265 research outputs found
Comparing cone beam laminographic system trajectories for composite NDT
No full textWe compare the quality of reconstruction obtainable using various laminographic system trajectories that have been described in the literature, with reference to detecting defects in composite materials in engineering. We start by describing a laminar phantom representing a simplified model of composite panel, which models certain defects that may arise in such materials, such as voids, resin rich areas, and delamination, and additionally features both blind and through holes along multiple axes. We simulate ideal cone-beam projections of this phantom with the different laminographic trajectories, appling both Simultaneous Iterative Reconstruction Technique (SIRT) and Conjugate Gradient Least Squares (CGLS) reconstruction algorithms. We compare the quality of the reconstructions with a view towards optimising the scan parameters for defect detectability in composite NDT applications
Montaigne in Transit: Essays in Honour of Ian Maclean
No full textThis volume tracks a Montaigne ‘in transit’ all the way from the genesis and production of his Essais and travel journal in the 1570s–90s to their diffusion and reception from the 1580s up till the present day, in France, England, Germany, and elsewhere. The contributors take those key terms – genesis, production, diffusion, reception – as their starting-point, but show that the boundaries between them are blurred. How does embodied thought move through space and time between the author and reader of the Essais? Can the role of the ancient writers whom Montaigne quotes be assessed without consideration of the differences he knew there would be between readers’ capacities to recognise and contextualise those quotations? Where does Montaigne’s punctuation end and that of his compositors, editors, and translators begin? This volume asks such questions by exploring transit as a critical concept cutting across different languages, places, and times. Its authors include leading specialists in early modern French and English studies. It is a tribute to Ian Maclean, whose own trailblazing work has moved through and across numerous fields of early modern learned culture
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Thinking aloud means talking allowed: group work in the primary school mathematics classroom
No full textThis chapter looks at the role of talk in the primary mathematics classroom, with a particular focus on the 'Thinking Together' approach developed by Neil Mercer and colleagues. It describes how children need to be explicitly taught how to 'do' exploratory group talk and discusses data from a research project the author was involved in into this topic and discusses the implications for teaching and learning
Belonging and not belonging : understanding India in novels by Paul Scott, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and V.S. Naipaul.
No full textPhDThis thesis is essentially about the "how" and "why" of the Indian
experience as documented in novels by Paul Scott, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
and V S Naipaul. The study points to the difficulty of arriving at any
conclusive definition of the country and its people. I show that
differences in attitudes, responses or behaviour are both overt and
subtle, and depend upon whether the writer or the character identifies
with the situation or community with which he or she interacts. It is
the individual's sense of belonging or not belonging to his or her own
group - be this along racial, cultural or gender lines - that accounts
for the differing perspectives evident in these novels. The points-of-
view of the outsider and the insider can therefore be seen as
mutual comments upon the other.
Since the struggle between belonging and not belonging becomes acute
when the old meets the new, focus is centred on communities
experiencing change. These include the British in India, West-Indian
Indians and westernised Indians. Despite their differences, all three
communities share similar reasons for either an acceptance or
rejection of the 'Other'. The thesis argues that the need for
emotional stability compels allegiance to the traditional group, while
the desire for individuality encourages surrender to the new. The
former nurtures a sense of belonging while, it is argued, that the
latter is perceived as the hallmark of those who do not belong.
Tensions arise when both these needs demand to be met. What I show to
be ironic in this struggle between belonging and not belonging is that
those things which individuals overtly reject are often unexpressed
parts of their personal pysche. The barrier between "them" and "us" is
therefore very fragile
The First Cut; the locus of decision at the limits of subjectivity
Get PDFThis project examines the concept of decision in philosophical writing, in particular the question of whether subjectivity can be said to constitute a ‘locus’ of decision. The writing of Søren Kierkegaard is the main focus of discussion. Giorgio Agamben, Michel Henry and Jacques Derrida also provide important contributions.
Although for Kierkegaard ‘all decisiveness is rooted in subjectivity’, subjective agency takes the form of an active surrendering to an external unknown authority (God). Kierkegaard uses the term ‘leap of faith’ to describe the moment of decision where subjective transformation occurs.
For Derrida, any decision requires an undecidable leap beyond all reasoning made in preparation for that decision. He extends a reading of faith beyond the theistic by suggesting that Kierkegaard’s unknowable God could also be another name for the ‘structure of subjectivity.’
