The Aesthetic Dissonance of Industrial Wind Machines

Yuriko Saito recently published an essay in this journal, Machines in the Ocean: The Aesthetics of Wind Farms (Contemporary Aesthetics, 2 (2004)). The bulk of her essay is a search for the right aesthetic justification for windplants sited in the ocean as well as for those onshore. Because windpower does not emit toxins into the air and its source of energy is recurrent, it offers the promise of a clean, renewable alternative to fossil fuels. The central problem with harnessing any form of energy is that enormous energies are wasted in the process of producing and channeling a relatively small amount. Windpower has this inherent difficulty; there are significant losses in the process of producing wind energy at industrial scales

Demographic Characteristics of Adoptees Presenting to the Yale International Adoption Clinic and the Utility of Pre-Adoption Video Review

The major purpose of this study was to examine whether the assessment of pre-adoption video (pre-vid) by an experienced pediatrician accurately predicts the post-adoption developmental (post-dev) status of the adoptee on arrival and to examine any difference in the extent of developmental delay between those adoptees with and those without a pre-vid review. As a foundation for the study, an extensive database for all adoptees seen at the Yale International Adoption Clinic was created and their demographic characteristics were analyzed. The developmental status of 20 children from Russian and Eastern European orphanages was assessed by an experienced pediatrician using a pre-vid review while the post-dev status was evaluated by a developmental-behavioral pediatrician. Using the Denver Developmental II Scoring Test (pre-vid) and the Bayley Scale of Infant Development Second Edition (post-dev), children were scored (0, 1, 2 or 3) to indicate the degree of developmental delay in fine motor, gross motor and language domains. A control group of international adoptees was assembled on the basis of age, gender, length of time in orphanage, length of stay in US before developmental exam and country of origin. The degree of post-dev delay in the cohort with a pre-vid was then compared to that of the control group without a pre-vid using a chi-square test and Fishers exact test. The Pearson r coefficient between the pre-adoption video and post-adoption developmental ratings indicated a significant correlation, r=0.53 and two-tailed p = 0.01, between the two ratings. Chi-square and Fischer test analysis examining the extent of developmental delay between the cohort and control groups were not significant. Although there is no significant difference in the extent of developmental delay between the adoptees who did and did not receive a pre-vid assessment, results of this study show that a video review by an experienced pediatrician predicts with statistically significant accuracy the childs developmental status after arrival

Lux et Lex: Volume 1, Number 1

This is the inaugural issue of Lux et Lex, a publication of the Chester Fritz Library at the University of North Dakota

Laser diode area melting for high speed additive manufacturing of metallic components

Additive manufacturing processes have been developed to a stage where they can now be routinely used to manufacture net-shape high-value components. Selective Laser Melting (SLM) comprises of either a single or multiple deflected high energy fibre laser source(s) to raster scan, melt and fuse layers of metallic powdered feedstock. However this deflected laser raster scanning methodology is high cost, energy inefficient and encounters significant limitations on output productivity due to the rate of feedstock melting. This work details the development of a new additive manufacturing process known as Diode Area Melting (DAM). This process utilises customised architectural arrays of low power laser diode emitters for high speed parallel processing of metallic feedstock. Individually addressable diode emitters are used to selectively melt feedstock from a pre-laid powder bed. The laser diodes operate at shorter laser wavelengths (808 nm) than conventional SLM fibre lasers (1064 nm) theoretically enabling more efficient energy absorption for specific materials. The melting capabilities of the DAM process were tested for low melting point eutectic BiZn2.7 elemental powders and higher temperature pre-alloyed 17-4 stainless steel powder. The process was shown to be capable of fabricating controllable geometric features with evidence of complete melting and fusion between multiple powder layers

My Favorite Professor: Professor Ben Blau Connects Finance to Real World News of the Day

Dr. Ben Blau, a professor of finance, has a unique philosophy when it comes to teaching, a philosophy that he explains to his students before every difficult assignment or impossible midterm exam. He believes that professors who make students think that they are thinking are loved, while professors who actually make students think are hated. “My goal,” Dr. Blau quips, “is to become your least favorite professor.”https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/huntsman_news/1050/thumbnail.jp

Senior Recital: Connor Osburn, horn

This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree Bachelor of Music in Performance. Mr. Connor studies horn with Tom Witte.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/1257/thumbnail.jp

Low-Cost Hyperspectral Imaging with A Smartphone.

Recent advances in smartphone technologies have opened the door to the development of accessible, highly portable sensing tools capable of accurate and reliable data collection in a range of environmental settings. In this article, we introduce a low-cost smartphone-based hyperspectral imaging system that can convert a standard smartphone camera into a visible wavelength hyperspectral sensor for ca. £100. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the first smartphone capable of hyperspectral data collection without the need for extensive post processing. The Hyperspectral Smartphone's abilities are tested in a variety of environmental applications and its capabilities directly compared to the laboratory-based analogue from our previous research, as well as the wider existing literature. The Hyperspectral Smartphone is capable of accurate, laboratory- and field-based hyperspectral data collection, demonstrating the significant promise of both this device and smartphone-based hyperspectral imaging as a whole

Introduction: markets in modernization: transformations in urban market space and practice, c. 1800 – c. 1970

This special issue addresses the changing role and later history of physical, face-to-face markets for goods, which in modern cities all over the world are mainly or wholly used by individuals and families for consumption purposes. Our focus is on the urban market as a specific urban place and its shifting relationship with important alterations in the governance, society and economy of modern, industrial cities (until c. 1970). The main intention of this collection is to move beyond traditional (western) views of the so-called ‘decline’ of these urban marketplaces. In the history and theorization of the type of cities that came into being all over the world in the wake of economic and political transformations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ‘markets’ are usually thought of in terms of their institutional meaning. They are referred to as abstract notions of commerce and exchange, be it in commodities, labour, cash or shares. Seldom are they studied as real, physical marketplaces within cities; as entities that take up space; function in changing production and distribution chains and evolve as a result of changes in wholesaling, retailing, consumption and the political regulation of urban space, society and economy. Indeed, it is often argued that ‘marketplaces’ in this spatially delimited and concrete sense ceased to be of importance once modernization took hold of urban landscapes all over the world. That this is not the case is amply demonstrated by the articles gathered here: markets continued to be vibrant parts of a wide variety of towns and cities across the globe