Methodology for the comparative assessment of the Satellite Power System (SPS) and alternative technologies

The energy systems concerned are the satellite power system, several coal technologies, geothermal energy, fission, fusion, terrestrial solar systems, and ocean thermal energy conversion. Guidelines are suggested for the characterization of these systems, side-by-side analysis, alternative futures analysis, and integration and aggregation of data. A description of the methods for assessing the technical, economic, environmental, societal, and institutional issues surrounding the development of the selected energy technologies is presented

Superconducting properties of Nb thin films deposited on porous silicon templates

Porous silicon, obtained by electrochemical etching, has been used as a substrate for the growth of nanoperforated Nb thin films. The films, deposited by UHV magnetron sputtering on the porous Si substrates, inherited their structure made of holes of 5 or 10 nm diameter and of 10 to 40 nm spacing, which provide an artificial pinning structure. The superconducting properties were investigated by transport measurements performed in the presence of magnetic field for different film thickness and substrates with different interpore spacing. Perpendicular upper critical fields measurements present peculiar features such as a change in the H_c2(T) curvature and oscillations in the field dependence of the superconducting resistive transition width at H=1 Tesla. This field value is much higher than typical matching fields in perforated superconductors, as a consequence of the small interpore distance.Comment: accepted for publication on Journal of Applied Physic

Pedestrians moving in dark: Balancing measures and playing games on lattices

We present two conceptually new modeling approaches aimed at describing the motion of pedestrians in obscured corridors: * a Becker-D\"{o}ring-type dynamics * a probabilistic cellular automaton model. In both models the group formation is affected by a threshold. The pedestrians are supposed to have very limited knowledge about their current position and their neighborhood; they can form groups up to a certain size and they can leave them. Their main goal is to find the exit of the corridor. Although being of mathematically different character, the discussion of both models shows that it seems to be a disadvantage for the individual to adhere to larger groups. We illustrate this effect numerically by solving both model systems. Finally we list some of our main open questions and conjectures

Transport and Photo-Conduction in Carbon Nanotube Fibers

We have characterized the conductivity of carbon nanotubes (CNT) fibers enriched in semiconducting species as a function of temperature and pulsed laser irradiation of 266 nm wavelength. While at high temperatures the response approaches an Arrhenius law behavior, from room temperature down to 4.2 K the response can be framed, quantitatively, within the predictions of the fluctuation induced tunneling which occurs between the inner fibrils (bundles) of the samples and/or the elementary CNTs constituting the fibers. Laser irradiation induces an enhancement of the conductivity, and analysis of the resulting data confirms the (exponential) dependence of the potential barrier upon temperature as expected from the fluctuation induced tunneling model. A thermal map of the experimental configuration consisting of laser-irradiated fibers is also obtained via COMSOL simulations in order to rule out bare heating phenomena as the background of our experiments. (*) AuthorComment: 13 pages and 7 figure

Switching dynamics between metastable ordered magnetic state and nonmagnetic ground state - A possible mechanism for photoinduced ferromagnetism -

By studying the dynamics of the metastable magnetization of a statistical mechanical model we propose a switching mechanism of photoinduced magnetization. The equilibrium and nonequilibrium properties of the Blume-Capel (BC) model, which is a typical model exhibiting metastability, are studied by mean field theory and Monte Carlo simulation. We demonstrate reversible changes of magnetization in a sequence of changes of system parameters, which would model the reversible photoinduced magnetization. Implications of the calculated results are discussed in relation to the recent experimental results for prussian blue analogs.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figure

Whole-Genome Sequences of Two NDM-1-Producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa Strains Isolated in a Clinical Setting in Albania in 2018

Isolation of metallo-β-lactamase-producing, carbapenem-resistant, Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains is increasingly being documented worldwide; their presence constitutes a public health threat. Here, we report draft genome sequences of two New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase-1-producing, multidrug-resistant, P. aeruginosa strains of sequence type 235 that were isolated from the surgical wound of two patients hospitalized in the same ward

π\pi-kinks in strongly ac driven sine-Gordon systems

We demonstrate that $\pi$-kinks exist in non-parametrically ac driven sine-Gordon systems if the ac drive is sufficiently fast. It is found that, at a critical value of the drive amplitude, there are two stable and two unstable equilibria in the sine-Gordon phase. The pairwise symmetry of these equilibria implies the existence of a one-parameter family of $\pi$-kink solutions in the reduced system. In the dissipative case of the ac driven sine-Gordon systems, corresponding to Josephson junctions, the velocity is selected by the balance between the perturbations. The results are derived from a perturbation analysis and verified by direct numerical simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, revte

Novel glassy behavior in a ferromagnetic p-spin model

Recent work has suggested the existence of glassy behavior in a ferromagnetic model with a four-spin interaction. Motivated by these findings, we have studied the dynamics of this model using Monte Carlo simulations with particular attention being paid to two-time quantities. We find that the system shares many features in common with glass forming liquids. In particular, the model exhibits: (i) a very long-lived metastable state, (ii) autocorrelation functions that show stretched exponential relaxation, (iii) a non-equilibrium timescale that appears to diverge at a well defined temperature, and (iv) low temperature aging behaviour characteristic of glasses.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Metastability and Nucleation for the Blume-Capel Model. Different mechanisms of transition

We study metastability and nucleation for the Blume-Capel model: a ferromagnetic nearest neighbour two-dimensional lattice system with spin variables taking values in -1,0,+1. We consider large but finite volume, small fixed magnetic field h and chemical potential "lambda" in the limit of zero temperature; we analyze the first excursion from the metastable -1 configuration to the stable +1 configuration. We compute the asymptotic behaviour of the transition time and describe the typical tube of trajectories during the transition. We show that, unexpectedly, the mechanism of transition changes abruptly when the line h=2*lambda is crossed.Comment: 96 pages, 44 tex-figures, 7 postscript figure

Random-cluster representation of the Blume-Capel model

The so-called diluted-random-cluster model may be viewed as a random-cluster representation of the Blume--Capel model. It has three parameters, a vertex parameter $a$, an edge parameter $p$, and a cluster weighting factor $q$. Stochastic comparisons of measures are developed for the `vertex marginal' when $q\in[1,2]$, and the `edge marginal' when q\in[1,\oo). Taken in conjunction with arguments used earlier for the random-cluster model, these permit a rigorous study of part of the phase diagram of the Blume--Capel model