The heavy-element abundances of AGB stars and the angular momentum conservation model of wind accretion for barium stars

Adpoting new s-process nucleosynthesis scenario and branch s-process path, we calculate the heavy-element abundances and C/O ratio of solar metallicity 3M_sun TP-AGB stars. The evolutionary sequence from M to S to C stars of AGB stars is explained naturally by the calculated results. Then combining the angular momentum conservation model of wind accretion with the heavy-element abundances on the surface of TP-AGB stars, we calculate the heavy-element overabundances of barium stars via successive pulsed accreting and mixing. Our results support that the barium stars with longer orbital period, P>1600 days, form through wind accretion scenario.Comment: 14 pages, LaTex, 17 PS figures included, accepted for publication in A &

NeIII/OII as an oxygen abundance indicator in the HII regions and HII galaxies

To calibrate the relationship between Ne3O2 (Ne3O2 = log(\neiii$\lambda3869$/\oii$\lambda3727$)) and oxygen abundances, we present a sample of $\sim$3000 \hii galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data release four. They are associated with a sample from the literature intended to enlarge the oxygen abundance region. We calculated the electron temperatures ($T_e$) of 210 galaxies in the SDSS sample with the direct method, and $T_e$ of the other 2960 galaxies in SDSS sample calculated with an empirical method. Then, we use a linear least-square fitting to calibrate the Ne3O2 oxygen abundance indicator. It is found that the Ne3O2 estimator follows a linear relation with \zoh\ that holds for the whole abundance range covered by the sample, from approximately 7.0 to 9.0. The best linear relationship between the Ne3O2 and the oxygen abundance is calibrated. The dispersion between oxygen abundance and Ne3O2 index in the metal rich galaxies may come partly from the moderate depletion of oxygen onto grains. The $Ne3O2$ method has the virtue of being single-valued and not affected by internal reddening. As a result, the $Ne3O2$ method can be a good metallicity indicator in the \hii regions and \hii galaxies, especially in high-redshift galaxies.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures. A&A accepte

Spatially Distributed Stochastic Systems: equation-free and equation-assisted preconditioned computation

Spatially distributed problems are often approximately modelled in terms of partial differential equations (PDEs) for appropriate coarse-grained quantities (e.g. concentrations). The derivation of accurate such PDEs starting from finer scale, atomistic models, and using suitable averaging, is often a challenging task; approximate PDEs are typically obtained through mathematical closure procedures (e.g. mean-field approximations). In this paper, we show how such approximate macroscopic PDEs can be exploited in constructing preconditioners to accelerate stochastic simulations for spatially distributed particle-based process models. We illustrate how such preconditioning can improve the convergence of equation-free coarse-grained methods based on coarse timesteppers. Our model problem is a stochastic reaction-diffusion model capable of exhibiting Turing instabilities.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Journal of Chemical Physic

Spin-dependent transport in a quasiballistic quantum wire

We describe the transport properties of a 5 $\mu$m long one-dimensional (1D) quantum wire. Reduction of conductance plateaux due to the introduction of weakly disorder scattering are observed. In an in-plane magnetic field, we observe spin-splitting of the reduced conductance steps. Our experimental results provide evidence that deviation from conductance quantisation is very small for electrons with spin parallel and is about 1/3 for electrons with spin anti-parallel. Moreover, in a high in-plane magnetic field, a spin-polarised 1D channel shows a plateau-like structure close to $0.3 \times e^2/h$ which strengthens with {\em increasing} temperatures. It is suggested that these results arise from the combination of disorder and the electron-electron interactions in the 1D electron gas.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, latex to be published in Phys. Rev. B (15/3/2000

