Oral Text: A South Indian Instance

An unaffi liated scholar trained as a cultural anthropologist, Richard Swiderski has carried on fieldwork among the Knanaya. His full-length study of that people's rituals, Blood Weddings, will appear in both India and the United States in late 1988

New modelling technique for improving crop model performance - Application to the GLAM model

Crop models simulate growth and development and they are often used for climate change applications. However, they have a variable skill in the simulation of crop responses to extreme climatic events. Here, we present a new dynamic crop modelling method for simulating the impact of abiotic stresses. The Simultaneous Equation Modelling for Annual Crops (SEMAC) uses simultaneous solution of the model equations to ensure internal model consistency within daily time steps; something that is not always guaranteed in the usual sequential method. The SEMAC approach is implemented in GLAM, resulting in a new model version (GLAM-Parti). The new model shows a clear improvement in skill under water stress conditions and it successfully simulates the acceleration of leaf senescence in response to drought. We conclude that SEMAC is a promising crop modelling technique that might be applied to a range of models

Модель гибридного ракетного двигателя. Вычисления, проект и испытания

На даний час і у майбутньому ракетні двигуни будуть найголовнішими засобами виводу на орбіту космічних транспортних апаратів. В даний час найважливішою вимогою при проектуванні двигуна ракети є зменшення її вартості і максимальне збільшення енерговіддачі. Проектування ракетних двигунів - довготривалий і трудомісткий процес, метою якого є виробництво дешевого і високоякісного двигуна, що має мінімальний вплив на навколишнє середовище. Слідуючи зазначеним вимогам, Варшавський Технологічний Університет спільно з Варшавським авіаційним Інститутом розпочали програму екологічно безпечного розвитку ракетних двигунів. Експериментальний гібридний двигун ракети був розроблений і виготовлений для перевірки нової формули твердого палива. Дана стаття містить дослідження безпечної роботи двигуна з окислювачем Al/AN/HTPB, використовуючи при цьому лабораторний дослідний стенд перевірки ракетного гібридного двигуна. Основна мета цієї роботи – це проектування простого ракетного двигуна з наступною можливістю його подальшого розвитку і поліпшення.Now and in the foreseeable future rocket engine will be the most basic propulsion of space vehicle. Nowadays the most important condition in design of rocket engine is the cost reduction and increasing thrust to weight ratio as much as possible. The design of rocket engines is exhaustive and difficult process. It must produce low cost and high performance engine with minimal influence on the environment. Following these requirements, Warsaw University of Technology jointly with Institute of Aviation in Warsaw, started their own program on ecologically safe propulsion development. The experimental hybrid rocket motor has been designed and manufactured to test a new formula of solid fuel. The paper explores the performance and safety implications associated with the oxidizer enhanced Al/AN/HTPB grain by using of a laboratory scale hybrid rocket motor test stand. The main objective of this work was to design simple rocket engine that could smoothly be developed and possibly improved in the future.На данный момент и в обозримом будущем ракетные двигатели будут самыми основными двигательными установками космических транспортных средств. В настоящее время самым важным условием при проектировании двигателя ракеты является уменьшение ее стоимости и максимальное увеличение соотношения тяги к весу. Проектирование ракетных двигателей – продолжительный и трудоемкий процесс, целью которого является производство дешевого и высококачественного двигателя с минимальным влиянием на окружающую среду. Следуя указанным требованиям, Варшавский Технологический Университет совместно с Варшавским авиационным институтом начали программу экологически безопасного развития ракетных двигательных установок. Экспериментальный гибридный двигатель ракеты был разработан и изготовлен для проверки новой формулы твердого топлива. Данная статья содержит исследования безопасной работы двигателя с окислителем Al/AN/HTPB, используя при этом лабораторный испытательный стенд проверок ракетного гибридного двигателя. Основная цель этой работы состоит в проектировании простого ракетного двигателя с последующей возможностью его дальнейшего развития и улучшения

Determining Training Needs for Cloud Infrastructure Investigations using I-STRIDE

As more businesses and users adopt cloud computing services, security vulnerabilities will be increasingly found and exploited. There are many technological and political challenges where investigation of potentially criminal incidents in the cloud are concerned. Security experts, however, must still be able to acquire and analyze data in a methodical, rigorous and forensically sound manner. This work applies the STRIDE asset-based risk assessment method to cloud computing infrastructure for the purpose of identifying and assessing an organization's ability to respond to and investigate breaches in cloud computing environments. An extension to the STRIDE risk assessment model is proposed to help organizations quickly respond to incidents while ensuring acquisition and integrity of the largest amount of digital evidence possible. Further, the proposed model allows organizations to assess the needs and capacity of their incident responders before an incident occurs.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables, 5th International Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime; Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime, pp. 223-236, 201

