奥斯卡小金人的诞生

美国佬有钱,每年都要烧上不少钞票拍一堆电影。在多如牛毛的电影中,总会有几部看得顺眼、演得不错的。于是为了鼓励这种烧钱精神,美国电影艺术与科学学会（下称美国电影学会）自1929年开始就颁发奥斯卡小金人——每一年总有几十个奥斯卡小金人被送出。美国电影学会送出了这么多奥斯卡小金人,你知道这些玩意儿是怎么诞生的吗？     

庵野大叔的摇钱树

有不知道《新世纪福音战士》的阿宅吗？《Geek》不敢肯定,但可以肯定的只要是铁杆阿宅是绝对知道这个由庵野大叔创造的动画系列的,自1994年推出26集电视版以来,《新世纪福音战士》已经覆盖了电视、电影、漫画以及游戏等多个领域、对于26集电视版,许多人至今都在抱怨看不明白,     

电影小游戏，却有大乐趣

以电影改编的游戏咱见多了,可是除了大型游戏之外,在电影的官方阿站上还有许多Flash游戏。这些游戏可是些不可多得的好东东,一点都不逊色于那些由电影改编的大型游戏,一样能让你玩得不亦乐乎,如果你不相信,咱们现在就去看看……     

Community Participation in Urban Planning: the Case of Managing Green Spaces in Kumasi,Ghana

The entrenched position now taken by participatory planning in urban planning practice has made the call for community participation in the planning process now higher than ever. Community participation has been well-acknowledged to give local people a voice in planning decisions. This paper assessed the level of participation by local people in the management of urban green spaces. Using a case study research approach, Kumasi city, once the garden city of Africa was selected as the study area. The Kumasi city authorities, and residents including opinion leaders, and officials of allied bodies on green spaces constituted the study’s target population. A blend of qualitative research techniques such as in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, and personal observation was employed whilst theoretical sampling technique was adopted. It was found out that the participation of the local people in the management of green space was low. The local people were neither consulted nor informed on green space projects (parks and gardens) by the city authorities. They were also not empowered to self-facilitate initiatives on green spaces and passively involved in final decisions on green spaces. To correct the situation, it is recommended that features of the communicative planning theory such as dialogue, consensus building, and facilitative leadership should be given attention in the urban planning system of Kumasi especially on green space projects.     

Corrosion fatigue and stress corrosion cracking of type 304 stainless steel in boiling NaOH solution

Results are reported for corrosion fatigue of Type 304 stainless steel in boiling (140 C) 17.5M NaOH (46 wt pct) solution. Specimens, of the smooth round bar type, were cycled sinusoidally at 1.0 Hz in tension-tension about mean stresses of 248 MPa (36 ksi) and 124 MPa (18 ksi). Both solution annealed and sensitized specimens cracked readily in a transgranular mode. Sensitization did not increase the environmental effect. The caustic solution drastically shortened cyclic life and eliminated the endurance limit observed in air. Cyclic stress was a more important variable than mean stress as the lower mean stress did not significantly improve life. Anodic passivation did not increase cyclic life as it did for constant load SCC. Comparison of the SCC tests results with those of corrosion fatigue indicates that cyclic stresses, even when confined to the elastic region, accelerate failure more than sustained loads in the plastic region; this accelerative effect was most intense under anodic passivation. R. W. STAEHLE, formerly Professor of Metallurgical Engineering, and Director of The Fontana Corrosion Center, Ohio State University     

Bidirectional energy storage photovoltaic grid-connected inverter application system

