900 research outputs found
Different Attitudes to Esotericism in Peter Ackroyd's and Dan Brown's Novels
In this doctoral dissertation, two differing approaches to the fictional utilisation of esoteric motifs are compared in the selected novels by contemporary British writer Peter Ackroyd and American writer Dan Brown. They represent contemporary Anglophone literature and draw their inspiration from a similar pool of esoteric ideas. On the one hand, Peter Ackroydâs profound obsession with Englishness and the English literary tradition positions him as a visionary literary figure among fiction writers. By employing anti-realist methods, he offers brand new looks through his transcendental interpretations of both existent and non-existent events and characters from English literary history and culture. In contrast, Dan Brown uses conspiratorial accounts of existing religio-cultural (hi)stories and presents them as alternative historical narrations. These variables underlie the authorsâ unique ways of representing occult ideas in their literary endeavours. Being the products of the latest centuries, the novels under study can be categorised within the realms of postmodern literature, with realist elements in Dan Brownâs works. Contemporary literature significantly benefits from the diverse array of occult practices, presented in particularly intriguing manner. Therefore, the primary objective of this dissertation is to explore the use of such esoteric conventions in the contemporary literary contexts crafted by these two widely acclaimed authors. Through the analysis of selected novels by Peter Ackroyd and Dan Brown, my research postulates the questions of how and to what extent esoteric motifs affect the historiography in Peter Ackroydâs novels and the factual aspects of Dan Brownâs fictions. Furthermore, I aim to identify the motivations that drive these authors to take resources in esotericism. I believe that the findings to these inquiries will help in filling the existing gap in the comparative study of Peter Ackroydâs and Dan Brownâs novels and contribute to the broader exploration of contemporary literary representations of esotericism
Planetary Hinterlands:Extraction, Abandonment and Care
This open access book considers the concept of the hinterland as a crucial tool for understanding the global and planetary present as a time defined by the lasting legacies of colonialism, increasing labor precarity under late capitalist regimes, and looming climate disasters. Traditionally seen to serve a (colonial) port or market town, the hinterland here becomes a lens to attend to the times and spaces shaped and experienced across the received categories of the urban, rural, wilderness or nature. In straddling these categories, the concept of the hinterland foregrounds the human and more-than-human lively processes and forms of care that go on even in sites defined by capitalist extraction and political abandonment. Bringing together scholars from the humanities and social sciences, the book rethinks hinterland materialities, affectivities, and ecologies across places and cultural imaginations, Global North and South, urban and rural, and land and water
LIPIcs, Volume 251, ITCS 2023, Complete Volume
LIPIcs, Volume 251, ITCS 2023, Complete Volum
THE INFLUENCE OF USING âENGLISH VOCABULARY BOOSTER PODCASTâ IN SPOTIFY TOWARDS STUDENTSâ VOCABULARY MASTERY AT FIRST SEMESTER OF ELEVENTH GRADE OF SMAN 1 PULAU PANGGUNG TANGGAMUS YEAR 2022/202
ABSTRACT
THE INFLUENCE OF USING âENGLISH VOCABULARY
BOOSTER PODCASTâ IN SPOTIFY TOWARDS STUDENTSâ
VOCABULARY MASTERY AT FIRST SEMESTER OF
ELEVENTH GRADE OF SMAN 1 PULAU PANGGUNG
TANGGAMUS YEAR 2022/2023
By
Ribuani Permatasari
Students need to learn vocabulary in order to facilitate and
increase our skills in English. This research aimed to know whether
any influence or not using English Vocabulary Booster Podcast in
Spotify toward studentsâ vocabulary mastery. This research gave the
students a podcast to listen and suggested the students to learn the
correct vocabulary, after that gave treatment to the students using the
Spotify Application during the learning procces.
In this research, the researcher used the quasi experimental
design. The population in this research is students at first semester of
eleventh grade in SMAN 1 Pulau Panggung Tanggamus in academic
year 2022/2023. The writer used two classess the experimental class
and the control class, XI IPA 2 as the experimental class and XI IPA 3
as the control class. In collecting the data, the writer used instruments
pre test and post test. After giving the post test, the writer analyzed by
using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science).
From the analysis, it was found that the significant influence
from sig. (2-tailed) of he equal variance assumed in the independent
sample t-test table where the sig. (2-tailed) is 0.000 it is lower than α =
0.05 and it is mens (Ho) is rejected and (Ha) is accepted. It means that
the researcher concluded that there is a significant influence of using
Using English Vocabulary Booster Podcast in Spotify Toward Student
Vocabulary Mastery at First Semester of Eleventh Grade of SMAN 1
Pulau Panggung Tanggamus Year 2022/2023.
