Deep Eutectic Solvents Based on N-Methylacetamide and a Lithium Salt as Electrolytes at Elevated Temperature for Activated Carbon-Based Supercapacitors

Managing for Legitimacy: Agency Governance in its “Deep” Constitutional Context

Recent literature on bureaucratic structure has gone further than studying discretions given to bureaucrats in policy making, and much attention is now paid to understanding how bureaucratic agencies are managed. This article proposes that the way in which executive governments manage their agencies varies according to their constitutional setting and that this relationship is driven by considerations of the executive’s governing legitimacy. Inspired by Tilly (1984), we compare patterns of agency governance in Hong Kong and Ireland, in particular configurations of assigned decision-making autonomies and control mechanisms. This comparison shows that in governing their agencies the elected government of Ireland’s parliamentary democracy pays more attention to input (i.e. democratic) legitimacy while the executive government of Hong Kong’s administrative state favors output (i.e. performance) legitimacy. These different forms of autonomy and control mechanism reflect different constitutional models of how political executives acquire and sustain their governing legitimacy.

Haptic Aurality: Listening in a Digital World

I will question modes of listening in network music performance environments, drawing on my experience as a performer listening in these scenarios. I will situate network listening, which I have previously examined as ‘haptic aurality’ (Schroeder, 2009, 2012, 2013) within the context of current music making, and will refer to changes in compositional practices that draw specific attention to listening. I will show that some of these compositional developments play a determining role in articulating a new discourse of listening. French composer Eric Satie’s concept of Furniture Music (in Duckworth, 2005), Pierre Schaeffer’s ideas on reduced listening (1966), Pauline Oliveros’ deep listening practices (2005) as well as digital music platforms all serve to show a development towards a proliferation in listening experiences. I expand this narrative to listening practices in network performance environments, and identify a specific bodily fragility in listening in and to the network. This fragile state of listening and de-centered kind of performative being allow me to draw parallels to the Japanese art form Butoh (Kasai, 1999, 2000; Kasai and Parsons, 2003) and Elaine Scarry’s metaphor of beauty (Scarry, 2001). My own performance experiences, set within the context of several critical texts, allow me to understand network[ed] listening as an ideal corporeal state, which offers a rethinking of linear conceptions of the other and a subject’s own relation with her world. Ultimately, network[ed] listening posits listening as a corporeal and multi-dimensional experience that is continuously being re-shaped by technological, socio-political and cultural concerns.

The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emerging Christianity

The Emerging Church Movement (ECM) is a reform movement within Western Christianity that reacts against its roots in conservative evangelicalism by “de-constructing” contemporary expressions of Christianity. Emerging Christians see themselves as overturning out-dated interpretations of the bible, transforming hierarchical religious institutions, and re-orientating Christianity to step outside the walls of church buildings toward working among and serving others in the “real world.”

Drawing on ethnographic observations from emerging congregations, pub churches, neo-monastic communities, conferences, online networks, in-depth interviews, and congregational surveys in the US, UK, and Ireland, this book provides a comprehensive social scientific analysis of the development and significance of the ECM. Emerging Christians are shaping a distinct religious orientation that encourages individualism, deep relationships with others, new ideas around the nature of truth, doubt, and God, and innovations in preaching, worship, Eucharist, and leadership.

Characterisation of melt processed nanocomposites of Polyamide 6 subjected to uniaxial-drawing

