751 research outputs found
In-flight measurements of energetic radiation from lightning and thunderclouds
In the certification procedure aircraft builders carry out so-called icing
tests flights, where the zero degree Celsius altitude is deliberately sought
and crossed in or under thunderstorms. Airbus also used these flights to test
ILDAS, a system aimed to determine lightning severity and attachment points
during flight from high speed data on the electric and magnetic field at the
aircraft surface. We used this unique opportunity to enhance the ILDAS systems
with two x-ray detectors coupled to high speed data recorders in an attempt to
determine the x-rays produced by lightning in-situ, with synchronous
determination of the lightning current distribution and electric field at the
aircraft. Such data are of interest in a study of lightning physics. In
addition, the data may provide clues to the x-ray dose for personnel and
equipment during flights. The icing campaign ran in April 2014; in six flights
we collected data of 61 lightning strikes on an Airbus test aircraft. In this
communication we briefly describe ILDAS and present selected results on three
strikes, two aircraft initiated and one intercepted. Most of the x-rays have
been observed synchronous with initiating negative leader steps, and as bursts
immediately preceding the current of the recoil process. Those processes
include the return stroke. The bursts last one to four micro-second and attain
x-ray energies up to 10 MeV. Intensity and spectral distribution of the x-rays
and the association with the current distribution are discussed. ILDAS also
continuously records x-rays at low resolution in time and amplitude.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figure
Collateral benefits of Internet use: explaining the diverse outcomes of engaging with the Internet
This article examines the extent to which economic, cultural, social, and personal types of engagement with the Internet result in a variety of economic, cultural, social, and personal outcomes. Data from a representative survey of the Dutch population are analyzed to test whether engagement with a certain type of activity is related to “collateral” benefits in different domains of activities, independent from the socioeconomic or sociocultural characteristics of the person. The results show that what people do online and the skills they have affect outcomes in other domains and that this is independent of the characteristics of the person. This means that policy and interventions could potentially overcome digital inequalities in outcomes through skills training and providing opportunities to engage online in a broad variety of ways. A semiologic rather than an economistic approach is more likely to be effective in thinking about and tackling digital inequalities
Tangible outcomes of Internet use: from digital skills to tangible outcomes project report
In the past decade, digital divide discussions have moved from discussions of use or non-use, to a more nuanced recognition of different types and levels of access, motivation, skills and Internet use in a discourse that centres around digital inclusion and inequality. However, there remain challenges in measurement and conceptualisation.
In 2014, the authors of this report started a project with the main objective to develop theoretically informed measures that can be used to explain how people use the Internet and what the benefits might be. A first report (van Deursen, Helsper & Eynon, 2014) looked at how to measure digital skills, an area in which a good amount of research has been done, although good measures with a solid theoretical grounding are scarce.
In the current report, the authors move towards a research area that is very underdeveloped: the tangible outcomes that Internet use might result in. Most research in this area focuses on measuring engagement or different uses of the Internet and then assumes that activities performed online result in the corresponding outcomes. An unequal distribution of these types of engagement in turn is assumed to reinforce existing levels of social inequality.
In this report, the framework used to design measures of engagement and related outcomes starts from the premise that outcomes of Internet use can be mapped onto different types of offline resources. It argues that a clear separation needs to be made between undertaking different kinds of activities in the digital sphere (i.e. digital resource fields) and the tangible outcomes in different spheres of everyday life (i.e. offline resource fields) that result from this engagement.
 
Mutation Testing as a Safety Net for Test Code Refactoring
Refactoring is an activity that improves the internal structure of the code
without altering its external behavior. When performed on the production code,
the tests can be used to verify that the external behavior of the production
code is preserved. However, when the refactoring is performed on test code,
there is no safety net that assures that the external behavior of the test code
is preserved. In this paper, we propose to adopt mutation testing as a means to
verify if the behavior of the test code is preserved after refactoring.
