Honeycomb Lattice in Metal-Rich Chalcogenide Fe2Te

Two-dimensional honeycomb crystals have inspired intense research interest for their novel properties and great potential in electronics and optoelectronics. Here, through molecular beam epitaxy on SrTiO3(001), we report successful epitaxial growth of metal-rich chalcogenide Fe2Te, a honeycomb-structured film that has no direct bulk analogue, under Te-limited growth conditions. The structural morphology and electronic properties of Fe2Te are explored with scanning tunneling microscopy and angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy, which reveal electronic bands cross the Fermi level and nearly flat bands. Moreover, we find a weak interfacial interaction between Fe2Te and the underlying substrates, paving a newly developed alternative avenue for honeycomb-based electronic devices.

“To Leaven the Lump”: A Critical History of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship in New Zealand

<p>This thesis is an interpretation of the history and character of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship in New Zealand (NZAPF). It focuses on accounting for the limited growth and influence of the Fellowship upon New Zealand’s largest Christian denomination, and on the continuing marginality of the pacifist position. Throughout its history, the organisation has sought to convince others within the Anglican Church that an absolutist, politically engaged and non-anarchistic pacifism is the truest Christian response to the problem of modern warfare. This has been attempted primarily through efforts at education aimed at both clergy and laity. The thesis argues that the NZAPF has been characterised by a commitment to absolute doctrinaire pacifism, despite ongoing tensions between this position and more pragmatic considerations. Overall, the NZAPF attracted only a small group of members throughout its history, and it exerted a limited demonstrable influence on the Anglican Church. This thesis analyses the reasons for this, focusing especially on those factors which arose from the nature of the NZAPF itself, the character of its pacifism, and the relationship between the NZAPF and its primary target audience, the Anglican Church in New Zealand. The research is based on literature and correspondence from the NZAPF as well as personal communication with extant members, where this was feasible. It additionally draws on a range of relevant secondary literature on Christian pacifism, and the history of the Anglican Church and the peace movement in New Zealand.</p>

“To Leaven the Lump”: A Critical History of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship in New Zealand

<p>This thesis is an interpretation of the history and character of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship in New Zealand (NZAPF). It focuses on accounting for the limited growth and influence of the Fellowship upon New Zealand’s largest Christian denomination, and on the continuing marginality of the pacifist position. Throughout its history, the organisation has sought to convince others within the Anglican Church that an absolutist, politically engaged and non-anarchistic pacifism is the truest Christian response to the problem of modern warfare. This has been attempted primarily through efforts at education aimed at both clergy and laity. The thesis argues that the NZAPF has been characterised by a commitment to absolute doctrinaire pacifism, despite ongoing tensions between this position and more pragmatic considerations. Overall, the NZAPF attracted only a small group of members throughout its history, and it exerted a limited demonstrable influence on the Anglican Church. This thesis analyses the reasons for this, focusing especially on those factors which arose from the nature of the NZAPF itself, the character of its pacifism, and the relationship between the NZAPF and its primary target audience, the Anglican Church in New Zealand. The research is based on literature and correspondence from the NZAPF as well as personal communication with extant members, where this was feasible. It additionally draws on a range of relevant secondary literature on Christian pacifism, and the history of the Anglican Church and the peace movement in New Zealand.</p>

Liberalism in the Post-liberal Epoch

The main concept of the article consists in the idea that the crisis is faced not by liberalism as ideology, but by liberal democracy as social order type based on the consensus of mainstream political forces. The author analyzes the causes of the said crisis, the nature of the challenge to liberal democracy and the main features of non-liberal populist political forces. He comes to the conclusion that serious erosion of liberal democracy in the Western countries is under way, still the social order survives. The reason for that lies both in the ingrained liberal values and institutes, and in the failure of the non-liberal populist forces to offer an alternative development project, and thus the limited growth of their influence. In the long run the crisis overcoming depends on the ability of the West to solve fundamental economic problems that can be viewed as the initial cause of the crisis in politics.

Titan Company Limited: growth strategy

Complexity academic level Post-graduate; Executive education; Under-graduate. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 11: Strategy.

