Transport properties of a multichannel Kondo dot in a magnetic field

We study the nonequilibrium transport through a multichannel Kondo quantum dot in the presence of a magnetic field. We use the exact solution of the two-loop renormalization group equation to derive analytical results for the g factor, the spin relaxation rates, the magnetization, and the differential conductance. We show that the finite magnetization leads to a coupling between the conduction channels which manifests itself in additional features in the differential conductance.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Importance of business-to-business branding : global strategy of a B2B Brand : a case study of Sugal

Sugal is an internationally operating tomato producer operating in the business-to-business market, growing from a local to a global player. In recent years Sugal to launched the next steps towards world market leadership. This expansion cannot simply be managed by adjusting volume and price. It requires a new dimension. This dimension is the creation of a strong business-to-business brand. This dissertation aims to provide the reader with a profound understanding of the increasing relevance of marketing and branding for business-to-business companies. Furthermore it extracts the most critical success elements, which will help to establish the best starting of using B2B Branding to create positive impact. It offers insights about the company’s background and explores their current marketing efforts in order to understand the brand Sugal and how it can be developed further. Finally, using primary and secondary research, a detailed situational overview of Sugal’s brand perception from three different perspectives is given and recommendation for the future brand development is made. After comparing the results of all sources it is shown that Sugal already integrated and communicates the most important brand elements into their branding strategy and message, but still lacks complete alignment across literature, costumer perception and own awareness. Here Sugal needs to align their values more with the consumer and create a closer and more honest dialogue with its clients. This dissertation is designed as a case study about Sugal and creates an understanding about their brand image and identifies opportunities to develop a strong B2B brand.Sugal é um produtor de tomate que opera internacionalmente no negócio business-tobusiness. Este empresa começou por operar localmente tornando-se nos ultimos anos um dos maiores fornecedores a nível internacional. Este crescimento requer toda uma estratégia adequada à nova dimensão da empresa poder concretizar o objectivo que se deverá traduzir na criação de uma marca de renome no mercado business-to-business. O objectivo desta tese é mostrar ao leitor a crescente importância do uso de estratégias de marketing e branding neste tipo de mercado. Mostrará tambem ao leitor os elementos que são essenciais para o ponto de partida na implemetação de estratégias B2B de modo a gerar o maior beneficio possivel para a empresa. O leitor terá a oportunidade de ler sobre os mais relevantes aspectos da empresa Sogal, explorando as estratégias de marketing usadas actualmente e deste modo poder desenvolver novas directrizes para o futuro. Por fim, será feita uma análise detalhada sobre a percepção do mercado relativamente à marca Sogal. O último passo serão as recomendações. A Sogal já integra elementos essenciais nas estratégias de comunicação e marketing adopatadas pela empresa, contudo falta alinhar todos os elementos. Há uma clara necessidade por parte da empresa de perceber e adoptar os valores dos seus clientes e integrá-los no negócio de modo a criar interações mais fortes e duradouras. Esta tese foi desenvolvida no formato de case study sobre a Sogal de modo a criar um entendimento sobre a sua imagem e marca e identificar possiveis desenvolvimentos no mercado B2B

Charge fluctuations in nonlinear heat transport

We show that charge fluctuation processes are crucial for the nonlinear heat conductance through an interacting nanostructure, even far from a resonance. We illustrate this for an Anderson quantum dot accounting for the first two leading orders of the tunneling in a master equation. The often made assumption that off-resonant transport proceeds entirely by virtual occupation of charge states, underlying exchange-scattering models, can fail dramatically for heat transport. The identified energy-transport resonances in the Coulomb blockade regime provide new qualitative information about relaxation processes, for instance by strong negative differential heat conductance relative to the heat current. These can go unnoticed in the charge current, making nonlinear heat-transport spectroscopy with energy-level control a promising experimental tool

Problem słabości woli w filozofii Leibniza w kontekście wczesnonowożytnych indeterministycznych teorii wolności

The article examines the coherence of Leibnizian conception of the weakness of will in context of early modern radical indeterminist theories of freedom. In the first step Leibniz’ position to the late scholastic molinistic paradigm of freedom (L. Molina) is explained. After that, the seventeenth-century argumentation strategies for indeterminism concerning the possibility of voluntarily performing morally bad actions against all the reasons (J. Bramhall and P.J. Spener) are presented. Finally, in reference to the presented theories the plausibility of Leibniz’ theory of weakness of will and its connection to freedom understood as ability of performing morally bad actions is examined.W artykule analizie poddana została systematyczna spójność leibnizjańskiej koncepcji słabości woli w kontekście wczesno nowożytnych radykalnie indeterministycznych teorii wolności. W pierwszym kroku omówione zostało stanowisko Leibniza wobec poznoschlastycznego molinistycznego paradygmatu nauki o wolności (L. Molina). Następnie przedstawione zostały siedemnastowieczne strategie argumentacji na rzecz indeterminizmu odwołujące się do założenia możliwości świadomego i dobrowolnego popełniania czynów moralnie złych wbrew wszelkim racjom (J. Bramhall i P.J. Spener). Wreszcie na tle przedstawionych teorii zbadana została zasadność stanowiska Leibniza dotyczącego słabości woli i jej związku z problemem wolności rozumianej jako zdolność do podejmowania działań moralnie złych

Die Prophetenfenster der Kapelle am Großen Saal auf der Albrechtsburg Meißen: Entwurf und Ausführung

