Social Deprivation and Digital Exclusion in England

Issues of digital exclusion are now increasingly considered alongside those of material deprivation when formulating interventions in neighbourhood renewal and other local policy interventions in health, policing and education. In this context, this paper develops a cross classification of material deprivation and lack of digital engagement, at a far more spatially disaggregate level than has previously been attempted. This is achieved my matching the well known 2004 Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) with a unique nationwide geodemographic classification of access and use of new information and communications technologies (ICTs), aggregated to the unit postcode scale. This ‘E-Society’ classification makes it possible for the first time to identify small areas that are ‘digitally unengaged’, and our cross classification allows us to focus upon the extent to which the 2004 summary measure of material deprivation in England coincides with such lack of engagement. The results of the cross classification suggest that lack of digital engagement and material deprivation are linked, with high levels of material deprivation generally associated with low levels of engagement with ICTs and vice versa. However, some neighbourhoods are ‘digitally unengaged’ but not materially deprived, and we investigate the extent to which this outcome may be linked to factors such as lack of confidence, skills or motivation. Our analysis suggests that approximately 5.61 million people in England are both materially deprived and digitally unengaged. As with material deprivation, there are distinctive regional and local geographies to digital unengagement that have implications for digital policy implementation

Virtual Geodemographics: Repositioning Area Classification for Online and Offline Spaces

Computer mediated communication and the Internet has fundamentally changed how consumers and producers connect and interact across both real space, and has also opened up new opportunities in virtual spaces. This paper describes how technologies capable of locating and sorting networked communities of geographically disparate individuals within virtual communities present a sea change in the conception, representation and analysis of socioeconomic distributions through geodemographic analysis. We argue that through virtual communities, social networks between individuals may subsume the role of neighbourhood areas as the most appropriate units of analysis, and as such, geodemographics needs to be repositioned in order to accommodate social similarities in virtual, as well as geographical, space. We end the paper by proposing a new model for geodemographics which spans both real and virtual geographies

Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry Induced by a Running Vacuum Coupling

We show that a CP-violating interaction induced by a derivative coupling between the running vacuum and a non-conserving baryon current may dynamically break CPT and trigger baryogenesis through an effective chemical potential. By assuming a non-singular class of running vacuum cosmologies which provides a complete cosmic history (from an early inflationary de Sitter stage to the present day quasi-de Sitter acceleration), it is found that an acceptable baryon asymmetry is generated for many different choices of the model parameters. It is interesting that the same ingredient (running vacuum energy density) addresses several open cosmological questions/problems: avoids the initial singularity, provides a smooth exit for primordial inflation, alleviates both the coincidence and the cosmological constant problems, and, finally, is also capable of explaining the generation of matter-antimatter asymmetry in the very early Universe.Comment: 6 pages two column format, 1 table. Published version EPJ

The spectral and polarization characteristics of the nonspherically decaying radiation generated by polarization currents with superluminally rotating distribution patterns

We present a theoretical study of the emission from a superluminal polarization current whose distribution pattern rotates (with an angular frequency $\omega$) and oscillates (with a frequency $\Omega$) at the same time, and which comprises both poloidal and toroidal components. This type of polarization current is found in recent practical machines designed to investigate superluminal emission. We find that the superluminal motion of the distribution pattern of the emitting current generates localized electromagnetic waves that do not decay spherically, i.e. that do not have an intensity diminishing like ${R_P}^{-2}$ with the distance $R_P$ from their source. The nonspherical decay of the focused wave packets that are emitted by the polarization currents does not contravene conservation of energy: the constructive interference of the constituent waves of such propagating caustics takes place within different solid angles on spheres of different radii ($R_P$) centred on the source. For a polarization current whose longitudinal distribution (over an azimuthal interval of length $2\pi$) consists of $m$ cycles of a sinusoidal wave train, the nonspherically decaying part of the emitted radiation contains the frequencies $\Omega \pm m\omega$; i.e. it contains {\it only} the frequencies involved in the creation and implementation of the source. This is in contrast to recent studies of the spherically decaying emission, which was shown to contain much higher frequencies. The polarization of the emitted radiation is found to be linear for most configurations of the source.Comment: 19 pages, six figure

Developing efficient web-based GIS applications

There is an increase in the number of web-based GIS applications over the recent years. This paper describes different mapping technologies, database standards, and web application development standards that are relevant to the development of web-based GIS applications. Different mapping technologies for displaying geo-referenced data are available and can be used in different situations. This paper also explains why Oracle is the system of choice for geospatial applications that need to handle large amounts of data. Wireframing and design patterns have been shown to be useful in making GIS web applications efficient, scalable and usable, and should be an important part of every web-based GIS application. A range of different development technologies are available, and their use in different operating environments has been discussed here in some detail

Recent high-magnetic-field studies of unusual groundstates in quasi-two-dimensional crystalline organic metals and superconductors

After a brief introduction to crystalline organic superconductors and metals, we shall describe two recently-observed exotic phases that occur only in high magnetic fields. The first involves measurements of the non-linear electrical resistance of single crystals of the charge-density-wave (CDW) system (Per)$_2$Au(mnt)$_2$ in static magnetic fields of up to 45 T and temperatures as low as 25 mK. The presence of a fully gapped CDW state with typical CDW electrodynamics at fields higher that the Pauli paramagnetic limit of 34 T suggests the existence of a modulated CDW phase analogous to the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov state. Secondly, measurements of the Hall potential of single crystals of $\alpha$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$KHg(SCN)$_4$, made using a variant of the Corbino geometry in quasistatic magnetic fields, show persistent current effects that are similar to those observed in conventional superconductors. The longevity of the currents, large Hall angle, flux quantization and confinement of the reactive component of the Hall potential to the edge of the sample are all consistent with the realization of a new state of matter in CDW systems with significant orbital quantization effects in strong magnetic fields.Comment: SNS 2004 Conference presentatio

Persistence to high temperatures of interlayer coherence in an organic superconductor

The interlayer magnetoresistance $\rho_{zz}$ of the organic metal \cuscn is studied in fields of up to 45 T and at temperatures $T$ from 0.5 K to 30 K. The peak in $\rho_{zz}$ seen in in-plane fields, a definitive signature of interlayer coherence, remains to $T$s exceeding the Anderson criterion for incoherent transport by a factor $\sim 30$. Angle-dependent magnetoresistance oscillations are modeled using an approach based on field-induced quasiparticle paths on a 3D Fermi surface, to yield the $T$ dependence of the scattering rate $\tau^{-1}$. The results suggest that $\tau^{-1}$ does not vary strongly over the Fermi surface, and that it has a $T^2$ dependence due to electron-electron scattering