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In April 2018, somebody painted over a mural in the Julia de Burgos public school’s cafeteria, turning the wall into a blank, off-white slate. The mural’s erasure symbolically encapsulates a combin...

Globalized cities, like Basel with its pharmaceutical industry, are shaped by migration. At the same time migration, one of the driving forces of urbanization, scarcely surfaces in public discourse...

Among European democracies, Italian elections have usually seen high levels of protest voting. Then in the 2006 election the number of blank ballots suddenly dropped by one million following the ad...

In the traditional deep drawing process, a blank holder is required to press the blank over the die to prevent wrinkling and to control the material flow into the die cavity. But, this important to...

Background: Client disclosure of emotionally salient information to a therapist may be an important factor in the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Psychosis (CBTp). The present st...

Hot stamping process is a thermo-mechanical process in which blank is heated to austenitization temperature and then subsequent forming and quenching are done simultaneously. Due to complex process...

This article examines Polish-Soviet, and subsequently Polish–Russian, relations through the lens of successive bilateral efforts to address “blank spots” in the shared history of these two neighbor...

Body image is typically studied through the framework of internalising gender binary standards of attractiveness. However, not all individuals adhere to traditional appearance norms. This study aim...

The Quina scraper features an important role in the discussion of European Middle Palaeolithic variability. Explanations for its characteristic retouch and blank morphology have ranged from economic to functional and cultural considerations. One hypothesis is that Quina retouch maintains the edge angle of the retouched margin, allowing the upkeep of high cutting potential despite repeated resharpening. In this study, we examine this hypothesis by using a sample of scrapers from the Middle Palaeolithic site of Roc de Marsal in southwest France. The results show that, when the influence of reduction intensity and flake thickness are controlled, Quina retouch has no detectable impact on the retouched edge angle. Instead, the overall higher edge angles among Quina scrapers are a product of continuous reduction and the use of thicker blanks. We discuss possible factors underlying the occurrence of Quina retouch with respect to lithic economy and function. University of Pennsylvania Kolb Society of the Penn Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology

Generally, the adhesion of titanium alloys easily occurs between die and blank during press forming because the sliding and contact surface of die and blank with high surface pressure. In the case ...

We propose an improved randomized response model for the simultaneous estimation of population means of two quantitative sensitive variables by using blank card option that make use of one scramble...

An eye-tracking while listening study based on the blank screen paradigm was conducted to investigate the processing of literal and metaphorical verbs of motion. The study was based on two assumptions from the litera- ture: that language comprehension by default engages mental simulation, and that looking behavior (measured through patterns of eye movements) can provide a window into ongoing cognitive processes. This study specifi- cally compared the comprehension of sentences that depicted actual physi- cal motion (the curtain is rising) and sentences that described changes in quantity or emotional states in terms of vertical motion (prices are rising). Results showed that eye movements were selectively biased upward or downward in accordance with the direction implied by the verb, regardless of the context (literal or metaphorical) in which they appeared, and in the absence of any visual stimuli or explicit task. Thus, these findings suggest that literal and metaphorical language drive spontaneous, direction-specific mental simulations captured by eye movements and that at least in the case of verbs presented in the present progressive, which emphasizes the ongoing nature of actions, visual biases along the vertical axis may start during the verb itself.

Variable-thickness rolled blank (VRB) technique is one of the most effective methods to improve the level of lightweight and stiffness characteristics of car body. The shape of thickness transition...

This article examines how non-religious children experience acts of collective worship and prayer in primary school settings and analyses how they negotiate religion and their non-religious identit...

Blank holders play an important role in non-isothermal stamping, and blank holder optimization is thus investigated in this article. A kriging-interpolated level-set method based on a parallel infi...

Fluid flow is of great importance to the quality of near-net-shape beam blanks. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) was employed to measure the fluid flow inside a full-scale water model for a beam bla...

