Personal knowledge publishing: fostering interdisciplinary communication

We address this article in relation to blogging and personal knowledge publishing (PKP). Derived from blogging, personal knowledge publishing is a form of Web-based communication that lowers social and linguistic barriers, facilitating knowledge migration across disciplinary boundaries. The aggregate output of this practice could provide a promising basis for intelligent systems development. These individual-centered, community-discussion-support systems have emerged as an interesting complement to journals, mailing lists, and other media for interdisciplinary-minded individuals. PKP offers individual researchers a tool for building strong interdisciplinary research networks. These networks enable individuals to find relevant literature and experts outside their core research community.     

Bacteria,viruses, and parasites in an intermittent stream protected from and exposed to pasturing cattle: Prevalence,densities, and quantitative microbial risk assessment

Over 3500 individual water samples, for 131 sampling times, targeting waterborne pathogens/fecal indicator bacteria were collected during a 7-year period from 4 sites along an intermittent stream running through a small livestock pasture system with and without cattle access-to-stream restriction measures. The study assessed the impact of cattle pasturing/riparian zone protection on: pathogen (bacterial, viral, parasite) occurrence, concentrations of fecal indicators, and quantitative microbial risk assessments (QMRA) of the risk of Cryptosporidium, Giardia and Escherichia coli O157:H7 infection in humans. Methodologies were developed to compute QMRA mean risks on the basis of water samples exhibiting potentially human infectious Cryptosporidium and E. coli based on genotyping Crytosporidium, and E. coli O157:H7 presence/absence information paired with enumerated E. coli. All Giardia spp. were considered infectious. No significant pasturing treatment effects were observed among pathogens, with the exception of Campylobacter spp. and E. coli O157:H7. Campylobacter spp. prevalence significantly decreased downstream through pasture treatments and E. coli O157:H7 was observed in a few instances in the middle of the unrestricted pasture. Densities of total coliform, fecal coliform, and E. coli reduced significantly downstream in the restricted pasture system, but not in the unrestricted system. Seasonal and flow conditions were associated with greater indicator bacteria densities, especially in the summer. Norovirus GII was detected at rates of 7–22% of samples for all monitoring sites, and rotavirus in 0–7% of samples for all monitoring sites; pasture treatment trends were not evident, however. Seasonal and stream flow variables (and their interactions) were relatively more important than pasture treatments for initially stratifying pathogen occurrence and higher fecal indicator bacteria densities. Significant positive associations among fecal indicator bacteria and Campylobacter spp. detection were observed. For QMRA, adjusting for the proportion of Cryptosporidium spp. detected that are infectious for humans reduces downstream risk estimates by roughly one order of magnitude. Using QMRA in this manner provides a more refined estimate of beneficial management practice effects on pathogen exposure risks to humans.     

Reduction of Quantum Entropy by Reversible Extraction of Classical Information

Abstract

We inquire under what conditions some of the information in a quantum signal source, namely a set of pure states ψ_a emitted with probabilities p _a, can be extracted in classical form by a measurement leaving the quantum system with less entropy than it had before, but retaining the ability to regenerate the source state exactly from the classical measurement result and the after-measurement state of the quantum system. We show that this can be done if and only if the source states ψ_a fall into two or more mutually orthogonal subsets.     

Numerical modeling of electrowetting processes in digital microfluidic devices

We use a three-dimensional multiphase lattice-Boltzmann model to study basic operations such as transport, merging and splitting of nanoliter water droplets actuated by electrowetting in digital microfluidic devices. In a first step, numerical and analytical predictions for the droplet transport velocity are compared and very good agreement is obtained for a wide range of contact angles. The same algorithm is employed then to study the dynamics of the splitting processes at different contact angles and different geometries of the cell. The configuration of the liquid droplet involved in a splitting process and the dependence of the splitting time on the transport velocity are also investigated and phenomenological laws describing these processes are also proposed.     

Cw laser crystallization of glow discharge a-Si:H on glass substrates

Glow discharge hydrogenated amorphous Si films were crystallized using a cw Ar laser. The properties of the crystallized films were studied by optical and electron microscopy, electrical measurements and elastic recoil detection (ERD) analysis. In addition, a preferential plasma etching technique was used to determine the degree of crystallization. Large (>3 μm) high quality crystallites were induced above a threshold laser power of 100 W/cm by an explosive crystallization process. This was accompanied by the formation of bubbles and ejection of material from the crystallization centers. The sheet resistivity decreased by five to six orders of magnitude. Some 50–90% of the hydrogen remained in the films after laser annealing. A simple model shows that solid state diffusion accounts for the final hydrogen distribution in the laser annealed films. The use of this material for the fabrication of devices on glass substrates is discussed.     

Alambic: a privacy-preserving recommender system for electronic commerce

Recommender systems enable merchants to assist customers in finding products that best satisfy their needs. Unfortunately, current recommender systems suffer from various privacy-protection vulnerabilities. Customers should be able to keep private their personal information, including their buying preferences, and they should not be tracked against their will. The commercial interests of merchants should also be protected by allowing them to make accurate recommendations without revealing legitimately compiled valuable information to third parties. We introduce a theoretical approach for a system called Alambic, which achieves the above privacy-protection objectives in a hybrid recommender system that combines content-based, demographic and collaborative filtering techniques. Our system splits customer data between the merchant and a semi-trusted third party, so that neither can derive sensitive information from their share alone. Therefore, the system could only be subverted by a coalition between these two parties.

Room-Temperature Deposited Titanium Silicate Thin Films for MIM Capacitor Applications

High-k titanium silicate (i.e., TiSiO₄) thin films of various thicknesses (in the 4.5- to 160-nm range) were successfully deposited by means of a sputter deposition process at room-temperature and integrated into metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors. It is shown that the TiSiO₄-based capacitors can exhibit a capacitance density as high as 30 fF/mum² while maintaining low dielectric dispersion and losses. An excellent voltage linearity was also obtained ( alpha~600 ppm/V² at 8.2 fF/mum²) together with a high dielectric constant of 16.5 and low leakage current of about 10 nA/cm² at 1 MV/cm. Our results thus show that TiSiO₄ films constitute a very promising approach for the achievement of high performance MIM capacitors     

Synthesis of monodisperse fluorinated silica nanoparticles and their superhydrophobic thin films

Monodispersive silica nanoparticles have been synthesized via the Sto?ber process and further functionalized by adding fluorinated groups using fluoroalkylsilane in an ethanolic solution. In this process, six different sizes of fluorinated silica nanoparticles of varying diameter from 40 to 300 nm are prepared and used to deposit thin films on aluminum alloy surfaces using spin coating processes. The functionalization of silica nanoparticles by fluorinated group has been confirmed by the presence C-F bonds along with Si-O-Si bonds in the thin films as analyzed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The surface roughnesses as well as the water contact angles of the fluorinated silica nanoparticle containing thin films are found to be increased with the increase of the diameter of the synthesized fluorinated silica nanoparticles. The thin films prepared using the fluorinated silica nanoparticles having a critical size of 119 ± 12 nm provide a surface roughness of ～0.697 μm rendering the surfaces superhydrophobic with a water contact angle of 151 ± 4°. The roughness as well as the water contact angle increases on the superhydrophobic thin films with further increase in the size of the fluorinated silica nanoparticles in the films.