Giorgio Agamben’s writing on the concept of human life situated at the threshold of categories (socio-political, philosophical, physiological and so on), helps to further the exploration of subjectivity as the ‘locus’ of decision. Michel Henry’s work on The Essence of Manifestation provides a focus for a discussion on the ‘radical subjectivity’ that Kierkegaard proposes as the fulcrum of decision.
The research project as a whole maintains a synergy between these philosophical concerns and the form of their explication. The thesis is made up of both written text and DVD documentation of live works. These instances of practice, whose form and mode of presentation were informed by a specific aspect of the research, are integrated into the thesis to constitute ‘chapters’. The practice can and does function independently in other contexts. However, what is presented in this research document constitutes the outcome of my practice-based PhD project and includes both the ‘theoretical’ and ‘practice’ elements.
Supervisors: Neil Cummings and Howard Caygil
Scalable Text Mining with Sparse Generative Models
No full textThe information age has brought a deluge of data. Much of this is in text form, insurmountable in scope for humans and incomprehensible in structure for computers. Text mining is an expanding field of research that seeks to utilize the information contained in vast document collections. General data mining methods based on machine learning face challenges with the scale of text data, posing a need for scalable text mining methods.
This thesis proposes a solution to scalable text mining: generative models combined with sparse computation. A unifying formalization for generative text models is defined, bringing together research traditions that have used formally equivalent models, but ignored parallel developments. This framework allows the use of methods developed in different processing tasks such as retrieval and classification, yielding effective solutions across different text mining tasks. Sparse computation using inverted indices is proposed for inference on probabilistic models. This reduces the computational complexity of the common text mining operations according to sparsity, yielding probabilistic models with the scalability of modern search engines.
The proposed combination provides sparse generative models: a solution for text mining that is general, effective, and scalable. Extensive experimentation on text classification and ranked retrieval datasets are conducted, showing that the proposed solution matches or outperforms the leading task-specific methods in effectiveness, with a order of magnitude decrease in classification times for Wikipedia article categorization with a million classes. The developed methods were further applied in two 2014 Kaggle data mining prize competitions with over a hundred competing teams, earning first and second places
Measurement of properties of the lunar surface using the Diviner Lunar Radiometer experiment on the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
Get PDFThe Diviner Lunar Radiometer is a nine-channel radiometer on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in June 2009 and currently orbiting the Moon. Diviner is the first orbiting multi-spectral instrument to observe the lunar surface in the mid- and far- infrared, therefore this thesis details the first steps towards utilising observations in this new spectral region.The author, as part of the Diviner instrument team, contributed to the pre-launch testing and calibration of Diviner. Specifically, the transmission profiles of the B2 and B3 filters, which could not be measured after integration into the instrument due to their long wavelength passbands, were determined. Further investigations of the far-infrared mesh filters were also conducted, as the spectral responses of similar mesh filters were found to have broadened after integration into the Mars Climate Sounder instrument, the pre-cursor instrument to Diviner. To test if this would occur in Diviner also, a new setup was made to approximately re-create the instruments' optical layout. No such spectral broadening was measured in the B1, B2 or B3 filters. The linearities of Diviner's detectors were also confirmed through analysis of the pre-flight calibration data.Laboratory emission spectra taken under ambient conditions differ from those taken in a lunar environment, which induces a temperature gradient in soil and mineral samples. Due to a lack of spectra measured under such conditions, which are directly comparable to Diviner‟s measurements, a new chamber for performing high-resolution emission measurements in a simulated lunar environment was built and calibrated. This setup induces a temperature gradient in each sample by heating it from below while it is surrounded by a cooled radiation shield, all enclosed in a very low pressure vacuum chamber. Lunar analogue minerals have been measured, first in reflectance, and then in simulated lunar conditions, forming the basis of a new lunar spectral library.The uses of the mid- and far-infrared have been described herein, utilising calibrated Diviner observations to: [1] map the temperatures of the lunar poles; [2] investigate regions containing higher than average abundances of rocks; and [3] determine the composition of regions of the lunar surface by combining observations with the new spectral library made during this project
