2,346 research outputs found
Continued Perseverance: What Causes HAMAS to Stand Despite Constant Opposition
The author uses qualitative methods to examine the reasons why Hamas has endured, despite facing constant military pressure from Israel and suffering substantial casualties. The author finds that the organization has survived because it has been underestimated and dealt with improperly. Now that it has experienced relative success, Hamas has succeeded in discrediting, to a certain extent, the Israeli government. The author recommends that Israel find more effective ways to turn Hamas’s supporters against it in order to weaken the organization and ensure its defeat
International Relations: The Obama Administration’s Relationship with Israel
In this article, the author examines the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s handling of US-Israeli relations via a qualitative analysis of the factors and players involved in the complex dynamics of the President’s dealings with Israel. The author finds that, despite minor exceptions, President Obama’s relations with Israel have been successful
International Relations: The Obama Administration’s Relationship with Israel
In this article, the author examines the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s handling of US-Israeli relations via a qualitative analysis of the factors and players involved in the complex dynamics of the President’s dealings with Israel. The author finds that, despite minor exceptions, President Obama’s relations with Israel have been successful
A Sensitivity and Array-Configuration Study for Measuring the Power Spectrum of 21cm Emission from Reionization
Telescopes aiming to measure 21cm emission from the Epoch of Reionization
must toe a careful line, balancing the need for raw sensitivity against the
stringent calibration requirements for removing bright foregrounds. It is
unclear what the optimal design is for achieving both of these goals. Via a
pedagogical derivation of an interferometer's response to the power spectrum of
21cm reionization fluctuations, we show that even under optimistic scenarios,
first-generation arrays will yield low-SNR detections, and that different
compact array configurations can substantially alter sensitivity. We explore
the sensitivity gains of array configurations that yield high redundancy in the
uv-plane -- configurations that have been largely ignored since the advent of
self-calibration for high-dynamic-range imaging. We first introduce a
mathematical framework to generate optimal minimum-redundancy configurations
for imaging. We contrast the sensitivity of such configurations with
high-redundancy configurations, finding that high-redundancy configurations can
improve power-spectrum sensitivity by more than an order of magnitude. We
explore how high-redundancy array configurations can be tuned to various
angular scales, enabling array sensitivity to be directed away from regions of
the uv-plane (such as the origin) where foregrounds are brighter and where
instrumental systematics are more problematic. We demonstrate that a
132-antenna deployment of the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of
Reionization (PAPER) observing for 120 days in a high-redundancy configuration
will, under ideal conditions, have the requisite sensitivity to detect the
power spectrum of the 21cm signal from reionization at a 3\sigma level at
k<0.25h Mpc^{-1} in a bin of \Delta ln k=1. We discuss the tradeoffs of low-
versus high-redundancy configurations.Comment: 34 pages, 5 figures, 2 appendices. Version accepted to Ap
Comparing resolved-sideband cooling and measurement-based feedback cooling on an equal footing: analytical results in the regime of ground-state cooling
We show that in the regime of ground-state cooling, simple expressions can be
derived for the performance of resolved-sideband cooling --- an example of
coherent feedback control --- and optimal linear measurement-based feedback
cooling for a harmonic oscillator. These results are valid to leading order in
the small parameters that define this regime. They provide insight into the
origins of the limitations of coherent and measurement-based feedback for
linear systems, and the relationship between them. These limitations are not
fundamental bounds imposed by quantum mechanics, but are due to the fact that
both cooling methods are restricted to use only a linear interaction with the
resonator. We compare the performance of the two methods on an equal footing
--- that is, for the same interaction strength --- and confirm that coherent
feedback is able to make much better use of the linear interaction than
measurement-based feedback. We find that this performance gap is caused not by
the back-action noise of the measurement but by the projection noise. We also
obtain simple expressions for the maximal cooling that can be obtained by both
methods in this regime, optimized over the interaction strength.Comment: 14 pages, 2 png figures; v2: revised for publicatio
Where You Know Gerry the Most
Abstract An abstract of the thesis of Matthew Bell for the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. Thesis defense date: 16 November 2010. Title: Where You Know Gerry the Most. Five stories of modern day Missourians trying to make sense of their circumstances, searching to make meaningful connections in a harsh and uncertain world. Some of the experiences of these characters--the failure of a marriage, the disappearance of a friend, the self-sabotage of an addict--lead to different kinds of despair and isolation, but there are also more hopeful, more tender moments: a lonely young woman discovering companionship in a surprising place, a group of young graduates bombarded with disappointment in the post-college world finding comfort in the friendships of one another. These five stories explore the ways we struggle and cope with the daunting immensity of modern life
Integrating Research Data Management into Geographical Information Systems
Ocean modelling requires the production of high-fidelity computational meshes
upon which to solve the equations of motion. The production of such meshes by
hand is often infeasible, considering the complexity of the bathymetry and
coastlines. The use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is therefore a
key component to discretising the region of interest and producing a mesh
appropriate to resolve the dynamics. However, all data associated with the
production of a mesh must be provided in order to contribute to the overall
recomputability of the subsequent simulation. This work presents the
integration of research data management in QMesh, a tool for generating meshes
using GIS. The tool uses the PyRDM library to provide a quick and easy way for
scientists to publish meshes, and all data required to regenerate them, to
persistent online repositories. These repositories are assigned unique
identifiers to enable proper citation of the meshes in journal articles.Comment: Accepted, camera-ready version. To appear in the Proceedings of the
5th International Workshop on Semantic Digital Archives
(http://sda2015.dke-research.de/), held in Pozna\'n, Poland on 18 September
2015 as part of the 19th International Conference on Theory and Practice of
Digital Libraries (http://tpdl2015.info/
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