Google (Ireland)

BACKGROUND: There is evidence that nanoparticles (NP) cross epithelial and endothelial body barriers. We hypothesized that gold (Au) NP, once in the blood circulation of pregnant rats, will cross the placental barrier during pregnancy size-dependently and accumulate in the fetal organism by 1. transcellular transport across the hemochorial placenta, 2. transcellular transport across amniotic membranes 3. transport through ~20 nm wide transtrophoblastic channels in a size dependent manner. The three AuNP sizes used to test this hypothesis are either well below, or of similar size or well above the diameters of the transtrophoblastic channels. METHODS: We intravenously injected monodisperse, negatively charged, radio-labelled 1.4 nm, 18 nm and 80 nm ¹⁹⁸AuNP at a mass dose of 5, 3 and 27 μg/rat, respectively, into pregnant rats on day 18 of gestation and in non-pregnant control rats and studied the biodistribution in a quantitative manner based on the radio-analysis of the stably labelled ¹⁹⁸AuNP after 24 hours. RESULTS: We observed significant biokinetic differences between pregnant and non-pregnant rats. AuNP fractions in the uterus of pregnant rats were at least one order of magnitude higher for each particle size roughly proportional to the enlarged size and weight of the pregnant uterus. All three sizes of ¹⁹⁸AuNP were found in the placentas and amniotic fluids with 1.4 nm AuNP fractions being two orders of magnitude higher than those of the larger AuNP on a mass base. In the fetuses, only fractions of 0.0006 (30 ng) and 0.00004 (0.1 ng) of 1.4 nm and 18 nm AuNP, respectively, were detected, but no 80 nm AuNP (<0.000004 (<0.1 ng)). These data show that no AuNP entered the fetuses from amniotic fluids within 24 hours but indicate that AuNP translocation occurs across the placental tissues either through transtrophoblastic channels and/or via transcellular processes. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that the translocation of AuNP from maternal blood into the fetus is NP-size dependent which is due to mechanisms involving (1) transport through transtrophoblastic channels - also present in the human placenta - and/or (2) endocytotic and diffusive processes across the placental barrier.

Web-based enterprises process events generated by millions of users interacting with their websites. Rich statistical data distilled from combining such interactions in near real-time generates enormous business value. In this paper, we describe the architecture of Photon, a geographically distributed system for joining multiple continuously flowing streams of data in real-time with high scalability and low latency, where the streams may be unordered or delayed. The system fully tolerates infrastructure degradation and datacenter-level outages without any manual intervention. Photon guarantees that there will be no duplicates in the joined output (at-most-once semantics) at any point in time, that most joinable events will be present in the output in real-time (near-exact semantics), and exactly-once semantics eventually.

Abstract Lumpfish ( Cyclopterus lumpus L.) are increasingly being used as cleaner fish to control parasitic sea lice, one of the most important threats to salmon farming. However, lumpfish cannot survive feeding solely on sea lice, and their mortality in salmon net‐pens can be high, which has welfare, ethical and economic implications. The industry is under increasing pressure to improve the welfare of lumpfish, but little guidance exists on how this can be achieved. We undertook a knowledge gap and prioritisation exercise using a Delphi approach with participants from the fish farming sector, animal welfare, academia and regulators to assess consensus on the main challenges and potential solutions for improving lumpfish welfare. Consensus among participants on the utility of 5 behavioural and 12 physical welfare indicators was high (87–89%), reliable (Cronbach's alpha = 0.79, 95CI = 0.69–0.92) and independent of participant background. Participants highlighted fin erosion and body damage as the most useful and practical operational welfare indicators, and blood parameters and behavioural indicators as the least practical. Species profiling revealed profound differences between Atlantic salmon and lumpfish in relation to behaviour, habitat preferences, nutritional needs and response to stress, suggesting that applying a common set of welfare standards to both species cohabiting in salmon net‐pens may not work well for lumpfish. Our study offers 16 practical solutions for improving the welfare of lumpfish and illustrates the merits of the Delphi approach for achieving consensus among stakeholders on welfare needs, targeting research where is most needed and generating workable solutions.

