Evaluating m-government applications: an elaboration likelihood model framework

Mobile government application and services refer to governmental functions that are available to mobile devices, such as smart phones or personal digital assistants, to the users anytime/anywhere. M-Government and m-Participation are emergent concepts used to represent the evolving field of public administration functions provided as mobile services and the provision of participation to public consultations via mobile devices accordingly. In this paper we present an evaluation framework for m-government tools. The evaluation approach is grounded on the assumption that m-government tools should not only provide access to governmental information and functions, but they should also motivate users to participate to public policy making processes. The evaluation approach is based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Its novelty lies on a) its ability to capture the actual performance of a system instead of the users’ perceptions, and b) its capacity to assess the motivational and persuasive ability of a system.EU FP7 Marie Curie People Project “CEES - Citizen oriented Evaluation of E-Government Systems (reference IAPP-2008-230658) and EU FP7 Project “UbiPOL- Ubiquitous Participation Platform for Policy Making” (Reference INFSO-ICT-248010)

A Theory of Gamma-Ray Bursts

We present a specific scenario for the link between GRB and hypernovae, based on Blandford-Znajek extraction of black-hole spin energy. Such a mechanism requires a high angular momentum in the progenitor object. The observed association of gamma-ray bursts with type Ibc supernovae leads us to consider massive helium stars that form black holes at the end of their lives as progenitors. We combine the numerical work of MacFadyen & Woosley with analytic calculations, to show that about 1E53 erg each are available to drive the fast GRB ejecta and the supernova. The GRB ejecta are driven by the power output through the open field lines, whereas the supernova is powered by closed filed lines and jet shocks. We also present a much simplified approximate derivation of these energetics. Helium stars that leave massive black-hole remnants in special ways, namely via soft X-ray transients or very massive WNL stars. Since binaries naturally have high angular momentum, we propose a link between black-hole transients and gamma-ray bursts. Recent observations of one such transient, GRO J1655-40/Nova Scorpii 1994, explicitly support this connection: its high space velocity indicates that substantial mass was ejected in the formation of the black hole, and the overabundance of alpha-nuclei, especially sulphur, indicates that the explosion energy was extreme, as in SN 1998bw/GRB 980425. (abstract shortened)Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in New Astronom

Neutrino Interactions In Color-Flavor-Locked Dense Matter

At high density, diquarks could condense in the vacuum with the QCD color spontaneously broken. Based on the observation that the symmetry breaking pattern involved in this phenomenon is essentially the same as that of the Pati-Salam model with broken electroweak--color SU(3) group, we determine the relevant electroweak interactions in the color-flavor locked (CFL) phase in high density QCD. We briefly comment on the possible implications on the cooling of neutron stars.Comment: 13 pages. LaTeX. Talk given at the First KIAS Workshop on Astrophysics, Seoul, May 2000; V2. references added. comments on cooling change

Transport phenomenology for a holon-spinon fluid

We propose that the normal-state transport in the cuprate superconductors can be understood in terms of a two-fluid model of spinons and holons. In our scenario, the resistivity is determined by the properties of the holons while magnetotransport involves the recombination of holons and spinons to form physical electrons. Our model implies that the Hall transport time is a measure of the electron lifetime, which is shorter than the longitudinal transport time. This agrees with our analysis of the normal-state data. We predict a strong increase in linewidth with increasing temperature in photoemission. Our model also suggests that the AC Hall effect is controlled by the transport time.Comment: 4 pages, 1 postscript figure. Uses RevTeX, epsf, multico

Unstable topography of biphasic surfactant monolayers

We study the conformation of a heterogeneous surfactant monolayer at a fluid-fluid interface, near a boundary between two lateral regions of differing elastic properties. The monolayer attains a conformation of shallow, steep `mesas' with a height difference of up to 10 nm. If the monolayer is progressively compressed (e.g. in a Langmuir trough), the profile develops overhangs and finally becomes unstable at a surface tension of about K(delta c_0)^2, where (delta c_0) is the difference in spontaneous curvature and K a bending stiffness. We discuss the relevance of this instability to recently observed folding behavior in lung surfactant monolayers, and to the absence of domain structures in films separating oil and water in emulsions.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, LaTex using epl.cls, accepted for Europhys Let

Nonabelian Berry Phases in Baryons

We show how generic nonabelian gauge fields can be induced in baryons when a hierarchy of fast degrees of freedom is integrated out. We identify them with nonabelian Berry potentials and discuss their role in transmuting quantum numbers in bag and soliton models of baryons. The resulting baryonic spectra for both light and heavy quark systems are generic and resemble closely the excitation spectrum of diatomic molecules. The symmetry restoration in the system, i.e., the electronic rotational invariance in diatomic molecules, the heavy-quark symmetry in heavy baryons etc. is interpreted in terms of the vanishing of nonabelian Berry potentials that otherwise govern the hyperfine splitting.Comment: Latex 35 pages (2 figures not added, will be faxed if requested), NTG-92-2