The paper focuses on a certain category of complex mourning which is entitled “blank mourning”: a mode of mourning unique to bereaved parents who themselves, or whose families, are Holocaust surviv...

This work presents a randomization device for the estimation of population mean related to quantitative sensitive characteristics using blank card strategy. Measure of privacy protection fo...

When you’re doing early drafts on something, I think what you’re really doing is knocking at that door saying, Let me in, let me in, ‘til finally you get to something and the door opens (Charles Jo...

The simple, three-letter title of Hanne Blank’s Fat masks the historical, cultural, and scientific intricacy of the subject of the book. It also begs the question: which fat is she talking about he...

This article examines the performative digital practices of India’s feminist campaign group Blank Noise, with a focus on their 2016 project #WalkAlone. The event sought to explore and challenge emb...

A 3-D finite volume mathematical model was established by customizing pull velocity field function of solidified shell, to simulate the coupled fluid flow, heat transfer, and solidification of beam...

It has become a trend to present Rhodopa as a “blank” region in history. Yet this trend represents an inaccurate picture of the past. As a result, Rhodopa is currently an area that requires more re...

As noted in the editorial for the preceding issue (Reid 2019), by year’s end, Environmental Education Research will have published 25 volumes of studies. In total, they contain over 150 issues and ...

This article addresses the estimation procedures of population mean related to the quantitative sensitive variable with the help of a randomized device which makes the use of blank cards in the ran...

This article presents the modified estimation procedures of population mean related to quantitative sensitive character with the help of a randomized device which makes the use of blank cards in th...

As this summer begins, I am thrilled that the COVID-19 pandemic is starting to diminish in the United States. Playful activity outdoors has been rising slowly. Since we can go out to see friends fa...

Steve Blank is the founder of what has become the Lean Startup movement. In this interview, he discusses Lean Startup’s roots in customer development, its integration of Agile software practices, a...

We focus on crack propagation to investigate surface cracks in the mould during continuous casting, based on the crack initiation mechanism proposed in previous studies. The temperature and...

This article analyses how government funding affects the interactions interest organisations initiate with governments in a multi-level context. Governments rarely write blank checks, but rather specify eligibility and spending requirements when funding interest organisations. Our primary argument is that these requirements do not only impact organisations interactions with their benefactors, but that they may also impact interactions with governments at other levels. We analyse this expectation drawing data from a recent survey of a representative sample of Belgian interest organisations. Our results demonstrate that organisations dependent on funding from the subnational and European level are less prone to interact with the national government. Whereas, organisations dependent on national government funding are not less likely to contact the subnational level of government. This variation is explained by the various ways these respective governments implement discretion.

This paper proposes a constructive steganography approach using texture synthesis. With a source texture pattern, we first generate a reference pattern using a point-based texture synthesis. The reference pattern is further extended using a patch-based synthesis algorithm. We crop the extended pattern to generate an intermediate pattern. The reference pattern is then divided into overlapping patches. With a secret key, the reference patches are pseudo-randomly painted onto a blank canvas. To hide secret messages, we identify appropriate patches from the intermediate pattern to represent secret bits, and fulfill the blank regions with these patches using image quilting. The proposed method has a better performance than previous works. As we extend the source pattern to generate more candidate patches, more secret bits can be hidden into the stego image, and the quality of the synthesized image is better. Meanwhile, the proposed method has a capability of resisting a specified attack designed for te...

Every government has its own impact on policy, but no government starts from a blank page. As was the case with the Labour governments that came before them, the Conservative and Conservative-led g...

Hot stamping spot welding tailored blank technology is a process to produce spot welded automotive body parts by the following process: spot welding steel sheets in lap configuration → hot stamping...

Presently, tailored welded blank (TWB) sheets have found various applications in automotive, aeronautical and many other industries. The most popular method for production of TWB sheets is friction...

