21,240 research outputs found
Electronic Properties of Lithiated SnO-based Anode Materials
In this paper we use an ab-initio quantum transport approach to study the
electron current flowing through lithiated SnO anodes for potential
applications in Li-ion batteries. By investigating a set of lithiated
structures with varying lithium concentrations, it is revealed that LixSnO can
be a good conductor, with values comparable to bulk -Sn and Li. A deeper
insight into the current distribution indicates that electrons preferably
follow specific trajectories, which offer superior conducting properties than
others. These channels have been identified and it is shown here how they can
enhance or deteriorate the current flow in lithiated anode materials
Driven Lattice Gases with Quenched Disorder: Exact Results and Different Macroscopic Regimes
We study the effect of quenched spatial disorder on the steady states of
driven systems of interacting particles. Two sorts of models are studied:
disordered drop-push processes and their generalizations, and the disordered
asymmetric simple exclusion process. We write down the exact steady-state
measure, and consequently a number of physical quantities explicitly, for the
drop-push dynamics in any dimensions for arbitrary disorder. We find that three
qualitatively different regimes of behaviour are possible in 1- disordered
driven systems. In the Vanishing-Current regime, the steady-state current
approaches zero in the thermodynamic limit. A system with a non-zero current
can either be in the Homogeneous regime, chracterized by a single macroscopic
density, or the Segregated-Density regime, with macroscopic regions of
different densities. We comment on certain important constraints to be taken
care of in any field theory of disordered systems.Comment: RevTex, 17pages, 18 figures included using psfig.st
Aspect ratio dependence of heat transport by turbulent Rayleigh-B\'{e}nard convection in rectangular cells
We report high-precision measurements of the Nusselt number as a
function of the Rayleigh number in water-filled rectangular
Rayleigh-B\'{e}nard convection cells. The horizontal length and width
of the cells are 50.0 cm and 15.0 cm, respectively, and the heights ,
25.0, 12.5, 6.9, 3.5, and 2.4 cm, corresponding to the aspect ratios
, , ,
, , and . The measurements were carried out
over the Rayleigh number range and the
Prandtl number range . Our results show that for
rectangular geometry turbulent heat transport is independent of the cells'
aspect ratios and hence is insensitive to the nature and structures of the
large-scale mean flows of the system. This is slightly different from the
observations in cylindrical cells where is found to be in general a
decreasing function of , at least for and larger. Such a
difference is probably a manifestation of the finite plate conductivity effect.
Corrections for the influence of the finite conductivity of the top and bottom
plates are made to obtain the estimates of for plates with
perfect conductivity. The local scaling exponents of are calculated and found to increase from 0.243 at
to 0.327 at .Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, Accepted by Journal of Fluid Mechanic
The emergence of international food safety standards and guidelines: understanding the current landscape through a historical approach
Following the Second World War, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) teamed up to construct an International Codex Alimentarius (or 'food code') which emerged in 1963. The Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH) was charged with the task of developing microbial hygiene standards, although it found itself embroiled in debate with the WHO over the nature these standards should take. The WHO was increasingly relying upon the input of biometricians and especially the International Commission on Microbial Specifications for Foods (ICMSF) which had developed statistical sampling plans for determining the microbial counts in the final end products. The CCFH, however, was initially more focused on a qualitative approach which looked at the entire food production system and developed codes of practice as well as more descriptive end-product specifications which the WHO argued were 'not scientifically correct'. Drawing upon historical archival material (correspondence and reports) from the WHO and FAO, this article examines this debate over microbial hygiene standards and suggests that there are many lessons from history which could shed light upon current debates and efforts in international food safety management systems and approaches
The placement of the head that minimizes online memory: a complex systems approach
It is well known that the length of a syntactic dependency determines its
online memory cost. Thus, the problem of the placement of a head and its
dependents (complements or modifiers) that minimizes online memory is
equivalent to the problem of the minimum linear arrangement of a star tree.
However, how that length is translated into cognitive cost is not known. This
study shows that the online memory cost is minimized when the head is placed at
the center, regardless of the function that transforms length into cost,
provided only that this function is strictly monotonically increasing. Online
memory defines a quasi-convex adaptive landscape with a single central minimum
if the number of elements is odd and two central minima if that number is even.
