Microelectrode study of pore size, ion size, and solvent effects on the charge/discharge behavior of microporous carbons for electrical double-layer capacitors

The capacitive behavior of TiC-derived carbon powders in two different electrolytes, NEt4BF4 in acetonitrile AN and NEt4BF4 in propylene carbonate PC, was studied using the cavity microelectrode CME technique. Comparisons of the cyclic voltammograms recorded at 10–1000 mV/s enabled correlation between adsorbed ion sizes and pore sizes, which is important for understanding the electrochemical capacitive behavior of carbon electrodes for electrical double-layer capacitor applications. The CME technique also allows a fast selection of carbon electrodes with matching pore sizes different sizes are needed for the negative and positive electrodes for the respective electrolyte system. Comparison of electrochemical capacitive behavior of the same salt, NEt4BF4, in different solvents, PC and AN, has shown that different pore sizes are required for different solvents, because only partial desolvation of ions occurs during the double-layer charging. Squeezing partially solvated ions into subnanometer pores, which are close to the desolvated ion size, may lead to distortion of the shape of cyclic voltammograms

Ginzburg-Landau Like Theory for High Temperature Superconductivity in the Cuprates: Emergent d-wave Order

High temperature superconductivity in the cuprates remains one of the most widely investigated, constantly surprising, and poorly understood phenomena in physics. Here, we describe briefly a new phenomenological theory inspired by the celebrated description of superconductivity due to Ginzburg and Landau and believed to describe its essence. This posits a free energy functional for the superconductor in terms of a complex order parameter characterizing it. We propose, for superconducting cuprates, a similar functional of the complex, in plane, nearest neighbor spin singlet bond (or Cooper) pair amplitude psi_ij. A crucial part of it is a (short range) positive interaction between nearest neighbor bond pairs, of strength J'. Such an interaction leads to nonzero long wavelength phase stiffness or superconductive long range order, with the observed d-wave symmetry, below a temperature T_c\simzJ' where z is the number of nearest neighbours; it is thus an emergent, collective consequence. Using the functional, we calculate a large range of properties, e.g. the pseudogap transition temperature T* as a function of hole doping x, the transition curve T_c(x), the superfluid stiffness rho_s(x,T), the specific heat (without and with a magnetic field) due to the fluctuating pair degrees of freedom, and the zero temperature vortex structure. We find remarkable agreement with experiment. We also calculate the self energy of electrons hopping on the square cuprate lattice and coupled to electrons of nearly opposite momenta via inevitable long wavelength Cooper pair fluctuations formed of these electrons. The ensuing results for electron spectral density are successfully compared with recent ARPES experiments, and comprehensively explain strange features such as temperature dependent Fermi arcs above T_c and the 'bending' of the superconducting gap below T_c .Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures, to appear in Int J Mod Phys

Ultrahigh Transmission Optical Nanofibers

We present a procedure for reproducibly fabricating ultrahigh transmission optical nanofibers (530 nm diameter and 84 mm stretch) with single-mode transmissions of 99.95 $\pm$ 0.02%, which represents a loss from tapering of 2.6 $\,\times \,$ 10$^{-5}$ dB/mm when normalized to the entire stretch. When controllably launching the next family of higher-order modes on a fiber with 195 mm stretch, we achieve a transmission of 97.8 $\pm$ 2.8%, which has a loss from tapering of 5.0 $\,\times \,$ 10$^{-4}$ dB/mm when normalized to the entire stretch. Our pulling and transfer procedures allow us to fabricate optical nanofibers that transmit more than 400 mW in high vacuum conditions. These results, published as parameters in our previous work, present an improvement of two orders of magnitude less loss for the fundamental mode and an increase in transmission of more than 300% for higher-order modes, when following the protocols detailed in this paper. We extract from the transmission during the pull, the only reported spectrogram of a fundamental mode launch that does not include excitation to asymmetric modes; in stark contrast to a pull in which our cleaning protocol is not followed. These results depend critically on the pre-pull cleanliness and when properly following our pulling protocols are in excellent agreement with simulations.Comment: 32 pages, 10 figures, accepted to AIP Advance

Image-based Recommendations on Styles and Substitutes

Humans inevitably develop a sense of the relationships between objects, some of which are based on their appearance. Some pairs of objects might be seen as being alternatives to each other (such as two pairs of jeans), while others may be seen as being complementary (such as a pair of jeans and a matching shirt). This information guides many of the choices that people make, from buying clothes to their interactions with each other. We seek here to model this human sense of the relationships between objects based on their appearance. Our approach is not based on fine-grained modeling of user annotations but rather on capturing the largest dataset possible and developing a scalable method for uncovering human notions of the visual relationships within. We cast this as a network inference problem defined on graphs of related images, and provide a large-scale dataset for the training and evaluation of the same. The system we develop is capable of recommending which clothes and accessories will go well together (and which will not), amongst a host of other applications.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, SIGIR 201

