260 research outputs found
The lion tamer
No full text2016 Summer.The Lion Tamer is a novel set in an early 20th century Midwest American circus, following the stories of two women whose lives become entangled when they are both involved in a murder. The novel centers mainly on a young woman, Mae, who runs away after the death of her parents and joins the circus. She connects with a young lion cub, and consequently works her way up to become one of the world's first female lion tamers. She meets Ziggy, a Painted Lady who murders her husband, and together, their paths spiral into deceit, blackmail, and abuse. The novel's main concern is power and autonomy, especially for women at the turn of the century, and what sacrifices each character makes to gain both
The Tomorrow Tamer and Other Stories: Margaret Laurence's Anti-Colonial Fiction
No full textCanadian author Margaret Laurence's African fiction display the influence of colonial rule in African society. However in her collection of short stories The Tomorrow Tamer and Other Stories she goes a step forward and offers possible means of awakening. These stories demonstrate from many angles the effects of the process of independence on individual Ghanaians and the bewildered, anxious Europeans who were caught up in the hopes and the despairs of emergent nationhood. This research paper discusses Laurence"s short fiction in detail looking for an anti colonial perspective in the stories included in The Tomorrow Tamer and Other Stories
Facial feedback for reinforcement learning: a case study and offline analysis using the TAMER framework
No full textInteractive reinforcement learning provides a way for agents to learn to solve tasks from evaluative feedback provided by a human user. Previous research showed that humans give copious feedback early in training but very sparsely thereafter. In this article, we investigate the potential of agent learning from trainers’ facial expressions via interpreting them as evaluative feedback. To do so, we implemented TAMER which is a popular interactive reinforcement learning method in a reinforcement-learning benchmark problem—Infinite Mario, and conducted the first large-scale study of TAMER involving 561 participants. With designed CNN–RNN model, our analysis shows that telling trainers to use facial expressions and competition can improve the accuracies for estimating positive and negative feedback using facial expressions. In addition, our results with a simulation experiment show that learning solely from predicted feedback based on facial expressions is possible and using strong/effective prediction models or a regression method, facial responses would significantly improve the performance of agents. Furthermore, our experiment supports previous studies demonstrating the importance of bi-directional feedback and competitive elements in the training interface.Pattern Recognition and Bioinformatic
The Scope of Themes of the Story “Randa” by Zakaria Tamer and its Series of Images
No full textThis article is devoted to the themes and figurative system of the story of the Syrian writer Zakaria Tamer. The author combined several relevant topics in one story and, with the help of the main character of the story, the girl Randa, gathered in one image all the children of the Syrian people, in particular, the entire Arab people
A gamma-ray spectroscopy survey of Omani meteorites
No full textThe gamma-ray activities of 33 meteorite samples (30 ordinary chondrites, 1 Mars meteorite, 1 iron, 1 howardite) collected during Omani-Swiss meteorite search campaigns 2001–2008 were nondestructively measured using an ultralow background gamma-ray detector. The results provide several types of information: Potassium and thorium concentrations were found to range within typical values for the meteorite types. Similar mean 26Al activities in groups of ordinary chondrites with (1) weathering degrees W0-1 and low 14C terrestrial age and (2) weathering degree W3-4 and high 14C terrestrial age are mostly consistent with activities observed in recent falls. The older group shows no significant depletion in 26Al. Among the least weathered samples, one meteorite (SaU 424) was found to contain detectable 22Na identifying it as a recent fall close to the year 2000. Based on an estimate of the surface area searched, the corresponding fall rate is ~120 events/106 km2*a, consistent with other estimations. Twelve samples from the large JaH 091 strewn field (total mass ~4.5 t) show significant variations of 26Al activities, including the highest values measured, consistent with a meteoroid radius of ~115 cm. Activities of 238U daughter elements demonstrate terrestrial contamination with 226Ra and possible loss of 222Rn. Recent contamination with small amounts of 137Cs is ubiquitous. We conclude that gamma-ray spectroscopy of a selection of meteorites with low degrees of weathering is particularly useful to detect recent falls among meteorites collected in hot deserts
Stylistic study of uniformity of narrative language in the Tigers on the tenth day by Zakaria Tamer
No full textLiterary critics interpret linguistic phenomena through the study of styles and extend their research on the words and constructions related to environmental factors and literary innovations. Ultimately these words and constructions are considered as a particular style. The study of the methods of writers is called stylistics and a statistical approach branches out which quantitatively examines Linguistic phenomena within a statistical framework. There are other approaches to stylistics such as psychological and practical approaches. In general, there is a good context in poetry and fiction and in particular in the works of the Syrian novelist Zakaria Tamer, which leads researchers to follow styles. Analysis of the data from tables and using manual statistical method proved that he has a consisant style in applying uniform linguistic phenomena. Hence, the uniform style of the author in the Tigers on the tenth day was studied. We found that he has resorted to a uniform style (past tense verb + preposition + genitive + intermittent adjective in type and number). As a result, the author sometimes deviates from the uniform method and diversify the literary work to meet special demands of the story. The main reason of uniformity is speech, especially in frequent use of words such as "al-qoul, al-soval, al-sout, al-lahja. " Continuous study of his works makes it clear that this issue is caused by either vocabulary deficiency or the unconscious mind of Zakaria Tamer. If he was aware of uniformity of language, he would have definitely avoided getting caught by the monotonous vocabulary
The ESS based neutrino Super Beam Experiment (ESSSB)
No full textIn the search for the CP-violation in the leptonic sector, crucial information has been obtained from neutrino experiments. The measurement of the third neutrino mixing angle, θ_13, opened the possibility of discovering the Dirac leptonic CP violating angle, δ_CP with intense "super" neutrino beam experiments. In the light of these new findings, an urgent need has arisen to improve the detection sensitivity of the current long-baseline detectors, considering proton driver at MW scale with MegaTon scale detector, with a key modification to place the far detectors at the second, rather than the first, oscillation maximum. The European Spallation Source neutrino Super Beam (ESSSB) aims to benefit from the high power of the European Spallation Source, ESS, LINAC in Lund-Sweden, to produce the world's most intense second-generation neutrino beam enabling measurement to be made at the second oscillation maximum. Assuming a ten-year exposure with two-years running time in neutrino mode and eight-years in antineutrino mode, CP-invariance violation could be established with a significance of 5σ over more than 70% of all values of δ_CP and with an error in the measurement of the δ_CP angle of less than 8° for all values of δ_CP. More details on the physics potential of the experiment will be given in the talk. The current design study programs running within the collaboration, especially those that that have direct impact on the precision measurements of δ_CP will be reviewed
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