Effects of Magnetic Fields on the Diskoseismic Modes of Accreting Black Holes

The origin of the rapid quasi-periodic variabilities observed in a number of accreting black hole X-ray binaries is not understood. It has been suggested that these variabilities are associated with diskoseismic oscillation modes of the black hole accretion disk. In particular, in a disk with no magnetic field, the so-called g-modes (inertial oscillations) can be self-trapped at the inner region of the disk due to general relativistic effects. Real accretion disks, however, are expected to be turbulent and contain appreciable magnetic fields. We show in this paper that even a weak magnetic field (with the magnetic energy much less than the thermal energy) can modify or "destroy" the self-trapping zone of disk g-modes, rendering their existence questionable in realistic black hole accretion disks. The so-called corrugation modes (c-modes) are also strongly affected when the poloidal field approaches equal-partition. On the other hand, acoustic oscillations (p-modes), which do not have vertical structure, are not affected qualitatively by the magnetic field, and therefore may survive in a turbulent, magnetic disk.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

System And Method For Validating A Multi-Digit Number

The present disclosure provides a modified type of MOD 10 algorithm for validating a multi-digit number. Such MOD 10 algorithm may also be referred to as modified Luhn check or modifies Wagner check. The proposed modified Luhn check extends range of the Luhn check from 1 to 10 while preserving integrity of the multi-digit number when the multi-digit number is manually captured or typed. Also, by the proposed method, 9 times more PANs may be introduced without increasing the length of the PAN

Asset-Based Policy in Hong Kong: Child Development Fund

The government of Hong Kong launched the HK$300 million Child Development Fund (CDF) in November 2008 to “capitalize on the strengths of various sectors in the community to help our disadvantaged children,” according to then Hong Kong’s Secretary for Labor and Welfare, Mr. Matthew Cheung Kin-chung. The Hong Kong government drew upon the asset-building research and experience of the Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University in St. Louis. Michael Sherraden of CSD consulted for the Hong Kong Government’s Commission on Poverty that planned the CDF policy

Perception of prosodic variation for speech synthesis using an unsupervised discrete representation of F0

In English, prosody adds a broad range of information to segment sequences, from information structure (e.g. contrast) to stylistic variation (e.g. expression of emotion). However, when learning to control prosody in text-to-speech voices, it is not clear what exactly the control is modifying. Existing research on discrete representation learning for prosody has demonstrated high naturalness, but no analysis has been performed on what these representations capture, or if they can generate meaningfully-distinct variants of an utterance. We present a phrase-level variational autoencoder with a multi-modal prior, using the mode centres as "intonation codes". Our evaluation establishes which intonation codes are perceptually distinct, finding that the intonation codes from our multi-modal latent model were significantly more distinct than a baseline using k-means clustering. We carry out a follow-up qualitative study to determine what information the codes are carrying. Most commonly, listeners commented on the intonation codes having a statement or question style. However, many other affect-related styles were also reported, including: emotional, uncertain, surprised, sarcastic, passive aggressive, and upset.Comment: Published to the 10th ISCA International Conference on Speech Prosody (SP2020

Mirror-Touch Synaesthesia Is Not Associated with Heightened Empathy, and Can Occur with Autism.

Research has linked Mirror-Touch (MT) synaesthesia with enhanced empathy. We test the largest sample of MT synaesthetes to date to examine two claims that have been previously made: that MT synaesthetes (1) have superior empathy; and (2) only ever experience their MT synaesthesia in response to viewing a person being touched. Given that autism has been suggested to involve deficits in cognitive empathy, we also test two predictions: that MT synaesthetes should (3) be less likely than general population individuals without MT synaesthesia to have an autism spectrum condition (ASC), if MT is characterized by superior empathy; and (4) have fewer autistic traits. We selected three groups: a pure MT synaesthesia group (N = 46), a pure grapheme-colour (GC) synaesthesia group (N = 36), and a typical control group without synaesthesia (N = 46). Participants took three measures of empathy and one measure of autistic traits. MT synaesthetes did not show enhanced empathy. In addition, 30% of all MT synaesthetes recruited into this study (N = 135) reported also having ASC, and MT synaesthetes showed higher autistic trait scores than controls. Finally, some MT experiences were reported in response to viewing objects being touched. Our findings dispute the views that MT synaesthesia is linked with enhanced empathy, is less likely to occur with ASC or elevated autistic traits, and is specific to seeing a person being touched.European Commission (studentship), Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council, Autism Research Trust,National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East of England at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, William Binks Autism Neuroscience Fellowship, Wolfson College Cambridge, O’Brien Scholars Program within the Child and Youth Mental Health Collaborative at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, CanadaThis is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the Public Library of Science via http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.016054

Defect correction methods for computational aeroacoustics

The idea of Defect Correction Method (DCM) has been around for a long time. It can be used in a number of different ways and can be applied to solve various linear and non-linear problems. Most defect correction related methods were used in conjunction with discretisation methods and two-level multigrid methods. This thesis examines how various iterative methods, both for linear and nonlinear problems, may be built into a unified framework through the use of defect correction. The framework is extended to the area of Computational Aeroacoustics (CAA) where sound waves generated by the pressure fluctuations are typically several orders of magnitude smaller than the pressure variations in the main flow field that accounts for flow acceleration. A decomposition of variables is used to break down the components of a typical flow variable into (1) the mean flow, (2) flow perturbations or aerodynamic sources of sound, and (3) the acoustic perturbation. The framework as discussed in this thesis would incorporate such variable decomposition. The basic principle of DCM can be applied to recover the propagating acoustic perturbation through a coupling technique. This provides an excellent concept in the re-use of existing commercial CFD software based on the framework and in the retrieval of acoustic pressure. Numerical examples demonstrating the defect correction framework for a typical car sun-roof problem was examined with promising numerical results. To this end the complete process of coupling Reynolds average Navier-Stokes and the Helmholtz equation is also presented using the DCM framework. The DCM framework is also extended to handle higher order numerical methods for the numerical solutions of partial differential equations leading to an easy re-use of existing software approximating derivatives with a lower order discretisation. Numerical experiments were performed to demonstrate the capability of the DCM framework. It is also used to a simplified 2-D problems aiming at the understanding of Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and filtering techniques. To this end the framework of DCM leads to an efficient and robust software implementation for many CFD and aeroacoustic computation in a simple nutshell

Sport Management Internship Quality and the Development of Political Skill: A Conceptual Model

Internships are a key component of sport organizations and the sport management curriculum. Due to the vastness of internships both in academia and the sport profession, it is imperative to understand the effectiveness of internships for both the organization and the intern. While previous research has focused on quality control, the agency’s perspective of internships, the student’s perspective, and how to link the theory to practice, scholars have yet to examine the effects of sport management internships on the development of essential professional skills and/or attributes. Given the political nature of obtaining and keeping a job in the sport business, the purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual model that allows the effectiveness of a sport management internship to be evaluated according to its effect on the political skill of interns. Understanding the internship as one component of the sport management curricula, the conceptual model links sport management students’ developmental experiences, and internship quality to the development of political skill, and three secondary outcomes (i.e., domain-specific self-efficacy, sport industry identification, and future employment intentions). In doing so a comprehensive method for evaluating the effectiveness of internships that prioritizes the student’s growth is offered