Music for classical guitar by South African composers : a historical survey, notes on selected works and a general catalogue
No full textIncludes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 296-309).This is the first comprehensive investigation of music for, or including, the classical guitar by South African composers. The focus of this research has been, firstly, to uncover as much of the repertoire as possible, and, secondly, to collate, study, catalogue and report on the information. A brief historical survey of the guitar in South Africa provides the context within which this study was conducted. The primary sources of quantitative data collection were through the archival catalogues of the South African Music Rights Organisation and through personal contact with guitarists, composers and guitar teachers. Other sources consulted were publishers, broadcasting corporations, recording companies, libraries and the internet. The body of the dissertation comprises biographical sketches, background notes, analyses and technical notes on 17 selected solo and chamber works dating from 1947 to 2007 by some of South Africa's most prominent composers and guitaristcomposers. The repertoire ranges in style from the traditional and ethnically inspired to the experimental and abstract. As this is an empirical survey, each selected entry includes details on instrumentation, duration, level of difficulty, number of pages, scordatura, commissions or requests, sources or publishers, premières and recordings. A biography of each composer is provided as well as background notes which offer an overview of the selected work. The notes discuss historical, cultural, musical and extra-musical influences, and frequently include references to interview material. The commentaries on the selected works, with musical examples, include an analytical component describing structure, form, stylistic and compositional elements, while the technical observations include performance suggestions and a grading for each work
Treasures of the University : an examination of the identification, presentation and responses to artefacts of significance at the University of St Andrews, from 1410 to the mid-19th century; with an additional consideration of the development of the portrait collection to the early 21st century
No full textSince its foundation between 1410 and 1414 the University of St Andrews has acquired what can be considered to be ‘artefacts of significance’. This somewhat nebulous phrase is used to denote items that have, for a variety of reasons, been deemed to have some special import by the University, and have been displayed or otherwise presented in a context in which this status has been made apparent.
The types of artefacts in which particular meaning has been vested during the centuries under consideration include items of silver and gold (including the maces, sacramental vessels of the Collegiate Church of St Salvator, collegiate plate and relics of the Silver Arrow archery competition); church and college furnishings; artworks (particularly portraits); sculpture; and ethnographic specimens and other items described in University records as ‘curiosities’ held in the University Library from c. 1700-1838.
The identification of particular artefacts as significant for certain reasons in certain periods, and their presentation and display, may to some extent reflect the University's values, preoccupations and aspirations in these periods, and, to some degree, its identity. Consciously or subconsciously, the objects can be employed or operate as signifiers of meaning, representing or reflecting matters such as the status, authority and history of the University, its breadth of learning and its interest and influence in spheres from science, art and world cultures to national affairs.
This thesis provides a comprehensive examination of the growth and development of the University's holdings of 'artefacts of significance' from its foundation to the mid-19th century, and in some cases (especially portraits) beyond this date. It also offers insights into how the University viewed and presented these items and what this reveals about the University of St Andrews, its identity, which changed and developed as the living institution evolved, and the impressions that it wished to project
ocean-tracking-network/biologging_standardization: Sequeira et al 2021
No full textA release snapshot to accompany publication of the companion paper to this repository. Full author list for the paper in question:
Ana M.M. Sequeira1, Malcolm O’Toole1, Theresa R. Keates2, Laura H. McDonnell3, Camrin D. Braun4,5, Xavier Hoenner6, Fabrice R. A. Jaine7,8, Ian D. Jonsen8, Peggy Newman9, Jonathan Pye10, Steven J. Bograd11, Graeme C. Hays12, Elliott L Hazen11, Melinda Holland13, Vardis Tsontos14, Clint Blight15, Francesca Cagnacci16, Sarah C. Davidson17,18, Holger Dettki19, Carlos M. Duarte20, Daniel C. Dunn21, Victor M. Eguíluz22, Michael Fedak15, Adrian C. Gleiss23, Neil Hammerschlag3,24, Mark A. Hindell25, Kim Holland26, Ivica Janekovic27, Megan K. McKinzie28, 29, Mônica M.C.Muelbert25,30, Chari Pattiaratchi27, Christian Rutz31, David W. Sims32,33,34, Samantha E. Simmons35, Brendal Townsend10, Frederick Whoriskey10, Bill Woodward29, Daniel P. Costa36, Michelle R. Heupel37, Clive R. McMahon7, 25, Rob Harcourt8, Michael Weise3
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