In this paper, the processing and characterization of Polyamide 6 (PA6) nanocomposites containing graphite nanoplatelets (GNPs) is reported. PA6 nanocomposites were prepared by melt-mixing using an industrial, co-rotating, intermeshing, twin-screw extruder. A bespoke screw configuration was used that was designed in-house to enhance nanoparticle dispersion into a polymer matrix. The effects of nano-filler type (xGnPTM M-5 and xGnPTM C-500), nano-filler content, and extruder screw speed on the bulk properties of the PA6 nanocomposites were investigated. The crystalline structures of PA6 nanocomposites are related to thermal treatment, stress history and the presence of moisture and nanofillers. DSC, Raman and XRD studies show an increase in crystallinity with increasing GNP content and a phase transformation between α-form to γ-form crystals as a result of the heterophase nucleation effect. The effect of uniaxial stretching on PA6 nanocomposites was investigated by drawing specimens heated at temperatures below the melting temperature. DSC and Raman studies on the drawn samples show an increase in yield stress as the GNP content increases due to the strain induced crystallization and γ—β transition during stretching. The rheological response of the nanocomposites resemble that of a ‘pseudo-solid’, rather than a molten liquid, and analysis of the rheological data indicates that a percolation threshold was reached at GNP contents of between 10–15wt%. An increase in tensile modulus of as much as 412% was observed for PA6/C-500 xGnPTM composites, at a filler content of 20wt%. The enhancement of Young’s modulus and yield stress can be attributed to the reinforcing effect of GNPs and their uniform dispersion in the PA6 matrix. The electrical conductivity of the composite also increased with increasing GNP content, with an addition of 15wt% GNP resulting in a 6 order-of-magnitude increase in conductivity. The effects of uniaxial-drawing and the inclusion of multiple nano-filler varieties on the electrical and mechanical properties are currently under investigation.

Selecting superluminous supernovae in faint galaxies from the first year of the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey

The Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) survey has obtained imaging in five bands (grizyP1) over 10 Medium Deep Survey (MDS) fields covering a total of 70 square degrees. This paper describes the search for apparently hostless supernovae (SNe) within the first year of PS1 MDS data with an aim of discovering superluminous supernovae (SLSNe). A total of 249 hostless transients were discovered down to a limiting magnitude of MAB ∼ 23.5, of which 76 were classified as Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). There were 57 SNe with complete light curves that are likely core-collapse SNe (CCSNe) or type Ic SLSNe and 12 of these have had spectra taken. Of these 12 hostless, non-Type Ia SNe, 7 were SLSNe of type Ic at redshifts between 0.5 and 1.4. This illustrates that the discovery rate of type Ic SLSNe can be maximized by concentrating on hostless transients and removing normal SNe Ia. We present data for two possible SLSNe; PS1-10pm (z = 1.206) and PS1-10ahf (z = 1.1), and estimate the rate of type Ic SLSNe to be between 3+3−2×10−53+3−2×10−53+3−2×10−5 and 8+2−1×10−58+2−1×10−58+2−1×10−5 that of the CCSN rate within 0.3 ≤ z ≤ 1.4 by applying a Monte Carlo technique. The rate of slowly evolving, type Ic SLSNe (such as SN2007bi) is estimated as a factor of 10 lower than this range.

Selection of burst-like transients and stochastic variables using multi-brand image differencing in the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey

We present a novel method for the light-curve characterization of Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey (PS1 MDS) extragalactic sources into stochastic variables (SVs) and burst-like (BL) transients, using multi-band image-differencing time-series data. We select detections in difference images associated with galaxy hosts using a star/galaxy catalog extracted from the deep PS1 MDS stacked images, and adopt a maximum a posteriori formulation to model their difference-flux time-series in four Pan-STARRS1 photometric bands gP1, rP1, iP1, and zP1. We use three deterministic light-curve models to fit BL transients; a Gaussian, a Gamma distribution, and an analytic supernova (SN) model, and one stochastic light-curve model, the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, in order to fit variability that is characteristic of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). We assess the quality of fit of the models band-wise and source-wise, using their estimated leave-out-one cross-validation likelihoods and corrected Akaike information criteria. We then apply a K-means clustering algorithm on these statistics, to determine the source classification in each band. The final source classification is derived as a combination of the individual filter classifications, resulting in two measures of classification quality, from the averages across the photometric filters of (1) the classifications determined from the closest K-means cluster centers, and (2) the square distances from the clustering centers in the K-means clustering spaces. For a verification set of AGNs and SNe, we show that SV and BL occupy distinct regions in the plane constituted by these measures. We use our clustering method to characterize 4361 extragalactic image difference detected sources, in the first 2.5 yr of the PS1 MDS, into 1529 BL, and 2262 SV, with a purity of 95.00% for AGNs, and 90.97% for SN based on our verification sets. We combine our light-curve classifications with their nuclear or off-nuclear host galaxy offsets, to define a robust photometric sample of 1233 AGNs and 812 SNe. With these two samples, we characterize their variability and host galaxy properties, and identify simple photometric priors that would enable their real-time identification in future wide-field synoptic surveys.

