Conflicts involve powerful experiences. The residue of these experiences is captured by the concept and language of emotion. Indiscriminate killing creates fear; targeted violence produces anger and ...a desire for vengeance; political status reversals spawn resentment; cultural prejudices sustain ethnic contempt. These emotions can become resources for political entrepreneurs. A broad range of Western interventions are based on a view of human nature as narrowly rational. Correspondingly, intervention policy generally aims to alter material incentives ('sticks and carrots') to influence behavior. In response, poorer and weaker actors who wish to block or change this Western implemented 'game' use emotions as resources. This book examines the strategic use of emotion in the conflicts and interventions occurring in the Western Balkans over a twenty-year period. The book concentrates on the conflicts among Albanian and Slavic populations (Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, South Serbia), along with some comparisons to Bosnia.
The present review paper focuses on direct measurements of oscillatory forces. Beside the surface forces apparatus (SFA), atomic force microscopy (AFM) has emerged as the most commonly used technique ...to measure surface forces. Recent instrumental advances of both methods are highlighted in the review. Different systems, showing oscillatory forces are classified. Principle distinction is made between 1-component liquids (water, organic liquids and liquid crystals), pseudo 1-component liquids (ionic liquids and microemulsions) and 2-component liquids (dispersions containing polyelectrolytes, micelles or nanoparticles). In the last few years, the oscillatory force studies address particle characterisation, synergistic effects in multicomponent systems, the introduction of ‘switchable’ forces, and resolving liquid properties under confinement. Last but not least, the ability of AFM and SFA to measure oscillatory forces is discussed.
Display omitted
•Oscillatory forces can be used as a tool for particle characterisation.•Synergistic effects of oscillatory forces emerge when multiple components are dispersed.•Oscillatory forces can be switched by structural transitions in the liquid.•Liquid properties under confinement are accessible via scattering methods using different geometries.•Differences in direct forces measurements from atomic force microscopy and surface forces apparatus are discussed.
Mere months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a volunteer group of American airmen to the Far East, convinced that supporting Chinese resistance against the ...continuing Japanese invasion would be crucial to an eventual Allied victory in World War II. Within two weeks of that fateful Sunday in December 1941, the American Volunteer Group—soon to become known as the legendary "Flying Tigers"—went into action. For three and a half years, the volunteers and the Army Air Force airmen who followed them fought in dangerous aerial duels over East Asia. Audaciously led by master tactician Claire Lee Chennault, daring pilots such as David Lee "Tex" Hill and George B. "Mac" McMillan led their men in desperate combat against enemy air forces and armies despite being outnumbered and outgunned. Aviators who fell in combat and survived the crash or bailout faced the terrifying reality of being lost and injured in unfamiliar territory. Historian Daniel Jackson, himself a combat-tested pilot, recounts the stories of downed aviators who attempted to evade capture by the Japanese in their bid to return to Allied territory. He reveals the heroism of these airmen was equaled, and often exceeded, by the Chinese soldiers and civilians who risked their lives to return them safely to American bases. Based on thorough archival research and filled with compelling personal narratives from memoirs, wartime diaries, and dozens of interviews with veterans, this vital work offers an important new perspective on the Flying Tigers and the history of World War II in China.
Wearable device-based shear force sensing has been a challenging problem, whereas shear-force sensing plays a crucial role in motion measurement and robot manipulation. This paper presents a ...three-dimensional (3-D) flexible force sensor for measuring uniaxial vertical (i.e., normal) and 2-D shear forces. The proposed sensor is fabricated with silica gel and force-sensitive resistors (FSRs). A novel force decoupling method based on the hemispherical structure has been developed, which only requires calibration from the vertical direction, i.e., Z-axis. Experiments were carried out with a triaxial linear motion stage and a 3-D force sensor. Results show that the sensing module could measure Z-axis force ranging from 0 to 10 N with RE (relative error) of 3.2%, and shear forces (X- and Y-axes) ranging from 0 to 1.6 N with an RE of 5.5% and 5.9%, respectively. The proposed sensing module can be employed in application scenarios that require measuring interfacial stress.
