Making up meanings in a capital city: power, memory and monuments in Berlin

Much contemporary writing on cities focuses on their position within wider global networks, so there is a risk of underplaying the significance of other aspects of the urban experience.This paper explores the particular role of Berlin as capital city in the making of the (new) Berliner Republic and the ways in which it is defined (and defines itself) within that Republic. Berlin is the (and often literally the building) site on which a new Germany is being constructed. The making up of the new Berlin is dominated by attempts to reinterpret and reimagine its history: it is a city of memorials and of deliberate absences; of remembering and forgetting, or trying to forget; of reshaping the past as well as trying to build a new future. The juxtapositions of urban experience, the layering of memories and the attempt to imagine a different future come together to define Berlin as a contemporary capital city

Statistical investigations on nitrogen-vacancy center creation

Quantum information technologies require networks of interacting defect bits. Color centers, especially the nitrogen vacancy (NV-) center in diamond, represent one promising avenue, toward the realisation of such devices. The most successful technique for creating NV- in diamond is ion implantation followed by annealing. Previous experiments have shown that shallow nitrogen implantation (<10 keV) results in NV- centers with a yield of 0.01%–0.1%. We investigate the influence of channeling effects during shallow implantation and statistical diffusion of vacancies using molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulation techniques. Energy barriers for the diffusion process were calculated using density functional theory. Our simulations show that 25% of the implanted nitrogens form a NV center, which is in good agreement with our experimental findings

Organizing space in time: Discovering existing resources

Flexible societies require flexible environments. Due to economical, eclolgical and social reasons, it can be more efficient taking advantage of existing architecture rather than creating new buildings. A web based information system is proposed which can support the distribution of information for "temporal available space" for providers and users. Potetioal providers are avle to store their space information via internet. While users can request information about required locations. Examinations made in an eastern Berlin district have shown that information based management for space and time is improving the efficiency of using existing environment. Furthermore schools, garages, shops and unused facilities can become attractive locations for social events