1,022 research outputs found
Spin Triplet Supercurrent in Co/Ni Multilayer Josephson Junctions with Perpendicular Anisotropy
We have measured spin-triplet supercurrent in Josephson junctions of the form
S/F'/F/F'/S, where S is superconducting Nb, F' is a thin Ni layer with in-plane
magnetization, and F is a Ni/[Co/Ni]n multilayer with out-of-plane
magnetization. The supercurrent in these junctions decays very slowly with
F-layer thickness, and is much larger than in similar junctions not containing
the two F' layers. Those two features are the characteristic signatures of
spin-triplet supercurrent, which is maximized by the orthogonality of the
magnetizations in the F and F' layers. Magnetic measurements confirm the
out-of-plane anisotropy of the Co/Ni multilayers. These samples have their
critical current optimized in the as-prepared state, which will be useful for
future applications.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, formatted in RevTeX version 4. Submitted to
Physical Review B on August 13th, 201
The stochastic matching problem
The matching problem plays a basic role in combinatorial optimization and in
statistical mechanics. In its stochastic variants, optimization decisions have
to be taken given only some probabilistic information about the instance. While
the deterministic case can be solved in polynomial time, stochastic variants
are worst-case intractable. We propose an efficient method to solve stochastic
matching problems which combines some features of the survey propagation
equations and of the cavity method. We test it on random bipartite graphs, for
which we analyze the phase diagram and compare the results with exact bounds.
Our approach is shown numerically to be effective on the full range of
parameters, and to outperform state-of-the-art methods. Finally we discuss how
the method can be generalized to other problems of optimization under
uncertainty.Comment: Published version has very minor change
Risk Assessment Plan for Petroleum Underground Storage Tanks in Kentucky
This study addresses the development of guidelines for corrective actions to be applied to petroleum underground storage tanks (USTs) within the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The report presents findings and recommendations for gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, kerosene, jet fuel, and waste oil
Two-stage stochastic minimum s − t cut problems: Formulations, complexity and decomposition algorithms
We introduce the two‐stage stochastic minimum s − t cut problem. Based on a classical linear 0‐1 programming model for the deterministic minimum s − t cut problem, we provide a mathematical programming formulation for the proposed stochastic extension. We show that its constraint matrix loses the total unimodularity property, however, preserves it if the considered graph is a tree. This fact turns out to be not surprising as we prove that the considered problem is NP-hard in general, but admits a linear time solution algorithm when the graph is a tree. We exploit the special structure of the problem and propose a tailored Benders decomposition algorithm. We evaluate the computational efficiency of this algorithm by solving the Benders dual subproblems as max-flow problems. For many tested instances, we outperform a standard Benders decomposition by two orders of magnitude with the Benders decomposition exploiting the max-flow structure of the subproblems
Embryopathic Effects of Waterborne and Sediment-Accumulated Cadmium, Mercury and Zinc on Reproduction and Survival of Fish and Amphibian Populations in Kentucky
Fish and amphibian egg cultures were used to determine the embryopathic effects of cadmium, mercury, and zinc released from natural and metal-enriched sediments, and to develop egg culture bioassay procedures suitable for monitoring bottom sediments for hazardous contaminants. Eggs of the narrow-mouthed toad (Gastrophryne carolinensis), goldfish (Carassius auratus), and rainbow trout (Salmo gairdnei) were cultured in contaminant-free water added to natural and metal-enriched sediments. Exposure was initiated after fertilization (toad, goldfish) or at 10 days prehatching (trout) and maintained continuously through 4-10 days posthatching. Sediments were enriched with 0.1-100 ppm cadmium and mercury and 1.0-1000 ppm zinc.
