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Estimating Soft X‐Ray Emission From Uranus's Magnetosheath
Get PDFPlain Language Summary: Soft X‐rays are detected at different environments within the solar system. One example is a planetary magnetosheath. This is the region outside the magnetosphere containing slowed, heated solar wind, the continuous stream of plasma ejected from the Sun. Here, highly charged solar wind ions and neutral particles from the magnetosphere undergo charge exchange which results in soft X‐ray emission. At Uranus, the exosphere and icy moons Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon provide neutral particles. This model builds a simplified description of Uranus's complex magnetosphere to investigate the rates at which soft X‐rays are emitted from the magnetosheath and the time it may take a soft X‐ray imager (SXI) onboard an approaching spacecraft to image them. Integration times as low as 150 s are obtained when simulating a SMILE‐like SXI on approach, but this can be further improved to be around 3 s by considering a future SXI with a larger field‐of‐view and effective area than SMILE. Finally, when considering the approach of an SXI to Uranus, X‐rays can be imaged within a planetary rotation from distances as far as 10 au. Overall, this work supports further investigation of X‐ray emission from the Uranian system
Fiscal Uncertainty in Habit-Forming and Lumpy Economies
Get PDFWe study dividend-tax-induced fiscal uncertainty tied to deficit-financing concerns in a production-based general equilibrium model with habit-forming consumption and partially irreversible investment. Habits generate countercyclical investment and asset price dynamics following tax adjustments. Irreversibility and tax risk, in turn, bring asset price volatility closer to the data, trigger lumpy investment behavior, and raise medium-run fiscal spending multipliers. Tax-smoothing and irreversibility significantly enhance welfare despite increased valuation risk, while also revealing a trade-off between debt stabilization and stock price volatility. The irreversibility-habit-augmented model reconciles the limited decline and rapid recovery (i.e., lumpiness) in nonfinancial corporate investment following the 2012 American Taxpayer Relief Act
Biodiversity Entrepreneurship
Get PDFWe study an emerging class of start-up organizations focused on biodiversity conservation and the challenges they face in financing these ventures. By fine-tuning a large language model (LLM), we identify 630 biodiversity-linked start-ups in PitchBook and compare their financing dynamics with those of other ventures. Biodiversity start-ups raise less capital but attract a broader coalition of investors, including not only venture capitalists (“value investors”) but also mission-aligned impact funds and public institutions (“values investors”). Values investors provide incremental capital rather than substituting value investors, but funding gaps persist. We show biodiversity-linked start-ups use social media (Twitter) activity to help connect with value investors. Our findings can inform policy and practice for mobilizing private capital toward biodiversity preservation, emphasizing hybrid financing models and strategic communication
Using Social Virtual Reality in Teaching Intercultural Communication
No full textIn this study, we investigated whether intercultural communication can be learned as effectively through desktop-based social virtual reality (social VR) as it can through online study, and if social VR improves the motivation to gain cultural intelligence in distance learning. Two groups of international students attended a seminar called “Intercultural Communication”—one online via social VR rooms and videoconferencing, and one via videoconferencing only. The students then completed an online questionnaire and qualitative interviews regarding their experiences of learning intercultural encounters and development of intercultural communication skills through social VR. Based on our findings, social VR is an engaging complement to online study for learning intercultural communication competence. However, students claimed that it could not replace online or face-to-face study, and the quality of students’ experiences depended on their technical equipment. The rapid development of virtual teaching methods, virtual reality hardware, and international Internet connectivity offers the hope that learning intercultural communication via social VR will become easier in the future
Robot, Avatar, or Human : The Impact of Partner Representation and Task on the Communication Experience
No full textAvatars and telepresence robots have long received attention for remote communication. However, the specific nature of their physicality, expressiveness, and mobility may affect their usefulness for different tasks. This work compares using an avatar (presented in augmented reality) and a telepresence robot to Face-to-Face (F2F) communication during different communication tasks: free conversation, negotiation, and referential communication with movement. We conducted a user study (split-plot design, N=54) with the type of representation of the conversational partner as the within variable and the communication task as the between variable. Our results show that the type of task, especially referential communication with movement, influenced the perceived attention to nonverbal cues and closeness. Generally, gestures and body movements received the least focus with telepresence robots. Gestures in avatars and F2F drew similar attention, which we attribute to the avatar's tracking fidelity. Gaze received less attention in both avatar- and robot-mediated communication compared to F2F, while facial expressions on the robot's screen heightened attention compared to avatars. These findings advance the fundamental understanding of mediated communication and support researchers and practitioners in shaping the design of communication applications beyond today's video calls
Trauma in Transit : Textual and Translational Dislocations in Mercè Rodoreda’s “La gallina"
