25,494 research outputs found
Reconceptualising Personas Across Cultures: Archetypes, Stereotypes & Collective Personas in Pastoral Namibia
The paucity of projects where persona is the research foci and a lack of consensus on this artefact keep many reticent about its purpose and value. Besides crafting personas is expected to differ across cultures, which contrasts the advancements in Western theory with studies and progress in other sites. We postulate User-Created Personas reveal specific characteristics of situated contexts by allowing laypeople to design persona artefacts in their own terms. Hence analysing four persona sessions with an ethnic group in pastoral Namibia –ovaHerero– brought up a set of fundamental questions around the persona artefact regarding stereotypes, archetypes, and collective persona representations: (1) to what extent user depictions are stereotypical or archetypal? If stereotypes prime (2) to what degree are current personas a useful method to represent end-users in technology design? And, (3) how can we ultimately read accounts not conforming to mainstream individual persona descriptions but to collectives
Bias Dependent 1/f Conductivity Fluctuations in Low-Doped LaCaMnO Manganite Single Crystals
Low frequency noise in current biased LaCaMnO single
crystals has been investigated in a wide temperature range from 79 K to 290 K.
Despite pronounced changes in magnetic properties and dissipation mechanisms of
the sample with changing temperature, the noise spectra were found to be always
of the 1/f type and their intensity (except the lowest temperature studied)
scaled as a square of the bias. At liquid nitrogen temperatures and under bias
exceeding some threshold value, the behavior of the noise deviates from the
quasi-equilibrium modulation noise and starts to depend in a non monotonic way
on bias. It has been verified that the observed noise obeys Dutta and Horn
model of 1/f noise in solids. The appearance of nonequilibrium 1/f noise and
its dependence on bias have been associated with changes in the distribution of
activation energies in the underlying energy landscape. These changes have been
correlated with bias induced changes in the intrinsic tunneling mechanism
dominating dissipation in LaCaMnO at low temperatures.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Physic
Nonequilibrium 1/f Noise in Low-doped Manganite Single Crystals
1/f noise in current biased La0.82Ca0.18MnO3 crystals has been investigated.
The temperature dependence of the noise follows the resistivity changes with
temperature suggesting that resistivity fluctuations constitute a fixed
fraction of the total resistivity, independently of the dissipation mechanism
and magnetic state of the system. The noise scales as a square of the current
as expected for equilibrium resistivity fluctuations. However, at 77 K at bias
exceeding some threshold, the noise intensity starts to decrease with
increasing bias. The appearance of nonequilibrium noise is interpreted in terms
of bias dependent multi-step indirect tunneling.Comment: 4pages, 3figures,APL accepte
Prompt photon hadroproduction at high energies in off-shell gluon-gluon fusion
The amplitude for production of a single photon associated with quark pair in
the fusion of two off-shell gluons is calculated. The matrix element found is
applied to the inclusive prompt photon hadroproduction at high energies in the
framework of kt-factorization QCD approach. The total and differential cross
sections are calculated in both central and forward pseudo-rapidity regions.
The conservative error analisys is performed. We used the unintegrated gluon
distributions in a proton which were obtained from the full CCFM evolution
equation as well as from the Kimber-Martin-Ryskin prescription. Theoretical
results were compared with recent experimental data taken by the D0 and CDF
collaborations at Fermilab Tevatron. Theoretical predictions for the LHC
energies are given.Comment: 32 pages, 18 figure
Optical properties of the charge-density-wave polychalcogenide compounds Te (=Nd, Sm and Gd)
We investigate the rare-earth polychalcogenide Te (=Nd, Sm and
Gd) charge-density-wave (CDW) compounds by optical methods. From the absorption
spectrum we extract the excitation energy of the CDW gap and estimate the
fraction of the Fermi surface which is gapped by the formation of the CDW
condensate. In analogy to previous findings on the related Te (n=2 and
3) families, we establish the progressive closing of the CDW gap and the
moderate enhancement of the metallic component upon chemically compressing the
lattice
Demonstration of Rashba spin splitting in GaN-based heterostructures
The circular photogalvanic effect (CPGE), induced by infrared radiation, has
been observed in (0001)-oriented GaN quantum well (QW) structures. The
photocurrent changes sign upon reversing the radiation helicity demonstrating
the existence of spin-splitting of the conduction band in k-space in this type
of materials. The observation suggests the presence of a sizeable Rashba type
of spin-splitting, caused by the built-in asymmetry at the AlGaN/GaN interface.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
Mena, a new available marker in tumors of salivary glands?
