41 research outputs found
Does Warfare Matter?: Severity, Duration, and Outcomes of Civil Wars
No full textDoes it matter whether a civil war is fought as a conventional, irregular, or symmetric non-conventional conflict? Put differently, do technologies of rebellion impact on a wars severity, duration, or outcome? We find that irregular conflicts last significantly longer than all other types of conflict, while conventional ones tend to be more severe in terms of battlefield lethality. Irregular conflicts tend to be won by incumbents, while symmetric non-conventional and conventional ones are more likely to end in draws. Substantively, these findings help us make sense of the evolution of civil wars, which are likely to become shorter, more intensely fought, and more challenging for existing governmentsbut also more likely to end with some kind of compromise between governments and armed opposition. Theoretically, our findings support factoring in the technology of rebellion (a variable capturing characteristics of conflicts that are visible at the micro level) when studying the severity, duration, and outcome of civil wars (macro-level patterns of conflicts); they also contribute a better understanding of the historical contribution of irregular war to both state building and social change.[electronic resource] :
Laia Balcells and Stathis Kalyvas.
ill.
Full text available through the CEACS repository
Queering Urbanism
No full textConflicts about space and access to resources have shaped queer histories from at least 1965 to the present. As spaces associated with middle-class homosexuality enter mainstream urbanity in the United States, cultural assimilation increasingly erases insurgent aspects of these social movements. This gentrification itself leads to queer displacement. Combining urban history, architectural critique, and queer and trans theories, Queering Urbanism traces these phenomena through the history of a network of sites in the San Francisco Bay Area. Within that urban landscape, Stathis G. Yeros investigates how queer people appropriated existing spaces, how they expressed their distinct identities through aesthetic forms, and why they mobilized the language of citizenship to shape place and secure space. Here the legacies of LGBTQ+ rights activism meet contemporary debates about the right to housing and urban life.
“It is challenging to find a book that gives not just an account of a specific place and people but a theory of how queer space works, how it becomes queer. This is that book.” — ROBERT SELF, author of American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland
“This is a timely work that offers insight into a pressing problem not just for San Francisco but for our understanding of cities themselves.” — SUSAN STRYKER, author of Transgender History and codirector of Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria
“This lively and illuminating book provides a new and needed history of San Francisco since the 1960s, tracing how LGBTQ people remade public and private spaces while contesting the bounds of normative citizenship. Moving from SROs to renovated Victorians, lesbian bars to community land grants, Yeros revives vital questions about how queer and trans communities remake the cities they call home.” — STEPHEN VIDER, author of The Queerness of Home: Gender, Sexuality, and the Politics of Domesticity after World War I
A study on adaptive stimulation of the basal ganglia as a treatment for Parkinsonism
No full textThe purpose of this dissertation is to design an automated system for the modification of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) parameters based on specific identifiers in the neuronal response of Parkinsonian patients undergoing DBS treatment. The neural response patterns are obtained from an artificial neural network consisting of dynamic neuron and synapse components and programmed to exhibit a response to pulse stimuli that resembles the activity in the subthalamic nucleus of Parkinsonian patients undergoing DBS treatment. Moreover, using pulse stimuli of varying specification, a band-pass filtered response of the network is subjected to a set of signal processing techniques including Linear Predictive Coding (LPC), Autoregressive Moving Average (ARMA) modeling, Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), moments and higher order statistics, producing a set of results or features. Then, each feature is evaluated to determine the effectiveness, in terms of error probability, of discerning between different neuronal responses to pulse stimuli. Furthermore, a digital circuit is designed at the transistor level for computing the 1st LPC coefficient of recorded neural data and also autonomously regulating the specifications of the stimulus waveform based on the value of the computed coefficient. Also, the circuit design is optimized using a pipeline to reduce dynamic power dissipation. Moreover, it is suggested that a similar design may be useful in automating the administration of DBS as a treatment for Parkinsonism with only a minimal additional power demand.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-192)
Sparse Matrix Vector Processing Formats
