1,915 research outputs found
A size-dependent nanoscale metal–insulator transition in random materials
Insulators and conductors with periodic structures can be readily distinguished, because they have different band structures, but the differences between insulators and conductors with random structures are more subtle. In 1958, Anderson provided a straightforward criterion for distinguishing between random insulators and conductors, based on the \u27diffusion\u27 distance ζ for electrons at 0 K (ref. 3). Insulators have a finite ζ, but conductors have an infinite ζ. Aided by a scaling argument, this concept can explain many phenomena in disordered electronic systems, such as the fact that the electrical resistivity of \u27dirty\u27 metals always increases as the temperature approaches 0 K (refs 4–6). Further verification for this model has come from experiments that measure how the properties of macroscopic samples vary with changes in temperature, pressure, impurity concentration and applied magnetic field, but, surprisingly, there have been no attempts to engineer a metal–insulator transition by making the sample size less than or more thanζ. Here, we report such an engineered transition using six different thin-film systems: two are glasses that contain dispersed platinum atoms, and four are single crystals of perovskite that contain minor conducting components. With a sample size comparable to ζ, transitions can be triggered by using an electric field or ultraviolet radiation to tune ζ through the injection and extraction of electrons. It would seem possible to take advantage of this nanometallicity in applications
Vandetanib for the Treatment of Metastatic Medullary Thyroid Cancer
Medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) represents an aggressive form of thyroid malignancy. Some may occur spontaneously or can be associated with Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia syndromes, or Familial Medullary Thyroid Cancer syndrome. In these patients, the protooncogene RET (rearranged during transfection) is mutated. In patients who have unresectable or metastatic disease, the long term prognosis is poor. New treatments for this disease have focused on the use of targeted agents that inhibit the receptor tyrosine kinase of RET. One of these treatments, Vandetanib (Caprelsa, Astra Zeneca), recently has received approval from the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of patients with progressive locally advanced and/or metastatic disease. This review highlights the studies that led to the drug’s approval, and discusses on the potential financial costs of treatment and side effects of this therapy. The main clinical studies evaluating Vandetanib for the treatment of other solid tumors will also be reviewed
Analysis of Basis Pursuit Via Capacity Sets
Finding the sparsest solution for an under-determined linear system
of equations is of interest in many applications. This problem is
known to be NP-hard. Recent work studied conditions on the support size of
that allow its recovery using L1-minimization, via the Basis Pursuit
algorithm. These conditions are often relying on a scalar property of
called the mutual-coherence. In this work we introduce an alternative set of
features of an arbitrarily given , called the "capacity sets". We show how
those could be used to analyze the performance of the basis pursuit, leading to
improved bounds and predictions of performance. Both theoretical and numerical
methods are presented, all using the capacity values, and shown to lead to
improved assessments of the basis pursuit success in finding the sparest
solution of
Hidden symmetry of the three-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell equations
It is shown how to generate three-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell fields from
known ones in the presence of a hypersurface-orthogonal non-null Killing vector
field. The continuous symmetry group is isomorphic to the Heisenberg group
including the Harrison-type transformation. The symmetry of the
Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton system is also studied and it is shown that there is
the transformation between the Maxwell and the dilaton fields.
