355 research outputs found
Putting People at the Center: The Role of Lived Experience in Dismantling Collateral Consequences Caused by Incarceration
These are the slides for the webinar "Putting People at the Center: The Role of Lived Experience in Dismantling Collateral Consequences Caused by Incarceration" held August 1, 2017. The goal of this webinar was to acknowledge that policy and systems change is most authentic and impactful when it surfaces and is driven from lived experience. It also explored the ways in which organizations partner with and learn from people most impacted in their decision making and processes driving policy change in criminal justice reforms related to employment, housing, and other collateral consequences of incarceration.The group of panelists included Marlon Chamberlain with FORCE Organizer at the Community Renewal Society, Glenn E. Martin from JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA), Michelle Natividad Rodriguezfrom the National Employment Law Project (NELP), and Quintin Williams with Heartland Alliance
Tormund's return: Hints of quasi-periodic eruption features from a recent optical tidal disruption event
Quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs) are repeating thermal X-ray bursts associated
with accreting massive black holes, the precise underlying physical mechanisms
of which are still unclear. We present a new candidate QPE source, AT 2019vcb
(nicknamed Tormund by the ZTF collaboration), which was found during an
archival search for QPEs in the XMM-Newton archive. It was first discovered in
2019 as an optical tidal disruption event (TDE) at , and its X-ray
follow-up exhibited QPE-like properties. Our goals are to verify its robustness
as QPE candidate and to investigate its properties to improve our understanding
of QPEs. We performed a detailed study of the X-ray spectral behaviour of this
source over the course of the XMM-Newton archival observation. We also report
on recent Swift and NICER follow-up observations to constrain the source's
current activity and overall lifetime, as well as an optical spectral
follow-up. The first two Swift detections and the first half of the 30 ks
XMM-Newton exposure of Tormund displayed a decaying thermal emission typical of
an X-ray TDE. However, the second half of the exposure showed a dramatic rise
in temperature (from 53 to 114 eV) and 0.2-2 keV luminosity (from
to erg s). The late-time NICER
follow-up indicates that the source is still X-ray bright more than three years
after the initial optical TDE. Although only a rise phase was observed,
Tormund's strong similarities with a known QPE source (eRO-QPE1) and the
impossibility to simultaneously account for all observational features with
alternative interpretations allow us to classify Tormund as a candidate QPE. If
confirmed as a QPE, it would further strengthen the observational link between
TDEs and QPEs. It is also the first QPE candidate for which an associated
optical TDE was directly observed, constraining the formation time of QPEs.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 20 pages, 17 figure
The political identities of neighbourhood planning in England
The rise of neighbourhood planning has been characterised as another step in a remorseless de-politicisation of the public sphere. A policy initiated by the Coalition Government in England to create the conditions for local communities to support housing growth, neighbourhood planning appears to evidence a continuing retreat from political debate and contestation. Clear boundaries are established for the holistic integration of participatory democracy into the strategic plan-making of the local authority. These boundaries seek to take politics out of development decisions and exclude all issues of contention from discussion. They achieve this goal at the cost of arming participatory democracy with a collective identity around which new antagonisms may develop. Drawing on the post-political theories of Chantal Mouffe this paper identifies the return of antagonism and conflict to participation in spatial planning. Key to its argument is the concept of the boundary or frontier that in Mouffeâs theoretical framework institutionalises conflict between political entities. Drawing on primary research with neighbourhood development plans in England the paper explores how boundary conditions and boundary designations generate antagonism and necessitate political action. The paper charts the development of the collective identities that result from these boundary lines and argues for the potential for neighbourhood planning to restore political conflict to the politics of housing development
A clock network for geodesy and fundamental science
Leveraging the unrivaled performance of optical clocks in applications in
fundamental physics beyond the standard model, in geo-sciences, and in
astronomy requires comparing the frequency of distant optical clocks
truthfully. Meeting this requirement, we report on the first comparison and
agreement of fully independent optical clocks separated by 700 km being only
limited by the uncertainties of the clocks themselves. This is achieved by a
phase-coherent optical frequency transfer via a 1415 km long telecom fiber link
that enables substantially better precision than classical means of frequency
transfer. The fractional precision in comparing the optical clocks of three
parts in was reached after only 1000 s averaging time, which is
already 10 times better and more than four orders of magnitude faster than with
