Sounding rocket measurements of thermal electrons in active nightside aurora

On January 14th 2002 the SIERRA sounding rocket was launched from Poker Flat Research Range, Alaska into active substorm expansion aurora and reached 735 km. For the first time, direct measurements of the cold ionospheric population in darkness were made by the UNH Thermal Electron Detector (TED). At these middle altitudes, understanding this population is important because the thermal electrons can carry currents coupling the lower ionosphere and the magnetospheric auroral source. This thesis, focusing on the development and analysis of this new instrument, incorporates the study of two distinct areas. One area is the direct measurement of the ambient thermal electrons which both form the background of the dynamic high latitude ionosphere and contribute directly to its behavior by modifying the plasma environment for other constituents. The second focus area is the concept that any attempt to measure thermal electrons must also be a careful study of potentials forming near conducting bodies in a plasma, a still poorly understood subject. The TED instrument response shows that a non-monotonic potential barrier can form in the sheath around the detector and prevent access to the core of the thermal electrons. A technique has been developed for reconstructing the plasma distribution which enables key measurements of temperature, density, and flow. Thermal electron core temperatures are seen to vary greatly, from as low as ∼0.1 eV in the polar cap to a maximum of ∼0.8 eV in auroral arcs. Outside active precipitation the density agrees with an independent calculation from the HF wave receiver. This verifies the method used for estimating the payload potential. In the inverted V and Alfvenic regions the HF measure of density was used to normalize our results for the changing payload potential. The thermal data indicate that in the dark, the non-negligible auroral and secondary emission currents must be accounted for in order to understand what controls the spacecraft potential. Finally, it is shown that, given this understanding of the potential structure and a quantitative measure of the payload potential, the critical thermal electron drift should be measurable with this new instrument

Human Eclipse

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College

The Pathological Changes affecting the Endometrium: A Contribution towards their Classification.*

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Alien Registration- Macelman, Elizabeth C. (Bath, Sagadahoc County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/9066/thumbnail.jp

Between frames: feminist experimental media 1960-2010

My dissertation maps a trajectory of feminist experimental media made between the 1960s and 2010 that explore the boundaries between bodies, spaces and media. I argue that this work constitutes an under-explored area within feminist film and media criticism, which requires renewed critical engagement from an interdisciplinary perspective. I develop a critical frame based on definitions of embodiment, liminality and intermediality from the discipline of performance studies. I focus on how these diverse art works engage with different formal thresholds including those between the art object, artist, and viewer within the exhibition site, and those between moving image, visual art, sculpture and performance. I argue these works pose a challenge to existing definitions of cinematic specificity and expand the significance of the medium. I provide three comparative analyses of feminist experimental film and media made between the 1960s and the early 2000s. In the first comparison, I read together Carolee Schneemann's film Plumb Line (1967-72) and Yvonne Rainer's film Lives of Performers (1972). I argue Schneemann and Rainer share a formal aesthetic approach that positions both artists as author and image, employs the body as an art medium and critiques the dynamics of the male gaze within everyday life. In chapter four I consider how Canadian feminist experimental film during the late 1970s and 1980s employed different modes of inter-subjective address. I outline how Patricia Gruben, Brenda Longfellow, Kay Armatage and Midi Onodera construct liminal viewing spaces that blur the distinction between diegetic and non-diegetic space in order to fully engage the viewer. In chapter five I examine the contemporary screen-based art of Shirin Neshat and Eija-Liisa Ahtila. I argue Neshat and Ahtila's use of intermediality includes a feminist critique of cinematic traditions and women's limitations within public and private life. My dissertation concludes that this trajectory of feminist film and experimental media importantly troubles the boundaries of time and space, presence and absence, and subject and object, and expands the possibilities of the different media involved. I situate this research within the intersecting fields of performance studies and media studies. I aim to bridge the discourses of film and performance together, arguing that each discipline benefits greatly from the insights of the other

The Baillies of Mellerstain : the household economy in an eighteenth-century elite household

Account books of household expenses provide details of people's social and economic life. For Scotland during the seventeenth and eighteenth century few, if any, account books are as detailed as those of Lady Grisell Baillie of Jerviswood who lived from 1665-1746. Lady Baillie (nee Hume) is a well-known upper class woman in Scottish history, both in her own right and in relation to the tumultuous political careers of her father (Patrick Hume) and husband (George Baillie). A scholarly edition of the accounts, augmented by an 1822 biography written by her daughter, can provide insight into women's social history in eighteenth-century Scotland. The household accounts, in particular, provide the opportunity to examine what the everyday lifestyles were like for upper-class families in Scotland. These accounts include the expenses of raising and educating children, feeding a large household of family and servants and the extravagant costs involved in overseas travel. What makes Lady Grisell's accounts unique is their level of detail and organization spanning over forty years, from 1692 to 1746. In addition to the accounts the biography, written in the style of times, provides valuable information about the Baillies' marriage, family life and the Baillie girls' upbringing. These sources add to the understanding of the household and marital economy in Scotland during the long eighteenth century

Aurorasaurus and the St Patrick’s Day storm

The recent St. Patrick's Day geomagnetic storm provided a rare chance for the public to witness a dazzling auroral display, even from mid-latitudes. An unprecedented number of citizen scientists reported their sightings to Aurorasaurus, offering an exciting opportunity for future scientific study

A comparison of modeled auroral boundaries with observations from citizen scientists

Over the past year, the citizen science project Aurorasaurus has collected new, globally-distributed, ground-based observations of the aurora and has integrated them with space-based estimates of auroral activity. A case study of these observations were compared to the OVATION Prime model of aurora, run by the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). The observations were comprised of positive and negative sightings directly reported to Aurorasaurus, along with verified tweets, which are positive sightings reported on Twitter and verified by Aurorasaurus users. The observations were collected during March and April 2015, a period spanning three large geomagnetic storms, and covered a wide range of latitudes. The observations demonstrated that, during these events, over 60% of the positive aurora observations (which includes those reported directly to Aurorasaurus and the verified tweets) occurred at latitudes equatorward of the SWPC predicted "view line". New scaling parameters were determined from the relationship of the differences in latitude between the positive observations and the view line, and the maximum probability of visible aurora. Future work testing these scaling parameters and using them in the Aurorasaurus real-time alert system will be presented