230 research outputs found
Domestic lighting
No full textLighting is one of the determinants of quality of life. In most developing countries, households spend a considerable part of their cash income on modern fuels to meet their lighting needs. The average amount of fuel consumed for lighting is much higher in villages without electricity than in villages with it; moreover, people with non-electric light have much lower lighting levels than people with electric lights. Why then do people use non-electric lighting when electricity is available? Mainly because they fit well with poor family spending patterns. The initial cost and per month cost of a wick lamp are low, and kerosene can be bought in small quantities as needed. Households with electricity are accustomed to much higher levels of light, for which they have to finance a connection charge, installation cost and for which they pay more for regular use. It is found that houses with electric lighting typically have lighting in every room, whereas non-electric users tend to use only one lamp for the whole house. Although both kinds of lamp give light, they are not directly comparable; it takes 18 kerosene lamps to give off the light of a single 60 watt incandescent bulb.Energy and Poverty Alleviation,Energy and Environment,Renewable Energy,Energy Demand,Engineering
Functional Cinematic Elements in Works of Alberts Bels: Allusions, Themes and Clichés
No full textAlberts Bels is a Latvian author whose literary works contain the most notable cinematic elements in Latvian literature. He is also one of those authors who uses a lot of functional cinematic elements alongside with structural ones. Both of these cinematic elements frame the intertextual depth of a text and also make characters dynamic, understandable and ironically toned for a reader
History of the software industry: the challenge
No full textMartin Campbell-Kelly opened a new field in the history of computing in his groundbreaking From airline reservation to Sonic the Hedgehog; a history of the software industry. The book is discussed by Adrienne van den Bogaard and Frank Veraart and by Gerard Alberts, followed by a reply by the author. Van den Bogaard and Veraart join great appreciation for the three-sector division Campbell-Kelly developed to describe the history of the software industry, to a slight criticism of his ad hoc-argumentation in explaining why in each sector some enterprises survive and others do not. Lacking, in their view, is a discussion of the dynamics of software itself in the context of emerging practices and businesses. Alberts overcomes his prima facie unease with th
A Conceptual Novel by Alberts Bels
No full textThis dissertation presents an analysis of the genre of conceptual novel created by the Latvian novelist Alberts Bels. Specifically, it deals with four novels that have been translated into the Czech language: The Investigator (1967), The Cage (1972), The Voice of a Herald (1973) and Insomnia (1987); however, the author focuses predominantly on People in Boats (1987), a novel that is yet to be translated and is regarded to be one of Bels's most accomplished novels. The selected extracts, translated by the author of this dissertation, are representative of the nature of Bels's work as well as of his artistic and personal contribution to the Latvian literature and culture in general. The dissertation focuses on literary interpretations of the selected works and treats them with regard to the period of their conception, because themes such as 'individual' and 'nation', 'time' and 'stream of history', human and ethical values and, above all, moral decline of an individual and of the entire society on the background of political and cultural development in Latvia become central in Bels's conceptual novels. Their conceptuality lies mainly in their highly compact form, through which Bels voices his philosophical ideas, implicit in the overtones of his novels
Literature in the Digital Age
No full textIs a book on the web still a book? Do hyperlinks change the role of narrative? What is an author if anyone can publish anything whenever they want? These questions frame Why?’s first episode in front of a live audience. Recorded at the newly renovated opera house in New Rockford, North Dakota, guest Crystal Alberts will crack open “philosophy of literature” to help us investigate our assumptions about reading, writing, and art in general. An expert in “new media,” we will take the opportunity to ask her the kinds of questions that come up all-too-often in today’s computerized world. What does interactivity do to the experience of reading? How does the urgency of “hipness” compare with the time-tested lessons of the classics? What does the world “classic” mean anyway? Is the feel of paper on your fingers a necessary component of good reading?
Dr. Crystal Alberts holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Washington University in St. Louis. She specializes in post-1945 American literature and culture, particularly on the roles of the archive and author in contemporary writing. She currently teaches in the areas of film, digital humanities, and new or emerging media. Dr. Alberts is the co-editor of a forthcoming volume entitled Novel in Tradition: Essays on William Gaddis. She also has articles in The Missouri Review, as well as Paper Empire: William Gaddis and the World System edited by Joseph Tabbi and Rone Shavers. She serves as the technical editor for the NEH-funded Elizabeth Barrett Browning Project and is a research associate for the Electronic Literature Organization.
