353 research outputs found

    Microstructure and magnetization of doped Y-Ba-Ca-O materials prepared by melt quench and post annealing method

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    Y-Ba-Cu-O bulk materials prepared using the melt quench and post annealing method were shown to have very high maximum as well as remanent magnetization. Studies were carried out on materials prepared using this method which deviate from the Y:Ba:Cu = 1:2:3 stoichiometry. In one series of materials, only the stoichiometry was changed, in particular by introducing an excess of yttrium. In other cases, dopants including several rare earths were introduced. Effects of variations in composition on microstructure and phase evolution are discussed, as well as effects on the magnetic susceptibility and on the magnetization. The results show that doped materials can exhibit improvements in magnetic properties. Furthermore, the use of dopants sheds light on the role of defect sites in flux pinning

    Metaphoric coherence: Distinguishing verbal metaphor from `anomaly\u27

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    Theories and computational models of metaphor comprehension generally circumvent the question of metaphor versus “anomaly” in favor of a treatment of metaphor versus literal language. Making the distinction between metaphoric and “anomalous” expressions is subject to wide variation in judgment, yet humans agree that some potentially metaphoric expressions are much more comprehensible than others. In the context of a program which interprets simple isolated sentences that are potential instances of cross‐modal and other verbal metaphor, I consider some possible coherence criteria which must be satisfied for an expression to be “conceivable” metaphorically. Metaphoric constraints on object nominals are represented as abstracted or extended along with the invariant structural components of the verb meaning in a metaphor. This approach distinguishes what is preserved in metaphoric extension from that which is “violated”, thus referring to both “similarity” and “dissimilarity” views of metaphor. The role and potential limits of represented abstracted properties and constraints is discussed as they relate to the recognition of incoherent semantic combinations and the rejection or adjustment of metaphoric interpretations

    Contrasting Controls on Microzooplankton Grazing and Viral Infection of Microbial Prey

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    The encounter and capture of bacteria and phytoplankton by microbial predators and parasites is fundamental to marine ecosystem organization and activity. Here, we combined classic biophysical models with published laboratory measurements to infer functional traits, including encounter kernel and capture efficiency, for a wide range of marine viruses and microzooplankton grazers. Despite virus particles being orders of magnitude smaller than microzooplankton grazers, virus encounter kernels and adsorption rates were in many cases comparable in magnitude to grazer encounter kernel and clearance, pointing to Brownian motion as a highly effective method of transport for viruses. Inferred virus adsorption efficiency covered many orders of magnitude, but the median virus adsorption efficiency was between 5 and 25% depending on the assumed host swimming speed. Uncertainty on predator detection area and swimming speed prevented robust inference of grazer capture efficiency, but sensitivity analysis was used to identify bounds on unconstrained processes. These results provide a common functional trait framework for understanding marine host-virus and predator-prey interactions, and highlight the value of theory for interpreting measured life-history traits

    Drawing Boundaries

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    In “On Drawing Lines on a Map” (1995), I suggested that the different ways we have of drawing lines on maps open up a new perspective on ontology, resting on a distinction between two sorts of boundaries: fiat and bona fide. “Fiat” means, roughly: human-demarcation-induced. “Bona fide” means, again roughly: a boundary constituted by some real physical discontinuity. I presented a general typology of boundaries based on this opposition and showed how it generates a corresponding typology of the different sorts of objects which boundaries determine or demarcate. In this paper, I describe how the theory of fiat boundaries has evolved since 1995, how it has been applied in areas such as property law and political geography, and how it is being used in contemporary work in formal and applied ontology, especially within the framework of Basic Formal Ontology

    Killing the predator: impacts of highest-predator mortality on the global-ocean ecosystem structure

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    Recent meta-analyses suggest that microzooplankton biomass density scales linearly with phytoplankton biomass density, suggesting a simple, general rule may underpin trophic structure in the global ocean. Here, we use a set of highly simplified food web models, solved within a global general circulation model, to examine the core drivers of linear predator–prey scaling. We examine a parallel food chain model which assumes microzooplankton grazers feed on distinct size classes of phytoplankton and contrast this with a diamond food web model allowing shared microzooplankton predation on a range of phytoplankton size classes. Within these two contrasting model structures, we also evaluate the impact of fixed vs. density-dependent microzooplankton mortality. We find that the observed relationship between microzooplankton predators and prey can be reproduced with density-dependent mortality on the highest predator, regardless of choices made about plankton food web structure. Our findings point to the importance of parameterizing mortality of the highest predator for simple food web models to recapitulate trophic structure in the global ocean.</p

    Bridging the Gap: Cognitive and social approaches to research in second language learning and teaching.

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    Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139862/1/SSLA2014.pd

    Acquisition of motion events in L2 Spanish by German, French and Italian speakers

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    This article explores the second language acquisition of motion events, with particular regard to cross-linguistic influence between first and second languages. Oral narratives in Spanish as a second language by native speakers of French, German and Italian are compared, together with narratives by native Spanish speakers. Previous analysis on the expression of motion events in these languages showed that Romance languages do not always follow the same pattern; for example, Italian tends to express the component of Path more frequently than French and Spanish. The results of the present study highlight evidence of intra-typological differences, even between languages that are genetically very close. These differences seem to lead speakers to produce cases of conceptual transfer into their second language, Spanish, even when their first language is another Romance language

    Being in front is good—but where is in front? Preferences for spatial referencing affect evaluation

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    Speakers of English frequently associate location in space with valence, as in moving up and down the “social ladder.” If such an association also holds for the sagittal axis, an object “in front of” another object would be evaluated more positively than the one “behind.” Yet how people conceptualize relative locations depends on which frame of reference (FoR) they adopt—and hence on cross‐linguistically diverging preferences. What is conceptualized as “in front” in one variant of the relative FoR (e.g., translation) is “behind” under another variant (reflection), and vice versa. Do such diverging conceptualizations of an object's location also lead to diverging evaluations? In two studies employing an implicit association test, we demonstrate, first, that speakers of German, Chinese, and Japanese indeed evaluate the object “in front of” another object more positively than the one “behind.” Second, and crucially, the reversal of which object is conceptualized as “in front” involves a corresponding reversal of valence, suggesting an impact of linguistically imparted FoR preferences on evaluative processes.publishedVersio
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