Large-scale mechanical peeling of boron nitride nanosheets by low-energy ball milling

Mechanical cleavage by Scotch tape was the first method to produce graphene and is still widely used in laboratories. However, a critical problem of this method is the extremely low yield. We have tailored ball milling conditions to produce gentle shear forces that produce high quality boron nitride (BN) nanosheets in high yield and efficiency. The in-plane structure of the BN nanosheets has not been damaged as shown by near edge X-ray absorption fine structure measurements. The benzyl benzoate acts as the milling agent to reduce the ball impacts and milling contamination. This method is applicable to any layered materials for producing nanosheets.

Are we raising the standards of language use or just playing games?

Given the current state of play with respect to literacy 'crises' in Western democracies, this article revisits the 'language games' that often inform these concerns, examining their rules and who benefits from them. It argues that to focus narrowly on the technical aspects of language, as the current emphasis does, misses the point of what is at stake for students: those who advocates claim to want to help. Drawing on twenty semi-structured interviews and observations of teachers in primary and secondary schools within Queensland (Australia), the article outlines four perspectives on language use and how these variously position students as literate and illiterate. It concludes that we now need a different game plan to address students' use of language, one that provokes a stance and praxis in keeping with a more inclusive politics and which provides real challenges to broader social constraints.

Commonising the enclosure : online games and reforming intellectual property regimes

Online computer gamers are a creative bunch, from the mayhem of first-person shooters (FPS) to the more social experiences of massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), gamers are producing new content for their favourite titles at an amazing rate. This paper explores the rewriting of the boundaries in the production and ownership of intellectual property in the computer games industry. The purpose is to examine the potential for computer game studies to contribute to an understanding of an alternative intellectual property regime known as the commons. This paper will explore how computer games users establish commons-like formations, specific to the digital environment, that extend the confines of current intellectual property rights. It will argue that the productive activities of online gamers are not motivated by the traditional logic of market-based incentives. This represents a new condition which may contribute to a reformation of the privatising enclosure of the intellectual property system.
Keywords: massive multiplayer online

Researching kids and computer games : games, game play and literacy in the twenty first century

Videogames, and young people's engagement with them, are of growing interest to education. This paper reports on initial find ings from the study: Literacy in the Digital World of the Twenty First Century: Leaming from computer games, focussing on the opportunities offered by studying young people's immersion in game play for understanding more about contemporary forms of  engagement and textuality, new forms of literacy,community and identity multimodality, and the implications of such forms and changes for contemporary literacy and English education. Taking videogames as examples of global, ICT-based popular culture, where meaning is built from muhimodal elements, and where young players have to he actively teaming and involved in order to play, the project asks how English and literacy education might benefit from examining videogames, as rich exemplars of contemporary digital culture, and the ways in which young people make use of them, to improve the teaching of print and multi modal forms of literacy.

Computer games – pushing at the boundaries of literacy

The need to expand traditional, print-based versions of literacy to also incorporate attention to multimodal forms of text and literacy in the English curriculum is now well established. Much can be learnt about students and their literacy practices from the exploration of their engagement with digital culture – particularly videogames – from their out-of-school lifeworlds. However, the emerging set of skills and competencies or, the ‘new’ literacies and literacy practices associated with multiple and ever-emerging genres generated through information and communications technologies, present challenges in terms of how they might be conceptualised as literacy (or not) and how the multiple dimensions entailed in gameplay are increasingly a part of what it means to be literate in the 21st century. Drawing on two case studies of classroom work, the paper describes approaches to conceptualising the complexity of digital texts and their access, production and distribution and the opportunity to create spaces where students could interact, socialise and learn in both the real and virtual world. Dimensions such as play, interactivity, action, movement and time raise challenging questions about the limits and possibilities of constructing games and gameplay as texts and literacy practices that push the boundaries of literacy.

Research methodologies in creative practice : literacy in the digital age of the twenty first century - learning from computer games

Literacy remains one of the central goals of schooling, but the ways in which it is understood are changing. The growth of the networked society, and the spread of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), has brought about significant changes to traditional forms of literacy. Older, print based forms now take their place alongside a mix of newer multi-modal forms, where a wide range of elements such as image, sound, movement, light, colour and interactivity often supplant the printed word and contribute to the ways in which meaning is made. For young people to be fully literate in the twenty-first century, they need to have clear understandings about the ways in which these forms of literacy combine to persuade, present a point of view, argue a case or win the viewers’ sympathies. They need to know how to use them themselves, and to be aware of the ways in which others use them. They need to understand how digital texts organise and prioritise knowledge and information, and to recognise and be critically informed about the global context in which this occurs. That is, to be effective members of society, students need to become critical and capable users of both print and multimodal literacy, and be able to bring informed and analytic perspectives to bear on all texts, both print and digital, that they encounter in everyday life.

This is part of schools’ larger challenge to build robust connections between school and the world beyond, to meet the needs of all students, and to counter problems of alienation and marginalisation, particularly amongst students in the middle years. This means finding ways to be relevant and useful for all students, and to provide them with the skills and knowledge they will need in the ICT-based world of the Twentyfirst century. With respect to literacy education, engagement and technology, we urgently need more information as to how this might be best achieved.

Electrophoretic deposition of YSZ thin-film electrolyte for SOFCs utilizing electrostatic-steric stabilized suspensions obtained via high energy ball milling

This manuscript describes a facile alternative route to make thin-film yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte by liquid-phase assisted electrophoretic deposition utilizing electrostatic-steric stabilized YSZ suspension followed by sintering. Very fine YSZ particles in ball-milled suspension facilitate their sustained dispersion through electrostatic mechanism as evidenced by their higher zeta potentials. Binder addition into the ball-milled suspension is also demonstrated to contribute complementary steric hindrance effects on suspension stability. As the consequence, the film quality and sinterability improve in the sequence of film made from non ball-milled suspension, film made from ball-milled suspension and film made from ball-milled suspension with binder addition. The specific deposition mechanisms pertaining to each suspension are also postulated and discussed below. A very thin dense electrolyte layer of ∼10 μm can be achieved via electrophoretic deposition route utilizing ball-milled suspension and binder addition. This in turn, makes the electrolyte resistance a more negligible part of the overall cell resistance. Further on, we also tested the performance of SOFC utilizing as-formed 10 μm YSZ electrolyte i.e. YSZ-NiO|YSZ|LSM (La0.8Sr0.2MnO3-δ), whereby a maximum power density of ∼850 mW cm−2 at 850 °C was demonstrated.

Ball bouncing in gym SFX

Ball Bouncing in Gym SFX.

Ball Point Pen Clicks SFX

Clicking a pen.

Ball point pen writing two signatures SFX

Ball Point Pen Writing Two Signatures SFX.

Challenges in the development of standards for synthetic turf for Australian football and cricket

Given the escalating drought conditions in Australia, synthetic surfaces have recently been explored as a viable surface option for community-level Australian football–cricket ovals. The vast majority of Australian football ovals are transformed into cricket pitches during the football off-season and hence the characteristics of both sports had to be duly considered in the development of standards that could be tested in a laboratory setting, for a synthetic turf surface. This paper describes the data collection and test methods undertaken in the development of the standards for synthetic surface use in Australian football and cricket. The paper also discusses the issues and challenges encountered during the development of standards for multi-sport synthetic surfaces to ensure player safety while maintaining the performance characteristics of both sports. Surface property and ball interaction tests were undertaken on natural playing surfaces, both in situ and in the laboratory to determine the properties of the current playing surface for each sport. This paper highlights the importance of careful consideration of the characteristics of both games and the use of equipment from both sports in the testing methods. The standards described in this paper have now been accepted by the Australian Football League and Cricket Australia and the product approval process and use of synthetic surfaces for Australian football and cricket is imminent.

Morphology of ball milled graphite

The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) is used to characterize the morphology of ball milled graphite samples, which can be helpful for the further understanding of the samples' spectroscopic and absorptive properties.