Making Ordinary: Recuperating the Everyday in Post-2005 Beirut Novels

I argue that young Lebanese novelists like Sahar Mandour and Hilal Chouman mobilize the ordinary as a way to 'write out' of the literary legacy of war and trauma writing that have characterized Lebanese fiction, without denying or suppressing Lebanon's violent past. I go on to argue that this discursive move of ‘making ordinary’ allows these writers to focus on pressing contemporary issues, such as a rising sense of economic and urban precarity in Beirut. In doing so, I bring the literary into conversation with the sociopolitical and the urban. I also make the case that this ‘descent into the ordinary’ compels us, as readers, towards a more nuanced understanding of such interventions by Lebanese youth into the multiple temporalities and shifting landscapes of Lebanon’s postwar period

The Stagger-grid: A Grid of 3D Stellar Atmosphere Models - II. Horizontal and Temporal Averaging and Spectral Line Formation

We study the implications of averaging methods with different reference depth scales for 3D hydrodynamical model atmospheres computed with the Stagger-code. The temporally and spatially averaged (hereafter denoted as ) models are explored in the light of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) spectral line formation by comparing spectrum calculations using full 3D atmosphere structures with those from averages. We explore methods for computing mean stratifications from the Stagger-grid time-dependent 3D radiative hydro- dynamical atmosphere models by considering four different reference depth scales (geometrical depth, column-mass density, and two optical depth scales). Furthermore, we investigate the influence of alternative averages (logarithmic or enforced hydrostatic equilibrium, flux-weighted temperatures). For the line formation we compute curves of growth for Fe i and Fe ii lines in LTE . The resulting stratifications for the four reference depth scales can be considerably different. We find typically that in the upper atmosphere and in the superadiabatic region just below the optical surface, where the temperature and density fluctuations are highest, the differences become considerable and increase for higher Teff, lower logg, and lower [Fe/H]. The differential comparison of spectral line formation shows distinctive differences depending on which model is applied. The averages over layers of constant column-mass density yield the best mean representation for LTE line formation, while the averages on layers at constant geometrical height are the least appropriate. Unexpectedly, the usually preferred averages over layers of constant optical depth are prone to the increasing interference of the reversed granulation towards higher effective temperature, in particular at low metallicity.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 18 pages, 16 figure

On the Robustness of the h-index: a mathematical approach

The h-index is an index recently proposed by Hirsch (2005) to measure scientific achievement by individual scholars. It is a compound measure of publications and citations. We show the robustness of this index. This means that h-index increases with both the number of publications and the number of citations only when these numbers are significant.

Abundance Analysis of the Halo Giant HD122563 with Three-Dimensional Model Stellar Atmospheres

We present a preliminary local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) abundance analysis of the template halo red giant HD122563 based on a realistic, three-dimensional (3D), time-dependent, hydrodynamical model atmosphere of the very metal-poor star. We compare the results of the 3D analysis with the abundances derived by means of a standard LTE analysis based on a classical, 1D, hydrostatic model atmosphere of the star. Due to the different upper photospheric temperature stratifications predicted by 1D and 3D models, we find large, negative, 3D-1D LTE abundance differences for low-excitation OH and Fe I lines. We also find trends with lower excitation potential in the derived Fe LTE abundances from Fe I lines, in both the 1D and 3D analyses. Such trends may be attributed to the neglected departures from LTE in the spectral line formation calculations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, contribution to proceedings for Joint Discussion 10 at the IAU General Assembly, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 200

Safety experiments for small robots investigating the potential of soft materials in mitigating the harm to the head due to impacts

There is a growing interest in social robots to be considered in the therapy of children with autism due to their effectiveness in improving the outcomes. However, children on the spectrum exhibit challenging behaviors that need to be considered when designing robots for them. A child could involuntarily throw a small social robot during meltdown and that could hit another person's head and cause harm (e.g. concussion). In this paper, the application of soft materials is investigated for its potential in attenuating head's linear acceleration upon impact. The thickness and storage modulus of three different soft materials were considered as the control factors while the noise factor was the impact velocity. The design of experiments was based on Taguchi method. A total of 27 experiments were conducted on a developed dummy head setup that reports the linear acceleration of the head. ANOVA tests were performed to analyze the data. The findings showed that the control factors are not statistically significant in attenuating the response. The optimal values of the control factors were identified using the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio optimization technique. Confirmation runs at the optimal parameters (i.e. thickness of 3 mm and 5 mm) showed a better response as compared to other conditions. Designers of social robots should consider the application of soft materials to their designs as it help in reducing the potential harm to the head

"On the differentiability of the benefit function": correction and addendum

The proposition 1 of our paper "On the differentiability of the benefit function" (Economics Bulletin, March, 24) is incorrect under the assumption 1. We provide two alternative versions of this assumption under which the statement of proposition 1 holds true.Benefit function

L’intégration des enfants handicapés en milieu scolaire ordinaire - Le cas particulier de l’autisme

La scolarisation des enfants ayant des troubles autistiques en milieu scolaire ordinaire reste un défi à ce jour là. La recherche vise à croiser le point de vue des parents, des enseignants et des auxiliaires de vie scolaire vis-à-vis de cette scolarisation.L'intégration des enfants handicapés en milieu scolaire ordinaire -Le cas particulier de l'autisme Résumé L'objectif de notre recherche de doctorat est d'apporter des éléments de réponses aux questions suivantes : La scolarisation dans une école ordinaire est-elle toujours bénéfique aux enfants avec autisme quelle que soit l'ampleur de leurs troubles ? La sévérité du syndrome oriente-t-elle les objectifs à atteindre ? Vise-t-on plutôt des apprentissages académiques ou plutôt la socialisation? Les enseignants sont-ils suffisamment formés pour participer à une école inclusive ? Nous présenterons ici les premiers résultats de cette étude recueillis au moyen de questionnaires renseignés par des parents, des enseignants et des auxiliaires de vie scolaire

Experimental Female Fictions; Or, The Brief Wondrous Life of theNahḍaSensation Story

In this essay I argue that paying attention to the ephemeral genre of female sensation stories sheds insight on, and expands current understandings of, the many ways in which cultural production operated in the Arabic-speaking world during the nahḍa. Paying particular attention to two short stories in the genre, Adelaide Bustānī's ‘Henry wa Amelia’ (1870), and Labība Hāshim's ‘Ḥasanāt al-ḥubb’ (1899), I show how these texts produced and encoded a series of cultural values about male and female bodies, and how they participated in the ongoing cultural debates of that era. In particular, they seem to be preoccupied with two modern subject formations: the modern, middle-class female subject and the modern, middle-class reader. While the sensation genre is known for producing and reproducing textual and cultural anxieties before resolving them in a socially and culturally conservative manner, I argue that, despite their inherent conservativeness, these texts were nevertheless able to imagine flawed, yet strong, nuanced and complex female subjectivities. This aspect separates them from contemporaneous forms of textual production, such as prescriptive biographies written by women or the novellas written by men of the same era, and renders them valuable cultural artifacts, despite their ephemerality