Crystal structure and charge distribution of pyrazine: effects of extinction, thermal diffuse scattering and series termination

The crystal structure and electronic charge distribution of pyrazine (1,4-diazabenzene) has been determined at 184 K by X-ray methods. The structural results of Wheatley [Acta Cryst. (1957), 10, 182-187] have been confirmed. A clear indication of bonding effects is obtained. Neither positional and thermal parameters nor difference-Fourier maps are affected by extinction. The effect of thermal diffuse scattering (TDS) on positional parameters is also negligible. However, after correction for TDS, thermal parameters increase significantly. The difference-Fourier map is influenced by TDS as well as the inclusion of high-order Fourier terms

Spectroscopy of Hadrons with b Quarks from Lattice NRQCD

Preliminary results from an extensive lattice calculation of the B, B_c, and \Upsilon spectrum at quenched \beta = 6.0 are presented. The study includes radially and orbitally excited mesons, and baryons containing b quarks. The b quarks are formulated using NRQCD; for light and c quarks, a tadpole-improved clover action is used.Comment: talk given at LATTICE98(heavyqk), 3 pages LaTeX, 2 Postscript figure

Achieving compliance with road traffic law - the police perspective

This conference presentation was given as part of the Achieving Compliance with Road Traffic Law: What can enforcement, prosecution and sentencing contribute? Conference by Deputy Chief Constable Suzette Davenport from the Association of Police Officers, ACPO Roads Policing. The conference, jointly organised by PACTS and the Criminal Justice Research Centre with Brunel Law School, was hosted at Brunel University on the 13th June 2012, and was the first opportunity to review the evidence about how to improve compliance with road traffic law. Its aim was to set out the challenges facing the government over the next few years and the steps that need to be taken to improve levels of compliance on our roads. It took a wide look at the process of compliance from initial choices about enforcement through to the effectiveness of the court system

Quality improving techniques in DIBR for free-viewpoint video

This paper evaluates our 3D view interpolation rendering algorithm and proposes a few performance improving techniques. We aim at developing a rendering method for free-viewpoint 3DTV, based on depth image warping from surrounding cameras. The key feature of our approach is warping texture and depth in the first stage simultaneously and postpone blending the new view to a later stage, thereby avoiding errors in the virtual depth map. We evaluate the rendering quality in two ways. Firstly, it is measured by varying the distance between the two nearest cameras. We have obtained a PSNR gain of 3 dB and 4.5 dB for the 'Breakdancers' and 'Ballet' sequences, respectively, compared to the performance of a recent algorithm. A second series of tests in measuring the rendering quality were performed using compressed video or images from surrounding cameras. The overall quality of the system is dominated by rendering quality and not by coding

Evolution of a Software Maintenance Organization from Cost Center to Service Center

The paper describes experiences with the evolution of a software maintenance organization for digital set-top boxes of a leading electronics company from a cost center towards a service center. Several years ago a dedicated software maintenance group was constituted. As the costs for software maintenance were not recovered from the customers, the software maintenance group was merely considered a cost center. Through starting a metrics program for software maintenance and defining a service strategy with various service levels, the software maintenance group generated sufficient revenues to become self-supporting. An important conclusion is that the use of ITIL (IT infrastructure library) service support has helped to develop a better customer focused approach, which is considered as the most important critical success factor for a professional, self-supporting maintenance organization

Prosecutions for death by driving

This conference presentation was given as part of the Achieving Compliance with Road Traffic Law: What can enforcement, prosecution and sentencing contribute? Conference by Dr Sally Cunningham, Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Leicester. The conference, jointly organised by PACTS and the Criminal Justice Research Centre with Brunel Law School, was hosted at Brunel University on the 13th June 2012, and was the first opportunity to review the evidence about how to improve compliance with road traffic law. Its aim was to set out the challenges facing the government over the next few years and the steps that need to be taken to improve levels of compliance on our roads. It took a wide look at the process of compliance from initial choices about enforcement through to the effectiveness of the court system

Behavioral state detection of newborns based on facial expression analysis

Prematurely born infants are observed at a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for medical treatment. Whereas vital body functions are continuously monitored, their incubator is covered by a blanket for medical reasons. This prevents visual observation of the newborns during most time of the day, while it is known that the facial expression can give valuable information about the presence of discomfort. This prompted the authors to develop a prototype of an automated video survey system for the detection of discomfort in newborn babies by analysis of their facial expression. Since only a reliable and situation-independent system is useful, we focus at robustness against non-ideal viewpoints and lighting conditions. Our proposed algorithm automatically segments the face from the background and localizes the eye, eyebrow and mouth regions. Based upon measurements in these regions, a hierarchical classifier is employed to discriminate between the behavioral states sleep, awake and cry. We have evaluated the described prototype system on recordings of three healthy newborns, and we show that our algorithm operates with approximately 95% accuracy. Small changes in viewpoint and lighting conditions are allowed, but when there is a major reduction in light, or when the viewpoint is far from frontal, the algorithm fails. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Sapphic Modernists - Re-visiting Elizabeth McCausland and Berenice Abbott’s Changing New York

Within our research of female/sapphic collaborations of Modernity, a perpetual process of ‘erasure’ or the ‘writing out of art history’ of female collaborators is exposed. One such example is evident through analysis of the 1939 publication of Berenice Abbott’s photographs in Changing New York which has been acknowledged as a key contribution to urban photographic history. Little or nothing is known of the fact that all of the original captions for Changing New York were deemed not fit for publication and that the innovative spatial text-image design devised by Berenice Abbott and Elizabeth McCausland was rejected. Instead the publishers insisted on a very conservative approach to design and the blandness of the published captions read activate Berenice Abbott’s photographs much like a guide book to the city. We found the complete set of original captions to the book, written by Elizabeth McCausland, a communist and socially engaged journalist and long-time partner of Berenice Abbott. These highly critical texts act to place the photographs directly into the larger political and social context of the 1930s Depression in USA. The original attempt and idea for the book by Abbott and McCausland was intended to acknowledge both formats, text and photography, as equal in terms of activating meaning production and/or tools for critical reflection. The book was intended as a critical reflection on the harrowing social conditions and inequalities of the 1930s in New York City