Einfluss von Randspalt und Randabweiser auf die Fluiddynamik einer Messzelle zur HETP-Bestimmung

The scale-up of columns equipped with structured packings is a time and cost intensive process. In order to improve scale-up efficiency, a measurement cell for structured packings has been developed. This makes it possible to investigate characteristic sections of packed columns, such as bulk and wall area on a small scale. The study shows the influence of commonly installed wall wipers and the distance between wall and packing on the fluid dynamics in the measuring cell.     

Learning multimodal dictionaries.

Real-world phenomena involve complex interactions between multiple signal modalities. As a consequence, humans are used to integrate at each instant perceptions from all their senses in order to enrich their understanding of the surrounding world. This paradigm can be also extremely useful in many signal processing and computer vision problems involving mutually related signals. The simultaneous processing of multimodal data can, in fact, reveal information that is otherwise hidden when considering the signals independently. However, in natural multimodal signals, the statistical dependencies between modalities are in general not obvious. Learning fundamental multimodal patterns could offer deep insight into the structure of such signals. In this paper, we present a novel model of multimodal signals based on their sparse decomposition over a dictionary of multimodal structures. An algorithm for iteratively learning multimodal generating functions that can be shifted at all positions in the signal is proposed, as well. The learning is defined in such a way that it can be accomplished by iteratively solving a generalized eigenvector problem, which makes the algorithm fast, flexible, and free of user-defined parameters. The proposed algorithm is applied to audiovisual sequences and it is able to discover underlying structures in the data. The detection of such audio-video patterns in audiovisual clips allows to effectively localize the sound source on the video in presence of substantial acoustic and visual distractors, outperforming state-of-the-art audiovisual localization algorithms.     

Relative Debugging of Automatically Parallelized Programs

We describe a system that simplifies the process of debugging programs produced by computer-aided parallelization tools. The system uses relative debugging techniques to compare serial and parallel executions in order to show where the computations begin to differ. If the original serial code is correct, errors due to parallelization will be isolated by the comparison.One of the primary goals of the system is to minimize the effort required of the user. To that end, the debugging system uses information produced by the parallelization tool to drive the comparison process. In particular, the debugging system relies on the parallelization tool to provide information about where variables may have been modified and how arrays are distributed across multiple processes. User effort is also reduced through the use of dynamic instrumentation. This allows us to modify the program execution without changing the way the user builds the executable. The use of dynamic instrumentation also permits us to compare the executions in a fine-grained fashion and only involve the debugger when a difference has been detected. This reduces the overhead of executing instrumentation.     

Coda--After "The end of the end of ideology."

Replies to comments by M. Glassman and D. Karno (see record 2007-18356-016) and R. K. Unger (see record 2007-18356-017), on the author's original article (see record 2006-12925-001) on ideology. J. T. Jost thanks Glassman and Karno for returning him to his philosophical roots. Glassman and Karno argued in favor of an "instrumental pragmatist" approach to the study of ideology that emphasizes the strategic, purposive, goal-directed nature of political rhetoric and belief. He agrees that such an approach is helpful and empirically sound. He also agrees that ideological movements are often orchestrated by elites (e.g., party leaders) for strategic political purposes in a top-down manner. There are several other points, however, on which Glassman and Karno seem to misunderstand him. Regarding Unger's comments, Unger pointed out, quite correctly, that Jost said relatively little about the role of religious ideology in his discussion of ideological polarization in the United States. The ideological gulf between religious traditionalists and secular humanists has indeed been widening since 1980, and it corresponds strongly to right-left differences in political attitudes. Jost mentioned, somewhat cryptically, at the end of his article that "similarly fruitful analyses could be undertaken with respect to religious and other belief systems," and he is grateful for Unger's invitation to elaborate on this point. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The level of aspiration of schizophrenic and normal subjects.

The performance of normals and schizophrenics on five selected levels of aspiration variables was evaluated for significant differences and examined in the light of Hausmann's earlier findings. The differences between the groups are analyzed. Hausmann's findings, however, could not be reproduced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ridge formation for AlGaAs GRINSCH lasers by Cl2reactive ion etching

Optical storage applications for AlGaAs power lasers require single-mode laser operation and well-controlled beam divergence. For AlGaAs GRIN separate confinement heterostructure (GRINSCH) ridge lasers, these optical characteristics are sensitive to the precise ridge geometry of the laser. Directional reactive ion etching with Cl₂ and in situ monitoring of the etch with highly attenuated laser interferometry provide the excellent process control required during formation of the ridge. The process is described, and results are presented for lasers that were fabricated using this technique