Surface States of the Topological Insulator Bi_{1-x}Sb_x

We study the electronic surface states of the semiconducting alloy BiSb. Using a phenomenological tight binding model we show that the Fermi surface of the 111 surface states encloses an odd number of time reversal invariant momenta (TRIM) in the surface Brillouin zone confirming that the alloy is a strong topological insulator. We then develop general arguments which show that spatial symmetries lead to additional topological structure, and further constrain the surface band structure. Inversion symmetric crystals have 8 Z_2 "parity invariants", which include the 4 Z_2 invariants due to time reversal. The extra invariants determine the "surface fermion parity", which specifies which surface TRIM are enclosed by an odd number of electron or hole pockets. We provide a simple proof of this result, which provides a direct link between the surface states and the bulk parity eigenvalues. We then make specific predictions for the surface state structure for several faces of BiSb. We next show that mirror invariant band structures are characterized by an integer "mirror Chern number", n_M. The sign of n_M in the topological insulator phase of BiSb is related to a previously unexplored Z_2 parameter in the L point k.p theory of pure Bi, which we refer to as the "mirror chirality", \eta. The value of \eta predicted by the tight binding model for Bi disagrees with the value predicted by a more fundamental pseudopotential calculation. This explains a subtle disagreement between our tight binding surface state calculation and previous first principles calculations on Bi. This suggests that the tight binding parameters in the Liu Allen model of Bi need to be reconsidered. Implications for existing and future ARPES experiments and spin polarized ARPES experiments will be discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Polyisoprene Captured Sulfur Nanocomposite Materials for High-Areal-Capacity Lithium Sulfur Battery

A polyisoprene-sulfur (PIPS) copolymer and nano sulfur composite material (90 wt % sulfur) is synthesized through inverse vulcanization of PIP polymer with micrometer-sized sulfur particles for high-areal-capacity lithium sulfur batteries. The polycrystalline structure and nanodomain nature of the copolymer are revealed through high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). PIP polymer is also used as binders for the electrode to further capture the dissovlved polysulfides. A high areal capacity of ca. 7.0 mAh/cm2 and stable cycling are achieved based on the PIPS nanosulfur composite with a PIP binder, crucial to commercialization of lithium sulfur batteries. The chemical confinement both at material and electrode level alleviates the diffusion of polysulfides and the shuttle effect. The sulfur electrodes, both fresh and cycled, are analyzed through scanning electron microscopy (SEM). This approach enables scalable material production and high sulfur utilization at the cell level

Experimental and Numerical Investigation on Progressive Collapse Resistance of Post-tensioned Precast Concrete Beam-Column Sub-assemblages

In this paper, four 1/2 scaled precast concrete (PC) beam-column sub-assemblages with high performance connection were tested under push-down loading procedure to study the load resisting mechanism of PC frames subjected to different column removal scenarios. The parameters investigated include the location of column removal and effective prestress in tendons. The test results indicated that the failure modes of unbonded post-tensioned precast concrete (PTPC) frames were different from that of reinforced concrete (RC) frames: no cracks formed in the beams and wide opening formed near the beam to column interfaces. For specimens without overhanging beams, the failure of side column was eccentric compression failure. Moreover, the load resisting mechanisms in PC frames were significantly different from that of RC frames: the compressive arch action (CAA) developed in concrete during column removal was mainly due to actively applied pre-compressive stress in the concrete; CAA will not vanish when severe crush in concrete occurred. Thus, it may provide negative contribution for load resistance when the displacement exceeds one-beam depth; the tensile force developed in the tendons could provide catenary action from the beginning of the test. Moreover, to deeper understand the behavior of tested specimens, numerical analyses were carried out. The effects of concrete strength, axial compression ratio at side columns, and loading approaches on the behavior of the sub-assemblages were also investigated based on validated numerical analysis

Empirical study of bagging predictors on medical data

This study investigates the performance of bagging in terms of learning from imbalanced medical data. It is important for data miners to achieve highly accurate prediction models, and this is especially true for imbalanced medical applications. In these situations, practitioners are more interested in the minority class than the majority class; however, it is hard for a traditional supervised learning algorithm to achieve a highly accurate prediction on the minority class, even though it might achieve better results according to the most commonly used evaluation metric, Accuracy. Bagging is a simple yet effective ensemble method which has been applied to many real-world applications. However, some questions have not been well answered, e.g., whether bagging outperforms single learners on medical data-sets; which learners are the best predictors for each medical data-set; and what is the best predictive performance achievable for each medical data-set when we apply sampling techniques. We perform an extensive empirical study on the performance of 12 learning algorithms on 8 medical data-sets based on four performance measures: True Positive Rate (TPR), True Negative Rate (TNR), Geometric Mean (G-mean) of the accuracy rate of the majority class and the minority class, and Accuracy as evaluation metrics. In addition, the statistical analyses performed instil confidence in the validity of the conclusions of this research. © 2011, Australian Computer Society, Inc