scholarly journals Subcritical Instabilities in Neutral Fluids and Plasmas

Fluids ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxime Lesur ◽  
Julien Médina ◽  
Makoto Sasaki ◽  
Akihiro Shimizu

In neutral fluids and plasmas, the analysis of perturbations often starts with an inventory of linearly unstable modes. Then, the nonlinear steady-state is analyzed or predicted based on these linear modes. A crude analogy would be to base the study of a chair on how it responds to infinitesimaly small perturbations. One would conclude that the chair is stable at all frequencies, and cannot fall down. Of course, a chair falls down if subjected to finite-amplitude perturbations. Similarly, waves and wave-like structures in neutral fluids and plasmas can be triggered even though they are linearly stable. These subcritical instabilities are dormant until an interaction, a drive, a forcing, or random noise pushes their amplitude above some threshold. Investigating their onset conditions requires nonlinear calculations. Subcritical instabilities are ubiquitous in neutral fluids and plasmas. In plasmas, subcritical instabilities have been investigated based on analytical models and numerical simulations since the 1960s. More recently, they have been measured in laboratory and space plasmas, albeit not always directly. The topic could benefit from the much longer and richer history of subcritical instability and transition to subcritical turbulence in neutral fluids. In this tutorial introduction, we describe the fundamental aspects of subcritical instabilities in plasmas, based on systems of increasing complexity, from simple examples of a point-mass in a potential well or a box on a table, to turbulence and instabilities in neutral fluids, and finally, to modern applications in magnetized toroidal fusion plasmas.

2000 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-268
Author(s):  
R. J. CLEEVELY

A note dealing with the history of the Hawkins Papers, including the material relating to John Hawkins (1761–1841) presented to the West Sussex Record Office in the 1960s, recently transferred to the Cornwall County Record Office, Truro, in order to be consolidated with the major part of the Hawkins archive held there. Reference lists to the correspondence of Sibthorp-Hawkins, Hawkins-Sibthorp, and Hawkins to his mother mentioned in The Flora Graeca story (Lack, 1999) are provided.


1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-291
Author(s):  
P.S.M. PHIRI ◽  
D.M. MOORE

Central Africa remained botanically unknown to the outside world up to the end of the eighteenth century. This paper provides a historical account of plant explorations in the Luangwa Valley. The first plant specimens were collected in 1897 and the last serious botanical explorations were made in 1993. During this period there have been 58 plant collectors in the Luangwa Valley with peak activity recorded in the 1960s. In 1989 1,348 species of vascular plants were described in the Luangwa Valley. More botanical collecting is needed with a view to finding new plant taxa, and also to provide a satisfactory basis for applied disciplines such as ecology, phytogeography, conservation and environmental impact assessment.


2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Pickering

"Instead of considering »being with« in terms of non-problematic, machine-like places, where reliable entities assemble in stable relationships, STS conjures up a world where the achievement of chancy stabilisations and synchronisations is local.We have to analyse how and where a certain regularity and predictability in the intersection of scientists and their instruments, say, or of human individuals and groups, is produced.The paper reviews models of emergence drawn from the history of cybernetics—the canonical »black box,« homeostats, and cellular automata—to enrich our imagination of the stabilisation process, and discusses the concept of »variety« as a way of clarifying its difficulty, with the antiuniversities of the 1960s and the Occupy movement as examples. Failures of »being with« are expectable. In conclusion, the paper reviews approaches to collective decision-making that reduce variety without imposing a neoliberal hierarchy. "


