Shi-guang Cui Piano Concerto (2020): A Stylistic Analysis & A Performance Guide

122 pagesCui, Shi-Guang (b.1948) is one of the greatest living Chinese composers. Cui, who is now 74 years old, completed his revision of his Piano Concerto in July of 2020. In my document, I will include a complete biography of Cui from 1948 to 2022. I will also discuss the innovative musical characteristics of Cui’s recently published Piano Concerto (2020), as well as a performance guide to the concerto. Much of the information in this section of the document was collected from the composer through personal interviews. Although there are numerous documents about Mr. Cui’s popular piano compositions in Chinese, there is only one document in English. I hope to bring much more information about this interesting and significant Chinese composer to the English-speaking world. This document will analyze his Piano Concerto, ICO.136 (ICO refers to “In Chronological Order”). Cui’s piano compositions demonstrate elements of Chinese style combined with Western tradition elements. He promotes the spiritual and national outlook of Chinese musical culture. Supplementary information and materials will also be provided, including Cui’s opinions about the essence of the musical score. This section will also discuss specific aspects of the development of Peking Opera, the historical background of the Chu–Han Contention/ War (206– 202 B.C.)

General-relativistic simulations of the formation of a magnetized hybrid star

Strongly magnetized neutron stars are popular candidates for producing detectable electromagnetic and gravitational-wave signals. A rapid density increase in a neutron star core could also trigger the phase transition from hadrons to deconfined quarks and form a hybrid star. This formation process could release a considerable amount of energy in the form of gravitational waves and neutrinos. Hence, the formation of a magnetized hybrid star is an interesting scenario for detecting all these signals. These detections may provide essential probes for the magnetic field and composition of such stars. Thus far, a dynamical study of the formation of a magnetized hybrid star has yet to be realized. Here, we investigate the formation dynamics and the properties of a magnetized hybrid star through dynamical simulations. We find that the maximum values of rest-mass density and magnetic field strength increase slightly and these two quantities are coupled in phase during the formation. We then demonstrate that all microscopic and macroscopic quantities of the resulting hybrid star vary dramatically when the maximum magnetic field strength goes beyond a threshold of $\sim 5 \times 10^{17}$ G but they are insensitive to the magnetic field below this threshold. Specifically, the magnetic deformation makes the rest-mass density drop significantly, suppressing the matter fraction in the mixed phase. Therefore, this work provides a solid support for the magnetic effects on a hybrid star, so it is possible to link observational signals from the star to its magnetic field configuration.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Gravitational wave signatures from the phase-transition-induced collapse of a magnetized neutron star

Strong magnetic fields make neutron stars potential sources of detectable electromagnetic and gravitational-wave signals. Hence, inferring these magnetic fields is critical to understand the emissions of neutron stars. However, due to the lack of direct observational evidence, the interior magnetic field configuration remains ambiguous. Here, for the first time, we show that the internal magnetic field strength along with the composition of a neutron star can be directly constrained by detecting the gravitational waves from the phase-transition-induced collapse of a magnetized neutron star. By dynamically simulating this collapsing event, we first find that the dominant peaks in the gravitational waveform are the fundamental $l=0$ quasi-radial $F$ mode and the fundamental $l=2$ quadrupolar $^2f$ mode. We next show that the maximum gravitational wave amplitude $|h|_\mathrm{max}$ increases with the maximum magnetic field strength of the interior toroidal field $\mathcal{B}_\mathrm{max}$ until the maximum rest-mass density at bounce $\rho_\mathrm{max,b}$ decreases due to the increasing $\mathcal{B}_\mathrm{max}$. We then demonstrated that the magnetic suppression of fundamental modes found in our previous work remains valid for the hybrid stars formed after the phase-transition-induced collapses. We finally show that measuring the frequency ratio between the two fundamental modes $f_{^2f}/f_{F}$ allows one to infer $\mathcal{B}_\mathrm{max}$ and the baryonic mass fraction of matter in the mixed phase $M_\mathrm{mp} / M_{0}$ of the resulting hybrid star. Consequently, taking $\mathcal{B}_\mathrm{max}$ and $M_\mathrm{mp} / M_{0}$ as examples, this work has demonstrated that much information inside neutron stars could be extracted similarly through measuring the oscillation modes of the stars.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Oscillations of Highly Magnetized Non-rotating Neutron Stars

Highly magnetized neutron stars are promising candidates to explain some of the most peculiar astronomical phenomena, for instance, fast radio bursts, gamma-ray bursts, and superluminous supernovae. Pulsations of these highly magnetized neutron stars are also speculated to produce detectable gravitational waves. In addition, pulsations are important probes of the structure and equation of state of the neutron stars. The major challenge in studying the pulsations of highly magnetized neutron stars is the demanding numerical cost of consistently solving the nonlinear Einstein and Maxwell equations under minimum assumptions. With the recent breakthroughs in numerical solvers, we investigate pulsation modes of non-rotating neutron stars which harbour strong purely toroidal magnetic fields of $10^{15-17}$ G through two-dimensional axisymmetric general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations. We show that stellar oscillations are insensitive to magnetization effects until the magnetic to binding energy ratio goes beyond 10%, where the pulsation mode frequencies are strongly suppressed. We further show that this is the direct consequence of the decrease in stellar compactness when the extreme magnetic fields introduce strong deformations of the neutron stars

