What's so German about it? Cultural Identity in the Berlin Hip Hop Scene

Literature on the appropriation of hip hop culture outside of the United States maintains that hip hop engenders local interpretations no longer reliant on African-American origins, and this research project is an attempt to determine the extent to which this is the case in a specific local context. My thesis is an effort to move beyond the rhetoric of much of what constitutes the debates surrounding globalisation, by employing a research strategy combining theoretical analysis and direct engagement with the Berlin hip hop scene. My project not only aims to uncover the meanings young people in Berlin give to their hip hop practices, but intends to do so within a framework that does not ignore the discursive spaces in which these young people are operating. This is particularly relevant because of the complex ways in which race and ethnicity are related to German national identity. Furthermore, this thesis is concerned with the ways in which the spaces and places collectively known as Berlin shape the cultural practices found there. While hip hop belongs to global culture, it is also the case that the city of Berlin plays a significant role in determining how hip hop is understood and reproduced by young people there

The pulsation spectrum of VX Hydrae

We present the results of a two-year, multisite observing campaign investigating the high-amplitude delta Scuti star VX Hydrae during the 2006 and 2007 observing seasons. The final data set consists of nearly 8500 V-band observations spanning HJD 2453763.6 to 2454212.7 (2006 January 28 to 2007 April 22). Separate analyses of the two individual seasons of data yield 25 confidently-detected frequencies common to both data sets, of which two are pulsation modes, and the remaining 23 are Fourier harmonics or beat frequencies of these two modes. The 2006 data set had five additional frequencies with amplitudes less than 1.5 mmag, and the 2007 data had one additional frequency. Analysis of the full 2006-2007 data set yields 22 of the 25 frequencies found in the individual seasons of data. There are no significant peaks in the spectrum other than these between 0 and 60 c/d. The frequencies of the two main pulsation modes derived from the 2006 and 2007 observing seasons individually do not differ at the level of 3-sigma, and thus we find no conclusive evidence for period change over the span of these observations. However, the amplitude of f(1) = 5.7898 c/d changed significantly between the two seasons, while the amplitude of f(0) = 4.4765 c/d remained constant; amplitudes of the Fourier harmonics and beat frequencies of f(1) also changed. Similar behavior was seen in the 1950s, and it is clear that VX Hydrae undergoes significant amplitude changes over time.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, v.121, p.1076 (October 2009

Techniques for data prediction, smoothing, and updating of operator errors in commercial nuclear power plants

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/533896

Comment on "X-ray resonant scattering studies of orbital and charge ordering in Pr1-xCaxMnO3"

In a recent published paper [Phys. Rev. B 64, 195133 (2001)], Zimmermann et al. present a systematic x-ray scattering study of charge and orbital ordering phenomena in the Pr1-xCaxMnO3 series with x= 0.25, 0.4 and 0.5. They propose that for Ca concentrations x=0.4 and 0.5, the appearance of (0, k+1/2, 0) reflections are originated by the orbital ordering of the eg electrons in the a-b plane while the (0, 2k+1, 0) reflections are due to the charge ordering among the Mn3+ and Mn4+ ions. Moreover, for small Ca concentrations (x<0.3), the orbital ordering is only considered and it occurs at (0, k, 0) reflections. A rigorous analysis of all these resonance reflections will show the inadequacy of the charge-orbital model proposed to explain the experimental results. In addition, this charge-orbital model is highly inconsistent with the electronic balance. On the contrary, these reflections can be easily understood as arising from the anisotropy of charge distribution induced by the presence of local distortions, i.e. due to a structural phase transition.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures.To be published Phys. Rev.