No full textIn this dissertation we have identified vector processing shortcomings related to the efficient storing and processing of sparse matrices. To alleviate existent problems we propose two storage formats denoted as Block Based Compression Storage (BBCS) format and Hierarchical Sparse Matrix (HiSM) storage. Furthermore we propose vector architectural instruction set extensions and microarchitecture mechanisms to speed up frequently used sparse matrix operations using the proposed formats. Finally we identified the lack of benchmarks that cover both format and sparse matrix operations. We introduced a benchmark that covers both. To evaluate our proposal we developed a simulator based on SimpleScalar, extended so that it incorporates our proposed changes and established the following. Regarding storage space our proposed formats require 72% to 78% of the storage space needed for Compressed Row Storage (CRS) or the Jagged Diagonal (JD) storage, both commonly used sparse matrix storage formats. Regarding Sparse Matrix Vector Multiplication (SMVM) both BBCS and HiSM achieve a considerable performance speedup when compared to CRS and JD. More in particular, when performing the SMVM using the HiSM format and the newly proposed instructions we can achieve a speedup of 5.3 and 4.07 versus CRS and JD respectively. Additionally, the operation of element insertion using HiSM can be sped up by a factor of 2-400 depending on the sparsity of the matrix. Furthermore, we show that we can increase the performance of the transposition operation by a factor of 17.7 when compared to CRS.Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc
The Argument from Underconsideration and Relative Realism
No full textIn this paper, through a critical examination of Wray’s version of the argument from underconsideration against scientific realism, I articulate a modest version of scientific realism. This modest realist position, which I call “relative realism,” preserves the scientific realist’s optimism about science’s ability to get closer to the truth while, at the same time, taking on board the antirealist’s premise that theory evaluation is comparative, and thus that there are no good reasons to think that science’s best theories are close to the truth
Assessment of Existing Slender Masonry Walls beyond the Scope of the EN 1996 Norm: Numerically Based Analytical Solution to determine the Capacity under combined Vertical and Lateral Loading
No full textIn the last decade, maintenance and adaptive reuse, of the existing building stock, have gained ground in the construction sector. For the adaptive reuse of a building, it is required to analyze, meticulously, the existing structure. Unreinforced masonry structures are indicative of the Dutch built environment. For the assessment of their structural capacity, the European Standard EN 1996 is, currently, applied. Masonry walls of high slenderness, often, comprise the structure of existing buildings, in the Netherlands. It has been noticed that the EN 1996 norm underestimates the vertical resistance of slender walls. This study attempts to extend the applicability of the EN 1996 norm to slender masonry walls, since the norm serves for the assessment of existing structures. Particularly, the research objective is to find an appropriate verification method for existing slender masonry walls, in one-way bending. Literature research is, initially, conducted, with respect to alternative formulas for the calculation of the vertical resistance of slender masonry walls. The formula in the EN 1996 norm and the alternative formulas are reviewed, considering a case study. The case study is one of the slenderest interior masonry walls, that form the structure of a relevant existing building block in Amsterdam. The latter was constructed in the late 19th – early 20th century. The engineering firm STRACKEE BV Bouwadviesbureau provided the technical drawings of the building block. Reference values for the vertical resistance, of existing slender masonry walls, are necessary to develop an appropriate formula for their verification. Therefore, the next step of the research is the numerical analysis. The response of slender masonry walls, subjected to combined vertical and lateral loading, is estimated according to the results of FE analysis. The case study is the reference for the geometry of the FE model. Indicative, for the construction period, properties of masonry are the input for the initial material model. Further, models of slender masonry walls with different geometrical and material properties are analyzed. Specifically, a parametric study is done, to define the influence of geometrical and material properties on the vertical resistance. Based on the FE analysis results, a new formula is proposed. The formula estimates the vertical resistance of existing slender masonry walls, subjected to combined vertical and lateral loading.Civil Engineering | Building Engineerin
Modeling hysteresis effects in boiler components
