4,238 research outputs found
The Composition of Soil Colloids in Relation to Soil Classification
For a period of approximately fifteen years investigators in the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils have been engaged in the accumulation of scientific data concerned with colloid material of the soil. During this period a large volume of accurate information has been secured which has been published in the form of bulletins and journal articles. So far as the Bureau publications are concerned, but little has appeared concerning theoretical aspects of the composition of the colloid. They have concerned themselves, for the most part, with methods of isolation and estimation, and determination of general physical and chemical characteristics
Iowa in War Times
This history of Iowa\u27s involvement in the Civil War was published in 1888. The author, Samuel Hawkins Marshall Byers, was a member of the Fifth Iowa Infantry during the Civil War, having enlisted in 1861. Byers was eventually captured and spent well over a year in several Confederate prison camps. Following his escape, Byers joined Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman\u27s staff until the war\u27s end. In 1869 he was appointed United States Consul to Zurich, Switzerland, and later held the same position in Rome. Byers many works include The Song of Iowa the official state song of Iowa.https://scholarworks.uni.edu/iowabooks/1016/thumbnail.jp
Development of boron calibration via hybrid comparator method in prompt gamma activation analysis
The prompt gamma activation analysis (PGAA) facility at the Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin was utilized to quantify boron concentrations in boron carbide semiconductor films deposited on silicon substrates. Calibration was complicated by the unique and varying sample geometries analyzed. In addition, there was a dearth of solid materials available with quantified boron concentrations having comparable or readily modifiable dimensions to exploit for calibration purposes. Therefore, a novel hybrid comparator method was developed for the quantification of boron utilizing aluminum as an inexpensive and easily machinable reference material. Aluminum samples were manufactured with high tolerances to match the geometry of each sample of interest. Each boron carbide film sample and its congruent aluminum sample were measured in the PGAA system. The measured aluminum responses and relevant nuclear parameters were used to standardize the measurements. A boron standard was created using a procedure derived from a similar approach used by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Quality control measurements using this standard show that the method provided accuracy to within 5% for boron quantification
Visualisation Tools for Multi-Perspective, Cross-Sector, Long-Term Infrastructure Performance Evaluation
Across different infrastructure sectors there are systems that help to monitor the current and near-future operation
and performance of a particular system. Whilst Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are critical
to maintaining acceptable levels of functionality, they do not provide insights over the longer timescales across which
strategic investment decisions play out. To understand how individual or multiple, interdependent, infrastructure
sectors perform over longer timescales, capacity/demand modelling is required. However, the outputs of such
models are often a complex high-dimensionality result-set, and this complexity is further compounded when crosssector
evaluation is required. To maximise utility of such models, tools are required that can process and present
key outputs. In this paper we describe the development of prototype tools for infrastructure performance evaluation
in relation to different strategic decisions and the complex outputs generated from capacity and demand models of
five infrastructure sectors (energy, water, waste water, solid waste, transport) investigated within the UK Infrastructure
Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC). By constructing tools that expose various dimensions of the model outputs,
a user is able to take greater control over the knowledge discovery process
Who Contributes to the Knowledge Sharing Economy?
Information sharing dynamics of social networks rely on a small set of
influencers to effectively reach a large audience. Our recent results and
observations demonstrate that the shape and identity of this elite, especially
those contributing \emph{original} content, is difficult to predict.
Information acquisition is often cited as an example of a public good. However,
this emerging and powerful theory has yet to provably offer qualitative
insights on how specialization of users into active and passive participants
occurs.
This paper bridges, for the first time, the theory of public goods and the
analysis of diffusion in social media. We introduce a non-linear model of
\emph{perishable} public goods, leveraging new observations about sharing of
media sources. The primary contribution of this work is to show that
\emph{shelf time}, which characterizes the rate at which content get renewed,
is a critical factor in audience participation. Our model proves a fundamental
\emph{dichotomy} in information diffusion: While short-lived content has simple
and predictable diffusion, long-lived content has complex specialization. This
occurs even when all information seekers are \emph{ex ante} identical and could
be a contributing factor to the difficulty of predicting social network
participation and evolution.Comment: 15 pages in ACM Conference on Online Social Networks 201
Strong spin relaxation length dependence on electric field gradients
We discuss the influence of electrical effects on spin transport, and in
particular the propagation and relaxation of spin polarized electrons in the
presence of inhomogeneous electric fields. We show that the spin relaxation
length strongly depends on electric field gradients, and that significant
suppression of electron spin polarization can occur as a result thereof. A
discussion in terms of a drift-diffusion picture, and self-consistent numerical
calculations based on a Boltzmann-Poisson approach shows that the spin
relaxation length in fact can be of the order of the charge screening length.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to be presented at PASPSI
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