A tutored discourse on microcontrollers, single board computers and their applications to monitor and control chemical reactions

This Tutored Discourse constitutes a preliminary exposure on how synthesis chemists can engage positively with inexpensive, low-power microcontrollers to aid control, monitoring and optimisation of chemical reactions.H2020-FETOPEN-2016-2017 programme of the European Commission (grant agreement number: 737266-ONE FLOW

Input-Output Relations in Optical Cavities: a Simple Point of View

In this work we present a very simple approach to input-output relations in optical cavities, limiting ourselves to one- and two-photon states of the field. After field quantization, we derive the non-unitary transformation between {\em Inside} and {\em Outside} annihilation and creation operators. Then we express the most general two-photon state generated by {\em Inside} creation operators, through base states generated by {\em Outside} creation operators. After renormalization of coefficients of inside two-photon state, we calculate the outside photon-number probability distribution in a general case. Finally we treat with some detail the single mode and symmetrical cavity case.Comment: 34 pages, 5 figures jpg, LaTe

Detecting the direction of a signal on high-dimensional spheres: Non-null and Le Cam optimality results

We consider one of the most important problems in directional statistics, namely the problem of testing the null hypothesis that the spike direction $\theta$ of a Fisher-von Mises-Langevin distribution on the $p$-dimensional unit hypersphere is equal to a given direction $\theta_0$. After a reduction through invariance arguments, we derive local asymptotic normality (LAN) results in a general high-dimensional framework where the dimension $p_n$ goes to infinity at an arbitrary rate with the sample size $n$, and where the concentration $\kappa_n$ behaves in a completely free way with $n$, which offers a spectrum of problems ranging from arbitrarily easy to arbitrarily challenging ones. We identify various asymptotic regimes, depending on the convergence/divergence properties of $(\kappa_n)$, that yield different contiguity rates and different limiting experiments. In each regime, we derive Le Cam optimal tests under specified $\kappa_n$ and we compute, from the Le Cam third lemma, asymptotic powers of the classical Watson test under contiguous alternatives. We further establish LAN results with respect to both spike direction and concentration, which allows us to discuss optimality also under unspecified $\kappa_n$. To investigate the non-null behavior of the Watson test outside the parametric framework above, we derive its local asymptotic powers through martingale CLTs in the broader, semiparametric, model of rotationally symmetric distributions. A Monte Carlo study shows that the finite-sample behaviors of the various tests remarkably agree with our asymptotic results.Comment: 47 pages, 4 figure

Role of defects in the electronic properties of amorphous/crystalline Si interface

The mechanism determining the band alignment of the amorphous/crystalline Si heterostructures is addressed with direct atomistic simulations of the interface performed using a hierarchical combination of various computational schemes ranging from classical model-potential molecular dynamics to ab-initio methods. We found that in coordination defect-free samples the band alignment is almost vanishing and independent on interface details. In defect-rich samples, instead, the band alignment is sizeably different with respect to the defect-free case, but, remarkably, almost independent on the concentration of defects. We rationalize these findings within the theory of semiconductor interfaces.Comment: 4 pages in two-column format, 2 postscript figures include

The Effect of Steroid Treatment on Lipocortin Immunoreactivity of Rat Brain

Lipocortin-1, lipocortin-2 and lipocortin-5 were immunohistochemically assessed in rats. Apart from animals receiving no treatment, other animals received pretreatment with methylprednisolone, or the 21-aminosteroid U-74389F. Whereas Hpocortin immunoreactivity was absent in the greater part of the brain in animals not pretreated with steroid (except in sporadic microglial cells and choroid plexus), there was obvious immunostaining of parenchymatous elements in steroid pretreated animals. In the steroid pretreated animals lipocortin immunoreactivity of the brain tissue may indicate local formation of lipocortin under the influence of steroids that had entered the tissue. The cellular elements which showed immunostaining included meningeal cells, neurones, ependyma, oligodendroglia and capillary endotheHum

Grassroots Agency: Participation and Conflict in Buenos Aires Shantytowns seen through the Pilot Plan for Villa 7 (1971–1975)

open access articleIn 1971, after more than a decade of national and municipal policies aimed at the top-down removal of shantytowns, the Buenos Aires City Council approved the Plan Piloto para la Relocalización de Villa 7 (Pilot Plan for the Relocation of Shantytown 7; 1971–1975, referred to as the Pilot Plan hereinafter). This particular plan, which resulted in the construction of the housing complex, Barrio Justo Suárez, endures in the collective memory of Argentines as a landmark project regarding grassroots participation in state housing initiatives addressed at shantytowns. Emerging from a context of a housing shortage for the growing urban poor and intense popular mobilizations during the transition to democracy, the authors of the Pilot Plan sought to empower shantytown residents in novel ways by: 1) maintaining the shantytown’s location as opposed to eradication schemes that relocated the residents elsewhere, 2) formally employing some of the residents for the stage of construction, as opposed to “self-help” housing projects in which the residents contributed with unpaid labor, and 3) including them in the urban and architectural design of the of the new housing. This paper will examine the context in which the Pilot Plan was conceived of as a way of re-assessing the roles of the state, the user, and housing-related professionals, often seen as antagonistic. The paper argues that residents’ fair participation and state intervention in housing schemes are not necessarily incompatible, and can function in specific social and political contexts through multiactor proposals backed by a political will that prioritizes grassroots agency