No full textThe introduction of renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar energy in the electricity market cause the increase of load variations and rapid load changes of large Gas Turbine Combined Cycle (GTCC) power plants. This leads to the evolution of extra thermal stresses in critical parts of the plant such as the boiler. The present study is focused on the development of simulation models that are able to calculate the evolution of thermomechanical stresses in critical components of the boiler. Such models can be useful in analyzing and estimating the fatigue lifetime of boiler components and therefore can be helpful in reducing maintenance costs. This study consists of two parts; In the first part a literature review is presented, along with a fatigue assessment methodology according to the EN 12952-3 standard. Then the mathematical model that has been developed is described. In the second part, the proposed methodology is applied in an existing GTCC power plant using online data. The simulation is focused on the high pressure steam drum of the unit and the results show that the component experiences a cycling loading in daily operation. By implementing a fatigue cycle counting technique based on the rainflow algorithm, the amplitude and mean stress of each identified cycle are determined. Finally, using these outcomes the fatigue lifetime of the component can be estimated. Various simulation scenarios are considered in this study. These include start-up / shut down of the plant, load change and daily operation. According to the simulation results the most severe situation is the start-up where the highest stress amplitudes are observed. Nevertheless, the calculated stresses are well below the yield stress of the material, leading to a theoretically infinite fatigue lifetime. The implementation of the simulation models to the other components of the boiler, such as the superheater headers, can give a better insight to the consequences of cycling modern GTCC power plants.ETProcess and EnergyMechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineerin
The Ianos Cyclone (September 2020, Greece) from Perspective of Utilizing Social Networks for DM
No full textInternational audienceMain purpose of current research is to present evolutions in previous presented approaches of the author for manipulating social media content for disaster management of natural events. Those innovations suggest the adoption of machine learning for classifying both photos and text posted in social networks along with hybrid geo-referencing. As case study the author chose the Ianos cyclone, occurred between Italy and Greece, during September 2020. The geographic focus of the research was in Greece where the cyclone caused 4 human losses and damages in the urban environment. A dataset consisted of 4655 photos, with their corresponding captions, timestamps and location information was crawled from Instagram. The main hashtag used was #Ianos. Two data samples, one for each type, were classified manually for calibrating the classification models. The classes regarding photos were initially: (i) related and (ii) not related to Ianos, while the general classification schema for photos and text was: (i) Ianos event identification, (ii) consequences, scaled according to the impact of each report, (iii) precaution, (iv) disaster management: announcements, measures, volunteered actions. Author’s approach regarding classification suggests the use of convolutional neural networks and support vector machine algorithms for image and text classification respectively. The classified dataset, was geo-referenced by using commercial geocoding API and list-based geoparsing. The results of the research in current status are at an initial level, a subset of data though of automatically or manually processed information is presented in four related maps
Archē
No full textThis chapter engages with the very first political concept—certainly in name, if nothing else. It demonstrates how, from its initial invocation (from its archē, as it were), this concept renders any notions of the first, or of the one, impossible, indeterminable, an-archic. In this sense, though the word being is examined is archē, the political concept that the author substantially engages with and cares about is “anarchy,” whose elemental significance is inherent in the archaic conceptualization of archē. This is the archaic conceptualization that is of interest here. The author weaves a thread around four instances of the notion in the Greek philosophical vocabulary, two phrases in Aristotle, one in Herodotus, and the famous passage known as the Anaximander fragment.</p
Implementing FAIR Workflows D1.2 Mid-term Project Report
No full textThe Implementing FAIR Workflows project is a 3-year project to implement exemplar workflows in cognitive neuroscience research, based on the existing persistent identifier (PID) and metadata infrastructure. In the project, a research team at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) works closely with scholarly infrastructure experts at DataCite through the entirety of a two-part study to examine each step of the research process, and put FAIR recommendations into practice. The project is supported by five partner organizations that provide research-supporting services through the implementation of PID and metadata features, to improve interoperability between platforms and simplify the workflows for the researchers.
In this document, we provide a review of the work and the achievements of the first 18 months of the project, presenting a brief summary of quarterly outputs and a list of engagement events. Also featured are perspectives from the project director, the project partners, and the researchers that are leading the studies. Through a series of structured interviews, they share their experiences working in and contributing to the project, and evaluation of the progress so far.This project was made possible through the support of a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc
