An Annotated Checklist of the Lepidoptera of the Beaver Island Archipelago, Lake Michigan.

A survey of Lepidoptera was conducted in 1987 and 1988 on Beaver Island, Lake Michigan. When combined with a 1930 survey of the Beaver Island Archipelago, 757 species from 41 families have now been recorded from these islands

Development of improved high temperature coatings for IN-792 + HF

The development for t-55 l712 engine of high temperature for integral turbine nozzles with improved thermal fatigue resistance without sacrificing oxidation/corrosion protection is discussed. The program evaluated to coating systems which comprised one baseline plasma spray coating (12% Al-NiCoCrALY), three aluminide coatings including the baseline aluminide (701), two CoNiCrAly (6% Al) + aluminide systems and four NiCoCrY + aluminide coating were evaluated. The two-step coating processes were investigated since it offered the advantage of tailoring the composition as well as properly coating surfaces of an integral or segmented nozzle. Cyclic burner rig thermal fatigue and oxidation/corrosion tests were used to evaluate the candidate coating systems. The plasma sprayed 12% Al-NiCoCrAlY was rated the best coating in thermal fatigue resistance and outperformed all coatings by a factor between 1.4 to 2.5 in cycles to crack initiation. However, this coatings is not applicable to integral or segmented nozzles due to the line of sight limitation of the plasma spray process. The 6% Al-CoNiCrAlY + Mod. 701 aluminide (32 w/o Al) was rated the best coating in oxidation/corrosion resistance and was rated the second best in thermal fatigue resistance

Racism in Development and Development Cooperation

Development cooperation or aid is often perceived as a form of charity or a good deed that is being carried out only with the best intentions. Racism, on the other hand, is most often connected with right wing extremism (even though in Slovakia it is connected also with the wider political center). The basic assumption of this theoretical article is the opposite. One can find racism also in development and development cooperation. The article tries to answer the following question: What are the main forms of racism in development and development cooperation? On the basis of the extant and my own research the article categorizes the forms of racism in development and development cooperation and identifies the three main ones: development discourse, structural racism connected with the racially di!erentiated global capitalist system and an everyday racism connected with racially biased institutions. The conclusion poses a question regarding the way one may fight these forms of racism and briefly answers it

On the Discussion about Racism

V prvním letošním čísle Mezinárodních vztahů vyšel článek Tomáše Profanta s názvem Rasizmus v rozvoji a rozvojové spolupráci. Publikování textu spustilo živou diskusi, kterou se redakce rozhodla podpořit oslovením některých dalších autorů a autorek a transformovat do podoby diskusního fóra. Jednotlivé příspěvky, které na rozdíl od Profantova článku neprocházely plnohodnotným recenzním řízením, se tak vyrovnávají s argumenty a metodologickými postupy původního textu, rozvíjejí jej a lokalizují do místních podmínek či poukazují na empirické příklady, jež jej potvrzují. Celé fórum uzavírá odpověď Tomáše Profanta na jednotlivé vznesené připomínky. Byť fórum reaguje na konkrétní článek, doufáme, že by i tato diskuse mohla přispět k širší reflexi práce s konceptem rasismu a její implikace pro politickou praxi. Věříme, že právě v tomto je tato debata v současném akademickém i politickém kontextu velmi aktuální

Robust Speaker Verification

Cílem této práce je analyzovat úspěšnost systému rozpoznávaní mluvčího na nahrávkach degradovaných různym telefonním přenosovým kanálem. Použili jsme dva způsoby extrakce příznaků - Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) a moderní systém, který spojuje Bottleneck příznaky spolu s MFCC. Systém rozpoznávání mluvčího je založen na i-vektorech a Pravděpodobnostní Lineární Diskriminační Analýze (PLDA). Porovnali jsme scenáře, kde je PLDA trénovaná jen na čisté řeči, poté systém kde jsme přidali data s hlukem a reverberací a nakonec, data degradované kodekem. Vyhodnotili jsem systémy za rovnakých podmínek (data ze stejného kodeku byli také v trénování PLDA) a také za rozdílnych podmínek (data ze stejného kodeku resp. rodiny kodeků nebyli v trénování PLDA). Také jsme experimentovali s nedávno představenou technikou na adaptaci kanálu - Within-class Covariance Correction (WCC). Můžeme jednoznačně vidět zlepšení úspěšnosti přidáním degradovaných dat do PLDA resp. WCC (s přibližně stejným výsledkem) pro obě naše testované podmínky.The goal of this paper is to analyze the impact of codec degraded speech on a state-ofthe-art speaker recognition system. Two feature extraction techniques are analyzed - Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and the state-of-the-art system using Bottleneck features together with MFCC. Speaker recognition system is based on i-vector and Probabilistic Linear Discriminant Analysis (PLDA). We compared scenarios where PLDA is trained only on clean data, then system where we added also noise and reverberant data, and at last, codec degraded speech. We evaluated the systems on the matched conditions (data from the same codec are seen with PLDA) and also mismatched conditions (PLDA does not see any data from the tested codec). We experimented also with recently introduced technique for channel adaptation - Within-class Covariance Correction (WCC). We can see clear benefit of adding transcoded data to PLDA or WCC (with approximately same gain) for both tested conditions (matched and mismatched).

