7,689 research outputs found
Hydrodynamic object recognition using pressure sensing
Hydrodynamic sensing is instrumental to fish and some amphibians. It also represents, for underwater vehicles, an alternative way of sensing the fluid environment when visual and acoustic sensing are limited. To assess the effectiveness of hydrodynamic sensing and gain insight into its capabilities and limitations, we investigated the forward and inverse problem of detection and identification, using the hydrodynamic pressure in the neighbourhood, of a stationary obstacle described using a general shape representation. Based on conformal mapping and a general normalization procedure, our obstacle representation accounts for all specific features of progressive perceptual hydrodynamic imaging reported experimentally. Size, location and shape are encoded separately. The shape representation rests upon an asymptotic series which embodies the progressive character of hydrodynamic imaging through pressure sensing. A dynamic filtering method is used to invert noisy nonlinear pressure signals for the shape parameters. The results highlight the dependence of the sensitivity of hydrodynamic sensing not only on the relative distance to the disturbance but also its bearing
Missing 2k_F Response for Composite Fermions in Phonon Drag
The response of composite Fermions to large wavevector scattering has been
studied through phonon drag measurements. While the response retains
qualitative features of the electron system at zero magnetic field, notable
discrepancies develop as the system is varied from a half-filled Landau level
by changing density or field. These deviations, which appear to be inconsistent
with the current picture of composite Fermions, are absent if half-filling is
maintained while changing density. There remains, however, a clear deviation
from the temperature dependence anticipated for 2k_F scattering.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Deterministic Partial Differential Equation Model for Dose Calculation in Electron Radiotherapy
Treatment with high energy ionizing radiation is one of the main methods in
modern cancer therapy that is in clinical use. During the last decades, two
main approaches to dose calculation were used, Monte Carlo simulations and
semi-empirical models based on Fermi-Eyges theory. A third way to dose
calculation has only recently attracted attention in the medical physics
community. This approach is based on the deterministic kinetic equations of
radiative transfer. Starting from these, we derive a macroscopic partial
differential equation model for electron transport in tissue. This model
involves an angular closure in the phase space. It is exact for the
free-streaming and the isotropic regime. We solve it numerically by a newly
developed HLLC scheme based on [BerCharDub], that exactly preserves key
properties of the analytical solution on the discrete level. Several numerical
results for test cases from the medical physics literature are presented.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure
Scaling of the Conductivity with Temperature and Uniaxial Stress in Si:B at the Metal-Insulator Transition
Using uniaxial stress to tune Si:B through the metal-insulator transition we
find the conductivity at low temperatures shows an excellent fit to scaling
with temperature and stress on both sides of the transition. The scaling
functions yield the conductivity in the metallic and insulating phases, and
allow a reliable determination of the temperature dependence in the critical
regions on both sides of the transition
In vivo testing of novel vaccine prototypes against Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae
Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae (A. pleuropneumoniae) is a Gram-negative bacterium that represents the main cause of porcine pleuropneumonia in pigs, causing significant economic losses to the livestock industry worldwide. A. pleuropneumoniae, as the majority of Gram-negative bacteria, excrete vesicles from its outer membrane (OM), accordingly defined as outer membrane vesicles (OMVs). Thanks to their antigenic similarity to the OM, OMVs have emerged as a promising tool in vaccinology. In this study we describe the in vivo testing of several vaccine prototypes for the prevention of infection by all known A. pleuropneumoniae serotypes. Previously identified vaccine candidates, the recombinant proteins ApfA and VacJ, administered individually or in various combinations with the OMVs, were employed as vaccination strategies. Our data show that the addition of the OMVs in the vaccine formulations significantly increased the specific IgG titer against both ApfA and VacJ in the immunized animals, confirming the previously postulated potential of the OMVs as adjuvant. Unfortunately, the antibody response raised did not translate into an effective protection against A. pleuropneumoniae infection, as none of the immunized groups following challenge showed a significantly lower degree of lesions than the controls. Interestingly, quite the opposite was true, as the animals with the highest IgG titers were also the ones bearing the most extensive lesions in their lungs. These results shed new light on A. pleuropneumoniae pathogenicity, suggesting that antibody-mediated cytotoxicity from the host immune response may play a central role in the development of the lesions typically associated with A. pleuropneumoniae infections
Corresponding States of Structural Glass Formers
The variation with respect to temperature T of transport properties of 58
fragile structural glass forming liquids (68 data sets in total) are analyzed
and shown to exhibit a remarkable degree of universality. In particular,
super-Arrhenius behaviors of all super-cooled liquids appear to collapse to one
parabola for which there is no singular behavior at any finite temperature.