Keywords: Podcast in spotify, Quasai Experimental Design,
vocabulary master
LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volume
LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volum
The role of phase transitions for transmembrane transportation processes and activity
The scope of this thesis is to consider phase transitions acting on lipid membranes and the implications on biological processes. To account for the diversity of fields involved, the projects range from transmembrane processes, such as permeabilization - to lateral, in-plane processes, such as enzymatic activity on membranes. The science conducted on these fields study fundamentals to applications and finally achieve the development of a biomedical tool. Firstly, we studied the membrane phase transition temperature as function of shear flow. Optical measurements of vesicles in microfluidic systems revealed a shift in chain order. The same effect was observed for another lipid type, which is a powerful reference. These results should be considered in the design of therapeutic temperature-sensitive liposomes encapsulating drugs to ensure precise control of the drug release. Secondly, we studied the nanoparticle uptake of vesicles as function of temperature. The micrographs time series revealed that nanoparticle uptake was a complex function of temperature. Local maxima of the uptake as function of temperature do exist and do correlate with the phase transition. However, - contrary to expectations - the uptake peaks are located around T = Tm + 3 K. As the uptake is driven by adhesion, we conducted force spectroscopy on the adhesion, which turned out to be a non-linear function of temperature. Adding literature into consideration, we concluded that tension must exhibit a minimum at the nanoparticle uptake maximum. These results might become relevant for the design of porous silica nanoparticles, which are commonly used as a carrier material for drug delivery. Thirdly, in addition to carrier-centered nanoparticle permeability, we studied general permeability as a function of shear rate and temperature for vesicles. Unexpectedly, we observed all-or-nothing-like permeabilization behavior - entirely different from reports in literature - just by adding shear flow. All-or-nothing behavior is well-known from biology, like in triggering of action potentials. The all-or-nothing-like behavior is triggered at the lipid membrane phase transition temperature. This finding is particularly intriguing, as a macroscopic system acts probabilistic. Fourthly, after gaining expertise in shearing and permeabilization, we built a novel acoustofluidic permeabilization tool for suspended living cells. Acoustofluidic permeabilization is a vector-free method, where surface acoustic waves couple into the fluid of a microfluidic channel to trap cells in the vortices that are created by the acoustic wave application. The permeabilization is enhanced by more than an order of magnitude for a large spectrum of cargo sizes, ranging from a fluorescent molecule, to sugars and even proteins. Fifthly, we studied the correlation of permeability and shear forces in a viscosimeter. The cone-plate shearing of suspended cells revealed that the maximum permeability temperature is a linear function of shear rate. However, it was the plate-plate viscosimeter experiments on adherent cells, which brought a real leap forward in terms of robustness, visualization, and spatial information. Thanks to the continuous and linear shear profile, we were able to measure the whole shear dimension at once with only one cell passage. Furthermore, adherent cells allowed for spatial information on the single cell level. Thanks to the spatial information, the results revealed cell de-adhesion to be a non-linear function of shear rate, which is entirely new in literature. On top, we found permeability to be a non-linear function of shear rate - supporting prior findings in the form of fascinating fluorescent micrographs. Finally, we added biochemistry to the equation and studied membrane phase transition acting on the enzyme activity. The results revealed a correlation of the membrane-associated enzyme activity with the excess heat capacity of the system. In detail, we observed Anti-Arrhenius behavior in a temperature interval above the phase transition temperature - several Kelvin wide. This result resolved a dispute in literature from the 1970âs, where non-Arrhenius membrane-associated enzymes could not be accommodated by any theory. However, our results support a thermodynamic theory by Kaufmann. Concerning applications, this result proves the plausibility of the trigger-and-detection principle of the soliton nerve signalling theory
Numerical simulations of gas transport in argillaceous rocks: A molecular dynamics and pore-scale simulation study
This dissertation investigates the gas transport and clay behavior within the context of deep
geological disposal of nuclear waste. The repository for spent fuel and high-level waste can
generate substantial amounts of gas through processes such as anaerobic corrosion of carbon
steel, radiolysis of water, and radioactive decay in the waste. Likewise, gas production can
occur in low and intermediate-level waste repositories due to chemical degradation of organic
waste materials and corrosion of metals. If these gases cannot sufficiently escape from the
vicinity of the repository, a localized build-up of gas pressure could compromise the integrity
of the barriers and the safety design of the repository. Therefore, a thorough understanding of
gas transport mechanisms and processes is crucial for assessing the repositoryâs performance.
Diffusion is the primary mechanism governing solute and fluid transport in these clays due to
their low permeability. While experiments can provide valuable transport parameters for de-
signing the barrier materials, they may not fully capture the long-term evolution of transport
processes and specific subsurface conditions. Consequently, numerical and computer simu-
lations become indispensable for determining the transport mechanisms and exploring the
behavior of the system beyond the limits of experimental detection. These simulations offer
the opportunity to explain experimental results, probe scales, and processes that are below the
detection limit of experiments, and enhance our understanding of the transport mechanisms
involved.
Gas diffusion simulation in fully saturated Na-montmorillonite (Na-MMT) was performed and
the effects of pore size, gas species, and temperature were investigated. Classical molecular dy-
namics simulations were utilized to study the diffusion coefficients of various gases (CO2, H2,
CH4, He, Ar). The findings indicate that the diffusion coefficients are influenced by the pore
size, with H2 and He demonstrating higher mobility compared to Ar, CO2, and CH4. The be-
havior of gases is affected by the confinement and the structuring of water molecules near the
clay surface, as evidenced by density profiles and radial distribution functions. The obtained
diffusion coefficients for different gases and slit pore sizes were parameterized using a single
empirical relationship, enabling their application in macroscopic simulations of gas transport.