Real-Time Operating System/360

RTOS has a cost savings advantage for real-time applications, such as those with random inputs requiring a flexible data routing facility, display systems simplified by a device independent interface language, and complex applications needing added storage protection and data queuing

Long-term Variability of H2_2CO Masers in Star-forming Regions

We present results of a multi-epoch monitoring program on variability of 6$\,$cm formaldehyde (H$_2$CO) masers in the massive star forming region NGC$\,$7538$\,$IRS$\,$1 from 2008 to 2015 conducted with the GBT, WSRT, and VLA. We found that the similar variability behaviors of the two formaldehyde maser velocity components in NGC$\,$7538$\,$IRS$\,$1 (which was pointed out by Araya and collaborators in 2007) have continued. The possibility that the variability is caused by changes in the maser amplification path in regions with similar morphology and kinematics is discussed. We also observed 12.2$\,$GHz methanol and 22.2$\,$GHz water masers toward NGC$\,$7538$\,$IRS$\,$1. The brightest maser components of CH$_3$OH and H$_2$O species show a decrease in flux density as a function of time. The brightest H$_2$CO maser component also shows a decrease in flux density and has a similar LSR velocity to the brightest H$_2$O and 12.2$\,$GHz CH$_3$OH masers. The line parameters of radio recombination lines and the 20.17 and 20.97$\,$GHz CH$_3$OH transitions in NGC$\,$7538$\,$IRS$\,$1 are also reported. In addition, we observed five other 6$\,$cm formaldehyde maser regions. We found no evidence of significant variability of the 6$\,$cm masers in these regions with respect to previous observations, the only possible exception being the maser in G29.96$-$0.02. All six sources were also observed in the H$_2^{13}$CO isotopologue transition of the 6$\,$cm H$_2$CO line; H$_2^{13}$CO absorption was detected in five of the sources. Estimated column density ratios [H$_2^{12}$CO]/[H$_2^{13}$CO] are reported.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figure

Computer Technology in the Biomechanical Analysis of Bar-Bell Lifting Motion Structures

An improper selection of muscle-building exercises or a technically poor execution of an exercise frequently leads to an inadvertent loading of the motion system of man, to injuries, to a poorer resulting achievement, or to a deceleration of the expected performance growth, to a disturbed dynamic stereotype and -last but not least-to motivation losses. In order to be able to cope with the problems outlined above, it was necessary to create a data collection and processing system for speedpower and technical parameters realized on a bar-bell. The information thus obtained allows for assessing a weight-lifter's performance in qualitative and quantitative terms, using a set of pre-defined criteria. Consequently, prerequisites for describing and correcting potential mistakes in an executed exercise, as well as for its optimization and economization, are provided

Approximate resonance states in the semigroup decomposition of resonance evolution

The semigroup decomposition formalism makes use of the functional model for $C_{.0}$ class contractive semigroups for the description of the time evolution of resonances. For a given scattering problem the formalism allows for the association of a definite Hilbert space state with a scattering resonance. This state defines a decomposition of matrix elements of the evolution into a term evolving according to a semigroup law and a background term. We discuss the case of multiple resonances and give a bound on the size of the background term. As an example we treat a simple problem of scattering from a square barrier potential on the half-line.Comment: LaTex 22 pages 3 figure

Self-adjoint Lyapunov variables, temporal ordering and irreversible representations of Schroedinger evolution

In non relativistic quantum mechanics time enters as a parameter in the Schroedinger equation. However, there are various situations where the need arises to view time as a dynamical variable. In this paper we consider the dynamical role of time through the construction of a Lyapunov variable - i.e., a self-adjoint quantum observable whose expectation value varies monotonically as time increases. It is shown, in a constructive way, that a certain class of models admit a Lyapunov variable and that the existence of a Lyapunov variable implies the existence of a transformation mapping the original quantum mechanical problem to an equivalent irreversible representation. In addition, it is proved that in the irreversible representation there exists a natural time ordering observable splitting the Hilbert space at each t>0 into past and future subspaces.Comment: Accepted for publication in JMP. Supercedes arXiv:0710.3604. Discussion expanded to include the case of Hamiltonians with an infinitely degenerate spectru