1,354 research outputs found
Explicit simulation of forming processes using a novel solid-shell concept based on reduced integration
No full textThe contribution deals with the simulation of sheet metal forming processes by means of a recently developed hexahedral solid-shell finite element. In contrast to this earlier work, we pursue here explicit integration. The element formulation has the following features. In order to avoid undesired effects of locking an enhanced assumed strain (EAS) concept using only one EAS degree-of-freedom has been implemented. In addition, by means of the assumed natural strain (ANS) method an excellent performance in bending situations is obtained. A key point of the element formulation is the construction of the hourglass stabilization by means of different Taylor expansions. This procedure leads to the important advantage that the sensitivity of the results with respect to mesh distortion is noticeably reduced. Further the hourglass stabilization is in this way designed that locking is eliminated and numerical stability guaranteed. The finite strain material model for plastic anisotropy and non-linear kinematic and isotropic hardening is motivated by a rheological model including Armstrong-Frederick kinematic hardening. The element formulation has been implemented into the academic code FEAP. Some standard benchmark examples are computed
Mitochondrial DNA signals of late glacial recolonization of Europe from near Eastern refugia
No full textHuman populations, along with those of many other species, are thought to have contracted into a number of refuge areas at the height of the last Ice Age. European populations are believed to be, to a large extent, the descendants of the inhabitants of these refugia, and some extant mtDNA lineages can be traced to refugia in Franco-Cantabria (haplogroups H1, H3, V, and U5b1), the Italian Peninsula (U5b3), and the East European Plain (U4 and U5a). Parts of the Near East, such as the Levant, were also continuously inhabited throughout the Last Glacial Maximum, but unlike western and eastern Europe, no archaeological or genetic evidence for Late Glacial expansions into Europe from the Near East has hitherto been discovered. Here we report, on the basis of an enlarged whole-genome mitochondrial database, that a substantial, perhaps predominant, signal from mitochondrial haplogroups J and T, previously thought to have spread primarily from the Near East into Europe with the Neolithic population, may in fact reflect dispersals during the Late Glacial period, ?19–12 thousand years (ka) ago.<br/
Relations between Land Tenure Security, Farmland Use and Agricultural Productivity: A Spatio-Temporal Comparative Assessment of Farmland Tenure Arrangements and Agriculture Strategizing in Rwanda (2006-2017)
No full textThis PhD study aims to assess the relations between land tenure security, farmland use and agricultural productivity. Using a locally-defined research approach, the study explores those relations from a review of the literature to a case study in Rwanda. Therefore, the case study includes four research sites: Gatwe, Nyabubare, Rusebeya and Rutemba, and it follows three research periods within the period 2006-2017. First, considering land registration as the initial activity that guarantees legal tenure of land, this study carried a review of the scholarly literature on the effect of land registration on these relations. 85 studies were included. The review focused on the regular claim that land registration’s facilitation of formal documents-based land dealings leads to investment in a more productive agriculture. I found this claim problematic for three reasons. First, most studies offer no empirical evidence to support this claim. Second, there are suggestions that land registration can actually threaten ‘de facto’ tenure security or even lead to insecurity of tenure. Third, the gendered realization of land registration and security may lead to uneven distribution of costs and benefits. These effects are however often ignored. Next to suggesting the importance of land information updating and the efficiency of local land management institutions, this review also found that more research with a combined locally-set approach is needed to better understand any relation(s) between land tenure security and agricultural productivity.In the second part, this study attempted the first and the last problems listed here above by the literature review. I have designed a locally- defined Farmland Tenure Security Index (FLTSI) and applied it to the four case studies in Rwanda. On the basis of a data set collected from four research sites over the course of three agricultural years (2006/2007, 2012/2013, 2016/2017), this study empirically assessed the relations between land tenure security and smallholder farms’ crop production in Rwanda. We show that the general assumption that secure land tenure improves farm level harvests, is not found for smallholder farms in Rwanda. My FLTSI is based on plausible threats as conveyed by smallholder farmers at each research site. The findings additionally indicate that the harvest of main crops did neither statistically correlate with this index, nor show differences from the mean at all research sites. Instead, factors mainly related to the ongoing crop intensification program, though threatening tenure security, contributed to the increase of small farm harvests. Lower land tenure security did not affect farmers satisfaction of the crop intensification program Most of them claimed that in the end what matters most is that their harvests continue to increase. The second part concluded that in Rwanda, a new wave of agriculture strategizing contributed to increasing small farms’ harvest of prioritized crops and decreasing farmland tenure security simultaneously.Third, motivated by the previous conclusion in part two, this study assessed the effect of farmland use change on agriculture production. It sought to determine which of the fragmented or consolidated farmland use earn higher yields for the smallholder farmer in Rwanda. When the agricultural reform started in 2007, the country introduced the Crop Intensification Program (CIP) which promotes farmland Use Consolidation (LUC). Using data collected at the four research sites and considering the three agriculture years, the study confirmed that the CIP/LUC program led to conversion of perennial crops, mainly banana plantations, into seasonal crops prioritized by the program. Overall, this shift in farmland use has created an increase in both harvest and monetary yield of prioritized crops. However, within that general trend, I observed differences: farmers with smaller and/or less farm plots did not realize as much yield increase as those who joined the CIP/LUC program with larger and/or multiple farm plots.Furthermore, this study made a first attempt to understand the implication of the studied relations on food security. The