Item response time data were used in investigating the differences in student test-taking behavior between two device conditions: computer and tablet. Analyses were conducted to address the questions of whether or not the device condition had a differential impact on rapid guessing and solution behaviors (with response time effort used as an indicator) as well as on the time that students spent on the test (reading, mathematics, and science) or a given item type (such as drag-and-drop and fill in blank). Further analyses were conducted to examine if the potential impact of device conditions varied by gender and ethnicity groups. Overall there were no significant differences in response time effort related to device, although some differences related to item type and test sequence were noted. Students tended to spend slightly more time when taking the tests and certain types of items on the tablet than on the computer. No interactions of device with gender or ethnicity were observed. Follow-up rese...

I've always been interested in books as objects. They're easily fetishized, acquired, and displayed. They can be intimately and laboriously pored over, spines worn to tatters, or superficially cura...

This article reports on the use of syntactically incomplete utterances in talk-in-interaction as a resource for doing two sorts of inquiries: seeking information and initiating repair. The element inquired about is made relevant next, and typically given by the addressee, in the form of a completion fitted to the incomplete utterance. Using a vernacular term, the practice could be referred to as “asking a fill-in-the-blank question,” where syntactic structure is distributed across question and answer. It is shown how transition-relevance places can be set up in the absence of syntactic completion and how fill-in-the-blank questions thereby differ from other types of collaborative productions. The particular import and usefulness of incomplete utterances is demonstrated relative to other resources. The phenomenon shows that syntactic completion and turn completion need not coincide and illustrates how questions can constrain the form of answers through projection. Data are in French with English tr...

Relying on architectural imagery and turning a private matter into public concern, The Winter’s Tale echoes many early modern anxieties about privacy. Constantly questioning what is seen, heard and said, it finally leaves many of its secrets untold and appears to be built around a blank. It creates an intricate relation between architectural space, presence and absence as fictional domestic space and actual theatrical space interact in a complex public/private dialectic.

The purpose of Social & Public Policy of Alzheimer’s Disease in the United States is to review public policies related to Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias from a national and global perspect...

Researchers collaborated with a team of third-grade teachers in an urban district in the Upper Midwest to examine misunderstandings among students when using the number line as a model for fractions. Researchers looked closely at how the number line can be used as a model to build meaning for fractions for third-grade students. This article focuses on student interviews that discuss preconstructed and blank number line tasks that indicate how and when common misunderstandings occur when using a number line model. Misunderstandings include student misinterpretations of partitioning and tick marks, misunderstanding the unit, and equivalence as it relates to the number line. With these struggles as a basis, instructional implications for using the number line as a model in the classroom are provided. Reflection is included on the role of the number line and how it enhances third graders’ understanding of fractions in ways that other models do not.

The purpose of this paper is to provide efficient lightweight design for improving the loading carrying efficiency and energy absorption capability of tailor-rolled blank thin-walled structure with top-hat section (TRB-TH) under transverse loading. First, a new finite-element (FE) modelling method for the TRB-TH structure is proposed. The FE model is validated by performing quasi-static bending tests on two kinds of typical specimens. Second, the validated FE model is used to study the loading carrying efficiency and energy absorption capability of TRB-TH structures with variations in the thicknesses of constant thickness zone, lengths and positions of thickness transition zone by using global sensitivity analysis. Finally, to determine the optimal thickness distribution, multiobjective optimisation design is performed by integrating response surface method and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) algorithm. The results have demonstrated that the TRB-TH structures can not only produce...

Tailor-rolled blank thin-walled (TRB-TH) structures have become important vehicle components owing to their advantages of light weight and crashworthiness. The purpose of this article is to provide an efficient lightweight design for improving the energy-absorbing capability of TRB-TH structures under dynamic loading. A finite element (FE) model for TRB-TH structures is established and validated by performing a dynamic axial crash test. Different material properties for individual parts with different thicknesses are considered in the FE model. Then, a multi-objective crashworthiness design of the TRB-TH structure is constructed based on the -support vector regression (-SVR) technique and non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II. The key parameters (C, and σ) are optimized to further improve the predictive accuracy of -SVR under limited sample points. Finally, the technique for order preference by similarity to the ideal solution method is used to rank the solutions in Pareto-optimal frontiers a...

