.
Regarding the crew's actions, simulation results indicated that if the crew had intervened in the yaw control within the first eight seconds of the emergency situation (engine shutdown) and countered the yawing moment by deflecting the rudder to 10°, while half-deflecting the ailerons, the aircraft would have banked right and maintained straight flight on the set descent trajectory. The recommended actions in the manual for the crew during engine failure on final approach were correct.
Based on the investigation results, the following conclusions were made:
The spontaneous shutdown of the left engine and feathering of the propeller blades occurred due to the failure of the DAF-24 automatic feathering sensor because of wear on the KV-9-1 micro switch components. The defect was structural.
The aircraft's transition to high sideslip angles and subsequent stall were caused by the following erroneous crew actions:
Not deflecting the rudder to counter yaw after engine failure and insufficient rudder deflection after increasing the right engine to takeoff mode without first creating a bank towards the operational engine;
Uncoordinated countering of the yawing moment after engine failure (using only ailerons);
Insufficient forward control yoke deflection to counteract the pitch-up moment from sideslip, resulting in a loss of speed.
The crew had the opportunity to timely deflect the rudder (both in terms of effort and time) to counter the yaw after engine failure and to recover the aircraft from the bank and sideslip, restoring the original speed and flight direction.
The aircraft's stability and controllability characteristics after engine failure allowed for recovery from the bank and sideslip, and for restoring the original flight speed.
Conclusion (translated): "At night, in clouds, on the final approach with fully extended flaps and landing gear, spontaneous feathering of the propeller and shutdown of the left power unit occurred. In this situation, the crew made piloting errors, leading to a loss of speed and a stall, followed by the aircraft's collision with the ground."
Notes
F-77
March 1986
Aviation accidents and incidents caused by engine failure
Accidents and incidents involving the Antonov An-24 | Aeroflot Flight F-77 | [
"Technology"
] | 1,848 | [
"Aviation accidents and incidents caused by engine failure",
"Engines"
] |
77,552,210 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%207124 | NGC 7124 is a large spiral galaxy in the constellation of Indus. Its velocity with respect to the cosmic microwave background is 4988 ± 15km/s, which corresponds to a Hubble distance of . However, nine non-redshift measurements give a much closer distance of . It was discovered by British astronomer John Herschel on 8 July 1834.
NGC 7124 is classified as a LINER galaxy, i.e. it has a type of nucleus that is defined by its spectral line emission which has weakly ionized or neutral atoms, while the spectral line emission from strongly ionized atoms is relatively weak.
One supernova has been observed in NGC 7124: SN 2023pwl (type Ia, mag 16.7) was discovered by ATLAS on 19 August 2023.
See also
List of NGC objects (7001–7840)
References
External links
7124
067375
21447-5047
Indus (constellation)
18340708
Discoveries by John Herschel
Spiral galaxies
LINER galaxies
237- G 002 | NGC 7124 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 210 | [
"Indus (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
77,552,742 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Fluorohexane | 1-Fluorohexane is a chemical compound from the group of aliphatic saturated halogenated hydrocarbons. The chemical formula is .
Synthesis
1-Fluorohexane can be obtained by reacting 1-chlorohexane or 1-bromohexane with potassium fluoride in ethylene glycol.
Physical properties
1-Fluorohexane is a colorless liquid that is soluble in ether and benzene.
Chemical properties
The compound reacts with activated Mg:
Uses
The compound is primarily used in the field of organic chemistry as a reagent or solvent. Also, 1-fluorohexane is used in physical chemistry as a model compound for understanding the physico-chemical properties of fluorinated hydrocarbons.
See also
1-Bromohexane
1-Chlorohexane
1-Iodohexane
Perfluorohexane
References
Fluoroalkanes
Alkylating agents | 1-Fluorohexane | [
"Chemistry"
] | 201 | [
"Alkylating agents",
"Reagents for organic chemistry"
] |
77,553,000 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory%20of%20attempted%20suicide%20by%20Pyotr%20Ilyich%20Tchaikovsky | A number of researchers, based on the memoirs of Nikolai Kashkin, a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, suggest that in 1877, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky made a suicide attempt and attribute it to the composer's stay in Moscow between September 11 (September 23) and September 24 (October 6), 1877. He went into the cold water of the Moskva river with the firm intention of falling ill with a severe cold or pneumonia. The circumstances of this event are described in the memoirs of Nikolai Kashkin, the composer's colleague and friend, which were written shortly after the composer's death. The publication of their journal version in the Russkoye Obozreniye began in September 1894 and was completed in December 1895 (issues 29-36). In 1920, in the collection The Past of Russian Music. Materials and Studies, Nikolai Kashkin's article From Memories of P. I. Tchaikovsky was published. In it, he described in detail the circumstances under which Tchaikovsky himself, according to Kashkin's assertion, described the circumstances of a failed attempted suicide.
Kashkin's story attracted the attention of several publicists. The scene of the composer's suicide attempt appears in the two-part feature film Tchaikovsky, directed by Soviet director Igor Talankin in 1969, and in British director Ken Russell's 1971 film The Music Lovers.
Circumstances
Nikolai Kashkin
In the 1860s and 1870s, Nikolai Kashkin regularly attended meetings of the Moscow circle of musicians headed by Nikolai Rubinstein. This group consisted of teachers of music classes at the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society, and later at the Moscow Conservatory, which was formed on their basis in 1866. Tchaikovsky's works were often performed and discussed at its meetings. For several years, a close friend of both, Herman Laroche, who had studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in the first half of the 1860s, was an intermediary in correspondence between Kashkin and the composer, who lived in St. Petersburg. It was Nikolai Kashkin who initiated Tchaikovsky's invitation to teach music theory classes in Moscow. The personal acquaintance of Kashkin and Tchaikovsky took place in January 1866 after the composer's arrival in Moscow.