Abstract. The three-dimensional quantification of small-scale processes in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere is one of the challenges of current atmospheric research and requires the development of new measurement strategies. This work presents the first results from the newly developed Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the Atmosphere (GLORIA) obtained during the ESSenCe (ESa Sounder Campaign) and TACTS/ESMVal (TACTS: Transport and composition in the upper troposphere/lowermost stratosphere, ESMVal: Earth System Model Validation) aircraft campaigns. The focus of this work is on the so-called dynamics-mode data characterized by a medium-spectral and a very-high-spatial resolution. The retrieval strategy for the derivation of two- and three-dimensional constituent fields in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere is presented. Uncertainties of the main retrieval targets (temperature, O3, HNO3, and CFC-12) and their spatial resolution are discussed. During ESSenCe, high-resolution two-dimensional cross-sections have been obtained. Comparisons to collocated remote-sensing and in situ data indicate a good agreement between the data sets. During TACTS/ESMVal, a tomographic flight pattern to sense an intrusion of stratospheric air deep into the troposphere was performed. It was possible to reconstruct this filament at an unprecedented spatial resolution of better than 500 m vertically and 20 × 20 km horizontally.

This paper outlines how sponsorships can be beneficial or harmful to events. Using an experimental design and focusing on association transfers surrounding a snowboarding event, we illustrate that the sponsoring brand associations have a significant effect on the associations of the event. Our results indicate that in this instance some associations are transferred; others are not significant. Event managers must track which of these association transfers are occurring in order to understand and maintain their desired positioning.

Purpose – The core of project management is the management of a temporary task, often with a high degree of uniqueness. The purpose of this paper is to address project management issues where another type of temporality also prevails; when external consultants on short-term contracts cooperate with the employees of the focal firm. The research question is: do external consultants and employees, working together on a project, engage in different or similar knowledge sharing behaviors? What are the impact of autonomous motivation, organizational support and trust on knowledge sharing? Design/methodology/approach – The empirical setting of the study is subsea activities, which is part the oil and gas industry in Norway. The respondents are regular employees with a permanent contract and external consultants employed by a third party; which is the most common external work arrangement in the industry. The sample consists of employees of a focal firm, external consultants of the focal firm and external consultants identified by their employer (two firms). The survey was administered by e-mail to 323 possible respondents. Of these, 268 were from the focal firm (194 employees and 74 external consultants), and 55 from the two consulting companies. After four weeks of collecting data, 138 responses had been registered. This is a response rate of 43 percent. The response rates were similar in the three categories. The survey was designed using Qualtrics, an online survey software tool and was administered by e-mail in the winter of 2012. Findings – The regression analysis found that there was no difference in knowledge sharing between employees and external consultants. Thus the empirical analysis supports the “project identity” hypothesis, rather than the “employment matters” hypothesis. Further, there were positive, significant impacts of autonomous motivation and perceived organizational support on knowledge sharing. The findings are similar across samples. R 2 is quite high in models B (0.447) and D (0.458), indicating that a large share of the variation in knowledge sharing is explained by the full model. Research limitations/implications – Based on the empirical study here, the “employment arrangement” thesis was not supported. The authors believe, however, that combining the two types of temporality (work organization and employment arrangement) is a promising area of exploration and it is not given that further studies will provide similar empirical findings. Further research should explore under what conditions employment arrangements have an impact on knowledge sharing. The research may be extended along three dimensions. First, the study of knowledge sharing when employees and external consultants work together (on projects managed by the focal firm) should be extended to include other firms, other types of competence as well as economic sectors outside petroleum. Second, research on employment arrangements in projects, should consider project contexts that are different from the type emphasized here, such as development projects and projects that have a fundamental inter-organizational character characterized by dual responsibility. Third, a number of others issues, in addition to knowledge sharing, are relevant. Combining the two aspects of temporality may provide opportunities for exploring the impact of organizational context in the field of leadership studies. Practical implications – Management should strive to increase autonomous motivation and provide organizational support for both employees and external consultants. It is possible to use external consultants without negative effects on the level of knowledge sharing. Managers should be aware of the challenges related to both types of temporality. Social implications – Increased awareness of the relevance of both types of temporality in contemporary working life. Originality/value – In previous research, project organization and temporary employment relations are two distinct areas. This is one of the first empirical studies that have analyzed both aspects of temporality. The paper contributes to the literature on antecedents of knowledge sharing in organizations, and suggest avenues for further research in this issue. Further, in addressing both types of temporality, a number of other research themes are suggested.

