A stable liquid crystal for electro-optical displays

Method is reported for substitution of hydroxy (OH) group ortho to anil linkage to stabilize anil-type liquid crystal for use in electro-optical devices

Geodata

Empirical data can be characterized by a precise location in space and time. An estimated 80% of all data holds such a spatio-temporal reference and is termed geodata. This paper starts with the question: What is the additional benefit for socio-economic sciences using geodata and the spatial dimension respectively? In the following a multidimensional approach is chosen to outline the Status Quo of geodata and spatial techniques in Germany. It is particularly the continuously growing amount and the variety of available geodata which is stated. Data security is an issue of high importance when using geodata. Furthermore, the present developments in price and user concepts, accessibility, technical standards and institutionalisation are addressed. A number of challenges concerning the field of geodata are identified including the open access to geodata, data security issues and standardization. The main challenge however seems to be the exchange between the rather segregated fields of geoinformation and the information infrastructure. Furthermore, the census 2011 is identified as a major challenge for the acquisition and management of geodata. Geodata and spatial techniques are a rapidly developing field due to technology developments of data and methods as well as due to recently growing public interest. Their additional be efit for socioeconomic research should be exploited in the future.geodata, geoinformation, Web-GIS, geodata-infrastructure, spatial techniques

Geographically Referenced Data for Social Science

An estimated 80% of all information has a spatial reference. Information about households as well as environmental data can be linked to precise locations in the real world. This offers benefits for combining different datasets via the spatial location and, furthermore, spatial indicators such as distance and accessibility can be included in analyses and models. HSpatial patterns of real-world social phenomena can be identified and described and possible interrelationships between datasets can be studied. Michael F. GOODCHILD, a Professor of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara and principal investigator at the Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science (CSISS), summarizes the growing significance of space, spatiality, location, and place in social science research as follows: "(...) for many social scientists, location is just another attribute in a table and not a very important one at that. After all, the processes that lead to social deprivation, crime, or family dysfunction are more or less the same everywhere, and, in the minds of social scientists, many other variables, such as education, unemployment, or age, are far more interesting as explanatory factors of social phenomena than geographic location. Geographers have been almost alone among social scientists in their concern for space; to economists, sociologists, political scientists, demographers, and anthropologists, space has been a minor issue and one that these disciplines have often been happy to leave to geographers. But that situation is changing, and many social scientists have begun to talk about a "spatial turn," a new interest in location, and a new "spatial social science" that crosses the traditional boundaries between disciplines. Interest is rising in GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and in what GIS makes possible: mapping, spatial analysis, and spatial modelling. At the same time, new tools are becoming available that give GIS users access to some of the big ideas of social science."

Sensing of Substrate Vibrations in the Adult Cicada Okanagana rimosa (Hemiptera: Cicadidae)

Detection of substrate vibrations is an evolutionarily old sensory modality and is important for predator detection as well as for intraspecific communication. In insects, substrate vibrations are detected mainly by scolopidial (chordotonal) sense organs found at different sites in the legs. Among these sense organs, the tibial subgenual organ (SGO) is one of the most sensitive sensors. The neuroanatomy and physiology of vibratory sense organs of cicadas is not well known. Here, we investigated the leg nerve by neuronal tracing and summed nerve recordings. Tracing with Neurobiotin revealed that the cicada Okanagana rimosa (Say) (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) has a femoral chordotonal organ with about 20 sensory cells and a tibial SGO with two sensory cells. Recordings from the leg nerve show that the vibrational response is broadly tuned with a threshold of about 1 m/s2 and a minimum latency of about 6 ms. The vibratory sense of cicadas might be used in predator avoidance and intraspecific communication, although no tuning to the peak frequency of the calling song (9 kHz) could be found

Experimental test of magnetic photons

A "magnetic" photon hypothesis associated with magnetic monopoles is tested experimentally. These photons are predicted to easily penetrate metal. Experimentally the optical transmittance T of a metal foil was less than 2 x 10^-17. The hypothesis is not supported since it predicts T = 2 x 10^-12

Lakes

Lakes have always held an aesthetic fascination for people; they figure prominently in both art and literature and have even been endowed with spiritual qualities. For example, the nineteenth century American writer Henry D. Thoreau (1854) considered a lake to be 'the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is the earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature'. More prosaically, lakes are also of considerable geomorphological interest as dynamic landfonns originating in varied and often complex ways

Chiral effect in plane isotropic micropolar elasticity and its application to chiral lattices

In continuum mechanics, the non-centrosymmetric micropolar theory is usually used to capture the chirality inherent in materials. However when reduced to a two dimensional (2D) isotropic problem, the resulting model becomes non-chiral. Therefore, influence of the chiral effect cannot be properly characterized by existing theories for 2D chiral solids. To circumvent this difficulty, based on reinterpretation of isotropic tensors in a 2D case, we propose a continuum theory to model the chiral effect for 2D isotropic chiral solids. A single material parameter related to chirality is introduced to characterize the coupling between the bulk deformation and the internal rotation which is a fundamental feature of 2D chiral solids. Coherently, the proposed continuum theory is also derived for a triangular chiral lattice from a homogenization procedure, from which the effective material constants of the lattice are analytically determined. The unique behavior in the chiral lattice is demonstrated through the analyses of a static tension problem and a plane wave propagation problem. The results, which cannot be predicted by the non-chiral model, are validated by the exact solution of the discrete model.Comment: 33 pages, 7 figure

Computational modelling and experimental characterisation of heterogeneous materials

Heterogeneous materials can exhibit behaviour under load that cannot be described by classical continuum elasticity. Beams in bending can show a relative stiffening as the beam depth tends to zero, a size effect. Size effects are recognised in higher order continuum elastic theories such as micropolar elasticity. The drawback of higher order theories is the requirement of addition constitutive relations and associated properties that are often difficult to establish experimentally. Furthermore the finite element method, of great benefit in classical elasticity, has shown limitations when applied to micropolar elasticity. The determination of additional constitutive properties and the computational modelling of micropolar elasticity will be discussed in the context of a model heterogeneous material loaded in simple 3 point bending. The model material was created by drilling holes in aluminium bar in a regular pattern, with the hole axis normal to the plane of bending. The bending tests show that a size effect is present. These results are compared against modelling the detailed beam geometries in the finite element package ANSYS, which again shows the size effect. These two bending test are used to extract the additional micropolar elastic material properties. A comparison is then made against analytical solutions,numerical solutions using a micropolar beam finite element and a micropolar plane stress control volume method.It will be shown that the need for extensive experimental testing to determine the additional constitutive properties may not be necessary with the appropriate use of numerical methods