4,080 research outputs found
Assessing ice-cliff backwasting and its contribution to total ablation of debris-covered Miage glacier, Mont Blanc massif, Italy
No full textContinuous surface debris cover strongly reduces the ablation of glaciers, but high melt rates may occur at ice cliffs that are too steep to hold debris. This study assesses the contribution of ice-cliff backwasting to total ablation of Miage glacier, Mont Blanc massif, Italy, in 2010 and 2011, based on field measurements, physical melt models and mapping of ice cliffs using a high-resolution (1 m) digital elevation model (DEM). Short-term model calculations closely match the measured melt rates. A model sensitivity analysis indicates that the effects of cliff slope and albedo are more important for ablation than enhanced longwave incidence from sun-warmed debris or reduced turbulent fluxes at sheltered cliff bases. Analysis of the DEM indicates that ice cliffs account for at most 1.3\% of the 1 m pixels in the glacier's debris-covered zone, but application of a distributed model indicates that ice cliffs account for 7.4\% of total ablation. We conclude that ice cliffs make an important contribution to the ablation of debris-covered glaciers, even when their spatial extent is very small
Oil and Water Being Han in Xinjiang
No full textFor decades, China’s Xinjiang region has been the site of clashes between long-residing Uyghur and Han settlers. Up until now, much scholarly attention has been paid to state actions and the Uyghur’s efforts to resist cultural and economic repression. This has left the other half of the puzzle—the motivations and ambitions of Han settlers themselves—sorely understudied.
With Oil and Water, anthropologist Tom Cliff offers the first ethnographic study of Han in Xinjiang, using in-depth vignettes, oral histories, and more than fifty original photographs to explore how and why they became the people they are now. By shifting focus to the lived experience of ordinary Han settlers, Oil and Water provides an entirely new perspective on Chinese nation building in the twenty-first century and demonstrates the vital role that Xinjiang Han play in national politics—not simply as Beijing’s pawns, but as individuals pursuing their own survival and dreams on the frontier
hpDJ: An automated DJ with floorshow feedback
No full textMany radio stations and nightclubs employ Disk-Jockeys (DJs) to provide a continuous uninterrupted stream or “mix” of dance music, built from a sequence of individual song-tracks. In the last decade, commercial pre-recorded compilation CDs of DJ mixes have become a growth market. DJs exercise skill in deciding an appropriate sequence of tracks and in mixing 'seamlessly' from one track to the next. Online access to large-scale archives of digitized music via automated music information retrieval systems offers users the possibility of discovering many songs they like, but the majority of consumers are unlikely to want to learn the DJ skills of sequencing and mixing. This paper describes hpDJ, an automatic method by which compilations of dance-music can be sequenced and seamlessly mixed by computer, with minimal user involvement. The user may specify a selection of tracks, and may give a qualitative indication of the type of mix required. The resultant mix can be presented as a continuous single digital audio file, whether for burning to CD, or for play-out from a personal playback device such as an iPod, or for play-out to rooms full of dancers in a nightclub. Results from an early version of this system have been tested on an audience of patrons in a London nightclub, with very favourable results. Subsequent to that experiment, we designed technologies which allow the hpDJ system to monitor the responses of crowds of dancers/listeners, so that hpDJ can dynamically react to those responses from the crowd. The initial intention was that hpDJ would monitor the crowd’s reaction to the song-track currently being played, and use that response to guide its selection of subsequent song-tracks tracks in the mix. In that version, it’s assumed that all the song-tracks existed in some archive or library of pre-recorded files. However, once reliable crowd-monitoring technology is available, it becomes possible to use the crowd-response data to dynamically “remix” existing song-tracks (i.e, alter the track in some way, tailoring it to the response of the crowd) and even to dynamically “compose” new song-tracks suited to that crowd. Thus, the music played by hpDJ to any particular crowd of listeners on any particular night becomes a direct function of that particular crowd’s particular responses on that particular night. On a different night, the same crowd of people might react in a different way, leading hpDJ to create different music. Thus, the music composed and played by hpDJ could be viewed as an “emergent” property of the dynamic interaction between the computer system and the crowd, and the crowd could then be viewed as having collectively collaborated on composing the music that was played on that night. This en masse collective composition raises some interesting legal issues regarding the ownership of the composition (i.e.: who, exactly, is the author of the work?), but revenue-generating businesses can nevertheless plausibly be built from such technologies
