Reflections on when the sun hits

When the Sun Hits is a feature length film concerned with the delicate relationship between the individual and the whole. A young man named John has fallen into a state of social paralysis since his father\u27s death. He no longer knows how to relate to others and the world around him. Rather than looking to friends and family for support he closes himself off. After the mysterious disappearance of his mother, John blames himself for her leaving. He tries his best to reconnect with his old life, but finds himself making the same mistakes over and over. When his friend Tracy reaches out to him, he bitterly rejects her and once again finds himself alone. It is then that John puts his old life behind him and sets off to make amends with his mother. John has no idea where his mother might be or if she will accept him. Nonetheless, he reaches into the abyss to see if someone is there, waiting for him. The structure of the film is nonlinear as it deviates from traditional narrative form. The intent of this thesis is to serve as a post-film reflection that discusses the relation between my views on cinema and the film I made. The paper will shift between the general themes of the narrative and the film theory working behind it all. It will explore the idea of cinema as an extension of the mind and how this is present in the film. By using specific examples from the film this theory of cinema can be fleshed out and an insight into my process may be gleaned

Using charged particle test beams to constrain systematic uncertainties for the DUNE experiment

The existence of non-zero neutrino masses is the one unexplained feature of the Standard Model. As such, neutrinos warrant further investigation. The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment currently in its construction phase. Upon completion it aims to resolve several questions regarding the properties of neutrinos by making precise measurements of muon neutrino disappearance and electron neutrino appearance at a baseline of 1300 km. Specifically, DUNE will aim to find evidence of Charge-Parity symmetry (CP) violation in the lepton sector and determine the ordering of the neutrino mass eigenstates (the neutrino mass hierarchy). In order to accomplish these goals, DUNE’s systematic uncertainties must be understood and it is this that is the primary subject of this thesis. Initially, studies are presented showing the effect of DUNE’s nominal systematic uncertainties on its sensitivity to CP violation and the neutrino mass hierarchy, where the importance of controlling the detector systematics is highlighted. Following this, methods of controlling systematics resulting from neutrino cross-sections are presented, both utilising a high pressure gas time projection chamber. This includes a novel method for producing a low energy proton beam for use in neutrino experiments. Finally, a measurement of the electron lifetime in the ProtoDUNE-SP detector is presented. This lifetime is compared to the values obtained from dedicated purity monitors and translated to an energy scale uncertainty. The effect of this uncertainty on DUNE’s measurement of the neutrino oscillation parameters is assessed

Overview of MediaEval 2011 rich speech retrieval task and genre tagging task

The MediaEval 2011 Rich Speech Retrieval Tasks and Genre Tagging Tasks are two new tasks oered in MediaEval 2011 that are designed to explore the development of techniques for semi-professional user generated content (SPUG). They both use the same data set: the MediaEval 2010 Wild Wild Web Tagging Task (ME10WWW). The ME10WWW data set contains Creative Commons licensed video collected from blip.tv in 2009. It was created by the PetaMedia Network of Excellence (http://www.petamedia.eu) in order to test retrieval algorithms for video content as it occurs `in the wild' on the Internet and, in particular, for user contributed multimedia that is embedded within a social network. In this overview paper, we repeat the essential characteristics of the data set, describe the tasks and specify how they are evaluated

Non-Fermi liquid signatures in the Hubbard Model due to van Hove singularities

When a van-Hove singularity is located in the vicinity of the Fermi level, the electronic scattering rate acquires a non-analytic contribution. This invalidates basic assumptions of Fermi liquid theory and within perturbative treatments leads to a non-Fermi liquid self-energy and transport properties.Such anomalies are shown to also occur in the strongly correlated metallic state. We consider the Hubbard model on a two-dimensional square lattice with nearest and next-nearest neighbor hopping within the single-site dynamical mean-field theory. At temperatures on the order of the low-energy scale $T_0$ an unusual maximum emerges in the imaginary part of the self-energy which is renormalized towards the Fermi level for finite doping. At zero temperature this double-well structure is suppressed, but an anomalous energy dependence of the self-energy remains. For the frustrated Hubbard model on the square lattice with next-nearest neighbor hopping, the presence of the van Hove singularity changes the asymptotic low temperature behavior of the resistivity from a Fermi liquid to non-Fermi liquid dependency as function of doping. The results of this work are discussed regarding their relevance for high-temperature cuprate superconductors.Comment: revised version, accepted in Phys.Rev.

