20,487 research outputs found
Crack Tip Relaxation Governs Onset of Fracture Instability
A dynamic crack will travel in a straight path up to a material-dependent
critical speed beyond which its path becomes erratic. Predicting this critical
speed and discovering the origin of this instability are two outstanding
problems in fracture mechanics. We recently discovered a simple scaling model
based on an effective elastic modulus that gives successful predictions for
this critical speed by transforming the nonlinear crack dynamics problem into a
linear elasticity representation. We now show that a simple atomic picture
based on broken-bond relaxation at the dynamic crack tip provides an
explanation for the origin of the effective elastic modulus.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure
Global and European Labor Costs
Multinational companies and national governments pay considerable attention to labor cost and labor productivity differentials across countries. This paper analyses total and unit labor differentials for a group of European and non-European countries in the 1960-1998 period. It deals with (i) the magnitude of total labor cost differences (ii) the developments in unit labor cost and labor productivity (iii) the convergence process between countries with higher and lower labor costs.
Sectoral Employment Efkcts of Trade and ProductiviQ in a Small Open Economy
This paper assesses the impact of trade and technology on Belgian industrial employment. A framework is developed which incorporates employment effects of (i) export expansion (ii) impost competition and (iii) labour saving productivity improvements. In this context, evidence is found for the hypothesis that international trade induces adjustments in technology.
Correlations of a bound interface over a random substrate
The correlation function of a one-dimensional interface over a random
substrate, bound to the substrate by a pressure term, is studied by Monte-Carlo
simulation. It is found that the height correlation , averaged
over the substrate disorder, fits a form exp(-(j/b)^c) to a surprising
precision in the full range of j where the correlation is non-negligible. The
exponent c increases from 1.0 to 1.5 when the interface tension is taken larger
and larger.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Radio emission in peculiar galaxies
During the last decades a number of surveys of peculiar galaxies have been carried out and accurate positions become available. Since peculiarities are a possible evidence of radio emission (Wright, 1974; Sulentic, 1976; Stocke et al., 1978), the authors selected a sample of 24 peculiar galaxies with optical jet-like features or extensions in different optical catalogues, mainly the Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies and Associations (Arp and Madore, 1987) and the ESO/Uppsala Survey of the ESO(B) Atlas (Lauberts, 1982) for observation at the radio continuum frequency of 22 GHz. The sample is listed in a table. Sol (1987) studied this sample and concluded that the majority of the jet-like features seem to admit an explanation in terms of interactive galaxies with bridges and/or tails due to tidal effects. Only in a few cases do the jets seem to be possibly linked to some nuclear activity of the host galaxy. The observations were made with the 13.7m-radome enclosed Itapetinga Radiotelescope (HPBW of 4.3 arcmin), in Brazil. The receiver was a 1 GHz d.s.b. super-heterodine mixer operated in total-power mode, with a system temperature of approximately 800 K. The observational technique consisted in scans in right ascention, centralized in the optical position of the galaxy. The amplitude of one scan was 43 arcmin, and its duration time was 20 seconds. The integration time was at least 2 hours (12 ten-minute observations) and the sensibility limit adopted was an antenna temperature greater than 3 times the r.m.s. error of the baseline determination. Virgo A was used as the calibrator source. Three galaxies were detected for the first time as radio sources and four other known galaxies at low frequencies had their flux densities measured at 22 GHz. The results for these sources are presented
Addendum: Ultrahigh-energy cosmic-ray bounds on nonbirefringent modified-Maxwell theory
Nonbirefringent modified-Maxwell theory, coupled to standard Dirac particles,
involves nine dimensionless parameters, which can be bounded by the inferred
absence of vacuum Cherenkov radiation for ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays
(UHECRs). With selected UHECR events, two-sided bounds on the eight
nonisotropic parameters are obtained at the 10^{-18} level, together with an
improved one-sided bound on the single isotropic parameter at the 10^{-19}
level.Comment: 5 pages with revtex
4-Dimensional Tracking with Ultra-Fast Silicon Detectors
The evolution of particle detectors has always pushed the technological limit
in order to provide enabling technologies to researchers in all fields of
science. One archetypal example is the evolution of silicon detectors, from a
system with a few channels 30 years ago, to the tens of millions of independent
pixels currently used to track charged particles in all major particle physics
experiments. Nowadays, silicon detectors are ubiquitous not only in research
laboratories but in almost every high-tech apparatus, from portable phones to
hospitals. In this contribution, we present a new direction in the evolution of
silicon detectors for charge particle tracking, namely the inclusion of very
accurate timing information. This enhancement of the present silicon detector
paradigm is enabled by the inclusion of controlled low gain in the detector
response, therefore increasing the detector output signal sufficiently to make
timing measurement possible. After providing a short overview of the advantage
of this new technology, we present the necessary conditions that need to be met
for both sensor and readout electronics in order to achieve 4-dimensional
tracking. In the last section we present the experimental results,
demonstrating the validity of our research path.Comment: 72 pages, 3 tables, 55 figure
Student-project allocation with preferences over projects
We study the problem of allocating students to projects, where both students and lecturers have preferences over projects, and both projects and lecturers have capacities. In this context we seek a stable matching of students to projects, which respects these preference and capacity constraints. Here, the stability definition generalises the corresponding notion in the context of the classical Hospitals/Residents problem. We show that stable matchings can have different sizes, which motivates max-spa-p, the problem of finding maximum cardinality stable matching. We prove that max-spa-p is NP-hard and not approximable within δ, for some δ>1, unless P=NP. On the other hand, we give an approximation algorithm with a performance guarantee of 2 for max-spa-p
Description of Atmospheric Conditions at the Pierre Auger Observatory Using Meteorological Measurements and Models
Atmospheric conditions at the site of a cosmic ray observatory must be known
well for reconstructing observed extensive air showers, especially when
measured using the fluorescence technique. For the Pierre Auger Observatory, a
sophisticated network of atmospheric monitoring devices has been conceived.
Part of this monitoring was a weather balloon program to measure atmospheric
state variables above the Observatory. To use the data in reconstructions of
air showers, monthly models have been constructed. Scheduled balloon launches
were abandoned and replaced with launches triggered by high-energetic air
showers as part of a rapid monitoring system. Currently, the balloon launch
program is halted and atmospheric data from numerical weather prediction models
are used. A description of the balloon measurements, the monthly models as well
as the data from the numerical weather prediction are presented
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