3,967 research outputs found
Hydrogen Embrittlement of Aluminum: the Crucial Role of Vacancies
We report first-principles calculations which demonstrate that vacancies can
combine with hydrogen impurities in bulk aluminum and play a crucial role in
the embrittlement of this prototypical ductile solid. Our studies of
hydrogen-induced vacancy superabundant formation and vacancy clusterization in
aluminum lead to the conclusion that a large number of H atoms (up to twelve)
can be trapped at a single vacancy, which over-compensates the energy cost to
form the defect. In the presence of trapped H atoms, three nearest-neighbor
single vacancies which normally would repel each other, aggregate to form a
trivacancy on the slip plane of Al, acting as embryos for microvoids and cracks
and resulting in ductile rupture along the these planes.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. Let
PID20: SAVINGS IN DIRECT MEDICAL COSTS PRODUCED BY AN INHALED SOLUTION OF TOBRAMYCIN (TOBI) IN CHILDREN WITH CYSTIC FIBROSIS
Neurotransmitter modulation of extracellular H+ fluxes from isolated retinal horizontal cells of the skate
Self-referencing H+-selective microelectrodes were used to measure extracellular H+ fluxes from horizontal cells isolated from the skate retina. A standing H+ flux was detected from quiescent cells, indicating a higher concentration of free hydrogen ions near the extracellular surface of the cell as compared to the surrounding solution. The standing H+ flux was reduced by removal of extracellular sodium or application of 5-(N-ethyl-N-isopropyl) amiloride (EIPA), suggesting activity of a Na+–H+ exchanger. Glutamate decreased H+ flux, lowering the concentration of free hydrogen ions around the cell. AMPA/kainate receptor agonists mimicked the response, and the AMPA/kainate receptor antagonist 6-cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione (CNQX) eliminated the effects of glutamate and kainate. Metabotropic glutamate agonists were without effect. Glutamate-induced alterations in H+ flux required extracellular calcium, and were abolished when cells were bathed in an alkaline Ringer solution. Increasing intracellular calcium by photolysis of the caged calcium compound NP-EGTA also altered extracellular H+ flux. Immunocytochemical localization of the plasmalemma Ca2+–H+-ATPase (PMCA pump) revealed intense labelling within the outer plexiform layer and on isolated horizontal cells. Our results suggest that glutamate modulation of H+ flux arises from calcium entry into cells with subsequent activation of the plasmalemma Ca2+–H+-ATPase. These neurotransmitter-induced changes in extracellular pH have the potential to play a modulatory role in synaptic processing in the outer retina. However, our findings argue against the hypothesis that hydrogen ions released by horizontal cells normally act as the inhibitory feedback neurotransmitter onto photoreceptor synaptic terminals to create the surround portion of the centre-surround receptive fields of retinal neuron
PMH19: IDENTIFICATION AND ONE-YEAR COSTS OF TREATMENT-RESISTANT DEPRESSION IN A CLAIMS DATA ANALYSIS
Enhanced Spontaneous Emission Into The Mode Of A Cavity QED System
We study the light generated by spontaneous emission into a mode of a cavity
QED system under weak excitation of the orthogonally polarized mode. Operating
in the intermediate regime of cavity QED with comparable coherent and
decoherent coupling constants, we find an enhancement of the emission into the
undriven cavity mode by more than a factor of 18.5 over that expected by the
solid angle subtended by the mode. A model that incorporates three atomic
levels and two polarization modes quantitatively explains the observations.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, to appear in May 2007 Optics Letter
Fermi surface, possible unconventional fermions, and unusually robust resistive critical fields in the chiral-structured superconductor AuBe
The noncentrosymmetric superconductor (NCS) AuBe is investigated using a
variety of thermodynamic and resistive probes in magnetic fields of up to 65~T
and temperatures down to 0.3~K. Despite the polycrystalline nature of the
samples, the observation of a complex series of de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA)
oscillations has allowed the calculated bandstructure for AuBe to be validated.
This permits a variety of BCS parameters describing the superconductivity to be
estimated, despite the complexity of the measured Fermi surface. In addition,
AuBe displays a nonstandard field dependence of the phase of dHvA oscillations
associated with a band thought to host unconventional fermions in this chiral
lattice. This result demonstrates the power of the dHvA effect to establish the
properties of a single band despite the presence of other electronic bands with
a larger density of states, even in polycrystalline samples. In common with
several other NCSs, we find that the resistive upper critical field exceeds
that measured by heat capacity and magnetization by a considerable factor. We
suggest that our data exclude mechanisms for such an effect associated with
disorder, implying that topologically protected superconducting surface states
may be involved
Etablissement d'une liste des espèces d'arbres, de palmiers et de fougères arborescentes de Nouvelle-Calédonie : rapport de convention
Cartographie et caractérisation des faciès forestiers sur sols volcano-sédimentaires en Province Nord de Nouvelle-Calédonie : rapport final
A Counts-in-Cells Analysis of Lyman-break Galaxies at z~3
We have measured the counts-in-cells fluctuations of 268 Lyman-break galaxies
with spectroscopic redshifts in six 9 arcmin by 9 arcmin fields at z~3. The
variance of galaxy counts in cubes of comoving side length 7.7, 11.9, 11.4
h^{-1} Mpc is \sigma_{gal}^2 ~ 1.3\pm0.4 for \Omega_M=1, 0.2 open, 0.3 flat,
implying a bias on these scales of \sigma_{gal} / \sigma_{mass} = 6.0\pm1.1,
1.9\pm0.4, 4.0\pm0.7. The bias and abundance of Lyman-break galaxies are
surprisingly consistent with a simple model of structure formation which
assumes only that galaxies form within dark matter halos, that Lyman-break
galaxies' rest-UV luminosities are tightly correlated with their dark masses,
and that matter fluctuations are Gaussian and have a linear power-spectrum
shape at z~3 similar to that determined locally (\Gamma~0.2). This conclusion
is largely independent of cosmology or spectral normalization \sigma_8. A
measurement of the masses of Lyman-break galaxies would in principle
distinguish between different cosmological scenarios.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 16 pages including 4 figure
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