Microfluidic detection and analysis by integration of thermocapillary actuation with a thin-film optical waveguide

We demonstrate a nonintrusive optical method for microfluidic detection and analysis based on evanescent wave sensing. The device consists of a planar thin-film waveguide integrated with a microfluidic chip for directed surface flow. Microliter droplets are electronically transported and positioned over the waveguide surface by thermocapillary actuation. The attenuated intensity of propagating modes is used to detect droplet location, to monitor dye concentration in aqueous solutions, and to measure reaction rates with increasing surface temperature for a chromogenic biochemical assay. This study illustrates a few of the capabilities possible by direct integration of optical sensing with surface-directed fluidic devices

Price Spikes in Electricity Markets: A Strategic Perspective

This paper aims to analyze the issue of price spikes in electricity markets through the lens of noncooperative game theory. The case we consider is Australia’s long established National Electricity Market (NEM). Specifically, we adapt von der Fehr and Harbord’s multi-unit auction model to settings that more closely reflect the structure of the NEM, showing that price spikes can be related to a specifiable threshold in demand.Electricity Markets, Spot Price Behaviour, Non-Cooperative Game Theory.

"(Weitergeleitet von Journalistin)": The Gendered Presentation of Professions on Wikipedia

Previous research has shown the existence of gender biases in the depiction of professions and occupations in search engine results. Such an unbalanced presentation might just as likely occur on Wikipedia, one of the most popular knowledge resources on the Web, since the encyclopedia has already been found to exhibit such tendencies in past studies. Under this premise, our work assesses gender bias with respect to the content of German Wikipedia articles about professions and occupations along three dimensions: used male vs. female titles (and redirects), included images of persons, and names of professionals mentioned in the articles. We further use German labor market data to assess the potential misrepresentation of a gender for each specific profession. Our findings in fact provide evidence for systematic over-representation of men on all three dimensions. For instance, for professional fields dominated by females, the respective articles on average still feature almost two times more images of men; and in the mean, 83% of the mentioned names of professionals were male and only 17% female.Comment: In the 9th International ACM Web Science Conference 2017 (WebSci'17), June 25-28, 2017, Troy, NY, USA. Based on the results of the thesis: arXiv:1702.0082

To the Age of Social Revolution: As Papal Rejoinder, the Apocalypse is Not Now

This article concludes ultimately that, as he revivifies political Augustinianism, the Holy Father makes two original contributions. He draws on ideas foreign to Augustine, but familiar, respectively, within ancient and modern idealist political philosophy, to secure a basis for endorsing the agenda of the Activist State Augustine would have been compelled to reject. He adopts, as well, the modern construct of Constitutionalism, also unknown to Augustine, to fashion what, ultimately, is not so much a political or moral philosophy, but a philosophy of law devised to animate a particular vision of Church-State relations. In its concluding section, the article calls attention both to the distinctive value of the Pope\u27s position, but also seeks to suggest that-in the high-stakes game of the Church\u27s dialogue with a post-Christian culture-there may be wisdom, even as one proceeds to implement Pope Benedict\u27s program, in cultivating mindfulness of the diversified options in moral and political philosophy and in theologies of Church, ever alive in the larger Catholic tradition. In a first section, this article, thus, sketches the outlines of the Augustinianism and Idealist political philosophy, both Ancient and Modern, influencing Pope Benedict\u27s political philosophy. In a second section, it sets out Pope Benedict\u27s political philosophy. In a third, it adumbrates Pope Benedict\u27s theology of Church. In a fourth, it sets forth Pope Benedict\u27s vision of legal ordering of Church-State relations, and, in its concluding fifth section, it comments on the nature and limits of Pope Benedict\u27s distinctive contribution