Session overview What’s happening? What does the future hold? What keeps you awake at night? The times they are a-changin’. So sang Bob Dylan back in 1963. And those words still resonate today – whether in politics and society, or fundraising and the nonprofit sector. So what do advanced executives do? What cage-rattling questions (CRQs) do leaders ask? How do leaders use conversation as a core...

The synthesis and structural, chemical, and transport properties of a new clathrate compound with elemental composition Cs8Zn4Sn42 is reported. This compound is cubic with space group Pm3hn and a lattice parameter of 12.1226(19) Å. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction and structural refinement indicate that Cs atoms reside in the polyhedral cavities formed by the tetrahedrally bonded network of Zn ...

Raman scattering spectra of filled skutterudite RT4X12 (R=La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm and Y, T=Fe, Ru and Os, and X=Sb and P) and unfilled skutterudite CoP3 have been measured. All first-order Raman active phonons, which are due to the vibration of pnictogens, are observed. In addition, the crystal field excitations in PrRu4P12 spectra and the 2 order phonons including rare-earth vibrations in SmRu4P12 ...

Thermoelectricity, by converting heat energy directly into useable electricity, offers a promising technology to convert heat from solar energy and to recover waste heat from industrial sectors and automobile exhausts. In recent years, most of the efforts have been done on improving the thermoelectric efficiency using different approaches, that is, nanostructuring, doping, molecular rattling, a...

We describe an excitation interface for displaying data on mobile devices, based around active exploration: devices are shaken, revealing the contents rattling around inside. This combines samplebased contact sonification with event-playback vibrotactile feedback for a rich and compelling display. Motion is sensed from accelerometers, directly linking the motions of the user to the feedback the...

The increasing worldwide energy consumption calls for the design of more efficient energy systems. Thermoelectrics could be used to convert waste heat back to useful electric energy if only more efficient materials were available. The ideal thermoelectric material combines high electrical conductivity and thermopower with low thermal conductivity. In this regard, the intermetallic type-I clathr...

Structural analysis and thermal conductivity data on Sr8Ga16Ge30 and Eu8Ga16Ge30 crystals are reported. These compounds form in the cubic space group Pm 3̄n with lattice parameters of 10.721~2! and 10.703~2! Å respectively. Single-crystal x-ray diffraction and structural refinement indicate that the randomly distributed Ga and Ge atoms form a tetrahedrally bonded three-dimensional net in whose c...