Electrodes for sealed secondary batteries

Self-supporting membrane electrode structures, in which active ingredients and graphite are incorporated in a polymeric matrix, improve performance of electrodes in miniature, sealed, alkaline storage batteries

Optimising and automating the choice of search strings when investigating possible plagiarism

This paper describes how to optimise the use of Internet search engines when investigating a document for possible non-original content. Services such as Turnitin do not guarantee to identify all non-original content, leading tutors to have to conduct manual searches when suspicion of non-originality remains. Previous studies have suggested that the investigator should manually select memorable phrases from the paper and submit them to a general search engine. The studies in this paper demonstrate that selecting phrases at random is just as effective. Several corpora of documents were obtained from a number of different academic areas, and several phrases were obtained from each. Strings, of increasing length starting with a single word, from these phrases were submitted to specialised and general search engines and the number of hits recorded. A common finding of these searches was that, in almost all cases, strings of six words were sufficiently distinct to uniquely identify the document that the string was taken from. One consequence of this is that totally automated tools are possible for this search-engine based non-originality detection technique

Estimating River Surface Velocity Using Optical Remote Sensing Techniques

This presentation was given as part of the GIS Day@KU symposium on November 18, 2015. For more information about GIS Day@KU activities, please see http://www.gis.ku.edu/gisday/2015/.Platinum Sponsors: KU Department of Geography and Atmospheric Science; KU School of Business. Gold Sponsors: Bartlett & West; Kansas Biological Survey; KU Environmental Studies Program; KU Institute for Policy & Social Research; KU Libraries. Silver Sponsors: State of Kansas Data Access and Support Center (DASC). Bronze Sponsors: KU Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS); TREKK Design Group, LLC; Wilson & Company, Engineers and Architects

Gravitational Radiation from First-Order Phase Transitions

It is believed that first-order phase transitions at or around the GUT scale will produce high-frequency gravitational radiation. This radiation is a consequence of the collisions and coalescence of multiple bubbles during the transition. We employ high-resolution lattice simulations to numerically evolve a system of bubbles using only scalar fields, track the anisotropic stress during the process and evolve the metric perturbations associated with gravitational radiation. Although the radiation produced during the bubble collisions has previously been estimated, we find that the coalescence phase enhances this radiation even in the absence of a coupled fluid or turbulence. We comment on how these simulations scale and propose that the same enhancement should be found at the Electroweak scale; this modification should make direct detection of a first-order electroweak phase transition easier.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

Temporal Analysis of Ice Thickness at Byrd Glacier's Grounding Zone

This presentation was given as part of the GIS Day@KU symposium on November 16, 2016. For more information about GIS Day@KU activities, please see http://gis.ku.edu/gisday/2016/.Platinum Sponsors: KU Department of Geography and Atmospheric Science. Gold Sponsors: Enertech, KU Environmental Studies Program, KU Libraries. Silver Sponsors: Douglas County, Kansas, KansasView, State of Kansas Data Access & Support Center (DASC) and the KU Center for Global and International Studies

Long-term records of Antarctic outlet glacier dynamics from historical data and novel remote sensing techniques

Quantifying how the cryosphere responds to various climate forcings is essential in accurate forecasting of ice sheet stability as well as sea level rise. In order to better predict how future climates will impact ice sheet and glacier mass balance, it is first necessary to understand whether the observed changes in glaciers are from internal dynamics or responses to climate forcings. Equally necessary is the ability to identify if current glacier transformations are due to discrete events or ongoing phenomena. Unfortunately, most records for the world’s glaciers only extend for the last two decades, thus making long-term projections difficult. The overall aim of each project is to improve our understanding of cryosphere-climate relationships through long-term observational records and numerical modeling. The three projects are: (1) validating the use of historic aerial imagery with modern-day image processing techniques and manually extracted ground control from high-resolution imagery; (2) quantifying ~60-year surface elevation changes of outlet glaciers flowing through the Transantarctic Mountains from trimetrogon aerial photos; and (3) investigating basal crevasse initiation and determining if the formation of anomalously large crevasses can be proxies for historic Antarctic subglacial flooding events. The first project uses historic vertical aerial imagery and high-resolution optical satellite imagery; the second employs oblique aerial imagery from the 1960s and high-resolution optical satellite imagery; and the last project relies on a combination of airborne radar, in situ GPS, and optical satellite imagery. Innovative remote sensing techniques are used to acquire information that is either analyzed or integrated into numerical models (depending on the project) to draw conclusions about the stability of the ice sheet. These results further our understanding of the manner in which ice sheets and glaciers respond to changes in climate and will ultimately allow for more accurate constraints in modeling future sea level rise

Wildness, infinity and freedom

Biodiversity risks losing relevance in an increasingly urbanised, unequal and disembodied world. Beyond basic material needs, we might gain the greatest well-being from eudaimonia – the freedom to flourish and live meaningfully. Immersion in nature improves the fundamentals of eudaimonia: psychological, emotional and social health. This presents an opportunity to re-frame biodiversity from a passive entity needing to be saved by ‘good people’ to a catalyst in the quest to become good. Drawing on the capability approach, I propose that wild landscapes – defined as self-willed, ecologically complex communities comprising functioning ecosystems – are mediums that facilitate our search for meaning. Features of wild landscapes (organisms, habitats, structures) stimulate unique perception and experience that afford the elements of self-meaning (ideas, narratives, memories). Ecological processes (succession, disturbance, dispersal) generate dynamic perceptual experiences, which improves our ability to comprehend meaning by restoring cognitive functions and relational values. Functioning ecosystems continually create and permute features in space and time, instantiating ever-varying patterns from which to adapt meaning as our contexts and aspirations change. Wild landscapes thus provide infinite value for our freedom to become. As widening income inequity amplifies asymmetric power structures, increasing the agency of those who seek to improve society is one pathway to a sustainable future.The South African National Biodiversity Institutehttp://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon2022-04-13hj2021Mammal Research InstituteZoology and Entomolog

Statistical Mechanics for Unstable States in Gel'fand Triplets and Investigations of Parabolic Potential Barriers

Free energies and other thermodynamical quantities are investigated in canonical and grand canonical ensembles of statistical mechanics involving unstable states which are described by the generalized eigenstates with complex energy eigenvalues in the conjugate space of Gel'fand triplet. The theory is applied to the systems containing parabolic potential barriers (PPB's). The entropy and energy productions from PPB systems are studied. An equilibrium for a chemical process described by reactions $A+CB\rightleftarrows AC+B$ is also discussed.Comment: 14 pages, AmS-LaTeX, no figur

Non-Adiabatic Potential-Energy Surfaces by Constrained Density-Functional Theory

Non-adiabatic effects play an important role in many chemical processes. In order to study the underlying non-adiabatic potential-energy surfaces (PESs), we present a locally-constrained density-functional theory approach, which enables us to confine electrons to sub-spaces of the Hilbert space, e.g. to selected atoms or groups of atoms. This allows to calculate non-adiabatic PESs for defined charge and spin states of the chosen subsystems. The capability of the method is demonstrated by calculating non-adiabatic PESs for the scattering of a sodium and a chlorine atom, for the interaction of a chlorine molecule with a small metal cluster, and for the dissociation of an oxygen molecule at the Al(111) surface.Comment: 11 pages including 7 figures; related publications can be found at http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/th.htm