Computational aerodynamics and artificial intelligence

The general principles of artificial intelligence are reviewed and speculations are made concerning how knowledge based systems can accelerate the process of acquiring new knowledge in aerodynamics, how computational fluid dynamics may use expert systems, and how expert systems may speed the design and development process. In addition, the anatomy of an idealized expert system called AERODYNAMICIST is discussed. Resource requirements for using artificial intelligence in computational fluid dynamics and aerodynamics are examined. Three main conclusions are presented. First, there are two related aspects of computational aerodynamics: reasoning and calculating. Second, a substantial portion of reasoning can be achieved with artificial intelligence. It offers the opportunity of using computers as reasoning machines to set the stage for efficient calculating. Third, expert systems are likely to be new assets of institutions involved in aeronautics for various tasks of computational aerodynamics

From Am Karlsbad 24 to the Tugendhat House : Mies van der Rohe’s quest for a new form of living

The present dissertation investigates Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s domestic work in relation to his lifestyle and the contemporary discourse of modern living. In so doing, it provides a more variegated picture of Mies and demonstrates that a quest for a new form of living underlay his architectural development in the 1920s. Mies underwent a remarkable transition in architectural thought in the mid-1920s. It resulted in a new ordering in factors that shaped his architecture: he enthroned spirituality as the goal of his work and shifted his inspirational source from modern technology to modern life. At the time, Mies led a flexible and manifold life in a traditional Berlin apartment at Am Karlsbad 24, and he felt its static spatial arrangement could hardly cope with his liberated lifestyle. This experience led him to believe that modern living featured a constant adaption to the changing life circumstances, and, thus, modern dwellings should be made flexible enough to allow these adaptions. Therefore, in his apartment building for the Weissenhof housing exhibition in 1927, Mies created the device of moveable walls that enabled inhabitants to adapt the spatial layout to their changing needs and in so doing, affirmed a flexible lifestyle. Alongside meeting the practical demands of modern living, Mies also sought to fulfill its spiritual needs. A series of contemporary discussions on intellectual potentials of modern life led him to keep a distance from the prevalent functionalist approach and instead seek to evoke a sense of spirituality in dwellings. In the Tugendhat House in 1929, Mies, in masterfully manipulating interior reflective materials and exterior landscape view, created a contemplative ambience. In so doing, he proposed a thoroughly transformed domesticity that was centered on reflection, self-consciousness, and inward-looking. In demonstrating Mies’s architectural development as one that strove to affirm an emerging lifestyle and then elevate it onto a spiritual plateau, this study brings out a new, cultural value that constituted the heart of Mies’s work.Architectur

Standard methods for Apis mellifera anatomy and dissection

An understanding of the anatomy and functions of internal and external structures is fundamental to many studies on the honey bee Apis mellifera. Similarly, proficiency in dissection techniques is vital for many more complex procedures. In this paper, which is a prelude to the other papers of the COLOSS BEEBOOK, we outline basic honey bee anatomy and basic dissection techniques

Inscribing temporality, containing fashion: Otto Dix's portrait of the dancer Anita Berber recontextualized

Using Kracauer’s essay ‘Photography’ as a starting point, this article argues that Otto Dix’s Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber (1925) should be understood as an intervention in Weimar Modernity’s discourse about the relevance of painted portraits in an image economy increasingly dominated by photographic reproductions. A strategy of historical retrieval will reveal how the painter dealt strategically with issues of celebrity, beauty and commodification to neutralize the contagion of fashion and its destructive temporal dynamics for avant-garde painters, simultaneously engaging the work in a demonstration of his own mastery of a new temporal order. The artwork is reframed as a pastiche that marks endpoint and synthesis in a chain of production and reproduction of images - from dancer Anita Berber to actress Lya de Putti and distant art history, and it demonstrates the new openness of processes through which images from mass media culture enter art history

An Intimate Revolution: Fascism, Sexuality and Kommune I in 1960s West Germany

Subversive voices within the German New Left developed a discourse which linked the rise of fascism in Germany with repressed sexuality. In response, a group of Berlin students founded a commune in 1967, attempting to liberate sexuality and revolutionise relationships. Kommune I’s provocative antiauthoritarianism led to infamy and derision from mainstream Germany, and the commune ended in political failure. While the historiography has refused to see the commune as a serious political project, this thesis argues that Kommune I warrants a more considered examination as a moral and political response to the Nazi past. Drawing on intellectual, social, and cultural history, it explores the power and limitations of this discourse in post-war Germany society

