Photography and the Right to Life: Activestills’ and Anne Paq’s "Obliterated Families" Project

The essay focuses on the repurposing of family photography in the project “Obliterated Families” by Activestills collective photographer Anne Paq. In this project, Paq rephotographed photographs of family members who were killed in Israel’s air strikes in Gaza in 2014 at the actual bombed sites. The essay analyzes “Obliterated Families” as a project of visual activism and traces its different modes of dissemination and circulation as part of an effort to solicit a “public” for it. The mobilization of familial imagery is meant to disturb the circulation of affective responses in the Israeli public sphere by politically “presencing” those “whose lives are not regarded as lives worth saving and defending,” as Judith Butler argues. Through this project, the essay reconsiders the relations between photographic practices and the concept of universality as it pertains to a politics of human rights in light of the privatization of citizenship under neoliberal rationality.     

‘Carte du Ciel’: Sydney Observatory's Role in the International Project to Photograph the Heavens

One of the most ambitious photographic projects the world has ever seen was announced at the 1887 International Astronomical Conference. Known as the Carte du Ciel’ or ‘Mapping the Stars’ project, its grand aim was to record on photographic plates the stars in the night sky. Worked on by eighteen observatories around the world, it was estimated that it would require 22,154 photographic plates. Although little known today, this project cemented the role of photography as a tool for astronomers and was in particular a major accomplishment for the Sydney Observatory, where it was worked on for over seventy years.     

What’s in a name?

SomerecentsubmissiontoCARBONhaveindicatedatrendtogetcertain“buzz”wordsintothetitle .Themostcommonbeing“nano” ,andmore recently“fullerene like” .Inthelasteightmonthsover 35 %ofallpaperssubmittedtomehavenanointhetitle .WithrespecttotheformerIhavebeenp     

Yesterday’s dreams and today’s reality in telecommunications

Twenty-five years ago the telecommunications industry had its vision of the future. There were three dreams that, given the right technology, they could achieve: (1) the Dick Tracy wristwatch phone; (2) the Picturephone; and (3) the set-top box for the home television which could access an information store maintained by the telephone company. None of these dreams turned out as planned, but it is interesting to compare the original concepts with what has actually transpired in the last quarter-century. Today, having achieved some form of each of these three dreams, it seems as if, looking ahead to tomorrow’s technology, the industry has no similar vision.     

A manufacturer’s production and pricing strategies with a salvage channel

We study a manufacturer’s production quantity and pricing decisions when the manufacturer has an opportunity to sell surplus inventory through a salvage channel. Before sales begin, the manufacturer determines the production quantity without knowing customer demand. After demand is realised, the manufacturer first satisfies the demand through primary channel while charging a fixed price or adjusting price to maximise profit. At the end of the selling season, the manufacturer resells surplus inventory through the salvage channel, which can be either integrated with or independent of the manufacturer. The manufacturer’s optimal production quantity and expected profit are investigated under different salvage channel structures. We show that the salvage channel improves the manufacturer’s profitability as well as the availability of the product to potential customers through both primary and salvage channels.     

Achilles’ heel strategy: identifying and leveraging a competitor’s weakest point

Significant developments in military strategy over the past century have had little impact, if any, on business strategy. This article focuses on the military paradigm shift from brute-force frontal confrontation as practised in the First World War to shrewd identification of weaknesses in the adversary’s rear. To apply this insight in the business world, we present a methodology focusing on the weakest link: the Achilles’ heel. We apply this methodology in identifying the adversary’s Achilles’ heel and attacking it. We aim to avoid attacking the competitor’s front namely its products in the marketplace through painful head-to-head attrition price and advertising wars. Instead, we propose a new attack strategy – focusing on the adversary’s weakest link. The study integrates a new military insight, specifically from an approach called operational theory, with an insight from the theory of constraints. The sophistication of the Achilles’ heel strategy makes it particularly effective for small players – David competing with large Goliaths. We present a methodology: identifying the Achilles’ heel; deciding whether or not to attack it; and tailoring an Achilles’ heel strategy. The theory is illustrated by numerous business and military applications.     

