884 research outputs found
Scaling of NonOhmic Conduction in Strongly Correlated Systems
A new scaling formalism is used to analyze nonlinear I-V data in the vicinity
of metal-insulator transitions (MIT) in five manganite systems. An exponent,
called the nonlinearity exponent, and an onset field for nonlinearity, both
characteristic of the system under study, are obtained from the analysis. The
onset field is found to have an anomalously low value corroborating the
theoretically predicted electronically soft phases. The scaling functions above
and below the MIT of a polycrystalline sample are found to be the same but with
different exponents which are attributed to the distribution of the MIT
temperatures. The applicability of the scaling in manganites underlines the
universal response of the disordered systems to electric field
Understanding the limits of plasmonic enhancement in organic photovoltaics
Plasmonic enhancement in organic photovoltaics has been extensively studied in the past decade. However, the reported improvements in power conversion efficiency (PCE) are highly inconsistent due to a poor understanding of the limitations of how plasmonics affect charge generation and transport in solar cells. In this work, we address these long-standing uncharted questions as to when plasmonic enhancements are useful and when they are not. We do this with a model system consisting of poly[2,6-(4,4-bis-(2-ethylhexyl)-4H-cyclopenta[2,1-b:3,4-b′]dithiophene)-alt-4,7-(2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)]:[6,6]-phenyl C61 butyric acid methyl ester PCDTBT polymer active layer with silver nanostructures embedded in the poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene PEDOT:PSS sulfonate hole-transport layer. We demonstrate that: (a) plasmonic enhancements are most pronounced when the charge carrier mobilities of the donor and acceptor materials are unbalanced; (b) the introduction of plasmonic nanostructures in devices with balanced charge transport usually results in a decrease in efficiency; (c) plasmonic enhancement is highly shape-dependent; (d) for devices with asymmetric mobilities, as long as the species with low mobility is extracted at the contact where light is incident, device efficiency will be boosted; and (e) increase in light absorption in the active layer has minimal impact on PCE; the efficiency is primarily driven by exciton generation and charge collection efficiency. The findings of our work provide a generalized framework to guide researchers as to when plasmonic effects could be helpful to a device and when they could degrade performance
Nonlinear DC-response in Composites: a Percolative Study
The DC-response, namely the - and - charateristics, of a variety
of composite materials are in general found to be nonlinear. We attempt to
understand the generic nature of the response charactersistics and study the
peculiarities associated with them. Our approach is based on a simple and
minimal model bond percolative network. We do simulate the resistor network
with appropritate linear and nonlinear bonds and obtain macroscopic nonlinear
response characteristics. We discuss the associated physics. An effective
medium approximation (EMA) of the corresponding resistor network is also given.Comment: Text written in RevTEX, 15 pages (20 postscript figures included),
submitted to Phys. Rev. E. Some minor corrections made in the text, corrected
one reference, the format changed (from 32 pages preprint to 15 pages
Quantum Size Effect transition in percolating nanocomposite films
We report on unique electronic properties in Fe-SiO2 nanocomposite thin films
in the vicinity of the percolation threshold. The electronic transport is
dominated by quantum corrections to the metallic conduction of the Infinite
Cluster (IC). At low temperature, mesoscopic effects revealed on the
conductivity, Hall effect experiments and low frequency electrical noise
(random telegraph noise and 1/f noise) strongly support the existence of a
temperature-induced Quantum Size Effect (QSE) transition in the metallic
conduction path. Below a critical temperature related to the geometrical
constriction sizes of the IC, the electronic conductivity is mainly governed by
active tunnel conductance across barriers in the metallic network. The high 1/f
noise level and the random telegraph noise are consistently explained by random
potential modulation of the barriers transmittance due to local Coulomb
charges. Our results provide evidence that a lowering of the temperature is
somehow equivalent to a decrease of the metal fraction in the vicinity of the
percolation limit.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figure
Resistance and Resistance Fluctuations in Random Resistor Networks Under Biased Percolation
We consider a two-dimensional random resistor network (RRN) in the presence
of two competing biased percolations consisting of the breaking and recovering
of elementary resistors. These two processes are driven by the joint effects of
an electrical bias and of the heat exchange with a thermal bath. The electrical
bias is set up by applying a constant voltage or, alternatively, a constant
current. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to analyze the network evolution
in the full range of bias values. Depending on the bias strength, electrical
failure or steady state are achieved. Here we investigate the steady-state of
the RRN focusing on the properties of the non-Ohmic regime. In constant voltage
conditions, a scaling relation is found between and , where
is the average network resistance, the linear regime resistance
and the threshold value for the onset of nonlinearity. A similar relation
is found in constant current conditions. The relative variance of resistance
fluctuations also exhibits a strong nonlinearity whose properties are
investigated. The power spectral density of resistance fluctuations presents a
Lorentzian spectrum and the amplitude of fluctuations shows a significant
non-Gaussian behavior in the pre-breakdown region. These results compare well
with electrical breakdown measurements in thin films of composites and of other
conducting materials.Comment: 15 figures, 23 page
Optomagnetic composite medium with conducting nanoelements
A new type of metal-dielectric composites has been proposed that is
characterised by a resonance-like behaviour of the effective permeability in
the infrared and visible spectral ranges. This material can be referred to as
optomagnetic medium. The analytical formalism developed is based on solving the
scattering problem for considered inclusions with impedance boundary condition,
which yields the current and charge distributions within the inclusions. The
presence of the effective magnetic permeability and its resonant properties
lead to novel optical effects and open new possible applications.Comment: 48 pages, 13 figures. accepted to Phys. Rev. B; to appear vol. 66,
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Poverty reduction during 1990-2013: did millennium development goals adoption and state capacity matter?
