C.difficile infection rate in patients with IBD is falling in line with that of the general population

Poster presentatio

Electron localization in sound absorption oscillations in the quantum Hall effect regime

The absorption coefficient for surface acoustic waves in a piezoelectric insulator in contact with a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure (with two-dimensional electron mobility $\mu= 1.3\times 10^5 cm^2/V\cdot s)$ at T=4.2K) via a small gap has been investigated experimentally as a function of the frequency of the wave, the width of the vacuum gap, the magnetic field, and the temperature. The magnetic field and frequency dependencies of the high-frequency conductivity (in the region 30-210 MHz) are calculated and analyzed. The experimental results can be explained if it assumed that there exists a fluctuation potential in which current carrier localization occurs. The absorption of the surface acoustic waves in an interaction with two-dimensional electrons localized in the energy "tails" of Landau levels is discussed.Comment: RevTeX 6 pages+6 EPS pic

Syngenetic sand veins and anti-syngenetic sand wedges, Tuktoyaktuk Coastlands, western Arctic Canada

Sand-sheet deposits of full-glacial age in the Tuktoyaktuk Coastlands, western Arctic Canada, contain syngenetic sand veins 1-21 cm wide and sometimes exceeding 9 m in height. Their tall and narrow, chimney-like morphology differs from that of known syngenetic ice wedges and indicates an unusually close balance between the rate of sand-sheet aggradation and the frequency of thermal-contraction cracking. The sand sheets also contain rejuvenated (syngenetic) sand wedges that have grown upward from an erosion surface. By contrast, sand sheets of postglacial age contain few or sometimes no intraformational sand veins and wedges, suggesting that the climatic conditions were unfavourable for thermal-contraction cracking. Beneath a postglacial sand sheet near Johnson Bay, sand wedges with unusually wide tops (3.9 m) extend down from a prominent erosion surface. The wedges grew vertically downward during deflation of the ground surface, and represent anti-syngenetic wedges. The distribution of sand veins and wedges within the sand sheets indicates that the existence of continuous permafrost during sand-sheet aggradation can be inferred confidently only during full-glacial conditions

Introduction

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69081/2/10.1177_0261927X99018001001.pd

Surface acoustic wave attenuation by a two-dimensional electron gas in a strong magnetic field

The propagation of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) on GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures is studied in the case where the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) is subject to a strong magnetic field and a smooth random potential with correlation length Lambda and amplitude Delta. The electron wave functions are described in a quasiclassical picture using results of percolation theory for two-dimensional systems. In accordance with the experimental situation, Lambda is assumed to be much smaller than the sound wavelength 2*pi/q. This restricts the absorption of surface phonons at a filling factor \bar{\nu} approx 1/2 to electrons occupying extended trajectories of fractal structure. Both piezoelectric and deformation potential interactions of surface acoustic phonons with electrons are considered and the corresponding interaction vertices are derived. These vertices are found to differ from those valid for three-dimensional bulk phonon systems with respect to the phonon wave vector dependence. We derive the appropriate dielectric function varepsilon(omega,q) to describe the effect of screening on the electron-phonon coupling. In the low temperature, high frequency regime T << Delta (omega_q*Lambda /v_D)^{alpha/2/nu}, where omega_q is the SAW frequency and v_D is the electron drift velocity, both the attenuation coefficient Gamma and varepsilon(omega,q) are independent of temperature. The classical percolation indices give alpha/2/nu=3/7. The width of the region where a strong absorption of the SAW occurs is found to be given by the scaling law |Delta \bar{\nu}| approx (omega_q*Lambda/v_D)^{alpha/2/nu}. The dependence of the electron-phonon coupling and the screening due to the 2DEG on the filling factor leads to a double-peak structure for Gamma(\bar{\nu}).Comment: 17 pages, 3 Postscript figures, minor changes mad

Sound and Heat Absorption by a 2D Electron Gas in an Odd-Integer Quantized-Hall Regime

The absorption of bulk acoustic phonons in a two-dimensional (2D) GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure is studied (in the clean limit) where the 2D electron-gas (2DEG), being in an odd-integer quantum-Hall state, is in fact a spin dielectric. Of the two channels of phonon absorption associated with excitation of spin waves, one, which is due to the spin-orbit (SO) coupling of electrons, involves a change of the spin state of the system and the other does not. We show that the phonon-absorption rate corresponding to the former channel (in the paper designated as the second absorption channel) is finite at zero temperature ($T$), whereas that corresponding to the latter (designated as the first channel) vanishes for $T\to 0$. The long-wavelength limit, being the special case of the first absorption channel, corresponds to sound (bulk and surface) attenuation by the 2DEG. At the same time, the ballistic phonon propagation and heat absorption are determined by both channels. The 2DEG overheat and the attendant spin-state change are found under the conditions of permanent nonequilibrium phonon pumping.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figure

In search of lost hybridity: the French Daniel Deronda

Starting from a set of examples of borrowings from French in George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, I explore the various ways in which the characters’ and narrator’s use of mixed English–French utterances generates inferences which make the transcending of their mono-cultural self possible. I go on to argue that in Jumeau’s recent French translation of the novel, the reader is not given access to those inferences, resulting in the erasing of an Anglo-European, cosmopolitan identity