The Appeal of Protest Rhetoric: How Moral Entrepreneurs Recruit the Media into Moral Struggles

Whenever the news media feature brand-related moral struggles over issues such as ethicality, fairness, or sustainability, brands often find themselves in the position of the culprit. However, brands may also take the opposite position, that of a moral entrepreneur that proactively raises and addresses moral issues that matter to society. In this chapter, we present a case study of the Austrian shoe manufacturer Waldviertler, which staged a protest campaign against Austria’s financial market authorities (FMA) in the wake of the authorities demanding that the company closes its alternative (and illegal) consumer investment model after 10 years of operation. In response to this demand, the company organized protest marches, online petitions, and press conferences to reclaim the moral high ground for its financing model as a way out of the crunch following the global credit crisis and as a way to fight unfair administrative burdens. We present an interpretive analysis of brand communication material and media coverage that reveals how this brand used protest rhetoric on three levels – logos, ethos, and pathos – to reverse moral standards, to embody a rebel ethos, and to cultivate moral indignation. We also show how the media responded to protest rhetoric both with thematic coverage of context, trends, and general evidence, and with episodic coverage focusing on dramatic actions and the company owner’s charisma. We close with a discussion of how protestainment, the stylization of a leader figure, and marketplace sentiments can ensure sustained media coverage of moral struggles

Energy-angle dispersion of accelerated heavy ions at 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko: implication in the mass-loading mechanism

The Rosetta spacecraft studied the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko for nearly two years. The Ion Composition Analyzer instrument on board Rosetta observed the positive ion distributions in the environment of the comet during the mission. A portion of the comet's neutral coma is expected to get ionized, depending on the comet's activity and position relative to the Sun, and the newly created ions are picked up and accelerated by the solar wind electric field, while the solar wind flow is deflected in the opposite direction. This interaction, known as the mass-loading mechanism, was previously studied by comparing the bulk flow direction of both the solar wind protons and the accelerated cometary ions with respect to the direction of the magnetic and the convective solar wind electric field. In this study, we show that energy–angle dispersion is occasionally observed. We report two types of dispersion: one where the observed motion is consistent with ions gyrating in the local magnetic field and another where the energy–angle dispersion is opposite to that expected from gyration in the local magnetic field. Given that the cometary ion gyro-radius in the undisturbed solar wind magnetic and electric field is expected to be too large to be detected in this way, our observations indicate that the local electric field might be significantly smaller than that of the undisturbed solar wind. We also discuss how the energy–angle dispersion, which is not consistent with gyration, may occur due to spatially inhomogeneous densities and electric fields

Neurotoxische Enzephalopathie unter Neuroleptika und Lithium

Zusammenfassung: Überlappende neuroleptische Medikationen sind in psychiatrischen Behandlungen gelegentlich unumgänglich. Wir berichten über eine unter schizoaffektiver Störung leidende 60-jährige Frau, welche vorübergehend 3 Neuroleptika und Lithium erhielt. Hierunter entwickelte sie eine neurotoxische Enzephalopathie mit Symptomen eines malignen neuroleptischen Syndroms. Gegenwärtig ist unklar, ob irreversible Hirnschäden zurückbleiben werden. Wir empfehlen engmaschige EEG-Kontrollen zur Früherkennung von Neurotoxizitä

Evolution of the ion environment of comet 67P during the Rosetta mission as seen by RPC-ICA

Rosetta has followed comet 67P from low activity at more than 3.6 au heliocentric distance to high activity at perihelion (1.24 au) and then out again. We provide a general overview of the evolution of the dynamic ion environment using data from the RPC-ICA ion spectrometer. We discuss where Rosetta was located within the evolving comet magnetosphere. For the initial observations, the solar wind permeated all of the coma. In 2015 mid-April, the solar wind started to disappear from the observation region, to re-appear again in 2015 December. Low-energy cometary ions were seen at first when Rosetta was about 100 km from the nucleus at 3.6 au, and soon after consistently throughout the mission except during the excursions to farther distances from the comet. The observed flux of low-energy ions was relatively constant due to Rosetta's orbit changing with comet activity. Accelerated cometary ions, moving mainly in the antisunward direction gradually became more common as comet activity increased. These accelerated cometary ions kept being observed also after the solar wind disappeared from the location of Rosetta, with somewhat higher fluxes further away from the nucleus. Around perihelion, when Rosetta was relatively deep within the comet magnetosphere, the fluxes of accelerated cometary ions decreased, as did their maximum energy. The disappearance of more energetic cometary ions at close distance during high activity is suggested to be due to a flow pattern where these ions flow around the obstacle of the denser coma or due to charge exchange losses

Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research: Annual Report 2001

Summary of the scientific activities of the institute in 2001 including selected highlight reports, short research contributions and an extended statistics overview

Investigating short-time-scale variations in cometary ions around comet 67P

The highly varying plasma environment around comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko inspired an upgrade of the ion mass spectrometer (Rosetta Plasma Consortium Ion Composition Analyzer) with new operation modes, to enable high time resolution measurements of cometary ions. Two modes were implemented, one having a 4 s time resolution in the energy range 0.3–82 eV/q and the other featuring a 1 s time resolution in the energy range 13–50 eV/q. Comparing measurements made with the two modes, it was concluded that 4 s time resolution is enough to capture most of the fast changes of the cometary ion environment. The 1462 h of observations done with the 4 s mode were divided into hour-long sequences. It is possible to sort 84 per cent of these sequences into one of five categories, depending on their appearance in an energy–time spectrogram. The ion environment is generally highly dynamic, and variations in ion fluxes and energies are seen on time-scales of 10 s to several minutes

To sink, swim, twin, or nucleate: A critical appraisal of crystal aggregation processes

Abstract Crystal aggregates in igneous rocks have been variously ascribed to growth processes (e.g., twinning, heterogeneous nucleation, epitaxial growth, dendritic growth), or dynamical processes (e.g., synneusis, accumulation during settling). We tested these hypotheses by quantifying the relative orientation of adjacent crystals using electron backscatter diffraction. Both olivine aggregates from Kīlauea volcano (Hawaiʻi, USA) and chromite aggregates from the Bushveld Complex (South Africa) show diverse attachment geometries inconsistent with growth processes. Near-random attachments in chromite aggregates are consistent with accumulation by settling of individual crystals. Attachment geometries and prominent geochemical differences across grain boundaries in olivine aggregates are indicative of synneusis.</jats:p

Spatial distribution of low-energy plasma around 2 comet 67P/CG from Rosetta measurements

International audienceWe use measurements from the Rosetta plasma consortium (RPC) Langmuir probe (LAP) and mutual impedance probe (MIP) to study the spatial distribution of low-energy plasma in the near-nucleus coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The spatial distribution is highly structured with the highest density in the summer hemisphere and above the region connecting the two main lobes of the comet, i.e. the neck region. There is a clear correlation with the neutral density and the plasma to neutral density ratio is found to be ∼1-2·10 −6 , at a cometocentric distance of 10 km and at 3.1 AU from the sun. A clear 6.2 h modulation of the plasma is seen as the neck is exposed twice per rotation. The electron density of the collisonless plasma within 260 km from the nucleus falls of with radial distance as ∼1/r. The spatial structure indicates that local ionization of neutral gas is the dominant source of low-energy plasma around the comet

Spin-spin correlations in ferromagnetic nanosystems

Using exact diagonalization, Monte-Carlo, and mean-field techniques, characteristic temperature scales for ferromagnetic order are discussed for the Ising and the classical anisotropic Heisenberg model on finite lattices in one and two dimensions. The interplay between nearest-neighbor exchange, anisotropy and the presence of surfaces leads, as a function of temperature, to a complex behavior of the distance-dependent spin-spin correlation function, which is very different from what is commonly expected. A finite experimental observation time is considered in addition, which is simulated within the Monte-Carlo approach by an incomplete statistical average. We find strong surface effects for small nanoparticles, which cannot be explained within a simple Landau or mean-field concept and which give rise to characteristic trends of the spin-correlation function in different temperature regimes. Unambiguous definitions of crossover temperatures for finite systems and an effective method to estimate the critical temperature of corresponding infinite systems are given.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, EPJB (in press