Author(s):  
Timur Gimadeev

The article deals with the history of celebrating the Liberation Day in Czechoslovakia organised by the state. Various aspects of the history of the holiday have been considered with the extensive use of audiovisual documents (materials from Czechoslovak newsreels and TV archives), which allowed for a detailed analysis of the propaganda representation of the holiday. As a result, it has been possible to identify the main stages of the historical evolution of the celebrations of Liberation Day, to discover the close interdependence between these stages and the country’s political development. The establishment of the holiday itself — its concept and the military parade as the main ritual — took place in the first post-war years, simultaneously with the consolidation of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Later, until the end of the 1960s, the celebrations gradually evolved along the political regime, acquiring new ritual forms (ceremonial meetings, and “guards of memory”). In 1968, at the same time as there was an attempt to rethink the entire socialist regime and the historical experience connected with it, an attempt was made to reconstruct Liberation Day. However, political “normalisation” led to the normalisation of the celebration itself, which played an important role in legitimising the Soviet presence in the country. At this stage, the role of ceremonial meetings and “guards of memory” increased, while inventions released in time for 9 May appeared and “May TV” was specially produced. The fall of the Communist regime in 1989 led to the fall of the concept of Liberation Day on 9 May, resulting in changes of the title, date and paradigm of the holiday, which became Victory Day and has been since celebrated on 8 May.


Transfers ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franziska Torma

This article deals with the history of underwater film and the role that increased mobility plays in the exploration of nature. Drawing on research on the exploration of the ocean, it analyzes the production of popular images of the sea. The entry of humans into the depths of the oceans in the twentieth century did not revitalize myths of mermaids but rather retold oceanic myths in a modern fashion. Three stages stand out in this evolution of diving mobility. In the 1920s and 1930s, scenes of divers walking under water were the dominant motif. From the 1940s to the 1960s, use of autonomous diving equipment led to a modern incarnation of the “mermen“ myth. From the 1950s to the 1970s, cinematic technology was able to create visions of entire oceanic ecosystems. Underwater films contributed to the period of machine-age exploration in a very particular way: they made virtual voyages of the ocean possible and thus helped to shape the current understanding of the oceans as part of Planet Earth.


2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Connah ◽  
S.G.H. Daniels

New archaeological research in Borno by the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, has included the analysis of pottery excavated from several sites during the 1990s. This important investigation made us search through our old files for a statistical analysis of pottery from the same region, which although completed in 1981 was never published. The material came from approximately one hundred surface collections and seven excavated sites, spread over a wide area, and resulted from fieldwork in the 1960s and 1970s. Although old, the analysis remains relevant because it provides a broad geographical context for the more recent work, as well as a large body of independent data with which the new findings can be compared. It also indicates variations in both time and space that have implications for the human history of the area, hinting at the ongoing potential of broadscale pottery analysis in this part of West Africa and having wider implications of relevance to the study of archaeological pottery elsewhere.