Now it’s the turn of EU leaders to do ‘whatever it takes’ to save Europe – or it won’t be enough

The European Council will hold a video conference on the Covid-19 outbreak later today. Sebastian Diessner, Erik Jones and Corrado Macchiarelli write that with European economies under unprecedented strain, it is now time for EU leaders to commit to doing whatever it takes to forestall the crisis

Zetos: Ein Kulturbelastungssystem für trabekuläre Knochen. Untersuchung eines Belastungssignals mit verschiedenen Intensitäten an bovinen Knochenzylindern

Das Ziel dieses Versuches war es, den Einfluss verschiedener Intensitäten (1000, 1500, 2000, 3000, 4000µstrain) eines physiologischen Belastungssignals (Springen) auf trabekulären Knochen zu untersuchen. Dazu wurde der Zetos: Ein Kultur- und Belastungssystem für trabekulären Knochen verwendet. 48 bovine Knochenexplantate wurden randomisiert und in 6 Gruppen (je 8) eingeteilt. 5 Belastungsgruppen und eine Kontrollgruppe. Die Knochenexplantate wurden für 26 Tage kultiviert (DMEM HighGlucose Medium) und an 23 Tagen mechanisch belastet. Vor jeder Belastung wurde täglich (belastete Gruppen) und alle 3 Tage (Kontrollgruppe) die Steifigkeit (Young's Modulus) gemessen. Bei Auswertung der Steifigkeitsmessung gab es signifikante Unterschiede (p<0,05) zwischen der Kontrollgruppe und den Belastungsgruppen ab 1500µstrain Maximalbelastung. In den Gruppen mit 1500, 2000, 3000µstrain konnte ein kontinuierlicher Steifigkeitsanstieg über den gesamten Versuchszeitraum festgestellt werden. Die Gruppe mit 4000µstrain erreichte schon nach sehr kurzer Zeit (8.Belastungstag) ein Steifigkeitsmaximum. Dies blieb bis zum Versuchende konstant. Die gemessenen Osteoiddicken in dieser Gruppe waren aber nicht größer als in den Gruppen mit 2000 und 3000µstrain. Die Gruppe mit 2000µstrain zeigte den höchsten Anteil neu gebildeten Osteoids. Diese 3 genannten Gruppen unterschieden sich aber signifikant (p<0,05) von der Kontrollgruppe. Zudem konnte eine Korrelation zwischen ansteigender Intensität und Osteoidzunahme beobachtet werden (r = 0,87). Die histologische Auswertung erfolgte an nicht entkalktem Knochen und zeigte gut erhaltene trabekuläre Strukturen sowie ebenso gut erhaltene Zellmorphologien

Blip10000: a social video dataset containing SPUG content for tagging and retrieval

The increasing amount of digital multimedia content available is inspiring potential new types of user interaction with video data. Users want to easilyfind the content by searching and browsing. For this reason, techniques are needed that allow automatic categorisation, searching the content and linking to related information. In this work, we present a dataset that contains comprehensive semi-professional user generated (SPUG) content, including audiovisual content, user-contributed metadata, automatic speech recognition transcripts, automatic shot boundary les, and social information for multiple `social levels'. We describe the principal characteristics of this dataset and present results that have been achieved on different tasks

Sex: Not all that it's cracked up to be?

While sexual reproduction is generally thought to be, evolutionarily speaking, a good idea, there are a small number of organisms that are testament to the contrary. The root-knot nematodes Meloidogyne incognita, M. javanica, and M. arenaria reproduce clonally using mitotic parthenogenesis but have a broader host range, a wider geographical distribution, and a greater agricultural impact than their sexual relatives (Fig 1) [1]. Remarkably, some of these species even have the ability to overcome host resistance [2], suggesting a mechanism for adaptation in the absence of sex. The genetic basis of this plasticity, both in terms of host range and adaptability, is not fully understood. Previous genome sequencing of Meloidogyne has shown that the genome of one of these species, M. incognita, is polyploid [3], most likely as a result of hybridisation (allopolyploid), with a further study suggesting that M. incognita may be the result of multiple additive hybridisation events: a hybrid of a hybrid [4]