Energy management plays a crucial role in providing necessary system flexibility to deal with the ongoing integration of volatile and intermittent energy sources. Demand Response (DR) programs enhance demand flexibility by communicating energy market price volatility to the end-consumer. In such environments, home energy management systems assist the use of flexible end-appliances, based upon the individual consumer’s personal preferences and beliefs. However, with the latter heterogeneously distributed, not all dynamic pricing schemes are equally adequate for the individual needs of households. We conduct one of the first large scale natural experiments, with multiple dynamic pricing schemes for end consumers, allowing us to analyze different demand behavior in relation with household attributes. We apply a spectral relaxation clustering approach to show distinct groups of households within the two most used dynamic pricing schemes: Time-Of-Use and Real-Time Pricing. The results indicate that a more effective design of smart home energy management systems can lead to a better fit between customer and electricity tariff in order to reduce costs, enhance predictability and stability of load and allow for more optimal use of demand flexibility by such systems.

Backsourcing, defined generally as bringing services outsourced to a third party back in-house, is now a growing phenomenon. The decision to backsource has several significant implications for an organization, as it requires the organization to manage organizational change, reintegrate knowledge, and develop new capabilities and competences. Taking into account there is very limited empirical evidence of how to successfully accomplish the backsourcing process, two case studies included in this teaching case offer additional insight into the process of backsourcing. To prepare students for case analysis, this teaching case starts by describing the backsourcing phenomenon, followed by an overview of the backsourcing trend, and includes a brief review of the relevant literature that mainly focuses on backsourcing decisions and touches on critical success factors for implementing a backsourcing initiative. This is followed by two case studies that describe two essentially different examples of backsourcing. The first case study (MediaCorp) deals with the example of backsourcing IT hosting services, which is considered a business process, whereas the second case study (ITServCorp) talks about bringing an IT product development back in-house. However, regardless of the nature of the backsourced activity, analysis of these two cases allows deeper understanding of the process through which the backsourcing initiative has been implemented. Therefore, while each case can be used separately to analyze different aspects of backsourcing, they also can be analyzed in a comparative manner to better understand the process of backsourcing.

Predicting the effort, duration and cost required to develop and maintain a software system is crucial in IT project management. Although an accurate estimation is invaluable for the success of an IT development project, it often proves difficult to attain. This paper presents an empirical evaluation of four parametric software estimation models, namely COCOMO II, SEER-SEM, SLIM, and True Planning, in terms of their project effort and duration prediction accuracy. Using real project data from 51 software development projects, we evaluated the capabilities of the models by comparing the predictions with the actual effort and duration values. The study showed that the estimation capabilities of the models investigated are on a par in accuracy, while there is still significant room for improvement in order to better address the prediction challenges faced in practice.

Despite the considerable attention that the ICN paradigm received so far, its deployment has been hindered by the scale of upgrades required to the existing infrastructure. Software programmable networking frameworks would constitute a remarkable opportunity for ICN as they enable fast deployment of novel technologies on commodity hardware. However, a software ICN router implementation for commodity platforms guaranteeing adequate packet processing performance is not available yet. This paper introduces Augustus, a software architecture for ICN routers, and detail two implementations, stand-alone and modular, released as open-source code. We deployed both implementations on a state-of-the-art hardware platform and analyzed their performance under different configurations. Our analysis shows that with both implementations it is possible to achieve a throughput of approximately 10 Mpps, saturating 10 Gbit/s links with packet as small as 100 bytes. However, to achieve such performance, routers must be carefully configured to fully exploit the capabilities of the hardware platforms they run on.

