Modeling of primary dendrite arm spacing variations in thin-slab casting of low carbon and low alloy steels

Solidification structure of a High Strength Low Alloy (HSLA) steel, in terms of dendrite arm spacing distribution across the shell thickness, is studied in a breakout shell from a thin-slab caster at Tata Steel in IJmuiden. Columnar dendrites were found to be the predominant morphology throughout the shell with size variations across the shell thickness. Primary Dendrite Arm Spacing (PDAS) increases by increasing the distance from meniscus or slab surface. Subsequently, a model is proposed to describe the variation of the PDAS with the shell thickness (the distance from slab surface) under solidifiction conditions experienced in the primary cooling zone of thin-slab casting. The proposed relationship related the PDAS to the shell thickness and, hence, can be used as a tool for predicting solidifcation structure and optimizing the thin-slab casting of low alloy steels

Internet Service Providers' and Individuals' Attitudes, Barriers, and Incentives to Secure IoT

Internet of Things (IoT) play a vital role in securing IoT. However, encouraging them to do so is hard. Our study investigates ISPs’ and individuals’ attitudes towards the security of IoT, the obstacles they face, and their incentives to keep IoT secure, drawing evidence from Japan. Due to the complex interactions of the stakeholders, we follow an iterative methodology where we present issues and potential solutions to our stakeholders in turn. For ISPs, we survey 27 ISPs in Japan, followed by a workshop with representatives from government and 5 ISPs. Based on the findings from this, we conduct semi-structured interviews with 20 participants followed by a more quantitative survey with 328 participants. We review these results in a second workshop with representatives from government and 7 ISPs. The appreciation of challenges by each party has lead to findings that are supported by all stakeholders. Securing IoT devices is neither users’ nor ISPs’ priority. Individuals are keen on more interventions both from the government as part of regulation and from ISPs in terms of filtering malicious traffic. Participants are willing to pay for enhanced monitoring and filtering. While ISPs do want to help users, there appears to be a lack of effective technology to aid them. ISPs would like to see more public recognition for their efforts, but internally they struggle with executive buy-in and effective means to communicate with their customers. The majority of barriers and incentives are external to ISPs and individuals, demonstrating the complexity of keeping IoT secure and emphasizing the need for relevant stakeholders in the IoT ecosystem to work in tandem

Non-adiabatic spin torque investigated using thermally activated magnetic domain wall dynamics

Using transmission electron microscopy, we investigate the thermally activated motion of domain walls (DWs) between two positions in permalloy (Ni80Fe20) nanowires at room temperature. We show that this purely thermal motion is well described by an Arrhenius law, allowing for a description of the DW as a quasi-particle in a 1D potential landscape. By injecting small currents, the potential is modified, allowing for the determination of the non-adiabatic spin torque: the non-adiabatic coefficient is 0.010 +/- 0.004 for a transverse DW and 0.073 +/- 0.026 for a vortex DW. The larger value is attributed to the higher magnetization gradients present

Understanding/unravelling carotenoid excited singlet states.

Carotenoids are essential light-harvesting pigments in natural photosynthesis. They absorb in the blue–green region of the solar spectrum and transfer the absorbed energy to (bacterio-)chlorophylls, and thus expand the wavelength range of light that is able to drive photosynthesis. This process is an example of singlet–singlet excitation energy transfer, and carotenoids serve to enhance the overall efficiency of photosynthetic light reactions. The photochemistry and photophysics of carotenoids have often been interpreted by referring to those of simple polyene molecules that do not possess any functional groups. However, this may not always be wise because carotenoids usually have a number of functional groups that induce the variety of photochemical behaviours in them. These differences can also make the interpretation of the singlet excited states of carotenoids very complicated. In this article, we review the properties of the singlet excited states of carotenoids with the aim of producing as coherent a picture as possible of what is currently known and what needs to be learned