1,910 research outputs found
Dissipation enhanced vibrational sensing in an olfactory molecular switch
Motivated by a proposed olfactory mechanism based on a
vibrationally-activated molecular switch, we study electron transport within a
donor-acceptor pair that is coupled to a vibrational mode and embedded in a
surrounding environment. We derive a polaron master equation with which we
study the dynamics of both the electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom
beyond previously employed semiclassical (Marcus-Jortner) rate analyses. We
show: (i) that in the absence of explicit dissipation of the vibrational mode,
the semiclassical approach is generally unable to capture the dynamics
predicted by our master equation due to both its assumption of one-way
(exponential) electron transfer from donor to acceptor and its neglect of the
spectral details of the environment; (ii) that by additionally allowing strong
dissipation to act on the odorant vibrational mode we can recover exponential
electron transfer, though typically at a rate that differs from that given by
the Marcus-Jortner expression; (iii) that the ability of the molecular switch
to discriminate between the presence and absence of the odorant, and its
sensitivity to the odorant vibrational frequency, are enhanced significantly in
this strong dissipation regime, when compared to the case without mode
dissipation; and (iv) that details of the environment absent from previous
Marcus-Jortner analyses can also dramatically alter the sensitivity of the
molecular switch, in particular allowing its frequency resolution to be
improved. Our results thus demonstrate the constructive role dissipation can
play in facilitating sensitive and selective operation in molecular switch
devices, as well as the inadequacy of semiclassical rate equations in analysing
such behaviour over a wide range of parameters.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, close to published version, comments welcom
The sound of violets: the ethnographic potency of poetry?
This paper takes the form of a dialogue between the two authors, and is in two halves, the first half discursive and propositional, and the second half exemplifying the rhetorical, epistemological and metaphysical affordances of poetry in critically scrutinising the rhetoric, epistemology and metaphysics of educational management discourse.
Phipps and Saunders explore, through ideas and poems, how poetry can interrupt and/or illuminate dominant values in education and in educational research methods, such as:
âą alternatives to the military metaphors â targets, strategies and the like â that dominate the soundscape of education;
âą the kinds and qualities of the cognitive and feeling spaces that might be opened up by the shifting of methodological boundaries;
âą the considerable work done in ethnography on the use of the poetic: anthropologists have long used poetry as a medium for expressing their sense of empathic connection to their field and their subjects, particularly in considering the creativity and meaning-making that characterise all human societies in different ways;
âą the particular rhetorical affordances of poetry, as a discipline, as a practice, as an art, as patterned breath; its capacity to shift phonemic, and therewith methodological, authority; its offering of redress to linear and reductive attempts at scripting social life, as always already given and without alternative
Teleportation of a quantum state of a spatial mode with a single massive particle
Mode entanglement exists naturally between regions of space in ultra-cold
atomic gases. It has, however, been debated whether this type of entanglement
is useful for quantum protocols. This is due to a particle number
superselection rule that restricts the operations that can be performed on the
modes. In this paper, we show how to exploit the mode entanglement of just a
single particle for the teleportation of an unknown quantum state of a spatial
mode. We detail how to overcome the superselection rule to create any initial
quantum state and how to perform Bell state analysis on two of the modes. We
show that two of the four Bell states can always be reliably distinguished,
while the other two have to be grouped together due to an unsatisfied phase
matching condition. The teleportation of an unknown state of a quantum mode
thus only succeeds half of the time.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, this paper was presented at TQC 2010 and extends
the work of Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 200502 (2009
The CARMA study â children on early suppressive therapy: total HIV-1 DNA quantitation 12 years post ART initiation
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The purpose of mess in action research: building rigour though a messy turn
