Dystopia on the Health Superhighway

The emerging Information Superhighway is starting to induce visions of dystopia within the medical profession. In several countries, doctors have opposed plans for the establishment of national health data networks. In the most recent example, the Council of the British Medical Association threatened to boycott the government's national data strategy. This action followed the lead of Australian doctors, many of whom have consistently opposed a national wide-area network for health data. In common is the fear that this data linkage will erode medical independence, increase the power of government health authorities, and eliminate the confidentiality of medical information. Doctors have a duty of care to patients to protect confidentiality, and they say the emerging national networks compromise this responsibility. Here, I argue that the emerging health superhighways should either conform to strict privacy standards or they should be demolished.     

回顾过去,展望未来澳大利亚国家档案馆电子文件管理30年

发动变革的引擎 30多年前,澳大利亚国家档案馆(下简称国家馆)首次接收移交进馆关于石油开发勘测中海底爆破的数量庞大的计算机文件.     

Preventive Conservation on Demand: Developing Tools and Learning Resources for the Next Generation of Collections Professionals

ABSTRACT

The modern learning environment is evolving at a rapid pace. Technology can help developers of preventive conservation tools and learning resources for collections professionals to increase their impact and reach. However, it is crucial to keep the needs of users, and gaps in skills and knowledge at the forefront. This article examines preventive conservation tools and resources developed by the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) and ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property) over the past 30 years. In light of the results from a recent survey and research in the learning and development field, a set of orientations for future tool development are highlighted; these tools must be: need driven, user centered, emulating everyday experiences, social and informal, concise, mobile friendly, curated and open access.     

Two-dimensional ferromagnetic superlattices

Mechanically exfoliated two-dimensional ferromagnetic materials (2D FMs) possess long-range ferromagnetic order and topologically nontrivial skyrmions in few layers. However, because of the dimensionality effect, such few-layer systems usually exhibit much lower Curie temperature (T_C) compared to their bulk counterparts. It is therefore of great interest to explore effective approaches to enhance their T_C, particularly in wafer-scale for practical applications. Here, we report an interfacial proximity-induced high-T_C 2D FM Fe₃GeTe₂ (FGT) via A-type antiferromagnetic material CrSb (CS) which strongly couples to FGT. A superlattice structure of (FGT/CS)_n, where n stands for the period of FGT/CS heterostructure, has been successfully produced with sharp interfaces by molecular-beam epitaxy on 2-inch wafers. By performing elemental specific X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) measurements, we have unequivocally discovered that T_C of 4-layer Fe₃GeTe₂ can be significantly enhanced from 140 K to 230 K because of the interfacial ferromagnetic coupling. Meanwhile, an inverse proximity effect occurs in the FGT/CS interface, driving the interfacial antiferromagnetic CrSb into a ferrimagnetic state as evidenced by double-switching behavior in hysteresis loops and the XMCD spectra. Density functional theory calculations show that the Fe-Te/Cr-Sb interface is strongly FM coupled and doping of the spin-polarized electrons by the interfacial Cr layer gives rise to the T_C enhancement of the Fe₃GeTe₂ films, in accordance with our XMCD measurements. Strikingly, by introducing rich Fe in a 4-layer FGT/CS superlattice, T_C can be further enhanced to near room temperature. Our results provide a feasible approach for enhancing the magnetic order of few-layer 2D FMs in wafer-scale and render opportunities for realizing realistic ultra-thin spintronic devices.