Hyper-velocity impact test and simulation of a double-wall shield concept for the Wide Field Monitor aboard LOFT

The space mission LOFT (Large Observatory For X-ray Timing) was selected in 2011 by ESA as one of the candidates for the M3 launch opportunity. LOFT is equipped with two instruments, the Large Area Detector (LAD) and the Wide Field Monitor (WFM), based on Silicon Drift Detectors (SDDs). In orbit, they would be exposed to hyper-velocity impacts by environmental dust particles, which might alter the surface properties of the SDDs. In order to assess the risk posed by these events, we performed simulations in ESABASE2 and laboratory tests. Tests on SDD prototypes aimed at verifying to what extent the structural damages produced by impacts affect the SDD functionality have been performed at the Van de Graaff dust accelerator at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK) in Heidelberg. For the WFM, where we expect a rate of risky impacts notably higher than for the LAD, we designed, simulated and successfully tested at the plasma accelerator at the Technical University in Munich (TUM) a double-wall shielding configuration based on thin foils of Kapton and Polypropylene. In this paper we summarize all the assessment, focussing on the experimental test campaign at TUM.Comment: Proc. SPIE 9144, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 91446

Tunneling magneto thermo power in magnetic tunnel junction nanopillars

We study the tunneling magneto thermo power (TMTP) in CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junction nanopillars. Thermal gradients across the junctions are generated by a micropatterned electric heater line. Thermo power voltages up to a few tens of \muV between the top and bottom contact of the nanopillars are measured which scale linearly with the applied heating power and hence with the applied temperature gradient. The thermo power signal varies by up to 10 \muV upon reversal of the relative magnetic configuration of the two CoFeB layers from parallel to antiparallel. This signal change corresponds to a large spin-dependent Seebeck coefficient of the order of 100 \muV/K and a large TMTP change of the tunnel junction of up to 90%.Comment: Revised version containing additional data and analyis. 13 pages, 3 figure

Boundary-layer effects on the reflection of sound waves and weak shock waves at shallow incidence

When either a plane acoustic wave or a weak shock wave is incident upon an infinite wall, the boundary-layer correction to the reflected wave becomes large if the angle between the wave front and the normal to the wall approaches zero. It is shown that transformation to moving coordinates leads to transonic flow problems whose solution permits removal of the singular behavior in each of these cases. Wenn eine ebene Schallwelle oder ein schwacher Stoss so auf eine Wand auftrifft, dass der Winkel zwischen der Wellenfront und der Wandnormalen gegen Null geht, so wird die Korrektur der reflektierten Welle wegen der Wandgrenzschicht gross. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird gezeigt, dass eine Transformation auf bewegte Koordinaten auf ein transonisches Problem führt, dessen Lösung die Singularität in beiden Fällen vermeidet.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43361/1/33_2005_Article_BF01603823.pd

Социально ориентированные программы, KIDS SAVE LIVES (Дети спасают жизни), World Restart a Heart (Перезапусти сердце) и другие кампании для повышения выживаемости при внебольничной остановке сердца

Sudden out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is the third leading cause of death in industrialized nations.While educating lay bystanders in CPR is clearly the most important way to increase survival in this third leading cause of death and the community programs are helpful, it is less easy to reach the entire population if programs are not obligatory. Therefore experts see the need for obligatory inclusion of CPR education in schools. And this is exactly our clear expectation to all politicians involved in health care and school politics worldwide. Until this is reality in all countries, we invite everyone to help to convince the responsible politicians and to take part in campaigns like KIDS SAVE LIVES and WRAH.Внезапная внебольничная остановка сердца (ВОС) — третья по частоте причина смерти в развитых странах.Обучение основам СЛР лиц без медицинского образования — наиболее важная стратегия повышения выживаемости при остановке сердца. Программы, включающие такое обучение, весьма эффективны, однако полного охвата населения достичь очень трудно вследствие их необязательного статуса. В связи с этим, по мнению экспертов, СЛР необходимо ввести в школьную программу в качестве обязательного предмета. Именно этого мы ждем от политиков, ответственных за систему здравоохранения и образование, во всех странах. Пока наша цель не достигнута, мы призываем всех помочь нам убедить ответственных лиц и принять участие в таких кампаниях, как KIDS SAVE LIVES и World Restart a Heart