This transformation is identified with the Geroch
transformation of the four-dimensional vacuum Einstein equation in terms of the
Ka{\l}uza-Klein mechanism.Comment: 5 page
'Spillout' effect in gold nanoclusters embedded in c-Al2O3(0001) matrix
Gold nanoclusters are grown by 1.8 MeV Au^\sup{2+} implantation on
c-Al\sub{2}O\sub{3}(0001)substrate and subsequent air annealing at temperatures
1273K. Post-annealed samples show plasmon resonance in the optical (561-579 nm)
region for average cluster sizes ~1.72-2.4 nm. A redshift of the plasmon peak
with decreasing cluster size in the post-annealed samples is assigned to the
'spillout' effect (reduction of electron density) for clusters with ~157-427
number of Au atoms fully embedded in crystalline dielectric matrix with
increased polarizability in the embedded system.Comment: 14 Pages (figures included); Accepted in Chem. Phys. Lett (In Press
Divorticity and Dihelicity In Two-Dimensional Hydrodynamics
A framework is developed based on the concepts of {\it divorticity} (\equiv\nabla\times\bfo, \bfo being the vorticity) and
\textit{dihelicity} g \lp \equiv\bfv\cdot\textbf{B}\rp for discussing the
theoretical structure underlying two-dimensional (2D) hydrodynamics. This
formulation leads to the global and Lagrange invariants that could impose
significant constraints on the evolution of divorticity lines in 2D
hydrodynamics
Discovery and Measurement of Sleptons, Binos, and Winos with a Z'
Extensions of the MSSM could significantly alter its phenomenology at the
LHC. We study the case in which the MSSM is extended by an additional U(1)
gauge symmetry, which is spontaneously broken at a few TeV. The production
cross-section of sleptons is enhanced over that of the MSSM by the process
, so the discovery potential for
sleptons is greatly increased. The flavor and charge information in the
resulting decay, , provides a useful handle on
the identity of the LSP. With the help of the additional kinematical constraint
of an on-shell Z', we implement a novel method to measure all of the
superpartner masses involved in this channel. For certain final states with two
invisible particles, one can construct kinematic observables bounded above by
parent particle masses. We demonstrate how output from one such observable,
m_T2, can become input to a second, increasing the number of measurements one
can make with a single decay chain. The method presented here represents a new
class of observables which could have a much wider range of applicability.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures; v2 references added and minor change
Optimization of relativistic mean field model for finite nuclei to neutron star matter
We have optimized the parameters of extended relativistic mean-field model
using a selected set of global observables which includes binding energies and
charge radii for nuclei along several isotopic and isotonic chains and the
iso-scalar giant monopole resonance energies for the Zr and Pb
nuclei. The model parameters are further constrained by the available
informations on the energy per neutron for the dilute neutron matter and bounds
on the equations of state of the symmetric and asymmetric nuclear matter at
supra-nuclear densities. Two new parameter sets BSP and IUFSU* are obtained,
later one being the variant of recently proposed IUFSU parameter set. The BSP
parametrization uses the contributions from the quartic order cross-coupling
between and mesons to model the high density behaviour of the
equation of state instead of the meson self-coupling as in the case of
IUFSU* or IUFSU. Our parameter sets yield appreciable improvements in the
binding energy systematics and the equation of state for the dilute neutron
matter. The importance of the quartic order cross coupling term
of the extended RMF model, as often ignored, is realized.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figures, Nucl. Phys. A (in press
Dynamics of Brane-World Cosmological Models
We show that generically the initial singularity is isotropic in spatially
homogeneous cosmological models in the brane-world scenario. We then argue that
it is plausible that the initial singularity is isotropic in typical brane
world cosmological models. Therefore, brane cosmology naturally gives rise to a
set of initial data that provide the conditions for inflation to subsequently
take place, thereby solving the initial conditions problem and leading to a
self--consistent and viable cosmology.Comment: Final version. To appear in Physical Revie
Sparsity without the Complexity: Loss Localisation using Tree Measurements
We study network loss tomography based on observing average loss rates over a
set of paths forming a tree -- a severely underdetermined linear problem for
the unknown link loss probabilities. We examine in detail the role of sparsity
as a regularising principle, pointing out that the problem is technically
distinct from others in the compressed sensing literature. While sparsity has
been applied in the context of tomography, key questions regarding uniqueness
and recovery remain unanswered. Our work exploits the tree structure of path
measurements to derive sufficient conditions for sparse solutions to be unique
and the condition that minimization recovers the true underlying
solution. We present a fast single-pass linear algorithm for
minimization and prove that a minimum solution is both unique and
sparsest for tree topologies. By considering the placement of lossy links
within trees, we show that sparse solutions remain unique more often than is
commonly supposed. We prove similar results for a noisy version of the problem
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