Cavity dumping of neodymium-doped fibre lasers using acousto-optic modulator

We report high-repetition-rate pulses obtained by cavity dumping of a neodymium-doped phosphate glass fibre laser operating at 1053 nm using a specially constructed acoustooptic modulator. With 27 mW absorbed pump power at 812 nm we obtained stable trains of output pulses with repetition rate in the range 0.5 to 8MHz having corresponding pulse widths in the range 127 to 19 ns without significant sacrifice in the average output power of 8 mW

Cubic Augmentation of Planar Graphs

In this paper we study the problem of augmenting a planar graph such that it becomes 3-regular and remains planar. We show that it is NP-hard to decide whether such an augmentation exists. On the other hand, we give an efficient algorithm for the variant of the problem where the input graph has a fixed planar (topological) embedding that has to be preserved by the augmentation. We further generalize this algorithm to test efficiently whether a 3-regular planar augmentation exists that additionally makes the input graph connected or biconnected. If the input graph should become even triconnected, we show that the existence of a 3-regular planar augmentation is again NP-hard to decide.Comment: accepted at ISAAC 201

General relativistic spinning fluids with a modified projection tensor

An energy-momentum tensor for general relativistic spinning fluids compatible with Tulczyjew-type supplementary condition is derived from the variation of a general Lagrangian with unspecified explicit form. This tensor is the sum of a term containing the Belinfante-Rosenfeld tensor and a modified perfect-fluid energy-momentum tensor in which the four-velocity is replaced by a unit four-vector in the direction of fluid momentum. The equations of motion are obtained and it is shown that they admit a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker space-time as a solution.Comment: Submitted to General Relativity and Gravitatio

Consumption and Savings Pattern among Food Crop Farmers in Imeko Afon Local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria

This study examines savings and consumption patterns among food crop farmers in Imeko-Afon Local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria. The primary data used for the study were obtained through structured questionnaires using random sampling technique. Descriptive statistics and Ordinary Least Square Regression model were used to analyze the data. Descriptive analysis showed that 58.3% of the household heads were males, 64.2% of them were married, and 26.7% fell within the age bracket of 30 and 49 years, indicating that the majority of them are within agile and productive ages. Most of the respondents (70.9%) had tertiary education and the average household size was below 5 persons. Furthermore, the consumption pattern shows that N22,973.39 was expended on food items while N144,407.88 was spent on non-food items and N68,475.62 was incurred on agricultural purpose, and N13,602.33 was saved.  The result of the Ordinary Least Square Regression model showed that the age of respondents, level of education and marital status of the household heads were significantly influenced by household’s monthly food expenditure (consumption) in the study area, while, monthly income and amount of food expenditure were major determinants of savings. The study recommends among other things enlightenment programmes that will educate the rural dwellers on the need to eat good quality food and need for savings. Keywords: Saving, Consumption, Loan Repayment, Multistage, Polic

Excitation Spectrum of One-dimensional Extended Ionic Hubbard Model

We use Perturbative Continuous Unitary Transformations (PCUT) to study the one dimensional Extended Ionic Hubbard Model (EIHM) at half-filling in the band insulator region. The extended ionic Hubbard model, in addition to the usual ionic Hubbard model, includes an inter-site nearest-neighbor (n.n.) repulsion, $V$. We consider the ionic potential as unperturbed part of the Hamiltonian, while the hopping and interaction (quartic) terms are treated as perturbation. We calculate total energy and ionicity in the ground state. Above the ground state, (i) we calculate the single particle excitation spectrum by adding an electron or a hole to the system. (ii) the coherence-length and spectrum of electron-hole excitation are obtained. Our calculations reveal that for V=0, there are two triplet bound state modes and three singlet modes, two anti-bound states and one bound state, while for finite values of $V$ there are four excitonic bound states corresponding to two singlet and two triplet modes. The major role of on-site Coulomb repulsion $U$ is to split singlet and triplet collective excitation branches, while $V$ tends to pull the singlet branches below the continuum to make them bound states.Comment: 10 eps figure