WHY?’s host Jack Weinstein says, “Crystal is representative of the energy and learning that our newer scholars bring with them out of graduate school. She is more aware of the cutting edge than most people I know, and talking with her will be a challenge to my own assumptions, not just the listeners’. This will be a lively, exciting, and interactive episode.”https://commons.und.edu/why-radio-archive/1131/thumbnail.jp
Crystal Alberts adds to the legacy of the UND Writers Conference
No full textCrystal Alberts adds to the legacy of the UND Writers Conference
You’ll most likely find Crystal Alberts standing or sitting along the back wall of the Memorial Union Ballroom during any given session of the University of North Dakota’s annual Writers Conference.
Don’t mistake that for disinterest or apathy ? no, quite the contrary.
As director of this year’s conference, set for March 25-27, and a director or co-director of four of the past five events, Alberts, an assistant professor of English, lives and breathes the Writers Conference year round. But during the week of the event, she likes to bask in the background and let the featured authors and their work take center stage.
“Because it’s not about me as an individual director; it’s about the conference and the amazing opportunities that it has been creating for 46 years and counting,” said Alberts, a native of Clearbrook, Minn., not far from Grand Forks.
This year, the 46th installment of the event will be an all-women’s affair ? the first since 1973. The theme of the conference is “The Other Half,” focusing on women who live in (or have lived in), write about and work with rural or urban areas.
“Although I’m excited about the whole conference, I’m particularly excited about Roxane Gay being here,” Alberts said. “Her written work is thought provoking, but extremely accessible. Also, on the suggestion of a group of students, I’ve recently started tweeting for the conference on a regular basis (@UNDWritersConf) and have been following Roxane (@rgay). She seems like a genuine, down-to-earth person and her sense of humor is in line with my own, so I’m very much looking forward to meeting her.”
Here is a list of this year’s authors lineup for the 46th UND Writers Conference at the Memorial Union.
Although the Writers Conference is quite well known by the public and among authors, Alberts admits she didn’t know anything about it when she arrived at UND as a senior lecturer in 2007 ? despite having grown up in the area.
While photocopying handouts for a class, she noticed the framed posters hanging around the English Department of past Writers Conferences, and several names got her attention: William H. Gass, Allen Ginsberg, Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, N. Scott Momaday, Joseph Brodsky and Tim O’Brien, among many others.
“My area of specialization is post-1945 American literature and culture, so I was floored to discover that many of the people that I read, study and teach had been here at UND,” Alberts said. “I almost immediately went over to (UND) Special Collections to find out whether or not there was an archive of the conference, only to discover that, through the foresight of past conference directors, presentations and panel discussions were recorded, basically, since the beginning.”
Alberts, a digital humanist, started collaborating with UND’s Chester Fritz Library in building the UND Writers Conference Digital Collection. With the help of National Endowment for the Arts grants and internal funding, she and library staff members have preserved about half of the estimated 600 hours of past conference footage, of which around 117 hours are freely available online for scholarly, educational and historical use.
Eventually in the spring of 2009, Alberts took on the role of primary co-director of the 41st UND Writers Conference (2010), with Kathleen Coudle-King serving as co-director and English Department colleague Heidi Czerwiec, who had led previous conferences, providing advice along the way.
Alberts is the latest in a line of UND scholars ? dating back to event founder John Little ? who have taken on the arduous but rewarding task of shepherding the Writers Conference each year since 1970. It has evolved into one of the region’s signature literary events.
“For me, directing the UND Writers Conference is an opportunity to link my research to my teaching, all while making literary history, being part of an incredible tradition and giving back to the community,” Alberts said. “I take great joy and satisfaction from seeing the crowds gather at readings, hearing old and new friends exchange stories about the conference, watching students get exciting about meeting an author they studied in class, and enabling students and community members to work with these authors to improve their own art.”
For Alberts, organizing a Writers Conference begins about 20 months prior to the actual event when her first grant application is due. It’s at that point that she settles on a theme.
She constantly surveys the literary landscape and reads works by emerging and exciting authors as she envisions future conference lineups. She also listens to others who might have writer suggestions. Late springs through the summer months, she starts contacting writers and agents, and negotiating contracts. The fall is spent writing grant applications, averaging one a month from September-January, and finalizing the lineups as money is secured.
