User roles in asynchronous distributed collaborative idea generation

This paper presents the findings of an exploratory study within a real-life context that investigates participant behaviour and emergent user roles in asynchronous distributed collaborative idea generation by a defined community of users. In the study, a high-fidelity prototype of an online virtual ideas room was built and used by a Community of Interest consisting of representatives from 10 different voluntary organisations spread across Denmark. The study revealed five user roles, which the authors propose that future asynchronous distributed collaborative idea generation platforms should consider

Electrical Network Supervisor Status Report

During year 2000 CERN has installed the Electrical Network Supervisor (ENS) for the monitoring and control of the equipment of the electrical distribution network located in about 100 substations throughout the different sites. In the first phase the system has been installed in parallel with the original CERN-developed system and databases and mimic diagrams have been prepared to cover parts of the distribution network. The system has been integrated with the general ST supervision systems for alarms monitoring and measurement logging, and the data from the ENS are gradually being integrated. In the second phase an extension of the system has been tested to include a direct industrial interface with the electrical equipment without the need for the existing CERN equipment interfaces. During the 2000-2001 shutdown the supervision will be renovated in a number of zones to operate a complete industrial system covering all aspects of the supervision from equipment interfaces to end-user applications

An Industrial Control System for the Supervision of the CERN Electrical Distribution Network

CERN operates a large distribution network for the supply of electricity to the particle accelerators, experiments and the associated infrastructure. The distribution network operates on voltage levels from 400 V to 400 kV with a total yearly consumption of near to 1000 GWh. In the past, the laboratory has developed an in-house control system for this network, using the technologies applied to the accelerator control system. However, CERN is now working on a project to purchase, configure and install an industrial Electrical Network Supervisor (ENS). This is a state-of-the-art industrial control system completely developed and supported by an external contractor. The system - based on a scalable and distributed architecture - will allow the installation to be performed gradually, and will be tested while the existing system is fully operational. Ultimately, the complete electrical distribution network will be supervised with this new system, the maintenance and further development of which will be the complete responsibility of the contractor

Characteristics of Cherenkov Radiation in Naturally Occuring Ice

We revisit the theory of Cherenkov radiation in uniaxial crystals. Historically, a number of flawed attempts have been made at explaining this radiation phenomenon and a consistent error-free description is nowhere available. We apply our calculation to a large modern day telescope - IceCube. Being located at the Antarctica, this detector makes use of the naturally occuring ice as a medium to generate Cherenkov radiation. However, due to the high pressure at the depth of the detector site, large volumes of hexagonal ice crystals are formed. We calculate how this affects the Cherenkov radiation yield and angular dependence. We conclude that the effect is small, at most about a percent, and would only be relevant in future high precision instruments like e.g. Precision IceCube Next Generation Upgrade (PINGU). For radio-Cherenkov experiments which use the presence of a clear Cherenkov cone to determine the arrival direction, any variation in emission angle will directly and linearly translate into a change in apparent neutrino direction. In closing, we also describe a simple experiment to test this formalism, and calculate the impact of anisotropy on light-yields from lead tungstate crystals as used, for example, in the CMS calorimeter at the CERN LHC

Inside an Ancient Assyrian Palace: Looking at Austen Henry Layard’s Reconstruction

Book review of Inside an Ancient Assyrian Palace: Looking at Austen Henry Layard’s reconstruction  Book review of Inside an Ancient Assyrian Palace: Looking at Austen Henry Layard’s reconstructio

Correlations in local measurements on a quantum state, and complementarity as an explanation of nonclassicality

We consider the classical correlations that two observers can extract by measurements on a bipartite quantum state, and we discuss how they are related to the quantum mutual information of the state. We show with several examples how complementarity gives rise to a gap between the quantum and the classical correlations, and we relate our quantitative finding to the so-called classical correlation locked in a quantum state. We derive upper bounds for the sum of classical correlation obtained by measurements in different mutually unbiased bases and we show that the complementarity gap is also present in the deterministic quantum computation with one quantum bit.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, references adde

Amplification of obliquity forcing through mean-annual and seasonal atmospheric feedbacks

International audiencePleistocene benthic ?18O records exhibit strong spectral power at ~41 kyr, indicating that global ice volume has been modulated by Earth's axial tilt. This feature, and weak spectral power in the precessional band, has been attributed to the influence of obliquity on mean-annual and seasonal insolation gradients at high latitudes. In this study, we use a coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model to quantify changes in continental snowfall associated with mean-annual and seasonal insolation forcing due to a change in obliquity. Our model results indicate that insolation changes associated with a decrease in obliquity amplify continental snowfall in two ways: (1) An increase in high-latitude winter insolation is enhanced through a low-cloud feedback, resulting in colder air temperatures and increased snow precipitation. (2) An increase in the summer insolation gradient enhances summer eddy activity, increasing vapor transport to high-latitude regions. In our experiments, a decrease in obliquity leads to an annual snowfall increase of 25.0 cm; just over one-half of this response (14.1 cm) is attributed to seasonal changes in insolation. Our results indicate that the role of insolation gradients is important in amplifying the relatively weak insolation forcing due to a change in obliquity. Nonetheless, the total snowfall response to obliquity is similar to that due to a shift in Earth's precession, suggesting that obliquity forcing alone can not account for the spectral characteristics of the ice-volume record

Palaeoclimate - A balmy Arctic

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62910/1/432814a.pd