Natural control sediments contained average concentrations of 0.052 ppm mercury, 1.0 ppm cadmium, and 108.2 ppm zinc. Substantial frequencies of mortality and teratogenesis occurred for all 3 animal species when eggs were cultured over natural elements further enriched with as little as 0.1-1.0 ppm cadmium or mercury and 1-10ppm zinc. Survival of trout embryos and alevins closely paralleled sediment test concentrations. The sediment TL50 concentrations for trout stages cultured from 10 days prehatching through 10 days posthatching were approximately 1ppm for mercury, 2.15 ppm for cadmium, and 210.6 ppm for zinc. Sediment metals were substantially more lethal to eggs and embryos than to free-living larvae or fry
Dephasing by extremely dilute magnetic impurities revealed by Aharonov-Bohm oscillations
We have probed the magnetic field dependence of the electron phase coherence
time by measuring the Aharonov-Bohm conductance oscillations of
mesoscopic Cu rings. Whereas determined from the low-field
magnetoresistance saturates below 1 K, the amplitude of Aharonov-Bohm
oscillations increases strongly on a magnetic field scale proportional to the
temperature. This provides strong evidence that a likely explanation for the
frequently observed saturation of at low temperature in weakly
disordered metallic thin films is the presence of extremely dilute magnetic
impurities.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter
Dielectric and thermal relaxation in the energy landscape
We derive an energy landscape interpretation of dielectric relaxation times
in undercooled liquids, comparing it to the traditional Debye and
Gemant-DiMarzio-Bishop pictures. The interaction between different local
structural rearrangements in the energy landscape explains qualitatively the
recently observed splitting of the flow process into an initial and a final
stage. The initial mechanical relaxation stage is attributed to hopping
processes, the final thermal or structural relaxation stage to the decay of the
local double-well potentials. The energy landscape concept provides an
explanation for the equality of thermal and dielectric relaxation times. The
equality itself is once more demonstrated on the basis of literature data for
salol.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 41 references, Workshop Disordered Systems,
Molveno 2006, submitted to Philosophical Magazin
Balancing stability and flexibility in adaptive governance: an analysis of tools available in U.S. environmental law
Adaptive governance must work “on the ground,” that is, it must operate through structures and procedures that the people it governs perceive to be legitimate and fair, as well as incorporating processes and substantive goals that are effective in allowing social-ecological systems (SESs) to adapt to climate change and other impacts. To address the continuing and accelerating alterations that climate change is bringing to SESs, adaptive governance generally will require more flexibility than prior governance institutions have often allowed. However, to function as good governance, adaptive governance must pay real attention to the problem of how to balance this increased need for flexibility with continuing governance stability so that it can foster adaptation to change without being perceived or experienced as perpetually destabilizing, disruptive, and unfair. Flexibility and stability serve different purposes in governance, and a variety of tools exist to strike different balances between them while still preserving the governance institution’s legitimacy among the people governed. After reviewing those purposes and the implications of climate change for environmental governance, we examine psychological insights into the structuring of adaptive governance and the variety of legal tools available to incorporate those insights into adaptive governance regimes. Because the substantive goals of governance systems will differ among specific systems, we do not purport to comment on what the normative or substantive goals of law should be. Instead, we conclude that attention to process and procedure (including participation), as well as increased use of substantive standards (instead of rules), may allow an increased level of substantive flexibility to operate with legitimacy and fairness, providing the requisite levels of psychological, social, and economic stability needed for communities to adapt successfully to the Anthropocene
On the probabilistic min spanning tree Problem
We study a probabilistic optimization model for min spanning tree, where any vertex vi of the input-graph G(V,E) has some presence probability pi in the final instance G′ ⊂ G that will effectively be optimized. Suppose that when this “real” instance G′ becomes known, a spanning tree T, called anticipatory or a priori spanning tree, has already been computed in G and one can run a quick algorithm (quicker than one that recomputes from scratch), called modification strategy, that modifies the anticipatory tree T in order to fit G ′. The goal is to compute an anticipatory spanning tree of G such that, its modification for any G ′ ⊆ G is optimal for G ′. This is what we call probabilistic min spanning tree problem. In this paper we study complexity and approximation of probabilistic min spanning tree in complete graphs under two distinct modification strategies leading to different complexity results for the problem. For the first of the strategies developed, we also study two natural subproblems of probabilistic min spanning tree, namely, the probabilistic metric min spanning tree and the probabilistic min spanning tree 1,2 that deal with metric complete graphs and complete graphs with edge-weights either 1, or 2, respectively
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