Electric field inside a "Rossky cavity" in uniformly polarized water

Electric field produced inside a solute by a uniformly polarized liquid is strongly affected by dipolar polarization of the liquid at the interface. We show, by numerical simulations, that the electric "cavity" field inside a hydrated non-polar solute does not follow the predictions of standard Maxwell's electrostatics of dielectrics. Instead, the field inside the solute tends, with increasing solute size, to the limit predicted by the Lorentz virtual cavity. The standard paradigm fails because of its reliance on the surface charge density at the dielectric interface determined by the boundary conditions of the Maxwell dielectric. The interface of a polar liquid instead carries a preferential in-plane orientation of the surface dipoles thus producing virtually no surface charge. The resulting boundary conditions for electrostatic problems differ from the traditional recipes, affecting the microscopic and macroscopic fields based on them. We show that relatively small differences in cavity fields propagate into significant differences in the dielectric constant of an ideal mixture. The slope of the dielectric increment of the mixture versus the solute concentration depends strongly on which polarization scenario at the interface is realized. A much steeper slope found in the case of Lorentz polarization also implies a higher free energy penalty for polarizing such mixtures.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Spectral properties of the dimerized and frustrated S=1/2S=1/2 chain

Spectral densities are calculated for the dimerized and frustrated S=1/2 chain using the method of continuous unitary transformations (CUTs). The transformation to an effective triplon model is realized in a perturbative fashion up to high orders about the limit of isolated dimers. An efficient description in terms of triplons (elementary triplets) is possible: a detailed analysis of the spectral densities is provided for strong and intermediate dimerization including the influence of frustration. Precise predictions are made for inelastic neutron scattering experiments probing the S=1 sector and for optical experiments (Raman scattering, infrared absorption) probing the S=0 sector. Bound states and resonances influence the important continua strongly. The comparison with the field theoretic results reveals that the sine-Gordon model describes the low-energy features for strong to intermediate dimerization only at critical frustration.Comment: 21 page

Functional responses of uremic single skeletal muscle fibers to redox imbalances

BACKGROUND: The exact causes of skeletal muscle weakness in chronic kidney disease (CKD) remain unknown with uremic toxicity and redox imbalances being implicated. To understand whether uremic muscle has acquired any sensitivity to acute redox changes we examined the effects of redox disturbances on force generation capacity. METHODS: Permeabilized single psoas fibers (N =37) from surgically induced CKD (UREM) and sham-operated (CON) rabbits were exposed to an oxidizing (10 mM Hydrogen Peroxide, H2O2) and/or a reducing [10 mM Dithiothreitol (DTT)] agent, in a blind design, in two sets of experiments examining: A) the acute effect of the addition of H2O2 on maximal (pCa 4.4) isometric force of actively contracting fibers and the effect of incubation in DTT on subsequent re-activation and force recovery (N =9 CON; N =9 UREM fibers); B) the effect of incubation in H2O2 on both submaximal (pCa 6.2) and maximal (pCa 4.4) calcium activated isometric force generation (N =9 CON; N =10 UREM fibers). RESULTS: Based on cross-sectional area (CSA) calculations, a 14 % atrophy in UREM fibers was revealed; thus forces were evaluated in absolute values and corrected for CSA (specific force) values. A) Addition of H2O2 during activation did not significantly affect force generation in any group or the pool of fibers. Incubation in DTT did not affect the CON fibers but caused a 12 % maximal isometric force decrease in UREM fibers (both in absolute force p =0.024, and specific force, p =0.027). B) Incubation in H2O2 during relaxation lowered subsequent maximal (but not submaximal) isometric forces in the Pool of fibers by 3.5 % (for absolute force p =0.033, for specific force p =0.019) but not in the fiber groups separately. CONCLUSIONS: Force generation capacity of CON and UREM fibers is affected by oxidation similarly. However, DTT significantly lowered force in UREM muscle fibers. This may indicate that at baseline UREM muscle could have already been at a more reduced redox state than physiological. This observation warrants further investigation as it could be linked to disease-induced effects