Invest to Save: Report and Recommendations of the NSF-DELOS Working Group on Digital Archiving and Preservation

Digital archiving and preservation are important areas for research and development, but there is no agreed upon set of priorities or coherent plan for research in this area. Research projects in this area tend to be small and driven by particular institutional problems or concerns. As a consequence, proposed solutions from experimental projects and prototypes tend not to scale to millions of digital objects, nor do the results from disparate projects readily build on each other. It is also unclear whether it is worthwhile to seek general solutions or whether different strategies are needed for different types of digital objects and collections. The lack of coordination in both research and development means that there are some areas where researchers are reinventing the wheel while other areas are neglected. Digital archiving and preservation is an area that will benefit from an exercise in analysis, priority setting, and planning for future research. The WG aims to survey current research activities, identify gaps, and develop a white paper proposing future research directions in the area of digital preservation. Some of the potential areas for research include repository architectures and inter-operability among digital archives; automated tools for capture, ingest, and normalization of digital objects; and harmonization of preservation formats and metadata. There can also be opportunities for development of commercial products in the areas of mass storage systems, repositories and repository management systems, and data management software and tools.

Introduction: diverging or converging dynamics? EU and US policies in North Africa - an introduction

According to a number of scholars of international relations, the transatlantic relationship is going through a very significant and possibly irreversible crisis. It is claimed that the different reactions of the United States and the European Union to both September 11th and the war in Iraq were the catalyst for a rift that had been deepening for some time, leading to competition between the two actors. The literature on the foreign policy of the US and the EU in the Middle East and North Africa also points to this rift in order to explain the seemingly contradictory policies that the two actors implement in the region, with the US being more forceful in its attempts to export democracy and in supporting Israel while the EU adopts a less confrontational attitude and is perceived to be more friendly to the Palestinians. This article, which introduces a special issue on the nature of US and EU foreign policies in North Africa, argues on the contrary that the transatlantic rift does not really exist. While there are certainly differences in discourse and policies, both the EU and the US share the same concerns and have similar strategic objectives in the region, leading the two actors towards cooperation and division of labour rather than confrontation

Electronic properties and Fermi surface of Ag(111) films deposited onto H-passivated Si(111)-(1x1) surfaces

Silver films were deposited at room temperature onto H-passivated Si(111) surfaces. Their electronic properties have been analyzed by angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy. Submonolayer films were semiconducting and the onset of metallization was found at a Ag coverage of $\sim$0.6 monolayers. Two surface states were observed at $\bar{\Gamma}$-point in the metallic films, with binding energies of 0.1 and 0.35 eV. By measurements of photoelectron angular distribution at the Fermi level in these films, a cross-sectional cut of the Fermi surface was obtained. The Fermi vector determined along different symmetry directions and the photoelectron lifetime of states at the Fermi level are quite close to those expected for Ag single crystal. In spite of this concordance, the Fermi surface reflects a sixfold symmetry rather than the threefold symmetry of Ag single crystal. This behavior was attributed to the fact that these Ag films are composed by two domains rotated 60$^o$.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Physical Review

Understanding Flood Regime Changes in Europe: a state-of-the-art assessment

There is growing concern that flooding is becoming more frequent and severe in Europe. A better understanding of flood regime changes and their drivers is therefore needed. The paper reviews the current knowledge on flood regime changes in European rivers that has traditionally been obtained through two alternative research approaches. The first approach is the data-based detection of changes in observed flood events. Current methods are reviewed together with their challenges and opportunities. For example, observation biases, the merging of different data sources and accounting for nonlinear drivers and responses. The second approach consists of modelled scenarios of future floods. Challenges and opportunities associated with flood change scenarios are discussed such as fully accounting for uncertainties in the modelling cascade and feedbacks. To make progress in flood change research, we suggest that a synthesis of these two approaches is needed. This can be achieved by focusing on long duration records and flood-rich and flood-poor periods rather than on short duration flood trends only, by formally attributing causes of observed flood changes, by validating scenarios against observed flood regime dynamics, and by developing low-dimensional models of flood changes and feedbacks. The paper finishes with a call for a joint European flood change research network

Wide-field broad-band radio imaging with phased array feeds: A pilot multi-epoch continuum survey with ASKAP-BETA

The Boolardy Engineering TestArray is a 6×12mdish interferometer and the prototype of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), equipped with the first generation of ASKAP's phased array feed (PAF) receivers. These facilitate rapid wide-area imaging via the deployment of simultaneous multiple beams within an ~30 deg2 field of view. By cycling the array through 12 interleaved pointing positions and using nine digitally formed beams, we effectively mimic a traditional 1 h × 108 pointing survey, covering ~150 deg2 over 711-1015 MHz in 12 h of observing time. Three such observations were executed over the course of a week. We verify the full bandwidth continuum imaging performance and stability of the system via self-consistency checks and comparisons to existing radio data. The combined three epoch image has arcminute resolution and a 1s thermal noise level of 375 µJy beam-1, although the effective noise is a factor of ~3 higher due to residual sidelobe confusion. From this we derive a catalogue of 3722 discrete radio components, using the 35 per cent fractional bandwidth to measure in-band spectral indices for 1037 of them. A search for transient events reveals one significantly variable source within the survey area. The survey covers approximately two-thirds of the Spitzer South Pole Telescope Deep Field. This pilot project demonstrates the viability and potential of using PAFs to rapidly and accurately survey the sky at radio wavelengths

The HEV Ventilator

HEV is a low-cost, versatile, high-quality ventilator, which has been designed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The ventilator is intended to be used both in and out of hospital intensive care units, and for both invasive and non-invasive ventilation. The hardware can be complemented with an external turbine for use in regions where compressed air supplies are not reliably available. The standard modes provided include PC-A/C(Pressure Assist Control),PC-A/C-PRVC(Pressure Regulated Volume Control), PC-PSV (Pressure Support Ventilation) and CPAP (Continuous Positive airway pressure). HEV is designed to support remote training and post market surveillance via a web interface and data logging to complement the standard touch screen operation, making it suitable for a wide range of geographical deployment. The HEV design places emphasis on the quality of the pressure curves and the reactivity of the trigger, delivering a global performance which will be applicable to ventilator needs beyond theCOVID-19 pandemic. This article describes the conceptual design and presents the prototype units together with their performance evaluation.Comment: 34 pages, 18 figures, Extended version of the article submitted to PNA