China in Africa: A World-System Analysis

As China rises so does its involvement abroad, in particular in various African countries. The aim of this paper is to use the world-system theory advanced by Immanuel Wallerstein and apply it on the case of Chinese economic and geopolitical activities on the African continent. The analysis is thus based on the division of the world into core, semiperiphery and periphrey. These areas are divided on the basis of the sophistication of their production, which results in the creation of monopolies and quasi-monopolies. The paper shows the nature of trade between China and Africa, which confirms the basic pattern of relations in the hierarchy of international economic relations. Whereas China moved in the hierarchy from the periphery to the semiperiphery, Africa remains a periferal world region. The paper also shows Sudan and Taiwan as special cases that offer a different understanding of the Chinese foreign policy. The question with these two cases becomes whether China practices a single foreign policy and how human rights and their normative power influence Chienese policy. The conclusion normatively assess the consequences of Chinese policy for Africa. Overall the paper is written from a political-economic perspective and emphasizes the economic element in international relations bordering the subfield of geo-economics

Effectiveness of End-of-Life Strategies to Improve Health Outcomes and Reduce Disparities in Rural Appalachia: An analytic codebook

Appalachia is one of the most medically underserved areas in the nation. The region has provider shortages and limited healthcare infrastructure. Children and adolescents in this area are in poor health and do not receive the needed quality care. Implementation of section 2302 of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) enabled children enrolled in Medicaid/Children\u27s Health Insurance Program with a terminal illness to use hospice care while continuing treatment for their terminal illness. In addition to being more comprehensive than standard hospice care, this relatively new type of care is more culturally congruent with the end-of-life values of rural Appalachian families, who often view standard hospice as hastening death. The overall goal of this project was to investigate access to pediatric concurrent hospice care in Appalachia. Our central hypothesis was that concurrent care reduces rural/urban disparities in access to hospice care. Data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) used in this project was used and included 1,788 children who resided in the Appalachian region– from January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2013. Observations with missing birth dates, death dates, and participants older than 21 years were removed from the final sample. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) databases were created to map the boundaries of the Appalachian region, hospice locations, and driving times to them

The ab-initio aided strain gradient elasticity theory: a new concept for fracture nanomechanics

When the width of cracked nanocomponents made of brittle or quasi-brittle materials is less than approximately , the size of the - dominance zone becomes smaller than  and comparable to the fracture process zone ( ). The fracture process starts to be dominated by far-stress field terms and the critical stress intensity factor can no more represent the total fracture driving force. This means a breakdown of a classical linear elastic fracture mechanics suffering from the undesirable crack-tip stress singularity. The contribution presents a new concept expected to properly predict the critical crack driving force for nano-components: The ab-initio aided strain gradient elasticity theory (AI-SGET). In contrast to the Barenblatt cohesive model, the strain gradient elasticity theory does not require to prescribe a suitable field of cohesive tractions along the crack faces in order to eliminate the stress singularity and to exhibit cusp-like profiles of crack flanks close to the crack front in accordance with atomistic models. The only unknown and necessary quantity is the material length scale parameter which can be, e.g., determined by best strain gradient elasticity fits of ab-initio computed phonon-dispersions and near-dislocation displacement fields. Atomistic approaches can also be employed to determine fracture mechanical parameters (crack driving force, crack tip opening displacement) related to the moment of crack instability in a given material.  Such AI-SGET codes can then be utilized to a successful prediction of fracture of cracked nanocomponents made of brittle or quasi-brittle materials. &nbsp