Considering the long-term desaturation and resaturation process, the study extends to simulate
gas diffusion in partially saturated Na-MMT and investigates the partitioning of gas molecules
between the gas-rich and water-rich phases. Classical molecular dynamics simulations were
employed to explore the impact of gas-filled pore widths, temperature, gas mean free path, gas
size, and gas molecular weights on diffusion coefficients and partitioning coefficients. The re-
sults demonstrate that the diffusion coefficient in the gas phase increases with larger gas-filled
pore widths and eventually converges asymptotically towards the diffusion coefficient in the
bulk state. Partitioning coefficients were found to be strongly dependent on temperature and
gas molecular weights. Furthermore, non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations were
conducted to investigate the mobility of gases in a pressure-driven flow within a partially sat-
urated Na-MMT mesopore. The results reveal the presence of slip boundary conditions at the
microscale, which challenges the assumptions made in continuum models. To predict the dif-
fusion coefficient and dynamic viscosity of the gas, a Bosanquet-type equation was developed
as a function of the average pore width, gas mean free path, geometric factor, and thickness of
the adsorbed water film.
Na-montmorillonite, being a swelling clay, undergoes changes in its swelling behavior when
exposed to different chemical species like gas due to variations in chemical potential. These
alterations can subsequently impact the hydraulic properties and transport mechanism of the
clay. Consequently, we investigated the influence of gas presence on the swelling pressure
of Na-MMT. To achieve this, classical molecular dynamics simulations were employed as a
methodology to examine the effect of gas on swelling pressure. The findings indicate that gas
molecules cause an increase in the swelling pressure of Na-montmorillonite, with an approx-
imate rise of 3 MPa. The specific behavior observed is influenced by factors such as the dry
density and the characteristics of the gas species. Additionally, the analysis includes a com-
prehensive exploration of structural transformations occurring within the clay interlayer, pro-
viding insights into the discrepancies observed between experimental and simulated curves,
particularly at high levels of compaction.
The thesis delves into pore-scale modeling to determine diffusion coefficients of water in com-
pacted porous smectite clay structures. This exploration is motivated by the limitations inher-
ent in conventional approaches used to obtain transport parameters, which tend to oversim-
plify the intricate porous nature of clay media by treating them as a continuum. This oversim-
plification neglects the behaviors occurring at smaller scales. To overcome this limitation, the
thesis employs various techniques such as random walk simulations, lattice Boltzmann mod-
eling, and large-scale molecular dynamics simulations to investigate transport mechanisms.
These advanced modeling techniques take into account local diffusivities within the represen-
tative elementary volume, allowing for a more accurate understanding of transport phenom-
ena. By considering local diffusivities, particularly near chemically reactive clay surfaces, this
approach sheds light on the significance of accurately comprehending transport phenomena
in porous materials. By overcoming the limitations of conventional approaches, the thesis
provides valuable insights into the diffusion coefficients of water within compacted porous
smectite clay structures.
This thesis offers a comprehensive exploration of gas transport and clay behavior, focusing on
their relevance to deep geological disposal of nuclear waste and energy storage. By establishing
connections between simulations conducted under fully saturated and partially saturated con-
ditions, examining the influence of gases on swelling pressure, and incorporating pore-scale
modeling, this research provides valuable insights into diffusion, swelling, and pore-scale pro-
cesses. These findings contribute to the development of effective barrier materials and enhance
our understanding of waste management strategies in complex geological environments. The
knowledge gained from this study has practical implications for improving the safety and effi-
ciency of deep geological disposal systems and advancing energy storage technologies
Arithmetic Sketching
This paper introduces arithmetic sketching, an abstraction of a primitive that several previous works use to achieve lightweight, low-communication zero-knowledge verification of secret-shared vectors. An arithmetic sketching scheme for a language consists of (1) a randomized linear function compressing a long input x to a short âsketch,â and (2) a small arithmetic circuit that accepts the sketch if and only if , up to some small error. If the language has an arithmetic sketching scheme with short sketches, then it is possible to test membership in using an arithmetic circuit with few multiplication gates. Since multiplications are the dominant cost in protocols for computation on secret-shared, encrypted, and committed data, arithmetic sketching schemes give rise to lightweight protocols in each of these settings.
Beyond the formalization of arithmetic sketching, our contributions are:
â A general framework for constructing arithmetic sketching schemes from algebraic varieties. This framework unifies schemes from prior work and gives rise to schemes for useful new languages and with improved soundness error.
â The first arithmetic sketching schemes for languages of sparse vectors: vectors with bounded Hamming weight, bounded norm, and vectors whose few non-zero values satisfy a given predicate.
â A method for âcompilingâ any arithmetic sketching scheme for a language into a low-communication malicious-secure multi-server protocol for securely testing that a client-provided secret-shared vector is in .
We also prove the first nontrivial lower bounds showing limits on the sketch size for certain languages (e.g., vectors of Hamming-weight one) and proving the non-existence of arithmetic sketching schemes for others (e.g., the language of all vectors that contain a specific value)
- âŠ