The EU Deep Trade Agenda: Law and Policy

Providing the first comprehensive examination of the key regulatory disciplines included in the new generation of EU free trade agreements (FTAs), this book investigates the EU's supposed deep trade agenda through a legal analysis of these FTAs. In doing so, Billy A. Melo Araujo determines whether there is any substance behind the EU's foreign policy rhetoric regarding the need to introduce regulatory issues within the remit of international trade law.

At a time when the EU is busily negotiating so-called 'mega-FTAs', such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the plurilateral Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), Melo Araujo offers a timely insight into the important questions raised by such FTAs, in particular concerning the future of the multilateral trade system, the loss of policy autonomy, and the democratic legitimacy of regulating through treaty-making. The book provides a detailed analysis of the regulatory disciplines included in the more recent EU FTAs and explores the possible implications of such disciplines. Offering a significant contribution to a wider debate, this is a must read for those interested in the legal dimension of the EU's deep trade agenda.

Deep Salience: Visual Salience Modeling via Deep Belief Propagation

Visual salience is an intriguing phenomenon observed in biological neural systems. Numerous attempts have been made to model visual salience mathematically using various feature contrasts, either locally or globally. However, these algorithmic models tend to ignore the problem’s biological solutions, in which visual salience appears to arise during the propagation of visual stimuli along the visual cortex. In this paper, inspired by the conjecture that salience arises from deep propagation along the visual cortex, we present a Deep Salience model where a multi-layer model based on successive Markov random fields (sMRF) is proposed to analyze the input image successively through its deep belief propagation. As a result, the foreground object can be automatically separated from the background in a fully unsupervised way. Experimental evaluation on the benchmark dataset validated that our Deep Salience model can consistently outperform eleven state-of-the-art salience models, yielding the higher rates in the precision-recall tests and attaining the best F-measure and mean-square error in the experiments.

Deep separation of benzene from cyclohexane by liquid extraction using ionic liquids as the solvent

Separation of benzene and cyclohexane is one of the most important and difficult processes in the petrochemical industry, especially for low benzene concentration. In this work, three ionic liquids (ILs), [Bmim][BF ₄], [Bpy][BF ₄], and [Bmim][SCN], were investigated as the solvent in the extraction of benzene from cyclohexane. The corresponding ternary liquid-liquid equilibria (LLE) were experimentally determined at T = 298.15 K and atmospheric pressure. The LLE data were correlated with the nonrandom two-liquid model, and the parameters were fitted. The separation capabilities of the ILs were evaluated in terms of the benzene distribution coefficient and solvent selectivity. The effect of the IL structure on the separation was explained based on a well-founded physical model, COSMO-RS. Finally, the extraction processes were defined, and the operation parameters were analyzed. It shows that the ILs studied are suitable solvents for the extractive separation of benzene and cyclohexane, and their separation efficiency can be generally ranked as [Bmim][BF ₄] > [Bpy][BF ₄] > [Bmim][SCN]. The extraction process for a feed with 15 mol % benzene was optimized. High product purity (cyclohexane 0.997) and high recovery efficiency (cyclohexane 96.9% and benzene 98.1%) can be reached. © 2012 American Chemical Society.

New microsatellite loci for the longnose velvet dogfish Centroselachus crepidater (Squaliformes: Somniosidae) and other deep sea sharks

The continuing over-exploitation of traditional coastal stocks has resulted in the shift of commercial fishing towards deep-sea ecosystems in many parts of the world. The effects on target and non-target species have been dramatic; particularly for the deep-sea sharks. With the aim of providing tools that will allow the assessment of population genetic structure of Centroselachus crepidater, novel microsatellite loci have been developed for this deep-sea elasmobranch. Seven of these markers showed between 3 and 7 alleles per locus in two North Atlantic populations, with observed and expected heterozygosities between 0.18-0.95 and 0.25-0.82, respectively. Additionally, ten loci cross-amplify in other Elasmobranch species.