During the composer's residence in Moscow, Kashkin and Tchaikovsky constantly met at classes at the Moscow Conservatory, at evenings at the "Artistic Circle" and at meetings of the Conservatory's teachers' circle, and they often played four-hand arrangements of symphonic works. When difficulties arose during his work at the Conservatory, Tchaikovsky usually turned not to Rubinstein, at whose apartment he lived, but to Kashkin. After the composer's departure from Moscow in 1877, Kashkin and Tchaikovsky corresponded, but their meetings were no longer regular. Nevertheless, Kashkin claimed: "the shortness of our relationship allowed us to understand each other with half a word," and the composer highly valued his friendship with him. Tchaikovsky's brother Modest wrote that Laroche and Kashkin came to visit the composer most often in Maidanovo. Kashkin spent two months at the composer's Frolovskoye estate in the summer of 1890.
Tchaikovsky would fill his friend in on his creative plans and details of his work, and in some cases, he asked for advice. At Tchaikovsky's request, Kashkin made an arrangement of Swan Lake for piano and then worked with the composer to revise and correct it to make it easier to perform. The communication between the two musicians went beyond the professional sphere. During their meetings, they discussed works of Russian literature, publications in literary magazines related to the "Russian intellectual movement," and attended performances at the Maly Theater.
Kashkin's memories
Among Tchaikovsky's contemporaries, only Nikolai Kashkin, a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, claimed that the composer attempted suicide in 1877. He described the circumstances of the suicide very briefly in his book Memories of P. I. Tchaikovsky. This book was the first detailed biography of the composer published in Russian. Memories of P. I. Tchaikovsky was written shortly after his death. The publication of their journal version in the Russian Review began in September 1894 and was completed in December 1895 (issues 29-36). In 1896, an edition of Kashkin's memoirs by Peter Jurgenson was published as a separate book. A reprint of the book was published in 1954, with slight reductions undertaken by the publishers, which they claimed did not affect the 1877 events.
After the October Revolution, Kashkin "joined the revolutionary-minded intellectuals... deeply believed in the emerging new... Soviet system...". He continued his musical and literary work, but the articles he created were not published at that time. In 1919, he unexpectedly received a proposal from the Music Department of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR to publish the articles he had created in recent years.
In 1920, in the collection The Past of Russian Music. Materials and Studies, Nikolai Kashkin's article From Memories of P. I. Tchaikovsky was published. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and one of the founders of Soviet musicology, Boris Asafyev (under the pseudonym Igor Glebov), in the introductory article to the collection, expressed gratitude to the author for his memories and even contrasted them with the memories of Modest Tchaikovsky, which he considered "somewhat outdated" and "myopic". Kashkin's memoirs, published in the collection, were, according to Asafiev, an account of "an extremely important and the darkest event in the composer's life — his marriage".
At the very beginning of his narrative, Kashkin informed his readers that in the pre-revolutionary edition of his memoirs, he, "for various reasons about which there is no need to talk", had to summarize as briefly as possible this episode, which had a fateful significance for the composer's further biography and work. Kashkin claimed that his new article was based on Tchaikovsky's own recollections. They were, according to the professor, a "coherent sequential narrative" which he had heard "without any initiative on his part".
Kashkin did not specify the exact date when he heard the story but reported that the matter took place in Klin at the composer's house, where he usually came for Holy Week. The conversation took place after a walk when Tchaikovsky and his companion returned to the house. It was not yet late, but it was beginning to get dark. Both sat at the round table in silence. Tchaikovsky looked through the letters for a while, and Kashkin read newspapers. The composer invited him to read a letter from Antonina Miliukova, and then began the story of his attempt at suicide:We were in silence for a while. The darkness in the room had thickened to such an extent that the face of my interlocutor was not quite clear to me. Without any introduction, Tchaikovsky began his story in a flat, as if fallen voice, quite unexpectedly, and carried it on, all the time without changing his tone, as if fulfilling something obligatory...
Tchaikovsky, as he began his story, carried it through to the end in a steady voice, almost without raising intonation. At the same time, one could hear that he was very worried, and that this evenness of tone was the result of a great effort to restrain himself and not give free rein to his nerves. It probably took quite a long time, for it was completely dark, and we could barely see each other by the end.Nikolai Kashkin claimed that there was no exchange of remarks about what they had heard either that day or any time later. They both had dinner, and the evening was spent reading or playing four-hands pieces. The author of the memoirs insisted that the composer's brothers Modest and Anatoly had received information about these events (unlike himself) not from Tchaikovsky, but from third parties. He claimed that he reproduced Tchaikovsky's story almost verbatim, and even if he shortened something in it, he never added anything to it. That is why, according to him, Kashkin in this fragment of his memoirs began to narrate in the first person (on behalf of Tchaikovsky) and based his memoirs on the notes he made during the composer's story.