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> There are only three 6-SPS parallel manipulators with triangular base and platform, i.e., the octahedral, the flagged, and the partially flagged, which are studied in this paper. The forward kinematics of the octahedral manipulator is algebraically intricate, while those of the other two can be solved by three trilaterations. As an additional nice feature, the flagged manipulator is the only parallel platform for which a cell decomposition of its singularity locus has been derived. Here, we prove that the partially flagged manipulator also admits a well-behaved decomposition, technically called a stratification, some of whose strata are not topological cells, however. Remarkably, the adjacency diagram of the 5-D and 6-D strata (which shows what 5-D strata are contained in the closure of a 6-D one) is the same as for the flagged manipulator. The availability of such a decomposition permits devising a redundant 7-SPS manipulator, combining two partially flagged ones, which admits a control strategy that completely avoids singularities. Simulation results support these claims. </para>

Abstract. The Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the Atmosphere (GLORIA) is an imaging limb emission sounder operating in the thermal infrared region. It is designed to provide measurements of the Upper Troposphere/Lower Stratosphere with high spatial and high spectral resolution. The instrument consists of an imaging Fourier transform spectrometer integrated in a gimbal. The assembly can be mounted in the belly pod of the German high altitude and long range research aircraft HALO and in instrument bays of the Russian M55 Geophysica. Measurements are made predominantly in two distinct modes: the chemistry mode emphasises chemical analysis with high spectral resolution, the dynamics mode focuses on dynamical processes of the atmosphere with very high spatial resolution. In addition the instrument allows tomographic analyses of air volumes. The first measurement campaigns have shown compliance with key performance and operational requirements.

Advanced AR/VR headsets often have a dedicated depth sensor or multiple cameras, high processing power, and a high-capacity battery to track hands or controllers. However, these approaches are not compatible with the small form factor and limited thermal capacity of lightweight AR devices. In this paper, we present RetroSphere, a self-contained 6 degree of freedom (6DoF) controller tracker that can be integrated with almost any device. RetroSphere tracks a passive controller with just 3 retroreflective spheres using a stereo pair of mass-produced infrared blob trackers, each with its own infrared LED emitters. As the sphere is completely passive, no electronics or recharging is required. Each object tracking camera provides a tiny Arduino-compatible ESP32 microcontroller with the 2D position of the spheres. A lightweight stereo depth estimation algorithm that runs on the ESP32 performs 6DoF tracking of the passive controller. Also, RetroSphere provides an auto-calibration procedure to calibrate the stereo IR tracker setup. Our work builds upon Johnny Lee's Wii remote hacks and aims to enable a community of researchers, designers, and makers to use 3D input in their projects with affordable off-the-shelf components. RetroSphere achieves a tracking accuracy of about 96.5% with errors as low as ~3.5 cm over a 100 cm tracking range, validated with ground truth 3D data obtained using a LIDAR camera while consuming around 400 mW. We provide implementation details, evaluate the accuracy of our system, and demonstrate example applications, such as mobile AR drawing, 3D measurement, etc. with our Retrosphere-enabled AR glass prototype.

Abstract. The three-dimensional quantification of small scale processes in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere is one of the challenges of current atmospheric research and requires the development of new measurement strategies. This work presents first results from the newly developed Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the Atmosphere (GLORIA) obtained during the ESSenCe and TACTS/ESMVal aircraft campaigns. The focus of this work is on the so-called dynamics mode data characterized by a medium spectral and a very high spatial resolution. The retrieval strategy for the derivation of two- and three-dimensional constituent fields in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere is presented. Uncertainties of the main retrieval targets (temperature, O3, HNO3 and CFC-12) and their spatial resolution are discussed. During ESSenCe, high resolution two-dimensional cross-sections have been obtained. Comparisons to collocated remote-sensing and in-situ data indicate a good agreement between the data sets. During TACTS/ESMVal a tomographic flight pattern to sense an intrusion of stratospheric air deep into the troposphere has been performed. This filament could be reconstructed with an unprecedented spatial resolution of better than 500 m vertically and 20 km × 20 km horizontally.

