President Welcomes Prime Minister of Slovakia

President Welcomes Prime Minister of Slovakia to the White House The Oval Office, FULL STREAMING VIDEO, In Focus: Global Diplomacy 10:35 A.M. EST

President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda of Slovakia, exchange handshakes during remarks in the Oval Office of the White House Monday, March 13, 2006. President Bush thanked the Prime Minister for his contributions

to helping the young democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq succeed. White House photo by Paul Morse.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Prime Minister, welcome. Thank you for coming. I always enjoy being with you because you're an optimistic, upbeat believer in the people of your country and the possibilities to work together to achieve peace. And so thanks for coming.

I admire the job you have done, and I admire the record that you have produced. A lot of times in politics, people are pretty good talkers, but they don't follow through. You have followed through.

We discussed a lot of issues. I thank the Prime Minister for his contributions to helping young democracies succeed, democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I want to thank you for that.

We discussed the importance for transatlantic ties between the United States and not only Slovakia, but also between the United States and Europe. And I assured him that those transatlantic ties are an important part of our policies here.

We talked about two issues that I found -- that I know are important. One, of course, is the visa issue. The Prime Minister made it very clear that he expects there to be some progress on the visa issue, that he's -- he represents the good people of Slovakia when he says to me that there needs to be a constant renewal of the process to make sure that it is fair. And I appreciate -- I listened very carefully to my friend and can assure the people of Slovakia that we are working together to make the visa policy work better.

Secondly, he talked about the knowledge-based economy that he envisioned for his country. And I thought, first of all, it's very wise to -- he recognizes the world and the challenges of the world and knows full well that as people gain knowledge, a country is going to end up being more competitive in the 21st century.

And so I -- we strategized about ways to help Slovakia and the United States benefit from exchanges, and particularly student exchanges, so that knowledge becomes a paramount part of our future.

And so Mr. Prime Minister, thanks for your vision. And I also feel sorry for the fact that you broke your leg. This guy's a good runner. And so now I feel comfortable challenging you to a race. (Laughter.) Had you been healthy, I wouldn't even had gotten on the same track with you. But I wish you a speedy recovery, and thanks again for coming to the United States.

PRIME MINISTER DZURINDA: Thank you, Mr. President. My leg is broken, but my heart is happy. (Laughter.) My heart is happy because we are friends and strong allies, America and Slovakia, America and the European Union. I am happy being here because we are good friends. President Bush visited us a year ago, he visited President of Russia, Mr. Putin, in Bratislava, and we remember this fantastic stay of President Bush in Slovakia.

We are good friends, and we share the responsibility for development in the world. I highly appreciate the leadership of President Bush in solving of global issues, the most hot and most complicated issues in the world. And I talked to President Bush that transatlantic cooperation is and must stay the basis of our security. This is something like axis of stability, prosperity and the future of both countries. But also, the future of the democratic world.

As President Bush has already mentioned, we have some bilateral issues. I appreciate especially his State of the Union, during which he announced a new program how to educate people, young generation. We want to do the same. We want to find a new way, thanks to which it would be possible to cooperate with the United States also in the area of science research, and development, innovation, education. And I believe that we will discover these new ways.

Of course we spoke many issues of foreign policy, as usually. And I can only tell that our view is the same and we will continue in this cooperation to advance freedom and democracy in the world. Mr. President, thank you very, very much for being such a good leader.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you, sir.

END 10:40 A.M. EST, For Immediate Release, Office of the Press Secretary, March 13, 2006

Technorati Tags: President Bush and White House or Prime Minister of Slovakia and PRIME MINISTER DZURINDA or Bratislava and Europe

RELATED: Keyword, Slovakia, Thursday, February 24, 2005 President Addresses Citizens of Slovakia,

magnetic phenomenon may improve RAM memories

A new magnetic phenomenon may improve RAM memories and the storage capacity of hard drives

The application of 'displaced vortex states' - small magnetic circular movements of just a few thousandths of a millimetre - may accelerate the arrival of a new type of magnetic memory (MRAM) that does not disappear when a computer is switched off.

