Raphaello Sanzio: Life and Work of a Renaissance Genius

This thesis focuses on the great Renaissance artist Raphaello Sanzio. Examining three main aspects of this artist – his biography, his works, and his styles and techniques – the reader will see just why this man has become one of the most beloved artists of the Italian Renaissance and perhaps of all of art history. By examining and analyzing his works, the reader discovers some meaning behind his most famous works as well as learns more about his style and the style of those during that era. They also find out why he has gone down in history as one of the most famous of the Italian master painters

Perfect Reflection of Chiral Fermions in Gated Graphene Nanoribbons

We describe the results of a theoretical study of transport through gated metallic graphene nanoribbons using a non-equilibrium Green function method. Although analogies with quantum field theory predict perfect transmission of chiral fermions through gated regions in one dimension, we find \emph{perfect reflection} of chiral fermions in armchair ribbons for specific configurations of the gate. This effect should be measurable in narrow graphene constrictions gated by a charged carbon nanotube.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures. Submitted to Nano Letter

Experiments in chick feeding, 1947-1952

This bulletin is a report on Department of Poultry Husbandry research project No. 24, entitled 'Rations for growing chicks'--P. [2]

Ferroelectric materials for neuromorphic computing

Ferroelectric materials are promising candidates for synaptic weight elements in neural network hardware because of their nonvolatile multilevel memory effect. This feature is crucial for their use in mobile applications such as inference when vector matrix multiplication is performed during portable artificial intelligence service. In addition, the adaptive learning effect in ferroelectric polarization has gained considerable research attention for reducing the CMOS circuit overhead of an integrator and amplifier with an activation function. In spite of their potential for a weight and a neuron, material issues have been pointed out for commercialization in conjunction with CMOS processing and device structures. Herein, we review ferroelectric synaptic weights and neurons from the viewpoint of materials in relation to device operation, along with discussions and suggestions for improvement. Moreover, we discuss the reliability of HfO2 as an emerging material and suggest methods to overcome the scaling issue of ferroelectrics.11Ysciescopu

Predispositions and the Political Behavior of American Economic Elites: Evidence from Technology Entrepreneurs

Economic elites regularly seek to exert political influence. But what policies do they support? Many accounts implicitly assume economic elites are homogeneous and that increases in their political power will increase inequality. We shed new light on heterogeneity in economic elites' political preferences, arguing that economic elites from an industry can share distinctive preferences due in part to sharing distinctive predispositions. Consequently, how increases in economic elites' influence affect inequality depends on which industry's elites are gaining influence and which policy issues are at stake. We demonstrate our argument with four original surveys, including the two largest political surveys of American economic elites to date: one of technology entrepreneurs—whose influence is burgeoning—and another of campaign donors. We show that technology entrepreneurs support liberal redistributive, social, and globalistic policies but conservative regulatory policies—a bundle of preferences rare among other economic elites. These differences appear to arise partly from their distinctive predispositions

Use of a Simulation Model to Evaluate the Influence of Reproductive Performance and Management Decisions on Net Income in Beef Production

A stochastic dynamic model of reproduction and a deterministic cow-herd economic simulation model were used to evaluate how management decisions and reproductive performance interact to influence net income in a cow-calf operation (1,000 cows) for 1 yr of production. The stochastic model was used to determine herd performance when length of breeding season (45, 70, or 120 d) interacted with three postpartum intervals of an estrus (48, 65, or 90 d) and three conception rates at first service (60, 70, or 80%). Short, moderate, and long postpartum intervals were used to reflect differences in reproductive performance. In addition, replacement heifers were bred beginning either 3 wk ahead of the cow herd or at the same time as the cow herd. Fifty-four simulations were generated. Inputs into the economic model were herd performance, livestock and feed prices, nonfeed costs, and feed requirements for 1 yr of production. Feed requirements were calculated separately for each postpartum interval to reflect three different body condition scores, thin, moderate, and good, to correspond with long, moderate, and short postpartum intervals. Net income was greatest with 704 breeding seasons when the postpartum interval was short or moderate. When the postpartum interval was long, net income was greatest with 1204 breeding seasons because pregnancy rates, as a result of the long breeding season, were highest and feed costs were lowest for thin cows. Overall, net income was greatest when cows were managed to have postpartum intervals of moderate length. Breeding heifers 3 wk before the cows provided the most economic benefit with long postpartum intervals

Ground-state properties of the spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on the triangular lattice: A variational study based on entangled-plaquette states

We study, on the basis of the general entangled-plaquette variational ansatz, the ground-state properties of the spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on the triangular lattice. Our numerical estimates are in good agreement with available exact results and comparable, for large system sizes, to those computed via the best alternative numerical approaches, or by means of variational schemes based on specific (i.e., incorporating problem dependent terms) trial wave functions. The extrapolation to the thermodynamic limit of our results for lattices comprising up to N=324 spins yields an upper bound of the ground-state energy per site (in units of the exchange coupling) of $-0.5458(2)$ [$-0.4074(1)$ for the XX model], while the estimated infinite-lattice order parameter is $0.3178(5)$ (i.e., approximately 64% of the classical value).Comment: 8 pages, 3 tables, 2 figure