Kashkin's account of the attempt
On September 11 (September 23), 1877. Tchaikovsky returned to Moscow from Kamianka. Nikolai Kashkin believed that the attempted suicide was not the result of a coincidence of circumstances. He wrote in his book Memories of P. I. Tchaikovsky that the thought of suicide appeared in Pyotr Ilyich "while still in Moscow." In Kashkin's opinion, the composer believed that "death was the only way out for him, but at the same time, thoughts of his relatives, of how they would be struck by his open suicide, made him seek death as if by accident". In a book of reminiscences about Tchaikovsky, he wrote: "Later he told me that during the cold nights of September, when the frost had already begun, he took advantage of the darkness to go near the , dressed in the river almost to the waist and remained in the water as long as he had the fortitude to bear the brokenness of the cold water; but probably his extremely excited state protected him from a fatal cold, and therefore his attempt remained without any result at all for his health".
Kashkin wrote that none of his colleagues or himself had any idea of the events that were taking place in 1877. As usual, Tchaikovsky was teaching at the Conservatory in September, although he was characterized at this time by "concentrated taciturnity" and a desire to avoid talking to his colleagues. At the end of September, he appeared "with a distorted face, said that he was immediately summoned to St. Petersburg by E. F. Napravnik, showed us a telegram and hurriedly left, referring to preparations for departure. A few days later we learned of his serious illness, and then of his departure for an indefinite time abroad".
Nikolai Kashkin claimed that the composer himself told him the story of his suicide attempt in this way, which he recounted on his behalf in the article From Memoirs of P. I. Tchaikovsky, published for the first time in the year of the composer's death (1920) in the collection The Past of Russian Music. Materials and Studies": once on such night I went to the deserted bank of the Moskva river, and the thought occurred to me of the possibility of getting a deadly cold. To this end, unseen by anyone in the darkness, I went into the water almost waist-deep and stayed as long as I could stand the brokenness in my body from the cold. I came out of the water with the firm conviction that I was not going to die of inflammation or any other cold disease, and at home I told them that I had taken part in night fishing and had accidentally fallen into the water. My health was, however, so strong that the ice bath passed for me without any consequences". The composer, according to Kashkin, admitted to him that he did not make similar attempts afterwards.
Tchaikovsky allegedly explained his unusual method of suicide as follows: "It was natural to come to the conviction that only death, which had become my desire, could set me free, but I could not dare to commit an explicit, open suicide for fear of inflicting too cruel a blow to my old father, and also to my brothers. I began to think of means of disappearing less conspicuously and as if from a natural cause; one such means I even tried".
Other accounts of September 1877
Tchaikovsky's brother Modest describes the events in a completely different way: on September 20, the composer got ill. On September 24 (October 6), 1877, claiming that he had allegedly received a telegram demanding his immediate presence in St. Petersburg, he left Moscow "in an almost maddening state of mind". He had changed so much in appearance that his brother —the future senator and Privy Councillor Anatoly, who came to meet him at the station— hardly recognized him. He was brought to the nearest hotel, Dagmara, "where after a violent nervous fit he fell into unconsciousness, which lasted about two weeks" (in later publications, there were notes to this fragment: "should read — about two days", a term followed by some researchers). When Tchaikovsky finally recovered, the doctors named a complete change of lifestyle as the only condition for recovery. The composer went abroad, and by early October, Modest attributed the beginning of his slow recovery to the beginning of October.
Tchaikovsky himself wrote in July 1877 in a letter to his patroness Nadezhda von Meck about his own spiritual state and the possibility of committing suicide:I fell into a deep despair, all the more terrible because there was no one to support and reassure me. I began to desire death passionately, greedily. Death seemed to me the only way out, but violent death was out of the question. I must tell you that I am deeply attached to some of my relatives, i.e., my sister, my two younger brothers, and my father. I know that, having decided to commit suicide and having put this thought into execution, I would strike a fatal blow to these relatives. There are many other people, some close friends, whose love and friendship bind me inseparably to life. Besides, I have a weakness (if it can be called so) for loving life, loving my work, and loving my future successes. Finally, I have not yet said all that I can and want to say before it is time for me to move into eternity. (Irina Okhalova. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky).Yuri Davidov, the composer's nephew and close friend, in the book Notes on P. I. Tchaikovsky, published in 1962, wrote only a cryptic phrase about the events of September 1877: "In the life of Pyotr Ilyich this marriage turned into an internal catastrophe, from which he almost died".
Causes of the attempt
In 1889, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote an autobiography for his former colleague at the Moscow Conservatory, Otto Neitzel, who published it in the German journal Nord und Süd. In it, Tchaikovsky described his departure from the Conservatory in 1877, but remained silent about the history of his marriage, his severe mental crisis, and his departure from the Russian Empire for Italy and Switzerland. In this document, Tchaikovsky gave three reasons for his teaching quitting:
Negative opinion of teaching as something that takes time and energy away from creativity;
Excessive consumption of strong alcohol;
Overwork had an effect on the nervous system, and this caused an illness that the composer himself did not name.
So, in spite of myself, I divided ten years of my life between my teaching duties and my favorite compositional work, which filled the rest of my time. Eventually, this clear division [of time] stopped working. My Moscow friends, both collectively and individually, were eagerly consuming strong drinks, and since I myself had always had an obvious inclination toward the fruit of the vine, I soon [began] to take a more than permissible part in drinking parties, which I had previously avoided. My tireless activity, combined with such Bacchic entertainments, could not but have a most disastrous effect on my nervous system: in 1877 I fell ill and was forced to resign my position at the Conservatory for some time. (Polina Weidman. Tchaikovsky's Biographies in Russian Musical Historiography of the 19th - 20th Centuries).
