Fabrication techniques for organic electrolyte battery

Experiments in fabrication and testing of silver chloride electrodes for use in organic electrolyte batteries are discussed. Electrodes were fabricated by pelletizing, sintering, hot press binding, and paste binding silver chloride on expanded metal grids of nickel or silver. Each technique was investigated by statistically designed factorial experiment

Electrical and infrared properties of thin niobium microbolometers near T(sub c)

Niobium microbolometers approximately 1 micron wide x 2 micron long x 10 nm thick have been integrated at the feeds of equiangular spiral antennas made of 200 nm thick Nb. The device's current-voltage characteristics and infrared responsivity as a function of DC bias voltage were measured over a range of temperature spanning approximately plus or minus 2 percent around T(sub c). The greatest voltage responsivity occurs well below T(sub c), in a regime where the I-V curve is significantly hysteretic due to self-heating and resembles the I-V curve of a superconducting microbridge

Monograph No. 4: Australian illicit drugs policy: Mapping structures and processes

This Monograph (No. 4) focuses on the policy making process. To achieve our overarching goal of improving illicit drugs policy activity in Australia, we need to improve the evidence base used by policy makers and to facilitate their use of it. Our limited understanding of how policies are made is one of the barriers to providing good decision support resources and processes. In this feasibility research, the ANU team trialed three approaches that are standard in political science but little used in illicit drugs research: 1) structural and institutional analysis; 2) reputational influence mapping; and 3) interviews with influential policy makers and researchers. Over the last two decades, a set of structures has been put in place at various levels with the explicit goal of facilitating policy activity on illicit drugs. The team identified over 100 organisations involved in creating Australian illicit drugs policy. The reputational influence mapping research explored methods for gaining a clearer understanding of which people are perceived to be the most influential in shaping policy on illicit drugs in Australia. The social network of people regarded as influential does not have a random topography. The interviews with senior policy makers revealed much about policy processes and the research-policy nexus. The insights from this research will lead to more detailed research on policy processes

Bulletin No.1: Drug Policy - Mapping structures and enhancing processes

We understand very little about how research informs policy and how to improve that process, especially in highly politicised areas such as illicit drugs. One aim of DPMP is to significantly increase production of the highest quality evidence, which takes complexities and dynamic interactions into account. For this evidence to impact on Australian policy, we need to better understand how policy is made; the kinds of research that are most valued; and how research is best inserted into policy processes. Lack of appreciation of how policies are made is a major barrier to providing good decision support resources and processes. While we do not subscribe to a naïve view that research should be the only, or even the most important, factor in policy making, we are keen to see research assume its proper role and, within that, to be maximally effective. Surprisingly, there has been relatively little examination of what ‘evidence-informed’ policy is, in drugs, public health, criminal justice or more broadly. There has also been very limited research to shine a light on the collective experience of policy making in an attempt to learn from that experience, so that we may pursue it more wisely in the future

The Influence of Formulation, Buffering, pH and Divalent Cations on the Activity of Endothall on Hydrilla.

Endothall has been used as an aquatic herbicide for more than 40 years and provides very effective weed control of many weeds. Early research regarding the mechanism-of-action of endothall contradicts the symptomology normally associated with the product. Recent studies suggest endothall is a respiratory toxin but the mechanism-of-action remains unknown. To further elucidate the activity of endothall, several endothall formulations were evaluated for their effects on ion leakage, oxygen consumption and photosynthetic oxygen evolution from hydrilla shoot tips. The influence of pH, buffering and divalent cations was also evaluated. (PDF contains 6 pages.

Bosenova and three-body loss in a Rb-85 Bose-Einstein condensate

Collapsing Bose-Einstein condensates are rich and complex quantum systems for which quantitative explanation by simple models has proved elusive. We present new experimental data on the collapse of high density Rb-85 condensates with attractive interactions and find quantitative agreement with the predictions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The collapse data and measurements of the decay of atoms from our condensates allow us to put new limits on the value of the Rb-85 three-body loss coefficient K_3 at small positive and negative scattering lengths.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Agent-Based Modeling and its Tradeoffs: An Introduction & Examples

Agent-based modeling is a computational dynamic modeling technique that may be less familiar to some readers. Agent-based modeling seeks to understand the behaviour of complex systems by situating agents in an environment and studying the emergent outcomes of agent-agent and agent-environment interactions. In comparison with compartmental models, agent-based models offer simpler, more scalable and flexible representation of heterogeneity, the ability to capture dynamic and static network and spatial context, and the ability to consider history of individuals within the model. In contrast, compartmental models offer faster development time with less programming required, lower computational requirements that do not scale with population, and the option for concise mathematical formulation with ordinary, delay or stochastic differential equations supporting derivation of properties of the system behaviour. In this chapter, basic characteristics of agent-based models are introduced, advantages and disadvantages of agent-based models, as compared with compartmental models, are discussed, and two example agent-based infectious disease models are reviewed

Helmholtz solitons in optical materials with a dual power-law refractive index

A nonlinear Helmholtz equation is proposed for modelling scalar optical beams in uniform planar waveguides whose refractive index exhibits a purely-focusing dual powerlaw dependence on the electric field amplitude. Two families of exact analytical solitons, describing forward- and backward-propagating beams, are derived. These solutions are physically and mathematically distinct from those recently discovered for related nonlinearities. The geometry of the new solitons is examined, conservation laws are reported, and classic paraxial predictions are recovered in a simultaneous multiple limit. Conventional semi-analytical techniques assist in studying the stability of these nonparaxial solitons, whose propagation properties are investigated through extensive simulations