This behavior is bounded by an onset temperature To above which liquid
transport has a much weaker temperature dependence. A similar collapse is also
demonstrated, over the smaller available range, for existing numerical
simulation data.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Updated References, Table Values, Submitted for
Publicatio
Obesity: A Biobehavioral Point of View
Excerpt: If you ask an overweight person, “Why are you fat?’, you will, almost invariably, get the answer, “Because 1 eat too much.” You will get this answer in spite of the fact that of thirteen studies, six find no significant differences in the caloric intake of obese versus nonobese subjects, five report that the obese eat significantly less than the nonobese, and only two report that they eat significantly more
Section Extension from Hyperbolic Geometry of Punctured Disk and Holomorphic Family of Flat Bundles
The construction of sections of bundles with prescribed jet values plays a
fundamental role in problems of algebraic and complex geometry. When the jet
values are prescribed on a positive dimensional subvariety, it is handled by
theorems of Ohsawa-Takegoshi type which give extension of line bundle valued
square-integrable top-degree holomorphic forms from the fiber at the origin of
a family of complex manifolds over the open unit 1-disk when the curvature of
the metric of line bundle is semipositive. We prove here an extension result
when the curvature of the line bundle is only semipositive on each fiber with
negativity on the total space assumed bounded from below and the connection of
the metric locally bounded, if a square-integrable extension is known to be
possible over a double point at the origin. It is a Hensel-lemma-type result
analogous to Artin's application of the generalized implicit function theorem
to the theory of obstruction in deformation theory. The motivation is the need
in the abundance conjecture to construct pluricanonical sections from flatly
twisted pluricanonical sections. We also give here a new approach to the
original theorem of Ohsawa-Takegoshi by using the hyperbolic geometry of the
punctured open unit 1-disk to reduce the original theorem of Ohsawa-Takegoshi
to a simple application of the standard method of constructing holomorphic
functions by solving the d-bar equation with cut-off functions and additional
blowup weight functions
High Pressure Insulator-Metal Transition in Molecular Fluid Oxygen
We report the first experimental evidence for a metallic phase in fluid
molecular oxygen. Our electrical conductivity measurements of fluid oxygen
under dynamic quasi-isentropic compression show that a non-metal/metal
transition occurs at 3.4 fold compression, 4500 K and 1.2 Mbar. We discuss the
main features of the electrical conductivity dependence on density and
temperature and give an interpretation of the nature of the electrical
transport mechanisms in fluid oxygen at these extreme conditions.Comment: RevTeX, 4 figure
The Structure, Dynamics and Electronic Structure of Liquid Ag-Se Alloys Investigated by Ab Initio Simulation
Ab initio molecular-dynamics simulations have been used to investigate the
structure, dynamics and electronic properties of the liquid alloy Ag(1-x)Se(x)
at 1350 K and at the three compositions x=0.33, 0.42 and 0.65. The calculations
are based on density-functional theory in the local density approximation and
on the pseudopotential plane-wave method. The reliability of the simulations is
confirmed by detailed comparisons with very recent neutron diffraction results
for the partial structure factors and radial distribution functions (RDF) of
the stoichiometric liquid Ag2Se. The simulations show a dramatic change of the
Se-Se RDF with increasing Se content. This change is due to the formation of Se
clusters bound by covalent bonds, the Se-Se bond length being almost the same
as in pure c-Se and l-Se. The clusters are predominantly chain-like, but for
higher x a large fraction of 3-fold coordinated Se atoms is also found. It is
shown that the equilibrium fractions of Se present as isolated atoms and in
clusters can be understood on a simple charge-balance model based on an ionic
interpretation. The Ag and Se diffusion coefficients both increase with Se
content, in spite of the Se clustering. An analysis of the Se-Se bond dynamics
reveals surprisingly short bond lifetimes of less than 1 ps. The changes in the
density of states with composition arise directly from the formation of Se-Se
covalent bonds. Results for the electronic conductivity obtained using the
Kubo-Greenwood approximation are in adequate agreement with experiment for
l-Ag2Se, but not for the high Se contents. Possible reasons for this are
discussed.Comment: 14 pages, Revtex, 14 Postscript figures embedded in the tex
- …