Fact-Based Death Penalty Research

The goal of fact-based death penalty research is, simply put, to capture and document as many facts surrounding legal executions as possible, organize them in a clear and logical manner, and present them without bias, cant, or sentiment. This compilation of facts is then made available for an analysis of whether patterns appear suggesting which facts were and possibly still remain the leading factors influencing legal death. The focus of fact-based research is clear and orderly facts. Indeed, publications that grow out of fact-based death penalty research document executions in chronological order, and each entry includes the executed person\u27s name, age, gender, race, a detailed account in narrative form of the crime for which the accused was sentenced to death, and information on the place and method of execution. Regardless of the legal issue, the first place to begin death penalty research is with a list of those known to have suffered irrevocable punishment

Magnetotellurische Studien im Nordwestdeutschen Becken: Ein Beitrag zur paläogeographischen Entwicklung des Unterkarbons

Diese Arbeit leistet einen Beitrag zur paläogeographischen Entwicklung des Unterkarbons im Nordwestdeutschen Becken. Ausgehend von Magnetotellurik-Sondierungen werden elektrisch leitfähige Schichten in präpermischen Sedimenten aufgezeigt. Anhand der räumlichen Verbreitung dieser Schichten konnten Informationen zur Verbesserung des Verständnisses der sedimentären Fazies-Entwicklung und die Verbreitung präwestfaler Muttergesteine gewonnen werden. Das Ergebnis wird in einer präziseren Karte der Fazies-Verteilung des Unterkarbons präsentiert, die zwei Bereiche aufzeigt, in denen leitfähige Schwarzschiefer auftreten: im Nordosten des Beckens die Skandinavischen Alaunschiefer und weiter südwestlich die Rhenoherzynischen Alaunschiefer. Da Schwarzschiefer als potentielle Erdöl-/Erdgas-Muttergesteine angesehen werden, sind die Magnetotellurik-Ergebnisse von spezieller Bedeutung für die Einschätzung der Erdgas-Höffigkeit im Nordwestdeutschen Becken

Direct reduction of pellets through hydrogen: Experimental and model behaviour

This paper presents the hydrogen reduction behaviour of industrial pellets designed for the efficient hydrogen based direct reduction. The pellets were provided with very low non ferrous oxides percentage (0.52 of basicity index) and with the absence on TiO2 oxides. The pellets measured diameters in the range 1.14–1.72 cm and were characterized in terms of porosity, pores size, tortuosity and compression strength. The pellets were reduced in hydrogen atmosphere in a laboratory shaft furnace in the temperature ranges of 600–1200 °C at the pressures of 1 and 5 bar. The pellets' reduction behaviour was analysed in terms of time to reduction, rate of reduction and kinetics constant. All the obtained results were analysed through the employment of a commercial multi-objective optimization tool (modeFrontier) in order to precisely define the effect of each single parameter on the pellets’ reduction. It was also defined the effect of the ongoing reduction rate of the final metallization of the starting iron oxides

Sparse Randomized Kaczmarz for Support Recovery of Jointly Sparse Corrupted Multiple Measurement Vectors

While single measurement vector (SMV) models have been widely studied in signal processing, there is a surging interest in addressing the multiple measurement vectors (MMV) problem. In the MMV setting, more than one measurement vector is available and the multiple signals to be recovered share some commonalities such as a common support. Applications in which MMV is a naturally occurring phenomenon include online streaming, medical imaging, and video recovery. This work presents a stochastic iterative algorithm for the support recovery of jointly sparse corrupted MMV. We present a variant of the Sparse Randomized Kaczmarz algorithm for corrupted MMV and compare our proposed method with an existing Kaczmarz type algorithm for MMV problems. We also showcase the usefulness of our approach in the online (streaming) setting and provide empirical evidence that suggests the robustness of the proposed method to the distribution of the corruption and the number of corruptions occurring.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Determination of Odor Detection Threshold in the Göttingen Minipig

The aim of the study was to examine the ability of Göttingen minipigs to acquire an olfaction-based operant conditioning task and to determine the detection threshold for ethyl acetate and ethanol. We used an automated olfactometer developed for rodents to train and test 14 pigs. Odor sampling and reliable responding were obtained after three to fifteen 160-trial sessions. Successful transfer of the task from ethyl acetate to ethanol was achieved in 1–4 sessions. Detection threshold for ethyl acetate varied between 10−2% and 10−6% v/v and for ethanol between 0.1% and 5 × 10−6% v/v. The results provide evidence that minipigs can successfully acquire 2-odorant discrimination using a food-rewarded instrumental conditioning paradigm for testing olfactory function. This olfactory discrimination paradigm provides reliable measures of olfactory sensitivity and thereby enables detection of changes in olfaction in a porcine model of Alzheimer's disease currently being developed

Self-focusing effect in Au-target induced by high power pulsed laser at PALS

AbstractSelf-focusing effects, induced by ASTERIX pulsed laser at PALS Laboratory of Prague, have been investigated. Laser was employed at the third harmonics (438 nm) and intensities of the order of 1016 W/cm2. Pure Au was used as thin target and irradiated with 30° incidence angle. An ion energy analyzer was employed to detect the energy-to-mass ratio of emitted ions from plasma. Measurements were performed by changing the focal point position with a high spatial resolution step-motor. Results demonstrated that non linear processes, due to self-focusing effects, occurs when the laser beam is focused at about 200 µm in front of the target surface. In such conditions, a new ion group, having high charge state and kinetic energy, is produced because of the increment in temperature of the laser-generated plasma

Quantization and Compressive Sensing

Quantization is an essential step in digitizing signals, and, therefore, an indispensable component of any modern acquisition system. This book chapter explores the interaction of quantization and compressive sensing and examines practical quantization strategies for compressive acquisition systems. Specifically, we first provide a brief overview of quantization and examine fundamental performance bounds applicable to any quantization approach. Next, we consider several forms of scalar quantizers, namely uniform, non-uniform, and 1-bit. We provide performance bounds and fundamental analysis, as well as practical quantizer designs and reconstruction algorithms that account for quantization. Furthermore, we provide an overview of Sigma-Delta ($\Sigma\Delta$) quantization in the compressed sensing context, and also discuss implementation issues, recovery algorithms and performance bounds. As we demonstrate, proper accounting for quantization and careful quantizer design has significant impact in the performance of a compressive acquisition system.Comment: 35 pages, 20 figures, to appear in Springer book "Compressed Sensing and Its Applications", 201

Experimental studies of generation of ~100 MeV Au-ions from the laser-produced plasma

AbstractUsing the PALS iodine laser system, Au ions with the charge state up to 58+ and with the kinetic energy as high as ~300 MeV were generated. The production of these ions was tested in dependence on the laser frequency (1ω, 3ω), on the irradiation/detection angles (0°, 30°), on the focus position with regard to the target surface, and on the target thickness (500 µm, 200 µm, 80 µm). A larger amount of the fastest ions was produced with 1ω than with 3ω, the most of the fast ions were recorded in the direction ~10°from the target normal, the optimum focus position is in front of the target and should be set on with a precision of 50 µm. The forward emission is weaker than the backward one for both of the thinner targets (which burn through) at our experimental conditions