Happy Saint Patrick\u27s Day

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay\u27s first paragraph. How did I spend Saint Patrick\u27s Day 1983? I bought a car. Fifteen minutes later, I was calling for someone to pick me up. How did it happen? Did I spark your imagination

The KW-boundary hybrid digital waveguide mesh for room acoustics applications

The digital waveguide mesh is a discrete-time simulation used to model acoustic wave propagation through a bounded medium. It can be applied to the simulation of the acoustics of rooms through the generation of impulse responses suitable for auralization purposes. However, large-scale three-dimensional mesh structures are required for high quality results. These structures must therefore be efficient and also capable of flexible boundary implementation in terms of both geometrical layout and the possibility for improved mesh termination algorithms. The general one-dimensional N-port boundary termination is investigated, where N depends on the geometry of the modeled domain and the mesh topology used. The equivalence between physical variable Kirchoff-model, and scattering-based wave-model boundary formulations is proved. This leads to the KW-hybrid one-dimensional N-port boundary-node termination, which is shown to be equivalent to the Kirchoff- and wave-model cases. The KW-hybrid boundary-node is implemented as part of a new hybrid two-dimensional triangular digital waveguide mesh. This is shown to offer the possibility for large-scale, computationally efficient mesh structures for more complex shapes. It proves more accurate than a similar rectilinear mesh in terms of geometrical fit, and offers significant savings in processing time and memory use over a standard wave-based model. The new hybrid mesh also has the potential for improved real-world room boundary simulations through the inclusion of additional mixed modeling algorithms

Taking Stock: An Approach to Engaging the Australian Dairy Industry in Farm Business Management

This paper describes the development and achievements of a farm management service available to all dairy farmers in Australia. Dairy businesses in Australia came under severe pressure between the years 2002 and 2004 when three events coincided: a prolonged drought; deregulation which removed protection on milk prices; a downturn in the global commodity price for milk. Taking Stock was developed as a farm management service to help businesses respond to these pressures. Significant development challenges were encountered to ensure services reached 9,500 farmers who were scattered across 7,682,300 square kilometres using vastly different production systems to farm under temperate, sub-tropical or Mediterranean climate zones. These businesses were receiving varying degrees of support from a variety of organisations in the service sector. We ask the question, to what extent can a program like Taking Stock build industry confidence and enable an industry to develop a more inquisitive business culture? We conclude that progress can be made as a whole of industry towards building confidence and to improve the level of inquiry among farmers if seven development factors are addressed by the program.Livestock Production/Industries,

The reinvigoration of Scottish further education sector: an exploration and analysis of the recent reforms

In July 2012 the Scottish Government published ‘Reinvigorating College Governance: the Scottish Response to The Report of the Review of Further Education Governance in Scotland’. The Report advanced a radical new structure for the Scottish Further Education (FE) sector and the overall impact has been unparalleled, creating seismic transformations to its operating structure and governance. The newly emerging paradigm overturned previous structural and governance arrangements, rescaling the Scottish FE landscape. This paper analyses the recent policy context unfolding within the Scottish FE sector; illuminating the central driving forces and legitimising discourses behind the current restructuring, cognisant of the emergent European educational policy space. It argues that the emerging policy reforms for Scottish FE, commonly referred to as ‘regionalisation’, is simultaneously a continuation and departure from the governing structures set in place in the early 1990s. The paper offers productive ways of framing thinking about the regionalisation of Scottish FE. Consequently, it will be of interest to Scottish Government policy makers and those working within or in partnership with the Scottish FE sector

Carnivore: Will It Devour Your Privacy?

Perhaps you have written an e-mail that looks something like this

Degeneracy between mass and spin in black-hole-binary waveforms

We explore the degeneracy between mass and spin in gravitational waveforms emitted by black-hole binary coalescences. We focus on spin-aligned waveforms and obtain our results using phenomenological models that were tuned to numerical-relativity simulations. A degeneracy is known for low-mass binaries (particularly neutron-star binaries), where gravitational-wave detectors are sensitive to only the inspiral phase, and the waveform can be modelled by post-Newtonian theory. Here, we consider black-hole binaries, where detectors will also be sensitive to the merger and ringdown, and demonstrate that the degeneracy persists across a broad mass range. At low masses, the degeneracy is between mass ratio and total spin, with chirp mass accurately determined. At higher masses, the degeneracy persists but is not so clearly characterised by constant chirp mass as the merger and ringdown become more significant. We consider the importance of this degeneracy both for performing searches (including searches where only non-spinning templates are used) and in parameter extraction from observed systems. We compare observational capabilities between the early (~2015) and final (2018 onwards) versions of the Advanced LIGO detector.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure

Multidimensional simulations of magnetic field amplification and electron acceleration to near-energy equipartition with ions by a mildly relativistic quasi-parallel plasma collision

The energetic electromagnetic eruptions observed during the prompt phase of gamma-ray bursts are attributed to synchrotron emissions. The internal shocks moving through the ultrarelativistic jet, which is ejected by an imploding supermassive star, are the likely source of this radiation. Synchrotron emissions at the observed strength require the simultaneous presence of powerful magnetic fields and highly relativistic electrons. We explore with one and three-dimensional relativistic particle-in-cell simulations the transition layer of a shock, that evolves out of the collision of two plasma clouds at a speed 0.9c and in the presence of a quasi-parallel magnetic field. The cloud densities vary by a factor of 10. The number densities of ions and electrons in each cloud, which have the mass ratio 250, are equal. The peak Lorentz factor of the electrons is determined in the 1D simulation, as well as the orientation and the strength of the magnetic field at the boundary of the two colliding clouds. The relativistic masses of the electrons and ions close to the shock transition layer are comparable as in previous work. The 3D simulation shows rapid and strong plasma filamentation behind the transient precursor. The magnetic field component orthogonal to the initial field direction is amplified in both simulations to values that exceed those expected from the shock compression by over an order of magnitude. The forming shock is quasi-perpendicular due to this amplification. The simultaneous presence of highly relativistic electrons and strong magnetic fields will give rise to significant synchrotron emissions.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures. This work was presented at 21st International Conference on Numerical Simulation of Plasmas (ICNSP'09). Accepted for publication IEEE Trans. on Plasma Scienc

'Unlicensed' natural killer cells dominate the response to cytomegalovirus infection.

Natural killer (NK) cells expressing inhibitory receptors that bind to self major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I are 'licensed', or rendered functionally more responsive to stimulation, whereas 'unlicensed' NK cells lacking receptors for self MHC class I are hyporesponsive. Here we show that contrary to the licensing hypothesis, unlicensed NK cells were the main mediators of NK cell-mediated control of mouse cytomegalovirus infection in vivo. Depletion of unlicensed NK cells impaired control of viral titers, but depletion of licensed NK cells did not. The transfer of unlicensed NK cells was more protective than was the transfer of licensed NK cells. Signaling by the tyrosine phosphatase SHP-1 limited the proliferation of licensed NK cells but not that of unlicensed NK cells during infection. Thus, unlicensed NK cells are critical for protection against viral infection

The legacy of postmodernism in educational theory

No abstract available