Introduction: Silence in institutional and intercultural contexts

It used to be customary to write about silence beginning with a bit of a lament that it was a ‘neglected’ or ‘undervalued’ area of sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and other related disciplines. This is no longer necessary nor possible. Since the publication of the major collection of articles by Tannen and Saville-Troike (1985), a steady stream of monographs and anthologies on silence has continued to bring new titles (e. g., Jaworski 1993, 1997; Kurzon 1997; Cacoullos and Sifianou 1998; Thiesmeyer 2003; Julé 2004; Granger 2004), to mention just a few older and more recent examples. They all examine silence from a range of different approaches, or use the concept itself as a useful metalinguistic category and metaphor for the study of a plethora of communicative forms and functions, and critical social issues (see also, e. g., Huckin 2002; Leander 2002). Final anointment to mainstream status, raising silence from the obscurity of one of the most esoteric researchable topics, is the inclusion of whole sections on ‘silence’ in standard textbooks in sociolinguistics (e. g., Mesthrie et al. 2000), discourse analysis (e. g., Johnstone 2002), and nonverbal communication (e. g., Guerrero et al. 1999).published_or_final_versio

Self-sterilization of bodies during outer planet entry

A body encountering the atmosphere of an outer planet is subjected to heat loads which could result in high temperature conditions that render terrestrial organisms on or within the body nonviable. To determine whether an irregularly shaped entering body, consisting of several different materials, would be sterilized during inadvertent entry at high velocity, the thermal response of a typical outer planet spacecraft instrument was studied. The results indicate that the Teflon insulated cable and electronic circuit boards may not experience sterilizing temperatures during a Jupiter, Saturn, or Titan entry. Another conclusion of the study is that small plastic particles entering Saturn from outer space have wider survival corridors than do those at Jupiter

Heat transfer processes in parallel-plate heat exchangers of thermoacoustic devices - Numerical and experimental approaches

This paper addresses the issues of heat transfer in oscillatory flow conditions, which are typically found in thermoacoustic devices. The analysis presented concerns processes taking place in the individual "channels" of the parallel-plate heat exchangers (HX), and is a mixture of experimental and numerical approaches. In the experimental part, the paper describes the design of experimental apparatus to study the thermal-fluid processes controlling heat transfer in thermoacoustic heat exchangers on the micro-scale of the individual channels. Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) techniques are applied to obtain spatially and temporally resolved temperature and velocity fields within the HX channels. The temperature fields allow obtaining the local and global, phase-dependent heat transfer rates and Nusselt numbers, and their dependence on the Reynolds number of the oscillating flow. The numerical part of the paper deals with the implementation of CFD modelling capabilities to capture the physics of thermal-fluid processes in the micro-scale and to validate the models against the experimental data. A two-dimensional low Mach number computational model is implemented to analyse the time-averaged temperature field and heat transfer rates in a representative domain of the HXs. These are derived by integrating the thermoacoustic equations of the standard linear theory into a numerical calculus scheme based on the energy balance. The comparisons between the experimental and numerical results in terms of temperature and heat transfer distributions suggest that the optimal performance of heat exchangers can be achieved when the gas displacement amplitude is close to the length of hot and cold heat exchanger. Heat transfer coefficients from the gas-side can be predicted with a confidence of about 40% at moderate acoustic Reynolds numbers

Shopping and chatting: Reports of tourist-host interaction in the Gambia

As it becomes continually easier, at least technologically, for people to move around the world, so the growing numbers of global tourists, in their search for constantly novel experiences (Urry 2002), travel to destinations which are increasingly exotic and distant to them, not only geographically, but also in economic, social and cultural terms. This, in turn, brings them into contact with people from these very different cultures and societies. This paper examines interactions between tourists and hosts in The Gambia, a 'winter sun package holiday destination in West Africa. To investigate the nature of such interactions, 20 'communication diaries' were completed by a group of British tourism students during their week-long field trip to The Gambia and followed up by small group discussions with some of the participants. The students were asked to record as many individual interactions with Gambians as possible noting the following information: Time; Place; Situation; Interlocutor; Languages spoken; Topics; Result of interaction; Perceptions of interactions. 194 interactions were recorded. Many of the interactions were 'transactional' in that tourism workers treat them as potential sources of income. However, their tenor is predominantly 'personal as they were full of phatic communion and chatting. Central to the tourist experience in The Gambia is the role of the 'bumsters' due to their mediating function between the tourists and other Gambian people. The omnipresence of the 'bumsters' in all tourist areas and their constant 'pestering' of tourists is initially annoying to the latter but also acts as a catalyst in encouraging contact with other Gambians by familiarising tourists with local people. We conclude by discussing our findings in the context of the global economies of tourism. © Walter de Gruyter.published_or_final_versio

Tourism discourse: Languages and banal globalization

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Introducing writing (in) the city

This introductory paper offers a framing of writing (in) the city as a way of making and knowing cities. We link individual contributions in this collection to earlier research that has examined displayed discourse in urban spaces or considered writing as a metaphor for studying cities

Surface losses and self-pumping effects in a long Josephson junction - a semi-analytical approach

The flux-flow dynamics in a long Josephson junction is studied both analytically and numerically. A realistic model of the junction is considered by taking into account a nonuniform current distribution, surface losses and self-pumping effects. An approximate analytical solution of the modified sine-Gordon equation is derived in the form of a unidirectional dense fluxon train accompanied by two oppositely directed plasma waves. Next, some macroscopic time-averaged quantities are calculated making possible to evaluate the current-voltage characteristic of the junction. The results obtained by the present method are compared with direct numerical simulations both for the current-voltage characteristics and for the loss factor modulated spatially due to the self-pumping. The comparison shows very good agreement for typical junction parameters but indicates also some limitations of the method.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

PCSK9 inhibitors : from discovery of a single mutation to a groundbreaking therapy of lipid disorders in one decade

Hypercholesterolemia is one of the main risk factors for coronary heart disease and significantly contributes to the high mortality associated with cardiovascular diseases. Statin therapy represents the gold standard in the reduction of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentration. Nevertheless, many patients still cannot achieve the recommended target levels, due to either inadequate effectiveness or intolerance of these drugs. Monoclonal antibodies that inhibit proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) have emerged as a promising option in lipid-lowering treatment. After confirmation of their efficacy and safety in clinical trials, evolocumab and alirocumab received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) for introduction into clinical practice. In this review, we present a history of the development and mechanisms of action, as well as the results of the most important studies concerning PCSK9 inhibitors