Theoretical investigation of bridge seismic responses with pounding under near-fault vertical ground motions

Vertical earthquake loading is normally regarded not as important as its horizontal components and are not explicitly considered in many seismic design codes. However, some previous severe near-fault earthquakes reveal that the vertical ground motion component can be much larger than the horizontal components and may cause serious damage to the bridge structures. This paper theoretically investigates the vertical pounding responses of a two-span continuous bridge subjected to the severe near-fault vertical ground motions. The bridge is simplified as a continuous beam-spring-rod model. The structural wave effect and the vertical pounding between the bridge girder and the supporting bearing are considered, and the theoretical solutions of bridge seismic responses are derived from the expansion of transient wave functions as a series of eigenfunctions. The effects of vertical earthquake and vertical pounding on the bridge bearing, girder and pier are investigated. The numerical results show that the severe vertical earthquake loading may cause the bridge girder to separate from the supporting bearing and hence result in vertical poundings between them when they are in contact again. These vertical poundings can significantly alter the seismic responses of the bridge structure and may cause severe damage to the bridge components such as bridge girder, supporting bearing and bridge pier. Neglecting the influence of vertical earthquake loading may lead to inaccurate estimation of seismic responses of bridge structures, especially when they are subjected to near-fault earthquake with relatively large vertical motion

Interface Motion and Pinning in Small World Networks

We show that the nonequilibrium dynamics of systems with many interacting elements located on a small-world network can be much slower than on regular networks. As an example, we study the phase ordering dynamics of the Ising model on a Watts-Strogatz network, after a quench in the ferromagnetic phase at zero temperature. In one and two dimensions, small-world features produce dynamically frozen configurations, disordered at large length scales, analogous of random field models. This picture differs from the common knowledge (supported by equilibrium results) that ferromagnetic short-cuts connections favor order and uniformity. We briefly discuss some implications of these results regarding the dynamics of social changes.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures with minor corrections. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Uncommon radiological findings: a case report

A 50-year-old friendly and attractive Chinese lady was examined by the Primary Care Unit, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya. Her requests for treatment included implants and crowns. Two periapical radiographs of teeth 16 and 48 were taken to aid diagnosis. Interestingly, pin-lke radio-opaque objects were found over the crown of the impacted tooth 15 and also tooth 17. These objects were initially interpreted as silver points or radiographic artifacts but further investigation employing panoramic radiography revealed the distribution of more radio-opaque objects in the orofacial region. Based on a review of the literature and the opinion of experienced radiology and oral surgery lecturers, these foreign radio-opaque objects were diagnosed as susuks or charm needles

Dynamics of Baryons from String Theory and Vector Dominance

We consider a holographic model of QCD from string theory, a la Sakai and Sugimoto, and study baryons. In this model, mesons are collectively realized as a five-dimensional \$U(N_F)=U(1)\times SU(N_F)$ Yang-Mills field and baryons are classically identified as $SU(N_F)$ solitons with a unit Pontryagin number and $N_c$ electric charges. The soliton is shown to be very small in the large 't Hooft coupling limit, allowing us to introduce an effective field ${\cal B}$. Its coupling to the mesons are dictated by the soliton structure, and consists of a direct magnetic coupling to the $SU(N_F)$ field strength as well as a minimal coupling to the $U(N_F)$ gauge field. Upon the dimensional reduction, this effective action reproduces all interaction terms between nucleons and an infinite tower of mesons in a manner consistent with the large $N_c$ expansion. We further find that all electromagnetic interactions, as inferred from the same effective action via a holographic prescription, are mediated by an infinite tower of vector mesons, rendering the baryon electromagnetic form factors completely vector-dominated as well. We estimate nucleon-meson couplings and also the anomalous magnetic moments, which compare well with nature.Comment: 65pages, 3 figures, vector mesons and axial-vector mesons are now canonically normalized (comparisons with data and conclusions unaffected

Criticality, Scaling and Chiral Symmetry Breaking in External Magnetic Field

We consider a D7-brane probe of $AdS_{5}\times S^5$ in the presence of pure gauge $B$-field. The dual gauge theory is flavored Yang-Mills theory in external magnetic field. We explore the dependence of the fermionic condensate on the bare quark mass $m_{q}$ and study the discrete self-similar behavior of the theory near the origin of the parametric space. We calculate the critical exponents of the bare quark mass and the fermionic condensate. A study of the meson spectrum supports the expectation based on thermodynamic considerations that at zero bare quark mass the stable phase of the theory is a chiral symmetry breaking one. Our study reveals the self-similar structure of the spectrum near the critical phase of the theory, characterized by zero fermionic condensate and we calculate the corresponding critical exponent of the meson spectrum.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures. Accepted in JHEP. Updated to mach the published version. One figure added, some definitions improve