Over a long and distinguished career, Ronald Rivlin (figure He was a highly innovative scientist who made seminal contributions in all areas of continuum mechanics. He was one of the last savants, equally proficient in solid and fluid mechanics and in the mathematical methods needed to advance these disciplines. Although it was characteristic of scientists at the time of Cauchy and Navier, or even Poincar, this spread of knowledge no longer seems possible due to the rapid expansion of research that has occurred over the last 50 years.

This paper describes the development of a sentence parser for German based on Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). German has a number of characteristics which are very challenging to a computational approach to syntactic processing that is semantically motivated. These include the German sentence structure, which is organised as a “bracket structure”, in which one component of the predicate, mostly the finite verb, is realised in an early position in the sentence and therefore forms the “left bracket”, whereas the more meaningful part of the predicate, mostly the infinite predicate, appears at the end of the sentence and forms the “right bracket”. Inside these brackets, the main information of the sentence is placed in an order that reflects information structure, i.e. the given information precedes the new information inside the bracket. The bracket structure has recurrent formal elements. It therefore provides a formal structuring principle for sentences that is particular for German and serves functions for sentence processing, information structure and turn taking. German has a three-way gender system for nouns. Gender is marked on the article. Tense is marked on the verb. There is an aspectual system in the realisation of perfect in that telic verbs select sein in the perfect, while atelic verbs select haben. The software is developed using Java and will accept an input sentence in German from the user through a Java Swing graphical user interface. The software parses an input sentence into its respective tokens using the Java native string processing capability. Each token is checked against the respective German lexicons (noun, verb, etc.) to determine its lexical category. The morphological markings of the tokens are unpacked for their feature sets. These features are recorded for each token. The lexical entry for the verb is determined and its logical structure is retrieved from the lexicon. The result of the parse displays the populated RRG logical structure and its operators, i.e. tense, aspect etc. A trace of the application of the linking system, in mapping from syntactic clause to semantic representation, is presented.

Abstract The Google Online Marketing Challenge is perhaps the world's largest in-class competition for higher education students. Merging education with hands-on advertising, the Challenge exposes students to the increasingly important field of online marketing, engages students with local businesses and gives students the thrill of an international competition. Feedback from participating students, academics and businesses in the inaugural Challenge was overwhelmingly positive. Based on experience and feedback, Google plans an improved version in 2009. Global organisations such as CHRIE should consider a special division for hospitality and tourism students in the 2009 Challenge.

The natural phenomenon of the gathering of individuals has always provided an opportunity for social and economic research. In particular, studies examining company organisation emphasise the role of communities of practice in the transference of knowledge, enhancement of skills and coordination of employees. Business and economic researchers are now paying more attention to the potential use of this knowledge generated from accumulations of minds, in terms of innovating company production. This literature review offers an overview of the impact of ICT on the formation and functioning of these communities, with a focus on virtual communities of practice (vCoP). The innovative potential of vCoP in terms of New Product Development is examined. Several conceptual ideas to rationalise the online environment and avenues for further research are proposed.

Hohe Kundenanforderungen, steigender Wettbewerbs- und Kostendruck sowie die momentan angespannte gesamtwirtschaftliche Lage zwingen Unternehmen zu einer immer besseren Marktbearbeitung. Hierbei steht nicht mehr das Produkt im Mittelpunkt erfolgsorientierter Hersteller, sondern die Beziehung zwischen Industrie und Handel.530 Demnach sollte der Hersteller den Händler nicht als Helfer in seinem Warenverteilungssystem betrachten, sondern als eigenständig entscheidenden Kunden, der wiederum für eine noch größere Gruppe von Kunden handelt.531

Femtocells are small cellular telecommunication base stations that provide improved cellular coverage. These devices provide important improvements in coverage, battery life and throughput, they also present security challenges. We identify a problem which has not been identified in previous studies of femtocell security: rogue owners of femtocells can secretly monitor third-party mobile devices by using the femtocell's access control features. We present traffic analysis of real femtocell traces and demonstrate the ability to monitor mobile devices through classification of the femtocell's encrypted backhaul traffic. We also consider the femtocell's power usage and status LEDs as other side channels that provide information on the femtocell's operation. We conclude by presenting suitable solutions to overcome this problem.