"Personal Jesus": Adam of Bremen and 'Private' Churches in Scandinavia During the Early Conversion Period

In modern research it is customary to describe the 50s and the 60s of eleventh century as a first phase of the struggle for independence by the local churches in Scandinavia. All of them were officially subordinated to the church of Hamburg-Bremen, even if some of them found themselves under the influence of the Anglo-Saxon church. However, careful reading of Adam of Bremen's Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae Pontificum indicates that in fact the period at the end of the first phase of Christianisation, was a period of personal initiatives by local rulers to control the missions and religious establishments in their lands. These religious initiatives by rulers in 1050s and 1060s turned the control over the local churches into a political tool against unwelcome foreign influences. However, it would be a mistake to try and describe this period as an awakening of a national church movement in Scandinavia for ecclesiastical independence. The kings simply wanted to keep the church subjected only to them.Em pesquisas modernas é costume descrever as década de 50 e 60 do século XI como a primeira fase da luta pela indepen dência de igrejas locais na Escandinávia. Todas elas eram oficialmente subordinadas a igreja de Hamburgo-Bremen, mesmo que algumas delas estivessem sob a influência da igreja anglo-saxônica. Porém, uma leitura cuidadosa da Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae Pontificum de Adão de Bremen indica, de fato, que o período do final da primeira fase da cristianização era um período de iniciativas pessoais de governantes locais para controlar as missões e os estabelecimentos religiosos de suas terras. Estas iniciativas religiosas de governantes nos anos 1050s e 1060s tornou o controle sobre igrejas locais em uma ferramenta política contra a não desejada influencia externa. Contudo, seria um erro tentar descrever este período como um despertar de um movimento nacionalista da igreja escandinava por independência clerical. Os reis simplesmente queriam manter a igreja sujeita somente a eles

JOB SATISFACTION AMONG ACADEMIC STAFF IN THE PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES OF THAILAND

This study focused on job satisfaction in various aspects: day – to – day activities, work environment, compensation, and communication. In addition, the study investigated the factors leading to potential problems such as absenteeism and turnover. All participants were from Social Sciences Cluster academic staff aged between 25 to 60 years old in the public universities situated at the lower northern region of Thailand. The survey questionnaire was applied as research instrument to collect the quantitative data. The findings revealed that the overall job satisfaction of the academic staff was high. Day – to – day activities was ranked as the highest and compensation was ranked as the lowest. Additionally, the most influential factors that led to the problem at work belonged to work overload, lack of communication and lack of professional growth and development, respectively.&nbsp

Nanocrystalline ZnO obtained from pyrolytic decomposition of layered basic zinc acetate: Introducing a novel rapid microwave-assisted hydrothermal technique.

Zinc oxide (ZnO) crystal with a direct wide band gap (3.37 eV) and large excition binding energy (60 meV) is one of the most potential semiconductors in numerous application fields such as room-temperature UV-Iaser, light-emitting- diode (LED), photocatalyst, gas sensor, solar cell, piezoelectric device, etc. In past decades, different methods have been investigated to produce a variety of different shapes of nano and submicron ZnO nanostructures. Among them, the ZnO nanobelts (NBs) with a rectangular cross section have unique optoelectronic properties due to its unusual shape and structure. It is well demonstrated by recent success in field-effect transistor, nanoresonator, and spintronics applications of the ZnO NBs. Two-dimensional (2D) nanostructures such as nanosheets (NSs) and thin films have also great potential for unique purposes where a large uniform coverage at nanoscale is essential. One of the conventional methods for synthesis of the ZnO nanostructures is vapour transport and condensation process at high temperature, in some cases up to 1400°C. Such an extreme condition for vaporization of precursor could induce many oxygen defects on surface of the ZnO nanobelts. These specific defects hinder progress to the applications of ZnO in optoelectronic and lasing devices. In this respect, mild processing is strongly demanded for the synthesis of the ZnO nanoparticles. In terms of low energy consumption and simplicity, soft- solution process based on hydrothermal reactions at low temperature (under 100°C) is a green chemical procedure. However, there are only few reports on the synthesis of the ZnO NBs and NSs due to their unusual growth habit against typical growth rate of the ZnO crystal. Here we are reporting a developed simple, low cost and high yield hydrothermal technique to synthesis layered basic zinc acetate (LBZA) NBs and also a novel rapid microwave-assisted hydrothermal technique to grow LBZA NSs only in 2 minutes. Growth procedures are followed by pyrolytic decomposition to produce nanocrystalline NBs and NSs. SEM and AFM results revealed that the morphology and quantity of the nanobelts and nanosheets are strongly temperature and pH dependent. In addition, results showed that as-grown LBZA nanostructures could be easily transformed to corresponding ZnO nanostructures through pyrolytic decomposition without

