A robust design methodology suitable for application to one-off products

Robust design is an activity of fundamental importance when designing large, complex, one-off engineering products. Work is described which is concerned with the application of the theory of design of experiments and stochastic optimization methods to explore and optimize at the concept design stage. The discussion begins with a description of state-of-the-art stochastic techniques and their application to robust design. The content then focuses on a generic methodology which is capable of manipulating design algorithms that can be used to describe a design concept. An example is presented, demonstrating the use of the system for the robust design of a catamaran with respect to seakeeping

Mesoscopic Hall effect driven by chiral spin order

A Hall effect due to spin chirality in mesoscopic systems is predicted. We consider a 4-terminal Hall system including local spins with geometry of a vortex domain wall, where strong spin chirality appears near the center of vortex. The Fermi energy of the conduction electrons is assumed to be comparable to the exchange coupling energy where the adiabatic approximation ceases to be valid. Our results show a Hall effect where a voltage drop and a spin current arise in the transverse direction. The similarity between this Hall effect and the conventional spin Hall effect in systems with spin-orbit interaction is pointed out.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Macroscopic thermodynamics of equilibrium characterized by power-law canonical distributions

Macroscopic thermodynamics of equilibrium is constructed for systems obeying power-law canonical distributions. With this, the connection between macroscopic thermodynamics and microscopic statistical thermodynamics is generalized. This is complementary to the Gibbs theorem for the celebrated exponential canonical distributions of systems in contact with a heat bath. Thereby, a thermodynamic basis is provided for power-law phenomena ubiquitous in nature.Comment: 12 page

Computed Tomography Appearance of Hem-O-Lok Clips in Patients Who Have Undergone Laparoscopic Nephrectomy or Nephroureterectomy

Hem-O-Lok clips are radiopaque on computed tomography in patients who have undergone laparoscopic nephrectomy and nephroureterectomy

Magneto-optics induced by the spin chirality in itinerant ferromagnet Nd2_2Mo2_2O7_7

It is demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally that the spin chirality associated with a noncoplanar spin configuration produces a magneto-optical effect. Numerical study of the two-band Hubbard model on a triangle cluster shows that the optical Hall conductivity $\sigma_{xy}(\omega)$ is proportional to the spin chirality. The detailed comparative experiments on pyrochlore-type molybdates $R_2$Mo$_2$O$_7$ with $R=$Nd (Ising-like moments) and $R=$Gd (Heisenberg-like ones) clearly distinguishes the two mechanisms, i.e., spin chirality and spin-orbit interactions. It is concluded that for $R$=Nd, $\sigma_{xy}(\omega)$ is dominated by the spin chirality for the dc ($\omega=0$) and the $d \to d$ incoherent intraband optical transitions between Mo atoms.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. submitted to Phys. Rev.

Velocity Statistics in the Two-Dimensional Granular Turbulence

We studied the macroscopic statistical properties on the freely evolving quasi-elastic hard disk (granular) system by performing a large-scale (up to a few million particles) event-driven molecular dynamics systematically and found that remarkably analogous to an enstrophy cascade process in the decaying two-dimensional fluid turbulence. There are four typical stages in the freely evolving inelastic hard disk system, which are homogeneous, shearing (vortex), clustering and final state. In the shearing stage, the self-organized macroscopic coherent vortices become dominant. In the clustering stage, the energy spectra are close to the expectation of Kraichnan-Batchelor theory and the squared two-particle separation strictly obeys Richardson law.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in PR

Anomalous Hall effect in 2D Dirac band: link between Kubo-Streda formula and semiclassical Boltzmann equation approach

The anomalous Hall effect (AHE) is a consequence of spin-orbit coupling in a ferromagnetic metal and is related primarily to density-matrix response to an electric field that is off-diagonal in band index. For this reason disorder contributions to the AHE are difficult to treat systematically using a semi-classical Boltzmann equation approach, even when weak localization corrections are disregarded. In this article we explicitly demonstrate the equivalence of an appropriately modified semiclassical transport theory which includes anomalous velocity and side jump contributions and microscopic Kubo-Streda perturbation theory, with particular unconventional contributions in the semiclassical theory identified with particular Feynman diagrams when calculations are carried out in a band-eigenstate representation. The equivalence we establish is verified by explcit calculations for the case of the two-dimensional (2D) Dirac model Hamiltonian relevant to graphene.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figure

Two geometrically frustrated magnets studied by neutron diffraction

In the pyrochlore compounds, Tb$_2$Ti$_2$O$_7$ and Tb$_2$Sn$_2$O$_7$, only the Tb$^{3+}$ ions are magnetic. They exhibit quite abnormal -- and, in view of their chemical similarity, strikingly different -- magnetic behaviour, as probed by neutron diffraction at ambient and applied pressure. Tb$_2$Ti$_2$O$_7$ is a cooperative paramagnet (`spin liquid'), without long range order at ambient pressure; however, it does become ordered under pressure. By contrast, Tb$_2$Sn$_2$O$_7$ enters an "ordered spin ice" state already at ambient pressure. We analyse a simple model which already clearly exhibits some of the qualitative features observed experimentally. Overall, comparing these two compounds emphasizes the power of small perturbations in selecting low-temperature states in geometrically frustrated systems.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, International Conference on Neutron Scattering Sydney(2005