Framing the Dark Web: A study in portrayal of the Dark Web in documentary films

Through its name, the Dark Web is often associated with activities that are generally illegal and unethical, but why is this? Through the different services that make up the Dark Web, it stands as a technology that inherently exists to protect people's privacy and free speech. This thesis aims to examine how media portrays the Dark Web and how its association is so negatively loaded through the lens of documentary film. This thesis applies a theoretical framework of rhetoric and documentary film from Bill Nichols and Carl Plantinga in a comparative study of the two films "Inside the Dark Web" by BBC and "Down the Deep, Dark Web" by Zygote Films and Upian. The comparative study explores how these documentaries apply various techniques and thematic focuses to portray the Dark Web. It is shown that there is a commonality in what they communicate. However, how they apply techniques to communicate; reveal a distinctive difference. The thesis argues that both documentaries give more explicit and detailed depictions of negative aspects and focus on the negatives from the Dark Web, thus reinforcing the association and narrative that the Dark Web is not a place for everyone

Framing the Dark Web: A study in portrayal of the Dark Web in documentary films

Through its name, the Dark Web is often associated with activities that are generally illegal and unethical, but why is this? Through the different services that make up the Dark Web, it stands as a technology that inherently exists to protect people's privacy and free speech. This thesis aims to examine how media portrays the Dark Web and how its association is so negatively loaded through the lens of documentary film. This thesis applies a theoretical framework of rhetoric and documentary film from Bill Nichols and Carl Plantinga in a comparative study of the two films "Inside the Dark Web" by BBC and "Down the Deep, Dark Web" by Zygote Films and Upian. The comparative study explores how these documentaries apply various techniques and thematic focuses to portray the Dark Web. It is shown that there is a commonality in what they communicate. However, how they apply techniques to communicate; reveal a distinctive difference. The thesis argues that both documentaries give more explicit and detailed depictions of negative aspects and focus on the negatives from the Dark Web, thus reinforcing the association and narrative that the Dark Web is not a place for everyone

Symmetries and Elasticity of Nematic Gels

A nematic liquid-crystal gel is a macroscopically homogeneous elastic medium with the rotational symmetry of a nematic liquid crystal. In this paper, we develop a general approach to the study of these gels that incorporates all underlying symmetries. After reviewing traditional elasticity and clarifying the role of broken rotational symmetries in both the reference space of points in the undistorted medium and the target space into which these points are mapped, we explore the unusual properties of nematic gels from a number of perspectives. We show how symmetries of nematic gels formed via spontaneous symmetry breaking from an isotropic gel enforce soft elastic response characterized by the vanishing of a shear modulus and the vanishing of stress up to a critical value of strain along certain directions. We also study the phase transition from isotropic to nematic gels. In addition to being fully consistent with approaches to nematic gels based on rubber elasticity, our description has the important advantages of being independent of a microscopic model, of emphasizing and clarifying the role of broken symmetries in determining elastic response, and of permitting easy incorporation of spatial variations, thermal fluctuations, and gel heterogeneity, thereby allowing a full statistical-mechanical treatment of these novel materials.Comment: 21 pages, 4 eps figure

Time--Distance Helioseismology Data Analysis Pipeline for Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager onboard Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO/HMI) and Its Initial Results

The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO/HMI) provides continuous full-disk observations of solar oscillations. We develop a data-analysis pipeline based on the time-distance helioseismology method to measure acoustic travel times using HMI Doppler-shift observations, and infer solar interior properties by inverting these measurements. The pipeline is used for routine production of near-real-time full-disk maps of subsurface wave-speed perturbations and horizontal flow velocities for depths ranging from 0 to 20 Mm, every eight hours. In addition, Carrington synoptic maps for the subsurface properties are made from these full-disk maps. The pipeline can also be used for selected target areas and time periods. We explain details of the pipeline organization and procedures, including processing of the HMI Doppler observations, measurements of the travel times, inversions, and constructions of the full-disk and synoptic maps. Some initial results from the pipeline, including full-disk flow maps, sunspot subsurface flow fields, and the interior rotation and meridional flow speeds, are presented.Comment: Accepted by Solar Physics topical issue 'Solar Dynamics Observatory

Cable-driven parallel robot for curtain wall module installation

A cable-driven parallel robot (CDPR) was developed for the installation of curtain wall modules (CWM). The research addressed the question of whether the CDPR was capable installing CWMs with sufficient accuracy while being competitive compared to conventional manual methods. In order to develop and test such a system, a conceptual framework that consisted of three sub-systems was defined. The tests, carried out in two close-to-real demonstration buildings, revealed an absolute accuracy of the CWM installation of 4 to 23 mm. The working time for installing a CWM was reduced to 0.51 h. The results also show that the system is competitive for a workspace greater than 96 m2 compared to conventional manual methods. However, improvements such as reducing the hours for setting up the CDPR on the one hand and achieving a faster and more robust MEE on the other hand will be still necessary in the future.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 73251