While poverty reduction remains central in the Post-2015 Agenda, its determinants remain debated in the literature, especially the role of structural conditions related to governance. This paper provides an assessment of two key dimensions: the global adoption of MDGs and state capacity. We do so by studying whether they facilitated convergence in income poverty measures, using cross-section and panel methods, with data on 89 developing economies for the period 1990–2013. We find that poverty headcount and gap measures tended to decrease faster in countries with initially higher income poverty. Such convergence accelerated after 2000, suggesting that MDGs adoption was instrumental to poverty reduction. However, this still leaves unexplained substantial variation in poverty reduction performance across countries. Such variation is explained by state capacity: countries with greater ability to administer their territories in 1990 experienced faster income poverty reduction and were more likely to have achieved the MDG target. This result is insensitive to robust regression methods and to a large set of controls (initial level of income, dependence on natural resources, education and health inputs, dependence on foreign aid, ethnic fractionalization, regional effects and a set of governance variables). As good governance and effective institutions are included in the Sustainable Development Goals, this result provides empirical justification for this move, suggesting that more effective states could be crucial to sustain the development progress achieved so far
Climate change adaptation in European river basins
This paper contains an assessment and standardized comparative analysis of the current water management regimes in four case-studies in three European river basins: the Hungarian part of the Upper Tisza, the Ukrainian part of the Upper Tisza (also called Zacarpathian Tisza), Alentejo Region (including the Alqueva Reservoir) in the Lower Guadiana in Portugal, and Rivierenland in the Netherlands. The analysis comprises several regime elements considered to be important in adaptive and integrated water management: agency, awareness raising and education, type of governance and cooperation structures, information management and—exchange, policy development and—implementation, risk management, and finances and cost recovery. This comparative analysis has an explorative character intended to identify general patterns in adaptive and integrated water management and to determine its role in coping with the impacts of climate change on floods and droughts. The results show that there is a strong interdependence of the elements within a water management regime, and as such this interdependence is a stabilizing factor in current management regimes. For example, this research provides evidence that a lack of joint/participative knowledge is an important obstacle for cooperation, or vice versa. We argue that there is a two-way relationship between information management and collaboration. Moreover, this research suggests that bottom-up governance is not a straightforward solution to water management problems in large-scale, complex, multiple-use systems, such as river basins. Instead, all the regimes being analyzed are in a process of finding a balance between bottom-up and top–down governance. Finally, this research shows that in a basin where one type of extreme is dominant—like droughts in the Alentejo (Portugal) and floods in Rivierenland (Netherlands)—the potential impacts of other extremes are somehow ignored or not perceived with the urgency they might deserv
Heterogeneity and Common Pool Resources: Collective Management of Forests in Himachal Pradesh, India
Early prediction of COVID-19 outcome using artificial intelligence techniques and only five laboratory indices
We aimed to develop a prediction model for intensive care unit (ICU) hospitalization of Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) patients using artificial neural networks (ANN). We assessed 25 laboratory parameters at first from 248 consecutive adult COVID-19 patients for database creation, training, and development of ANN models. We developed a new alpha-index to assess association of each parameter with outcome. We used 166 records for training of computational simulations (training), 41 for documentation of computational simulations (validation), and 41 for reliability check of computational simulations (testing). The first five laboratory indices ranked by importance were Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, Lactate Dehydrogenase, Fibrinogen, Albumin, and D-Dimers. The best ANN based on these indices achieved accuracy 95.97%, precision 90.63%, sensitivity 93.55%. and F1-score 92.06%, verified in the validation cohort. Our preliminary findings reveal for the first time an ANN to predict ICU hospitalization accurately and early, using only 5 easily accessible laboratory indices
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