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The characterization of thin liquid films is relevant to many engineering applications, ranging from oil and chemical industry to refrigeration systems, to cooling of light water nuclear reactors. The total internal reflection method (TIRM) is an optical method known for decades for being able to non-intrusively measure film thickness of a wide range of fluids flowing over a transparent wall, but systematic studies on the accuracy of the method are still missing. In this work, TIRM is presented and all the main potential error sources related to the application of such measurement are thoroughly characterized. The analysis includes the potential impact of variation of the refractive index on the measured thickness, the extension of the experimental calibration range to a broader set of measurable thicknesses and the effect of the inhomogeneity of the film free surface on the measured thickness. This latter aspect was never investigated in detail before because of the inherent complexity of the involved physical phenomena, but an in-house developed ray-tracing simulation allows new insights into the problem. Overall, the present paper redefines the utilization limitations and the accuracy of TIRM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploitation of natural forests forms expanding frontiers. Simultaneously, protected area frontiers aim at maintaining functional habitat networks. To assess net effects of these frontiers, we examined 16 case study areas on five continents. We (1) mapped protected area instruments, (2) assessed their effectiveness, (3) mapped policy implementation tools, and (4) effects on protected areas originating from their surroundings. Results are given as follows: (1) conservation instruments covered 3–77%, (2) effectiveness of habitat networks depended on representativeness, habitat quality, functional connectivity, resource extraction in protected areas, time for landscape restoration, "paper parks", "fortress conservation", and data access, (3) regulatory policy instruments dominated over economic and informational, (4) negative matrix effects dominated over positive ones (protective forests, buffer zones, inaccessibility), which were restricted to former USSR and Costa Rica. Despite evidence-based knowledge about conservation targets, the importance of spatial segregation of conservation and use, and traditional knowledge, the trajectories for biodiversity conservation were generally negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We formulate a method for computing the effective Lagrangian of the Polyakov line on the lattice. Using mean field approximation we calculate the effective potential for high temperatures. The result agrees with recent lattice simulations. We reveal a new type of ultraviolet divergence (coming from longitudinal gluons) which dominates the effective potential and explains the discrepancy of the lattice simulations and standard perturbative calculations performed in covariant gauges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We give a simplified proof of the Tits classification of semisimple algebraic groups that remains valid over semilocal rings. We also give a new proof of the existence of all indices of exceptional inner type using the notion of canonical dimension of projective homogeneous varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]