How gunpowder technology exploded heroes, heroics, and war stories from 1400 to 1700, and how German writers tried to glue them back together Guns have been linked with masculinity since their earliest days on European battlefields, and surviving treatises on gunpowder from the early fifteenth century describe in detail the kinds of strong, sober, and God-fearing men who could be trusted to use this new weapon. As the destructive capacity and military tactical value of gunpowder became more evident to European peoples over time, writers--especially German ones--expressed increasing anxiety aboutthe disruptive potential that gunpowder weapons held for warrior masculinity, martial ethics, and the aesthetic traditions of war stories. Focused on early modern German texts of all kinds, including military manuals,poems, theological treatises, novels, and broadsheets, Gunpowder, Masculinity, and Warfare in German Texts, 1400-1700 traces the cultural and literary history of gunpowder in German-speaking lands from the Hussite Wars into the literary aftermath of the Thirty Years War. Taking a long view of this textual and material history, author Patrick Brugh reveals that early conversations about firearms resonate with those today, including debates on such topics as questions of masculine ethos and gun violence, the rights to self-defense and to bear arms, and the way new technologies change how we tell stories. PATRICK BRUGH is an affiliate assistant professor of Genderand Sexuality Studies at Loyola University Maryland and an administrator at Johns Hopkins University.

This book addresses the nature of sound, focusing on the characteristics of sound waves in the context of time structures. This time domain approach provides an informative and intuitively understandable description of various acoustic topics such as sound waves travelling in an acoustic tube or in other media where spectral or modal analysis can be intensively performed. Starting from the introductory topic of sinusoidal waves, it discusses the formal relationship between the time and frequency domains, summarizing the fundamental notions of Fourier or z-transformations and linear systems theory, along with interesting examples from acoustical research. The books novel approach is of interest to research engineers and scientists In particular, the expressions concerning waveforms including the impulse responses are important for audio engineers who are familiar with digital signal analysis. Every chapter includes simple exercises designed to be solved without the need for a computer. Thus they help reconfirm the fundamental ideas and notions present in every chapter. The book is self-contained and concise, and requires only basic knowledge of acoustics and signal processing, making it valuable as a textbook for graduate and undergraduate university courses.

This monograph traces the development of our understanding of how and where energetic particles are accelerated in the heliosphere and how they may reach the Earth. Detailed data sets are presented which address these topics. The bulk of the observations are from spacecraft in or near the ecliptic plane. It is timely to present this subject now that Voyager-1 has entered the true interstellar medium. Since it seems unlikely that there will be a follow-on to the Voyager programme any time soon, the data we already have regarding the outer heliosphere are not going to be enhanced for at least 40 years.

How the scientific community overlooked, ignored, and denied the catastrophic fallout of decades of nuclear testing in the American West In December of 1950, President Harry Truman gave authorization for the Atomic Energy Commission to conduct weapons tests and experiments on a section of a Nevada gunnery range. Over the next eleven years, more than a hundred detonations were conducted at the Nevada Test Site, and radioactive debris dispersed across the communities just downwind and through much of the country. In this important work, James C. Rice tells the hidden story of nuclear weapons testing and the negligence of the US government in protecting public health. Downwind of the Atomic State focuses on the key decisions and events shaping the Commission's mismanagement of radiological contamination in the region, specifically on how the risks of fallout were defined and redefined, or, importantly, not defined at all, owing to organizational mistakes and the impetus to keep atomic testing going at all costs. Rice shows that although Atomic Energy Commission officials understood open-air detonations injected radioactive debris into the atmosphere, they did not understand, or seem to care, that the radioactivity would irrevocably contaminate these communities. The history of the atomic Southwest should be a wake-up call to everyone living in a world replete with large, complex organizations managing risky technological systems. The legacy of open-air detonations in Nevada pushes us to ask about the kinds of risks we are unwittingly living under today. What risks are we being exposed to by large organizations under the guise of security and science?

