Design rules for dislocation filters

The efficacy of strained layer threading dislocation filter structures in single crystal epitaxial layers is evaluated using numerical modeling for (001) face-centred cubic materials, such as GaAs or Si(1-x)Ge(x), and (0001) hexagonal materials such as GaN. We find that threading dislocation densities decay exponentially as a function of the strain relieved, irrespective of the fraction of threading dislocations that are mobile. Reactions between threading dislocations tend to produce a population that is a balanced mixture of mobile and sessile in (001) cubic materials. In contrast, mobile threading dislocations tend to be lost very rapidly in (0001) GaN, often with little or no reduction in the immobile dislocation density. The capture radius for threading dislocation interactions is estimated to be approx. 40nm using cross section transmission electron microscopy of dislocation filtering structures in GaAs monolithically grown on Si. We find that the minimum threading dislocation density that can be obtained in any given structure is likely to be limited by kinetic effects to approx. 1.0e+04 to 1.0e+05 per square cm.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure

Documented Evidence of Agricultural Injury in China

Objective: To describe the documented evidence concerning agricultural injury in China and to identify topics for future research.Method: Literature search and review were conducted to collect publications that were relevant to agricultural injury in China. The process included defining agricultural injury for the purpose of this study, selecting articles according to inclusion criteria and extracting data from each paper. Descriptive methods were used to analyze the contents, research approaches, distribution of authors, and cooperation percentage of agricultural injury studies.Results: After applying the inclusion criteria, 89 articles were included in this study. The author collaboration percentage (number of articles with more than one author divided by number of total articles) and the institutional collaboration percentage (number of articles with more than one organization divided by number of total articles) among the 89 articles were 85.4% and 42.7%, respectively. Most of the authors are affiliated with a Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or an academic institution located in 10 of the 31 provinces in mainland China. Among the 89 articles, only 6 were on injuries related to agricultural work, the rest (83) dealt with injuries among rural residents with or without clarifying occupations or ongoing activities. Conclusions: Research on agricultural injuries in China is currently in its early stage. More research is needed to obtain evidence that can be used in policy making for agricultural injury control. Our study is the first to describe the documented evidence on agricultural injuries in China and identify topics for future research

Capturing the interplay between risk perception and social media posting to support risk response and decision making

This research aims to capture the interplay between risk perception and social media posting through a case study of COVID-19 in Wuhan to support risk response and decision making. Dividing users on SinaWeibo into the government, the media, the public, and other users, we address two main research questions: Whose posting affects risk perception and vice versa? How do different categories of social media users’ posts affect risk perception and vice versa? We use Granger causality analysis and impulse response functions to answer the research questions. The results show that from one perspective, the government and the media on Sina Weibo play critical roles in forming and affecting risk perceptions. From another perspective, risk perception promotes the posting of the media and the public on Sina Weibo. Since government’s posting and media’s posting can significantly enhance the public’s perceptions of risk issues, the government and the media must remain vigilant to provide credible risk-related information

Polarization properties of Raman scattering by surface phonon polaritons in GaAsP nanowires

Strong resonant enhancement of Raman scattering on photonic resonance was observed in GaAsP semiconductor nanowires. The enhancement allowed for detailed studies of the surface phonon polariton (SPhP) scattering peak on individual nanowires. In particular, for the first time, the effect of the nanowire cross section shape on SPhP properties has been investigated. It was found that the cross section flattening induces a strong polarisation and a spectral shift of SPhPs supported by such nanowire. The assisting numerical simulations allowed to link the induced polarisation effect to a splitting of the resonant HE11 mode in the flattened nanowire. The observed spectral shift of SPhP has been also theoretically reproduced in elliptical approximation for the flattened cross section. The obtained results pave a ground for engineering of SPhP polarisation response and accurate spectral control of SPhPs in applications utilising the nanowire morphology

Resonant enhancement of Raman scattering by surface phonon polaritons in GaAs nanowires

