Influence of excesses of volatile elements on structure and composition of solution derived lead-free (Bi0.50Na0.50)1xBaxTiO3 thin films

The preparation of (Bi0.50Na0.50)1−xBaxTiO3 films requires a compositional/structural control, as they determine the functionality of these materials. We report a systematic compositional and structural analysis on (Bi0.50Na0.50)1−xBaxTiO3 films fabricated by chemical solution deposition. The effects of incorporating Na(I) and Bi(III) excesses are analyzed through the comparison of the compositional depth profiles of stoichiometric films (BNBT) and films containing excesses (BNBTxs). Heterogeneous compositional profiles with larger bismuth content close to the substrate and thicker film-substrate interfaces are observed in BNBTxs, unlike stoichiometric films, which show atomic concentrations that correspond to the nominal composition of the precursor solution. Excesses induce structural differences in depth, observing a shift of the region of coexistence of rhombohedral and tetragonal phases (morphotropic phase boundary) toward higher x values and the formation of thick film-substrate interfaces. In contrast, stoichiometric films have homogeneous compositional and structural profiles with the MPB placed close to that described for bulk ceramics.This work was financed by Spanish Project MAT2013-40489-P. D. Pérez-Mezcua acknowledges the financial support of the FPU Spanish program (AP2012-0639). A portion of this research was carried out at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, a national user facility operated by Stanford University. D. Chateigner acknowledges the Conseil Régional de Basse Normandie for its partial financial of the four-circles X-ray diffractometer.Peer reviewe

Theoretical and Experimental Studies of Schottky Diodes That Use Aligned Arrays of Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes

We present theoretical and experimental studies of Schottky diodes that use aligned arrays of single walled carbon nanotubes. A simple physical model, taking into account the basic physics of current rectification, can adequately describe the single-tube and array devices. We show that for as grown array diodes, the rectification ratio, defined by the maximum-to-minimum-current-ratio, is low due to the presence of m-SWNT shunts. These tubes can be eliminated in a single voltage sweep resulting in a high rectification array device. Further analysis also shows that the channel resistance, and not the intrinsic nanotube diode properties, limits the rectification in devices with channel length up to ten micrometer.Comment: Nano Research, 2010, accepte

Precision measurement of the neutrino velocity with the ICARUS detector in the CNGS beam

During May 2012, the CERN-CNGS neutrino beam has been operated for two weeks for a total of 1.8 10^17 pot in bunched mode, with a 3 ns narrow width proton beam bunches, separated by 100 ns. This tightly bunched beam structure allows a very accurate time of flight measurement of neutrinos from CERN to LNGS on an event-by-event basis. Both the ICARUS-T600 PMT-DAQ and the CERN-LNGS timing synchronization have been substantially improved for this campaign, taking ad-vantage of additional independent GPS receivers, both at CERN and LNGS as well as of the deployment of the "White Rabbit" protocol both at CERN and LNGS. The ICARUS-T600 detector has collected 25 beam-associated events; the corresponding time of flight has been accurately evaluated, using all different time synchronization paths. The measured neutrino time of flight is compatible with the arrival of all events with speed equivalent to the one of light: the difference between the expected value based on the speed of light and the measured value is tof_c - tof_nu = (0.10 \pm 0.67stat. \pm 2.39syst.) ns. This result is in agreement with the value previously reported by the ICARUS collaboration, tof_c - tof_nu = (0.3 \pm 4.9stat. \pm 9.0syst.) ns, but with improved statistical and systematic errors.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures, 1 tabl

Tailoring r-index for Document Listing Towards Metagenomics Applications

A basic problem in metagenomics is to assign a sequenced read to the correct species in the reference collection. In typical applications in genomic epidemiology and viral metagenomics the reference collection consists of a set of species with each species represented by its highly similar strains. It has been recently shown that accurate read assignment can be achieved with k-mer hashing-based pseudoalignment: a read is assigned to species A if each of its k-mer hits to a reference collection is located only on strains of A. We study the underlying primitives required in pseudoalignment and related tasks. We propose three space-efficient solutions building upon the document listing with frequencies problem. All the solutions use an r-index (Gagie et al., SODA 2018) as an underlying index structure for the text obtained as concatenation of the set of species, as well as for each species. Given t species whose concatenation length is n, and whose Burrows-Wheeler transform contains r runs, our first solution, based on a grammar-compressed document array with precomputed queries at non terminal symbols, reports the frequencies for the distinct documents in which the pattern of length m occurs in time. Our second solution is also based on a grammar-compressed document array, but enhanced with bitvectors and reports the frequencies in time, over a machine with wordsize w. Our third solution, based on the interleaved LCP array, answers the same query in time. We implemented our solutions and tested them on real-world and synthetic datasets. The results show that all the solutions are fast on highly-repetitive data, and the size overhead introduced by the indexes are comparable with the size of the r-index.Peer reviewe

Mathematical modeling and forecasting of COVID-19: experience in Santiago de Cuba province

In the province of Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, the COVID-19 epidemic has a limited progression that shows an early small-number peak of infections. Most published mathematical models fit data with high numbers of confirmed cases. In contrast, small numbers of cases make it difficult to predict the course of the epidemic. We present two known models adapted to capture the noisy dynamics of COVID-19 in the Santiago de Cuba province. Parameters of both models were estimated using the approximate-Bayesian-computation framework with dedicated error laws. One parameter of each model was updated on key dates of travel restrictions. Both models approximately predicted the infection peak and the end of the COVID-19 epidemic in Santiago de Cuba. The first model predicted 57 reported cases and 16 unreported cases. Additionally, it estimated six initially exposed persons. The second model forecasted 51 confirmed cases at the end of the epidemic. In conclusion, an opportune epidemiological investigation, along with the low number of initially exposed individuals, might partly explain the favorable evolution of the COVID-19 epidemic in Santiago de Cuba. With the available data, the simplest model predicted the epidemic evolution with greater precision, and the more complex model helped to explain the epidemic phenomenology