During cardiac surgery, the excessive or insufficient contact force between the tip of catheter and heart tissue will lead to the cardiac penetration or noneffective ablative lesion. Usually, the ...surgeon can only estimate the force at the distal end roughly from their experience by operating the catheter's proximal handle. In this paper, we design a fiber Bragg grating-based triaxial force sensor with parallel flexure hinges to sense the contact force. The proposed mechanism integrated with parallel flexure hinges is capable of achieving an excellent lateral and axial stiffness balance to guarantee the resolution at each direction with the same order of magnitude. The mathematical model is built to design a suitable stiffness configuration and validate the design reasonability. The model-based and model-free methods are adopted to decouple lateral and axial force components. Experimental results demonstrate that the developed 8 French size force sensor can successfully achieve the triaxial force prediction with <;1 g resolution using both decoupling methods. And the model-free method can accomplish a higher accuracy with RMS error <;1% of full scale of -100 g, 100 g along the lateral direction and 0 g, 100 g along the axial compression direction.
The cross-bridge theory predicts that muscle force is determined by muscle length and the velocity of active muscle length changes. However, before the formulation of the cross-bridge theory, it had ...been observed that the isometric force at a given muscle length is enhanced or depressed depending on active muscle length changes before that given length is reached. These enhanced and depressed force states are termed residual force enhancement (rFE) and residual force depression (rFD), respectively, and together they are known as the history-dependent features of muscle force production. In this review, we introduce early attempts in explaining rFE and rFD before we discuss more recent research from the past 25 years which has contributed to a better understanding of the mechanisms underpinning rFE and rFD. Specifically, we discuss the increasing number of findings on rFE and rFD which challenge the cross-bridge theory and propose that the elastic element titin plays a role in explaining muscle history-dependence. Accordingly, new three-filament models of force production including titin seem to provide better insight into the mechanism of muscle contraction. Complementary to the mechanisms behind muscle history-dependence, we also show various implications for muscle history-dependence on in-vivo human muscle function such as during stretch–shortening cycles. We conclude that titin function needs to be better understood if a new three-filament muscle model which includes titin, is to be established. From an applied perspective, it remains to be elucidated how muscle history-dependence affects locomotion and motor control, and whether history-dependent features can be changed by training.
A contact force sensor is a critical clinical unit while performing cardiac ablation procedures. The success rate of these procedures is determined by the effective contact between the tip and the ...heart tissues. Using a miniaturized, susceptible tri-axial force sensor in the cardiac ablation catheter is quintessential to determine the force acting on the tip accurately. This paper discusses the design, fabrication, and comparison of two MEMS-based force sensors that can potentially be integrated with the catheter tip for better sensitivity. The working principle, shape (ring-type), and outer dimensions of both the sensors are similar, with a strategically positioned narrow rectangular cavity in the second sensor. Finite element analysis is performed to validate the performances of both sensors with the experimental results. The experiments show that sensor 2 (with the rectangular cavity on bridges) has <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\sim 1.84\times </tex-math></inline-formula> higher sensitivity than sensor 1 (bridges with no rectangular cavity). The results demonstrate the possibility of integrating the sensor with the catheter tip for measuring catheter contact force.
Recent decades have drawn more attention to the United States'
treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Few people
realize, however, the extent of the country's relocation,
internment, ...and repatriation of German and Italian Americans, who
were interned in greater numbers than Japanese Americans. The
United States also assisted other countries, especially in Latin
America, in expelling "dangerous" aliens, primarily Germans. In
Enemies among Us John E. Schmitz examines the causes,
conditions, and consequences of America's selective relocation and
internment of its own citizens and enemy aliens, as well as the
effects of internment on those who experienced it. Looking at
German, Italian, and Japanese Americans, Schmitz analyzes the
similarities in the U.S. government's procedures for those they
perceived to be domestic and hemispheric threats, revealing the
consistencies in the government's treatment of these groups,
regardless of race. Reframing wartime relocation and internment
through a broader chronological perspective and considering
policies in the wider Western Hemisphere, Enemies among Us
provides new conclusions as to why the United States relocated,
interned, and repatriated both aliens and citizens considered
enemies.
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is an exciting technique for biophysical studies of single molecules, but its usefulness is limited by instrumental drift. We dramatically reduced positional drift by ...adding two lasers to track and thereby actively stabilize the tip and the surface. These lasers also enabled label-free optical images that were spatially aligned to the tip position. Finally, sub-pN force stability over 100s was achieved by removing the gold coating from soft cantilevers. These enhancements to AFM instrumentation can immediately benefit research in biophysics and nanoscience.
PDF
