Polymer Translocation througha Pore in a Membrane

We construct a new statistical physical model of polymer translocation through a pore in a membrane treated as the diffusion process across a free energy barrier. We determine the translocation time in terms of chain flexibility yielding an entropic barrier, as well as in terms of the driving mechanisms such as transmembrane chemical potential difference and Brownian ratchets. It turns out that, while the chemical potential differences induce pronounced effects on translocation due to the long-chain nature of the polymer, the ratchets suppress this effect and chain flexibility.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 783(1996

Rich variety of defects in ZnO via an attractive interaction between O-vacancies and Zn-interstitials

As the concentration of intrinsic defects becomes sufficiently high in O-deficient ZnO, interactions between defects lead to a significant reduction in their formation energies. We show that the formation of both O-vacancies and Zn-interstitials becomes significantly enhanced by a strong attractive interaction between them, making these defects an important source of n-type conductivity in ZnO.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Fourth Generation Parity

We present a very simple 4th-generation (4G) model with an Abelian gauge interaction under which only the 4G fermions have nonzero charge. The U(1) gauge symmetry can have a Z_2 residual discrete symmetry (4G-parity), which can stabilize the lightest 4G particle (L4P). When the 4G neutrino is the L4P, it would be a neutral and stable particle and the other 4G fermions would decay into the L4P leaving the trace of missing energy plus the standard model fermions. Because of the new symmetry, the 4G particle creation and decay modes are different from those of the sequential 4G model, and the 4G particles can be appreciably lighter than typical experimental bounds.Comment: Version accepted for publication in PR

THE COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL OF NEW DAIRY PRODUCTS FROM MEMBRANE TECHNOLOGY

Membrane filtration technologies are capable of creating entirely new, more functional food products. In this regard, potential new dairy products include high-protein, low-lactose fluid milk, high-protein, low-lactose ice cream, and non-far yogurt made with fewer stabilizers. An initial survey of membrane manufacturing companies determined the added cost to produce such functional food products to be two to six percent of the existing retail price for similar standard dairy products. A subsequent survey of milk processors found that the most likely adopters of such membrane technologies were yogurt manufacturers.Agribusiness,

Stochastic Reinforcement Learning

In reinforcement learning episodes, the rewards and punishments are often non-deterministic, and there are invariably stochastic elements governing the underlying situation. Such stochastic elements are often numerous and cannot be known in advance, and they have a tendency to obscure the underlying rewards and punishments patterns. Indeed, if stochastic elements were absent, the same outcome would occur every time and the learning problems involved could be greatly simplified. In addition, in most practical situations, the cost of an observation to receive either a reward or punishment can be significant, and one would wish to arrive at the correct learning conclusion by incurring minimum cost. In this paper, we present a stochastic approach to reinforcement learning which explicitly models the variability present in the learning environment and the cost of observation. Criteria and rules for learning success are quantitatively analyzed, and probabilities of exceeding the observation cost bounds are also obtained.Comment: AIKE 201

Polymer Release out of a Spherical Vesicle through a Pore

Translocation of a polymer out of curved surface or membrane is studied via mean first passage time approach. Membrane curvature gives rise to a constraint on polymer conformation, which effectively drives the polymer to the outside of membrane where the available volume of polymer conformational fluctuation is larger. Considering a polymer release out of spherical vesicle, polymer translocation time $\tau$ is changed to the scaling behavior $\tau\sim L^2$ for $R<R_G$, from $\tau\sim L^3$ for $R\gg R_G$, where $L$ is the polymer contour length and $R$, $R_G$ are vesicle radius and polymer radius of gyration respectively. Also the polymer capture into a spherical budd is studied and possible apparatus for easy capture is suggested.Comment: 14 pages RevTeX, 6 postscript figures, published in Phys. Rev. E 57, 730 (1998

A new superconducting open-framework allotrope of silicon at ambient pressure

Diamond Si is a semiconductor with an indirect band gap that is the basis of modern semiconductor technology. Although many metastable forms of Si were observed using diamond anvil cells for compression and chemical precursors for synthesis, no metallic phase at ambient conditions has been reported thus far. Here we report the prediction of pure metallic Si allotropes with open channels at ambient pressure, unlike a cubic diamond structure in covalent bonding networks. The metallic phase termed P6/m-Si6 can be obtained by removing Na after pressure release from a novel Na-Si clathrate called P6/m-NaSi6, which is discovered through first-principles study at high pressure. We confirm that both P6/m-NaSi6 and P6/m-Si6 are stable and superconducting with the critical temperatures of about 13 and 12 K at ambient pressure, respectively. The discovery of new Na-Si and Si clathrate structures presents the possibility of exploring new exotic allotropes useful for Si-based devices