Surface optical phonons are normally considered as subtle and poorly reproducible features in the Raman spectra of nanostructured semiconductors, from which little or no information about the sample can be extracted. The present study demonstrates the potential for changing this situation. For a common type of GaAs semiconductor nanowire (NW), we have shown that due to a combination of size-resonant light concentration, tapered shape and favourable scattering geometry, the surface phonon polariton (SPhP) Raman signal can be enhanced by orders of magnitude. The high signal gain enables routine detailed characterisation of the SPhP peak on an individual NW level, revealing its polarisation properties and spectral shift under variation of the dielectric environment. This detailed characterisation was conducted using very low excitation power density despite high absorption of the excitation light in the NW material. The findings provide an effective way to use SPhP Raman scattering in the characterisation of dielectric NWs and the prospect of developing novel surface sensors

Processing of Individual Items during Ensemble Coding of Facial Expressions

There is growing evidence that human observers are able to extract the mean emotion or other type of information from a set of faces. The most intriguing aspect of this phenomenon is that observers often fail to identify or form a representation for individual faces in a face set. However, most of these results were based on judgments under limited processing resource. We examined a wider range of exposure time and observed how the relationship between the extraction of a mean and representation of individual facial expressions would change. The results showed that with an exposure time of 50 ms for the faces, observers were more sensitive to mean representation over individual representation, replicating the typical findings in the literature. With longer exposure time, however, observers were able to extract both individual and mean representation more accurately. Furthermore, diffusion model analysis revealed that the mean representation is also more prone to suffer from the noise accumulated in redundant processing time and leads to a more conservative decision bias, whereas individual representations seem more resistant to this noise. Results suggest that the encoding of emotional information from multiple faces may take two forms: single face processing and crowd face processi

Temporal, spatial, and socioeconomic dynamics in social media thematic emphases during Typhoon Mangkhut

Disaster-related social media data often consist of several themes, and each theme allows people to understand and communicate from a certain perspective. It is necessary to take into consideration the dynamics of thematic emphases on social media in order to understand the nature of such data and to use them appropriately. This paper proposes a framework to analyze the temporal, spatial, and socioeconomic disparities in thematic emphases on social media during Typhoon Mangkhut. First, the themes were identified through a latent Dirichlet allocation model during Typhoon Mangkhut. Then, we adopted a quantitative method of indexing the themes to represent the dynamics of the thematic emphases. Spearman correlation analyses between the index and eight socioeconomic variables were conducted to identify the socioeconomic disparities in thematic emphases. The main research findings are revealing. From the perspective of time evolution, Theme 1 (general response) and Theme 2 (urban transportation) hold the principal position throughout the disaster. In the early hours of the disaster, Theme 3 (typhoon status and impact) was the most popular theme, but its popularity fell sharply soon after. From the perspective of spatial distribution, people in severely affected areas were more concerned about urban transportation (Theme 2), while people in moderately affected areas were more concerned about typhoon status and impact (Theme 3) and animals and humorous news (Theme 4). The results of the correlation analyses show that there are differences in thematic emphases across disparate socioeconomic groups. Women preferred to post about typhoon status and impact (Theme 3) and animals and humorous news (Theme 4), while people with higher income paid less attention to these two themes during Typhoon Mangkhut. These findings can help government agencies and other stakeholders address public needs effectively and accurately in disaster responses

Suspended optical waveguides in InP for optomechanical applications

Optical micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) based on suspended optical waveguides offer a range of interesting applications, e.g. in optical communications and sensing. In particular, if the waveguide dimensions are sufficiently small and thus the evanescent field of propagating light extends beyond the guiding material into air, two closely spaced parallel waveguides become optically coupled with a coupling strength that is strongly dependent on the waveguide separation. This effect can be exploited for mechanically actuated optical switching, tuning of micro-resonators, or even for changing the speed of light. &more..