Failure of greenstone, jasper and cataclasite aggregate in bituminous concrete due to studded tyres: Similarities and differences

In wintertime, the use of studded tyres is common in the Nordic countries, steeply in creasing road wear. Apart from reducing surface quality and durability, the airborne dust presents a potential health hazard. To reduce road wear and dust release, there is a tendency to use harder and more wear-resistant aggregate materials.On the roads in and around Trondheim, mid-Norway, three types of aggregate material are common: greenstone, jasper and ‘mylonite’, in fact a cataclasite. Extensive laboratory testing suggests that cataclasite aggregate has better wear resistance than greenstone, but less than jasper [Erichsen E, Schiellerup H, Gautneb, H, Ottesen RT, Broekmans M. Road dust in Trondheim — analysis of the mineral content of airborne dust. (In Norwegian.) Geological Survey of Norway, NGU-report 2004. 037; 2004. p. 73]. However , observations on fluorescence-impregnated plane and thin sections demonstrate that in practice, cataclasite wears faster than greenstone, which may be attributed to its oriented fabric, as opposed to the random fabric in greenstone and jasper. The original article by Rosiwal from 1896 [Rosiwal A. Neue Untersuchungser gebnisse über die Härte von Mineralien und Gesteine. Verhandlungen der kaiserlich-königlichen geologischen Reichsanstalt, vol. 17/18; 1896. p. 475–491] on abrasion hardness and anisotropy provides an elegant explanation for the field observations.     

Photonic Demodulator With Sensitivity Control

A current assisted photonic demodulator for use as a pixel in a 3-D time-of-flight imager shows nearly 100% static demodulator contrast and is operable beyond 30 MHz. An integrated tunable sensitivity control is also presented for increasing the distance measurement range and avoiding unwanted saturation during integration periods. This is achieved by application of a voltage on a dedicated drain tap showing a quenching of sensor sensitivity to below 1%     

Analysis of Caching and Replication Strategies for Web Applications

Developers often use replication and caching mechanisms to enhance Web application performance. The authors present a qualitative and quantitative analysis of state-of-the art replication and caching techniques used to host Web applications. Their analysis shows that selecting the best mechanism depends heavily on data workload and requires a careful review of the application's characteristics. They also propose a technique for Web practitioners to compare different mechanisms' performance on their own     

Design of noise and period-time robust high-order repetitive control, with application to optical storage

Repetitive control is useful if periodic disturbances or setpoints act on a control system. Perfect (asymptotic) disturbance rejection is achieved if the period time is exactly known. The improved disturbance rejection at the periodic frequency and its harmonics is achieved at the expense of a degraded system sensitivity at intermediate frequencies. A convex optimization problem is defined for the design of high-order repetitive controllers, where a trade-off can be made between robustness for changes in the period time and for reduction of the error spectrum in-between the harmonic frequencies. The high-order repetitive control algorithms are successfully applied in experiments with the tracking control of a CD-player system.     

Mangrove forests as a nature-based solution for coastal flood protection: Biophysical and ecological considerations

Nature-based coastal protection is increasingly recognised as a potentially sustainable and cost-effective solution to reduce coastal flood risk. It uses coastal ecosystems such as mangrove forests to create resilient designs for coastal flood protection. However, to use mangroves effectively as a nature-based measure for flood risk reduction, we must understand the biophysical processes that govern risk reduction capacity through mangrove ecosystem size and structure. In this perspective, we evaluate the current state of knowledge on local physical drivers and ecological processes that determine mangrove functioning as part of a nature-based flood defence. We show that the forest properties that comprise coastal flood protection are well-known, but models cannot yet pinpoint how spatial heterogeneity of the forest structure affects the capacity for wave or surge attenuation. Overall, there is relatively good understanding of the ecological processes that drive forest structure and size, but there is a lack of knowledge on how daily bed-level dynamics link to long-term biogeomorphic forest dynamics, and on the role of combined stressors influencing forest retreat. Integrating simulation models of forest structure under changing physical (e.g. due to sea-level change) and ecological drivers with hydrodynamic attenuation models will allow for better projections of long-term natural coastal protection.     

An analysis of XQuery benchmarks

This paper presents a survey and an analysis of the XQuery benchmark publicly available in 2006—XMach-1, XMark, X007, the Michigan benchmark, and XBench—from different perspectives. We address three simple questions about these benchmarks: How are they used? What do they measure? What can one learn from using them? One focus of our analysis is to determine whether the benchmarks can be used for micro-benchmarking. Our conclusions are based on an usage analysis, on an in-depth analysis of the benchmark queries, and on experiments run on four XQuery engines: Galax, SaxonB, Qizx/Open, and MonetDB/XQuery.     

Us and them: a social capital perspective on the relationship between the business and IT departments

In this paper, a social capital perspective is applied to the relationship between the IT department and the Business organization. IT and Business are conceptualized as different occupational communities, with different understandings of their work. Our focus is on the level of social capital and the process of knowledge sharing between these occupational communities. We analyze the role that these factors play in reaching a mutual understanding within the process of IS development, and the influence this has on the perceived performance of the IT organization. Our study, combining qualitative and quantitative methods, points out that a lack of social capital (structural, relational as well as cognitive) can serve as an explanation for the often problematic relationship between these communities. Our analyses also show that social capital is especially relevant for the Business organization's perception of IT performance, whereas the IT department's perception is that performance is primarily dependent on the exchange of information.