Balanced harvest: concept, policies, evidence, and management implications

Balanced harvest has been proposed to reduce fishing impact on ecosystems while simultaneously maintaining or even increasing fishery yield. The concept has attracted broad interest, but also received criticisms. In this paper, we examine the theory, modelling studies, empirical evidence, the legal and policy frameworks, and management implications of balanced harvest. The examination reveals unresolved issues and challenges from both scientific and management perspectives. We summarize current knowledge and address common questions relevant to the idea. Major conclusions include: balanced harvest can be expressed in several ways and implemented on multiple levels, and with different approaches e.g. métier based management; it explicitly bridges fisheries and conservation goals in accordance with international legal and policy frameworks; modelling studies and limited empirical evidence reveal that balanced harvest can reduce fishing impact on ecosystem structure and increase the aggregate yield; the extent of balanced harvest is not purely a scientific question, but also a legal and social choice; a transition to balanced harvest may incur short-term economic costs, while in the long-term, economic results will vary across individual fisheries and for society overall; for its application, balanced harvest can be adopted at both strategic and tactical levels and need not be a full implementation, but could aim for a “partially-balanced” harvest. Further objective discussions and research on this subject are needed to move balanced harvest toward supporting a practical ecosystem approach to fisheries

An improved method for measuring muon energy using the truncated mean of dE/dx

The measurement of muon energy is critical for many analyses in large Cherenkov detectors, particularly those that involve separating extraterrestrial neutrinos from the atmospheric neutrino background. Muon energy has traditionally been determined by measuring the specific energy loss (dE/dx) along the muon's path and relating the dE/dx to the muon energy. Because high-energy muons (E_mu > 1 TeV) lose energy randomly, the spread in dE/dx values is quite large, leading to a typical energy resolution of 0.29 in log10(E_mu) for a muon observed over a 1 km path length in the IceCube detector. In this paper, we present an improved method that uses a truncated mean and other techniques to determine the muon energy. The muon track is divided into separate segments with individual dE/dx values. The elimination of segments with the highest dE/dx results in an overall dE/dx that is more closely correlated to the muon energy. This method results in an energy resolution of 0.22 in log10(E_mu), which gives a 26% improvement. This technique is applicable to any large water or ice detector and potentially to large scintillator or liquid argon detectors.Comment: 12 pages, 16 figure

On the selection of AGN neutrino source candidates for a source stacking analysis with neutrino telescopes

The sensitivity of a search for sources of TeV neutrinos can be improved by grouping potential sources together into generic classes in a procedure that is known as source stacking. In this paper, we define catalogs of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and use them to perform a source stacking analysis. The grouping of AGN into classes is done in two steps: first, AGN classes are defined, then, sources to be stacked are selected assuming that a potential neutrino flux is linearly correlated with the photon luminosity in a certain energy band (radio, IR, optical, keV, GeV, TeV). Lacking any secure detailed knowledge on neutrino production in AGN, this correlation is motivated by hadronic AGN models, as briefly reviewed in this paper. The source stacking search for neutrinos from generic AGN classes is illustrated using the data collected by the AMANDA-II high energy neutrino detector during the year 2000. No significant excess for any of the suggested groups was found.Comment: 43 pages, 12 figures, accepted by Astroparticle Physic

All-particle cosmic ray energy spectrum measured with 26 IceTop stations

We report on a measurement of the cosmic ray energy spectrum with the IceTop air shower array, the surface component of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. The data used in this analysis were taken between June and October, 2007, with 26 surface stations operational at that time, corresponding to about one third of the final array. The fiducial area used in this analysis was 0.122 km^2. The analysis investigated the energy spectrum from 1 to 100 PeV measured for three different zenith angle ranges between 0{\deg} and 46{\deg}. Because of the isotropy of cosmic rays in this energy range the spectra from all zenith angle intervals have to agree. The cosmic-ray energy spectrum was determined under different assumptions on the primary mass composition. Good agreement of spectra in the three zenith angle ranges was found for the assumption of pure proton and a simple two-component model. For zenith angles {\theta} < 30{\deg}, where the mass dependence is smallest, the knee in the cosmic ray energy spectrum was observed between 3.5 and 4.32 PeV, depending on composition assumption. Spectral indices above the knee range from -3.08 to -3.11 depending on primary mass composition assumption. Moreover, an indication of a flattening of the spectrum above 22 PeV were observed.Comment: 38 pages, 17 figure