Structural and functional-annotation of an equine whole genome oligoarray

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The horse genome is sequenced, allowing equine researchers to use high-throughput functional genomics platforms such as microarrays; next-generation sequencing for gene expression and proteomics. However, for researchers to derive value from these functional genomics datasets, they must be able to model this data in biologically relevant ways; to do so requires that the equine genome be more fully annotated. There are two interrelated types of genomic annotation: structural and functional. Structural annotation is delineating and demarcating the genomic elements (such as genes, promoters, and regulatory elements). Functional annotation is assigning function to structural elements. The Gene Ontology (GO) is the <it>de facto </it>standard for functional annotation, and is routinely used as a basis for modelling and hypothesis testing, large functional genomics datasets.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>An Equine Whole Genome Oligonucleotide (EWGO) array with 21,351 elements was developed at Texas A&M University. This 70-mer oligoarray was designed using the approximately 7× assembled and annotated sequence of the equine genome to be one of the most comprehensive arrays available for expressed equine sequences. To assist researchers in determining the biological meaning of data derived from this array, we have structurally annotated it by mapping the elements to multiple database accessions, including UniProtKB, Entrez Gene, NRPD (Non-Redundant Protein Database) and UniGene. We next provided GO functional annotations for the gene transcripts represented on this array. Overall, we GO annotated 14,531 gene products (68.1% of the gene products represented on the EWGO array) with 57,912 annotations. GAQ (GO Annotation Quality) scores were calculated for this array both before and after we added GO annotation. The additional annotations improved the <it>meanGAQ </it>score 16-fold. This data is publicly available at <it>AgBase </it><url>http://www.agbase.msstate.edu/</url>.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Providing additional information about the public databases which link to the gene products represented on the array allows users more flexibility when using gene expression modelling and hypothesis-testing computational tools. Moreover, since different databases provide different types of information, users have access to multiple data sources. In addition, our GO annotation underpins functional modelling for most gene expression analysis tools and enables equine researchers to model large lists of differentially expressed transcripts in biologically relevant ways.</p

Proving termination of programs automatically with AProVE

AProVE is a system for automatic termination and complexity proofs of Java, C, Haskell, Prolog, and term rewrite systems (TRSs). To analyze programs in high-level languages, AProVE automatically converts them to TRSs. Then, a wide range of techniques is employed to prove termination and to infer complexity bounds for the resulting TRSs. The generated proofs can be exported to check their correctness using automatic certifiers. For use in software construction, we present an AProVE plug-in for the popular Eclipse software development environment

Degenerate Configurations, Singularities and the Non-Abelian Nature of Loop Quantum Gravity

Degenerate geometrical configurations in quantum gravity are important to understand if the fate of classical singularities is to be revealed. However, not all degenerate configurations arise on an equal footing, and one must take into account dynamical aspects when interpreting results: While there are many degenerate spatial metrics, not all of them are approached along the dynamical evolution of general relativity or a candidate theory for quantum gravity. For loop quantum gravity, relevant properties and steps in an analysis are summarized and evaluated critically with the currently available information, also elucidating the role of degrees of freedom captured in the sector provided by loop quantum cosmology. This allows an outlook on how singularity removal might be analyzed in a general setting and also in the full theory. The general mechanism of loop quantum cosmology will be shown to be insensitive to recently observed unbounded behavior of inverse volume in the full theory. Moreover, significant features of this unboundedness are not a consequence of inhomogeneities but of non-Abelian effects which can also be included in homogeneous models.Comment: 28 pages, 1 figure; v2: extended discussion of singularity removal and summar

Quantum geometry and the Schwarzschild singularity

In homogeneous cosmologies, quantum geometry effects lead to a resolution of the classical singularity without having to invoke special boundary conditions at the singularity or introduce ad-hoc elements such as unphysical matter. The same effects are shown to lead to a resolution of the Schwarzschild singularity. The resulting quantum extension of space-time is likely to have significant implications to the black hole evaporation process. Similarities and differences with the situation in quantum geometrodynamics are pointed out.Comment: 31 pages, 1 figur