Biaxial prestressing of brittle materials

Strengthening of chemically consolidated zirconia with tungsten fibers, graphite fibers, sapphire whiskers, and silicon carbide whiskers is investigated. Addition of silicon carbide whiskers gives the highest increase in strength of zirconia at room and elevated temperatures. Prestressing with tungsten cables increases tensile strength and ductilit

From State to Market: A Survey of Empirical Studies on Privatization

This study surveys the academic and professional literature examining the privatisation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), with a focus on empirical studies. Privatisation has been instrumental in reducing state ownership in many countries and had a transforming effect on global stock markets, although the role of SOEs in many other countries is similar to what it was two decades ago. Countries have adopted large-scale privatisation programs primarily for two reasons: first, the conclusive evidence that privately-owned firms outperform SOEs and, second, the empirical evidence clearly shows that privatisation significantly (often dramatically) improves the operating and financial performance of divested firms. Governments can also raise significant revenues by selling SOEs. While the choice between privatisation via public share offering versus through asset sales is still imperfectly understood, factors such as firm size, government fiscal condition, and the state of national economic development are important influences. Further, those countries which have chosen the mass (voucher) privatisation route have done so largely out of necessity--and face ongoing efficiency problems as a result. Governments have great discretion in pricing the SOEs they sell, especially those being sold via public share offering, and they use this discretion to pursue political and economic ends. Finally, investors who purchase the shares of firms being privatised earn significantly positive excess returns both in the short-run (due to deliberate underpricing of share issues by the government) and over one, three, and five-year investment horizons.Capital, Investment, Employment, Financing policy, Ownership structure, Investment banking, Venture capital, Brokerage, Public economics, Sources of revenue, Public enterprises, Boundaries of public and private enterprise, Privatisation, Contracting out

Language-based multimedia information retrieval

This paper describes various methods and approaches for language-based multimedia information retrieval, which have been developed in the projects POP-EYE and OLIVE and which will be developed further in the MUMIS project. All of these project aim at supporting automated indexing of video material by use of human language technologies. Thus, in contrast to image or sound-based retrieval methods, where both the query language and the indexing methods build on non-linguistic data, these methods attempt to exploit advanced text retrieval technologies for the retrieval of non-textual material. While POP-EYE was building on subtitles or captions as the prime language key for disclosing video fragments, OLIVE is making use of speech recognition to automatically derive transcriptions of the sound tracks, generating time-coded linguistic elements which then serve as the basis for text-based retrieval functionality

Clause union and verb raising phenomena in German

In this paper we discuss a class of constructions in German syntax which have been known as coherent infinitive, clause union or verb raising constructions. These data run against the predictions of strictly configurational theories by apparently having a syntactic structure where the subcategorization frames of two or more verbal heads are merged into one. Thus, in addition to a fully bi-clausal structure with two clearly separated verbal heads, we also have to envisage the case where a verb is apparently raised from an embedded to form a verb cluster together with its governing verb, while the sets of their arguments are merged into a single set, representing the case of clause union. In addition, there are constructions where there is no evidence for clause union, but where one could nevertheless argue for the formation of a verb cluster. We investigate these data by looking at a series of constructions which bear evidence on the issue. Among these are extraposition, which appears a reliable test for nonobligatory verb raising; subjectless constructions, which are possible only as the complements of so-called raising verbs but not of control verbs; S-pronominalization, which seems to be limited to equi-verbs; scrambling and long reflexivization, which we can take as evidence for clause union; the scope of adjuncts and negation which argues in favour of verb raising, but does not necessarily presuppose clause union; and finally certain topicalization phenomena which appear to violate almost any of the generalizations set up so far by configurational theories

The graphic construct of the contemporary reportage artist: Vison, experience and drawing

The focus of this research is to re-locate contemporary reportage drawing. Reportage drawing, as I am defining it here, is the contemporary practice of drawing people and places in-situ from observation, memory, or imagination. Cleaved from its historical function and journalistic orientation, the contemporary practice engages with the dialogic act of drawing and the subjectivities that pervade it, rendering two-fold experience; the experience of the subject in-situ and in the act of drawing. The re-creative experience of the drawing act and the communion with the artist’s negotiations in-situ are entered through the graphic construct of the artist. The record of the drawing evokes this complexly layered act, rendering a highly specific experience of the subject. This view of reportage drawing is distinct from existing research in that it looks at its form and formation using art history, drawing theorists, theory on experience, and space and place. Looking at the role of observation and artistic training from an art historical perspective, the act is seen as emerging from the practice of the sketch and how that aesthetic, and the perception of that aesthetic as spontaneous and responsive, is an exploited property of reportage. Existing research in reportage has looked at its diverse functions and history along with its potential as a political act. The research presented here explores the act as rooted to the specific graphic construct of the artist, the totality of the experience in-situ, and the wider intentions of the artist, bound by the same desire to relay the experience of the subject without artifice. In the presence of photography and a fluid media landscape, reportage drawing persisted through the 20th and now 21st century not as a competitor, but an alternative, and the graphic construct of reportage drawing has taken ownership of a unique testimony to personal experience and perception. Through interviews with two contemporary practitioners of reportage and my own reportage practice and reflections, I identify that the work is the composite of concerns, condensed in the graphic construct of the drawing, and shaped by the layered experience of working in-situ. Interviews and a video of artists in-situ highlight the procedural choices made and how the drawings are containers of experience in their form and formation. The successful record of the drawing results in a re-creative experience of the conditions of its making and an insight into the experience of the artist in-situ. Detached from journalistic ideals, contemporary reportage drawing is a diffuse practice, sharing only the singular desire to express personal vision and engage with the potentialities of drawing itself