User Innovation: Why and How?

There is a new innovation trend which is gaining immense momentum lately: user innovation. The purpose of this project was to examine the current literature, blogs, and online forums to understand the dynamics of user innovation in order to answer the questions: what are the main characteristics of user innovation?; why do users innovate?; how do users innovate?; what are the benefits of user innovation?; and is there a future for this trend?. The answers suggest that user innovation is a permanent change in innovation methods, and that user innovation has the potential to change the foundations of global economy. Examples of various user innovation artifacts are also examined in this project

Parametric analysis on a simple design water reaction turbine for low-head low-flow Pico-hydro generation system

This paper presents a parametric analysis of the outward flow reaction type turbine known as a Z-Blade turbine for low-head low-flow conditions. By applying the principles of mass conservation, momentum and energy, a nomogram was designed to investigate the theoretical performance characteristics. Based on the parametric analysis and the governing equations and experimental results, attempts have been made to prove that the mass flow rate, angular speed, centrifugal head, power output and efficiency respond dynamically to the water head, radius of the rotor, size of the PVC pipes and the nozzle exit area. A turbine with a 1” pipe diameter gives a higher performance compared to a 1/2” pipe diameter, and certainly the performances of both pipe sizes are improved when the supplied potential energy is increased. This innovative turbine has a maximum rotational speed at an optimum turbine diameter at 0.6m, accompanied by a point where there is a sudden reduction in the water flow rate, where previously the increment in the water flow rate was very high. This can shows from the outcome nomogram with 1” pipe diameter can perform 350 rpm speed with 1.48 L/sec water flow. The Z-Blade turbine has been examined and has shown good potential to be used for low-head (3m, 4m and 5m) and low-flow (less than 2.5 L/sec) conditions

Magneto-optical trapping of bosonic and fermionic neon isotopes and their mixtures: isotope shift of the ^3P_2 to ^3D_3 transition and hyperfine constants of the ^3D_3 state of Ne-21

We have magneto-optically trapped all three stable neon isotopes, including the rare Ne-21, and all two-isotope combinations. The atoms are prepared in the metastable ^3P_2 state and manipulated via laser interaction on the ^3P_2 to ^3D_3} transition at 640.2nm. These cold (T = 1mK) and environmentally decoupled atom samples present ideal objects for precision measurements and the investigation of interactions between cold and ultracold metastable atoms. In this work, we present accurate measurements of the isotope shift of the ^3P_2 to ^3D_3 transition and the hyperfine interaction constants of the ^3D_3 state of Ne-21. The determined isotope shifts are (1625.9\pm0.15)MHz for Ne-20 to Ne-22, (855.7\pm1.0)MHz for Ne-20 to Ne-21, and (770.3\pm1.0)MHz for Ne-21 to Ne-22. The obtained magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole hyperfine interaction constants are A(^3D_3)= (-142.4\pm0.2)MHz and B(^3D_3)=(-107.7\pm1.1)MHz, respectively. All measurements give a reduction of uncertainty by about one order of magnitude over previous measurements

Gross-Neveu Models, Nonlinear Dirac Equations, Surfaces and Strings

Recent studies of the thermodynamic phase diagrams of the Gross-Neveu model (GN2), and its chiral cousin, the NJL2 model, have shown that there are phases with inhomogeneous crystalline condensates. These (static) condensates can be found analytically because the relevant Hartree-Fock and gap equations can be reduced to the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation, whose deformations are governed by the mKdV and AKNS integrable hierarchies, respectively. Recently, Thies et al have shown that time-dependent Hartree-Fock solutions describing baryon scattering in the massless GN2 model satisfy the Sinh-Gordon equation, and can be mapped directly to classical string solutions in AdS3. Here we propose a geometric perspective for this result, based on the generalized Weierstrass spinor representation for the embedding of 2d surfaces into 3d spaces, which explains why these well-known integrable systems underlie these various Gross-Neveu gap equations, and why there should be a connection to classical string theory solutions. This geometric viewpoint may be useful for higher dimensional models, where the relevant integrable hierarchies include the Davey-Stewartson and Novikov-Veselov systems.Comment: 27 pages, 1 figur