Design and realization of an electrophoretron cycler

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is a powerful enzymatic reaction commonly used to amplify specific sequences of Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid (DNA). Since the introduction of the lab on a chip concept, numerous Continuous Flow PCR cyclers were realized with success at the micro scale. As reducing the reactor size and improving thermal management led to reduced sample volumes, results could be achieved much faster with these CF-PCR cyclers than with common commercial cycler. Furthermore, most of these demonstrated CF-PCRs are nowadays evolving towards high-throughput systems. However, most CF-PCR cyclers require complex manipulations and are not flexible (e.g. fixed number of cycles, and/or only usable for PCR …). The concept of the electrophoretron cycler was introduced and demonstrated at the macro scale in 2001. The present work aims at using this electrokinetic cycler combining electroosmosis and electrophoresis in order to achieve cycling of the DNA species in a micro scale on-chip device, while applying only one potential difference. Even limited by polymers properties, appropriate design of the closed-loop microchannel allows the hydrodynamic effect resulting from mass conservation to drastically improve cycling time and species profile. This result has been justified by appropriate theoretical analysis combined with numerical simulations, while polymers properties have been carefully characterized using experiments, resulting in the first micro scale electrophoretron prototype which has been tested in PCR like conditions

Fears and the presence of imaginary companions and personified objects in preschool children

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between a pre-school child’s fears and the child’s use of an imaginary companion or personified object. Preschool-aged children (36 To 74 months) were interviewed using a revised version o f the FSSC-R fear scale, and an imaginary companion questionnaire. Parents were asked to complete a demographic questionnaire. Data analyses revealed that children who did not have an imaginary companion or a personified object had an absolute higher total fear score than children who had this type o f figure, although this difference was not significant. Children with the lowest absolute total fear score had an imaginary companion only. No gender differences were found for presence of an imaginary companion or total fear score. But more girls than boys reported having a personified object. O f those children who reported an imaginary companion, over 60% had a companion of the same sex. No age differences were found in the incidence of imaginary companions, personified objects, or total fear score. More first-born and only children reported an imaginary companion. These findings were discussed in relation to previous studies and the use of fantasy to counteract fear

A History and Assessment of Jonathan Larson's Rent

Title from PDF of title page viewed May 21, 2020Thesis advisor: Felicia LondréVitaIncludes bibliographical references (pages 80-85)Thesis (M.A.)--UMKC Conservatory. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2020This project, a graduate research thesis, intends to provide information and analysis of Jonathan Larson’s 1996 musical Rent. It covers the life and works of Jonathan Larson, the production history of Rent, Rent’s 1896 operatic predecessor La Bohème, and the environmental context in which Rent was created. Additionally it analyzes the artistic merits of Larson’s Rent through the use of Aristotle’s Poetics. The purpose of this thesis is to provide contextual information for future productions of Rent, as well as an argument for Rent’s continued production and significance to theatrical history.Introduction -- Chapter 1: What is Rent? -- Chapter 2: The 1990s -- Chapter 3: Aristotle's poetics -- Conclusio

Pod svetom lipom: nametanje neurotskih i psihotičkih sindroma kao srpska ratna strategija; 1986. - 1995.

