Moral Principles Towards a Definition of the Obscene

QC 20140918</p

Journal Staff

Purpose - This article aims to investigate how R&amp;D employees use their social networks to acquire user information and how this information is used in the development of new products. Design/methodology/approach - A single case study was conducted within a business unit at a multinational medical technology company. Data were collected through a mixed method. Findings - The results show that many R&amp;D employees lack social networks through which they can acquire information about the users' needs. However, some R&amp;D employees establish cost-efficient relationships to people with a direct experience of using the company's products. These relationships are established over time and are often used in a rather informal way to acquire user information. Moreover, the results show how R&amp;D employees are purposefully complementing these relationships with more occasional interactions with people who hold direct and indirect use experiences. Research limitations/implications - As with most single-case studies, it will be important to replicate this investigation in other contexts to clarify the generalizability of the findings. Practical implications - The article shows how important it is that management provides R&amp;D employees with opportunities to establish, nurture and utilize relationships conducive to information about the users' needs. The article provides some advice on how this can be accomplished. Originality/value - This is one of the first articles that clearly explain how R&amp;D employees use their social networks to acquire user information for the development of new products.QC 20150112. Updated from accepted to published.</p

Nanoplasmonic hydrogen sensing

In this review we discuss the evolution of surface plasmon resonance and localized surface plasmon resonance based hydrogen sensors. We put particular focus on how they are used to study metal-hydrogen interactions at the nanoscale, both at the ensemble and the single nanoparticle level. Such efforts are motivated by a fundamental interest in understanding the role of nanosizing on metal hydride formation processes. However, nanoplasmonic hydrogen sensors are not only of academic interest but may also find more practical use as all-optical gas detectors in industrial and medical applications, as well in a future hydrogen economy, where hydrogen is used as a carbon free energy carrier

An action learning network method for increased innovation capability in organizations

Product innovation in highly complex and technological areas, such as medical technology, puts high requirements on innovation capability of an organization. Previous research and publications have highlighted organizational issues and learning matters as important and necessary for the development of innovation capability. Action learning require reflections of the ways things are carried out, changes in the current actions, implementation and improvement and thereafter another round of reflections as in the learning cycle. This might be difficult for one organization to carry out internally and therefore this research use a learning network method with several organizations involved in the learning cycle. The purpose of this article is to describe and discuss a learning network method used in a present research project carried out in the med tech industry. The research project aims at increasing the innovation capability of the participating organizations. The method used, is based on action learning and involves representatives from industrial partners, public health organizations, and academic partners. The different organizations run innovation projects over a time period of three years, and meet three times a year in learning network sessions with the purpose of developing knowledge by interaction between the projects and the different actors. During these learning network sessions the participants are facilitated to go through the different phases, reflections, new concepts, new actions, implementations and new reflections. The paper elaborates on theories of innovation capability and learning network. Furthermore, the action learning network structure, the experiences gained in the initial phases of the project, and experience of action learning and learning networks is presented. The importance of trust building between partners in the network in order to facilitate action learning and development of innovation capability is experienced and discussed, as well as the learning that takes place in the interaction between academics from different disciplines in collaboration with practitioners

Effects of Water Contamination on the Supercooled Dynamics of a Hydrogen-Bonded Model Glass Former

Broad-band dielectric spectroscopy is a commonly used tool in the study of glass-forming liquids. The high sensitivity of the technique together with the wide range of probed time scales makes it a powerful method for investigating the relaxation spectra of liquids. One particularly important class of glass-forming liquids that is often studied using this technique consists of liquids dominated by hydrogen (H) bond interactions. When investigating such liquids, particular caution has to be taken during sample preparation due to their often highly hygroscopic nature. Water can easily be absorbed from the atmosphere, and dielectric spectroscopy is a very sensitive probe of such contamination due to the large dipole moment of water. Our knowledge concerning the effects of small quantities of water on the dielectric properties of these commonly investigated liquids is limited. We here demonstrate the effects due to the presence of small amounts of water on the dielectric response of a typical H-bonded model glass former, tripropylene glycol. We show how the relaxation processes present in the pure liquid are affected by addition of water, and we find that a characteristic water induced relaxation response is observed for water contents as low as 0.15 wt %. We stress the importance of careful purification of hygroscopic liquids before experiments and quantify what the effects are if such procedures are not undertaken

Thermodynamics of hydride formation and decomposition in supported sub-10 nm Pd nanoparticles of different sizes

