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EPJ celebrates 15th anniversary

EPJ 15th anniversary logo

The European publishing partnership for physics, The European Physical Journal (EPJ), celebrates its 15th year in 2013.

During this time, EPJ has launched new open access titles, either in response to the emergence of new research fields at the interface between more established subjects, or to fill obvious gaps in the EPJ catalogue. After the early launches of EPJ Web of Conferences (the open access proceedings repository) in 2009 and EPJ Photovoltaics in 2010, 2012 witnessed the launch of EPJ Data Science. This year, three new journals are about to join them: EPJ Nonlinear Biomedical Physics, EPJ Techniques and Instrumentation and EPJ Quantum Technology. EPJ is also pleased to see EPJ C – Particles and Fields lined up for conversion into a fully open access journal under SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics).

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EPJ B Highlight - Predicting collective online behaviour

The visualisation of several clickstream networks.

A team of Chinese scientists evaluates the impact of a website based on the interaction between its users with the entire Web

A new study shows that small websites, in terms of daily user flux based on number of clicks, have a disproportionally high impact when it comes to traffic generation and influence compared to larger websites. These findings, just published in EPJ B, have implications for estimating the value of sites and related advertising revenue. They result from the work of Lingfei Wu from the City University of Hong Kong and Jiang Zhang from the School of Management, at Beijing Normal University, China.

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EPJ E Highlight - How cells get a skeleton

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Microscopy image of a cell.

Stress generated by nano-motors within animal cells can lead to the creation of a condensed layer of filaments beneath the outer cell membrane

The mechanism responsible for generating part of the skeletal support for the membrane in animal cells is not yet clearly understood. Now, Jean-François Joanny from the Physico Chemistry Curie Unit at the Curie Institute in Paris and colleagues have found that a well-defined layer beneath the cell outer membrane forms beyond a certain critical level of stress generated by motor proteins within the cellular system. These findings, which offer a new understanding of the formation of this so-called cortical layer, have just been published in EPJ E.

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EPJ B Highlight - Coupled particles cross energy wall

Numerically-computed evolution of the coupled particle density function across the potential wall

Model demonstrates that it is possible for two particles to cross an energy barrier together, where a single particle could not

For the first time, a new kind of so-called Klein tunnelling—representing the quantum equivalent of crossing an energy wall— has been presented in a model of two interacting particles. This work by Stefano Longhi and Giuseppe Della Valle from the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnology in Milan, Italy, has just been published in EPJ B.

Klein tunnelling is a quantum phenomenon referring to the fact that a high-potential barrier can be transparent to a particle moving at a speed nearing that of light, referred to as relativistic. Most of the previous Klein tunnelling models describe the phenomenon for a single particle. However, when two particles are involved, tunnelling can be modified as a result of their mutual interaction. This means, for example, that two electrons hopping on a lattice, or two ultra-cold atoms trapped in an optical lattice can exchange energy when they occupy the same lattice site.

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EPJ B Highlight - Promising doped zirconia

Positive (red) and negative (blue) isosurfaces of the magnetisation density of doped zirconia

A new study discusses the electric and magnetic characteristics of a material which could be used in spintronics

Materials belonging to the family of dilute magnetic oxides (DMOs) — an oxide-based variant of the dilute magnetic semiconductors — are good candidates for spintronics applications. This is the object of study for Davide Sangalli of the Microelectronics and Microsystems Institute (IMM) at the National Research Council (CNR), in Agrate Brianza, Italy, and colleagues. They recently explored the effect of iron (Fe) doping on thin films of a material called zirconia (ZrO2 oxide). For the first time, the authors bridged the gap between the theoretical predictions and the experimental measurements of this material, in a paper just published in EPJ B.

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EPJ D Highlight - Elucidating energy shifts in optical tweezers

Optical tweezers have many uses on quantum applications. © VU University Amsterdam

Physicists are providing an all-in-one guide to help calculate the effect the use of optical tweezers has on the energy levels of atoms under study

A small piece of paper sticks to an electrically charged plastic ruler. The principle of this simple classroom physics experiment is applied at the microscopic scale by so-called optical tweezers to get the likes of polystyrene micro-beads and even living cells to “stick” to a laser beam, or to trap atoms at ultra-low temperatures. Physicist Fam Le Kien and his colleagues from the Institute of Atomic and Subatomic Physics of the Vienna University of Technology, Austria, provide a comprehensive manual with general theoretical tools, definitions, and spectroscopic data sets for calculating the energy levels of atoms, which are modified by light emanating from optical tweezers, in a study just published in EPJ D.