any other existing frequency transfer method. The capability of performing high
resolution international clock comparisons paves the way for a redefinition of
the unit of time and an all-optical dissemination of the SI-second.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
The effects of under-sleeper pads on sleeper-ballast interaction
Under-sleeper pads (USPs), typically made from polyurethane, are used by railways in certain
parts of the world to reduce ballast settlement and consequently lengthen the ballast tamping
cycle. The rationale behind this relatively new addition to the conventional ballasted track
structure is that the pad increases the contact area between the angular ballast particles
and the underside of the concrete sleeper, with the effect that ballast breakdown and total
track settlement are reduced. This paper describes two experiments on the effects of USPs
on four aspects of sleeperâballast interaction, namely contact area, contact pressure, ballast
settlement and ballast breakdown. Static and dynamic tests up to 1 million loading cycles
were performed under controlled laboratory conditions on concrete sleepers with and without
USPs. Sophisticated pressure sensors revealed an increase in contact area from 12% to 35%
for static loading tests, and from 8% to 20% for dynamic tests, with a resulting 70% reduction
in contact pressure. In addition, a 44% reduction in ballast settlement and a 23% reduction in
ballast breakdown were achieved by the introduction of USPs. In conclusion it is argued that the
introduction of USPs specifically on heavy-haul lines would offer significant advantages with
respect to ballast settlement and breakdown. These advantages are most likely to lengthen
general ballast tamping and screening cycles, resulting in significant life cycle cost savings.Transnet Freight Rail is gratefully acknowledged
for financial support to the Chair
in Railway Engineering at the University of Pretoria.http://www.journals.co.za/ej/ejour_civileng.htmlam2016Civil Engineerin
The kinetics and acoustics of fingering and note transitions on the flute
Motion of the keys was measured in a transverse flute while beginner, amateur
and professional flutists played a range of exercises. The time taken for a key
to open or close is typically 10 ms when pushed by a finger or 16 ms when moved
by a spring. Delays between the motion of the fingers were typically tens of
ms, with longer delays as more fingers are involved. Because the opening and
closing of keys will never be exactly simultaneous, transitions between notes
that involve the movement of multiple fingers can occur via several possible
pathways with different intermediate fingerings. A transition is classified as
`safe' if it is possible to be slurred from the initial to final note with
little perceptible change in pitch or volume. Some transitions are `unsafe' and
possibly involve a transient change in pitch or a decrease in volume. In
transitions with multiple fingers, players, on average, used safe transitions
more frequently than unsafe transitions. Professionals exhibited smaller
average delays between the motion of fingers than did amateurs
âAfter a finding of Noncompliance, What?!â
Treaties have long been the cornerstones of international relations. They can be seen as one of the sole mechanisms to formalize agreements between sovereign states. In principle, these agreements are legally binding. In practice, the result is less certain. Issues ranging from the how the country views itself on the international stage to the specific treaty terms and enforcement mechanisms can all effect prospects for compliance. What is certain is the disruption and uncertainty that noncompliance causes. If not addressed, a treatyâs utility will eventually erode to the point where the agreement has no force. Other countries would also perceive little value in treaty ratification if compliance cannot be sufficiently verified. This report focuses on current issues of noncompliance with Russia, Syria, Iran, and North. Korea. Key themes arise across these cases and point to specific factors that impact treaty compliance. The report distills these key themes into general and case-specific recommendations for bringing a country back from noncompliance
Toward the Construction of an Efficient Set of Robot Arm Operator Performance Metrics
As part of a larger project to identify and validate relevant quantitative measures of robot arm operator proficiency, fifteen metrics of arm maneuvering and hand controller performance were defined and measured for 3-DOF translational movement tasks. Twelve freshly trained operators provided performance data for seven target-acquisition task scenarios involving a variety of distance combinations along the X, Y, and Z axes. Metrics included indicators of task component times, distance traveled, inefficient (inverse) motion, maximum velocities, amount of multi-axis control, and input control onset times along the three axes. Pairwise correlations of all measures and scatter plots of variables yielding strong intercorrelations were examined to determine the potential underlying causes of the significant relationships. By identifying subsets of metrics with explainable co-dependencies, the overall metric set can be reduced to a limited number of key metrics that serve as effective discriminators of operator performance.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline
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