Business objects: the next step in component technology?

Component technology seems to be a promising approach towards more efficient software development by enabling application construction through “plug and play”. However, the middleware supporting this approach is still complicated to use and distracts the attention of the component developer from the application domain to technical implementation issues. Business objects are intended to hide the complexities of middleware approaches and provide an easy to use environment for application developers. We conceptualize business object approaches by presenting a common model and survey some major players in the marketplace. We conclude by identifying implications of business objects on information systems engineering.

Comparison of three airborne laser bathymetry data sets for monitoring the German Baltic Sea Coast

Airborne laser bathymetry (ALB) can be used for hydrographic surveying with relative high resolution in shallow water. In this paper, we examine the applicability of this technique based on three flight campaigns. These were conducted between 2012 and 2014 close to the island of Poel in the German Baltic Sea. The first data set was acquired by a Riegl VQ-820-G sensor in November 2012. The second and third data sets were acquired by a Chiroptera sensor of Airborne Hydrography AB in September 2013 and May 2014, respectively. We examine the 3D points classified as seabed under different conditions during data acquisition, e.g. the turbidity level of the water and the flight altitude. The analysis comprises the point distribution, point density, and the area coverage in several depth levels. In addition, we determine the vertical accuracy of the 3D seabed points by computing differences to echo sounding data. Finally, the results of the three flight campaigns are compared to each other and analyzed with respect to the different conditions during data acquisition. For each campaign only small differences in elevation between the laser and the echo sounding data set are observed. The ALB results satisfy the requirements of IHO Standards for Hydrographic Surveys (S-44) Order 1b for several depth intervals. © 2015 SPIE

Feldversuche zur Wirkung von Spinosad-, Neem- und B.t.t.- Präparaten auf die Regulierung des Kartoffelkäfers (Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say)

The Colorado potato beetle (CPB) is one of the most important pests on potatoes (Solanum tuberosum). In many areas, preventive measures are not sufficient enoughto prevent the damage caused by the CPB. Therefore insecticides such as neem and Bacillus thuringiensis v. tenebrionis (B.t.t.) have an important role in organic potato production in Germany. The new insecticide Spinosad was added to Council Regulations (EEC) No. 2092/91 on organic production in 2008. It is now possible to use Spinosad in organic agriculture in the EU. The active ingredient of Spinosad is obtained from the bacterium Saccharopolyspora spinosa through fermentation. Field studies compared three treatments to control CPB in 2008. 1: single Spinosad treatment (24 g/ha active ingredient (a.i.)) 2: first treatment B.t.t. (60 g/ha (a.i.)), second treatment (+4d) B.t.t. (100 g/ha a.i.) 3: first treatment neem (25 g/ha a.i.), second treatment (+4d) B.t.t. (100 g/ha a.i.). There was an average of 27 larvae per plant before the treatments. All treatments displayed nearly the same significant degree of effectiveness (78 % - 82 %) with regards to the damaged leaf area 25 days after treatment in comparison to the untreated control. The increment of the Spinosad treatment to untreated control was significant with more than 103 dt/ha

Controlling the Electrical Properties of Undoped and Ta-doped TiO2 Polycrystalline Films via Ultra-Fast Annealing Treatments

We present a study on the crystallization process of undoped and Ta doped TiO2 amorphous thin films. In particular, the effect of ultra-fast annealing treatments in environments characterized by different oxygen concentrations is investigated via in-situ resistance measurements. The accurate examination of the key parameters involved in this process allows us to reduce the time needed to obtain highly conducting and transparent polycrystalline thin films (resistivity about $6 \times 10^{-4}$ {\Omega}cm, mean transmittance in the visible range about $81\%$) to just 5 minutes (with respect to the 180 minutes required for a standard vacuum annealing treatment) in nitrogen atmosphere (20 ppm oxygen concentration) at ambient pressure. Experimental evidence of superficial oxygen incorporation in the thin films and its detrimental role for the conductivity are obtained by employing different concentrations of traceable 18O isotopes during ultra-fast annealing treatments. The results are discussed in view of the possible implementation of the ultra-fast annealing process for TiO2-based transparent conducting oxides as well as electron selective layers in solar cell devices; taking advantage of the high control of the ultra-fast crystallization processes which has been achieved, these two functional layers are shown to be obtainable from the crystallization of a single homogeneous thin film.Comment: 30 pages (including Supporting Information and graphical TOC), 4 figure

Quantitative Genetic Effects of Bottlenecks: Experimental Evidence from a Wild Plant Species, Nigella degenii

Understanding the genetic consequences of changes in population size is fundamental in a variety of contexts, such as adaptation and conservation biology. In the study presented here, we have performed a replicated experiment with the plant Nigella degenii to explore the quantitative genetic effects of a single-founder bottleneck. In agreement with additive theory, the bottleneck reduced the mean (co)variance within lines and caused stochastic, line-specific changes in the genetic (co)variance structure. However, a significant portion of the (co)variance structure was conserved, and 2 characters—leaf and flower (sepal) size—turned out to be positively correlated in all data sets, indicating a potential for correlated evolution in these characters, even after a severe bottleneck. The hierarchical partitioning of genetic variance for flower size was in good agreement with predictions from additive theory, whereas the remaining characters showed an excess of within-line variance and a deficiency of among-line variance. The latter discrepancies were most likely a result of selection, given the small proportion of lines (23%) that remained viable until the end of the experiment. Our results suggest that bottlenecked populations of N. degenii generally have a lower adaptive potential than the ancestral population but also highlight the idiosyncratic nature of bottleneck effects

Self-organization of (001) cubic crystal surfaces

Self-organization on crystal surface is studied as a two dimensional spinodal decomposition in presence of a surface stress. The elastic Green function is calculated for a $(001)$ cubic crystal surface taking into account the crystal anisotropy. Numerical calculations show that the phase separation is driven by the interplay between domain boundary energy and long range elastic interactions. At late stage of the phase separation process, a steady state appears with different nanometric patterns according to the surface coverage and the crystal elastic constants

Atomistic mechanisms for the ordered growth of Co nano-dots on Au(788): comparison of VT-STM experiments and multi-scaled calculations

Hetero-epitaxial growth on a strain-relief vicinal patterned substrate has revealed unprecedented 2D long range ordered growth of uniform cobalt nanostructures. The morphology of a Co sub-monolayer deposit on a Au(111) reconstructed vicinal surface is analyzed by Variable Temperature Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (VT-STM) experiments. A rectangular array of nano-dots (3.8 nm x 7.2 nm) is found for a particularly large deposit temperature range lying from 60 K to 300 K. Although the nanodot lattice is stable at room temperature, this paper focus on the early stage of ordered nucleation and growth at temperatures between 35 K and 480 K. The atomistic mechanisms leading to the nanodots array are elucidated by comparing statistical analysis of VT-STM images with multi-scaled numerical calculations combining both Molecular Dynamics for the quantitative determination of the activation energies for the atomic motion and the Kinetic Monte Carlo method for the simulations of the mesoscopic time and scale evolution of the Co submonolayer