An Intimate Revolution: Fascism, Sexuality and Kommune I in 1960s West Germany

Subversive voices within the German New Left developed a discourse which linked the rise of fascism in Germany with repressed sexuality. In response, a group of Berlin students founded a commune in 1967, attempting to liberate sexuality and revolutionise relationships. Kommune I’s provocative antiauthoritarianism led to infamy and derision from mainstream Germany, and the commune ended in political failure. While the historiography has refused to see the commune as a serious political project, this thesis argues that Kommune I warrants a more considered examination as a moral and political response to the Nazi past. Drawing on intellectual, social, and cultural history, it explores the power and limitations of this discourse in post-war Germany society

The woman singer and her song in French and German prose fiction (circa 1790-1848)

This thesis examines the woman singer and her song as a literary motif in French and German prose fiction between 1790 and 1848. In the form of selected case studies, I establish how, for some authors of this period, the singer constituted an important cipher for female artistic empowerment. Although substantial research on the cross-fertilization between music and literature exists, this specific motif has so far received very little attention in Comparative Literature studies. Additionally, literary critics have not previously explored the potential of the woman singer beyond the stereotypes associated with woman and song. By outlining the socio­cultural background of singers at the time in chapter 2, and the theoretical context of idealized female song in chapter 3, I first show the strong ideological dimension of the singer as a character of ambivalence. I then investigate how literature responded to this theme, and how key authors developed the character as a reflection on aesthetic ideals pertaining to female musicality, and as a potentially subversive, empowered figure of female song performance. In chapter 4 I examine the importance of early singer archetypes created by Goethe and Madame de Stael, both of whose visions of musically inspired artistic genius paved the way for subsequent literary treatments of the singer and her increasing professionalism and artistic agency. In Chapter 5 I show to what extent marginalized authors like Caroline Fischer wrote explicitly against the cliche of the musical feminine ideal, proposing different views on female agency through art, whereas in chapter 7 I demonstrate how women authors of the July Monarchy period, such as Taunay, Sand, Ulliac and Desbordes-Valmore, wrote strong narratives revolving around the life and genius of the prima donna singer. On the other hand, in chapter 6 I show that, although couching their narratives in seemingly more traditional, patriarchal imagery, male authors like Hoffmann, Balzac and Berlioz implicitly criticized the idealism associated with both music and woman and looked for narrative ways to portray the woman singer as an artist who maintains autonomy and integrity. My conclusion emphasizes that through their unique treatment of the woman singer, authors contributed to a complex, continuous discourse on woman and music which went beyond the stereotypical nature of cultural and aesthetic paradigms of female song

An historical and psychological context for the phenomenon of art therapy

This research develops an historical and psychological context for the phenomenon of Art Therapy. It addresses the larger context within which Art Therapy developed, which has not usually been considered by researchers in the Art Therapy field. Using a Jungian framework, this psychohistorical thesis analyses cultural trends, in the fields of painting, mental health, religion, world events, science and philosophy, for revelation of psychological content pertinent to the conditions generally favourable for the emergence of the Art Therapy field. A complex understanding of the world leading up to Art Therapy\u27s emergence is, therefore, presented. What was found in this study was a consistent split in all areas of thought one area focused on rationality and objectively verifiable truth, and the other area focused on subjectivity and the realm of the feelings. Those areas that value the former are traditionally the dominant modes of thought in western civilisation. The latter seems to be repressed and pushed into the dominant\u27s shadow. There was also a general trend to the disintegration of the old symbologies across even those who seem to oppose each other in other matters. In this context, Art Therapy is understood as being associated with the child archetype which seeks to join the opposites, of rationality and subjectivity, and create new meaning in life. Art Therapy is also observed as being a phenomenon developing from the more subjective side of history and allowing people to develop those subjective aspects of themselves which are usually shut off, or only partially developed

The Russian Empire, Slaving and Liberation, 1480–1725

The monograph realigns political culture and countermeasures against slave raids, which rose during the breakup of the Golden Horde. By physical defense of the open steppe border and embracing the New Israel symbolism (exodus from slavery in Egypt/among the Tatars), Muscovites found a defensive model to expand the empire. Recent debates on slaving are introduced to Russian and imperial history, while challenging entrenched perceptions of Muscovy