34,635 research outputs found
Collaboration : a key competence for competing in the 21st century
It is now an accepted fact that in the 21st century competition will be between networks of organisations and individuals, which efficiently and effectively integrate their competencies and resources in order to compete in a global economy (Bititci et al, 2004). Similarly the SME'2000 conference, which was held in Bologna, concluded that 'SMEs belonging to networks are often more competitive and innovative than those operating in isolation. When working together, SMEs can increase their focus through specialisation in functions that are complementary within their networks'
Tidal influence on self-potential measurements
DJM was supported by NERC CASE studentship NE/I018417/1. The authors would also like to thank Southern Water for access to the borehole at Saltdean. Atkins Global and Southern Water are thanked for funding installation of the equipment and for additional funding under the NERC studentship. The laboratory components of this work were carried out in the TOTAL Reservoir Physics Laboratory at Imperial College London and their support is gratefully acknowledged. Jackson acknowledges partial support from TOTAL under the TOTAL Chairs programme. The data supporting the conclusions of this work are available through the corresponding author.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Unsung heroes: Constituency election agents in British general elections
Despite their central role in the electoral process, constituency agents have been largely overlooked by political scientists and this article seeks to rectify the omission. It sketches the origins and development of the role of agent from the late 19th century and suggests that a serious rethink of the role took place in the 1990s. Survey-based evidence about the social characteristics of agents is presented confirming that they are largely middle-aged, middle-class, well-educated men. They are also becoming more experienced, offer realistic assessments of the impact of constituency campaigning and, arguably, many take a long-term view of how their party's support can be maximised
Effects of 3-d and 4-d-transition metal substitutional impurities on the electronic properties of CrO2
We present first-principles based density functional theory calculations of
the electronic and magnetic structure of CrO2 with 3d (Ti through Cu) and 4d
(Zr through Ag) substitutional impurities. We find that the half-metallicity of
CrO2 remains intact for all of the calculated substitutions. We also observe
two periodic trends as a function of the number of valence electrons: if the
substituted atom has six or fewer valence electrons (Ti-Cr or Zr-Mo), the
number of down spin electrons associated with the impurity ion is zero,
resulting in ferromagnetic (FM) alignment of the impurity magnetic moment with
the magnetization of the CrO2 host. For substituent atoms with eight to ten
(Fe-Ni or Ru-Pd with the exception of Ni), the number of down spin electrons
contributed by the impurity ion remains fixed at three as the number
contributed to the majority increases from one to three resulting in
antiferromagnetic (AFM) alignment between impurity moment and host
magnetization. The origin of this variation is the grouping of the impurity
states into 3 states with approximate "t2g" symmetry and 2 states with
approximate "eg" symmetry. Ni is an exception to the rule because a
Jahn-Teller-like distortion causes a splitting of the Ni eg states. For Mn and
Tc, which have 8 valence electrons, the zero down spin and 3 down spin
configurations are very close in energy. For Cu and Ag atoms, which have 11
valence electrons, the energy is minimized when the substituent ion contributes
5 Abstract down-spin electrons. We find that the interatomic exchange
interactions are reduced for all substitutions except for the case of Fe for
which a modest enhancement is calculated for interactions along certain
crystallographic directions.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures, 2 table
The Stabilized Poincare-Heisenberg algebra: a Clifford algebra viewpoint
The stabilized Poincare-Heisenberg algebra (SPHA) is the Lie algebra of
quantum relativistic kinematics generated by fifteen generators. It is obtained
from imposing stability conditions after attempting to combine the Lie algebras
of quantum mechanics and relativity which by themselves are stable, however not
when combined. In this paper we show how the sixteen dimensional Clifford
algebra CL(1,3) can be used to generate the SPHA. The Clifford algebra path to
the SPHA avoids the traditional stability considerations, relying instead on
the fact that CL(1,3) is a semi-simple algebra and therefore stable. It is
therefore conceptually easier and more straightforward to work with a Clifford
algebra. The Clifford algebra path suggests the next evolutionary step toward a
theory of physics at the interface of GR and QM might be to depart from working
in space-time and instead to work in space-time-momentum.Comment: 14 page
GRB Energetics in the Swift Era
We examine the rest frame energetics of 76 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) with known
