12,972 research outputs found
Strategic motivators and expected benefits from e-Commerce in traditional organisations
This paper aims to identify the strategic motivators and expected benefits related to the implementation of e-commerce infrastructures in traditional “brick and mortar” organisations. Despite the fact that the clearest benefit from e-commerce might be expected to come from contribution to corporate profits, either from an increase of sales or reduction of costs, but this may not be the case. The literature suggests that there are different ways in which the potential benefits can be assessed. These ways are directly related to the evolution of e-commerce. This research has chosen six representative organisations from different sectors to explore their rationales for their e-commerce strategies. One of the main benefits reported is to increase the focus on the customer and improving internal communications. Additionally, obtaining competitive advantage was found to be a powerful motivator, despite the fact that the recent academic literature suggests that this is very difficult to achieve
Represented Value Sets for Integral Binary Quadratic Forms and Lattices
A characterization is given for the integral binary quadratic forms for which the set of represented values is closed under products. It is also proved that for an integral binary quadratic lattice over the ring of integers of a global field, the product of three values represented by the form is again a value represented by the form. This generalizes the trigroup property discovered by V. Arnold for the case of integral binary quadratic forms
Multiplicative Properties of Integral Binary Quadratic Forms
In this paper, the integral binary quadratic forms for which the set of represented values is closed under k-fold products, for even positive integers k, will be characterized. This property will be seen to distinguish the elements of odd order in the form class group of a fixed discriminant. Further, it will be shown that this closure under k-fold products can always be expressed by a k-linear mapping from (Z2)k to Z2. In the case k = 2, this resolves a conjecture of Aicardi and Timorin
Polarized Magnetic Wire Induced by Tunneling Through a Magnetic Impurity
Using the zero mode method we compute the conductance of a wire consisting of
a magnetic impurity coupled to two Luttinger liquid leads characterized by the
Luttinger exponent . We find for resonance conditions, in which
the Fermi energy of the leads is close to a single particle energy of the
impurity, the conductance as a function of temperature is , whereas for off-resonance conditions the conductance is
. By applying a gate voltage and/or
a magnetic field, one of the spin components can be in resonance while the
other is off-resonance causing a strong asymmetry between the spin-up and
spin-down conductances.Comment: 8 pages, submitted to PR
A Ring of Warm Dust in the HD 32297 Debris Disk
We report the detection of a ring of warm dust in the edge-on disk
surrounding HD 32297 with the Gemini-N/MICHELLE mid-infrared imager. Our
N'-band image shows elongated structure consistent with the orientation of the
scattered-light disk. The Fnu(11.2 um) = 49.9+/-2.1 mJy flux is significantly
above the 28.2+/-0.6 mJy photosphere. Subtraction of the stellar point spread
function reveals a bilobed structure with peaks 0.5"-0.6" from the star. An
analysis of the stellar component of the SED suggests a spectral type later
than A0, in contrast to commonly cited literature values. We fit
three-dimensional, single-size grain models of an optically thin dust ring to
our image and the SED using a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm in a Bayesian
framework. The best-fit effective grain sizes are submicron, suggesting the
same dust population is responsible for the bulk of the scattered light. The
inner boundary of the warm dust is located 0.5"-0.7" (~65 AU) from the star,
which is approximately cospatial with the outer boundary of the scattered-light
asymmetry inward of 0.5". The addition of a separate component of larger,
cooler grains that provide a portion of the 60 um flux improves both the
fidelity of the model fit and consistency with the slopes of the
scattered-light brightness profiles. Previous indirect estimates of the stellar
age (~30 Myr) indicate the dust is composed of debris. The peak vertical
optical depths in our models (~0.3-1 x 1e-2) imply that grain-grain collisions
likely play a significant role in dust dynamics and evolution. Submicron grains
can survive radiation pressure blow-out if they are icy and porous. Similarly,
the inferred warm temperatures (130-200 K) suggest that ice sublimation may
play a role in truncating the inner disk.Comment: ApJ accepted, 8 pages, 4 figure
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Materials for phantoms for terahertz pulsed imaging
Phantoms are commonly used in medical imaging for quality assurance, calibration, research and teaching. They may include test patterns or simulations of organs, but in either case a tissue substitute medium is an important component of the phantom. The aim of this work was to identify materials suitable for use as tissue substitutes for the relatively new medical imaging modality terahertz pulsed imaging. Samples of different concentrations of the candidate materials TX151 and napthol green dye were prepared, and measurements made of the frequency-dependent absorption coefficient (0.5 to 1.5 THz) and refractive index (0.5 to 1.0 THz). These results were compared qualitatively with measurements made in a similar way on samples of excised human tissue (skin, adipose tissue and striated muscle). Both materials would be suitable for phantoms where the dominant mechanism to be simulated is absorption (similar to ∼100 cm(-1) at 1 THz) and where simulation of the strength of reflections from boundaries is not important; for example, test patterns for spatial resolution measurements. Only TX151 had a frequency-dependent refractive index close to that of tissue, and could therefore be used to simulate the layered structure of skin, the complexity of microvasculature or to investigate frequency-dependent interference effects that have been noted in terahertz images
Ferromagnetism in substituted zinc oxide
Room-temperature ferromagnetism is observed in (110) oriented ZnO films
containing 5 at % of Sc, Ti, V, Fe, Co or Ni, but not Cr, Mn or Cu ions. There
are large moments, 1.9 and 0.5 muB/atom for Co- and Ti-substituted oxides,
respectively. Sc-substituted ZnO shows also a moment of 0.3 muB/Sc.
Magnetization is very anisotropic, with variations of up to a factor three
depending on the orientation of the applied field relative to the R-cut
sapphire substrates. Results are interpreted in terms of a spin-split donor
impurity band model, which can account for ferromagnetism in insulating or
conducting high-k oxides with concentrations of magnetic ions that lie far
below the percolation threshold. The variation of the ferromagnetism with
oxygen pressure used during film growth is evidence of a link between
ferromagnetism and defect concentration.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure
Doubly Special Relativity with a minimum speed and the Uncertainty Principle
The present work aims to search for an implementation of a new symmetry in
the space-time by introducing the idea of an invariant minimum speed scale
(). Such a lowest limit , being unattainable by the particles, represents
a fundamental and preferred reference frame connected to a universal background
field (a vacuum energy) that breaks Lorentz symmetry. So there emerges a new
principle of symmetry in the space-time at the subatomic level for very low
energies close to the background frame (), providing a fundamental
understanding for the uncertainty principle, i.e., the uncertainty relations
should emerge from the space-time with an invariant minimum speed.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, Correlated paper in:
http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscinet/ijmpd?journalTabs=read. arXiv
admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:physics/0702095,
arXiv:0705.4315, arXiv:0709.1727, arXiv:0805.120
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