Rather than examining only the civil or military side of the US space program, as have many books in the past, "Space, the Dormant Frontier" takes a unique look at the space program as a whole. Part of the book's treatise is that the two communities must stop ignoring each other if the US space program is to move forward beyond being a science project, jobs program, or political football. How the program got into its current, semi-desperate state is also examined, as history has given space a legacy once glorious, now an albatross. The authors include information and analysis on the military and civil space programs, challenge the perspective of the Washington Beltway analyst with vested interests in the status quo, and make policy recommendations based on realism, rather than idealism.

This multi-contributed volume provides a practical, applications-focused introduction to nonlinear acoustical techniques for nondestructive evaluation. Compared to linear techniques, nonlinear acoustical/ultrasonic techniques are much more sensitive to micro-cracks and other types of small distributed damages. Most materials and structures exhibit nonlinear behavior due to the formation of dislocation and micro-cracks from fatigue or other types of repetitive loadings well before detectable macro-cracks are formed. Nondestructive evaluation (NDE) tools that have been developed based on nonlinear acoustical techniques are capable of providing early warnings about the possibility of structural failure before detectable macro-cracks are formed. This book presents the full range of nonlinear acoustical techniques used today for NDE. The expert chapters cover both theoretical and experimental aspects, but always with an eye towards applications. Unlike other titles currently available, which treat nonlinearity as a physics problem and focus on different analytical derivations, the present volume emphasizes NDE applications over detailed analytical derivations. The introductory chapter presents the fundamentals in a manner accessible to anyone with an undergraduate degree in Engineering or Physics and equips the reader with all of the necessary background to understand the remaining chapters. This self-contained volume will be a valuable reference to graduate students through practising researchers in Engineering, Materials Science, and Physics. Represents the first book on nonlinear acoustical techniques for NDE applications Emphasizes applications of nonlinear acoustical techniques Presents the fundamental physics and mathematics behind nonlinear acoustical phenomenon in a simple, easily understood manner Covers a variety of popular NDE techniques based on nonlinear acoustics in a single volume

This book is a compilation of selected papers from the 2nd International Petroleum and Petrochemical Technology Conference (IPPTC 2018). The work focuses on petroleum & petrochemical technologies and practical challenges in the field. It creates a platform to bridge the knowledge gap between China and the world. The conference not only provides a platform to exchanges experience but also promotes the development of scientific research in petroleum & petrochemical technologies. The book will benefit a broad readership, including industry experts, researchers, educators, senior engineers and managers.

This book reports on an outstanding thesis that has significantly advanced the state-of-the-art in the automated analysis and classification of speech and music. It defines several standard acoustic parameter sets and describes their implementation in a novel, open-source, audio analysis framework called openSMILE, which has been accepted and intensively used worldwide. The book offers extensive descriptions of key methods for the automatic classification of speech and music signals in real-life conditions and reports on the evaluation of the framework developed and the acoustic parameter sets that were selected. It is not only intended as a manual for openSMILE users, but also and primarily as a guide and source of inspiration for students and scientists involved in the design of speech and music analysis methods that can robustly handle real-life conditions.

This book offers an essential introduction to the notions of sound wave topology, duality, coherence and wave-mixing, which constitute the emerging new science of sound. It includes general principles and specific examples that illuminate new non-conventional forms of sound (sound topology), unconventional quantum-like behavior of phonons (duality), radical linear and nonlinear phenomena associated with loss and its control (coherence), and exquisite effects that emerge from the interaction of sound with other physical and biological waves (wave mixing). The book provides the reader with the foundations needed to master these complex notions through simple yet meaningful examples. General principles for unraveling and describing the topology of acoustic wave functions in the space of their Eigen values are presented. These principles are then applied to uncover intrinsic and extrinsic approaches to achieving non-conventional topologies by breaking the time reversal symmetry of acoustic waves. Symmetry breaking can impart topological immunity to wave degradation from imperfection scattering and catalyze controlled coherence. In the intrinsic case and the phonon representation of acoustic waves, the self-interaction/interference of a wave through its supporting medium exposes the notion of duality in the quantum statistics (i.e. boson vs. fermion characterized by the symmetry of multiple particle states) and how the quantum analogue behaviors of sound can be exploited in the form of novel sound-based information transfer and processing devices. By considering media that mix different types of waves, the book addresses the interaction of sound with other physical and biological waves but also brings to light examples of extrinsic processes that can lead to symmetry breaking. The coherent conversion of sound into other types of waves as well as the sound-induced non-conventional topology of elastic, electronic, spin and biological waves are presented in the case of media exhibiting elasto-electronic, photo-elastic, magneto-elastic effects and biological mechano-transduction.

