1,084 research outputs found
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
-kinks in strongly ac driven sine-Gordon systems
We demonstrate that -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 -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 , an edge parameter , and a cluster weighting factor .
Stochastic comparisons of measures are developed for the `vertex marginal' when
, 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
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