Quantum simulation of dark energy candidates

Additional scalar fields from scalar-tensor, modified gravity or higher dimensional theories beyond general relativity may account for dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the Universe. These theories have lead to proposed models of screening mechanisms, such as chameleon and symmetron fields, to account for the tight experimental bounds on fifth-force searches. Cold atom systems have been very successfully used to constrain the parameters of these screening models, and may in future eliminate the interesting parameter space of some models entirely. In this paper, we show how to manipulate a Bose-Einstein condensate to simulate the effect of any screened scalar field model coupled conformally to the metric. We give explicit expressions for the simulation of various common models. This result may be useful for investigating the computationally challenging evolution of particles on a screened scalar field background, as well as for testing the metrology scheme of an upcoming detector proposal.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figure

Evaluating EU policies on public services: a citizens´ perspective

This article evaluates EU policies on public services – particularly public network services - from the citizens´ point of view. It is first argued that citizens´ perceptions about these services are important because they are essential for quality of life, but also because they exhibit economic characteristics such as asymmetrical information, adverse selection and positive externalities. Changing EU policy on public services is synthesised and classified into two main phases in section two. Citizen satisfaction with public services as revealed through surveys from 1997 to 2007 is explored in the third section. In the discussion, the prospects for EU policy on public services are considered and, it is argued that, from the perspectives of subsidiarity and proportionality, policy towards strengthening the common market is being increasingly uploaded to the supranational level in the form of directives, whilst cohesion and redistribution policies are being downloaded to the national level or dealt with at the supranational level by “soft” instruments.Economics of public services; evaluation; citizen; consumer; satisfaction; privatization; liberalization; competition

An empirical study of power consumption of Web-based communications in mobile phones

Currently, mobile devices are the most popular pervasive computing device, and they are becoming the primer way for Web access. Energy is a critical resource in such pervasive computing devices, being network communication one of the primary energy consuming operations in mobile apps. Indeed, web-based communication is the most used, but also energy demanding. So, mobile web developers should be aware of how much energy consumes the different web-based communication alternatives. The goal of this paper is to measure and compare the energy consumption of three asynchronous Web-based methods in mobile devices. Our experiments consider three different Web applications models that allow a web server to push data to a browser: Polling, Long Polling and WebSockets. The obtained results are analyzed to get more accurate understanding of the impact in energy consumption of a mobile browser for each of these three methods. The utility of these experiments is to show developers what are the factors that influence the energy consumption when different web-based asynchronous communication is used. With this information mobile web developers could reduce the power consumption of web applications on mobile devices, by selecting the most appropriate method for asynchronous server communication.MUniversidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

The lifewatch approach to the exploration of distributed species information

© 2014 Daniel Fuentes, Nicola Fiore. This paper introduces a new method of automatically extracting, integrating and presenting information regarding species from the most relevant online taxonomic resources. First, the information is extracted and joined using data wrappers and integration solutions. Ten, an analytical tool is used to provide a visual representation of the data. Te information is then integrated into a user friendly content management system. Te proposal has been implemented using data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the Catalogue of Life (CoL), the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) and the Global Names Index (GNI). Te approach improves data quality, avoiding taxonomic and nomenclature errors whilst increasing the availability and accessibility of the information.Peer Reviewe

HADAS: tool for analysis and development of sustainable applications

Durante esta Conferencia Internacional, representantes del Gobierno, autoridades locales, instituciones públicas y privadas, vicerrectores de Internacionalización y talento nacional e internacional crearon un ecosistema para fomentar las colaboraciones nacionales e internacionales, así como la presentación de nuevas ideas para resolver retos que afectan a la sociedad. Se trata de un foro único, donde se presentaron trabajos científicos y se otorgaron premios con el fin de fomentar el rigor y la excelencia científica.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Bringing Citizens Back In: Renewing Public Service Regulation

This essay concerns the ways in which public services – particularly household services such as communications, energy, water and transportation – have been regulated and deregulated, and analyses what consequences this has for users and citizens. Much of the deregulation of public services from the 1980s – liberalization, privatization and New Public Management – was justified by claims that reform would provide users with more choice, whilst they would receive cheaper and better quality services. Little account was taken of the fact that users are highly heterogeneous, that socio-economic differences might be important in determining their consumption of public services, and that this may not lead to socially optimum outcomes. By examining consumption patterns in two large European countries, Spain and the UK, through an analysis of revealed and declared preferences, this paper sheds light on how socio-economic differences among households help determine public service consumption. The main findings are that the supposed benefits of public service deregulation are not evenly spread across populations, and that specifically targeted “bottom-up” regulation from the demand-side could usefully address these issues, thus improving social welfare.Regulation, Privatization, Public Services, Telecommunications, Electricity, Gas and water