Hourly and seasonal variation in photosynthesis and stomatal conductance of soybean grown at future CO2 and ozone concentrations for three years under fully open air conditions.

published or submitted for publicatio

Thermomechanical deformation behavior and mechanisms in transition metal carbides

Mechanical testing over 2000oC is arduous because of the required heating, compliance in components, and potential specimen reactions to name a few. In this talk, the use of a non-contact means of thermomechanical loading, initially demonstrated by Gangireddy and Halloran, is applied to TaC and HfC. By passing a current through the carbide, it is resistively heated and, in the presence of a magnetic field, the specimen bends under the Lorentz force. Using a variety of loads and temperatures up to 3000oC, the thermomechanical behavior is quantified for a series of tantalum and hafnium carbides. Findings include more deflection in TaC than HfC at equivalent load/temperatures which is contributed to TaC’s ease of {111} slip. At failure, TaC exhibited abnormal grain growth with multiple slip band formations on the fractured surface. In contrast, HfC exhibited minimal grain growth and substantially less slip band formations. Additional studies determining the relationship between load at failure as a function of temperature were determined. The collective results will be discussed in terms of TEM and DFT analysis of slip mechanisms in transition metal carbides

Temperature and ac Effects on Charge Transport in Metallic Arrays of Dots

We investigate the effects of finite temperature, dc pulse, and ac drives on the charge transport in metallic arrays using numerical simulations. For finite temperatures there is a finite conduction threshold which decreases linearly with temperature. Additionally we find a quadratic scaling of the current-voltage curves which is independent of temperature for finite thresholds. These results are in excellent agreement with recent experiments on 2D metallic dot arrays. We have also investigated the effects of an ac drive as well as a suddenly applied dc drive. With an ac drive the conduction threshold decreases for fixed frequency and increasing amplitude and saturates for fixed amplitude and increasing frequency. For sudden applied dc drives below threshold we observe a long time power law conduction decay.Comment: 6 pages, 7 postscript figure

Is tagging with visual implant elastomer a reliable technique for marking earthworms?

Visual implant elastomer (VIE) has recently been employed to investigate different aspects of earthworm ecology. However, a number of fundamental questions relating to the detection and positioning of the tag, its persistence and potential effects on earthworms remain unknown. Seven earthworm species belonging to three ecological groupings, with different pigmentation and burrowing behaviour, were tagged using different coloured VIE. External inspection after two days, one week and 1, 10 and 27 months were followed by preservation, dissection and internal inspection. Tags could be seen in living specimens to 27 months, and dissection revealed that in most cases they were lodged in the coelomic cavity, held in place by septa. However, over longer time periods (more than two years), the chlorogogenous tissue tended to bind to the tags and made external observation increasingly difficult. Migration of the VIE material towards the posterior of the earthworm and potential loss of the tag were only observed on rare occasions, and a recovery rate in excess of 98% was recorded. By introducing a reasonable amount of VIE into segments, just after the clitellum, this technique can become a valuable tool in earthworm ecology and life history studies, particularly in short-medium term laboratory and field experiments

Rectification and Flux Reversals for Vortices Interacting with Triangular Traps

We simulate vortices in superconductors interacting with two-dimensional arrays of triangular traps. We find that, upon application of an ac drive, a net dc flow can occur which shows current reversals with increasing ac drive amplitude for certain vortex densities, in agreement with recent experiments and theoretical predictions. We identify the vortex dynamics responsible for the different rectification regimes. We also predict the occurrence of a novel transverse rectification effect in which a dc flow appears that is transverse to the direction of the applied ac drive.Comment: 4 pages, 4 postscript figure

Characterization of Au3+ species in Au/C catalysts for the hydrochlorination reaction of acetylene

A set of Au/C catalysts for the gas phase hydrochlorination of acetylene to vinyl chloride monomer were prepared using a range of strong acids as impregnating solvents and varying the preparation drying temperature. The most active catalyst is the material prepared using aqua regia as solvent with an intermediate drying temperature of 140 °C. The effects of the catalyst preparation parameters on the catalytic activity are examined using XPS and TPR as analytical tools. In particular, the use of thermal reduction methods allows the determination of kinetic parameters for the reduction of Au3+ to Au0 by means of H2. These data support the existence of a redox cycle between Au3+/Au0 when carbon is used as support

