49,043 research outputs found
Obtaining Stiffness Exponents from Bond-diluted Lattice Spin Glasses
Recently, a method has been proposed to obtain accurate predictions for
low-temperature properties of lattice spin glasses that is practical even above
the upper critical dimension, . This method is based on the observation
that bond-dilution enables the numerical treatment of larger lattices, and that
the subsequent combination of such data at various bond densities into a
finite-size scaling Ansatz produces more robust scaling behavior. In the
present study we test the potential of such a procedure, in particular, to
obtain the stiffness exponent for the hierarchical Migdal-Kadanoff lattice.
Critical exponents for this model are known with great accuracy and any
simulations can be executed to very large lattice sizes at almost any bond
density, effecting a insightful comparison that highlights the advantages -- as
well as the weaknesses -- of this method. These insights are applied to the
Edwards-Anderson model in with Gaussian bonds.Comment: corrected version, 10 pages, RevTex4, 12 ps-figures included; related
papers available a http://www.physics.emory.edu/faculty/boettcher
Effects of ursodeoxycholic acid on synthesis of cholesterol and bile acids in healthy subjects
Background/Aims: Ursodeoxycholic acid ( UDCA) decreases biliary secretion of cholesterol and is therefore used for the dissolution of cholesterol gallstones. It remains unclear whether these changes in biliary cholesterol excretion are associated with changes in cholesterol synthesis and bile acid synthesis. We therefore studied the activities of rate-limiting enzymes of cholesterol synthesis and bile acid synthesis, 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutarylcoenzyme A reductase and cholesterol 7alpha-hydroxylase, respectively, in normal subjects during UDCA feeding. Methods: UDCA was given to 8 healthy volunteers ( 5 men, 3 women; age 24-44 years) in a single dose of 10-15 mg/kg body weight for 40 days. Before and during ( days 3, 5, 10, 20, 30 and 40) UDCA treatment, urinary excretion of mevalonic acid and serum concentrations of 7alpha-hydroxy-4-cholesten-3-one (7alpha-HCO) were determined as markers of cholesterol and bile acid synthesis, respectively. The Wilcoxon signed rank test and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient were used for statistical analysis. Results: Cholesterol synthesis and serum lipid concentrations remained unchanged during UDCA treatment for 40 days. However, synthesis of bile acids increased during long-term treatment with UDCA as reflected by an increase in 7alpha-HCO serum concentrations from 39.7 +/- 21.3 ng/ml (median 32.8 ng/ml) before treatment to 64.0 +/- 30.4 ng/ml (median 77.5 ng/ml) at days 30-40 of UDCA treatment ( p < 0.05). Conclusions: UDCA treatment does not affect cholesterol synthesis in the liver, but does increase bile acid synthesis after prolonged treatment. This may represent a compensatory change following decreased absorption of endogenous bile acids as observed with UDCA therapy
Assessing Financial Vulnerability in the Nonprofit Sector
Effective nonprofit governance relies upon understanding an organization's financial condition and vulnerabilities. However, financial vulnerability of nonprofit organizations is a relatively new area of study. In this paper, we compare two models used to forecast bankruptcy in the corporate sector (Altman 1968 and Ohlson 1980) with the model used by nonprofit researchers (Tuckman and Chang 1991). We find that the Ohlson model has higher explanatory power than either Tuckman and Chang's or Altman's in predicting four different measures of financial vulnerability. However, we show that none of the models, individually or combined, are effective in predicting financial distress. We then propose a more comprehensive model of financial vulnerability by adding two new variables to represent reliance on commercial-type activities to generate revenues and endowment sufficiency. We find that this model outperforms Ohlson's model and performs substantially better in explaining and predicting financial vulnerability. Hence, the expanded model can be used as a guide for understanding the drivers of financial vulnerability and for identifying more effective proxies for nonprofit sector financial distress for use in future research. This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 27. The Hauser Center Working Paper Series was launched during the summer of 2000. The Series enables the Hauser Center to share with a broad audience important works-in-progress written by Hauser Center scholars and researchers
Design studies of continuously variable transmissions for electric vehicles
