4,426 research outputs found

    Evaluation "Angels and Demons" (WP-116)

    Get PDF
    One way to generate the money needed for sustainable innovation is by consumer choosing freely for sustainable products. This way, consumer choice pays for the innovative production method. This requires consumer willingness to buy these products. Willingness to buy is however not so easily measured as the intentions to buy may only partially predict actual purchase behaviour. There is a gap between what consumer say they want, and what they do in practice. For the specific case of sustainable production, consumers often say they are very positive about sustainable products (angelic opinion), yet in their daily behaviour they frequently tend to choose convenient and cheap products (demonic behaviour)

    Structural and magnetic properties of Fe/ZnSe(001) interfaces

    Full text link
    We have performed first principles electronic structure calculations to investigate the structural and magnetic properties of Fe/ZnSe(001) interfaces. Calculations involving full geometry optimizations have been carried out for a broad range of thickness of Fe layers(0.5 monolayer to 10 monolayers) on top of a ZnSe(001) substrate. Both Zn and Se terminated interfaces have been explored. Total energy calculations show that Se segregates at the surface which is in agreement with recent experiments. For both Zn and Se terminations, the interface Fe magnetic moments are higher than the bulk bcc Fe moment. We have also investigated the effect of adding Fe atoms on top of a reconstructed ZnSe surface to explore the role of reconstruction of semiconductor surfaces in determining properties of metal-semiconductor interfaces. Fe breaks the Se dimer bond formed for a Se-rich (2x1) reconstructed surface. Finally, we looked at the reverse growth i.e. growth of Zn and Se atoms on a bcc Fe(001) substrate to investigate the properties of the second interface of a magnetotunnel junction. The results are in good agreement with the theoretical and experimental results, wherever available.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in PR

    Cutaneous microcirculation in preterm neonates: comparison between sidestream dark field (SDF) and incident dark field (IDF) imaging

    Get PDF
    Incident dark field imaging (IDF) is a new generation handheld microscope for bedside visualization and quantification of microcirculatory alterations. IDF is the technical successor of sidestream dark field imaging (SDF), currently the most used device for microcirculatory measurements. In (pre)term neonates the reduced thickness of the skin allows non-invasive transcutaneous measurements. The goal of this study was to compare the existing device (SDF) and its technical successor (IDF) in preterm neonates. We hypothesized that IDF imaging produces higher quality images resulting in a higher vessel density. After written informed consent was given by the parents, skin microcirculation was consecutively measured on the inner upper arm with de SDF and IDF device. Images were exported and analyzed offline using existing software (AVA 3.0). Vessel density and perfusion were calculated using the total vessel density (TVD) proportion of perfused vessels (PPV) and perfused vessel density. The microcirculation images quality score was used to evaluate the quality of the video images. In a heterogeneous group of twenty preterm neonates (median GA 27.6 weeks, range 24–33.4) IDF imaging visualized 19.9 % more vessels resulting in a significantly higher vessel density (TVD 16.9 vs. 14.1/mm, p value < 0.001). The perfusion of vessels could be determined more accurately in the IDF images, resulting in a significant lower PPV (88.7 vs. 93.9 %, p value 0.002). The IDF video images scored optimal in a higher percentage compared to the SDF video images. IDF imaging of the cutaneous microcirculation in preterm neonates resulted in a higher vessel density and lower perfusion compared to the existing SDF device

    Towards community browsing for shared experiences: The webrowse system

    Get PDF
    We introduce the new concept of community browsing: A group of people browsing the web together and simultaneously. Community browsing is part of the broader notion of shared experience, where individuals share the experience of an event. We have developed a prototype of a mobile application that enables community browsing, and involves new technologies such as a peer-topeer Electronic Institution and bipolar preference aggregation

    Privacy Architectures: Reasoning About Data Minimisation and Integrity

    Get PDF
    Privacy by design will become a legal obligation in the European Community if the Data Protection Regulation eventually gets adopted. However, taking into account privacy requirements in the design of a system is a challenging task. We propose an approach based on the specification of privacy architectures and focus on a key aspect of privacy, data minimisation, and its tension with integrity requirements. We illustrate our formal framework through a smart metering case study.Comment: appears in STM - 10th International Workshop on Security and Trust Management 8743 (2014

    Spin Reorientations Induced by Morphology Changes in Fe/Ag(001)

    Full text link
    By means of magneto-optical Kerr effect we observe spin reorientations from in-plane to out-of-plane and vice versa upon annealing thin Fe films on Ag(001) at increasing temperatures. Scanning tunneling microscopy images of the different Fe films are used to quantify the surface roughness. The observed spin reorientations can be explained with the experimentally acquired roughness parameters by taking into account the effect of roughness on both the magnetic dipolar and the magnetocrystalline anisotropy.Comment: 4 pages with 3 EPS figure

    Hierarchy of Dirac, Pauli and Klein-Gordon conserved operators in Taub-NUT background

    Get PDF
    The algebra of conserved observables of the SO(4,1) gauge-invariant theory of the Dirac fermions in the external field of the Kaluza-Klein monopole is investigated. It is shown that the Dirac conserved operators have physical parts associated with Pauli operators that are also conserved in the sense of the Klein-Gordon theory. In this way one gets simpler methods of analyzing the properties of the conserved Dirac operators and their main algebraic structures including the representations of dynamical algebras governing the Dirac quantum modes.Comment: 16 pages, latex, no figure

    Novel application of X-ray fluorescence microscopy (XFM) for the non-destructive micro-elemental analysis of natural mineral pigments on Aboriginal Australian objects

    Get PDF
    Open Access Article. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.This manuscript presents the first non-destructive synchrotron micro-X-ray fluorescence study of natural mineral pigments on Aboriginal Australian objects. Our results demonstrate the advantage of XFM (X-ray fluorescence microscopy) of Aboriginal Australian objects for optimum sensitivity, elemental analysis, micron-resolution mapping of pigment areas and the method also has the advantage of being non-destructive to the cultural heritage objects. Estimates of pigment thickness can be calculated. In addition, based on the elemental maps of the pigments, further conclusions can be drawn on the composition and mixtures and uses of natural mineral pigments and whether the objects were made using traditional or modern methods and materials. This manuscript highlights the results of this first application of XFM to investigate complex mineral pigments used on Aboriginal Australian objects
    corecore