Letter from Cliff [Uyeda] to Michi Weglyn, July 20, 1987
No full textA letter from "Cliff" [Clifford I. Uyeda] to Michi Weglyn criticizing the 1987 book "They Call Me Moses Masaoka" by Mike Masaoka and Bill Hosokawa. The author of the letter also describes internal conflict on the national board of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL).These materials are from box 73 and 74 of the Frank Chin Papers. The Frank Chin Papers contain personal and professional correspondence between Frank Chin and Michi Weglyn relating to particular projects on which either author was working as well as files related to the Day of Remembrance Tribute to Michi Weglyn
Cliff Tomb Burial and Decorated Stone Sarcophagi from Sichuan from the Eastern Han Dynasty
No full textCliff tombs and decorated stone sarcophagi from the Eastern Han period have been found in especially large numbers in Sichuan. The sudden rise of cliff tomb burial in the southwest and its decline by the 3rd century CE suggests that it was a trend that answered a particular call in a specific period. Their geographical concentration and use in a period of general social and political stability and economic prosperity in the region point to a distinctive new development in burial custom. Cliff tomb burial represented a fundamental shift in artistic and communicative objectives and a modification in cemetery layout. After examining cliff tombs found in Hejiang county, Sichuan, and especially the iconography and meaning of images carved on stone sarcophagi found therein, the paper suggests a number of possible reasons for the rise of cliff tomb burial, including a wish to eschew the ostentation associated with funereal practice at the time
Writing for fun: Interview with Peter Corris, author of the Cliff Hardy detective novels
No full textAustralian author Peter Corris (1942–) talks about his transformation from anxious academic to lighthearted writer of detective novels, especially the Cliff Hardy series. He reveals the real-life models he used in creating Cliff Hardy, the authors he took as role models, and where he gets ideas for the plots and settings
Cliff Retreat Induced by Series of Storms at Miȩdzyzdroje (Poland)
No full textIn Miȩdzyzdroje, a coastal town in Poland, significant cliff retreat has been observed in recent times. It used to be considered mainly a response to storm events with particularly high water levels and wave energy. However, morphology of cliff coasts is shaped not only by the most extreme storm surges or by a number of accompanying processes such as precipitation. Much wider effects are now being linked to the occurrence of series of subsequent storms. This research uses a set of five terrestrial LiDAR surveys carried out between November 2016 and April 2017 to determine short-term cliff erosion associated with two major storm surges and several smaller storms. The surveys covered the whole cliff profile as well as the topography of the adjacent beach. Results indicate a considerable reduction in beach levels as a first important effect. Frequency of the storm events prevented the beach from recovering between the surges, allowing the waves to directly attack the cliff base. Consequently, the cliff foot line retreated up to 4.7 m. This resulted in an erosion volume exceeding 25.000 m within 5 sections of the coastal cliff analysed, which are 500 m long in total. This work demonstrates that the development of the coastline is not only directly linked with the rate of erosion at given storm parameters. More importantly, the frequency of extreme events has to be considered.Hydraulic Structures and Flood Ris
Christchurch New Zealand cliff hike
No full textFor this 8-minute documentary, the author lugged a video camera and gave a running commentary of a hike from the Scarborough area of Christchurch, New Zealand up a cliff with great scenic beauty. Not long afterward the author saw on TV in Japan that the cliff with all its vegetation and bird nests had crashed into the ocean during a major Christchurch earthquake
Alice and Cliff Donahue
No full textPhotograph - Friends of Alice B. and William Clifford Donahue, Athabasca, Alberta. Seated, left to right: Cliff Donahue, Joe Mikkelsen, Beryl Mikkelsen, and Marge Logan. Standing, left to right: Don Logan, Alice B. Donahue, Aaron Jones, Lorene Jones, and Beatrice Par
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