Indirect inguinal hernia masquerading as a Spigelian hernia

Inguinal hernia usually developed and descended into scrotum. The clinical presentation is inguinal or inguino-scrotal swelling. Abdominal wall weakness as it is frequently seen in African tropical zones produces often rare clinical case. We report a case of inguinal hernia presented as an abdominal wall swelling clinically suggestive of a Spigelian hernia and discuss the mechanism

A microscopic theory of gauge mediation

We construct models of indirect gauge mediation where the dynamics responsible for breaking supersymmetry simultaneously generates a weakly coupled subsector of messengers. This provides a microscopic realization of messenger gauge mediation where the messenger and hidden sector fields are unified into a single sector. The UV theory is SQCD with massless and massive quarks plus singlets, and at low energies it flows to a weakly coupled quiver gauge theory. One node provides the primary source of supersymmetry breaking, which is then transmitted to the node giving rise to the messenger fields. These models break R-symmetry spontaneously, produce realistic gaugino and sfermion masses, and give a heavy gravitino.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figures, accepted to JHEP for publicatio

Phases of N=1 supersymmetric chiral gauge theories

We analyze the phases of supersymmetric chiral gauge theories with an antisymmetric tensor and (anti)fundamental flavors, in the presence of a classically marginal superpotential deformation. Varying the number of flavors that appear in the superpotential reveals rich infrared chiral dynamics and novel dualities. The dualities are characterized by an infinite family of magnetic duals with arbitrarily large gauge groups describing the same fixed point, correlated with arbitrarily large classical global symmetries that are truncated nonperturbatively. At the origin of moduli space, these theories exhibit a phase with confinement and chiral symmetry breaking, an interacting nonabelian Coulomb phase, and phases where an interacting sector coexists with a sector that either s-confines or is in a free magnetic phase. Properties of these intriguing "mixed phases" are studied in detail using duality and a-maximization, and the presence of superpotential interactions provides further insights into their formation.Comment: 35 pages, 5 figure

Emission Factors for a Taxi Fleet Operating on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) as a Function of Speed and Road Slope

Real-driving emissions of NOx, CO, and THC, as well as fuel consumption (FC) were studied from 18 liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) fueled taxis operating in a metropolitan road network. Euro 2 to Euro 5 technology vehicles were measured with the use of portable emission measurement systems (PEMS). Statistical processing was implemented to derive mean emission levels for the different technologies. The taxis were measured from 6 months to 2.5 years after their catalysts and lambda sensors were replaced. The emission levels of Euro 4 taxis after catalyst replacement appear higher compared to pre-replacement levels, while pre-Euro 4 taxis emission levels were moderately reduced by the catalyst replacement. Overall, Euro 5 LPG taxis exhibit the lowest emissions, even below the respective regulated limits. The NH3 and N2O pollutant levels of a Euro 5 LPG taxi measured in the lab were found at about half its NOx emissions. Different integration methods of PEMS data were investigated toward the development of emission factors, including both time-based and distance-based approaches at different resolutions. Distance-based integration in sections of 500 m was considered suitable, as this provides a large dataset for statistical confidence and sufficient resolution for link-based modeling. Based on this, FC and emission factors of NOx, CO, and THC as a function of speed and road slope are presented, separately for vehicles considered as normal and high emitters. Volatile organic compounds speciation of Euro 5 taxis showed that methane and butane are the most abundant hydrocarbon species in the exhaust

Addressing Women's Non-Maternal Healthcare Financing in Developing Countries: What Can We Learn from the Experiences of Rural Indian Women?

Background and Objectives: This paper focuses on the inadequate attention on women’s non-maternal healthcare in lowand middle-income countries. The study assessed the purchase of and financial access to non-maternal healthcare. It also scoped for mainstreaming household financial resources in this regard to suggest for alternatives. Methods: A household survey through multi-stage stratified sampling in the state of Orissa interviewed rural women above 15 years who were neither pregnant nor had any pregnancy-related outcome six weeks preceding the survey. The questions explored on the processes, determinants and outcomes of health seeking for non-maternal ailments. The outcome measures were healthcare access, cost of care and financial access. The independent variables for bivariate and multivariate analyses were contextual factors, health seeking and financing pattern. Results: The survey obtained a response rate of 98.64 % and among 800 women, 43.8 % had no schooling and 51 % were above 60 years. Each woman reported at least one episode of non-maternal ailment; financial constraints prevented 68% from receiving timely and complete care. Distress coping measures (e.g. borrowings) dominated the financing source (67.9%) followed by community–based measures (32.1%). Only 6 % had financial risk-protection; financial risk of not obtaining care doubled for women aged over 60 years (OR 2.00, 95 % CI 0.84–4.80), seeking outpatient consultation (OR 2.01, 95 % CI 0.89–4.81), facing unfavourable household response (OR 2.04, 95 % CI 1.09–3.83), and lacking other financia