Mess and rigour might appear to be strange bedfellows. This paper argues that the purpose of mess is to facilitate a turn towards new constructions of knowing that lead to transformation in practice (an action turn). Engaging in action research - research that can disturb both individual and communally held notions of knowledge for practice - will be messy. Investigations into the 'messy area', the interface between the known and the nearly known, between knowledge in use and tacit knowledge as yet to be useful, reveal the 'messy area' as a vital element for seeing, disrupting, analysing, learning, knowing and changing. It is the place where long-held views shaped by professional knowledge, practical judgement, experience and intuition are seen through other lenses. It is here that reframing takes place and new knowing, which has both theoretical and practical significance, arises: a 'messy turn' takes place
Free energy and configurational entropy of liquid silica: fragile-to-strong crossover and polyamorphism
Recent molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of liquid silica, using the
``BKS'' model [Van Beest, Kramer and van Santen, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 64},
1955 (1990)], have demonstrated that the liquid undergoes a dynamical crossover
from super-Arrhenius, or ``fragile'' behavior, to Arrhenius, or ``strong''
behavior, as temperature is decreased. From extensive MD simulations, we
show that this fragile-to-strong crossover (FSC) can be connected to changes in
the properties of the potential energy landscape, or surface (PES), of the
liquid. To achieve this, we use thermodynamic integration to evaluate the
absolute free energy of the liquid over a wide range of density and . We use
this free energy data, along with the concept of ``inherent structures'' of the
PES, to evaluate the absolute configurational entropy of the liquid. We
find that the temperature dependence of the diffusion coefficient and of
are consistent with the prediction of Adam and Gibbs, including in the region
where we observe the FSC to occur. We find that the FSC is related to a change
in the properties of the PES explored by the liquid, specifically an inflection
in the dependence of the average inherent structure energy. In addition, we
find that the high behavior of suggests that the liquid entropy might
approach zero at finite , behavior associated with the so-called Kauzmann
paradox. However, we find that the change in the PES that underlies the FSC is
associated with a change in the dependence of that elucidates how the
Kauzmann paradox is avoided in this system. Finally, we also explore the
relation of the observed PES changes to the recently discussed possibility that
BKS silica exhibits a liquid-liquid phase transition, a behavior that has been
proposed to underlie the observed polyamorphism of amorphous solid silica.Comment: 14 pages, 18 figure
Tunneling-percolation origin of nonuniversality: theory and experiments
A vast class of disordered conducting-insulating compounds close to the
percolation threshold is characterized by nonuniversal values of transport
critical exponent t, in disagreement with the standard theory of percolation
which predicts t = 2.0 for all three dimensional systems. Various models have
been proposed in order to explain the origin of such universality breakdown.
Among them, the tunneling-percolation model calls into play tunneling processes
between conducting particles which, under some general circumstances, could
lead to transport exponents dependent of the mean tunneling distance a. The
validity of such theory could be tested by changing the parameter a by means of
an applied mechanical strain. We have applied this idea to universal and
nonuniversal RuO2-glass composites. We show that when t > 2 the measured
piezoresistive response \Gamma, i. e., the relative change of resistivity under
applied strain, diverges logarithmically at the percolation threshold, while
for t = 2, \Gamma does not show an appreciable dependence upon the RuO2 volume
fraction. These results are consistent with a mean tunneling dependence of the
nonuniversal transport exponent as predicted by the tunneling-percolation
model. The experimental results are compared with analytical and numerical
calculations on a random-resistor network model of tunneling-percolation.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figure
A combined XAS and XRD Study of the High-Pressure Behaviour of GaAsO4 Berlinite
Combined X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD)
experiments have been carried out on GaAsO4 (berlinite structure) at high
pressure and room temperature. XAS measurements indicate four-fold to six-fold
coordination changes for both cations. The two local coordination
transformations occur at different rates but appear to be coupled. A reversible
transition to a high pressure crystalline form occurs around 8 GPa. At a
pressure of about 12 GPa, the system mainly consists of octahedral gallium
atoms and a mixture of arsenic in four-fold and six-fold coordinations. A
second transition to a highly disordered material with both cations in six-fold
coordination occurs at higher pressures and is irreversible.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, LaTeX2
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