Implications of a temperature-dependent magnetic anisotropy for superparamagnetic switching

The macroscopic magnetic moment of a superparamagnetic system has to overcome an energy barrier in order to switch its direction. This barrier is formed by magnetic anisotropies in the material and may be surmounted typically after 10^9 to 10^12 attempts per second by thermal fluctuations. In a first step, the associated switching rate may be described by a Neel-Brown-Arrhenius law, in which the energy barrier is assumed as constant or a given temperature. Yet, magnetic anisotropies in general depend on temperature themselves which is known to modify the Neel-Brown-Arrhenius law. We illustrate quantitatively the implications of a temperature-dependent anisotropy on the switching rate and in particular for the interpretation of the prefactor as an attempt frequency. In particular, we show that realistic numbers for the attempt frequency are obtained when the temperature dependence of the anisotropy is taken into account.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Determinants of Transport Mode Choice in the Austrian Province of Vorarlberg

Almost all countries have policies to reduce the usage of private car and to raise the usage of public transport by reducing the distance of travel, increasing density, increasing the access to public transport and so on. All of these developments are effective strategies for reducing car dependency. The factors which determine travel behavior of people are relatively broad. Besides the factors such as urban form and transport infrastructure, one important factor is the personal attribute which has a strong effect on the modal choice. By better understanding of this fact, the settlement development and transport planning can be integrated in a more sustainable way. This paper addresses the influence of socio-demographic and geographic factors on the selection of mode choice in the Austrian province of Vorarlberg. We used the mobility survey “Österreich unterwegs” from 2014 and applied bivariate and multinomial logit model in order to quantify the influence of factors on mode selection. Result show that the household size, age, gender, income and motivation of travel have a significant effect on the modal choice

Establishing an Integrated Monitoring Concept for the Vienna Lighthouse Project Smarter Together

Within the EU Lighthouse Project “Smarter Together”, the City of Vienna has been working during the last three years together with the Cities of Munich and Lyon following a P2P learning process to implement a set of integrated smart solutions with focus on holistic buildings refurbishment for low energy districts, onsite renewable energy supply (RES), e-mobility solutions and ICTs. This endeavour aims to support the city's vision to transform Vienna into a sustainable, resilient and liveable city along the ongoing urban transformations and energy transition. For several demonstration site projects an integrated monitoring concept has been established and tested within a co-creation process encompassing key city stakeholders and various actors from research institutions, industry and building contractors. The developed concept comprises the whole automated process of sensor-based data collection, transfer to, and storage on the city’s Data Management Platform (DMP) and the subsequent processing, visualisation and generation of related key performance indicators (KPIs). The KPI-based monitoring process seeks to track and monitor the impacts of the implemented solutions for the city demonstration sites, besides their potential contribution to achieving the city’s sustainable development targets following an intracity rollout phase and a future replication plan in selected follower cities. The established process highlights the importance of intensive communication among all stakeholders. The generated KPIs for the refurbished buildings demonstrates the importance of establishing a co-creationprocess gathering building owners, construction companies, city governance, research institutions and ICT utilities responsible for developing and maintaining Vienna’s DMP and the following provision of smartservices to third parties. The KPI-based monitoring shows that for the use cases of building refurbishment (comprising 65060 m2 of social housing and 3800 m2 public building) the achieved energy saving by building efficiency measures will reach annually about 4760 MWh. The fossil fuel saving through substitution effect by onsite renewable energy generations (PV, solar thermal, geothermal heat pumps) will reach about 451 MWh. The resulting CO2 reduction by building energy saving and RES will reach about 1423 tCO2 annually. The results underline the importance of the implemented smart solutions in achieving the Vienna Energy Framework Strategy pursuing a clear decarbonisation path and thus supporting its transformation vision towards an inclusive, sustainable and liveable city. The deployment of the successfully implemented and monitored solutions is ongoing. Based on the lessons-learned and the gained best-practices, it is expected that the implementation of an appropriate replication plan will make it possible that by the year 2030 a significant part of the existing old social buildings in Vienna will be refurbished and monitored following the integrated monitoring concept established within the Smarter Together project

Multicriteria Assessment of Urban Development Projects – from Objectives to a Project Priority List

