Where the Clouds Meet the Water

Where the Clouds Meet the Water follows the historical journey of the German Ecuadorian widower, Ernst Contag, and his four young children from their home in the South American Andes to Nazi Germany in 1942. Blacklisted as an enemy alien, Ernst Contag and his children are forcibly repatriated to the country of Ernst\u27s grandparents as part of a diplomatic exchange arranged by the United States\u27 State Department and cooperating countries. In Nazi Germany, Ernst and his children must deny their Ecuadorian past and learn to live as Germans. The Contag family strives to keep the ray of hope in their hearts when the Nazi oath of blood and honor leads to fear, abandonment, and death. The children and their father navigate an ever-shifting horizon as they face despair and fear in internment and refugee sites, separation, devastation and loss in Germany (1942-45), hunger and hopelessness in post-war France (1945-46), and hostility in their own Andean homeland. Through it all, the strength of family serves as the glue that holds them all together. The story is based on historical research conducted in libraries and archives on three continents, interviews with survivors of the Ecuadorian blacklist, personal records and official documents submitted to the authors by survivors and their families. Where the Clouds Meet the Water will intrigue readers of all ages who are moved by coming-of-age stories, and fascinated by World War II history and survivor stories.https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/university-archives-msu-authors/1007/thumbnail.jp

Surface excitonic emission and quenching effects in ZnO nanowire/nanowall systems: limiting effects on device potential.

We report ZnO nanowire/nanowall growth using a two-step vapour phase transport method on a-plane sapphire. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy data establish that the nanostructures are vertically well-aligned with c-axis normal to the substrate, and have a very low rocking curve width. Photoluminescence data at low temperatures demonstrate the exceptionally high optical quality of these structures, with intense emission and narrow bound exciton linewidths. We observe a high energy excitonic emission at low temperatures close to the band-edge which we assign to the surface exciton in ZnO at ~ 3.366 eV, the first time this feature has been reported in ZnO nanorod systems. This assignment is consistent with the large surface to volume ratio of the nanowire systems and indicates that this large ratio has a significant effect on the luminescence even at low temperatures. The band-edge intensity decays rapidly with increasing temperature compared to bulk single crystal material, indicating a strong temperature-activated non-radiative mechanism peculiar to the nanostructures. No evidence is seen of the free exciton emission due to exciton delocalisation in the nanostructures with increased temperature, unlike the behaviour in bulk material. The use of such nanostructures in room temperature optoelectronic devices appears to be dependent on the control or elimination of such surface effects

Effect of carbon addition on functional and mechnical properties of the Ni3Al phase

Casting technology was applied and research was carried out on two alloys based on the Ni3Al phase with variable carbon content of 0,2 and 1,25 wt. % C, respectively. Resistance to abrasive wear, friction coefficient and Vickers microhardness were determined. Metallographic studies were conducted to examine the macrostructure and microstructure of the investigated alloys. An increase in resistance to abrasive wear and microhardness of alloy containing 1,25 wt. % C was observed. The coefficient of friction was determined, which for the alloy with increased carbon content was much lower than for the alloy containing 0,2 wt. % C. Structural changes were reported to have some effect on functional and mechanical properties of the examined alloys

Effect of carbon addition on functional and mechnical properties of the Ni3Al phase

Casting technology was applied and research was carried out on two alloys based on the Ni3Al phase with variable carbon content of 0,2 and 1,25 wt. % C, respectively. Resistance to abrasive wear, friction coefficient and Vickers microhardness were determined. Metallographic studies were conducted to examine the macrostructure and microstructure of the investigated alloys. An increase in resistance to abrasive wear and microhardness of alloy containing 1,25 wt. % C was observed. The coefficient of friction was determined, which for the alloy with increased carbon content was much lower than for the alloy containing 0,2 wt. % C. Structural changes were reported to have some effect on functional and mechanical properties of the examined alloys

Time-dependent Mechanics and Lagrangian submanifolds of Dirac manifolds

A description of time-dependent Mechanics in terms of Lagrangian submanifolds of Dirac manifolds (in particular, presymplectic and Poisson manifolds) is presented. Two new Tulczyjew triples are discussed. The first one is adapted to the restricted Hamiltonian formalism and the second one is adapted to the extended Hamiltonian formalism

Lagrangian submanifolds and dynamics on Lie affgebroids

We introduce the notion of a symplectic Lie affgebroid and their Lagrangian submanifolds in order to describe the Lagrangian (Hamiltonian) dynamics on a Lie affgebroid in terms of this type of structures. Several examples are discussed.Comment: 50 pages. Several sections update

A gastrin transcript expressed in gastrointestinal cancer cells contains an internal ribosome entry site

As the hormone gastrin promotes gastrointestinal (GI) cancer progression by triggering survival pathways, regulation of gastrin expression at the translational level was explored. Sequence within the 5′ untranslated region of a gastrin transcript expressed in GI cancer cells was investigated, then cloned into a bicistronic vector upstream of firefly luciferase and transfected into a series of GI cancer cell lines. Firefly luciferase activity was measured relative to that of a cap-dependent Renilla luciferase. A gastrin transcript that was different from that described in Ensembl was expressed in GI cancer cells. Its transcription appears to be initiated within the region designated as the gene's first intron. In GI cancer cells transfected with the bicistronic construct, firefly luciferase activity increased 8–15-fold compared with the control vector, and there was a further induction of the signal (up to 25-fold) following exposure of the cells to genotoxic stress or hypoxia, suggesting that the sequence acts as an internal ribosome entry site. These data suggest that the gastrin transcript within GI cancer cells contains an internal ribosome entry site that may allow continued expression of gastrin peptides when normal translational mechanisms are inactive, such as in hypoxia, thereby promoting cancer cell survival

Observation of epitaxially ordered twinned zinc aluminate “nanoblades” on c-capphire

We report the observation of a novel nanostructured growth mode of the ceramic spinel zinc aluminate grown on c-sapphire in the form of epitaxially ordered twinned crystallites with pronounced vertically aligned “nanoblades” on top of these crystallites. The nanostructures are formed on bare c-sapphire substrates using a vapour phase transport method. Electron microscopy images reveal the nanostructure morphology and dimensions and allow direct and indirect observation of the twin boundary location in a number of samples. The nanoblade structure with sharply rising sidewalls gives rise to a distinctive bright contrast in secondary electron images in scanning electron microscopy measurements

The Tulczyjew triple for classical fields

The geometrical structure known as the Tulczyjew triple has proved to be very useful in describing mechanical systems, even those with singular Lagrangians or subject to constraints. Starting from basic concepts of variational calculus, we construct the Tulczyjew triple for first-order Field Theory. The important feature of our approach is that we do not postulate {\it ad hoc} the ingredients of the theory, but obtain them as unavoidable consequences of the variational calculus. This picture of Field Theory is covariant and complete, containing not only the Lagrangian formalism and Euler-Lagrange equations but also the phase space, the phase dynamics and the Hamiltonian formalism. Since the configuration space turns out to be an affine bundle, we have to use affine geometry, in particular the notion of the affine duality. In our formulation, the two maps $\alpha$ and $\beta$ which constitute the Tulczyjew triple are morphisms of double structures of affine-vector bundles. We discuss also the Legendre transformation, i.e. the transition between the Lagrangian and the Hamiltonian formulation of the first-order field theor