3,459 research outputs found
Extensional viscosity of copper nanowire suspensions in an aqueous polymer solution
Suspensions of copper nanowires are emerging as new electronic inks for
next-generation flexible electronics. Using a novel surface acoustic wave
driven extensional flow technique we are able to perform currently lacking
analysis of these suspensions and their complex buffer. We observe extensional
viscosities from 3 mPas (1 mPas shear viscosity) to 37.2
Pas via changes in the suspension concentration, thus capturing low
viscosities that have been historically very challenging to measure. These
changes equate to an increase in the relative extensional viscosity of nearly
12,200 times at a volume fraction of just 0.027. We also find that interactions
between the wires and the necessary polymer additive affect the rheology
strongly. Polymer-induced elasticity shows a reduction as the buffer relaxation
time falls from 819 to 59 s above a critical particle concentration. The
results and technique presented here should aid in the future formulation of
these promising nanowire suspensions and their efficient application as inks
and coatings.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, under review for Soft Matter RS
Motility induced changes in viscosity of suspensions of swimming microbes in extensional flows
Suspensions of motile cells are model systems for understanding the unique
mechanical properties of living materials which often consist of ensembles of
self-propelled particles. We present here a quantitative comparison of theory
against experiment for the rheology of such suspensions. The influence of
motility on viscosities of cell suspensions is studied using a novel
acoustically-driven microfluidic capillary-breakup extensional rheometer.
Motility increases the extensional viscosity of suspensions of algal pullers,
but decreases it in the case of bacterial or sperm pushers. A recent model
[Saintillan, Phys. Rev. E, 2010, 81:56307] for dilute active suspensions is
extended to obtain predictions for higher concentrations, after independently
obtaining parameters such as swimming speeds and diffusivities. We show that
details of body and flagellar shape can significantly determine macroscale
rheological behaviour.Comment: 12 pages, 1 appendix, 7 figures, submitted to Soft Matter - under
revie
The Nature of the Secondary Star in the Black Hole X-Ray Transient V616 Mon (=A0620-00)
We have used NIRSPEC on Keck II to obtain -band spectroscopy of the low
mass X-ray binary V616 Mon (= A062000). V616 Mon is the proto-typical soft
x-ray transient containing a black hole primary. As such it is important to
constrain the masses of the binary components. The modeling of the infrared
observations of ellipsoidal variations in this system lead to a derived mass of
11.0 M_{\sun} for the black hole. The validity of this derivation has been
called into question due to the possiblity that the secondary star's spectral
energy distribution is contaminated by accretion disk emission (acting to
dilute the variations). Our new -band spectrum of V616 Mon reveals a
late-type K dwarf secondary star, but one that has very weak CO
absorption features. Comparison of V616 Mon with SS Cyg leads us to estimate
that the accretion disk supplies only a small amount of -band flux, and the
ellipsoidal variations are not seriously contaminated. If true, the derived
orbital inclination of V616 Mon is not greatly altered, and the mass of the
black hole remains large. A preliminary stellar atmosphere model for the
-band spectrum of V616 Mon reveals that the carbon abundance is
approximately 50% of the solar value. We conclude that the secondary star in
V616 Mon has either suffered serious contamination from the accretion of
supernova ejecta that created the black hole primary, or it is the stripped
remains of a formerly more massive secondary star, one in which the CNO cycle
had been active.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure
Transport Properties of Highly Aligned Polymer Light-Emitting-Diodes
We investigate hole transport in polymer light-emitting-diodes in which the
emissive layer is made of liquid-crystalline polymer chains aligned
perpendicular to the direction of transport. Calculations of the current as a
function of time via a random-walk model show excellent qualitative agreement
with experiments conducted on electroluminescent polyfluorene demonstrating
non-dispersive hole transport. The current exhibits a constant plateau as the
charge carriers move with a time-independent drift velocity, followed by a long
tail when they reach the collecting electrode. Variation of the parameters
within the model allows the investigation of the transition from non-dispersive
to dispersive transport in highly aligned polymers. It turns out that large
inter-chain hopping is required for non-dispersive hole transport and that
structural disorder obstructs the propagation of holes through the polymer
film.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Coexistence of opposite opinions in a network with communities
The Majority Rule is applied to a topology that consists of two coupled
random networks, thereby mimicking the modular structure observed in social
networks. We calculate analytically the asymptotic behaviour of the model and
derive a phase diagram that depends on the frequency of random opinion flips
and on the inter-connectivity between the two communities. It is shown that
three regimes may take place: a disordered regime, where no collective
phenomena takes place; a symmetric regime, where the nodes in both communities
reach the same average opinion; an asymmetric regime, where the nodes in each
community reach an opposite average opinion. The transition from the asymmetric
regime to the symmetric regime is shown to be discontinuous.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure
Polyoma virus infection and urothelial carcinoma of the bladder following renal transplantation