This article looks at some of the recurrent themes in Serbian propaganda 1986–95, examining their operation in inculcating collective neurotic and psychotic syndromes and noting the relevance of those syndromes for the war against Croatia and Bosnia, 1991–95. Six pivotal themes in Serbian propaganda are examined: 1. Victimization, in which Serbs were constructed as collective victims first of the NDH, then of Tito’s Yugoslavia, and more specifically of Croats, Albanians, Bosniaks, and other non-Serbs. 2. Dehumanization of designated ‘others’, in which Croats were depicted as ‘genocidal’ and as ‘Ustaše’, Bosniaks were portrayed as ‘fanatical fundamentalists’, and Albanians were represented as not fully human. These processes of dehumanization effectively removed these designated ‘others’ from the moral field, sanctifying their murder or expulsion. 3. Belittlement, in which Serbia’s enemies were represented as beneath contempt. 4. Conspiracy, in which Croats, Slovenes, Albanians, the Vatican, Germany, Austria, and sometimes also the Bosniaks as well as the U.S. and other foreign states, were seen as united in a conspiracy to break up the SFRY and hurt Serbia. In this way, the Belgrade regime’s obstinate disregard for the fundamental standards of international law was dressed up as heroic defiance of an anti-Serb conspiracy. 5. Entitlement, in which the Serbs were constructed as ‘entitled’ to create a Greater Serbian state to which parts of Croatia and Bosnia would be attached, under the motto, ‘All Serbs should live in one state\u27. 6. Superhuman powers and divine sanction. The Serbs were told that they were, in some sense, \u27super\u27. They were the best fighters on the planet, they could stand up to the entire world, they were sanctioned by God himself, be cause of Tsar Lazar and the fact that Lazar had chosen the heavenly kingdom. Moreover, since Lazar had chosen the heavenly kingdom, the Serbs, encouraged to view themselves as Lazar’s heirs, were entitled to the earthly kingdom which Lazar had repudiated, as their patrimony.Ovaj se članak usredotočuje na neke od ponavljajućih tema srpske propagande u razdoblju od 1986. do 1995. godine. Promatrajući njihovo djelovanje u procesu nametanja kolektivnih neurotičnih i psihotičnih sindroma, zapaža se važnost ovih sindroma u ratu protiv Hrvatske i Bosne, 1991-95. godine. Rad razmatra šest k1jučnih tema srpske propagande: 1. Viktimizacija, kojom su Srbi konstruirani kao kolektivna žrtva najprije NDH, zatim Titove Jugoslavije, a posebno kao žrtva Hrvata, Albanaca, Bošnjaka i ostalih ne-Srba. 2. Dehumanizacija označenih \u27drugih\u27, kojom su Hrvati opisani kao "genocidni" i "ustaše", Bošnjaci kao "fanatični fundamentalisti", a Albanci kao niža vrsta ljudi. Ovi procesi dehumanizacije učinkovito su uklonili označene "druge" iz područja morala, sankcionirajući na taj način njihovo ubijanje i protjerivanje. 3. Omalovažavanje, kojim su neprijatelji Srbije prikazani kao dostojni prezira. 4. Urota, u kojoj se Hrvati Slovenci, Albanci, Vatikan, Njemačka, Austrija, a ponekad također i Bošnjaci te neke druge strane države poput SAD vide kao ujedinjene u namjeri da sruše Jugoslaviju i unište Srbiju. Na ovaj je način beogradski režim svoje posvemašnje ignoriranje temeljnih standarda međunarodnog prava prikazao kao herojski otpor anti-srpskoj zavjeri. 5. Polaganje prava, kojim su Srbi konstruirani kao oni kojima je "dano pravo" stvaranja Velike Srbije kao države koja bi pripojila dijelove Hrvatske i Bosne, pod motom "Svi Srbi u jednoj državi". 6. Nadljudske moći i božanski blagoslov. Srbima je rečeno da, su na neki način superiorni - najbolji su borci na planetu, mogu se suprostaviti čitavom svijetu, blagoslovljeni su od samoga Boga, zbog činjenice da je Car Lazar odabrao kraljevstvo Božje. Štoviše: upravo stoga što je Car Lazar odabrao kraljevstvo Božje, a odbacio ono zemaljsko, Srbi, poticani da se vide kao Lazarevi nasljednici, baštine pravo na ostvarenje ovoga posljednjega

Twilight of Impunity: The War Crimes Trial of Slobodan Milosevic

Judith Armatta, a lawyer and journalist, attended the proceedings of the trial of former Serbian president Slobodan Milošević over a period of nearly three years. During this period, the court was in session for 466 days, interrupted by repeated breaks necessitated by the accused’s increasing health problems. Charged with sixty-six counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, Milošević declined to have counsel appointed, electing instead to defend himself. The court’s willingness to allow Milošević to do so and to do so on his own terms proved to be a huge mistake, as Armatta stresses. The fallen Serbian leader’s priority was not to defend himself but rather to portray himself as a martyr for Serbia, outline an alternative history of events in the post-Yugoslav region, and demolish, as far as he was able, the testimony of witnesses. But what is striking is that Milošević’s line of cross-examination repeatedly proved to be damaging to his case, his own witnesses often proved to be more useful to the prosecution that to the defense, and Milošević used up a lot of time with speeches and with lines of questioning entirely irrelevant to the charges against him. Milošević also did his best to intimidate witnesses, entering into arguments with them; one witness, Agim Zeqiri, a farmer, was so shaken after the first day that he refused to continue

Taking advantage of hybrid systems for sparse direct solvers via task-based runtimes

The ongoing hardware evolution exhibits an escalation in the number, as well as in the heterogeneity, of computing resources. The pressure to maintain reasonable levels of performance and portability forces application developers to leave the traditional programming paradigms and explore alternative solutions. PaStiX is a parallel sparse direct solver, based on a dynamic scheduler for modern hierarchical manycore architectures. In this paper, we study the benefits and limits of replacing the highly specialized internal scheduler of the PaStiX solver with two generic runtime systems: PaRSEC and StarPU. The tasks graph of the factorization step is made available to the two runtimes, providing them the opportunity to process and optimize its traversal in order to maximize the algorithm efficiency for the targeted hardware platform. A comparative study of the performance of the PaStiX solver on top of its native internal scheduler, PaRSEC, and StarPU frameworks, on different execution environments, is performed. The analysis highlights that these generic task-based runtimes achieve comparable results to the application-optimized embedded scheduler on homogeneous platforms. Furthermore, they are able to significantly speed up the solver on heterogeneous environments by taking advantage of the accelerators while hiding the complexity of their efficient manipulation from the programmer.Comment: Heterogeneity in Computing Workshop (2014

Pod svetom lipom: nametanje neurotskih i psihotičkih sindroma kao srpska ratna strategija; 1986. - 1995.

