Design and use of a hackable digital instrument

This paper introduces the D-Box, a new digital musical instrument specifically designed to elicit unexpected creative uses and to support modification by the performer. Rather than taking a modular approach, the D-Box is a hackable instrument which allows for the discovery of novel working configurations through circuit bending techniques. Starting from the concept of appropriation, this paper describes the design, development and evaluation process lasting more than one year and made in collaboration with musicians and hackers.This work was funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under grant EP/K032046/1 (2013-14)

A note on the breathing mode of an elastic sphere in Newtonian and complex fluids

Experiments on the acoustic vibrations of elastic nanostructures in fluid media have been used to study the mechanical properties of materials, as well as for mechanical and biological sensing. The medium surrounding the nanostructure is typically modeled as a Newtonian fluid. A recent experiment however suggested that high-frequency longitudinal vibration of bipyramidal nanoparticles could trigger a viscoelastic response in water-glycerol mixtures [M. Pelton et al., "Viscoelastic flows in simple liquids generated by vibrating nanostructures," Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 244502 (2013)]. Motivated by these experimental studies, we first revisit a classical continuum mechanics problem of the purely radial vibration of an elastic sphere, also called the breathing mode, in a compressible viscous fluid, and then extend our analysis to a viscoelastic medium using the Maxwell fluid model. The effects of fluid compressibility and viscoelasticity are discussed. Although in the case of longitudinal vibration of bipyramidal nanoparticles, the effects of fluid compressibility were shown to be negligible, we demonstrate that it plays a significant role in the breathing mode of an elastic sphere. On the other hand, despite the different vibration modes, the breathing mode of a sphere triggers a viscoelastic response in water-glycerol mixtures similar to that triggered by the longitudinal vibration of bipyramidal nanoparticles. We also comment on the effect of fluid viscoelasticity on the idea of destroying virus particles by acoustic resonance

Strange and charm HVP contributions to the muon (g−2)g - 2) including QED corrections with twisted-mass fermions

We present a lattice calculation of the Hadronic Vacuum Polarization (HVP) contribution of the strange and charm quarks to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon including leading-order electromagnetic corrections. We employ the gauge configurations generated by the European Twisted Mass Collaboration (ETMC) with $N_f = 2+1+1$ dynamical quarks at three values of the lattice spacing ($a \simeq 0.062, 0.082, 0.089$ fm) with pion masses in the range $M_\pi \simeq 210 - 450$ MeV. The strange and charm quark masses are tuned at their physical values. Neglecting disconnected diagrams and after the extrapolations to the physical pion mass and to the continuum limit we obtain: $a_\mu^s(\alpha_{em}^2) = (53.1 \pm 2.5) \cdot 10^{-10}$, $a_\mu^s(\alpha_{em}^3) = (-0.018 \pm 0.011) \cdot 10^{-10}$ and $a_\mu^c(\alpha_{em}^2) = (14.75 \pm 0.56) \cdot 10^{-10}$, $a_\mu^c(\alpha_{em}^3) = (-0.030 \pm 0.013) \cdot 10^{-10}$ for the strange and charm contributions, respectively.Comment: 34 pages, 10 figures, 5 tables; version to appear in JHE

Putting Families First: How the Opioid Epidemic is Affecting Children and Families, and the Child Welfare Policy Options to Address It

Abstract: Opioids and Child Welfare Across the country, placements in foster care are rising. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that 273,539 children in the U.S. entered foster care. In 34 percent of those cases, parental drug abuse was one of the factors leading to the child’s removal from their family. Additionally, the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration estimates that 400,000 births nationally are affected by prenatal exposure to alcohol and illicit drugs, which represents 10 percent of all live births. As the opioid epidemic continues, increasing numbers of children are at high risk for developmental and behavioral disorders because of their prenatal substance and alcohol exposure. In addition, children who remain at home may endure the challenges and trauma resulting from impaired caregiving due to parental substance use disorders (SUDs). This article explores the intersection of the opioid epidemic and child welfare, examining current research and publicly available data to discuss policy opportunities for better serving families affected by parental SUDs, including: ensuring health and safety for infants prenatally exposed to substances; appropriate identification, diagnosis, and treatment of developmental and behavioral needs; ensuring parents have access to outpatient treatment and services that can allow families to stay together when safe and appropriate; and ensuring sufficient access to inpatient treatment options that can serve parents and children together

