Macroporous materials: microfluidic fabrication, functionalization and applications

This article provides an up-to-date highly comprehensive overview (594 references) on the state of the art of the synthesis and design of macroporous materials using microfluidics and their applications in different fields

Strategies to reduce nutrient pollution from manure management in China

As the demand for livestock products continues to increase in China, so too does the challenge of managing increasing quantities of manure. Urgent action is needed to control point source (housing, storage and processing) and diffuse (field application) pollution and improve the utilization of manure nutrients and organic matter. Here, we review strategies to improve management at each stage of the manure management chain and at different scales. Many strategies require infrastructure investment, e.g., for containment of all manure fractions. Engineering solutions are needed to develop advanced composting systems with lower environmental footprints and design more efficient nutrient stripping technologies. At the field-scale, there is an urgent need to develop a manure nutrient recommendation system that accounts for the range of manure types, cropping systems, soils and climates throughout China. At the regional scale, coordinated planning is necessary to promote recoupling of livestock and cropping systems, and reduce nutrient accumulation in regions with little available landbank, while minimizing the risk of pollution swapping from one region to another. A range of stakeholders are needed to support the step change and innovation required to improve manure management, reduce reliance on inorganic fertilizers, and generate new business opportunities

Considerations for an Ac Dipole for the LHC

Following successful experience at the BNL AGS, FNAL Tevatron, and CERN SPS, an AC Dipole will be adopted at the LHC for rapid measurements of ring optics. This paper describes some of the parameters of the AC dipole for the LHC, scaling from performance of the FNAL and BNL devices.Comment: proceedings of the 2007 Particle Accelerator Conferenc

Effect of the tensor force on the charge-exchange spin-dipole excitations of 208Pb

The charge-exchange spin-dipole (SD) excitations of 208Pb are studied by using a fully self-consistent Skyrme Hartree-Fock plus Random Phase Approximation (HF+RPA) formalism which includes the tensor interaction. It is found, for the first time, that the tensor correlations have a unique, multipole-dependent effect on the SD excitations, that is, they produce softening of 1- states, but hardening of 0- and 2- states. This paves the way to a clear assessment of the strength of the tensor terms. We compare our results with a recent measurement, showing that our choice of tensor terms improves the agreement with experiment. The robustness of our results is supported by the analytic form of the tensor matrix elements.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, 2 table

Modified Dispersion Relations: from Black-Hole Entropy to the Cosmological Constant

Quantum Field Theory is plagued by divergences in the attempt to calculate physical quantities. Standard techniques of regularization and renormalization are used to keep under control such a problem. In this paper we would like to use a different scheme based on Modified Dispersion Relations (MDR) to remove infinities appearing in one loop approximation in contrast to what happens in conventional approaches. In particular, we apply the MDR regularization to the computation of the entropy of a Schwarzschild black hole from one side and the Zero Point Energy (ZPE) of the graviton from the other side. The graviton ZPE is connected to the cosmological constant by means of of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation.Comment: Contribution prepared for the proceedings of the conference on quantum field theory under the influence of external conditions (QFEXT11). 8 page

Special symplectic Lie groups and hypersymplectic Lie groups

A special symplectic Lie group is a triple $(G,\omega,\nabla)$ such that $G$ is a finite-dimensional real Lie group and $\omega$ is a left invariant symplectic form on $G$ which is parallel with respect to a left invariant affine structure $\nabla$. In this paper starting from a special symplectic Lie group we show how to ``deform" the standard Lie group structure on the (co)tangent bundle through the left invariant affine structure $\nabla$ such that the resulting Lie group admits families of left invariant hypersymplectic structures and thus becomes a hypersymplectic Lie group. We consider the affine cotangent extension problem and then introduce notions of post-affine structure and post-left-symmetric algebra which is the underlying algebraic structure of a special symplectic Lie algebra. Furthermore, we give a kind of double extensions of special symplectic Lie groups in terms of post-left-symmetric algebras.Comment: 32 page

RoboCup 2D Soccer Simulation League: Evaluation Challenges

We summarise the results of RoboCup 2D Soccer Simulation League in 2016 (Leipzig), including the main competition and the evaluation round. The evaluation round held in Leipzig confirmed the strength of RoboCup-2015 champion (WrightEagle, i.e. WE2015) in the League, with only eventual finalists of 2016 competition capable of defeating WE2015. An extended, post-Leipzig, round-robin tournament which included the top 8 teams of 2016, as well as WE2015, with over 1000 games played for each pair, placed WE2015 third behind the champion team (Gliders2016) and the runner-up (HELIOS2016). This establishes WE2015 as a stable benchmark for the 2D Simulation League. We then contrast two ranking methods and suggest two options for future evaluation challenges. The first one, "The Champions Simulation League", is proposed to include 6 previous champions, directly competing against each other in a round-robin tournament, with the view to systematically trace the advancements in the League. The second proposal, "The Global Challenge", is aimed to increase the realism of the environmental conditions during the simulated games, by simulating specific features of different participating countries.Comment: 12 pages, RoboCup-2017, Nagoya, Japan, July 201