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EPJ Nonlinear Biomedical Physics: A new Open Access journal is launched

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The publishers of EPJ are pleased to announce the launch of a new Open Access journal: EPJ Nonlinear Biomedical Physics. A Commentary and two Research papers are already available.

This new peer-reviewed journal will promote and disseminate new research in the field of quantitative biomedical complexity science. Its special focus is on the applications of nonlinear dynamics and complexity-inspired integrative systems science, to the quantitative modeling and understanding of how structure, function and/or dysfunctions and diseases emerge in complex biomedical matter, systems and processes.

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EPJ E Highlight - Microgels’ behaviour under scrutiny

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Set of measured velocity profiles with Carbopol microgel.

A new study explores the counter-intuitive behaviour of a microgel composed of soft polymer blobs

Being a physicist offers many perks. For one, it allows an understanding of the substances ubiquitous in everyday industrial products such as emulsions, gels, granular pastes or foams. These are known for their intermediate behaviour between fluid and solid. Paint, for example, can be picked up on a paintbrush without flowing and spread under the stress of the brush stroke like a fluid. Baudouin Geraud and colleagues from the Light Matter Institute at the University of Lyon, France, have studied the flow of a microgel confined in microchannels. They have shown, in a study just published in EPJ E, that its behaviour under confinement differs from predictions based on standard theories. Indeed, its molecules are not only subjected to local forces, but also to neighbouring forces that affect its flow.

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EPJ Plus news: Eugenio Nappi joins Luisa Cifarelli as EiC of EPJ Plus

Eugenio Nappi joins Luisa Cifarelli as EiC of EPJ Plus

EPJ Plus welcomes Eugenio Nappi as co-Editor in Chief, alongside Luisa Cifarelli. Nappi is Director of Research at INFN, the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare. He is an experimental particle physicist who has carried out most of his research activities at CERN and DESY.

His main research interests include the study of heavy nucleus collisions at ultrarelativistic energies with the ALICE Experiment at LHC, where he held the highest managerial positions. In 2000, he became project leader of the Cherenkov system, named HMPID, the largest CsI Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detector ever built. In the same year he joined the HERMES experiment at HERA-DESY. In HERMES, he spearheaded the design of the first-ever aerogel radiator RICH detector. More recently, he has become interested in medical imaging and joined the AXPET collaboration at CERN, which is intended to develop a new concept for Positron Emission Tomography (PET).

Author of more than 250 peer-reviewed papers, he is a member of the Executive Board of INFN, the ICFA Panel on Instrumentation, the CST of CNRS-IPN Orsay, the ECE (Expert Committee for the Experiments) of FAIR and the STC (Steering Committee) OF ESS (European Spallation Source).

EPJ H now has a second Managing Editor

EPJ H now has a second Managing Editor

Earlier this year Francesco Guerra, who had been a member of the editorial board of EPJ H - Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics since its launch in 2010, joined Wolf Beiglböck in managing the journal.

Prof. Francesco Guerra, a graduate from the University of Naples, is full professor of theoretical physics at the University of Rome 'La Sapienza'. He has served on many national academic evaluation committees and is currently a member of the Physics Panel of the National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research.

His scientific interests include quantum field theory and elementary particles, stochastic methods in quantum mechanics, stochastic variational principles, statistical mechanics of spin glasses and complex systems, and the history of modern physics (in particular nuclear physics). In 2008, he was the recipient of the Italian Physical Society’s Prize for History of Physics.

Managing Editors
Sandrine Karpe and Vijala Kiruvanayagam (EDP Sciences) and Sabine Lehr (Springer-Verlag)
Dear Isabelle, dear Ms. Lehr,
We want to express our sincere thanks to you for your outstanding work perfectly in time.

Kerstin Eckert, TU Dresden, Germany
on behalf of the other Editors EPJ Special Topics 220, 2013

ISSN: 1951-6355 (Print Edition)
ISSN: 1951-6401 (Electronic Edition)

© EDP Sciences and Springer-Verlag