Get PDFThis paper examines the complex relationship between trauma, literature, and translation by analyzing Mercè Rodoreda’s Catalan short story “La gallina” and its English translation “The Hen” by David Rosenthal. Building upon contemporary trauma theory and translation studies, the study investigates how linguistic manifestations of trauma, including irony, dissociation, and fragmented narrative, are conveyed or altered in translation. Using corpus analysis tools, the paper identifies significant shifts in lexical choices, punctuation, and syntactic structures that potentially “detraumatize” the source text (ST). The analysis reveals how Rodoreda’s personal experiences of exile, gender oppression, and war trauma manifest in her literary style, and how these elements are negotiated in translation. The study contributes to ongoing discussions about the ethics of translating trauma narratives and the translator’s role as a secondary witness to suffering
The Effects of High Temperature Stress and its Mitigation Through the Application of Biostimulants in Controlled Environment Agriculture and Indoor Farming
Get PDFFood security and supply networks are becoming an ever-increasing concern requiring innovative practices to deal with the contributing factors. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) offers an alternative to conventional cropping systems for increasing the yields of certain produce types. Crop yields (tons/hectare/year) in CEA are reported to range between 10 and 100 times higher than open-field agriculture, and the water use in CEA is typically about 4.5–16% of that from conventional farms per unit mass of produce. However, these systems can be energy intensive due to temperature regulation requirements, compromising their environmental and economic viability. Energy is the second largest overhead cost in CEA with carbon footprints being reported as 5.6–16.7 times and 2.3–3.3 times greater than that of open-field agriculture for indoor vertical farms and greenhouses, respectively. This can be offset, in part, by reducing the reliance on cooling systems. However, high temperature stress negatively impacts crops at morphological, cellular, metabolic, and molecular levels, reducing produce quality and quantity. Biostimulants are additives which can benefit plant growth through ameliorating stress. This review considers recent research on the effects of heat stress on a variety of crops commonly grown in CEA and the categories of biostimulants that have known thermoprotective qualities. Seaweed extracts, chitin/chitosan, protein hydrolysates and amino acids, inorganic compounds, beneficial microorganisms, and humic substances are explored, alongside the known benefits, limitations, and knowledge gaps
Effects of Visual Framing in Multimodal Media Environments : A Systematic Review of Studies Between 1979 and 2023
No full textFraming is considered an important theoretical perspective for analyzing the influence of media information. Despite the explicit inclusion of visual elements within established frame definitions, visuals have long been marginalized in framing research. Based on a systematic review of 552 articles addressing visual framing, this article closely investigates 72 empirical studies on visual/multimodal framing effects. Drawing on framing as a multidimensional process, we discuss how existing studies have examined the sensory, affective, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions of impact. We explain the rising importance of visual communication and multimodality and conclude with implications for mass communication and visual journalism
Intra-ethnic Violence in the Dying Days of the Reich : Local Perspectives on Late-War Summary Executions
No full textIn the final months of the Second World War, large numbers of German soldiers and civilians were publicly executed by their fellow compatriots, often following decentralised summary judgment. Those targeted were people who up to that point had been part of the Nazi racial community, the Volksgemeinschaft. Judging these killings through the lens of a normatively singular ‘community’, however, has its limits. Local community structures changed rapidly and dramatically, especially as the frontline approached. A mass influx of soldiers, refugees, and other outside actors changed long-established certainties, and threatened the very fabric that had held these communities together during the previous years. These threats – both real and perceived – were acute and often had little bearing on the wider German society. This paper identifies and contextualises the motivations behind the many German-versus-German killings that took place while the regime collapsed. It restores agency to the different actors involved in late-war killings by examining six summary executions that took place in this period. Taken together, these examples show that the current narrative, which pits the ‘radicalised Nazi’ against the hapless German ‘defeatist’, needs adjusting; the ways in which these executions played out demonstrate that local circumstances greatly impacted behavioural patterns
A Total Cost of Ownership Analysis of Additive Manufacturing as a Service
Get PDFGlobal manufacturing is experiencing a profound transformation as industries move away from resource-intensive mass production towards models that emphasise sustainability, localisation, and flexibility. Within this context, Manufacturing as a Service (MaaS) has emerged as a promising paradigm that leverages cloud technologies and additive manufacturing to enable on-demand, distributed production. This paper applies a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) perspective to evaluate the economic viability of MaaS in a holistic ecosystem setting. Our analysis considers multiple dimensions of additive manufacturing, including energy consumption, material usage, and production times, in order to identify the cost drivers that shape the feasibility of the MaaS approach. Building on these insights, we propose a profit-sharing framework that translates TCO outcomes into a distributive model, ensuring transparent and equitable value allocation among key stakeholders such as platform operators, service providers, and customers. The results demonstrate that TCO analysis provides a powerful lens for assessing both efficiency and sustainability in MaaS, while the profit-sharing model offers a practical mechanism for balancing incentives and responsibilities across the ecosystem. By integrating cost transparency with fair value distribution, this work advances the discussion on how MaaS can contribute to resilient, economically viable, and socially sustainable manufacturing networks