Hydrogen storage properties of supported Pd nanoparticles with average sizes in the range 2.7-7.6 nm were studied using indirect nanoplasmonic sensing. For each particle size, a series of isotherms was measured and, through Van't Hoff analysis, the changes in enthalpy upon hydride formation/decomposition were determined. Contrary to the expected decrease of the enthalpy, due to increasing importance of surface tension in smaller particles, we observe a very weak size dependence in the size range under consideration. We attribute this to a compensation effect due to an increased fraction of hydrogen atoms occupying energetically favorable subsurface sites in smaller nanoparticles

Absorption Enhancement in Lossy Transition Metal Elements of Plasmonic Nanosandwiches

Combination of catalytically active transition metals and surface plasmons offers a promising way to drive chemical reactions by converting incident visible light into energetic electron-hole pairs acting as a mediator. In such a reaction enhancement scheme, the conversion efficiency is dependent on light absorption in the metal. Hence, increasing absorption in the plasmonic structure is expected to increase generation of electron-hole pairs and, consequently, the reaction rate. Furthermore, the abundance of energetic electrons might facilitate new reaction pathways. In this work we discuss optical properties of homo- and heterometallic plasmonic nanosandwiches consisting of two parallel disks made of gold and palladium. We show how near-field coupling between the sandwich elements can be used to enhance absorption in one of them. The limits of this enhancement are investigated using finite-difference time-domain simulations. Physical insight is gained through a simple coupled dipole analysis of the nanostructure. For small palladium disks (compared to the gold disk), total absorption enhancement integrated over the near visible solar AM 1.5 spectrum is 8-fold, while for large palladium disks, similar in size to the gold one, it exceeds three

Shrinking-Hole Colloidal Lithography: Self-Aligned Nanofabrication of Complex Plasmonic Nanoantennas

Plasmonic nanoantennas create locally strongly enhanced electric fields in so-called hot spots. To place a relevant nanoobject with high accuracy in such a hot spot is crucial to fully capitalize on the potential of nanoantennas to control, detect, and enhance processes at the nanoscale. With state-of-the-art nanofabrication, in particular when several materials are to be used, small gaps between antenna elements are sought, and large surface areas are to be patterned, this is a grand challenge. Here we introduce self-aligned, bottom-up and self-assembly based Shrinking-Hole Colloidal Lithography, which provides (i) unique control of the size and position of subsequently deposited particles forming the nanoantenna itself, and (ii) allows delivery of nanoobjects consisting of a material of choice to the antenna hot spot, all in a single lithography step and, if desired, uniformly covering several square centimeters of surface. We illustrate the functionality of SHCL nanoantenna arrangements by (i) an optical hydrogen sensor exploiting the polarization dependent sensitivity of an Au-Pd nanoantenna ensemble; and (ii) single particle hydrogen sensing with an Au dimer nanoantenna with a small Pd nanoparticle in the hot spot

Nanoplasmonics for Absorption Engineering and Hydrogen Sensing

When light interacts with metallic nanoparticles smaller than its wavelength it can excite a collective oscillation of the conduction electrons that gives rise to efficient light absorption and scattering. Moreover, locally strongly enhanced electric fields are created around the particles. This phenomenon, called localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), has been applied for centuries for staining glass in medieval church windows. Nevertheless, it is only within the last hundred years that fundamental physical understanding of its origin and potential has been created. The latter has finally coined one of the most vibrant sub-areas of modern nanoscience - nanoplasmonics.Palladium (Pd) is a noble metal whose main current use is in the three-way catalytic converter for car exhaust gas cleaning. However, Pd is likely to play an important role in many future technological applications related to a hydrogen economy, where hydrogen will take the role as carbon free energy carrier. Both the extraordinary catalytic properties of Pd and its unique ability to spontaneously dissociate and absorb hydrogen atoms into interstitial sites in its crystal lattice are expected to be of key importance.In this thesis nanoplasmonics in combination with Pd nanoparticles was used for two different purposes. In the newly developed optical absorption engineering application, plasmonic Au nanoantennas were used to enhance light absorption in an adjacent Pd nanoparticle up to 8 times. This novel absorption enhancement principle is envisioned to boost catalytic reactions on the surface of the Pd by either directly harvesting energetic electron-hole pairs or by utilizing local heating caused the non-radiative decay of the LSPR. In the nanoplasmonic hydrogen sensing application, the size-dependent hydrogen sorption thermodynamics of Pd nanoparticles in the sub-10 nm size range was investigated by means of indirect nanoplasmonic sensing (INPS). We found that the combination of two contributing effects, that is surface strain and hydrogen sorption in subsurface sites, basically cancel out each other, yielding no pronounced effect of particle size on the hydride formation thermodynamics