Participation of ‘international national organisations’ in Africa’s research: a bibliometric study of agriculture and health in Zimbabwe

Scientometrics - The study investigated the participation of so-called ‘international national organisations’ (INOs) in agricultural and health research in Zimbabwe, a country in...     

China’s rising leadership in science and technology: quantitative and qualitative indicators

China has a long and proud history of world leadership in science and technology, but in the past two centuries it has experienced a period of instability that has challenged that leadership. However, since its political consolidation in the middle part of the 20th Century and its subsequent economic reforms, China’s rise in science has been meteoric. This rise was first detected by the scientometric community through its indicators, but it has now become obvious. Indeed in 2017 the question, “Will China come to lead world science?” was becoming to some, “Does China already lead world science?” This paper tries to make the case that the answer is “yes” (or at least “soon”)—but the answer depends on which metrics one considers. China already leads many countries in some measures of GDP, scientific paper production, researchers, plus high technology manufacturing and exports. China also recently passed the European Union in R&D investment. Even in some of those indicators where China has not yet taken the lead, reasonable forecasts predict that it soon will. However, there are some indicators where China is still far behind. For example while rising, it still lags the U.S. and EU in citations in Western publications, and will take years to catch up. Here, these quantitative measures are supplemented by qualitative ones from WTEC assessments and by survey results of scientists and the public, which present a more nuanced conclusion. While Chinese leadership may be difficult for Westerners to accept, it can be viewed as China merely regaining its historical position of leadership in science and technology.     

Risk-Based Inspection of a Crude Oil Import/Export Line: The Corrosion Engineer’s Role

This paper uses the case study of a line used to import and export stabilized crude oil to illustrate the steps, the benefits and the role of a corrosion engineer for a typical semi-quantitative Risk-Based Inspection (RBI) process. The line was originally designed for dry service, but currently receives a significant amount of produced water which accumulates in deadlegs with resultant deterioration. Historically, this line also experienced a number of high profile failures attributed to microbial activity, preferential weld decay and corrosion under insulation. Consequently the HSE issued an improvement notice which included a requirement for an RBI study to mitigate these threats and to provide operational integrity assurance. The scope of the RBI review considered in this paper covers only the corrosion circuit, which is from the tank isolation valve to the storage tanks. On the basis of the identified threats and the associated risks, the following inspection, monitoring, and repair (IMR) actions were recommended by the RBI team: (1) an intermediate, non-invasive, rolling inspection at a 12-monthly frequency. This includes a 100% ultrasonic testing (UT) or saturated low frequency eddy current (SLOFEC) scan of all susceptible deadlegs and a USFD (using time of flight diffraction, ToFD) of all welds on the deadlegs; (2) a thorough, non-invasive inspection at a 36-monthly frequency. This includes a full line walk and general visual inspection; a 100% UT scan or SLOFEC on all deadlegs; inspection of small bore branches for fatigue cracks with magnetic particle inspection (MPI) or eddy current (EC) Inspection and visual examination of all accessible supports; (3) a survey to identify corrosion monitoring locations for probes, coupons and sampling points; and (4) Identification and deletion of all unnecessary deadlegs during the next turn around (TAR) maintenance. These actions have since been implemented and provide the largest single contribution to the significant reduction in the number of failures/anomalies experienced on this line. The primary role of the corrosion engineer in this process is to ensure that all the credible threats for this circuit (generic and from inspection history) are identified, risk assessed, and appropriate inspection/monitoring techniques and frequencies identified, and assigned in order to mitigate the high risk threats.     

Dispersion in a two-zone packed tube: An extended Taylor’s analysis

Taylor’s classical analysis for scalar dispersion in a single phase fluid flow is rigorously generalized for an instantaneous release of scalar substances into a fully developed flow through a long tube of two zones distinctively packed with porous media. A formulation for the dispersion is presented by cross-sectionally averaging the concentration transport equations and introducing a closure model for the concentration deviation terms produced in the averaging procedure. The velocity distribution of the flow through the tube is derived, with existing solution for a single zone tube flow included as a special case. Corresponding dispersivity is analytically determined, and Taylor’s well-known result for a single phase flow in a single-zone tube is recovered by setting corresponding parameters as unity. The effects of relevant parameters on both velocity profile and Taylor dispersivity are illustrated.     