Origins of the Earth, Moon, and Life: An Interdisciplinary Approach presents state-of-the-art knowledge that is based on theories, experiments, observations, calculations, and analytical data from five astro-sciences, astronomy, astrobiology, astrogeology, astrophysics, and cosmochemistry. Beginning with the origin of elements, and moving on to cover the formation of the early Solar System, the giant impact model of the Earth and Moon, the oldest records of life, and the possibility of life on other planets in the Solar System, this interdisciplinary reference provides a complex understanding of the planets and the formation of life. Synthesizing concepts from all branches of astro-sciences into one, the book is a valuable reference for researchers in astrogeology, astrophysics, cosmochemistry, astrobiology, astronomy, and other space science fields, helping users better understand the intersection of these sciences.

This newly-revised edition is written for professionals who need to gain an understanding of how weapon systems work and how these weapons can be intercepted and electronically jammed. It offers a thorough, up-to-date survey of sophisticated weapon and electronic warfare (EW) systems, and covers all the latest technological advances in this rapidly-changing area. Brand new material includes deep explanations of cutting-edge techniques, as well as an introduction to information operations and information warfare. The book explores a broad spectrum of defence equipment. It explains how these systems operate, the advantages and drawbacks of each system, and the theories on which these systems are based.

The thesis presents a tool to create rubble pile asteroid simulants for use in numerical impact experiments, and provides evidence that the asteroid disruption threshold and the resultant fragment size distribution are sensitive to the distribution of internal voids. This thesis represents an important step towards a deeper understanding of fragmentation processes in the asteroid belt, and provides a tool to infer the interior structure of rubble pile asteroids. Most small asteroids are 'rubble piles' - re-accumulated fragments of debris from earlier disruptive collisions. The study of fragmentation processes for rubble pile asteroids plays an essential part in understanding their collisional evolution. An important unanswered question is "what is the distribution of void space inside rubble pile asteroids?" As a result from this thesis, numerical impact experiments can now be used to link surface features to the internal structure and therefore help to answer this question. Applying this model to asteroid Steins, which was imaged from close range by the Rosetta spacecraft, a large hill-like structure is shown to be most likely primordial, while a catena of pits can be interpreted as evidence for the existence of fracturing of pre-existing internal voids.

This book provides an overview of paste tailings disposal at mine sites. It deals comprehensively with the characterization of sulphide-rich tailings, geotechnical and microstructural behaviour, surface tailings disposal applications, underground paste backfilling, and case studies. The authors place emphasis on the characterization, monitoring, disposal and treatment, as well as environmental considerations of problematic sulphidic tailings. The framework is supported by worldwide case studies.

This thesis describes the studies on the solar interior where turbulent thermal convection plays an important role. The author solved, for the first time, one of the long-standing issues in solar physics, i.e., the maintenance mechanism of the solar differential rotation in the near-surface shear layer. The author attacked this problem with a newly developed approach, the reduced speed of sound technique, which enabled him to investigate the surface and deep solar layers in a self-consistent manner. This technique also made it possible to achieve an unprecedented performance in the solar convection simulations for the usage of the massively parallel supercomputers such as the RIKEN K system. It was found that the turbulence and the mean flows such as the differential rotation and the meridional circulation mutually interact with each other to maintain the flow structures in the Sun. Recent observations by helioseismology support the author's proposed theoretical mechanism. The book also addresses the generation of the magnetic field in such turbulent convective motions, which is an important step forward for solar cyclic dynamo research.