494 research outputs found
Early life adversity, biological adaptation, and human capital: evidence from an interrupted malaria control program in Zambia
Growing evidence from evolutionary biology demonstrates how early life shocks trigger physiological changes designed to be adaptive in challenging environments. We examine the implications of one type of physiological adaptation - immunity formation - for human capital accumulation. Using variation in early life malaria risk generated by an interrupted disease control program in Zambia, we show that exposure to infectious diseases during the first two years of life can reduce the harmful effects of malaria exposure on cognitive development during the preschool years. These findings suggest a non-linear and trajectory-dependent relationship between early life adversity and human capital formation
Defects and boundary layers in non-Euclidean plates
We investigate the behavior of non-Euclidean plates with constant negative
Gaussian curvature using the F\"oppl-von K\'arm\'an reduced theory of
elasticity. Motivated by recent experimental results, we focus on annuli with a
periodic profile. We prove rigorous upper and lower bounds for the elastic
energy that scales like the thickness squared. In particular we show that are
only two types of global minimizers -- deformations that remain flat and saddle
shaped deformations with isolated regions of stretching near the edge of the
annulus. We also show that there exist local minimizers with a periodic profile
that have additional boundary layers near their lines of inflection. These
additional boundary layers are a new phenomenon in thin elastic sheets and are
necessary to regularize jump discontinuities in the azimuthal curvature across
lines of inflection. We rigorously derive scaling laws for the width of these
boundary layers as a function of the thickness of the sheet
Trapping of Vibrational Energy in Crumpled Sheets
We investigate the propagation of transverse elastic waves in crumpled media.
We set up the wave equation for transverse waves on a generic curved, strained
surface via a Langrangian formalism and use this to study the scaling behaviour
of the dispersion curves near the ridges and on the flat facets. This analysis
suggests that ridges act as barriers to wave propagation and that modes in a
certain frequency regime could be trapped in the facets. A simulation study of
the wave propagation qualitatively supported our analysis and showed
interesting effects of the ridges on wave propagation.Comment: RevTex 12 pages, 7 figures, Submitted to PR
Multiscale characterization of damage tolerance in barium titanate thin films
Barium titanate is a brittle, lead free ferroelectric and piezoelectric ceramic used in patterned and thin film forms in micro- and nano-scale electronic devices. Both during deposition and eventually during service, this material system develops stresses due to different loads acting on the system, which can lead to its failure due to cracking in the films and/or interface delamination. In situ microcantilever bending based fracture experiments and tensile tests based on shear lag tests in combination with digital image correlation were used to understand the cracking behavior of barium titanate films when deposited on flexible substrates. For the first time, the fracture behavior of these nanocrystalline barium titanate films has been quantified in terms of fracture toughness, fracture strength, and interface shear stresses for different film thicknesses. Critical defect size is estimated using the above information as a function of film thickness. It is found that damage tolerance in terms of fracture strength depends on film thickness. Furthermore, compared to a bulk single crystal, barium titanate fracture resistance of the nanocrystalline thin films is reduced. Both effects need to be considered in engineering design of reliable devices employing micro- and nano-scale barium titanate thin film structures
Steady Stokes flow with long-range correlations, fractal Fourier spectrum, and anomalous transport
We consider viscous two-dimensional steady flows of incompressible fluids
past doubly periodic arrays of solid obstacles. In a class of such flows, the
autocorrelations for the Lagrangian observables decay in accordance with the
power law, and the Fourier spectrum is neither discrete nor absolutely
continuous. We demonstrate that spreading of the droplet of tracers in such
flows is anomalously fast. Since the flow is equivalent to the integrable
Hamiltonian system with 1 degree of freedom, this provides an example of
integrable dynamics with long-range correlations, fractal power spectrum, and
anomalous transport properties.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, published in Physical Review Letter
Universal Scaling Properties in Large Assemblies of Simple Dynamical Units Driven by Long-Wave Random Forcing
Large assemblies of nonlinear dynamical units driven by a long-wave
fluctuating external field are found to generate strong turbulence with scaling
properties. This type of turbulence is so robust that it persists over a finite
parameter range with parameter-dependent exponents of singularity, and is
insensitive to the specific nature of the dynamical units involved. Whether or
not the units are coupled with their neighborhood is also unimportant. It is
discovered numerically that the derivative of the field exhibits strong spatial
intermittency with multifractal structure.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, submitted to PR
Square to stripe transition and superlattice patterns in vertically oscillated granular layers
We investigated the physical mechanism for the pattern transition from square
lattice to stripes, which appears in vertically oscillating granular layers. We
present a continuum model to show that the transition depends on the
competition between inertial force and local saturation of transport. By
introducing multiple free-flight times, this model further enables us to
analyze the formation of superlattices as well as hexagonal lattice
Asymptotic power law of moments in a random multiplicative process with weak additive noise
It is well known that a random multiplicative process with weak additive
noise generates a power-law probability distribution. It has recently been
recognized that this process exhibits another type of power law: the moment of
the stochastic variable scales as a function of the additive noise strength. We
clarify the mechanism for this power-law behavior of moments by treating a
simple Langevin-type model both approximately and exactly, and argue this
mechanism is universal. We also discuss the relevance of our findings to noisy
on-off intermittency and to singular spatio-temporal chaos recently observed in
systems of non-locally coupled elements.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
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