2019 ◽  
pp. 134-197
Author(s):  
V.E. . Sergei

The article is dedicated to the history of the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineering and Signal Corps. The author examines the main stages of the museums formation, starting with the foundation of the Arsenal, established in St. Petersburg at the orders of Peter the Great on August 29th 1703 for the safekeeping and preservation of memory, for eternal glory of unique arms and military trophies. In 1756, on the base of the Arsenals collection, the General Inspector of Artillery Count P.I. created the Memorial Hall, set up at the Arsenal, on St. Petersburgs Liteyny Avenue. By the end of the 18th century the collection included over 6,000 exhibits. In 1868 the Memorial Hall was transferred to the New Arsenal, at the Crownwork of the Petropavlovsky Fortress, and renamed the Artillery Museum (since 1903 the Artillery Historical Museum). A large part of the credit for the development and popularization of the collection must be given to the historian N.E. Brandenburg, the man rightly considered the founder of Russias military museums, who was the chief curator from 1872 to 1903. During the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars a significant part of the museums holdings were evacuated to Yaroslavl and Novosibirsk. Thanks to the undying devotion of the museums staff, it not only survived, but increased its collection. In the 1960s over 100,000 exhibits were transferred from the holdings of the Central Historical Museum of Military Engineering and the Military Signal Corps Museum. In 1991 the collection also received the entire Museum of General Field Marshal M.I. Kutuzov, transferred from the Polish town of Bolesawjec. The Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineering and Signal Coprs is now one of the largest museums of military history in the world. It holds an invaluable collection of artillery and ammunition, of firearms and cold steel arms, military engineering and signal technology, military banners, uniforms, a rich collection of paintings and graphic works, orders and medals, as well as extensive archives, all dedicated to the history of Russian artillery and the feats of our nations defenders.Статья посвящена истории создания ВоенноИсторического музея артиллерии, инженерных войск и войск связи. Автор рассматривает основные этапы становления музея, начиная с основания Арсенала, созданного в СанктПетербурге по приказу Петра I 29 августа 1703 года для хранения и сохранения памяти, во имя вечной славы уникального оружия и военных трофеев. В 1756 году на базе коллекции Арсенала генеральный инспектор артиллерии граф П. И. создал мемориальный зал, установленный при Арсенале, на Литейном проспекте СанктПетербурга. К концу 18 века коллекция насчитывала более 6000 экспонатов. В 1868 году Мемориальный зал был перенесен в Новый Арсенал, на венец Петропавловской крепости, и переименован в Артиллерийский музей (с 1903 года Артиллерийский Исторический музей). Большая заслуга в развитии и популяризации коллекции принадлежит историку Н.Е. Бранденбургу, человеку, по праву считавшемуся основателем российских военных музеев, который был главным хранителем с 1872 по 1903 год. В годы Гражданской и Великой Отечественной войн значительная часть фондов музея была эвакуирована в Ярославль и Новосибирск. Благодаря неусыпной преданности сотрудников музея, он не только сохранился, но и пополнил свою коллекцию. В 1960х годах более 100 000 экспонатов были переданы из фондов Центрального исторического военноинженерного музея и Музея войск связи. В 1991 году коллекцию также получил весь музей генералфельдмаршала М. И. Кутузова, переданный из польского города Болеславец. Военноисторический музей артиллерии, инженерных войск и войск связи в настоящее время является одним из крупнейших музеев военной истории в мире. Здесь хранится бесценная коллекция артиллерии и боеприпасов, огнестрельного и холодного оружия, военной техники и сигнальной техники, военных знамен, обмундирования, богатая коллекция живописных и графических работ, орденов и медалей, а также обширные архивы, посвященные истории русской артиллерии и подвигам защитников нашего народа.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-267

This article others a brief historical account of the complex relationship between Michel Foucault and certain theorists in the Western Marxist philosophical tradition. In the context of the history of the “short twentieth century,” Western Marxism is an intellectual trend based on an interpretation of non-Western revolutionary praxis (by Bolsheviks, Maoists, Guevaristas, etc.). Comparative analysis of several schematic portraits - of Lenin’s revolutionary intellectual, of traditional as opposed to organic intellectuals in Gramsci, and of Foucault’s public intellectual - shows that Foucault in a certain instances was not an external enemy of the Western Marxist tradition, but rather its internal critic. Foucault comes across as a revisionist who engaged in a debate with Lenin about the strategy of the revolutionary movement in France of the 1960s and the 70s. Foucault’s criticism of Leninism unexpectedly turns out to be consistent with the basic struggle of post-WWII Western Marxism to find an alternative to the Bolshevik experience of revolution. This deliberate concurrence makes Foucault one of the significant figures in the history of late Western Marxism, but this becomes a real problem for current historians of neo-Marxist thought when coupled with his generally anti-Marxist views. The article discusses two possible solutions to this problem devised by Perry Anderson and Daniel Bensaid. Anderson’s description of the role of Foucault in the fate of Western Marxism is limited to conceptual questions about the relationship between Marxism and (post) structuralism. Bensaid tries to explain how Foucault fits into the Marxist tradition by appealing to social changes, specifically the changing ideology of capitalist society (in the spirit of The New Spirit of Capitalism by Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello). Building on Bensaid’s work, the article shows the link between Foucault’s position on public intellectuals and the crisis of the revolutionary movement of the last half-century, in particular by reference to the famous “Iranian episode” in Foucault’s biography.


Author(s):  
Fabio Franchino

The history of nuclear energy policy in Italy is characterized by major shifts. After being a world leader in nuclear energy production in the 1960s, the country stopped its programme in the 1980s. An attempt at rejuvenating and expanding nuclear energy in the early 2000s came to an end after the Fukushima disaster. In both instances a referendum was held. Party competition, coalition politics, changes in government, and Italy’s institutional features, in particular the provisions for holding referendums, are the main factors explaining these policy reversals. The chapter concludes that a relaunch of the nuclear energy programme does not seem impossible, but is unlikely for the foreseeable future.


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