Mena (mammalian Ena) is an actin regulatory protein involved in cell motility and adhesion. Based on its potential role in malignant transformation revealed in other organs, we analyzed the Mena expression in normal salivary glands (SG) and salivary tumors. Mena expression was determined in normal SG (n=10) and also benign (n=20) and malignant (n=35) lesions of SG. For the immunohistochemical staining we used the anti-Mena antibody. All normal SG and the benign lesions (10 pleomorphic adenomas, 10 Warthin's tumors) were Mena negative. Salivary duct carcinomas (n=5), carcinomas in pleomorphic adenoma (n=5), acinic cell carcinomas (n=5), squamous cell carcinomas (n=10) and high-grade mucoepidermoid carcinomas (n=2) were positive. The lymphomas (n=5) and low-grade mucoepidermoid carcinomas (n=1) were Mena negative. In one case the lymphoblastic cells stained positive for Mena. Some of the endothelial cells, in the peritumoral vessels, were Mena positive. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in the literature about Mena expression in salivary tumors. Our study suggests that Mena protein seems to play a role in malignant transformation and its intensity is correlated with the type and grade of tumor and also with vascular invasion. Its positivity in endothelial cells may suggest its potential role in tumor angiogenesis
Upper critical fields and thermally-activated transport of Nd(O_0.7F_0.3)FeAs single crystal
We present measurements of the resistivity and the upper critical field H_c2
of Nd(O_0.7F_0.3)FeAs single crystals in strong DC and pulsed magnetic fields
up to 45 T and 60 T, respectively. We found that the field scale of H_c2 is
comparable to ~100 T of high T_c cuprates. H_c2(T) parallel to the c-axis
exhibits a pronounced upward curvature similar to what was extracted from
earlier measurements on polycrystalline samples. Thus this behavior is indeed
an intrinsic feature of oxypnictides, rather than manifestation of vortex
lattice melting or granularity. The orientational dependence of H_c2 shows
deviations from the one-band Ginzburg-Landau scaling. The mass anisotropy
decreases as T decreases, from 9.2 at 44K to 5 at 34K. Spin dependent
magnetoresistance and nonlinearities in the Hall coefficient suggest
contribution to the conductivity from electron-electron interactions modified
by disorder reminiscent that of diluted magnetic semiconductors. The Ohmic
resistivity measured below T_c but above the irreversibility field exhibits a
clear Arrhenius thermally activated behavior over 4-5 decades. The activation
energy has very different field dependencies for H||ab and H\perp ab. We
discuss to what extent different pairing scenarios can manifest themselves in
the observed behavior of H_{c2}, using the two-band model of superconductivity.
The results indicate the importance of paramagnetic effects on H_c2(T),which
may significantly reduce H_c2(0) as compared toH_c2(0)~200-300 T based on
extrapolations of H_c2(T) near T_c down to low temperatures.Comment: 11 pages, 16 figure
Applying psychological type theory to cathedral visitors : a case study of two cathedrals in England and Wales
This study employs Jungian psychological type theory to profile visitors to Chester Cathedral in England and St Davids Cathedral in Wales. Psychological type theory offers a fourfold psychographic segmentation of visitors, distinguishing between introversion and extraversion, sensing and intuition, thinking and feeling, and judging and perceiving. New data provided by 157 visitors to Chester Cathedral (considered alongside previously published data provided by 381 visitors to St Davids Cathedral) demonstrated that these two cathedrals attract more introverts than extraverts, more sensers than intuitives, and more judgers than perceivers, but equal proportions of thinkers and feelers. Comparison with the population norms demonstrated that extraverts and perceivers are significantly under-represented among visitors to these two cathedrals. The implications of these findings are discussed both for maximising the visitor experiences of those already attracted to these cathedrals and for discovering ways of attracting more extraverts and more perceivers to explore these cathedrals
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