Anomalous weak values via a single photon detection

Is it possible that a measurement of a spin component of a spin-1/2 particle yields the value 100? In 1988 Aharonov, Albert and Vaidman argued that upon pre-and...     

Simplified analysis of cantilever diaphragm walls in cohesive soils

In this paper, a method is presented for a simplified analysis of cantilever diaphragm walls in cohesive soils under undrained and drained conditions. A rectilinear distribution of the net contact stresses that are not completely predetermined by the limit state is assumed at the soil-wall interface, consistently with the mechanism usually experienced by these structures. Simple equations are derived to readily calculate the contact stress distribution on the wall and the associated internal forces in the ultimate and service conditions. Moreover, these equations require few parameters as input data. Comparisons are carried out with a limit equilibrium method commonly used in design to show the usefulness of the proposed method for practical purposes.     

Hierarchical syntactic models for human activity recognition through mobility traces

Recognizing users’ daily life activities without disrupting their lifestyle is a key functionality to enable a broad variety of advanced services for     

Data Work: How Energy Advisors and Clients Make IoT Data Accountable

We present fieldwork findings from the deployment of an interactive sensing system that supports the work of energy advisors who give face-to-face advice to low-income households in the UK. We focus on how the system and the data it produced are articulated in the interactions between professional energy advisors and their clients, and how they collaboratively anticipate, rehearse, and perform data work. In addition to documenting how the system was appropriated in advisory work, we elaborate the ‘overhead cost’ of building collaborative action into connected devices and sensing systems, and the commensurate need to support discrete workflows and accountability systems to enable the methodical incorporation of the IoT into collaborative action. We contribute an elaboration of the social, collaborative methods of data work relevant to those who seek to design and study collaborative IoT systems.     

ScholOnto: an ontology-based digital library server for research documents and discourse

The internet is rapidly becoming the first place for researchers to publish documents, but at present they receive little support in searching, tracking, analysing or debating concepts in a literature from scholarly perspectives. This paper describes the design rationale and implementation of ScholOnto, an ontology-based digital library server to support scholarly interpretation and discourse. It enables researchers to describe and debate via a semantic network the contributions a document makes, and its relationship to the literature. The paper discusses the computational services that an ontology-based server supports, alternative user interfaces to support interaction with a large semantic network, usability issues associated with knowledge formalisation, new work practices that could emerge, and related work. Published online: 22 September 2000     

Higher Alcohol Synthesis

It has been known for many years that it is possible to produce mixtures of methanol and higher alcohols from synthesis gas by alkali promotion of the methanol synthesis catalysts and by appropriate modification of the reaction conditions [l]. From 1927 to 1945 plants were in operation in the United States and Germany, that were dismantled with the coming of different feedstocks and the necessity of obtaining pure alcohols for chemical use. In the last decade the chemical and petroleum industry has shown a renewed and growing interest in the use of mixtures of methanol and higher aliphatic alcohols. The original goal in the late '70s was mainly to reduce oil dependence by producing synthetic components for gasoline blends. More recently the trend to lead phase-down due to environmental protection has focused the attention on the product performances of such alcohol mixtures as high octane blending stock for gasoline. It has been shown that the addition of higher alcohols to methanol increases the water tolerance in respect to phase separation, reduces the fuel volatility and the vapor lock tendency, and also results in higher volumetric heating values.     

Hydrodynamic transport parameters of wurtzite ZnO from analytic- and full-band Monte Carlo simulation

Analytic-band Monte Carlo simulation of electron transport in bulk wurtzite ZnO, validated against the results of a full-band code and available experimental data, is used to determine the main parameters required by drift-diffusion and hydrodynamic models. Steady-state drift velocity, carrier temperature, energy and momentum relaxation time, noise diffusivity, and electron thermal conductivity are calculated, and their dependence on temperature and electric field or average electron energy is approximated by means of a complete set of fitting models suitable for inclusion in commercial device simulation tools.