Bottlenecks in the Open-Access System: Voices from Around the Globe

A level playing field is key for global participation in science and scholarship, particularly with regard to how scientific publications are financed and subsequently accessed. However, there are potential pitfalls of the so-called "Gold" open-access (OA) route, in which author-paid publication charges cover the costs of production and publication. Gold OA plans in which author charges are required may not solve the access problem, but rather may shift the access barrier from reader to writer. Under such plans, everyone may be free to read papers, but it may still be prohibitively expensive to publish them. In a scholarly community that is increasingly global, spread over more and more regions and countries of the world, these publication access barriers may be quite significant. In the present paper, a global suite of colleagues in academe joins this debate. The group of colleagues, a network of researchers active in scholarly publishing, spans four continents and multiple disciplines in the natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences, as well as diverse political and economic situations. We believe that this global sampling of researchers can provide the nuance and perspective necessary to grasp this complex problem. The group was assembled without an attempt to achieve global coverage through random sampling. This contribution differs from other approaches to the open-access problem in several fundamental ways. (A) It is scholar-driven, and thus can represent the ‘other side of the coin' of scholarly communication. (B) It focuses on narrative report, where scholars were free to orient their responses as they saw fit, rather than being confined to binary or scalar choices. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, (C) it distinguishes among institutions and countries and situations, highlighting inequalities of access among wealthy and economically-challenged nations, and also within countries depending on the size and location of particular institutions

Coriolis Effect in Optics: Unified Geometric Phase and Spin-Hall Effect

We examine the spin-orbit coupling effects that appear when a wave carrying intrinsic angular momentum interacts with a medium. The Berry phase is shown to be a manifestation of the Coriolis effect in a non-inertial reference frame attached to the wave. In the most general case, when both the direction of propagation and the state of the wave are varied, the phase is given by a simple expression that unifies the spin redirection Berry phase and the Pancharatnam--Berry phase. The theory is supported by the experiment demonstrating the spin-orbit coupling of electromagnetic waves via a surface plasmon nano-structure. The measurements verify the unified geometric phase, demonstrated by the observed polarization-dependent shift (spin-Hall effect) of the waves.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Benchmark experiments for higher-order and full-Stokes ice sheet models (ISMIP-HOM)

We present the results of the first ice sheet model intercomparison project for higher-order and full-Stokes ice sheet models. These models are compared and verified in a series of six experiments of which one has an analytical solution obtained from a perturbation analysis. The experiments are applied to both 2-D and 3-D geometries; five experiments are steady-state diagnostic, and one has a time-dependent prognostic solution. All participating models give results that are in close agreement. A clear distinction can be made between higher-order models and those that solve the full system of equations. The full-Stokes models show a much smaller spread, hence are in better agreement with one another and with the analytical solution

The Syllable according to Aristotle

Modern commentators criticized Aristotle’s definition of the syllable (“ a non-significant sound, composed of a mute and a vowel”) for not taking into account syllables containing a single vowel. Such syllables, however, could only be ‘ long by nature’, (/ C -/), quantitatively/ metrically equal to syllables which are ‘ long by position/ convention/ institution’ (/ C C-C/) and to the disyllabic / C C / sequence, rather than to elementary constructional units, / CV/, composed of two elementary inventory units (στοιχεία). Thus understood, Aristotle’s syllable could have found its place among the basic phonological notions. The position of the syllable in the ‘ non-significant category’, with respect to Aristotle’s consistent differentiation between ‘ significant and non-significant sounds’ suggests that the idea of the language sign is present implicitly in Aristotle’s system of the ‘ parts of expression’.Les commentateurs modernes ont critiqué la définition de la syllabe selon Aristote («un son dépourvu de signification, composé d’une muette et d’une voyelle » ) au motif qu’elle ne tiendrait pas compte des syllabes constituées d’une unique voyelle. Cependant, de telles syllabes ne pouvaient être que «longues par nature » , (/ C -/), quantitativement/ métriquement égales aux syllabes «longues par position/ convention/ institution » (/ C C-C/) et à la séquence dissyllabique / C C /, plutôt qu’aux unités constructionnelles, /CV/, composées de deux unités élémentaires (στοιχεία) faisant partie de l’inventaire phonologique. Ainsi comprise, la syllabe d’Aristote aurait pu figurer parmi les notions phonologiques de base. L’inscription de la syllabe dans la catégorie du «non-signifiant», rapportée à la cohérence aristotélicienne de la distinction entre sons «signifiants» et «non-signifiants», suggère que l’idée de signe linguistique est implicitement présente dans le système aristotélicien des «parties de l’expression».Kleiner Yuri. The Syllable according to Aristotle. In: Histoire Épistémologie Langage, tome 39, fascicule 1, 2017. Les langues en danger : un observatoire pertinent pour les théories linguistiques ? pp. 137-153

ESDA2008-59026 ENHANCED COHERENCY OF THERMAL EMISSION FROM SIC BY COUPLED RESONANT CAVITY STRUCTURE

ABSTRACT Surface waves have been shown to play a key role in spontaneous thermal emission in the near-field as well as the coherence and the polarization properties of the nonradiative field. The near-field coherence of the delocalized nonradiative surface waves can be transferred into radiative fields by introducing a shallow grating on the surface. We show that the coherency of the thermal radiation can be enhanced by an order of magnitude compared with the coherency imposed by the delocalized surface waves. The enhanced coherency is due to coherent coupling between resonant cavities obtained by surface standing waves, where each cavity supports localized field that is attributed to coupled surface waves. We realized coupled resonant cavity structure on amorphous SiO 2 and crystalline SiC, both support surface phonon-polaritons, to demonstrate extraordinary coherent thermal emission with a high quality factor of 600 and a spatial coherence length of 760λ