Limelight: Cardiff Contemporary & Llangattock Lime Kiln

Limelight (2016-20) aims to establish terms through which limestone as a geological material with industrial application, presents and holds agency. It aims to determine how exposures of limestone’s material agency are intrinsic to understanding the representations and experiences of its landscapes. It considers this in relation to the transforming phases of industrial limestone landscapes in the UK. Limelight (Cardiff Contemporary & Llangattock Lime Kiln) was one of ten commissioned exhibitions for Cardiff Contemporary, a biennial of contemporary art. It was funded by PEAK and Cardiff Contemporary, and developed and delivered in partnership with the BBC and Arts Alive Wales through a Digital Innovation Fund For Arts In Wales and NESTA grant. A limelight illumination, at a restored lime kiln at Llangattock in the Black Mountains Welsh National Park, using an apparatus developed by the artists, was broadcast by the BBC through the internet and into an exhibition space in Cardiff. The duration of the limelight illumination at Llangattock was contingent to the material behaviour of quicklime as it was heated to temperatures in excess of 2000ºc emitting a bright white light. The limelight illumination in Llangattock provided a real-time base for a performance event in Cardiff. The two artists live-mixed pre-recorded video and sound from extraction and industrial infrastructure limestone sites in the Black Mountains, and two performers projected and moved these images around the space and through the audience through rehearsed choreography. A film work of the live event was presented for the remainder of the exhibition

Detector-Device-Independent Quantum Key Distribution

Recently, a quantum key distribution (QKD) scheme based on entanglement swapping, called measurement-device-independent QKD (mdiQKD), was proposed to bypass all detector side-channel attacks. While mdiQKD is conceptually elegant and offers a supreme level of security, the experimental complexity is challenging for practical systems. For instance, it requires interference between two widely separated independent single-photon sources, and the rates are dependent on detecting two photons - one from each source. Here we experimentally demonstrate a QKD scheme that removes the need for a two-photon system and instead uses the idea of a two-qubit single-photon (TQSP) to significantly simplify the implementation and improve the efficiency of mdiQKD in several aspects.Comment: 5 pages + 3 figure

Understanding perceptions of citizen demeanour: using an experimental design to understand the impact of encounter and observer characteristics

Systematic social observations of police-citizen encounters have revealed that citizen demeanour is an important predictor of outcomes (e.g. arrests and searches). Drawing from research on stereotypes and impression formation, we examine whether characteristics of the encounter and/or observer affect how respondents perceive demeanour. We exposed undergraduates (n = 255) to a randomly rotated series of five between-subjects design, in which characteristics of the encounter (citizen race, gender, or age; officer gender; neighbourhood context) and the level of demeanour displayed were manipulated. OLS regression was used to examine how these manipulations interact to produce our dependent variable – perceptions of demeanour – and whether characteristics of the observer matter for perceptions, independent of the manipulations. We find that some aspects of the encounter, specifically officer gender and the socio-economic context of the neighbourhood, influence perceptions of demeanour. Previous victimisation, observers’ race, and perceptions of the police also impact how demeanour is perceived. These findings suggest that understanding the impact of citizen demeanour on police-citizen encounters requires consideration of encounter and observer characteristics

Proposition pour une Démarche de Modélisation des Processus

Le secteur aéronautique voit actuellement arriver de nouveaux types d'entrants, des systémiers innovants, en majorité des Petites et Moyennes Entreprises (PME), souhaitant développer et commercialiser de nouveaux moyens de transport. Des projets comme les dirigeables, les drones civils de transports de marchandises, les drones dits « taxi aérien », deviennent ainsi des préoccupations sérieuses pour tous les acteurs du marché où la sécurité des personnes et des infrastructures est un enjeu majeur. Dans ce cadre, le processus de certification, cœur de l'activité aéronautique, demeure une activité critique. Le secteur aéronautique est une industrie très structurée, organisée selon de nombreuses règles, normes et standards qui ne facilitent pas l'arrivée de ces nouveaux acteurs. Les PME concernées requièrent un support méthodologique pour les accompagner dans leurs développements et faire face à la complexité du marché. Nous proposons d'aborder la problématique par une approche d'ingénierie système basée sur les modèles et une modélisation hiérarchisée des processus d'entreprise

The impact of space flight on survival and interaction of Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34 with basalt, a volcanic moon analog rock

Microbe-mineral interactions have become of interest for space exploration as microorganisms could be used to biomine from extra-terrestrial material and extract elements useful as micronutrients in life support systems. This research aimed to identify the impact of space flight on the long-term survival of Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34 in mineral water and the interaction with basalt, a lunar-type rock in preparation for the ESA spaceflight experiment, BIOROCK. Therefore, C. metallidurans CH34 cells were suspended in mineral water supplemented with or without crushed basalt and send for 3 months on board the Russian FOTON-M4 capsule. Long-term storage had a significant impact on cell physiology and energy status (by flow cytometry analysis, plate count and intracellular ATP measurements) as 60% of cells stored on ground lost their cell membrane potential, only 17% were still active, average ATP levels per cell were significantly lower and cultivability dropped to 1%. The cells stored in the presence of basalt and exposed to space flight conditions during storage however showed less dramatic changes in physiology, with only 16% of the cells lost their cell membrane potential and 24% were still active, leading to a higher cultivability (50%) and indicating a general positive effect of basalt and space flight on survival. Microbe-mineral interactions and biofilm formation was altered by spaceflight as less biofilm was formed on the basalt during flight conditions. Leaching from basalt also changed (measured with ICP-OES), showing that cells release more copper from basalt and the presence of cells also impacted iron and magnesium concentration irrespective of the presence of basalt. The flight conditions thus could counteract some of the detrimental effects observed after the 3 month storage conditions