Moreover, we also show how this approach can be used to identify the part of
the test code which is improperly refactored
The youth skills digital indicator: report on the conceptualisation and development of the ySkills digital skills measure
Українська шляхта між польським та українським етносами
Appearance and existence of the Ukrainian gentry relates to the traditions of Polish political culture, so during the whole period of its life it was between the Ukrainian and the Polish ethnic groups. Polanisation of the Ukrainian gentry begins at the date when some of the Ukrainian territories become a part of Poland and strengthens after Cossack revolution in the middle and at the end of the 16th century. Especially this process becomes effective at the beginning of the 18th century when a great part of gentry from other Polish lands migrates to Pravoberezhia (right-banked Ukraine). Nevertheless, having captured upper class and partially middle class of the Ukrainian gentry, polanisation mainly influenced consciousness and less religion of the lower class of the Ukrainian gentry. As for ethnoculture and language local gentry was mostly Ukrainian and it assimilated numerous Polish gentlemen-immigrants
Ferromagnetic Properties of ZrZn
The low Curie temperature (T_C approx 28K) and small ordered moment (M_0
approx 0.17 mu_B f.u.^-1) of ZrZn2 make it one of the few examples of a weak
itinerant ferromagnet. We report results of susceptibility, magnetization,
resistivity and specific heat measurements made on high-quality single crystals
of ZrZn2. From magnetization scaling in the vicinity of T_C
(0.001<|T-T_C|/T_C<0.08), we obtain the critical exponents beta=0.52+/-0.05 and
delta=3.20+/-0.08, and T_C=27.50+/-0.05K. Low-temperature magnetization
measurements show that the easy axis is [111]. Resistivity measurements reveal
an anomaly at T_C and a non-Fermi liquid temperature dependence
rho(T)=rho_0+AT^n, where n=1.67+/-0.02, for 1<T<14K. The specific heat
measurements show a mean-field-like anomaly at T_C. We compare our results to
various theoretical models.Comment: submitted to PR
BIM : a methodology to transform business processes into software systems
This manuscript proposes a guiding methodology to obtain a software system that supports the execution of the business processes existing within an organization. The methodology promotes the usage of business process reference models and intends to reduce the implementation time of the software systems. The methodology assumes four distinct phases and several abstraction levels and is applicable both when developing systems from scratch or in re-engineering contexts. The methodology embodies a special phase to handle the diversity of the business processes of an organization. By tailoring process reference models and by considering the characteristics of a specific organization, a proper set of business processes is derived for that organization. Then, we can obtain a suitable information system and implement its automatable parts in a software solution that can run on top of open source software frameworks. We also present four new supporting concepts to the methodology, and a summarized execution of it
Reduced Life- and Healthspan in Mice Carrying a Mono-Allelic BubR1 MVA Mutation
Mosaic Variegated Aneuploidy (MVA) syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized by inaccurate chromosome segregation and high rates of near-diploid aneuploidy. Children with MVA syndrome die at an early age, are cancer prone, and have progeroid features like facial dysmorphisms, short stature, and cataracts. The majority of MVA cases are linked to mutations in BUBR1, a mitotic checkpoint gene required for proper chromosome segregation. Affected patients either have bi-allelic BUBR1 mutations, with one allele harboring a missense mutation and the other a nonsense mutation, or mono-allelic BUBR1 mutations combined with allelic variants that yield low amounts of wild-type BubR1 protein. Parents of MVA patients that carry single allele mutations have mild mitotic defects, but whether they are at risk for any of the pathologies associated with MVA syndrome is unknown. To address this, we engineered a mouse model for the nonsense mutation 2211insGTTA (referred to as GTTA) found in MVA patients with bi-allelic BUBR1 mutations. Here we report that both the median and maximum lifespans of the resulting BubR1(+/GTTA) mice are significantly reduced. Furthermore, BubR1(+/GTTA) mice develop several aging-related phenotypes at an accelerated rate, including cataract formation, lordokyphosis, skeletal muscle wasting, impaired exercise ability, and fat loss. BubR1(+/GTTA) mice develop mild aneuploidies and show enhanced growth of carcinogen-induced tumors. Collectively, these data demonstrate that the BUBR1 GTTA mutation compromises longevity and healthspan, raising the interesting possibility that mono-allelic changes in BUBR1 might contribute to differences in aging rates in the general population
Heavy quasiparticles in the ferromagnetic superconductor ZrZn2
We report a study of the de Haas-van Alphen effect in the normal state of the
ferromagnetic superconductor ZrZn2. Our results are generally consistent with
an LMTO band structure calculation which predicts four exchange-split Fermi
surface sheets. Quasiparticle effective masses are enhanced by a factor of
about 4.9 implying a strong coupling to magnetic excitations or phonons. Our
measurements provide insight in to the mechanism for superconductivity and
unusual thermodynamic properties of ZrZn2.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures (one color
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