24,209 research outputs found
Leisure activity for dementia prevention. More work to be done.
Dementia prevention is a worldwide priority because of the aging population, devastating consequences for patients and families, and the drain on societal resources. In the absence of disease-modifying therapies, there is interest in lifestyle factors that might prevent or delay the onset of dementia. Chief among these is leisure activity, conceptualized as pursuits undertaken for relaxation or pleasure after completion of essential chores and occupational responsibilities. Leisure activity invokes the cornerstones of cognitive reserve: mental activity, physical activity, and social engagement
Synthesis of neutral nickel catalysts for ethylene polymerization – the influence of ligand size on catalyst stability
A facile synthesis of nickel salicylaldimine complexes with labile dissociating ligands is described. In addition to producing highly active ethylene polymerization catalysts, important insights into the effect of ligand size on catalyst stability and information on the mechanism of polymerization are provided
Are Proxima and Alpha Centauri Gravitationally Bound?
Using the most recent kinematic and radial velocity data in the literature,
we calculate the binding energy of Proxima Centauri relative to the center of
mass of the Alpha Centauri system. When we adopt the centroids of the observed
data, we find that the three stars constitute a bound system, albeit with a
semi-major axis that is on order the same size as Alpha Centauri AB's Hill
radius in the galactic potential. We carry out a Monte Carlo simulation under
the assumption that the errors in the observed quantities are uncorrelated. In
this simulation, 44% of the trial systems are bound, and systems on the 1-3
sigma tail of the radial velocity distribution can have Proxima currently
located near the apastron position of its orbit. Our analysis shows that a
further, very significant improvement in the characterization of the system can
be gained by obtaining a more accurate measurement of the radial velocity of
Proxima Centauri.Comment: 10 pages total, 4 pages of text, 1 page of references, 3 figures, and
2 tables This article will be published in The Astronomical Journa
A quantum measure of coherence and incompatibility
The well-known two-slit interference is understood as a special relation
between observable (localization at the slits) and state (being on both slits).
Relation between an observable and a quantum state is investigated in the
general case. It is assumed that the amount of ceherence equals that of
incompatibility between observable and state. On ground of this, an argument is
peresented that leads to a natural quantum measure of coherence, called
"coherence or incompatibility information". Its properties are studied in
detail making use of 'the mixing property of relative entropy' derived in this
article. A precise relation between the measure of coherence of an observable
and that of its coarsening is obtained and discussed from the intutitive point
of view. Convexity of the measure is proved, and thus the fact that it is an
information entity is established. A few more detailed properties of coherence
information are derived with a view to investigate final-state entanglement in
general repeatable measurement, and, more importantly, general bipartite
entanglement in follow ups of this study.Comment: 19 GS pages; supercedes quant-ph/030921
Colloidal Electrostatic Interactions Near a Conducting Surface
Charge-stabilized colloidal spheres dispersed in deionized water are supposed
to repel each other. Instead, artifact-corrected video microscopy measurements
reveal an anomalous long-ranged like-charge attraction in the interparticle
pair potential when the spheres are confined to a layer by even a single
charged glass surface. These attractions can be masked by electrostatic
repulsions at low ionic strengths. Coating the bounding surfaces with a
conducting gold layer suppresses the attraction. These observations suggest a
possible mechanism for confinement-induced attractions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Density Functional Theory of Inhomogeneous Liquids: II. A Fundamental Measure Approach
Previously, it has been shown that the direct correlation function for a
Lennard-Jones fluid could be modeled by a sum of that for hard-spheres, a
mean-field tail and a simple linear correction in the core region constructed
so as to reproduce the (known) bulk equation of state of the fluid(Lutsko, JCP
127, 054701 (2007)). Here, this model is combined with ideas from Fundamental
Measure Theory to construct a density functional theory for the free energy.
The theory is shown to accurately describe a range of inhomogeneous conditions
including the liquid-vapor interface, the fluid in contact with a hard wall and
a fluid confined in a slit pore. The theory gives quantitatively accurate
predictions for the surface tension, including its dependence on the potential
cutoff. It also obeys two important exact conditions: that relating the direct
correlation function to the functional derivative of the free energy with
respect to density, and the wall theorem.Comment: to appear in J. Chem. Phy
Alpha-Relaxation Processes in Binary Hard-Sphere Mixtures
Molecular-dynamics simulations are presented for two correlation functions
formed with the partial density fluctuations of binary hard-sphere mixtures in
order to explore the effects of mixing on the evolution of glassy dynamics upon
compressing the liquid into high-density states. Partial-density-fluctuation
correlation functions for the two species are reported. Results for the
alpha-relaxation process are quantified by parameters for the strength, the
stretching, and the time scale, where the latter varies over almost four orders
of magnitude upon compression. The parameters exhibit an appreciable dependence
on the wave vector; and this dependence is different for the correlation
function referring to the smaller and that for the larger species. These
features are shown to be in semi-quantitative agreement with those calculated
within the mode-coupling theory for ideal liquid-glass transitions.Comment: 14 pages, 20 figures, RevTe
Flow Induced Organization and Memory of a Vortex Lattice
We report on experiments probing the evolution of a vortex state in response
to a driving current in 2H-NbSe crystals. By following the vortex motion
with fast transport measurements we find that the current enables the system to
reorganize and access new configurations. During this process the system
exhibits a long-term memory: if the current is turned off the vortices freeze
in place remembering their prior motion. When the current is restored the
motion resumes where it stopped. The experiments provide evidence for a
dynamically driven structural change of the vortex lattice and a corresponding
dynamic phase diagram that contains a previously unknown regime where the
critical current can be either or by applying an
appropriate driving current.Comment: 5 pages, 4figure
Curvature Dependence of Surface Free Energy of Liquid Drops and Bubbles: A Simulation Study
We study the excess free energy due to phase coexistence of fluids by Monte
Carlo simulations using successive umbrella sampling in finite LxLxL boxes with
periodic boundary conditions. Both the vapor-liquid phase coexistence of a
simple Lennard-Jones fluid and the coexistence between A-rich and B-rich phases
of a symmetric binary (AB) Lennard-Jones mixture are studied, varying the
density rho in the simple fluid or the relative concentration x_A of A in the
binary mixture, respectively. The character of phase coexistence changes from a
spherical droplet (or bubble) of the minority phase (near the coexistence
curve) to a cylindrical droplet (or bubble) and finally (in the center of the
miscibility gap) to a slab-like configuration of two parallel flat interfaces.
Extending the analysis of M. Schrader, P. Virnau, and K. Binder [Phys. Rev. E
79, 061104 (2009)], we extract the surface free energy gamma (R) of both
spherical and cylindrical droplets and bubbles in the vapor-liquid case, and
present evidence that for R -> Infinity the leading order (Tolman) correction
for droplets has sign opposite to the case of bubbles, consistent with the
Tolman length being independent on the sign of curvature. For the symmetric
binary mixture the expected non-existence of the Tolman length is confirmed. In
all cases {and for a range of radii} R relevant for nucleation theory, gamma(R)
deviates strongly from gamma (Infinity) which can be accounted for by a term of
order gamma(Infinity)/gamma(R)-1 ~ 1/R^2. Our results for the simple
Lennard-Jones fluid are also compared to results from density functional theory
and we find qualitative agreement in the behavior of gamma(R) as well as in the
sign and magnitude of the Tolman length.Comment: 25 pages, submitted to J. Chem. Phy
- …