Synthesis of β-Ga2O3 thin film assisted by microwave annealing

β-Ga2O3 is increasingly being used in power electronics and UV sensors. The preparation of β-Ga2O3 thin films requires costly and time-consuming fabrication processes. Therefore, developing short-time and low-cost fabrication processes of the β-Ga2O3 thin film has been greatly demanded to quicken the pace of applying this material in practical devices and systems. In this paper, a new fabrication process combining physical vapor deposition and microwave localized annealing has been postulated for β-Ga2O3 thin films. The experimental results show that after microwave annealing bandgaps have been slightly adjusted, the surface morphology has been improved and extra diffraction peaks appear, which give rise to stronger β-phase characteristics in the Ga2O3 thin film. Calculation based on density functional theory has been conducted to show the electronic bandstructures, formation energies, and optical absorptions of both types. </jats:p

Universality and Critical Exponents of the Fermion Sign Problem

Initial characterizations of the fermion sign problem focused on its evolution with spatial lattice size $L$ and inverse temperature $\beta$, emphasizing the implications of the exponential nature of the decay of the average sign $\langle {\cal S} \rangle$ for the complexity of its solution and associated limitations of quantum Monte Carlo studies of strongly correlated materials. Early interest was also on the evolution of $\langle {\cal S} \rangle$ with density $\rho$, either because commensurate filling is often associated with special symmetries for which the sign problem is absent, or because particular fillings are often primary targets, e.g.~those densities which maximize superconducting transition temperature (the top of the `dome' of cuprate systems). Here we describe a new analysis of the sign problem which demonstrates that the {\it spin-resolved} sign $\langle {\cal S}_\sigma\rangle$ already possesses signatures of universal behavior traditionally associated with order parameters, even in the absence of symmetry protection that makes $\langle {\cal S} \rangle = 1$. When appropriately scaled, $\langle {\cal S}_\sigma \rangle$ exhibits universal crossings and data collapse. Moreover, we show these behaviors occur in the vicinity of quantum critical points of three well understood models, exhibiting either second order or Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transitions. Our results pave the way for using the average sign as a minimal correlator that can potentially describe quantum criticality in a variety of fermionic many-body problems.Comment: 13+6 pages, 9+6 figure

Efficient Microwave-Assisted Extraction of Nitrites from Cured Meat and Their Voltammetric Detection at Chemically Modified Electrodes Based on Hexamethyl-p-Terphenyl Poly(methylatedbenzimidazolium) Incorporating Nitrogen-Doped Graphite Nanoplatelets

We describe a fast and reliable procedure for the efficient extraction of nitrites in cured meat using microwave-assisted heat and report their in situ determination via voltammetry using an anion-exchanger ionene, hexamethyl-p-terphenyl poly(benzimidazolium) (HMT-PMBI), and nitrogen-doped graphite nanoplatelets (NGNPs). Cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry were utilized to evaluate the concentration of the redox mediator within the film and apparent diffusion coefficient. To investigate the suitability of the composite material for sensing applications, HMT-PMBI/NGNPs were tested for their detection of nitrite in bacon samples without the need of any pretreatments or dilutions. HMT-PMBI/NGNP coated electrodes showed enhanced sensitivity in the detection of nitrite ions in bacon with a limit of detection (LoD) of 0.64 µM, sensitivity 0.52 µA µM−1 cm−2, and operating in a linear range between 1–300 μM. The results highlight that the determination of nitrites in cured meat using microwave extraction is in good agreement with standard procedures such as the ISO 2918 and the AOAC International 973.31 methods

