Scotland, Catalonia and the “right” to self-determination: a comment suggested by Kathryn Crameri’s “Do Catalans Have the Right to Decide?

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Risk analaysis of ethanol blending fuel in refinery industry using event tree analysis and Topsis method

Chemicals have always posed risks including fire, explosion, and the release of harmful substances in process industries like the Petroleum Industry. The occurrence of such catastrophes has a significant impact on the resources for finances and daily living. In this research paper, the major safety-related causes and effects are identified through event tree analysis based on accidents and incidents while using ethanol as fuel. For this purpose, the accident and incident data collected so far while using ethanol in the fuel industry, detailed information about ethanol, and even tree analysis. The event tree analysis (ETA) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) analysis method is utilized to Identifying an initiating event of interest of accident. The event tree\u27s structure also aids the analyst in identifying the locations where additional protocols or safety measures are required to mitigate accidents or lower their frequency

Vibration analysis and control in linear switched reluctance motor

Vibration is one of the major drawbacks of Linear Switched Reluctance Motor (LSRM). Two design techniques to reduce vibration in the LSRM are proposed. A detailed mathematical approach for calculating natural frequency has been outlined. Different techniques to predict the vibration frequencies are analyzed using ANSYS software. The analyzed structures are compared by using experimental and simulation results

Ob’shtee zhitie

This feature, "ОБЬЩЕѤ ЖИТИѤ" [Ob'shtee zhitie], provides a list of ongoing projects and recent publications of scholars in the field of Early Slavic studies, arranged alphabetically by the country in which they work. Represented in this issue are reports from Canada, Great Britain, Hungary, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, the Soviet Union, the United States of America, and Yugoslavia.In this feature, scholars have submitted lists of their publications or announced current projects underway. William R. Veder's report (82-84), however, also includes "Notes on an Archaeographic Expedition to Leningrad and Moscow (19 APr - 26 May 1982)." There are interesting editorial comments in a number of the entries and the two institutional reports concern access to the repositories' manuscripts. Regarding the Lenin Library (86): "The 'Literaturnaia gazeta' of 15 Sept 1982 contained a letter to the editors ... voicing serious concern with the effects of work in progress in the new metro-station 'Borovickaia' on the Pashkov House, where the Manuscript department is housed in one of the wings. If the Pashkov house were to suffer damage and need extensive repairs, the consequences for work on the manuscripts would be as serious as the recent 1 1/2 years' closure." The report from the State Historical Museum indicates that it will be closed for extensive renovation for as many as three years (86)

Prefigurative politics between ethical practice and absent promise

'Prefigurative politics' has become a popular term for social movements' ethos of unity between means and ends, but its conceptual genealogy has escaped attention. This article disentangles two components: an ethical revolutionary practice, chiefly indebted to the anarchist tradition, which fights domination while directly constructing alternatives; and prefiguration as a recursive temporal framing, unknowingly drawn from Christianity, in which a future radiates backwards on its past. Tracing prefiguration from the Church Fathers to politicised re-surfacings in the Diggers and the New Left, I associate it with Koselleck's 'process of reassurance' in a pre-ordained historical path. Contrasted to recursive prefiguration are the generative temporal framings couching defences of means-ends unity in the anarchist tradition. These emphasised the path dependency of revolutionary social transformation and the ethical underpinnings of anti-authoritarian politics. Misplaced recursive terminology, I argue, today conveniently distracts from the generative framing of means-ends unity, as the promise of revolution is replaced by that of environmental and industrial collapse. Instead of prefiguration, I suggest conceiving of means-ends unity in terms of Bloch's 'concrete utopia', and associating it with 'anxious' and 'catastrophic' forms of hope

Multi-objective optimization in single-row layout design using a genetic algorithm

This paper presents the development of a genetic algorithm for determining a common linear machine sequence for multi-products with different operation sequences and facilities with a limited number of duplicate machine types available for a job. This work aims to minimize the total flow distance travelled by products, reduce the number of machines arranged in the final linear sequence, and decrease the total investment cost of the machines used in the final sequence. We assume that product flow runs only in the forward direction, either via in-sequence or bypass movement. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm by solving a typical layout design problem taken from literature, and several randomly generated problems. Results indicate that the proposed algorithm serves as a practical decision support tool for resolving layout problems in manufacturing facilities

Convergent evolution of reduced energy demands in extremophile fish

Citation: Passow, C. N., Arias-Rodriguez, L., & Tobler, M. (2017). Convergent evolution of reduced energy demands in extremophile fish. PLOS ONE, 12(10), e0186935. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186935Convergent evolution in organismal function can arise from nonconvergent changes in traits that contribute to that function. Theory predicts that low resource availability and high maintenance costs in extreme environments select for reductions in organismal energy demands, which could be attained through modifications of body size or metabolic rate. We tested for convergence in energy demands and underlying traits by investigating livebearing fish (genus Poecilia) that have repeatedly colonized toxic, hydrogen sulphide-rich springs. We quantified variation in body size and routine metabolism across replicated sulphidic and non-sulphidic populations in nature, modelled total organismal energy demands, and conducted a common-garden experiment to test whether population differences had a genetic basis. Sulphidic populations generally exhibited smaller body sizes and lower routine metabolic rates compared to non-sulphidic populations, which together caused significant reductions in total organismal energy demands in extremophile populations. Although both mechanisms contributed to variation in organismal energy demands, variance partitioning indicated reductions of body size overall had a greater effect than reductions of routine metabolism. Finally, population differences in routine metabolism documented in natural populations were maintained in common-garden reared individuals, indicating evolved differences. In combination with other studies, these results suggest that reductions in energy demands may represent a common theme in adaptation to physiochemical stressors. Selection for reduced energy demand may particularly affect body size, which has implications for life history evolution in extreme environments