Excursions beyond the horizon: Black hole singularities in Yang-Mills theories (I)

We study black hole singularities in the AdS/CFT correspondence. These singularities show up in CFT in the behavior of finite-temperature correlation functions. We first establish a direct relation between space-like geodesics in the bulk and momentum space Wightman functions of CFT operators of large dimensions. This allows us to probe the regions inside the horizon and near the singularity using the CFT. Information about the black hole singularity is encoded in the exponential falloff of finite-temperature correlators at large imaginary frequency. We construct new gauge invariant observables whose divergences reflect the presence of the singularity. We also find a UV/UV connection that governs physics inside the horizon. Additionally, we comment on the possible resolution of the singularity.Comment: 34 page, 10 figures, uses harvmac, references adde

Nonequilibrium transitions in complex networks: a model of social interaction

We analyze the non-equilibrium order-disorder transition of Axelrod's model of social interaction in several complex networks. In a small world network, we find a transition between an ordered homogeneous state and a disordered state. The transition point is shifted by the degree of spatial disorder of the underlying network, the network disorder favoring ordered configurations. In random scale-free networks the transition is only observed for finite size systems, showing system size scaling, while in the thermodynamic limit only ordered configurations are always obtained. Thus in the thermodynamic limit the transition disappears. However, in structured scale-free networks, the phase transition between an ordered and a disordered phase is restored.Comment: 7 pages revtex4, 10 figures, related material at http://www.imedea.uib.es/PhysDept/Nonlinear/research_topics/Social

The controlled teleportation of an arbitrary two-atom entangled state in driven cavity QED

In this paper, we propose a scheme for the controlled teleportation of an arbitrary two-atom entangled state $|\phi>_{12}=a|gg>_{12}+b|ge>_{12}+c|eg>_{12}+d|ee>_{12}$ in driven cavity QED. An arbitrary two-atom entangled state can be teleported perfectly with the help of the cooperation of the third side by constructing a three-atom GHZ entangled state as the controlled channel. This scheme does not involve apparent (or direct) Bell-state measurement and is insensitive to the cavity decay and the thermal field. The probability of the success in our scheme is 1.0.Comment: 10 page

A new constitutive model for prediction of impact rates response of polypropylene

This paper proposes a new constitutive model for predicting the impact rates response of polypropylene. Impact rates, as used here, refer to strain rates greater than 1000 1/s. The model is a physically based, three-dimensional constitutive model which incorporates the contributions of the amorphous, crystalline, pseudo-amorphous and entanglement networks to the constitutive response of polypropylene. The model mathematics is based on the well-known Glass-Rubber model originally developed for glassy polymers but the arguments have herein been extended to semi-crystalline polymers. In order to predict the impact rates behaviour of polypropylene, the model exploits the well-known framework of multiple processes yielding of polymers. This work argues that two dominant viscoelastic relaxation processes – the alpha- and beta-processes – can be associated with the yield responses of polypropylene observed at low-rate-dominant and impact-rates dominant loading regimes. Compression test data on polypropylene have been used to validate the model. The study has found that the model predicts quite well the experimentally observed nonlinear rate-dependent impact response of polypropylene

Bulk Filling Branes and the Baryon Density in AdS/QCD with gravity back-reaction

We consider the gravity back reaction on the metric due to the baryon density in effective ads/qcd model by reconsidering the role of the charged AdS black hole. Previously it has been known that the U(1) charge is dual to the R-charge. Here we point out that if we consider the case where $AdS_5$ is completely filled with $N_f$ flavor branes, the gravity back reaction produces charged AdS black hole where the effect of charge on the metric is proportional to $N_f/N_c$. As a consequence, phase diagram changes qualitatively if we allow $N_f/N_c$ finite: it closes at the finite density unlike the probe brane embedding approach. Another issue we discuss here is the question whether there is any chemical potential dependence in the confining phase. We consider this problem in the hard wall model with baryon charge. We conclude that there is a non-trivial dependence on the chemical potential in this case also.Comment: 17 pages 3x2 figures, v2: references added;v3 published version, title change and reference adde