Selected Resources on Copyright Law

This research guide provides specialized primary and secondary sources on copyright law, including specialized reporters on copyright law, interactive tutorials, and websites

Hot or not – Which features make FinTechs attractive for investors?

Attracting investors and generating funding is a key issue for all start-ups. The information asymmetries between investor and start-up need to be reduced. Despite the overwhelming literature on venture capital financing and different signals reflecting venture quality, pinpointing the signals which impact funding decisions remains an open issue. This study presents an empirical examination of the effectiveness of different signals to convince investors and generate funding. We examine the impact of signals concerning venture quality (classic ones such as human capital, intellectual capital and social alliance/network capital as well as the strategic orientation in terms of business model patterns. Based on a comprehensive sample of more than 101 German FinTechs, our study delivers empirical evidence that human capital as well as the strategic orientation positively impacts a FinTech’s attractiveness. However, our chosen measures for intellectual capital and social network/alliance capital result in negative effects

Saharan dust and ice nuclei over Central Europe

Surface measurements of aerosol and ice nuclei (IN) at a Central European mountain site during an episode of dust transport from the Sahara are presented. Ice nuclei were sampled by electrostatic precipitation on silicon wafers and were analyzed in an isothermal static vapor diffusion chamber. The transport of mineral dust is simulated by the Eulerian regional dust model DREAM. Ice nuclei and mineral dust are significantly correlated, in particular IN number concentration and aerosol surface area. The ice nucleating characteristics of the aerosol as analyzed with respect to temperature and supersaturation are similar during the dust episode than during the course of the year. This suggests that dust may be a main constituent of ice nucleating aerosols in Central Europe

The Fermi energy in acceptor doped SrTiO3 and BaTiO3

In order to evaluate the presence of space charge layers and the magnitude of band bending at electrode interfaces of mixed ionic-electronic conductors we have evaluated the Fermi energies in the bulk and at interfaces of acceptor-doped SrTiO3, BaTiO3 and (Ba,Sr)TiO3. While the interface Fermi energy can be directly obtained using photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) if conducting electrode materials are deposited, the determination of the bulk Fermi energy is more challenging due to the high resistivity of the samples. One approach is to use XPS on thin films deposited on conducting samples. In general, we observed a good agreement between upper and lower limits of Fermi energies at thin films surfaces and at interfaces. Surprisingly, the Fermi energy is hardly observed below EF-EVB≈2eV (see Fig. 1), although defect chemistry calculations predict values as low as EF-EVB≈2eV for acceptor doped samples, such as Fe-doped SrTiO3 or Mn-doped BaTiO3.c,d Even at anode interfaces of ionically polarized Fe-doped SrTiO3 single crystals,e at which the oxygen vacancy concentration should be very low, we have not observed lower Fermi energies. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Low-Cost PM2.5 Sensors Can Help Identify Driving Factors of Poor Air Quality and Benefit Communities

Air quality is critical for public health. Residents rely chiefly on government agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States to establish standards for the measurement of harmful contaminants including ozone, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, volatile organic chemicals (VOCs), and fine particulate matter at or below 2.5 μm. According to the California Air Resources Board [1], “short-term PM2.5 exposure (up to 24-h duration) has been associated with premature mortality, increased hospital admissions for heart or lung causes, acute and chronic bronchitis, asthma attacks, emergency room visits, respiratory symptoms, and restricted activity days”. While public agency resources may provide guidance, it is often inadequate relative to the widespread need for effective local measurement and management of air quality risks. To that end, this paper explores the use of low-cost PM2.5 sensors for measuring air quality through micro-scale (local) analytical comparisons with reference grade monitors and identification of potential causal factors of elevated sensor readings. We find that a) there is high correlation between the PM2.5 measurements of low-cost sensors and reference grade monitors, assessed through calibration models, b) low-cost sensors are more prevalent and provide more frequent measurements, and c) low-cost sensor data enables exploratory and explanatory analytics to identify potential causes of elevated PM2.5 readings. This understanding should encourage community scientists to place more low-cost sensors in their neighborhoods, which can empower communities to demand policy changes that are necessary to reduce particle pollution, and provide a basis for subsequent research

The hodograph method applicability in the problem of long-scale nonlinear dynamics of a thin vortex filament near a flat boundary

Hamiltonian dynamics of a thin vortex filament in ideal incompressible fluid near a flat fixed boundary is considered at the conditions that at any point of the curve determining shape of the filament the angle between tangent vector and the boundary plane is small, also the distance from a point on the curve to the plane is small in comparison with the curvature radius. The dynamics is shown to be effectively described by a nonlinear system of two (1+1)-dimensional partial differential equations. The hodograph transformation reduces that system to a single linear differential equation of the second order with separable variables. Simple solutions of the linear equation are investigated at real values of spectral parameter $\lambda$ when the filament projection on the boundary plane has shape of a two-branch spiral or a smoothed angle, depending on the sign of $\lambda$.Comment: 9 pages, revtex4, 6 eps-figure

Detection Rates for Kaluza-Klein Dark Matter

We consider the lightest Kaluza-Klein particle at N=1 mode (LKP) of universal extra dimension to be the candidate for Dark Matter and predict the detection rates for such particles for Germenium and NaI detectors. We have also calculated the nature of annual modulation for the signals in these two types of detectors for LKP Dark Matter. The rates with different values of speed of solar system in the Galactic rest frame are also evaluated.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.

The origin of the high velocity circumstellar gas around SN 1998S

Modelling of high resolution Balmer line profiles in the early-time spectra of SN 1998S shows that the inferred fast (roughly 400 km/s) circumstellar (CS) gas on days 23 and 42 post-explosion is confined to a narrow, negative velocity gradient shell just above the photosphere. This gas may be identified with a slow (v < 40 km/s) progenitor wind accelerated at the ejecta-wind interface. In this scenario, the photosphere coincides with a cool dense shell formed in the reverse shock. Acceleration by radiation from the supernova or by a shock-accelerated relativistic particle precursor are both possible explanations for the observed fast CS gas. An alternative, equally plausible scenario is that the fast CS gas is accelerated within shocked clouds engulfed by the outer shock, as it propagates through the intercloud wind.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. MNRAS, accepted. Typos added, acknowledgments correcte