We discuss various aspects of the dynamics of word order of subject (S), verb
(V) and object (O) from a complex systems perspective and suggest that word
orders tend to evolve by swapping adjacent constituents from an initial or
early SOV configuration that is attracted towards a central word order by
online memory minimization. We also suggest that the stability of SVO is due to
at least two factors, the quasi-convex shape of the adaptive landscape in the
online memory dimension and online memory adaptations that avoid regression to
SOV. Although OVS is also optimal for placing the verb at the center, its low
frequency is explained by its long distance to the seminal SOV in the
permutation space.Comment: Minor changes (language improved; typos in Eqs. 5, 6 and 13
corrected
All-optical generation and photoassociative probing of sodium Bose-Einstein condensates
We demonsatrate an all optical technique to evaporatively produce sodium
Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC). We use a crossed-dipole trap formed from light
near 1060 nm, and a simple ramp of the intensity to force evaporation. In
addition, we introduce photoassociation as diagnostic of the trap loading
process, and show that it can be used to detect the onset of Bose-Einstein
condensation. Finally, we demonstrate the straightforward production of
multiple traps with condensates using this technique, and that some control
over the spinor state of the BEC is achieved by positioning the trap as well.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure
Child Bondage Continues in Indian Cotton Supply Chain: More than 400,000 Children in India Involved in Hybrid Cottonseed Cultivation
The study was commissioned by OECD Watch, Deutsche Welthungerhilfe (DWHH), India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN), Eine Welt Netz NRW (EWN NRW), and International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF)This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.ILRF_ChildBondage_India_2007.pdf: 226 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020
Towards a first principles description of phonons in NiPt disordered alloys: the role of relaxation
Using a combination of density-functional perturbation theory and the
itinerant coherent potential approximation, we study the effects of atomic
relaxation on the inelastic incoherent neutron scattering cross sections of
disordered NiPt alloys. We build on previous work, where
empirical force constants were adjusted {\it ad hoc} to agree with experiment.
After first relaxing all structural parameters within the local-density
approximation for ordered NiPt compounds, density-functional perturbation
theory is then used to compute phonon spectra, densities of states, and the
force constants. The resulting nearest-neighbor force constants are first
compared to those of other ordered structures of different stoichiometry, and
then used to generate the inelastic scattering cross sections within the
itinerant coherent potential approximation. We find that structural relaxation
substantially affects the computed force constants and resulting inelastic
cross sections, and that the effect is much more pronounced in random alloys
than in ordered alloys.Comment: 8 pages, 3 eps figures, uses revtex
Multi-line detection of O_2 toward ρ Ophiuchi A
Context. Models of pure gas-phase chemistry in well-shielded regions of molecular clouds predict relatively high levels of molecular oxygen, O_2, and water, H_(2)O. These high abundances imply high cooling rates, leading to relatively short timescales for the evolution of gravitationally unstable dense cores, forming stars and planets. Contrary to expectations, the dedicated space missions SWAS and Odin typically found only very small amounts of water vapour and essentially no O_2 in the dense star-forming interstellar medium.
Aims. Only toward ρOph A did Odin detect a very weak line of O_2 at 119 GHz in a beam of size 10 arcmin. The line emission of related molecules changes on angular scales of the order of some tens of arcseconds, requiring a larger telescope aperture such as that of the Herschel Space Observatory to resolve the O2 emission and pinpoint its origin.
Methods. We use the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI) aboard Herschel to obtain high resolution O_2 spectra toward selected positions in the ρOph A core. These data are analysed using standard techniques for O_2 excitation and compared to recent PDR-like chemical cloud models.
Results. The N_J = 3_(3) − 1_(2) line at 487.2 GHz is clearly detected toward all three observed positions in the ρOph A core. In addition, an oversampled map of the 5_(4)−3_(4) transition at 773.8 GHz reveals the detection of the line in only half of the observed area. On the basis of their ratios, the temperature of the O_2 emitting gas appears to vary quite substantially, with warm gas (≳ 50K) being adjacent to a much colder region, of temperatures lower than 30 K.
Conclusions. The exploited models predict that the O_2 column densities are sensitive to the prevailing dust temperatures, but rather insensitive to the temperatures of the gas. In agreement with these models, the observationally determined O_2 column densities do not seem to depend strongly on the derived gas temperatures, but fall into the range N(O_2) = 3 to ≳ 6 × 10^(15) cm^(-2). Beam-averaged O2 abundances are about 5 × 10^(-8) relative to H_2. Combining the HIFI data with earlier Odin observations yields a source size at 119 GHz in the range of 4 to 5 arcmin, encompassing the entire ρOph A core. We speculate that one of the reasons for the generally very low detection rate of O2 is the short period of time during which O_2 molecules are reasonably abundant in molecular clouds
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