Usually, the possibility of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's attempted suicide is connected by researchers with the beginning of his life with Antonina Miliukova. Valery Sokolov, summarizing the study of the history of the marriage by previous researchers, wrote that the characterization of the composer's wife is usually reduced to two personality traits — "bourgeoisie" "plus madness", and the assumption of two reasons for the marriage: "love blackmail" by Miliukova (a threat of suicide in case of the composer's refusal) and "the hypnosis of Eugene Onegin" (Tchaikovsky was working on this opera, and unexpectedly its plot coincided with the circumstances of his personal life — Miliukova sent him a letter similar in content to Tatiana's letter to Onegin). Sokolov himself considered this point of view wrong, pointing out, for example, that Miliukova had known the composer since 1872, and that the composer was also a member of her family. Poznansky even named the exact date and place of their acquaintance — May 1872 in the apartment of Antonina's brother— Alexander Miliukov. Alexander Poznansky lists a number of reasons for the marriage: to placate his family, to set an example for Modest's brother — an active homosexual in whose care a teenager from a wealthy family was entrusted (i.e. the deaf-mute Kolya Konradi, whom Modest had raised as a guardian since 1882), the dream of domestic comfort, and the desire to cover up his homosexual ties by marrying a shallow and submissive woman. To prove the latter motive, Poznansky quotes words from the composer's letter that, in his opinion, were the main virtue of the future wife — Miliukova was in love with him "like a cat". The wedding took place in the Church of St. George in Malaya Nikitskaya Street on July 6 (July 18), 1877. Of the composer's numerous relatives, only his brother Anatoly was invited to the ceremony. The priest who performed the ceremony was Tchaikovsky's good friend, archpriest Dmitri Razumovsky, an active member of the Society of Lovers of Old Russian Art and the Moscow Archaeographical Society.
Modest Tchaikovsky noted that Antonina Milukova, as his brother put it, "acted honestly and sincerely", without consciously deceiving him in anything, and "unwillingly and unconsciously" was the cause of her husband's deepest and strongest misfortune. For his part, the composer also acted "honestly, openly, without deceiving her in anything". Both of them, after their marriage, "saw with horror... that between them lay a gulf of mutual misunderstanding, nothing that could never be filled, that they had been acting as if in a dream and had deceived each other in everything against their will. A complete rupture was the only means not only for the further well-being of both, but also for saving the life of Pyotr Ilyich". Another point of view was expressed by Alexandra Orlova, a former employee of the Tchaikovsky State House-Museum in Klin. She claimed that Milukova "suffered from an obvious sexual psychosis", citing as confirmation the fact of her twelve-year stay and death in a psychiatric hospital. The same opinion was expressed by the American musicologist Roland John Wiley. In his opinion, Tchaikovsky did not at first perceive "her mannerisms as symptoms of mental illness" and only realized the problem when he saw Antonina speak at an evening organized by Pyotr Jurgenson. British musicologist David Brown, however, described the events at this soiree as follows: "Tchaikovsky's friends were naturally interested in Antonina, and Jurgenson arranged a dinner at his own house so that they could meet her. Predictably, she was uncomfortable, and her husband kept interrupting [her conversations with friends] to finish what she might have wanted to say but dared not".
The Soviet local historian and biographer Vladimir Kholodkovsky added to the family problem other, in his opinion, no less important causes of the composer's inner crisis: acute criticism of Tchaikovsky's works in the Russian media and the need to destroy "life circumstances" and break with "environment" in order to gain creative freedom. Such a situation, from the researcher's point of view, was already present in Tchaikovsky's life in 1862-1863, when he rejected a career as an official and chose the doubtful, from the point of view of public opinion, career of a musician. Each time this situation demanded from the composer "an enormous expenditure of vital forces".
Andrei Budyakovsky, a Soviet musicologist, senior researcher at the Academy of Art History, and chairman of the Theory and Criticism Section of the Union of Composers of the USSR, believed that in 1873, "in addition to his [the composer's] will and desire, a young life was lost in similar situations. Budyakovsky argued: "Some available materials give reason to conclude that there was a serious nervous shock in Tchaikovsky's life at the end of 1873. Unfortunately, it has not yet been possible to determine its content more precisely". According to the researcher, Tchaikovsky was afraid that if he rejected Milukova, the tragedy would repeat itself. At the same time, the lack of common interests with his wife, common topics of conversation had a depressing effect on the composer. In September 1877, Tchaikovsky was on the verge of committing a crime: "in a mad, painful rage, he was ready to strangle his wife".
Nadezhda Tumanina, a student of art history and the author of a two-volume book on the composer's life and work, believed that the suicide attempt was connected with Tchaikovsky's nervous illness. According to her, it had been developing for a long time and ended in a crisis. The crisis provoked a rash step—marriage with Antonina Miliukova, "a young woman who turned out to be shallow and undeveloped, with bourgeois tastes, besides being mentally unstable, accelerated the onset of the crisis." Attacks of longing combined with the realization of "the irreparability of what had happened" led, in her opinion, to a suicide attempt and a serious illness. The composer left his work at the Moscow Conservatory and went abroad. There, Tchaikovsky began to recover. The "cure" for him was working on the Fourth Symphony and the opera Eugene Onegin. He finally overcame the crisis only in February 1878. The position of Ekaterina Ruchievskaya, doctor of art history, professor at the St. Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, was similar. She wrote: "the crisis had been brewing for a long time, from within and gradually," and "it would be completely wrong to think that ... [the crisis] led only to an unsuccessful marriage".
