Atomic Scale Memory at a Silicon Surface

The limits of pushing storage density to the atomic scale are explored with a memory that stores a bit by the presence or absence of one silicon atom. These atoms are positioned at lattice sites along self-assembled tracks with a pitch of 5 atom rows. The writing process involves removal of Si atoms with the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope. The memory can be reformatted by controlled deposition of silicon. The constraints on speed and reliability are compared with data storage in magnetic hard disks and DNA.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, accepted by Nanotechnolog

“Super-sizing” the DPRK threat : Japan’s evolving military posture and North Korea

Japan's reemergence as a "normal" military power has been accelerated by the "super-sizing" of North Korea: a product of the North's extant military threat, multiplied exponentially by its undermining of U.S.-Japan alliance solidarity, views of the North as a domestic "peril," and the North's utilization as a catch-all proxy for remilitarization

E-commerce settles for established payment systems: Limited market potential for innovative payment systems

Established payment systems play a dominant role also in B2C e-commerce. Innovative payment systems can only be a success here if they pay attention to the particular features of e-commerce, convey the worth of their value-adding unique selling proposition and enjoy the support of established e-shops or financial service providers. However, apart from rare cases the conventional payment systems leave little room for the innovative systems. This holds all the more since the conventional payment systems are responding to the new demands of B2C e-commerce.Information- and communication technology; ICT; E-Business; E-Commerce; B2C-E-Commerce; Internet; e-payments

Can’t Buy Me Love

Critics of commodification often claim that the buying and selling of some good communicates disrespect or some other inappropriate attitude. Such semiotic critiques have been leveled against markets in sex, pornography, kidneys, surrogacy, blood, and many other things. Brennan and Jaworski (2015a) have recently argued that all such objections fail. They claim that the meaning of a market transaction is a highly contingent, socially constructed fact. If allowing a market for one of these goods can improve the supply, access or quality of the good, then instead of banning the market on semiotic grounds, they urge that we should revise our semiotics. In this reply, I isolate a part of the meaning of a market transaction that is not socially constructed: our market exchanges always express preferences. I then show how cogent semiotic critiques of some markets can be constructed on the basis of this fact

Growing up and growing old with television: peripheral viewers and the centrality of care

This essay draws on feminist work on the ethics of care to both (re)establish an alliance between the very young and the very old and to begin to challenge the normative models of subjectivity and spectatorship that circulate within film and television studies. Through textual experiences of time and space and the operations of care, we emphasize the reciprocity and interdependence between generations. This recognition, we argue, offers a new mode of engagement with the challenges of ‘growing up’ and ‘growing old’ on and with television. In our alignment of older and younger audiences we challenge the normative chain of associations where ageing is represented as growth, and growth is associated with development. For the child, this model appears unproblematic even inevitable: ageing = growth = development. In contrast, ageing for older individuals is associated not with growth and development but with decline. A positive alignment between childhood and old age may offer an understanding of this motion (between the status, capacity and experience of child and older adult) as continuous, as an oscillation that is often made evident in the interdependence between child and adult. This, we believe, is mirrored in certain textual and experiential characteristics of television, and we explore it through close textual analysis of children’s programmes Katie Morag, Old Jack’s Boat and Mr Alzheimer’s and Me. These are programmes that not only offer representations of caring intergenerational relationships (of grandchild and grandparent) but express, in their seaside locations, an ebb and flow that is mapped onto experiences of both television and of intergenerational care