Renal transplant recipients are at increased risk of bladder carcinoma. The aetiology is unknown but a polyoma virus (PV), BK virus (BKV), may play a role; urinary reactivation of this virus is common post-renal transplantation and PV large T-antigen (T-Ag) has transforming activity. In this study, we investigate the potential role of BKV in post-transplant urothelial carcinoma by immunostaining tumour tissue for PV T-Ag. There was no positivity for PV T-Ag in urothelial carcinomas from 20 non-transplant patients. Since 1990, 10 transplant recipients in our unit have developed urothelial carcinoma, and tumour tissue was available in eight recipients. Two patients were transplanted since the first case of PV nephropathy (PVN) was diagnosed in our unit in 2000 and both showed PV reactivation post-transplantation. In one of these patients, there was strong nuclear staining for PV T-Ag in tumour cells, with no staining of non-neoplastic urothelium. We conclude that PV infection is not associated with urothelial carcinoma in non-transplant patients, and is uncommon in transplant-associated tumours. Its presence in all tumour cells in one patient transplanted in the PVN era might suggest a possible role in tumorigenesis in that case
Analysis of deep levels in a phenylenevinylene polymer by transient capacitance methods
Transient capacitance methods were applied to the depletion region of an abrupt asymmetric n(+) -p junction of silicon and unintentionally doped poly[2-methoxy, 5 ethyl (2' hexyloxy) paraphenylenevinylene] (MEH-PPV). Studies in the temperature range 100-300 K show the presence of a majority-carrier trap at 1.0 eV and two minority traps at 0.7 and 1.3 eV, respectively. There is an indication for more levels for which the activation energy could not be determined. Furthermore, admittance data reveal a bulk activation energy for conduction of 0.12 eV, suggesting the presence of an additional shallow acceptor state. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)02308-6]
A high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity with a frequency-doubled green laser for precision Compton polarimetry at Jefferson Lab
A high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity with a frequency-doubled continuous wave
green laser (532~nm) has been built and installed in Hall A of Jefferson Lab
for high precision Compton polarimetry. The infrared (1064~nm) beam from a
ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier seeded by a Nd:YAG nonplanar ring oscillator
laser is frequency doubled in a single-pass periodically poled MgO:LiNbO
crystal. The maximum achieved green power at 5 W IR pump power is 1.74 W with a
total conversion efficiency of 34.8\%. The green beam is injected into the
optical resonant cavity and enhanced up to 3.7~kW with a corresponding
enhancement of 3800. The polarization transfer function has been measured in
order to determine the intra-cavity circular laser polarization within a
measurement uncertainty of 0.7\%. The PREx experiment at Jefferson Lab used
this system for the first time and achieved 1.0\% precision in polarization
measurements of an electron beam with energy and current of 1.0~GeV and
50~A.Comment: 20 pages, 22 figures, revised version of arXiv:1601.00251v1,
submitted to NIM
Parallax and Distance Estimates for Fourteen Cataclysmic Variable Stars
I used the 2.4 m Hiltner telescope at MDM Observatory in an attempt to
measure trigonometric parallaxes for 14 cataclysmic variable stars. Techniques
are described in detail. In the best cases the parallax uncertainties are below
1 mas, and significant parallaxes are found for most of the program stars. A
Bayesian method which combines the parallaxes together with proper motions and
absolute magnitude constraints is developed and used to derive distance
estimates and confidence intervals. The most precise distance derived here is
for WZ Sge, for which I find 43.3 (+1.6, -1.5) pc. Six Luyten Half-Second stars
with previous precise parallax measurements were re-measured to test the
techniques, and good agreement is found.Comment: 33 pages, 3 figures. Astronomical Journal, accepte
U Geminorum: a test case for orbital parameters determination
High-resolution spectroscopy of U Gem was obtained during quiescence. We did
not find a hot spot or gas stream around the outer boundaries of the accretion
disk. Instead, we detected a strong narrow emission near the location of the
secondary star. We measured the radial velocity curve from the wings of the
double-peaked H emission line, and obtained a semi-amplitude value that
is in excellent agreement with the obtained from observations in the
ultraviolet spectral region by Sion et al. (1998). We present also a new method
to obtain K_2, which enhances the detection of absorption or emission features
arising in the late-type companion. Our results are compared with published
values derived from the near-infrared NaI line doublet. From a comparison of
the TiO band with those of late type M stars, we find that a best fit is
obtained for a M6V star, contributing 5 percent of the total light at that
spectral region. Assuming that the radial velocity semi-amplitudes reflect
accurately the motion of the binary components, then from our results: K_em =
107+/-2 km/s; K_abs = 310+/-5 km/s, and using the inclination angle given by
Zhang & Robinson(1987); i = 69.7+/-0.7, the system parameters become: M_WD =
1.20+/-0.05 M_sun,; M_RD = 0.42+/-0.04 M_sun; and a = 1.55+/- 0.02 R_sun. Based
on the separation of the double emission peaks, we calculate an outer disk
radius of R_out/a ~0.61, close to the distance of the inner Lagrangian point
L_1/a~0.63. Therefore we suggest that, at the time of observations, the
accretion disk was filling the Roche-Lobe of the primary, and that the matter
leaving the L_1 point was colliding with the disc directly, producing the hot
spot at this location.Comment: 36 pages, 14 figures, ccepted for publication in A
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