Impact assessment is a crucial basis for decision-making. Characterization of projects, identifying objectives and indicators for the justification and comparison of alternatives represent essential elements of any impact assessment. Comparing alternatives against a set of objectives and criteria addresses different impact types, understanding merits of each option, and establishing a preference ranking calls for a framework to integrate information on effects and impacts, with values and preferences of decision-makers and stakeholders. This paper refers to a study on “Integrated Urban Design Concepts” for the World Bank Consultancy for pilot cities under the “Uzbekistan Medium-Size Cities Integrated Urban Development Project” (MSCIUDP, World Bank, 2018). The focus of the paper is on multicriteria assessment that allows for a ranking of urban development projects for cities in Uzbekistan to enhance urban sustainability. The approach starts with the definition of a set of urban development objectives related to selected projects for several Uzbek cities. Based on the defined objectives, a set of indicators is extracted which allows describing the benefits on economic prosperity and well-being of society and on environment and climate improvement. Based on theassessment urban development projects shall be selected to be implemented in the pilot cities to foster their urban centrality. The paper describes the suggested projects for one of the Uzbek cities, the selected indicators to examine wether the urban development objectives with their related criteria are met, and discusses details on quantifying, weighting and merging the indicators to achieve a final priority list

The Code of Protest. Images of Peace in the West German Peace Movements, 1945-1990

The article examines posters produced by the peace movements in the Federal Republic of Germany during the ColdWar, with an analytical focus on the transformation of the iconography of peace in modernity. Was it possible to develop an independent, positive depiction of peace in the context of protests for peace and disarmament? Despite its name, the pictorial selfrepresentation of the campaign ‘Fight against Nuclear Death’ in the late 1950s did not draw on the theme of pending nuclear mass death. The large-scale protest movement in the 1980s against NATO’s 1979 ‘double-track’ decision contrasted female peacefulness with masculine aggression in an emotionally charged pictorial symbolism. At the same time this symbolism marked a break with the pacifist iconographic tradition that had focused on the victims of war. Instead, the movement presented itself with images of demonstrating crowds, as an anticipation of its peaceful ends. Drawing on the concept of asymmetrical communicative ‘codes’ that has been developed in sociological systems theory, the article argues that the iconography of peace in peace movement posters could not develop a genuinely positive vision of peace, since the code of protest can articulate the designation value ‘peace’ only in conjunction with the rejection value ‘war’

The primate-specific peptide Y-P30 regulates morphological maturation of neocortical dendritic spines

The 30-amino acid peptide Y-P30 corresponds to the N-terminus of the primate-specific, sweat gland-derived dermcidin prepropeptide. Previous work has revealed that Y-P30 enhances the interaction of pleiotrophin and syndecans-2/3, and thus represents a natural ligand to study this signaling pathway. In immature neurons, Y-P30 activates the c-Src and p42/44 ERK kinase pathway, increases the amount of F-actin in axonal growth cones, and promotes neuronal survival, cell migration and axonal elongation. The action of Y-P30 on axonal growth requires syndecan-3 and heparan sulfate side chains. Whether Y-P30 has the potential to influence dendrites and dendritic protrusions has not been explored. The latter is suggested by the observations that syndecan-2 expression increases during postnatal development, that syndecan-2 becomes enriched in dendritic spines, and that overexpression of syndecan-2 in immature neurons results in a premature morphological maturation of dendritic spines. Here, analysing rat cortical pyramidal and non-pyramidal neurons in organotypic cultures, we show that Y-P30 does not alter the development of the dendritic arborization patterns. However, Y-P30 treatment decreases the density of apical, but not basal dendritic protrusions at the expense of the filopodia. Analysis of spine morphology revealed an unchanged mushroom/stubby-to-thin spine ratio and a shortening of the longest decile of dendritic protrusions. Whole-cell recordings from cortical principal neurons in dissociated cultures grown in the presence of Y-P30 demonstrated a decrease in the frequency of glutamatergic mEPSCs. Despite these differences in protrusion morphology and synaptic transmission, the latter likely attributable to presynaptic effects, calcium event rate and amplitude recorded in pyramidal neurons in organotypic cultures were not altered by Y-P30 treatment. Together, our data suggest that Y-P30 has the capacity to decelerate spinogenesis and to promote morphological, but not synaptic, maturation of dendritic protrusions.Peer reviewe