Digital publishing and China’s core scientific journals: a position paper

In this position paper we discuss the current status of the core scientific journals in China. Based on discussions of journals’ relation to a small group of full-text database providers, open access publishing and copyright problems, we conclude that China’s digital publishing industry is not yet in a healthy state and some key issues related to revenue, digital piracy and copyright must be solved.     

Energy Absorption by a Single Abrikosov’s Vortex in NbTi and YBaCuO Superconductors

The calculations of the absorption energy and the Q-factor of vibration of a vortex line under the effect of an external uniform harmonic force have been presented. The line tension of the vortex line and its effective mass, Magnus force, pinning force, and viscosity force were included in the equation of the dynamics. Two peaks of absorption in accordance with two modes of the oscillation spectrum were observed. The first peak of absorption is a result of flux pinning, which coincides with the De Gennes–Matricon solution in some limits. The second (high-frequency) peak is a result of a novel mode related to the effective mass of a vortex line. Temperature dependencies of absorption peaks were calculated for the NbTi and YBaCuO superconductors for orientations H∥c and H⊥c. The resonant frequency of the resonance peaks of absorption decreases with an increase in temperature. Some other peculiarities of the oscillating dynamics of the vortex line were discussed.     

Understanding Infrastructure Resiliency in Chennai,India Using Twitter’s Geotags and Texts: A Preliminary Study

Geotagging is the process of labeling data and information with geographical identification metadata, and text mining refers to the process of deriving information from text through data analytics. Geotagging and text mining are used to mine rich sources of social media data, such as video, website, text, and Quick Response (QR) code. They have been frequently used to model consumer behaviors and market trends. This study uses both techniques to understand the resilience of infrastructure in Chennai, India using data mined from the 2015 flood. This paper presents a conceptual study on the potential use of social media (Twitter in this case) to better understand infrastructure resiliency. Using feature-extraction techniques, the research team extracted Twitter data from tweets generated by the Chennai population during the flood. First, this study shows that these techniques are useful in identifying locations, defects, and failure intensities of infrastructure using the location metadata from geotags, words containing the locations, and the frequencies of tweets from each location. However, more efforts are needed to better utilize the texts generated from the tweets, including a better understanding of the cultural contexts of the words used in the tweets, the contexts of the words used to describe the incidents, and the least frequently used words.     

A new approach to constructing Green’s functions and integral solutions in thermoelasticity

This paper is devoted to a new approach for the derivation of main thermoelastic Green’s functions (MTGFs), based on their new integral representations via Green’s functions for Poisson’s equation. These integral representations have permitted us to derive in elementary functions new MTGFs and new Poisson-type integral formulas for a thermoelastic octant under mixed mechanical and thermal boundary conditions, which are formulated in a special theorem. Examples of validation of the obtained MTGFs are presented. The effectiveness of the obtained MTGFs and of the Poisson-type integral formula is shown on a solution in elementary functions of a particular BVP of thermoelasticity for octant. The graphical and numerical computer evaluation of the obtained MTGFs and of the thermoelastic displacements of the particular BVP for an octant is also presented. By using the proposed approach, it is possible to derive in elementary functions many new MTGFs and new Poisson-type integral formulas for many canonical Cartesian domains.     

Proximity at a distance: the role of institutional and geographical proximities in Vancouver’s infection and immunity research collaborations

This article explores the role of proximity in facilitating scientific collaboration. It argues that multiple dimensions of proximity exist and analyses their influences on Vancouver, Canada’s infection and immunity research network based on individual-level co-authorship patterns. It finds strong support for institutional and geographic proximities and limited support that geographical proximity can compensate for a lack of institutional proximity.Using individuals as the unit of analysis, this article addresses a methodological shortcoming of previous studies that took organisations as the unit of analysis. In doing so, the role that multiple affiliations play within this network is highlighted.