January through March is spent on scheduling, travel logistics and marketing.
“Then, it’s the week of the conference,” she says. “The month after the conference is spent writing final grant reports and ‘Thank Yous.’ And by May, I start the process all over again. It’s a year-round-thing two-to-three-conferences-ahead type job.
Several factors are considered when making decisions which writers to invite: (1) They need to fit the theme of the conference. (2) They must be available during the conference. (3) A speaker’s fee must fit within the conference budget. (4) And they have to be comfortable with the conference format ? which is completely free and open to the public. (5) No ghostwriters are invited. (6) Finally, the authors must be willing to make personal appearances.
In recent years, the Writers Conference has received an outpouring of support from many alumni, community members and people on campus, including gifts to the John Little Memorial Endowment and a “Match Challenge,” which has generated about 20,000. New funding sources also have been established, such as the Kemen/Randall Family Writers Conference Endowment, the Jackie McElroy-Edwards and Tom Edwards Writers Conference Endowment, and an annual gift from the Estate of Alice Lillian Carlson.
“This is great because endowments are what the UND Writers Conference needs to ensure that the organization is financially sustainable for years to come,” Alberts said. “We know that there is still work to be done, and we continue to do it.”
Alberts also appreciates UND Arts & Sciences Dean Debbie Storrs and long-time Writers Conference supporters, such as the UND Foundation, for their commitment to ensuring the tradition of the conference continues.
In addition, since arriving at UND, Alberts has been personally involved with nearly 40 grant proposals to internal and external granting agencies, requesting more than 1.9 million to support her research or related interests. Those requests have garnered nearly $490,000 over the years. Much of that has gone to her work and research related to the Writers Conference and the building of the Writers Conference Digital Collection.
Through all the hard work and challenges that come with organizing the Writers Conference each year, Alberts passion and enthusiasm is summed up in her one-word response when asked whether she plans to continue her involvement with the event in future years.
“Absolutely.”
David Dodds University & Public Affairs write
Initial porosity of random packing: Computer simulation of grain rearrangement
No full textThe initial porosity of clastic sediments is poorly defined. In spite of this, it is an important parameter in many models that describe the diagenetic processes taking place during the burial of sediments and which are responsible for the transition from sand to sandstone. Diagenetic models are of importance to predict the sub-seismic heterogeneity of reservoir rock. Also, initial porosity is an important parameter for decompaction routines to reconstruct the burial history of rock used to determine the maturation of oil source rock. Measurement of initial porosity is usually difficult, because unconsolidated sediments are easily disturbed during sampling and because sediments close to the surface already have been subjected to varying degrees of compaction. Neither is it possible to observe the processes that take place during compaction, since these take place over geological time scales. Laboratory experiments do not allow us to accurately mimic these processes due to the relatively short time span available. For these reasons, no analytical methods exist to quantify the relation between the grain-size distribution, grain shape and the (initial) porosity. Therefore, these parameters are ignored in many models that describe porosity loss, despite the knowledge that they have a large influence on the heterogeneities inside a sand body. In this thesis an object-based simulation model is presented that is used to improve our insight into the relation between the parameters of the grain-size distribution, the initial porosity of sandy sediments, and the evolution of porosity decrease during the initial phase of compaction. The model is capable of simulating all different types of disordered packing in a proces-based approach without significant boundary effects. The possibility to simulate all kinds of packings of different size distributions offers also many opportunities to study the effect of different depositional mechanisms of sediments on rockproperties (such as porosity).Civil Engineering and Geoscience
De bereiding van zuiver KCL uit sylviniet
No full textDocument(en) uit de collectie Chemische ProcestechnologieDelftChemTechApplied Science
Regional gravity field modeling using airborne gravity data
No full textEarth Observation and Space SystemsAerospace Engineerin
The Linear Algebra of the Last Passage Percolation Model
No full texthonors thesisCollege of ScienceMathematicsTom AlbertsWe study the linear algebra of the last passage percolation model. In this model, we want to find the statistics of maximal paths through a randomly weighted grid. Specifically we focus on bases of the set of path lengths made from paths. The maximum path length is a deterministic function of a much smaller subset of random path lengths, yet the asymptotic behavior of the two is fundamentally different. We investigate this phenomena in depth. This paper is based on research done in collaboration with Dr. Tom Alberts and Daniel Lee. i
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