Primordial features and Planck polarization

With the Planck 2015 Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature and polarization data, we search for possible features in the primordial power spectrum (PPS). We revisit the Wiggly Whipped Inflation (WWI) framework and demonstrate how generation of some particular primordial features can improve the fit to Planck data. WWI potential allows the scalar field to transit from a steeper potential to a nearly flat potential through a discontinuity either in potential or in its derivatives. WWI offers the inflaton potential parametrizations that generate a wide variety of features in the primordial power spectra incorporating most of the localized and non-local inflationary features that are obtained upon reconstruction from temperature and polarization angular power spectrum. At the same time, in a single framework it allows us to have a background parameter estimation with a nearly free-form primordial spectrum. Using Planck 2015 data, we constrain the primordial features in the context of Wiggly Whipped Inflation and present the features that are supported both by temperature and polarization. WWI model provides more than $13$ improvement in $\chi^2$ fit to the data with respect to the best fit power law model considering combined temperature and polarization data from Planck and B-mode polarization data from BICEP and Planck dust map. We use 2-4 extra parameters in the WWI model compared to the featureless strict slow roll inflaton potential. We find that the differences between the temperature and polarization data in constraining background cosmological parameters such as baryon density, cold dark matter density are reduced to a good extent if we use primordial power spectra from WWI. We also discuss the extent of bispectra obtained from the best potentials in arbitrary triangular configurations using the BI-spectra and Non-Gaussianity Operator (BINGO).Comment: v1: 22 pages, 7 figures and 1 table; v2: 23 pages, 7 figures and 1 table, minor changes, references added, matches published version in JCA

The McKenna rule and U.K. World War I finance

The United Kingdom employed the McKenna rule to conduct fiscal policy during World War I (WWI) and the interwar period. Named for Reginald McKenna, Chancellor of the Exchequer (1915–16), the McKenna rule committed the United Kingdom to a path of debt retirement, which we show was forward-looking and smoothed in response to shocks to the real economy and tax rates. The McKenna rule was in the tradition of the “English method” of war finance because the United Kingdom taxed capital to finance WWI. Higher rates of capital taxation also paid for debt retirement during and subsequent to WWI. The United Kingdom was motivated to implement the McKenna rule because of a desire to achieve a balance between fairness and equity. However, the McKenna rule adversely affected the real economy, according to a permanent income model. WWI and interwar U.K. data support the prediction that real activity is lower in response to higher past debt retirement rates.

A Hypochondriac Investigates the Evolution of Medicine

This exhibit will open to the public in February 2014, but until then I have my work cut out for me. I am currently researching various aspects of medical history spanning from the mid-1800s, through the Civil War, to WWI. Thus far I have read accounts of women volunteers during the American Civil War, important changes that went into effect during WWI, and an overly detailed description on how to perform tooth extractions according to the latest science of the 1860s. [excerpt

Semantic effects in the word\u2013word interference task: a comment on Roelofs, Piai, and Schriefers (2013)

Roelofs, Piai, and Schriefers (Language and Cognitive Processes) test both the WEAVER++ model of word production and the response-exclusion account of performance in Stroop-like tasks against data from the word-word interference (WWI) task, and conclude that whereas the WEAVER++ successfully accounts for those data, the response-exclusion hypothesis fails. Here we show that once recent data from the WWI task are considered, both models fail

The impact of new borders on trade: World War I and the economic disintegration of Central Europe

This paper investigates the impact of changes in national border demarcation on economic integration. It treats the national breakups in Central Europe due to WWI as a natural experiment, which allows for evaluating the particular effect of new national borders. A gravity model of trade is used to analyze goods-specific trade among Central European regions. The main results are, first, that the treatment effect of new borders is large. Second, decomposing the border effect provides evidence of a border before border for parts of Germany that became separated even before WWI. Third, the analysis indicates a high level of economic integration before WWI among Polish regions that became politically unified only after the war. --

An Improved Annual Chronology of U.S. Business Cycles since the 1790's

The NBER's pre-WWI chronology of annual peaks and troughs has the remarkable implication that the U.S. economy spent nearly every other year in recession, although previous research has argued that the post-Civil War dates are flawed. This paper extends that research by redating annual peaks and troughs for the entire 1796-1914 period using a single metric: Davis' (2004) annual industrial production index. The new pre-WWI chronology alters more than 40% of the peak and troughs, and removes cycles long considered the most questionable. An important implication of the new chronology is the lack of discernible differences in the frequency and duration of industrial cycles among the pre-Civil War, Civil War to WWI, and post-WWII periods. Of course, my comparison between pre-WWI and post-WWII cycles is limited by its reliance on a single annual index (as opposed to many monthly series) that is less comprehensive than GDP.

Supporting World War I heritage digitisation and presentation through user-centered web design

© 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.This paper presents a user-centered website design for a museum, which aims to engage local communities with museum digitisation and encourage residents to access and learn about their World War I (WWI) heritage in town. The interface design of the website follows human computer interaction (HCI) design guidelines and based on the review of existing WWI related websites. Considering the majority of users of the website are elderly people, the website especially provides features to support the elderly users. The website will not only contribute to the museum digital transformation project on WWI, but also improve the connection between the museum and the local community through widening the participation

How do the events leading up to the World War I and the war itself affect the protagonist Lt. Henry and the characters close to him in the novel “Farewell to Arms” ?

The aim of this extended essay is to state the effects of events taking place and changing life standarts of the main character Lt. Frederic Henry and people around him especially Catherine Barkley in WWI in the novel “Farewell to Arms”. In this essay the effects of war on main character, people who are in close relationship with him and friendships after the war are examined. There are various changes in people’s lives especially the main character himself before and after the war. The situations that the main character Lt. Henry encountered with his friends both in military service and civil life took my interest to write this essay. There are many problems that the main character faced during WWI such as starvation and death of a close friend but these are only the ones that happened when he was in The Italian Army. By depicting those negative situations Ernest Hemingway critisizes war. Interrelational and psychological breakdowns that the characters face are emphasized as a reality of war in this novel. The narrator does not directly express these destructions during WWI. Instead, the narrator communicates ideas via main character Lt. Frederic Henry’s observations and experiences of war. As a person with dual nationality born in the USA, these observations are expository and declared. Thus his experiences of these realities such as feeling of loss, pain and love during WWI are highlighted. During this war, his life considerably changes as he tries to pursuit his love and relocate in order to meet his beloved again but their distress does not end although they escape from Italy to Switzerland. In army, he also gains affinity to violence by hurting people. In this way the protagonist undergoes changes and his life differentiates as well, but is it possible to confront all the problems

MS- 241: Harry Dravo Parkin WWI Memoir

This small collection includes five bound volumes of a memoir written by Harry Dravo Parkin. The collection contains information regarding his experience in WWI as a wounded prisoner of war as well as everyday life as a major. Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of their content. More information about our collections can be found on our website https://www.gettysburg.edu/special-collections/collections/.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/findingaidsall/1205/thumbnail.jp

The Official Student Newspaper of UAS

Letter from the Editor / Whalesong Staff -- Power and Privilege Symposium / Frank Soos -- Study Abroad / Continuing the Conversation -- Not Medea -- UAS Rally Against DAPL -- UAS's Re-Entry Hero -- UAS In Brief -- A Time to Remember: New Tech in WWI -- Marvel's Luke Cage -- In Defense of the Coffee Bean -- Calendar and Comics