Alexander Poznansky, a graduate of the Faculty of History at Saint Petersburg State University and an associate of Yale University, interpreted the reasons for the composer's alleged suicide as being related to his homosexual attraction. In his opinion, the spiritual crisis should be dated from 1875-1877 (Poznansky even suggested that it was the last crisis of this kind, but that "we know nothing about the preceding ones"). According to the researcher, until the mid-1870s, Tchaikovsky, "as it happens with many people of this characteristic, did not allow himself to think that his inclination was insurmountable". Poznansky thus reconstructed the composer's train of thought: "...I will indulge my inclination as long as it is possible; when it is necessary to stop categorically, I will make an effort over myself, renounce my habits and live like all other normal people". In letters from this period, the composer uses the word "vice" in reference to his sexual proclivities, but from the researcher's point of view, he had no sense of his own . He did not perceive it as an anomaly. Tchaikovsky characterized "public opinion" as "various despicable creatures" and did not want to pay attention to it. Alexander Poznansky came to the following conclusion about the composer's possible reaction to the spread of rumors about his sexual orientation: "Tchaikovsky was a mentally insecure, vulnerable person and painfully perceived incidents of this kind." At the same time, the researcher denied that the consequences could have had a radical character: "It is far from saying that something of this kind could have driven him to suicide". The composer was also worried about the situation of his family, particularly about the activities of his father, who insisted on his son's marriage.
It was only during his brief marital relationship with Antonina Miliukova that Tchaikovsky realized that he "belongs by nature to a rare type of homosexual exceptional, and any kind of collision with a woman is impossible for him". On July 26, Tchaikovsky left his wife in Yessentuki on the pretext of treating her stomach. He was accompanied by his servant, Alexei Sofronov. On the way, he stopped at Kamianka on the estate of his relatives, the Davydovs, and there he decided to refuse to continue the journey and at the same time not to return to Moscow. Poznansky believed that this decision, unexpected by those close to him, was due to the fact that "he had returned to his 'natural impulses,' having fallen in love with the teenage lackey Eustafy". On his way back, he stopped in Kyiv and spent three days with his servant, the eighteen-year-old Alexei Sofronov, who, in Tchaikovsky's own words, was "extremely nice".
While his wife derived pleasure from their life together, the composer fell into a state of despair as time passed after the marriage. In Poznansky's opinion, he belatedly began to realize his sexual and psychological incompatibility with Miliukova. It was only then that he began to realize that the plan to strengthen his social position and the stability of his personal life through marriage had failed; moreover, there was a danger not only of exposing the composer's own intimate desires but also of disgracing his family. He fell into a state of hopelessness and longed to return to his creative work and his usual stable life.
In his two-volume biography of Tchaikovsky, Poznansky drew attention to the dramatic change in the composer's attitude toward Miliukova during the short second period of their life together (September 11-24). In letters to his brothers during this period, he first used the name "Antonina" to refer to his wife, then "that lady," "wife," later switching to the expressions "a well-known person," "a female creature bearing my name," and finally "a disgusting creation of nature," "an abomination," "an abomination" (which is how he would refer to her after 1877, "as if it were her own name"), "a bitch". Poznansky assumed that the cause must have been some event related to a change in Antonina's tactics and strategy toward her husband. From his point of view, she decided during his absence that it was time for Tchaikovsky to start fulfilling his marital duties, and she began actively using "coquetry, all sorts of feminine tricks, entreaties and demands" in the struggle to achieve this goal, eventually going on the "decisive offensive." It was this that drove the composer to despair, for in his view, Miliukova had flagrantly violated the agreement "on 'brotherly love' made in July".
Galina Poberezhnaya, doctor of art history, professor, and pioneer of music therapy, pointed out that women played a very important role in the life and ideas of the composer. She was the embodiment of: A) the maternal beginning (the researcher emphasized the great role of lullabies in Tchaikovsky's works; for example, in the opera Mazepa, Maria's lullaby is addressed not to a child but to an adult—her lover) and B) "a strong dramatic personality" (in his operas, the female image "leads the action" or "serves as its center"). Poberezhnaya concluded that Tchaikovsky had "a special interest in a creatively gifted woman, actively, powerfully realizing her talent"—in the "tamer". At the same time, according to Poberezhnaya, Tchaikovsky was not sexually attracted to women. He did not hide from Miliukova his lack of attraction to her and his desire to build family relations on a rational basis. In addition, Miliukova was not only undistinguished by talent but was indifferent to music, even with a musical education. According to Poberezhnaya, relations with her led Tchaikovsky to a suicide attempt and a serious and prolonged nervous illness. At the same time, the researcher argues that the crisis of 1877 divided the composer's life and work into two different periods, opening the period of "brilliant" works.
Interpretations by biographers
Doubters
In the memoirs of Tchaikovsky's friend, architect Ivan Klimenko, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. A Brief Biographical Sketch, there is no mention of the suicide attempt. He recounted in detail Modest Tchaikovsky's version of events. At the same time, Klimenko wrote that he knew Kashkin well and talked with him about the circumstances of the composer's death. Ekaterina Ruchievskaya, who devoted a whole chapter of her biography of the composer to the year 1877, made no mention of the suicide attempt. The Soviet musicologist Galina Pribegina also ignored Kashkin's message completely and did not mention anything about it in her biography of the composer published in 1983.
