NATO and CSDP: party and public positioning in Germany and France

This is the final version. Available on open access from the NATO Defense College via the link in this recordVolkswagen Foundatio

Electroactive biofilms: new means for electrochemistry

This work demonstrates that electrochemical reactions can be catalysed by the natural biofilms that form on electrode surfaces dipping into drinking water or compost. In drinking water, oxygen reduction was monitored with stainless steel ultra-microelectrodes under constant potential electrolysis at )0.30 V/SCE for 13 days. 16 independent experiments were conducted in drinking water, either pure or with the addition of acetate or dextrose. In most cases, the current increased and reached 1.5–9.5 times the initial current. The current increase was attributed to biofilm forming on the electrode in a similar way to that has been observed in seawater. Epifluorescence microscopy showed that the bacteria size and the biofilm morphology depended on the nutrients added, but no quantitative correlation between biofilm morphology and current was established. In compost, the oxidation process was investigated using a titanium based electrode under constant polarisation in the range 0.10–0.70 V/SCE. It was demonstrated that the indigenous micro-organisms were responsible for the current increase observed after a few days, up to 60 mA m)2. Adding 10 mM acetate to the compost amplified the current density to 145 mA m)2 at 0.50 V/SCE. The study suggests that many natural environments, other than marine sediments, waste waters and seawaters that have been predominantly investigated until now, may be able to produce electrochemically active biofilm

Multi-photon, multi-mode polarization entanglement in parametric down-conversion

We study the quantum properties of the polarization of the light produced in type II spontaneous parametric down-conversion in the framework of a multi-mode model valid in any gain regime. We show that the the microscopic polarization entanglement of photon pairs survives in the high gain regime (multi-photon regime), in the form of nonclassical correlation of all the Stokes operators describing polarization degrees of freedom

Some people just want to watch the world burn: The prevalence, psychology and politics of the “Need for Chaos”

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Royal Society via the DOI in this recordPeople form political attitudes to serve psychological needs. Recent research shows that some individuals have a strong desire to incite chaos when they perceive themselves to be marginalized by society. These individuals tend to see chaos as a way to invert the power structure and gain social status in the process. Analyzing data drawn from large-scale representative surveys conducted in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, we identify the prevalence of Need for Chaos across Anglo-Saxon societies. Using Latent Profile Analysis, we explore whether different subtypes underlie the uni-dimensional construct and find evidence that some people may be motivated to seek out chaos because they want to rebuild society, while others enjoy destruction for its own sake. We demonstrate that chaos-seekers are not a unified political group but a divergent set of malcontents. Multiple pathways can lead individuals to “want to watch the world burn.”Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC

EUROnu-WP6 2010 Report

This is a summary of the work done by the Working Package 6 (Physics) of the EU project "EUROnu" during the second year of activity of the project.Comment: 82 pages, 51 eps figure

High-speed analysis of nuclear emulsion films with the use of dry objective lenses

The extensive use of nuclear emulsions as precise tracking detectors in experimental physics has been made possible due to recent advances in the production of novel emulsion films and to the development of automatic scanning devices. The scanning speed of such systems has exceeded the level of 20 cm2 of emulsion surface per hour. High-speed automatic scanning systems, such as those developed by the OPERA Collaboration, are able to reconstruct particle tracks in nuclear emulsions with excellent accuracy. However, the high-magnification oil immersion objectives used in these systems assume deposition and removal of oil onto and from the emulsion films. This is a major technological obstacle in the automatization of the emulsion feeding to the microscope, as required for large scale use as in the case of the OPERA neutrino oscillation experiment. In order to overcome this problem, an innovative technique of nuclear emulsion films scanning with the use of dry objective lenses has been developed and successfully applied to the experiment

On dynamic network entropy in cancer

The cellular phenotype is described by a complex network of molecular interactions. Elucidating network properties that distinguish disease from the healthy cellular state is therefore of critical importance for gaining systems-level insights into disease mechanisms and ultimately for developing improved therapies. By integrating gene expression data with a protein interaction network to induce a stochastic dynamics on the network, we here demonstrate that cancer cells are characterised by an increase in the dynamic network entropy, compared to cells of normal physiology. Using a fundamental relation between the macroscopic resilience of a dynamical system and the uncertainty (entropy) in the underlying microscopic processes, we argue that cancer cells will be more robust to random gene perturbations. In addition, we formally demonstrate that gene expression differences between normal and cancer tissue are anticorrelated with local dynamic entropy changes, thus providing a systemic link between gene expression changes at the nodes and their local network dynamics. In particular, we also find that genes which drive cell-proliferation in cancer cells and which often encode oncogenes are associated with reductions in the dynamic network entropy. In summary, our results support the view that the observed increased robustness of cancer cells to perturbation and therapy may be due to an increase in the dynamic network entropy that allows cells to adapt to the new cellular stresses. Conversely, genes that exhibit local flux entropy decreases in cancer may render cancer cells more susceptible to targeted intervention and may therefore represent promising drug targets.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, 4 tables. Submitte

Comment on "On the subtleties of searching for dark matter with liquid xenon detectors"

In a recent manuscript (arXiv:1208.5046) Peter Sorensen claims that XENON100's upper limits on spin-independent WIMP-nucleon cross sections for WIMP masses below 10 GeV "may be understated by one order of magnitude or more". Having performed a similar, though more detailed analysis prior to the submission of our new result (arXiv:1207.5988), we do not confirm these findings. We point out the rationale for not considering the described effect in our final analysis and list several potential problems with his study.Comment: 3 pages, no figure

Use of coupled passivants and consolidants on calcite mineral surfaces

Deterioration of monuments, buildings, and works of art constructed of carbonate-based stone potentially can be arrested by applying a combination of chemical passivants and consolidants that prevent hydrolytic attack and mechanical weakening. The authors used molecular modeling and laboratory synthesis to develop an improved passivating agent for the calcite mineral surface based on binding strength and molecular packing density. The effectiveness of the passivating agent with and without a linked outer layer of consolidant against chemical weathering was determined through leaching tests conducted with a pH-stat apparatus at pH 5 and 25 C. For the range of molecules considered, modeling results indicate that the strongest-binding passivant is the trimethoxy dianionic form of silylalkylaminocarboxylate (SAAC). The same form of silylalkylphosphonate (SAP) is the second strongest binder and the trisilanol neutral form of aminoethylaminopropylsilane (AEAPS) is ranked third. Short-term leaching tests on calcite powders coated with the trisilanol derivative of SAAC, the triethoxy neutral form of SAP, and the trimethoxy neutral form of AEAPS show that the passivant alone does not significantly slow the dissolution rate. However, all passivants when linked to the sol consolidant result in decreased rates. Combined AEAPS plus consolidant results in a coating that performs better than the commercial product Conservare{reg_sign} OH and at least as well as Conservare{reg_sign} H. The modeling results indicate that there may be a threshold binding energy for the passivant above which the dissolution rate of calcite is actually enhanced. More strongly-binding passivants may aid in the dissolution mechanism or dissociate in aqueous solution exposing the calcite surface to water

Multi-boson effects and the normalization of the two-pion correlation function

The two-pion correlation function can be defined as a ratio of either the measured momentum distributions or the normalized momentum space probabilities. We show that the first alternative avoids certain ambiguities since then the normalization of the two-pion correlator contains important information on the multiplicity distribution of the event ensemble which is lost in the second alternative. We illustrate this explicitly for specific classes of event ensembles.Comment: 6 pages, three figures,submit to PR