A team of scientists from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, in collaboration with colleagues from the Argonne National Laboratory (USA) and the Spintec laboratory (Grenoble, France), has for the first time produced microscopic magnetic states, known as "displaced vortex states", that will allow an increase in the size of MRAMs (which are not deleted when the computer is switched off). The research has been published in Physical Review Letters and Applied Physics Letters.

In the near future we will turn our computers on and they will be ready to work almost instantaneously; no longer will we have to wait a while for the operating system and certain programs to load into the RAM. At the moment, SRAM and DRAM do not allow this, as they are quick, but they are deleted when the computer is switched off (that is, they are "volatile"); Flash memories, which we use for digital cameras, are not deleted, but they are slow; MRAM, which is still being developed, is fast and non-volatile, but has a relatively low storage capacity. A team of scientists from the UAB Department of Physics, in collaboration with colleagues from the Argonne National Laboratory (USA) and the Spintec laboratory (Grenoble, France), have discovered a magnetic phenomenon that could be useful in the quest for the ideal type of memory: an MRAM with large storage capacity.

The "displaced vortex states", first observed by UAB researchers, are small circular movements of just a few thousandths of a millimetre that form in the tiny zones where the data is stored. The information on hard drives has normally been saved by orientating these zones in specific directions. The zones pointing upwards, for example, codify a 1, and those pointing downwards a 0. The smaller and more compact these zones are, the greater the capacity of the hard drive. But if they are too close together, the magnetic field created by one can affect the neighbouring zone and wipe the data. However, if the field is saved in a whirlpool form, in "vortex state", it does not leave the tiny zone to which it is confined and does not affect the neighbouring data, thus making it possible for a much larger hard drive capacity.

The scientists have achieved these "vortex states" on small, circular structures that are smaller than a micrometre (a thousandth of a millimetre) and combine layers of material with opposing magnetic properties: a layer of ferromagnetic material and a layer of antiferromagnetic material. What makes the configuration of the magnets observed by the UAB scientists new is that the vortex states are "displaced", that is, once the magnetic field is no longer applied, the eye of the whirpool moves off-centre with regard to the circular structure on which it formed. This seemingly insignificant detail is the key to applying the technique to increasing the capacity not only of hard drives but also Magnetic Random Access Memories (MRAMs) that are fast, non-volatile, but until now with small storage capacity.

"The phenomenon observed could also be applied to other fields, such as improving the read heads of hard drives", according to Jordi Sort, a UAB-ICREA physicist and the coordinator of the research. "But the reason that motivated us is even more fundamental: this is a very peculiar physical state that can be observed only in extremely small magnetic structures." ###

Josep Nogués (ICREA researcher) and Maria Dolors Baró, of the UAB Department of Physics, also took part in the research, which was recently published in Physical Review Letters and Applied Physics Letters.

Contact: Octavi Lopez octavi.lopez@uab.es34-93-581-3301 Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

more at Nano or magnetic phenomenon and nanoparticles or 'displaced vortex states and RAM or Nanotechnology and Nanotech or Science and Physics or Magnetic Random Access Memories and hard drives or nanoscale and Flash memories or antiferromagnetic

Related: Keyword Nanotech Sunday, February 26, 2006 Nanoscience study shows that quantum dots 'talk', Sunday, February 26, 2006 Nano-bots to undertake major tasks?, Sunday, February 19, 2006 Nanotech to improve health care delivery, Sunday, February 19, 2006 nano-canary in the nanotoxicology coalmine, Sunday, December 04, 2005 Nano-cages 'fill up' with hydrogen, Sunday, November 13, 2005 Testing toxicity of nanomaterials, Sunday, October 23, 2005 single-molecule car, 'Nanocar', Sunday, August 28, 2005 Writing at the nanoscale, Thursday, May 26, 2005 discontinuous palladium, siloxane self-assembled monolayer, Sunday, May 08, 2005 Center for Nanoscale Materials, Monday, April 25, 2005 Nanomagnets, Nanocomposite, Monday, March 21, 2005 porphyrin tubes may lead to new nanodevices, inexpensive hydrogen fuel