Paul Auster blends stories with stories, lives with lives, and reality with fiction, and, finally, presents a full sense of the self trapped in a net of uncertainties. In this article, we examine the fictional positioning of Auster’s protagonist in Travels in the Scriptorium (2006/2007) to identify the role of storytelling in authoring one’s self. Based on the newly developed conceptual framework of “virtual fictional and factual positioning,” we elaborate on the possible dialogical coalition of the author’s positions as “I-as-artist/novelist” and “I-as-the-hero-of-my-story,” among other positions. The findings of this research indicated that the art of storytelling for Mr Blank becomes a means of survival. In his creative absorption in the fictional and factual positionings and experiencing the life of his hero, Mr Blank as a motivated artist/novelist could develop a dialogical self and reconstitute a more porous sense of his self and identity.

The purpose of this study is to predict the rolling-orientation and temperature dependent forming limit diagrams (FLDs) of tailor rolled blank (TRB) in hot stamping process. The rolling orientation is defined by the angle of major loading direction and rolling direction and influences to hot formability of TRB. When forming take places at elevated temperature, the formability of TRB is greatly affected not only by the rolling orientation but also by inhomogeneous forming temperature. In this study, TRB of thickness ratio 1.43(1.5/1.05 mm) was employed to evaluate the formability at elevated temperature using stretch forming test which was performed according to various deformation modes. The experimental FLDs were determined by the second derivative Bragard method which was based on the analysis of strain distribution near failure. In order to obtain the rolling-orientation and temperature dependent FLDs, the experimental FLDs were used to establish interpolating equation using major loading direc...

My tenth-grade speech and debate teacher, Ms. Hicks, told me never to begin a speech by saying, “The dictionary defines [blank] as,” so I will resist the temptation in this Editor’s Note. Neverthel...

The hot stamping potential of three commercial carbon–manganese–chromium steels was demonstrated. The steels were selected with the intention of producing ultrahigh strength ferritic–martensitic dual phase microstructures from hot stamping heat treatment, exhibiting superior tensile properties for ‘impact energy absorptive’ crash performance compared to the conventional carbon–manganese–boron steel for automotive hot stamping technologies, 22MnB5. Compared to 22MnB5, each of the carbon–manganese–chromium steels provided at least twice the total elongation, yet with a relatively small loss to ultimate tensile strength. It was concluded that the carbon–manganese–chromium steels provide superior tensile properties for impact energy absorptive crash performance, while exhibiting ‘lean’ chemical compositions compared to previously investigated steels with similar aims and offer opportunities for use in the ‘tailor welded blank’ concept.

The copper mould and molten steel were modelled simultaneously by a three-dimensional (3D) model, which couples fluid flow, heat transfer and solidification. Thermal boundary conditions (e.g. air gap distribution, slag resistance, contact resistance) along casting direction and circumference direction were discussed and applied. The results of solid shell thickness distribution were compared with reference experimental data and reasonable agreements were found. The calculations indicate that, the shell thickness distribution along circumference in web was affected by the cross-section sizes. The uniform shell thickness distributions at narrow face and R corner were caused by the scouring of fluid flow. The heat transfer fluxes at hot face of mould were various at different locations.

We propose a generic RD for the estimation of mean of quantitative sensitive characteristic that make use of additive and multiplicative scrambled responses with blank card strategy. For this generic RD we work with 12 choices and derive statistical properties of each model and give many immediate results in corollaries. It is interesting to note that various existing models can now be viewed as the special cases of this RD. Finally, various empirical studies have been done for each of these models to evaluate the efficiency performance.

Drivers crossing America on Interstate 70 find that the scenery shifts in Missouri. Billboards dominate the landscape. Most signs advertise travel amenities — food, motels and fuel. Many are blank....