Computational advances in gravitational microlensing: a comparison of CPU, GPU, and parallel, large data codes

To assess how future progress in gravitational microlensing computation at high optical depth will rely on both hardware and software solutions, we compare a direct inverse ray-shooting code implemented on a graphics processing unit (GPU) with both a widely-used hierarchical tree code on a single-core CPU, and a recent implementation of a parallel tree code suitable for a CPU-based cluster supercomputer. We examine the accuracy of the tree codes through comparison with a direct code over a much wider range of parameter space than has been feasible before. We demonstrate that all three codes present comparable accuracy, and choice of approach depends on considerations relating to the scale and nature of the microlensing problem under investigation. On current hardware, there is little difference in the processing speed of the single-core CPU tree code and the GPU direct code, however the recent plateau in single-core CPU speeds means the existing tree code is no longer able to take advantage of Moore's law-like increases in processing speed. Instead, we anticipate a rapid increase in GPU capabilities in the next few years, which is advantageous to the direct code. We suggest that progress in other areas of astrophysical computation may benefit from a transition to GPUs through the use of "brute force" algorithms, rather than attempting to port the current best solution directly to a GPU language -- for certain classes of problems, the simple implementation on GPUs may already be no worse than an optimised single-core CPU version.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in New Astronom

Momentum Dependent Vertices σγγ\sigma \gamma \gamma, σργ\sigma \rho \gamma and σρρ\sigma \rho \rho : The NJL Scalar Hidden by Chiral Symmetry

We calculate the momentum dependence of three particle vertices $\sigma \gamma \gamma$, $\sigma \rho \gamma$ and $\sigma \rho \rho$ in the context of a Nambu Jona Lasinio type model. We show how they influence the processes $\gamma \gamma \rightarrow \sigma \rightarrow \pi \pi$, $\rho \rightarrow \gamma \sigma$ and $\gamma \gamma \rightarrow \rho \rho$ and how chiral symmetry shadows the presence of the $\sigma$.Comment: 9 pages (latex), 5 figures available from the authors, preprint Coimbra 940506, IJS-TP-94/10, accepted for publication in Zeit. f. Physik

The risk of cardiac failure following metal-on-metal hip arthroplasty

Aims The aim of this study was to determine whether patients with metal-on-metal (MoM) arthroplasties of the hip have an increased risk of cardiac failure compared with those with alternative types of arthroplasties (non-MoM). Patients and Methods A linkage study between the National Joint Registry, Hospital Episodes Statistics and records of the Office for National Statistics on deaths was undertaken. Patients who underwent elective total hip arthroplasty between January 2003 and December 2014 with no past history of cardiac failure were included and stratified as having either a MoM (n = 53 529) or a nonMoM (n = 482 247) arthroplasty. The primary outcome measure was the time to an admission to hospital for cardiac failure or death. Analysis was carried out using data from all patients and from those matched by propensity score. Results The risk of cardiac failure was lower in the MoM cohort compared with the non-MoM cohort (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) 0.901; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.853 to 0.953). The risk of cardiac failure was similar following matching (aHR 0.909; 95% CI 0.838 to 0.987) and the findings were consistent in subgroup analysis. Conclusion The risk of cardiac failure following total hip arthroplasty was not increased in those in whom MoM implants were used, compared with those in whom other types of prostheses were used, in the first seven years after surgery. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2018;100-B:20–

Possible implications of the channeling effect in NaI(Tl) crystals

The channeling effect of low energy ions along the crystallographic axes and planes of NaI(Tl) crystals is discussed in the framework of corollary investigations on WIMP Dark Matter candidates. In fact, the modeling of this existing effect implies a more complex evaluation of the luminosity yield for low energy recoiling Na and I ions. In the present paper related phenomenological arguments are developed and possible implications are discussed at some extent.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, preprint ROM2F/2007/15, submitted for publicatio