81,984 research outputs found
First-principles thermodynamic modeling of atomic ordering in yttria-stabilized zirconia
Yttria-stabilized zirconia YSZ is modeled using a cluster expansion statistical thermodynamics method
built upon a density-functional theory database. The reliability of cluster expansions in predicting atomic
ordering is explored by comparing with the extensive experimental database. The cluster expansion of YSZ is
utilized in lattice Monte Carlo simulations to compute the ordering of dopant and oxygen vacancies as a
function of concentration. Cation dopants show a strong tendency to aggregate and vacate significantly sized
domains below 9 mol % Y_2O_3, which is likely important for YSZ aging processes in ionic conductivity.
Evolution of vibrational and underlying electronic properties as a function of Y doping is explored
Protein docking refinement by convex underestimation in the low-dimensional subspace of encounter complexes
We propose a novel stochastic global optimization algorithm with applications to the refinement stage of protein docking prediction methods. Our approach can process conformations sampled from multiple clusters, each roughly corresponding to a different binding energy funnel. These clusters are obtained using a density-based clustering method. In each cluster, we identify a smooth âpermissiveâ subspace which avoids high-energy barriers and then underestimate the binding energy function using general convex polynomials in this subspace. We use the underestimator to bias sampling towards its global minimum. Sampling and subspace underestimation are repeated several times and the conformations sampled at the last iteration form a refined ensemble. We report computational results on a comprehensive benchmark of 224 protein complexes, establishing that our refined ensemble significantly improves the quality of the conformations of the original set given to the algorithm. We also devise a method to enhance the ensemble from which near-native models are selected.Published versio
Kinetic distance and kinetic maps from molecular dynamics simulation
Characterizing macromolecular kinetics from molecular dynamics (MD)
simulations requires a distance metric that can distinguish
slowly-interconverting states. Here we build upon diffusion map theory and
define a kinetic distance for irreducible Markov processes that quantifies how
slowly molecular conformations interconvert. The kinetic distance can be
computed given a model that approximates the eigenvalues and eigenvectors
(reaction coordinates) of the MD Markov operator. Here we employ the
time-lagged independent component analysis (TICA). The TICA components can be
scaled to provide a kinetic map in which the Euclidean distance corresponds to
the kinetic distance. As a result, the question of how many TICA dimensions
should be kept in a dimensionality reduction approach becomes obsolete, and one
parameter less needs to be specified in the kinetic model construction. We
demonstrate the approach using TICA and Markov state model (MSM) analyses for
illustrative models, protein conformation dynamics in bovine pancreatic trypsin
inhibitor and protein-inhibitor association in trypsin and benzamidine
A comparative study of the AHP and TOPSIS methods for implementing load shedding scheme in a pulp mill system
The advancement of technology had encouraged mankind to design and create useful
equipment and devices. These equipment enable users to fully utilize them in various
applications. Pulp mill is one of the heavy industries that consumes large amount of
electricity in its production. Due to this, any malfunction of the equipment might
cause mass losses to the company. In particular, the breakdown of the generator
would cause other generators to be overloaded. In the meantime, the subsequence
loads will be shed until the generators are sufficient to provide the power to other
loads. Once the fault had been fixed, the load shedding scheme can be deactivated.
Thus, load shedding scheme is the best way in handling such condition. Selected load
will be shed under this scheme in order to protect the generators from being
damaged. Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) can be applied in determination
of the load shedding scheme in the electric power system. In this thesis two methods
which are Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Technique for Order Preference by
Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) were introduced and applied. From this thesis,
a series of analyses are conducted and the results are determined. Among these two
methods which are AHP and TOPSIS, the results shown that TOPSIS is the best
Multi criteria Decision Making (MCDM) for load shedding scheme in the pulp mill
system. TOPSIS is the most effective solution because of the highest percentage
effectiveness of load shedding between these two methods. The results of the AHP
and TOPSIS analysis to the pulp mill system are very promising
Model Selection in Overlapping Stochastic Block Models
Networks are a commonly used mathematical model to describe the rich set of
interactions between objects of interest. Many clustering methods have been
developed in order to partition such structures, among which several rely on
underlying probabilistic models, typically mixture models. The relevant hidden
structure may however show overlapping groups in several applications. The
Overlapping Stochastic Block Model (2011) has been developed to take this
phenomenon into account. Nevertheless, the problem of the choice of the number
of classes in the inference step is still open. To tackle this issue, we
consider the proposed model in a Bayesian framework and develop a new criterion
based on a non asymptotic approximation of the marginal log-likelihood. We
describe how the criterion can be computed through a variational Bayes EM
algorithm, and demonstrate its efficiency by running it on both simulated and
real data.Comment: articl
Open Clusters IC 4665 and Cr 359 and a Probable Birthplace of the Pulsar PSR B1929+10
Based on the epicyclic approximation, we have simulated the motion of the
young open star clusters IC 4665 and Collinder 359. The separation between the
cluster centers is shown to have been minimal 7 Myr ago, 36 pc. We have
established a close evolutionary connection between IC 4665 and the
Scorpius-Centaurus association -- the separation between the centers of these
structures was pc 15 Myr ago. In addition, the center of IC 4665
at this time was near two well-known regions of coronal gas: the Local Bubble
and the North Polar Spur. The star HIP 86768 is shown to be one of the
candidates for a binary (in the past) with the pulsar PSR B1929+10. At the
model radial velocity of the pulsar km s, a close
encounter of this pair occurs in the vicinity of IC 4665 at a time of -1.1 Myr.
At the same time, using currently available data for the pulsar B1929+10 at its
model radial velocity km s, we show that the hypothesis
of Hoogerwerf et al. (2001) about the breakup of the Oph--B1929+10
binary in the vicinity of Upper Scorpius (US) about 0.9 Myr ago is more
plausible.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figure
Effects of the complex mass distribution of dark matter halos on weak lensing cluster surveys
Gravitational lensing effects arise from the light ray deflection by all of
the mass distribution along the line of sight. It is then expected that weak
lensing cluster surveys can provide us true mass-selected cluster samples. With
numerical simulations, we analyze the correspondence between peaks in the
lensing convergence -map and dark matter halos. Particularly we
emphasize the difference between the peak value expected from a dark
matter halo modeled as an isolated and spherical one, which exhibits a
one-to-one correspondence with the halo mass at a given redshift, and that of
the associated -peak from simulations. For halos with the same expected
, their corresponding peak signals in the -map present a wide
dispersion. At an angular smoothing scale of , our
study shows that for relatively large clusters, the complex mass distribution
of individual clusters is the main reason for the dispersion. The projection
effect of uncorrelated structures does not play significant roles. The
triaxiality of dark matter halos accounts for a large part of the dispersion,
especially for the tail at high side. Thus lensing-selected clusters
are not really mass-selected. (abridged)Comment: ApJ accepte
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