A novel topology of the bidirectional energy storage photovoltaic grid-connected inverter was proposed to reduce the negative impact of the photovoltaic grid-connected system on the grid caused by environmental instability. Using the proposed Inverter as a UPS power supply in case of a grid failure, storage electrical energy and regulating the energy delivered to the grid for reducing the pressure on the grid. A new artificial fish-swarm algorithm and variable step voltage perturbation method were presented to track the maximum power point of the solar panels. Analysis was done to reduce the output ripple of the inverter and sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) was selected to control the inverter. Model simulation was performed using PSpice software to obtain the volt-ampere characteristic curve of the solar panel output. The solar array simulator was used to verify the effect of maximum power point tracking at different light intensities. The study concludes that the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) efficiency of the bidirectional energy storage photovoltaic grid-connected inverter designed was as high as 99.9%. The distortion rate of the grid-connected current waveform was within 2% and the DC current component was less than 0.5%. The output voltage and power were in full compliance with the grid connection standard.     

Establishing the link between market orientation and agricultural commercialization: Empirical evidence from Northern Ghana

This paper established a positive relationship between market orientation and intensity of commercialization among rural farm households in northern Ghana. The IV Tobit regression estimate suggests that intensity of maize commercialization is significantly determined by education, agro-ecology, household size, total livestock units, farm size, access to formal markets and market orientation. In addition, a highly and unbiased significant positive effect is observed between market orientation and intensity of maize commercialization after controlling for endogeneity in market orientation. Intensity of maize commercialization increased by 0.86% for a 0.1 unit increase in the market orientation index. The empirical implications of the results are discussed.     

A review on ductile mode cutting of brittle materials

Brittle materials have been widely employed for industrial applications due to their excellent mechanical, optical, physical and chemical properties. But obtaining smooth and damage-free surface on brittle materials by traditional machining methods like grinding, lapping and polishing is very costly and extremely time consuming. Ductile mode cutting is a very promising way to achieve high quality and crack-free surfaces of brittle materials. Thus the study of ductile mode cutting of brittle materials has been attracting more and more efforts. This paper provides an overview of ductile mode cutting of brittle materials including ductile nature and plasticity of brittle materials, cutting mechanism, cutting characteristics, molecular dynamic simulation, critical undeformed chip thickness, brittle-ductile transition, subsurface damage, as well as a detailed discussion of ductile mode cutting enhancement. It is believed that ductile mode cutting of brittle materials could be achieved when both crack-free and no subsurface damage are obtained simultaneously.     

Nigerian Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Contemporary Ghana: Insights on Locational/Sectoral Niches and Inter-Generational (Dis)Continuities

Scholarship on immigrant entrepreneurship tends to focus on those in the developed world. In this paper, I attempt to shift the balance by focusing on Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurs in contemporary Ghana, specifically their locational and sectoral niches as well as inter-generational continuities and discontinuities. I do these by examining the outcomes of broad-based field work employing in-depth interviews and observations of these immigrant entrepreneurs in Accra - the capital, Kumasi—the second largest city after Accra, and Ashaiman—a sprawling sub-urban settlement. What emerges from analysis and discussion of empirical data is that, among other things, the activities of Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurs in contemporary Ghana reveal both old and new strands of sectoral participations, and the dynamics of locational and sectoral participations also evincing elements of precinctization (albeit incipient in form) and specialisation. Further, the nature of sectoral participation appears to embody shapes of continuity and discontinuity with those of their earlier generations in Ghana. These findings provide introductory glimpse to the unexplored phenomenon of Nigerian immigrant entrepreneurship in contemporary Ghana and further chart a way to compare to their predecessors.     

Effect of the host polymer on the nanomechanical and morphological properties of templated polymer films

Atomic force microscopy and nanoindentation have been applied to the study of thin molecularly templated polymer films. The template was chosen to be the readily hydrogen‐bonded cotinine molecule and three different polymer hosts, Elvamide® nylon, Nylon‐6, and poly(4‐vinylphenol) were compared. The host polymer was shown to affect the nature of the template‐host interaction resulting in varying surface morphologies and differences in the nanohardness. These observations were shown to reflect differences in the underlying interaction chemistry, specifically, whether or not the polymer may be imprinted in the film production process. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 130: 877‐883, 2013