Rapid thermal annealing of rare earth implanted ZnO epitaxial layers

Zinc oxide epilayers grown by metal organic vapour phase epitaxy on (0 0 0 1) sapphire substrates were doped with Praseodymium and Europium by ion implantation. The as-implanted samples were either annealed in air for 20 min in a tube furnace or rapid thermal annealing (RTA) was performed, for 2 min, in a nitrogen atmosphere. The samples were characterized by Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry/Channelling and photoluminescence. The presented results indicate that in the as-implanted samples the majority of the rare earth (RE) ions are incorporated into substitutional Zn-sites. Furnace annealing at 1000 °C recovers the crystal quality of the samples but leads to an out-diffusion of the RE. RTA suppresses diffusion but lattice damage is not fully recovered at 1000 °C. More importantly, during RTA the RE ions are driven from the substitutional site and are now found mainly on random interstitial sites and no optical activation could be achieved.     

A comparison of two sampling methods for global sensitivity analysis

We compare the convergence properties of two different quasi-random sampling designs – Sobol?s quasi-Monte Carlo, and Latin supercube sampling in variance-based global sensitivity analysis. We use the non-monotonic V-function of Sobol? as base case-study, and compare the performance of both sampling strategies at increasing sample size and dimensionality against analytical values. The results indicate that in almost all cases investigated here, the Sobol? design performs better. This, coupled with the fact that effective Latin supercube sampling requires a priori knowledge of the interaction properties of the function, leads us to recommend Sobol? sampling in most practical cases.     

Estimation of odour intensity of indoor air pollutants from building materials with a multi-gas sensor system

This study shows an approach to estimate odour intensity in an indoor environment with a multi-gas sensor system. The sensor system uses 38 non-specific gas sensors, each of which responds to a wide range of different volatile compounds. Due to the complexity of indoor air pollution, the study focuses on emissions of building products as one of the major contributors to indoor air quality. The system has been calibrated and tested, combining measurements from gas sensor systems and assessments of odour intensity by a human panel. To find a relation between the sensor signal and the odour intensity, a data processing model has been developed comprising a classification and a class-specific regression method. The model is able to map the odour intensity to the sensor signal pattern in order to predict the odour intensity caused by the investigated building products. Investigations with varying relative humidity have shown a significant influence by the humidity level, which will be considered for future measurements.     

‘Why Can’t the Future be More Like the Past?’ Planning History Track,Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP), Annual Congress,Department of Civic Design,University of Liverpool, 15–18 July 2009

AESOP’s 2009 Congress was hosted by the University of Liverpool as part of the centenary celebration of its Department of Civic Design, the world’s oldest university planning school. ‘Why Can’t the Future be More Like the Past?’ was the conference title on all the banners and conference bags – an oddly querulous question, nevertheless it did the trick in getting participants to think historically throughout AESOP 2009. Michael Hebbert and Dirk Schubert ran a planning history track for six of the conference’s seven parallel session slots. Their call for papers elicited 30 abstracts which reduced to 17 papers, a comfortable quantity allowing good time for presentation and discussion. The track had the fortune to be allocated a wood‐panelled Architecture lecture theatre with superb projection facilities – more than one speaker gasped at the glory of their own PowerPoint images.     

Organizational context and collaboration on international projects: The case of a professional service firm

In project teams that are distributed across the international subsidiaries of a firm, collaboration can be a challenge. The organizational context of projects is not always conducive to international collaboration. Priorities and interests of sub-teams are likely to differ from those of the central team. In a grounded theory study of international client projects in a project-based organization, the impact of organizational context on collaboration is explored. It was found that the organizational context can provide important resources such as authority, policies, procedures and systems that can be appropriated to enable collaboration. However, this applies only when there are drivers for collaboration, consisting of interdependency and interest in the project's success. Even in a context not conducive to collaboration, the drivers encourage teams to constitute informal mechanisms, enabling some level of collaboration. A framework for the impact of organizational context on collaboration in international projects is presented.     

Pre-adolescent children exhibit lower aerosol particle volume emissions than adults for breathing,speaking, singing and shouting

Speaking and singing are activities linked to increased aerosol particle emissions from the respiratory system, dependent on the utilized vocal intensity. As a result, these activities have experienced considerable restrictions in enclosed spaces since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic due to the risk of infection from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, transmitted by virus-carrying aerosols. These constraints have affected public education and extracurricular activities for children as well, from in-person music instruction to children’s choirs. However, existing risk assessments for children have been based on emission measurements of adults. To address this, we measured the particle emission rates of 15 pre-adolescent children, all eight to ten years old, with a laser particle counter for the test conditions: breathing at rest, speaking, singing and shouting. Compared with values taken from 15 adults, emission rates for breathing, speaking and singing were significantly lower for children. Particle emission rates were reduced by a factor of 4.3 across all conditions, whereas emitted particle volume rates were reduced by a factor of 4.8. These data can supplement SARS-CoV-2 risk management scenarios for various school and extracurricular settings.