9,502 research outputs found
Chromatographic test facility. Analysis and design of a capsule landing system and surface vehicle control system for Mars exploration
Test facility to verify design concepts and mathematical models of chromatograph for atmospheric composition analysis of Mar
Specialization of the rostral prefrontal cortex for distinct analogy processes
Analogical reasoning is central to learning and abstract thinking. It involves using a more familiar situation (source) to make inferences about a less familiar situation (target). According to the predominant cognitive models, analogical reasoning includes 1) generation of structured mental representations and 2) mapping based on structural similarities between them. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to specify the role of rostral prefrontal cortex (PFC) in these distinct processes. An experimental paradigm was designed that enabled differentiation between these processes, by temporal separation of the presentation of the source and the target. Within rostral PFC, a lateral subregion was activated by analogy task both during study of the source (before the source could be compared with a target) and when the target appeared. This may suggest that this subregion supports fundamental analogy processes such as generating structured representations of stimuli but is not specific to one particular processing stage. By contrast, a dorsomedial subregion of rostral PFC showed an interaction between task (analogy vs. control) and period (more activated when the target appeared). We propose that this region is involved in comparison or mapping processes. These results add to the growing evidence for functional differentiation between rostral PFC subregions
High density InAlAs/GaAlAs quantum dots for non-linear optics in microcavities
Structural and optical properties of InAlAs/GaAlAs quantum dots grown by molecular beam epitaxy are studied using transmission electron microscopy, temperature- and time resolvedphotoluminescence. The control of the recombination lifetime (50 ps – 1.25 ns), and of the dot density (5.10−8 – 2.1011 cm−3) strongly suggest that these material systems can find wide applications in opto-electronic devices as focusing non linear dispersive materials as well as fast saturable absorbers
Raman scattering from fractals. Simulation on large structures by the method of moments
We have employed the method of spectral moments to study the density of
vibrational states and the Raman coupling coefficient of large 2- and 3-
dimensional percolators at threshold and at higher concentration. We first
discuss the over-and under-flow problems of the procedure which arise when
-like in the present case- it is necessary to calculate a few thousand moments.
Then we report on the numerical results; these show that different scattering
mechanisms, all {\it a priori} equally probable in real systems, produce
largely different coupling coefficients with different frequency dependence.
Our results are compared with existing scaling theories of Raman scattering.
The situation that emerges is complex; on the one hand, there is indication
that the existing theory is not satisfactory; on the other hand, the
simulations above threshold show that in this case the coupling coefficients
have very little resemblance, if any, with the same quantities at threshold.Comment: 26 pages, RevTex, 8 figures available on reques
High frequency sound waves in vitreous silica
We report a molecular dynamics simulation study of the sound waves in
vitreous silica in the mesoscopic exchanged momentum range. The calculated
dynamical structure factors are in quantitative agreement with recent
experimental inelastic neutron and x-ray scattering data. The analysis of the
longitudinal and transverse current spectra allows to discriminate between
opposite interpretations of the existing experimental data in favour of the
propagating nature of the high frequency sound waves.Comment: 4 pages, Revtex, 4 ps figures; to be published in Phys. Rev. Lett.,
February 198
Infinite Kinematic Self-Similarity and Perfect Fluid Spacetimes
Perfect fluid spacetimes admitting a kinematic self-similarity of infinite
type are investigated. In the case of plane, spherically or hyperbolically
symmetric space-times the field equations reduce to a system of autonomous
ordinary differential equations. The qualitative properties of solutions of
this system of equations, and in particular their asymptotic behavior, are
studied. Special cases, including some of the invariant sets and the geodesic
case, are examined in detail and the exact solutions are provided. The class of
solutions exhibiting physical self-similarity are found to play an important
role in describing the asymptotic behavior of the infinite kinematic
self-similar models.Comment: 38 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in General Relativity &
Gravitatio
Expansion, Geometry, and Gravity
In general-relativistic cosmological models, the expansion history, matter
content, and geometry are closely intertwined. In this brief paper, we clarify
the distinction between the effects of geometry and expansion history on the
luminosity distance. We show that the cubic correction to the Hubble law,
measured recently with high-redshift supernovae, is the first cosmological
measurement, apart from the cosmic microwave background, that probes directly
the effects of spatial curvature. We illustrate the distinction between
geometry and expansion with a toy model for which the supernova results already
indicate a curvature radius larger than the Hubble distance.Comment: 4 pages, 1 color figur
Frustration and sound attenuation in structural glasses
Three classes of harmonic disorder systems (Lennard-Jones like glasses,
percolators above threshold, and spring disordered lattices) have been
numerically investigated in order to clarify the effect of different types of
disorder on the mechanism of high frequency sound attenuation. We introduce the
concept of frustration in structural glasses as a measure of the internal
stress, and find a strong correlation between the degree of frustration and the
exponent alpha that characterizes the momentum dependence of the sound
attenuation . In particular, alpha decreases from
about d+1 in low-frustration systems (where d is the spectral dimension), to
about 2 for high frustration systems like the realistic glasses examined.Comment: Revtex, 4 pages including 4 figure
Kondo engineering : from single Kondo impurity to the Kondo lattice
In the first step, experiments on a single cerium or ytterbium Kondo impurity
reveal the importance of the Kondo temperature by comparison to other type of
couplings like the hyperfine interaction, the crystal field and the intersite
coupling. The extension to a lattice is discussed. Emphasis is given on the
fact that the occupation number of the trivalent configuration may be the
implicit key variable even for the Kondo lattice. Three phase
diagrams are discussed: CeRuSi, CeRhIn and SmS
Quantifying year-round nocturnal bird migration with a fluid dynamics model.
To understand the influence of biomass flows on ecosystems, we need to characterize and quantify migrations at various spatial and temporal scales. Representing the movements of migrating birds as a fluid, we applied a flow model to bird density and velocity maps retrieved from the European weather radar network, covering almost a year. We quantified how many birds take-off, fly, and land across Western Europe to (1) track bird migration waves between nights, (2) cumulate the number of birds on the ground and (3) quantify the seasonal flow into and out of the study area through several regional transects. Our results identified several migration waves that crossed the study area in 4 days only and included up to 188 million (M) birds that took-off in a single night. In spring, we estimated that 494 M birds entered the study area, 251 M left it, and 243 M birds remained within the study area. In autumn, 314 M birds entered the study area while 858 M left it. In addition to identifying fundamental quantities, our study highlights the potential of combining interdisciplinary data and methods to elucidate the dynamics of avian migration from nightly to yearly time scales and from regional to continental spatial scales
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