Determining Ratios of WIMP-Nucleon Cross Sections from Direct Dark Matter Detection Data

Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) are one of the leading candidates for Dark Matter. So far the usual procedure for constraining the WIMP-nucleon cross sections in direct Dark Matter detection experiments have been to fit the predicted event rate based on some model(s) of the Galactic halo and of WIMPs to experimental data. One has to assume whether the spin-independent (SI) or the spin-dependent (SD) WIMP-nucleus interaction dominates, and results of such data analyses are also expressed as functions of the as yet unknown WIMP mass. In this article, I introduce methods for extracting information on the WIMP-nucleon cross sections by considering a general combination of the SI and SD interactions. Neither prior knowledge about the local density and the velocity distribution of halo WIMPs nor about their mass is needed. Assuming that an exponential-like shape of the recoil spectrum is confirmed from experimental data, the required information are only the measured recoil energies (in low energy ranges) and the number of events in the first energy bin from two or more experiments.Comment: 33 pages, 20 eps figures; v2: typos fixed, references added and updated, revised version for publicatio

Proces hadronizacije u duboko-neelastičnom raspršenju u eksperimentu HERMES

The influence of the nuclear medium on lepto-production of hadrons was studied in the HERMES experiment at DESY in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering of 27.6 GeV and 12 GeV positrons off deuterium, and off light and heavy targets. The differential multiplicity for nuclei relative to that of deuterium has been measured for the first time for various identified hadrons (π +, π −, π 0 , K+, K−, p and ¯p) as a function of the virtual photon energy ν, the fraction z of this energy transferred to the hadron, and the hadron transverse momentum squared p 2 t .Proučavamo utjecaj nuklearne tvari na leptonsku tvorbu hadrona u mjerenju HERMES u DESYu poluinkluzivnim duboko-neelastičnim raspršenjem pozitrona energije 27.6 GeV i 12 GeV u deuteriju, te lakim i teškim metama. Načinili smo prva mjerenja omjera diferencijalne višestrukosti za jezgre u odnosu prema deuteriju za više utvrđenih hadrona (π +, π −, π 0 , K+, K−, p and ¯p) u ovisnosti o virtualnoj energiji fotona ν, dijela te energije z predane hadronu i kvadrata poprečnog impulsa pt2

Sigma-model for Generalized Composite p-branes

A multidimensional gravitational model containing several dilatonic scalar fields and antisymmetric forms is considered. The manifold is chosen in the form M = M_0 x M_1 x ... x M_n, where M_i are Einstein spaces (i > 0). The block-diagonal metric is chosen and all fields and scale factors of the metric are functions on M_0. For the forms composite (electro-magnetic) p-brane ansatz is adopted. The model is reduced to gravitating self-interacting sigma-model with certain constraints. In pure electric and magnetic cases the number of these constraints is m(m - 1)/2 where m is number of 1-dimensional manifolds among M_i. In the "electro-magnetic" case for dim M_0 = 1, 3 additional m constraints appear. A family of "Majumdar-Papapetrou type" solutions governed by a set of harmonic functions is obtained, when all factor-spaces M_k are Ricci-flat. These solutions are generalized to the case of non-Ricci-flat M_0 when also some additional "internal" Einstein spaces of non-zero curvature are added to M. As an example exact solutions for D = 11 supergravity and related 12-dimensional theory are presented.Comment: 33 pages, Latex. Some corrections and rearrangements are mad

NLO-QCD corrections to e+ e- --> hadrons in models of TeV-scale gravity

We present results on NLO-QCD corrections to the process e+ e- --> hadrons via photon-, Z- and graviton-exchange in the context of TeV-scale gravity models. The quantitative impact of these QCD corrections for searches of extra dimensions at a Linear Collider is briefly discussed.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, using axodraw.st

The problem of political science and practical politics

Copyright @ 2006 The AuthorsWe reflect on the reasons why there is not a greater and more fruitful relationship between those who seek to understand policy and the political process from academia and those with a similar task in ‘practical politics’. We attribute this lack of engagement to three core factors: (1) from without, instrumental government visions of political science perpetuate the view that the discipline exists to serve those with power; (2) from within, scientism and abstraction diminish the discipline's stock of ‘usable’ product for ‘practical politics’; and (3) where relevant research exists, its uptake is hampered by limited communication between these spheres