redshift that were detected by the Swift spacecraft and monitored by the
satellite's X-ray Telescope (XRT). Using the bolometric fluence values
estimated in Butler et al. 2007b and the last XRT observation for each event,
we set a lower limit the their collimation corrected energy Eg and find that a
68% of our sample are at high enough redshift and/or low enough fluence to
accommodate a jet break occurring beyond the last XRT observation and still be
consistent with the pre-Swift Eg distribution for long GRBs. We find that
relatively few of the X-ray light curves for the remaining events show evidence
for late-time decay slopes that are consistent with that expected from post jet
break emission. The breaks in the X-ray light curves that do exist tend to be
shallower and occur earlier than the breaks previously observed in optical
light curves, yielding a Eg distribution that is far lower than the pre-Swift
distribution. If these early X-ray breaks are not due to jet effects, then a
small but significant fraction of our sample have lower limits to their
collimation corrected energy that place them well above the pre-Swift Eg
distribution. Either scenario would necessitate a much wider post-Swift Eg
distribution for long cosmological GRBs compared to the narrow standard energy
deduced from pre-Swift observations. We note that almost all of the pre-Swift
Eg estimates come from jet breaks detected in the optical whereas our sample is
limited entirely to X-ray wavelengths, furthering the suggestion that the
assumed achromaticity of jet breaks may not extend to high energies.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figures, Accepted to Ap
Mn L edge resonant x-ray scattering in manganites: Influence of the magnetic state
We present an analysis of the dependence of the resonant orbital order and
magnetic scattering spectra on the spin configuration. We consider an arbitrary
spin direction with respect to the local crystal field axis, thus lowering
significantly the local symmetry. To evaluate the atomic scattering in this
case, we generalized the Hannon-Trammel formula and implemented it inside the
framework of atomic multiplet calculations in a crystal field. For an
illustration, we calculate the magnetic and orbital scattering in the CE phase
of \lsmo in the cases when the spins are aligned with the crystal lattice
vector (or equivalently ) and when they are rotated in the
-plane by 45 with respect to this axis. Magnetic spectra differ
for the two cases. For the orbital scattering, we show that for the former
configuration there is a non negligible ()
scattering component, which vanishes in the 45 case, while the () components are similar in the two cases. From the
consideration of two 90 spin canted structures, we conclude there is a
significant dependence of the orbital scattering spectra on the spin
arrangement. Recent experiments detected a sudden decrease of the orbital
scattering intensity upon increasing the temperature above the N\' eel
temperature in \lsmo. We discuss this behavior considering the effect of
different types of misorientations of the spins on the orbital scattering
spectrum.Comment: 8 figures. In the revised version, we added a note, a reference, and
a few minor changes in Figure 1 and the text. Accepted in Physical Review
Ten more years of discovery: revisiting the quality of the sauropodomorph dinosaur fossil record
Spatiotemporal changes in fossil specimen completeness can bias our understanding of a group's evolutionary history. The quality of the sauropodomorph fossil record was assessed a decade ago, but the number of valid species has since increased by 60%, and 17% of the taxa from that study have since undergone taxonomic revision. Here, we assess how 10 years of additional research has changed our outlook on the group's fossil record. We quantified the completeness of all 307 sauropodomorph species currently considered valid using the skeletal completeness metric, which calculates the proportion of a complete skeleton preserved for each taxon. Taxonomic and stratigraphic age revisions, rather than new species, are the drivers of the most significant differences between the current results and those of the previous assessment. No statistical differences appeared when we use our new dataset to generate temporal completeness curves based solely on taxa known in 2009 or 1999. We now observe a severe drop in mean completeness values across the JurassicâCretaceous boundary that never recovers to preâCretaceous levels. Explaining this pattern is difficult, as we find no convincing evidence that it is related to environmental preferences or body size changes. Instead, it might result from: (1) reduction of terrestrial fossil preservation space due to sea level rise; (2) ecological specificities and relatively high diagnosability of Cretaceous species; and/or (3) increased sampling of newly explored sites with many previously unknown taxa. Revisiting patterns in this manner allows us to test the longevity of conclusions made in previous quantitative studies
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