Microwave-assisted synthesis of layered basic zinc acetate nanosheets and their thermal decomposition into nanocrystalline ZnO

We have developed a low-cost technique using a conventional microwave oven to grow layered basic zinc acetate (LBZA) nanosheets (NSs) from a zinc acetate, zinc nitrate and HMTA solution in only 2 min. The as-grown crystals and their pyrolytic decomposition into ZnO nanocrystalline NSs are characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and photoluminescence (PL). SEM and AFM measurements show that the LBZA NSs have typical lateral dimensions of 1 to 5 μm and thickness of 20 to 100 nm. Annealing in air from 200°C to 1,000°C results in the formation of ZnO nanocrystalline NSs, with a nanocrystallite size ranging from 16 nm at 200°C to 104 nm at 1,000°C, as determined by SEM. SEM shows evidence of sintering at 600°C. PL shows that the shape of the visible band is greatly affected by the annealing temperature and that the exciton band to defect band intensity ratio is maximum at 400°C and decreases by a factor of 15 after annealing at 600°C. The shape and thickness of the ZnO nanocrystalline NSs are the same as LBZA NSs. This structure provides a high surface-to-volume ratio of interconnected nanoparticles that is favorable for applications requiring high specific area and low resistivity such as gas sensing and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). We show that resistive gas sensors fabricated with the ZnO NSs showed a response of 1.12 and 1.65 to 12.5 ppm and 200 ppm of CO at 350°C in dry air, respectively, and that DSCs also fabricated from the material had an overall efficiency of 1.3%

Effects of Vacuum Annealing on the Conduction Characteristics of ZnO Nanosheets

This paper is open acess and available in full at http://www.nanoscalereslett.com/content/10/1/368 .ZnO nanosheets are a relatively new form of nanostructure and have demonstrated potential as gas-sensing devices and dye sensitised solar cells. For integration into other devices, and when used as gas sensors, the nanosheets are often heated. Here we study the effect of vacuum annealing on the electrical transport properties of ZnO nanosheets in order to understand the role of heating in device fabrication. A low cost, mass production method has been used for synthesis and characterisation is achieved using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), photoluminescence (PL), auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and nanoscale two-point probe. Before annealing, the measured nanosheet resistance displayed a non-linear increase with probe separation, attributed to surface contamination. Annealing to 300 °C removed this contamination giving a resistance drop, linear probe spacing dependence, increased grain size and a reduction in the number of n-type defects. Further annealing to 500 °C caused the n-type defect concentration to reduce further with a corresponding increase in nanosheet resistance not compensated by any further sintering. At 700 °C, the nanosheets partially disintegrated and the resistance increased and became less linear with probe separation. These effects need to be taken into account when using ZnO nanosheets in devices that require an annealing stage during fabrication or heating during use

Investigation of the growth parameters of hydrothermal ZnO nanowires for scale up applications

Zinc oxide nano-wires (ZnO NWs) are synthesized reproducibly with high yield via a low temperature hydrothermal technique. The influence of the growth duration time, growth temperature, zinc precursor and base concentration of Na2CO3 on the morphology of NWs is investigated. The growth products are characterised using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and photoluminescence (PL). SEM analysis shows that the optimum growth temperature is 140 °C and finds that length and diameter of ZnO NWs have a relationship with growth duration time and base concentrations of Na2CO3. In addition, it is reported that a high (∼ 90%) yield of ZnO NWs can be synthesised via using any of three different precursors: zinc chloride, zinc acetate and zinc nitrate. TEM and XRD results indicate the high purity and the single crystalline nature of the ZnO NWs. XPS confirms the absence of sodium contaminants on the surface and indicates a near flat band surface condition. PL shows a large visible band in the yellow part of the spectrum, and a small exciton emission peak, indicating a large defect concentration, which is reduced after annealing in air