The musicologist and biographer of Tchaikovsky, Joseph Kunin, who wrote about the events in Moscow in a book published in 1958 in the series The Lives of Remarkable People, avoided asking the question of the suicide: "Unbearable agony tormented him, death seemed to be a liberation, consciousness began to be confused. With a last effort of will, he forced himself to leave for St. Petersburg on September 24". Soviet musicologist Arnold Alshvang, in his book P. I. Tchaikovsky (1970), analyzed in detail Kashkin's musicological works on Tchaikovsky but completely ignored his account of the composer's suicide attempt. Local historian Lidia Koniskaya did not consider it possible to talk about the composer's realization of a suicide attempt. In her monograph on Tchaikovsky's stay in St. Petersburg, she mentioned the despair that seized the composer in September 1877 and the passionate desire for freedom and creativity. She believed that these feelings were the result of a failed marriage. In her words, Tchaikovsky was only "close to suicide". Similar views were expressed by contemporary musicologist Irina Okhalova in a 2015 book based on the composer's personal correspondence from July 1877.
Polina Vaidman, the curator of Tchaikovsky's manuscript collection at the composer's house museum in Klin, a Ph.D. in art history, called Kashkin's memoirs in the 1920 collection deliberately false memoirs and a "romantic myth," and wrote that the reasons that led Kashkin to write them and Boris Asafiev to publish them are unknown.
Alexander Poznansky, in his monograph Tchaikovsky in St. Petersburg (2011) and his two-volume biography of the composer, suggested that Kashkin's accounts should be treated critically, writing that they suffer from "obvious chronological confusion and excessive drama." He also pointed out that Kashkin was never among the composer's closest friends and that his testimony is often not supported by more authoritative testimony and documents. He compared Tchaikovsky's letter from Clarens to Konstantin Albrecht, a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, dated October 25 (November 6), 1877 ("If I had stayed one more day in Moscow, I would have gone mad or drowned myself in the stinking waves of the still beautiful Moskva river") with Kashkin's memories and concluded that some event might have happened, but more important, from his point of view, is the essential contradiction: The letter refers to the possibility of drowning in the river, not to catching a fatal cold from prolonged exposure. Poznansky noted the distinctly ironic style of the letter and concluded that "the whole idea, as described by Kashkin, is more literary than vital".
Aleksander Poznansky wrote that at times the composer was seized by a desire for death associated with water (for example, the obsessive vision of death in the waves of the river: in The Storm overture, the heroine throws herself into the Volga; in the opera The Queen of Spades, Liza drowns in the Winter Canal), but it was just the raging fantasy of a creative man. From the researcher's point of view, the story of "a serious nervous illness was specially made up by Tchaikovsky himself ... in order to find an excuse to go abroad".
In the book Tchaikovsky's Suicide. Myth and Reality, published in 1993, and in the book Tchaikovsky's Death. Legends and Facts (2007), Alexander Poznansky wrote that Kashkin's report is actively used by supporters of the theory of the composer's suicide in 1893, pointing to the composer's disposition to such actions. The researcher refuted this point of view, writing that imprinting —a person's pre-existing psychological experience— plays an important role in solving a psychological crisis. In 1877, Tchaikovsky did not know that going abroad would solve his problems, and in 1893, he had to rely on this positive experience to solve his problems. The researcher considered "escape" rather than "self-destruction" as a typical way out of the crisis for Tchaikovsky. From Poznansky's point of view, the events of 1877 indicate Tchaikovsky's pattern of behavior in a situation of mental crisis—he aimed for maximum solitude and needed only the closest people in such a situation. Based on this model, Poznansky refused to believe that a composer condemned to suicide by a "court of lawyers" could have had fun surrounded by young friends. He also pointed out that if, in 1877, by going into the Moskva river, the composer had two options for the development of events: a serious illness or the absence of any significant effect of cold water on the body, then by taking poison in 1893, Tchaikovsky would have condemned himself to an unconditional death. Poznansky concluded that Tchaikovsky's act in 1877 speaks not of an obsession with the idea of suicide, but of fatalism (willingness to "play 'Russian roulette'").
In these books, Poznansky also noted that there are many questionable points in Kashkin's memoirs. In particular, it is the author's first-person narration: "Researchers of memoir literature know that the parts of memoirs in which memoirists seek to reproduce direct speech or first-person narration are the least trustworthy." And this only if the composer was really so close to Kashkin as to entrust only him and no one else with "such an intimate experience". Poznansky was equally categorical in an article from the English-language collection Tchaikovsky and His World, edited by Leslie Kearney, associate professor of musicology at Indiana University, published in 1998: "Contrary to popular belief, we have no actual evidence that Tchaikovsky attempted suicide after his marriage by wading into the icy cold of the Moskva river. The only source of this myth is the unreliable memoirs of Nikolai Kashkin, written more than forty years later".
However, in a two-volume biography of Tchaikovsky published in 2009, Poznansky characterized the composer in September 1877 as a "resentful child" who "wanted to get sick in order to die. What he was contemplating, the scholar said, was an "infantile gesture" rather than "the desperate determination of a man who really wanted to settle accounts with his life in one way or another". Poznansky also suggested that the serious mental disorder about which Modest and Kashkin wrote was actually invented by Tchaikovsky in order to obtain a pretext for going abroad and material support from Nadezhda von Meck. In reality, it was a hysterical attack, but such events had been happening to the composer since childhood. Musicologist and composer Valery Sokolov, in his monograph Antonina Tchaikovskaya. The Story of a Forgotten Life (1994), even suggested that there was a conspiracy of three brothers at once — Peter, Modest, and Anatoly — which matured as early as August 1877 in Kamianka. The purpose of this conspiracy was to justify the composer's departure from Moscow to St. Petersburg without his wife. From the musicologist's point of view, Anatoly, who disliked Miliukova from their first meeting, probably emphasized their personal incompatibility, while Modest proceeded from physiological problems. Sokolov argued that Tchaikovsky's plan, which had matured as early as 1876, included two components, and he considered this conspiracy only the second part. The first part, however, he called realized during the wedding with the desire to "show others 'that he is like everyone else' and 'stop the gossips'".