Digital Fairness for Consumers

The New Digital Fairness (NDF) project is a research and advocacy initiative launched by BEUC with support from the Adessium Foundation, seeking to address the challenges and potential harms caused to consumers, citizens and societies by the use of new technologies and business models in today’s digital economy. The present report arrives in direct succession of the EU Consumer Protection 2.0 (EUCP2.0) project and builds on the conceptual framework developed at that stage of the research, particularly in regard to the disempowerment of consumers due to asymmetries of knowledge and power, new categories of consumer vulnerability caused and aggravated by algorithmic environments as well as omnipresent surveillance and behavioural personalisation. This work takes the analysis further, identifying systemic processes gradually weakening the position of consumers in the digitalised markets. It also shows the way forward, by proposing a regulatory framework that would strengthen and safeguard consumers and provide a digital market that is safe and fair to them by design and by default. The broad applicability and technological neutrality of horizontal consumer law render it a fitting vehicle for protecting the needs and safeguarding the rights of modern-day digital consumers. In the light of the ongoing, EU ‘digital fairness’ fitness check assessment of consumer law, this work proposes specific solutions and recommendations that could form the backbone of EU’s regulatory response to the age of digital asymmetries that should be the Digital Fairness Act. This publication constitutes independent research that was commissioned by BEUC, the European Consumer Organisationpean Consumer Organisatio

Determination of spin-dependent Seebeck coefficients of CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junction nanopillars

We investigate the spin-dependent Seebeck coefficient and the tunneling magneto thermopower of CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ) in the presence of thermal gradients across the MTJ. Thermal gradients are generated by an electric heater on top of the nanopillars. The thermo power voltage across the MTJ is found to scale linearly with the heating power and reveals similar field dependence as the tunnel magnetoresistance. The amplitude of the thermal gradient is derived from calibration measurements in combination with finite element simulations of the heat flux. Based on this, large spin-dependent Seebeck coefficients of the order of (240 \pm 110) \muV/K are derived. From additional measurements on MTJs after dielectric breakdown, a tunneling magneto thermopower up to 90% can be derived for 1.5 nm MgO based MTJ nanopillars

WiSeBE: Window-based Sentence Boundary Evaluation

Sentence Boundary Detection (SBD) has been a major research topic since Automatic Speech Recognition transcripts have been used for further Natural Language Processing tasks like Part of Speech Tagging, Question Answering or Automatic Summarization. But what about evaluation? Do standard evaluation metrics like precision, recall, F-score or classification error; and more important, evaluating an automatic system against a unique reference is enough to conclude how well a SBD system is performing given the final application of the transcript? In this paper we propose Window-based Sentence Boundary Evaluation (WiSeBE), a semi-supervised metric for evaluating Sentence Boundary Detection systems based on multi-reference (dis)agreement. We evaluate and compare the performance of different SBD systems over a set of Youtube transcripts using WiSeBE and standard metrics. This double evaluation gives an understanding of how WiSeBE is a more reliable metric for the SBD task.Comment: In proceedings of the 17th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (MICAI), 201

Elastic constants of nematic liquid crystals of uniaxial symmetry

We study in detail the influence of molecular interactions on the Frank elastic constants of uniaxial nematic liquid crystals composed of molecules of cylindrical symmetry. A brief summary of the status of theoretical development for the elastic constants of nematics is presented. Considering a pair potential having both repulsive and attractive parts numerical calculations are reported for three systems MBBA, PAA and 8OCB. For these systems the length-to-width ratio ${x_0}$ is estimated from the experimentally proposed structure of the molecules. The repulsive interaction is represented by a repulsion between hard ellipsoids of revolution (HER) and the attractive potential is represented by the quadrupole and dispersion interactions. From the numerical results we observe that in the density range of nematics the contribution of the quadrupole and dispersion interactions are small as compared to the repulsive HER interaction. The inclusion of attractive interaction reduces the values of elastic constants ratios. The temperature variation of elastic constants ratios are reported and compared with the experimental values. A reasonably good agreement between theory and experiment is observed

Металографічний аналіз потенційних ділянок зародження руйнування зони термічного вливу низьковуглицевих сталей після лазерного зварювання

The work investigates the detection of dangerous areas of the zones of thermal impact on the basis of the research of welding joint structure formation after laser welding of low-carbon steels 09Mn2Si, 10CrNiCu, 10Mn2VNb. The complex of studies carried out showed that the welded joint is structurally divided into several zones. At the same time, metallographic analysis showed that in the zones of the welded joint there is a conglomerate of structures, which contains components characteristic both for metal in the cast state and for metal after accelerated cooling.Досліджено виявлення небезпечних ділянок зони термічного впливу на підставі дослідження формування структури зварного з'єднання після лазерного зварювання низьковуглецевих сталей 09Г2С, 10ХСНД, 10Г2ФБ. Проведений комплекс досліджень показав, що зварене з'єднання структурно розділити на кілька зон. При цьому, металографічний аналіз показав, що в зонах зварного з'єднання присутні конгломерат структур, який містить складові характерні як для металу в литому стані так і для металу після прискореного охолодження.Исследовано выявление опасных участков зоны термического влияния на основании исследования формирования структуры сварного соединения после лазерной сварки низкоуглеродистых сталей 09Г2С, 10ХСНД, 10Г2ФБ. Проведенный комплекс исследований показал, что сварное соединение структурно разделить на несколько зон. При этом, металлографический анализ показал, что в зонах сварного соединения присутствуют конгломерат структур, который содержит составляющие характерные как для металла в литом состоянии так и для металла после ускоренного охлаждения