Mineral industries of Illinois

"Directory of Illinois Mineral Operators" to accompany the map.Ope

A flashback on the dawn of the meteorite impact/extinction theory

Presented are my personal recollections on some of the major contributions by the Alvarez groups to the birth and development of the meteorite impact/extinction theory

From text summarisation to style-specific summarisation for broadcast news

In this paper we report on a series of experiments investigating the path from text summarisation to style-specific summarisation of spoken news stories. We show that the portability of traditional text summarisation features to broadcast news is dependent on the diffusiveness of the information in the broadcast news story. An analysis of two categories of news stories (containing only read speech or including some spontaneous speech) demonstrates the importance of the style and the quality of the transcript, when extracting the summary-worthy information content. Further experiments indicate the advantages of doing style-specific summarisation of broadcast news

Standard Model Matrix Elements for Neutral B-Meson Mixing and Associated Decay Constants

We present results of quenched lattice calculations of the matrix elements relevant for B_d-\bar B_d and B_s-\bar B_s mixing in the Standard Model. Results for the corresponding SU(3)-breaking ratios, which can be used to constrain or determine |V_{td}|, are also given. The calculations are performed at two values of the lattice spacing, corresponding to \beta = 6.0 and \beta = 6.2, with quarks described by a mean-field-improved Sheikholeslami-Wohlert action. As a by-product, we obtain the leptonic decay constants of B and D mesons. We also present matrix elements relevant for D^0-\bar D^0 mixing. Our results are summarized in the Introduction.Comment: 27 pages (RevTeX), 26 figures, version published in Phys. Rev. D: improved estimate of the systematic error associated with the uncertainty on the strange quark mass and other small improvements to analysis (results change only slightly); correction of typos and minor changes to text; RevTeX formattin

Being (im)polite: A forensic linguistic approach to interpreting a hate speech case

In a hate speech case a court might have to determine whether a person’s words were hurtful or harmful. Would it be possible to determine whether words are hurtful or harmful by using linguistics? This article offers a linguistic perspective on a court’s interpretation of the Equality Act in a hate speech case and focuses on speech acts and politeness. If the speech acts of a verbal exchange are studied and the levels of politeness are gauged, a court would be able to affi rm the hurtfulness or harmfulness of the speaker’s words. The article begins with a brief discussion on the potential role of the linguist in a courtroom; this is followed by a summary of the facts of the case. Then the court case is analysed and discussed in terms of speech acts and politeness. By employing principles in pragmatics the author reaches the same conclusion as the court.Afrikaans and Theory of Literatur