Sokolov believed that, based on the text of Kashkin's memoirs, the alleged suicide attempt should be dated to a shorter period of time — between September 17 and 24. However, the researcher emphasized the memoirist's tendency to exaggeration and fantasizing, so he refused to consider his testimony about the suicide attempt as "the absolute truth". To prove his position, he referred to the complete absence of any other evidence of this event from contemporaries. Sokolov believed that in reality, apparently, "Tchaikovsky spilled out the negative emotions accumulated over several months on his unsuspecting wife. From his point of view, there were two possible options: the husband was looking for a reason for a sharp conflict, or Miliukova unwittingly provoked his spouse to it. On the other hand, Sokolov also refused to accept Modest Tchaikovsky's version of two weeks of unconsciousness, referring to the existence of a letter dated October 1, in which the composer is quite "conscious".
Candidate of Historical Sciences and Doctor of Philosophy Igor Kon, as well as Doctor of Historical Sciences Leo Klejn, in their reflections about Tchaikovsky and Miliukova marriage, did not dismiss the possibility of the composer's suicide. Klein, for example, limited his characterization of Tchaikovsky's condition at this time to the word "hysteria".
Believers
Academician Boris Asafiev, outlining the history of the relationship between Tchaikovsky and Miliukova, wrote: "Despair came to a suicide attempt, to a state close to madness. He realized that he could not live like everyone else..."
The music critic Louis Biancolli, in his book Tchaikovsky and His Orchestral Music (1944), fully accepted Kashkin's version. According to him, Miliukova caused Tchaikovsky both "pity and anxiety with her passionate declarations of love and her equally passionate threats of suicide". This situation was so difficult for Tchaikovsky "that he attempted suicide by standing up to his neck at night in the icy waters of the Neva". According to Biancolli, Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony "grew in part out of this sad episode". Roland John Wiley, an American musicologist specializing in 19th-century Russian music and ballet, in his 2009 book Tchaikovsky, expressed no doubts about the reliability of Kashkin's account of the event, although he pointed out that it was "the only source for the account of Tchaikovsky's suicide attempt".
Svetlana Petukhova, candidate of art history and senior researcher of the music history sector of the State Institute of Art History, highly appreciated Kashkin's book Memories of P. I. Tchaikovsky, as well as the memoirs of music critic and composer Herman Laroche about the composer. In her opinion, their memoirs demonstrate "the authors' clear desire to create a complete image of the man and the composer. Both writers were aware of exactly what was required of them: materials where the points of view and conclusions of music and theater professionals are supported by the factual value of the statements of people who interacted closely with Tchaikovsky". She noted Kashkin's "closeness" to Tchaikovsky. Soviet musicologist Semyon Shlifshtein also praised Memories of Tchaikovsky. He called their author "a living witness to the works and days of the composer," and some factual errors Kashkin made were explained by the fact that he wrote in fresh traces, relying on his memory and therefore not checking with documents.
Georgy Glushchenko, a candidate of art history and head of the Department of Composition and Musicology at the Belarusian State Conservatory, wrote in a book about the Russian musician that the composer shared "details of his personal life" with Kashkin, and as a result, he was "almost the only person with whom Tchaikovsky spoke" about marriage. The composer's biographer Vladimir Kholodkovsky wrote about the suicide attempt as a recognized fact of the composer's biography. The same way this news was perceived by Julius Kremelyov, a doctor of art history, in his monograph Tchaikovsky's Symphonies (1955).
The musicologist Alexandra Orlova, a graduate of the Leningrad Institute of Art History and the Philology Department of Leningrad State University, accepted Kashkin's account without reservation. Assuming that Tchaikovsky died not from cholera, but as a result of taking poison, she wrote of the events of September 1877: "This episode, told by him himself, may give a clue to the events of 1893". Another ardent supporter of the version of Tchaikovsky's suicide in 1893 and the "conspiracy of jurisprudence" which, in his view, led to this tragedy, British music professor David Brown spoke of Kashkin's version in the following way in his book Tchaikovsky. The Man and His Music: "Although he wrote it in the first person, and his literal accuracy must be treated with caution, there is no reason to doubt the truthfulness of what he wrote". Brown believed that the first two parts of the tragedy were the same. He believed that the first two movements of the composer's Fourth Symphony were conceived by the composer precisely during a mental crisis. In Brown's view, these two movements are among Tchaikovsky's greatest works. The musicologist wrote: "Both movements are indelibly marked by elements of his own experience during these dark months".
The composer and Russian musicologist, candidate of art history Leonid Sidelnikov had no doubts about the reliability of Kashkin's testimony. In his biography of the composer, published in 1992, he described the suicide attempt as follows: "...late in the evening, unnoticed by anyone, he [Tchaikovsky] left his house, located on Kudrinskaya Square of the Garden Ring, and walked towards the Moskva River, flowing five hundred meters from his home. Almost unconsciously he went waist-deep into the icy water". The story of the attempted suicide was also recounted by psychiatrist Zinaida Ageyeva in her book Tchaikovsky. Genius and Suffering (2019). She briefly recounted Kashkin's version in the narrative of Nina Berberova's documentary-publicist book ("he was met at home by his wife, whom he told that he had been fishing with fishermen and had fallen into the water").
