Strain balanced quantum posts

Quantum posts are assembled by epitaxial growth of closely spaced quantum dot layers, modulating the composition of a semiconductor alloy, typically InGaAs. In contrast with most self-assembled nanostructures, the height of quantum posts can be controlled with nanometer precision, up to a maximum value limited by the accumulated stress due to the lattice mismatch. Here we present a strain compensation technique based on the controlled incorporation of phosphorous, which substantially increases the maximum attainable quantum post height. The luminescence from the resulting nanostructures presents giant linear polarization anisotropy.Comment: Submitted to Applied Physics Letters (7th March 2011). 4 pages, 4 figure

How does iron interact with sporopollenin exine capsules? An X-ray absorption study including microfocus XANES and XRF imaging

Sporopollenin exine capsules (SECs) derived from plant spores and pollen grains have been proposed as adsorption, remediation and drug delivery agents. Despite many studies there is scant structural data available. This X-ray absorption investigation represents the first direct structural data on the interaction of metals with SECs and allows elucidation of their structure–property relationships. Fe K-edge XANES and EXAFS data have shown that the iron local environment in SECs (derived from Lycopodium clavatum) reacted with aqueous ferric chloride solutions is similar to that of ferrihydrite (FeOOH) and by implication ferritin. Fe Kα XRF micro-focus experiments show that there is a poor correlation between the iron distribution and the underlying SEC structure indicating that the SEC is coated in the FeOOH material. In contrast, the Fe Kα XRF micro-focus experiments on SECs reacted with aqueous ferrous chloride solutions show that there is a very high correlation between the iron distribution and the SEC structure, indicating a much more specific form of interaction of the iron with the SEC surface functional groups. Fe K-edge XANES and EXAFS data show that the FeII can be easily oxidised to give a structure similar to, but not identical to that in the FeIII case, and that even if anaerobic conditions are used there is still partial oxidation to FeIII

Estudio de la calidad del árido reciclado y su relación con la resistencia a compresión del hormigón reciclado utilizando una base de datos

This work studies the physical and mechanical properties of recycled concrete aggregate (recycled aggregate from concrete waste) and their influence in structural recycled concrete compressive strength. For said purpose, a database has been developed with the experimental results of 152 works selected from over 250 international references. The processed database results indicate that the most sensitive properties of recycled aggregate quality are density and absorption. Moreover, the study analyses how the recycled aggregate (both percentage and quality) and the mixing procedure (pre-soaking or adding extra water) influence the recycled concrete strength of different categories (high or low water to cement ratios). When recycled aggregate absorption is low (under 5%), pre-soaking or adding extra water to avoid loss in workability will negatively affect concrete strength (due to the bleeding effect), whereas with high water absorption this does not occur and both of the aforementioned correcting methods can be accurately employed.El estudio analiza las propiedades físico-mecánicas de los áridos reciclados de hormigón (procedentes de residuos de hormigón) y su influencia en la resistencia a compresión del hormigón reciclado estructural. Para ello se ha desarrollado una base de datos con resultados de 152 trabajos seleccionados a partir de más de 250 referencias internacionales. Los resultados del tratamiento de la base indican que densidad y absorción son las propiedades más sensibles a la calidad del árido reciclado. Además, este estudio analiza cómo el árido reciclado (porcentaje y calidad) y el procedimiento de mezcla (presaturación o adición de agua extra) influyen en la resistencia del hormigón reciclado de diferentes categorías (alta o baja relación agua-cemento). Cuando la absorción es baja (inferior al 5%) presaturar o añadir agua para evitar pérdidas de trabajabilidad afectan negativamente a la resistencia (debido al bleeding), mientras que cuando es alta esto no sucede y ambos métodos son adecuados

Automated semantic annotation of rare disease cases: a case study

MOTIVATION: As the number of clinical reports in the peer-reviewed medical literature keeps growing, there is an increasing need for online search tools to find and analyze publications on patients with similar clinical characteristics. This problem is especially critical and challenging for rare diseases, where publications of large series are scarce. Through an applied example, we illustrate how to automatically identify new relevant cases and semantically annotate the relevant literature about patient case reports to capture the phenotype of a rare disease named cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis. RESULTS: Our results confirm that it is possible to automatically identify new relevant case reports with a high precision and to annotate them with a satisfactory quality (74% F-measure). Automated annotation with an emphasis to entirely describe all phenotypic abnormalities found in a disease may facilitate curation efforts by supplying phenotype retrieval and assessment of their frequency. Availability and Supplementary information: http://www.usc.es/keam/Phenotype Annotation/. Database URL: http://www.usc.es/keam/PhenotypeAnnotation

Collapsing granular suspensions

A 2D contact dynamics model is proposed as a microscopic description of a collapsing suspension/soil to capture the essential physical processes underlying the dynamics of generation and collapse of the system. Our physical model is compared with real data obtained from in situ measurements performed with a natural collapsing/suspension soil. We show that the shear strength behavior of our collapsing suspension/soil model is very similar to the behavior of this collapsing suspension soil, for both the unperturbed and the perturbed phases of the material.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in EPJ

Using Synchronic and Diachronic Relations for Summarizing Multiple Documents Describing Evolving Events

In this paper we present a fresh look at the problem of summarizing evolving events from multiple sources. After a discussion concerning the nature of evolving events we introduce a distinction between linearly and non-linearly evolving events. We present then a general methodology for the automatic creation of summaries from evolving events. At its heart lie the notions of Synchronic and Diachronic cross-document Relations (SDRs), whose aim is the identification of similarities and differences between sources, from a synchronical and diachronical perspective. SDRs do not connect documents or textual elements found therein, but structures one might call messages. Applying this methodology will yield a set of messages and relations, SDRs, connecting them, that is a graph which we call grid. We will show how such a grid can be considered as the starting point of a Natural Language Generation System. The methodology is evaluated in two case-studies, one for linearly evolving events (descriptions of football matches) and another one for non-linearly evolving events (terrorist incidents involving hostages). In both cases we evaluate the results produced by our computational systems.Comment: 45 pages, 6 figures. To appear in the Journal of Intelligent Information System

Objective assessment of the effect of pupil size upon the power distribution of multifocal contact lenses.

AIM: To analytically assess the effect of pupil size upon the refractive power distributions of different designs of multifocal contact lenses. METHODS: Two multifocal contact lenses of center-near design and one multifocal contact lens of center-distance design were used in this study. Their power profiles were measured using the NIMO TR1504 device (LAMBDA-X, Belgium). Based on their power profiles, the power distribution was assessed as a function of pupil size. For the high addition lenses, the resulting refractive power as a function of viewing distance (far, intermediate, and near) and pupil size was also analyzed. RESULTS: The power distribution of the lenses was affected by pupil size differently. One of the lenses showed a significant spread in refractive power distribution, from about -3 D to 0 D. Generally, the power distribution of the lenses expanded as the pupil diameter became greater. The surface of the lens dedicated for each distance varied substantially with the design of the lens. CONCLUSION: In an experimental basis, our results show how the lenses power distribution is affected by the pupil size and underlined the necessity of careful evaluation of the patient's visual needs and the optical properties of a multifocal contact lens for achieving the optimal visual outcome