This article looks at some of the recurrent themes in Serbian propaganda 1986–95, examining their operation in inculcating collective neurotic and psychotic syndromes and noting the relevance of those syndromes for the war against Croatia and Bosnia, 1991–95. Six pivotal themes in Serbian propaganda are examined: 1. Victimization, in which Serbs were constructed as collective victims first of the NDH, then of Tito’s Yugoslavia, and more specifically of Croats, Albanians, Bosniaks, and other non-Serbs. 2. Dehumanization of designated ‘others’, in which Croats were depicted as ‘genocidal’ and as ‘Ustaše’, Bosniaks were portrayed as ‘fanatical fundamentalists’, and Albanians were represented as not fully human. These processes of dehumanization effectively removed these designated ‘others’ from the moral field, sanctifying their murder or expulsion. 3. Belittlement, in which Serbia’s enemies were represented as beneath contempt. 4. Conspiracy, in which Croats, Slovenes, Albanians, the Vatican, Germany, Austria, and sometimes also the Bosniaks as well as the U.S. and other foreign states, were seen as united in a conspiracy to break up the SFRY and hurt Serbia. In this way, the Belgrade regime’s obstinate disregard for the fundamental standards of international law was dressed up as heroic defiance of an anti-Serb conspiracy. 5. Entitlement, in which the Serbs were constructed as ‘entitled’ to create a Greater Serbian state to which parts of Croatia and Bosnia would be attached, under the motto, ‘All Serbs should live in one state\u27. 6. Superhuman powers and divine sanction. The Serbs were told that they were, in some sense, \u27super\u27. They were the best fighters on the planet, they could stand up to the entire world, they were sanctioned by God himself, be cause of Tsar Lazar and the fact that Lazar had chosen the heavenly kingdom. Moreover, since Lazar had chosen the heavenly kingdom, the Serbs, encouraged to view themselves as Lazar’s heirs, were entitled to the earthly kingdom which Lazar had repudiated, as their patrimony.Ovaj se članak usredotočuje na neke od ponavljajućih tema srpske propagande u razdoblju od 1986. do 1995. godine. Promatrajući njihovo djelovanje u procesu nametanja kolektivnih neurotičnih i psihotičnih sindroma, zapaža se važnost ovih sindroma u ratu protiv Hrvatske i Bosne, 1991-95. godine. Rad razmatra šest k1jučnih tema srpske propagande: 1. Viktimizacija, kojom su Srbi konstruirani kao kolektivna žrtva najprije NDH, zatim Titove Jugoslavije, a posebno kao žrtva Hrvata, Albanaca, Bošnjaka i ostalih ne-Srba. 2. Dehumanizacija označenih \u27drugih\u27, kojom su Hrvati opisani kao "genocidni" i "ustaše", Bošnjaci kao "fanatični fundamentalisti", a Albanci kao niža vrsta ljudi. Ovi procesi dehumanizacije učinkovito su uklonili označene "druge" iz područja morala, sankcionirajući na taj način njihovo ubijanje i protjerivanje. 3. Omalovažavanje, kojim su neprijatelji Srbije prikazani kao dostojni prezira. 4. Urota, u kojoj se Hrvati Slovenci, Albanci, Vatikan, Njemačka, Austrija, a ponekad također i Bošnjaci te neke druge strane države poput SAD vide kao ujedinjene u namjeri da sruše Jugoslaviju i unište Srbiju. Na ovaj je način beogradski režim svoje posvemašnje ignoriranje temeljnih standarda međunarodnog prava prikazao kao herojski otpor anti-srpskoj zavjeri. 5. Polaganje prava, kojim su Srbi konstruirani kao oni kojima je "dano pravo" stvaranja Velike Srbije kao države koja bi pripojila dijelove Hrvatske i Bosne, pod motom "Svi Srbi u jednoj državi". 6. Nadljudske moći i božanski blagoslov. Srbima je rečeno da, su na neki način superiorni - najbolji su borci na planetu, mogu se suprostaviti čitavom svijetu, blagoslovljeni su od samoga Boga, zbog činjenice da je Car Lazar odabrao kraljevstvo Božje. Štoviše: upravo stoga što je Car Lazar odabrao kraljevstvo Božje, a odbacio ono zemaljsko, Srbi, poticani da se vide kao Lazarevi nasljednici, baštine pravo na ostvarenje ovoga posljednjega