The Ethnic 'Other' in Ukrainian History Textbooks: The Case of Russia and the Russians

This paper examines portrayals of Russia and the Russians in two generations of Ukrainian history textbooks. It observes that the textbooks are highly condemning of Ukraine's main ethnic other in the guise of foreign ruler: the tsarist authorities and the Soviet regime are always attributed dubious and malicious intentions even if there is appreciation for some of their policies. By contrast, the books, certainly those of the second generation, refrain from presenting highly biased accounts of the ethnic other as a national group (i.e. Russians). Instances where negative judgements do fall onto Russians are counterbalanced by excerpts criticizing ethnic Ukrainians or highlighting conflicting interests within the Ukrainian ethnic group. The negative appraisal of the ethnic other as foreign ruler is clearly instrumental for the nation-building project as it sustains a discourse legitimating the existence of Ukraine as independent state. However, recent trends in history education, the paper concludes, suggest that the importance of nurturing patriotism as a national policy objective is diminishing

Remarks on Statistical Design Centering

The paper overviews optimization based statistical design centering techniques for analog circuits. Emphasis is placed on dependence between formulation of quality indices, problem formulation, and computational complexity of design centering algorithms, executed in single- or multiple-processor environments. For characterization of solution techniques a standard CMOS op-amp design case and a simplified computational complexity analysis are used

Accuracy Improvement of a Photoacoustic Helmholtz Cell Model

This paper presents a method for improving accuracy of the frequency response of a photoacoustic Helmholtz cell model. The method generates simple non-linear corrections to well-established (reference) delay line model of the cell. The form of the correction functions is obtained from a study of a numerical fitting of the reference model to the measurement data. A novel integral accuracy measure is formulated to compare fit of cell models to actual measurements in the neighborhood of the resonance frequency, which is important for measurement applications of the cell. The two proposed correction functions modify effective values of duct parameters. Despite simplicity the proposed corrections make significant improvement of modeling accuracy, as shown with the integral measure but also with prediction accuracy of the resonance frequency and the cell quality factor. It is significant that substantial accuracy gain due to the corrections was confirmed with measurements of a second (testing) set of photoacoustic Helmholtz cells with geometrical parameter values which are different from these of the first set

Computer-Aided Multi-Layer Design of Switch-Mode Power Circuits

Switch-mode circuits are used as power processors, e.g. DC/DC converters, synchronous rectifiers, high-frequency resonant power amplifiers. Their efficient computer-aided design is a technical problem only partly resolved so far. This paper presents a multi-layer CAD methodology for switch-mode power circuits. It discusses several levels of modeling of switching devices. First rough design verification is feasible using ideal switch models. It gives a satisfactory first-cut design. Then full models and general-purpose tools provide more exact verification of the design. At this exact step the design procedure makes use of interactive improvement followed by automatic optimization of some quality based objective functions. The proposed methodology is shown to be especially useful for high power class-D voltage-switching resonant amplifiers, where the so far used experimental optimization is extremely cost consuming

Remarks on Statistical Design Centering

The paper overviews optimization based statistical design centering techniques for analog circuits. Emphasis is placed on dependence between formulation of quality indices, problem formulation, and computational complexity of design centering algorithms, executed in single- or multiple-processor environments. For characterization of solution techniques a standard CMOS op-amp design case and a simplified computational complexity analysis are used

Microphonic Disturbances Prediction and Compensation in Pulsed Superconducting Accelerators

Accelerators are affected by the cavities detuning variation caused by external mechanical disturbances (microphonics). The paper presents microphonics estimation and prediction methods applicable for superconducting accelerators operating in pulsed mode. A mathematical model is built using the estimates of detuning during previous RF pulses. The model can be used for predictions of disturbances for the future time step and setup of the fast tuners accordingly. The proposed method was successfully verified with measurements conducted at the FLASH linac