Andrei Budyakovsky had no doubts about the reality of the situation described by Kashkin, and in his book The Life of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (2003), he cited a little-known fact as proof. On the manuscript of the sketches for the Fourth Symphony, Tchaikovsky wrote: "In the event of my death I entrust this notebook to N. F. von Meck". Budyakovsky pointed out that in the capital in 1877, there were rumors of Tchaikovsky's insanity, and some newspapers even printed a refutation of this gossip.
In culture
Journalism and fiction
The Russian writer Nina Berberova's book Tchaikovsky, published in emigration in 1937, contains a detailed description of the composer's suicide attempt. She added details to Kashkin's account that were missing or even contradictory: "The rain is pouring down... There are lights on the other side of the river, a coachman's carriage rattles somewhere". After a suicide attempt, Tchaikovsky returns to Miliukova in Berberova, and "Antonina Ivanovna ordered Alyosha to undress him and put him to bed. In the writer's book, Tchaikovsky falls ill, "but in the morning the fever was gone, even the doctor did not need to be called". The music publicist Solomon Volkov also had no doubts about the composer's suicide attempt. In 1990, a book was published by Boris Nikitin, a shipbuilding engineer by training who devoted most of his life to writing biographies of Russian musicians, Tchaikovsky. Old and New. The narrative in the book begins with the chapter "Shock", in which he describes the events of 1877. The publicist dated the suicide attempt to September 15-20 and based his description on Kashkin's memoirs. He considered this event the key in the composer's work and divided it into two periods—before and after the internal crisis of 1877: "In one of them he became a dramatist of other people's lives and a singer of beauty, continuing to write operas, ballets, romances, concertos and suites, into which he also poured his soul and cultivated them with great love. In the second, he created his own drama. This included all of his innermost being".
In movies
In 1969, the Moscow Order of Lenin film studio Mosfilm completed the shooting of the two-part feature film Tchaikovsky, directed by Igor Talankin. The movie premiered on August 31, 1970. In the finale of the first episode, late at night, a rather drunken Tchaikovsky (Innokenty Smoktunovsky) follows a mysterious carriage without a driver on the outskirts of Moscow. The carriage takes him to a small wooden bridge. The composer descends to the water at its wooden pier and enters the water chest-deep. Aleksei Sofronov (Yevgeny Leonov), a faithful servant, runs across the bridge to help his master. The servant brings Tchaikovsky, who is losing strength, to Nikolai Rubinstein's apartment, whispering: "Ah, how bad! God will judge!" and "I didn't make it, you fool!" Rubinstein (Vladislav Strzelchik) comes out of the inner rooms in his robe. Tchaikovsky falls into his arms, saying, "I won't go there [a gala reception in honor of the composer, attended by Antonina Miliukova]!" Rubinstein said to Sofronov: "Run to the doctor!" The American music critic Charles P. Mitchell devoted one of the chapters of his book Great Composers Captured in Films from 1913 to 2002 to the analysis of films about Tchaikovsky made until the beginning of the 21st century. He even called the depiction of Tchaikovsky's relationship with his wife and the interpretation of Miliukova's image as a flirtatious coquette in the Soviet film Tchaikovsky genius and considered it the climax of the film, but he did not analyze the suicide attempt scene itself, which is included in this very episode.
In British director Ken Russell's The Music Lovers (1971), Richard Chamberlain played the role of Tchaikovsky. The director himself said: "'The Music Lovers' is not so much about the man as it is about the idea of the destructive influence of fantasy on people's lives. Like most artists, Tchaikovsky was able to sublimate personal problems into his art... Tchaikovsky put all his problems into music and thought they would go away and everything would be solved. This... destroyed the people he met, like his sister and Nina [Antonina Miliukova — the composer's wife], because they were real and their problems were real. There was no escape for them from [his] musical dreams". James Krukones, author of an article on the film in Tchaikovsky and His Contemporaries (1999), wrote: "'Music Lovers' is more about Ken Russell than Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; the film does not so much try to recreate history as reinterpret it, and in a very subjective way".
In one scene of the movie, the composer enters the river near the Stone Bridge (in the movie, it is short and low). Tchaikovsky seems confused as the water barely reaches his knees, even though he is almost in the middle of the river. He becomes even more lost when a charming young woman appears on the riverbank, walking a small dog. The woman looks in the composer's direction with a smile, and Tchaikovsky, embarrassed by her gaze, begins to climb ashore. The scene is filmed without a single word. It is accompanied by the sound of the String Quartet No. 3 in e flat minor, which Tchaikovsky wrote in February 1876 and dedicated to the memory of the Czech violinist Ferdinand Laub, who had died shortly before. Russian film critic Alexei Gusev wrote of the film: "The Music Lovers appears to anyone unfamiliar with Tchaikovsky's true biography as an outrageous (or charmingly willful) parody. It is in the most egregious moments of the movie that Russell seems to sacrifice elementary decency, at least an accurate summary of real, documented facts, for the sake of red words". The critic describes the suicide attempt scene as follows:Tchaikovsky is about to commit suicide and throws himself [in the movie he steps into the river] into the pond (in the movie it is a river, not a pond), but the water is knee-deep, and the hero stands there for all to see, pitiful, ridiculous, and humiliated—this episode reads like a vivid metaphor, a shamelessly catchy symbolism. Until you come across a detailed, one-to-one description of Russell's mise-en-scène in the composer's own diary [this scene does not appear in Tchaikovsky's diaries]. (Alexei Gusev. Ken's movie)
Notes
References
Bibliography
Sources
Researches and non-fiction sources
Guides
Journalism and fiction
Suicide
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Biographical works | Theory of attempted suicide by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | [
"Biology"
] | 10,392 | [
"Behavior",
"Human behavior",
"Suicide"
] |
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