Creating Smart Cities: A Review for Holistic Approach

With the rapid proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) into urban people’s everyday walk of life, the functions of smart cities are fast approaching to be embedded in every step of people’s life. Despite the concept of smart cities founded in the late 1990s, there has been limited growth until recent popularity due to the advancements of IoTs. However, there are many challenges, predominantly people-centric, that require attention for the realisation of smart cities and expected real-life success. In this paper, we intend to investigate the state-of-the-art focus of smart cities from three angles: infrastructure engineering, information technology and people-centric management. We adopt a mixed-methods analysis of currently published literature on the topic of smart cities. Our study attempts to draw attention to the need for developing smart cities with a holistic approach involving multiple perspectives rather than a siloed emphasis on technology alone. We highlight that the fields of specialisations such as information technology and infrastructure engineering in contributing to smart cities need a cross-domain holistic approach of managing people-centric service requirements for improving consumer satisfaction and sustainability.

Modeling of Continuous PHA Production by a Hybrid Approach Based on First Principles and Machine Learning

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) are renewable alternatives to traditional oil-derived polymers. PHA can be produced by different microorganisms in continuous culture under specific media composition, which makes the production process both promising and challenging. In order to achieve large productivities while maintaining high yield and efficiency, the continuous culture needs to be operated in the so-called dual nutrient limitation condition, where both the nitrogen and carbon sources are kept at very low concentrations. Mathematical models can greatly assist both design and operation of the bioprocess, but are challenged by the complexity of the system, in particular by the dual nutrient-limited growth phenomenon, where the cells undergo a metabolic shift that abruptly changes their behavior. Traditional, non-structured mechanistic models based on Monod uptake kinetics can be used to describe the bioreactor operation under specific process conditions. However, in the absence of a model description of the metabolic phenomena inside the cell, the extrapolation to a broader operation domain (e.g., different feeding concentrations and dilution rates) may present mismatches between the predictions and the actual process outcomes. Such detailed models may require almost perfect knowledge of the cell metabolism and omic-level measurements, hampering their development. On the other hand, purely data-driven models that learn correlations from experimental data do not require any prior knowledge of the process and are therefore unbiased and flexible. However, many more data are required for their development and their extrapolation ability is limited to conditions that are similar to the ones used for training. An attractive alternative is the combination of the extrapolation power of first principles knowledge with the flexibility of machine learning methods. This approach results in a hybrid model for the growth and uptake rates that can be used to predict the dynamic operation of the bioreactor. Here we develop a hybrid model to describe the continuous production of PHA by Pseudomonas putida GPo1 culture. After training, the model with experimental data gained under different dilution rates and medium compositions, we demonstrate how the model can describe the process in a wide range of operating conditions, including both single and dual nutrient-limited growth.

Anaplerotic flux into the Calvin-Benson cycle. Integration in carbon and energy metabolism of Helianthus annuus

Plants assimilate carbon primarily via the Calvin-Benson cycle. Two companion papers reports evidence for anaplerotic carbon flux into this cycle. To estimate flux rates in Helianthus annuus leaves based on gas exchange measurements, we here expanded Farquhar-von Caemmerer-Berry photosynthesis models by terms accounting for anaplerotic respiration and energy recycling. In line with reported isotope evidence (companion papers), we found relative increases in anaplerotic flux as intercellular CO2 concentrations, Ci, decrease below a change point. At Ci=136 and 202 ppm, we found absolute rates of 2.99 and 2.39 μmol Ru5P m-2 s-1 corresponding to 58.3 and 28.2% of net CO2 assimilation, 13.1 and 10.7% of ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate regeneration, and 22.2 and 15.8% of Rubisco carboxylation (futile carbon cycling), respectively. Anaplerotic respiration governs total day respiration with contributions of 81.3 and 77.6%, and anaplerotic relative to photorespiratory CO2 release amounts to 63.9 and 67%, respectively. Furthermore, anaplerotic flux significantly increases absolute ATP demands and ATP-to-NADPH demand ratios of photosynthesis and may explain increasing sucrose-to-starch carbon partitioning ratios with decreasing Ci. We propose that anaplerotic flux can occur under both Rubisco and RuBP-limited growth conditions. Overall, our work introduces the anaplerotic pathway as central component in carbon and energy metabolism of C3 plants.