Aus Anlass der Restaurierung der drei Kapellenfenster mit historistischen Glasmalereien werden neue Aspekte zu den entwerfenden Künstlern und den ausführenden Werkstätten dargestellt. Beginnend mit Baugestalt und Funktion der Kapelle über deren Einbettung in das künstlerische Ausstattungsprogramm des 19. Jh. richtet sich der Fokus auf die Ikonografie der Fenster. Neben den Künstlern wird auch die Glasmalereiwerkstatt von Carl Ludwig Türcke aus Zittau gewürdigt

From bench to clinic and back: Perspective on the 1st IQPC Translational Research conference

Translational Research (TR) provides a set of tools and communication context for scientists and clinicians to optimize the drug discovery and development process. In the proceedings of a Princeton conference on this timely topic, the strengths and needs of this developing field were debated. Outcomes and key points from these discussions are summarized in this article which covers the topics of defining what we mean by translational research (both theoretically and in operational terms), ways in which to engender the TR mindset and embed it in organizations such as the pharmaceutical industry in order to optimize the impact of available technologies (including imaging methods), the scientific basis and under-pinnings of TR including genomics knowledge, information sharing, as well as examples of application to drug discovery and development. Importantly, it should be noted that collaborations and communications between the stakeholders in this field, namely academia, industry and regulatory authorities, must be strengthened in order for the promise of TR to be delivered as better therapies to patients

In situ production of active vitamin B12 in cereal matrices using Propionibacterium freudenreichii

The in situ production of active vitamin B12 was investigated in aqueous cereal-based matrices with three strains of food-grade Propionibacterium freudenreichii. Matrices prepared from malted barley flour (33% w/v; BM), barley flour (6%; BF), and wheat aleurone (15%; AM) were fermented. The effect of cobalt and the lower ligand 5,6-dimethylbenzimidazole (DMBI) or its natural precursors (riboflavin and nicotinamide) on active B12 production was evaluated. Active B12 production was confirmed by UHPLC-UV-MS analysis. A B12 content of 12-37 mu g.kg(-1) was produced in BM; this content increased 10-fold with cobalt and reached 940-1,480 mu g.kg(-1) with both cobalt and DMBI. With riboflavin and nicotinamide, B12 production in cobalt-supplemented BM increased to 712 mu g.kg(-1). Approximately, 10 mu g.kg(-1) was achieved in BF and AM and was increased to 80 mu g.kg(-1) in BF and 260 mu g.kg(-1) in AM with cobalt and DMBI. The UHPLC and microbiological assay (MBA) results agreed when both cobalt and DMBI or riboflavin and nicotinamide were supplemented. However, MBA gave ca. 20%-40% higher results in BM and AM supplemented with cobalt, indicating the presence of human inactive analogues, such as pseudovitamin B12. This study demonstrates that cereal products can be naturally fortified with active B12 to a nutritionally relevant level by fermenting with P. freudenreichii.Peer reviewe

An efficient and robust laboratory workflow and tetrapod database for larger scale environmental DNA studies

BACKGROUND: The use of environmental DNA for species detection via metabarcoding is growing rapidly. We present a co-designed lab workflow and bioinformatic pipeline to mitigate the 2 most important risks of environmental DNA use: sample contamination and taxonomic misassignment. These risks arise from the need for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification to detect the trace amounts of DNA combined with the necessity of using short target regions due to DNA degradation. FINDINGS: Our high-throughput workflow minimizes these risks via a 4-step strategy: (i) technical replication with 2 PCR replicates and 2 extraction replicates; (ii) using multi-markers (12S,16S,CytB); (iii) a "twin-tagging," 2-step PCR protocol; and (iv) use of the probabilistic taxonomic assignment method PROTAX, which can account for incomplete reference databases. Because annotation errors in the reference sequences can result in taxonomic misassignment, we supply a protocol for curating sequence datasets. For some taxonomic groups and some markers, curation resulted in >50% of sequences being deleted from public reference databases, owing to (i) limited overlap between our target amplicon and reference sequences, (ii) mislabelling of reference sequences, and (iii) redundancy. Finally, we provide a bioinformatic pipeline to process amplicons and conduct PROTAX assignment and tested it on an invertebrate-derived DNA dataset from 1,532 leeches from Sabah, Malaysia. Twin-tagging allowed us to detect and exclude sequences with non-matching tags. The smallest DNA fragment (16S) amplified most frequently for all samples but was less powerful for discriminating at species rank. Using a stringent and lax acceptance criterion we found 162 (stringent) and 190 (lax) vertebrate detections of 95 (stringent) and 109 (lax) leech samples. CONCLUSIONS: Our metabarcoding workflow should help research groups increase the robustness of their results and therefore facilitate wider use of environmental and invertebrate-derived DNA, which is turning into a valuable source of ecological and conservation information on tetrapods

The advantage of a toxicokinetic model of the honey bee colony in the context of the risk assessment of plant protection products

Within the current discussions about risk assessment of plant protection products regarding honey bees, one of the most important aspects is how to link pesticide exposure on field and landscape scale to potential effects within the colony. A dynamic toxicokinetic model may help to improve the evaluation of dose rates individuals are exposed to through various compartments of the colony, which may result from the application of plant protection products in the field. In addition, it may help to interpret the significance of ecotoxicological test results, especially from lower-tier studies, in the risk assessment and help to refine the exposure assessment and risk evaluation. Linking it to a realistic population model and a landscape-based foraging model would give an improved insight into the dynamics in a honey bee colony under exposure of plant protection productsKeywords: modelling, toxicokinetics, risk assessment, exposur