Preliminary design studies were performed on four continuously variable transmission (CVT) concepts for use with a flywheel equipped electric vehicle of 1700 kg gross weight. Requirements of the CVT's were a maximum torque of 450 N-m (330 lb-ft), a maximum output power of 75 kW (100 hp), and a flywheel speed range of 28,000 to 14,000 rpm. Efficiency, size, weight, cost, reliability, maintainability, and controls were evaluated for each of the four concepts which included a steel V-belt type, a flat rubber belt type, a toroidal traction type, and a cone roller traction type. All CVT's exhibited relatively high calculated efficiencies (68 percent to 97 percent) over a broad range of vehicle operating conditions. Estimated weight and size of these transmissions were comparable to or less than equivalent automatic transmission. The design of each concept was carried through the design layout stage
Dicke quantum spin glass of atoms and photons
Recent studies of strongly interacting atoms and photons in optical cavities
have rekindled interest in the Dicke model of atomic qubits coupled to discrete
photon cavity modes. We study the multimode Dicke model with variable
atom-photon couplings. We argue that a quantum spin glass phase can appear,
with a random linear combination of the cavity modes superradiant. We compute
atomic and photon spectral response functions across this quantum phase
transition, both of which should be accessible in experiment.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, v2: described quantum optics set-up in more
detail; extended discussion on photon correlation functions and experimental
signatures; added reference
What the Infrared Behaviour of QCD Vertex Functions in Landau gauge can tell us about Confinement
The infrared behaviour of Landau gauge QCD vertex functions is investigated
employing a skeleton expansion of the Dyson-Schwinger and Renormalization Group
equations. Results for the ghost-gluon, three-gluon, four-gluon and quark-gluon
vertex functions are presented. Positivity violation of the gluon propagator,
and thus gluon confinement, is demonstrated. Results of the Dyson-Schwinger
equations for a finite volume are compared to corresponding lattice data. It is
analytically demonstrated that a linear rising potential between heavy quarks
can be generated by infrared singularities in the dressed quark-gluon vertex.
The selfconsistent mechanism that generates these singularities necessarily
entails the scalar Dirac amplitudes of the full vertex and the quark
propagator. These can only be present when chiral symmetry is broken, either
explicitly or dynamically.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures; to appear in the Proceedings of ``X Hadron
Physics 2007'', Florianopolis, Brazil, March 26 - 31, 200
Effect of random interactions in spin baths on decoherence
We study the decoherence of a central spin 1/2 induced by a spin bath with
intrabath interactions. Since we are interested in the cumulative effect of
interaction and disorder, we study baths comprising Ising spins with random
ferro- and antiferromagnetic interactions between the spins. Using the
resolvent operator method which goes beyond the standard Born-Markov master
equation approach, we show that, in the weak coupling regime, the decoherence
of the central spin at all times is entirely determined by the local-field
distribution or equivalently, the dynamical structure factor of the Ising bath.
We present analytic results for the Ising spin chain bath at arbitrary
temperature for different distributions of the intrabath interaction strengths.
We find clear evidence of non-Markovian behavior in the low temperature regime.
We also consider baths described by Ising models on higher-dimensional
lattices. We find that interactions lead to a significant reduction of the
decoherence. An important feature of interacting spinbaths is the saturation of
the asymptotic Markovian decay rate at high temperatures, as opposed to the
conventional Ohmic boson bath.Comment: 13 page
Quantum simulator for the Ising model with electrons floating on a helium film
We propose a physical setup that can be used to simulate the quantum dynamics
of the Ising model with present-day technology. Our scheme consists of
electrons floating on superfluid helium which interact via Coulomb forces. In
the limit of low temperatures, the system will stay near the ground state where
its Hamiltonian is equivalent to the Ising model and thus shows phenomena such
as quantum criticality. Furthermore, the proposed design could be generalized
in order to study interacting field theories (e.g., ) and
adiabatic quantum computers.Comment: 4 page
Quantum and thermal fluctuations in the SU(N) Heisenberg spin-glass model near the quantum critical point
We solve for the SU(N) Heisenberg spin-glass in the limit of large N focusing
on small S and T. We study the effect of quantum and thermal fluctuations in
the frequency dependent response function and observed interesting transfers of
spectral weight. We compute the T-dependence of the order parameter and the
specific heat and find an unusual T^2 behavior for the latter at low
temperatures in the spin-glass phase. We find a remarkable qualitative
agreement with various experiments on the quantum frustrated magnet
SrCr_{9p}Ga_{12-9p}O_{19}.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
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