link between yield and meals per day allowed to demonstrate the farmer’s household food access. However, the available data did not allow to extend the analysis to include the nutritious values of the food. Nevertheless, I clearly showed that following the start of the CIP/LUC program, farmers increased their yield and number of meals per day. Future research is need to study the types of food available on the market.The locally-defined research approach designed for this study combined statistical and qualitative analysis of the information collected from interviews and focus group discussions at a local level. I argue that this approach has contributed to an understanding of those relations that would be overlooked if the research used larger entity setting and econometric methods. This research recommends that a similar approach be applied while studying locally-defined assessment of the relations between land tenure security, farmland use and agricultural productivity. Future research needs to be concentrated on examining these relations from a more operational perspective, taking into account local social-economic and institutional patterns at work. There is a need for a mixed methods approach utilizing experiments as well as randomization, where feasible, in combination with increasing flows of spatial and time-series data from diverse sources. Household-farm panel data collected over long periods of time, combined with simulations, can also provide valuable insights about the relations between land tenure security, farmland use and agricultural productivity.Water Resource
Hotel @ Olympic Park, Berlin
No full textProposed site for the project is on the western end of the Olympic Stadium. The site has historical structures old open air arena Waldbune, and Glockenturm, as well as scattered sports facilities which includes the equestrian center, tennis club, athletic center, sports center and a small hotel. The place is used by many people for regular practice and during the events; the site is supporting facility for the Stadium. Only public transport that reach the site is Metro station Pichelsberg. Problem identification/task: 1. Improve connectivity and movement: vehicular and pedestrian + barrier free 2. Relocation of existing dilapidated sports facilities 3. Proposal of new hotel (150 beds)Hyperbody Research Lab.ArchitectureArchitectur
In Vitro Inhibition of Acetylcholinesterase by selected Organophosphorus Insecticides (OPI): A Comparative Study on Tissue Sensitivity and Potencies
No full textThis Dissertation / Report is the outcome of investigation carried out by the creator(s) / author(s) at the department/division of Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore mentioned below in this page
Digitale Editionsformen. Zum Umgang mit der Überlieferung unter den Bedingungen des Medienwandels. Teil 1: Das typografische Erbe.[Preprint-Fassung]
No full textDigitale Editionsformen müssen auf dem Methodenstand der gedruckten Editionen aufbauen. Hier sind der Lachmannsche Ansatz der Textrekonstruktion und die Verfahren der historisch-kritischen Ausgabe im Laufe der Zeit zwar dominant geworden, aber nicht alternativlos geblieben. Die Kritik an diesen Methoden ist so alt wie diese selbst, und viele andere Schulen haben sich neben ihnen etabliert. Die verschiedenen Ansätze lassen sich als Produkt ihrer Zeit und als Funktion bestimmter theoretischer Grundbegriffe und Grundannahmen beschreiben. Vor allem aber sind sie nicht nur historisch und theoretisch, sondern immer auch "technisch relativ", weil Typografie und Druckkultur unsere Theorien vom Text und unsere Methoden der Edition beeinflussen. Ein Verständnis dieser Abhängigkeit unserer scheinbar "natürlichen" Editionsvorstellungen von einer bestimmten Technik ist ein wichtiger Ausgangspunkt für die Entwicklung neuer Editionsformen
"Sometimes I feel that this is the Russia we had always dreamed of..." : transnationalism and capitalism ; migrants from the former Soviet Union and their experiences in Germany; paper for the conference 'Alltag der Globalisierung. Perspektiven einer transnationalen Anthropologie', January 16-18, 2003, Institute of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main
No full textThe present article explores perceptions and cultural constructions of the terms capitalism or capitalistic West among ex-Soviet, highly qualified Jewish migrants from Russia and Ukraine after their emigration to Germany between 1990 and 1996. It seems that migration offers a unique opportunity to migrants to realise knowledge that is normally taken for granted, behaviour schemes and values, and to reflect on them. How do they acquire such presumed capitalist knowledge of the new society and new social world, how do they create it, and with what concrete contents do they connect the illusion about monolithic cultural, economic and political capital, the illusion which contributes to group formation and which serves as action orientation? As my research shows, immigrants try to disparage much of what appeared to them in the Soviet Union as normative, right and appropriate; now they often act by way of categories, which were defined in the previous context as "capitalist" and were interpreted as immoral. Without exact ideas or knowledge about behaviour codes, unspoken norms and silent values from the new society, many immigrants orient themselves towards the opposite of what was counted as morally proper in the origin society. Simultaneously they revive old system through the establishing and development of a Russian language enclave. Nevertheless this enclave is not located in a vacuum of "dusty" memories from the past, but build transnational cross-border space connected and corresponding to the processes of to-day's CIS and with the life of those relatives and friends who still live there, und with whom the emigrants share intensive social networks
Вызовы развитию современных российских городов и проблемы формирования их позитивного имиджа
No full textThe article deals with the problems of development of modern Russian cities. In particular the author mentions questions of formation of positive image of the modern city. The article contains variety of the external factors interfering formation of effective system of municipal management. In the article is carried out the detailed analysis and is also made recommendations about modernization of municipal management for the purpose of formation of positive city image.В статье рассматриваются проблемы развития современных российских городов. В частности, автором затрагиваются вопросы формирования позитивного имиджа современного города. Выделяется целый ряд внешних факторов, препятствующих формированию эффективной системы муниципального управления. В статье проводится их подробный анализ, а также даются рекомендации по модернизации муниципального управления с целью формирования позитивного имиджа города
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