Experimental investigation of the shearing resistance of SODA-Lime glass at pressures of 9 GPa and strain rates of 10^6 s^(-1)

Pressure-Shear Plate Impact (PSPI) experiments were conducted to measure the high-rate shearing resistance of soda-lime glass at pressures of 9 GPa and at shearing rates of approximately 10^6 s^(−1). Samples of soda lime glass, 5 µm thick, were sandwiched between pure tungsten carbide (WC) plates and impacted by pure WC flyers. Impacting plates were inclined to the direction of approach by an angle of 18°. Normal stress and shearing resistance of the sample were calculated from measured free surface velocities using 1D elastic wave theory. The experimental results show that, at a pressure of 9GPa, the shear stress increases almost linearly up to 1 GPa and then falls quickly to approximately 0.3 GPa — after which it decreases slowly to approximately 0.17 GPa. Comparisons with results of previous experiments on nominally identical samples, impacted to generate lower peak pressures, showed the peak shearing resistance to be much higher at higher pressures; however, the sharp fall in shearing resistance occurs at comparable shear strains (1.5-2)

Experimental investigation of the shearing resistance of SODA-Lime glass at pressures of 9 GPa and strain rates of 10^6 s^(-1)

Pressure-Shear Plate Impact (PSPI) experiments were conducted to measure the high-rate shearing resistance of soda-lime glass at pressures of 9 GPa and at shearing rates of approximately 10^6 s^(−1). Samples of soda lime glass, 5 µm thick, were sandwiched between pure tungsten carbide (WC) plates and impacted by pure WC flyers. Impacting plates were inclined to the direction of approach by an angle of 18°. Normal stress and shearing resistance of the sample were calculated from measured free surface velocities using 1D elastic wave theory. The experimental results show that, at a pressure of 9GPa, the shear stress increases almost linearly up to 1 GPa and then falls quickly to approximately 0.3 GPa — after which it decreases slowly to approximately 0.17 GPa. Comparisons with results of previous experiments on nominally identical samples, impacted to generate lower peak pressures, showed the peak shearing resistance to be much higher at higher pressures; however, the sharp fall in shearing resistance occurs at comparable shear strains (1.5-2)

Loss of Pten causes tumor initiation following differentiation of murine pluripotent stem cells due to failed repression of Nanog.

Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) hold significant promise in regenerative medicine due to their unlimited capacity for self-renewal and potential to differentiate into every cell type in the body. One major barrier to the use of PSCs is their potential risk for tumor initiation following differentiation and transplantation in vivo. In the current study we sought to evaluate the role of the tumor suppressor Pten in murine PSC neoplastic progression. Using eight functional assays that have previously been used to indicate PSC adaptation or transformation, Pten null embryonic stem cells (ESCs) failed to rate as significant in five of them. Instead, our data demonstrate that the loss of Pten causes the emergence of a small number of aggressive, teratoma-initiating embryonic carcinoma cells (ECCs) during differentiation in vitro, while the remaining 90-95% of differentiated cells are non-tumorigenic. Furthermore, our data show that the mechanism by which Pten null ECCs emerge in vitro and cause tumors in vivo is through increased survival and self-renewal, due to failed repression of the transcription factor Nanog

En-route to the fission-fusion reaction mechanism: a status update on laser-driven heavy ion acceleration

The fission-fusion reaction mechanism was proposed in order to generate extremely neutron-rich nuclei close to the waiting point N = 126 of the rapid neutron capture nucleosynthesis process (r-process). The production of such isotopes and the measurement of their nuclear properties would fundamentally help to increase the understanding of the nucleosynthesis of the heaviest elements in the universe. Major prerequisite for the realization of this new reaction scheme is the development of laser-based acceleration of ultra-dense heavy ion bunches in the mass range of A = 200 and above. In this paper, we review the status of laser-driven heavy ion acceleration in the light of the fission-fusion reaction mechanism. We present results from our latest experiment on heavy ion acceleration, including a new milestone with laser-accelerated heavy ion energies exceeding 5 MeV/u

Dense Packings of Superdisks and the Role of Symmetry

We construct the densest known two-dimensional packings of superdisks in the plane whose shapes are defined by |x^(2p) + y^(2p)| <= 1, which contains both convex-shaped particles (p > 0.5, with the circular-disk case p = 1) and concave-shaped particles (0 < p < 0.5). The packings of the convex cases with p 1 generated by a recently developed event-driven molecular dynamics (MD) simulation algorithm [Donev, Torquato and Stillinger, J. Comput. Phys. 202 (2005) 737] suggest exact constructions of the densest known packings. We find that the packing density (covering fraction of the particles) increases dramatically as the particle shape moves away from the "circular-disk" point (p = 1). In particular, we find that the maximal packing densities of superdisks for certain p 6 = 1 are achieved by one of the two families of Bravais lattice packings, which provides additional numerical evidence for Minkowski's conjecture concerning the critical determinant of the region occupied by a superdisk. Moreover, our analysis on the generated packings reveals that the broken rotational symmetry of superdisks influences the packing characteristics in a non-trivial way. We also propose an analytical method to construct dense packings of concave superdisks based on our observations of the structural properties of packings of convex superdisks.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Appearance of Flat Bands and Edge States in Boron-Carbon-Nitride Nanoribbons

Presence of flat bands and edge states at the Fermi level in graphene nanoribbons with zigzag edges is one of the most interesting and attracting properties of nanocarbon materials but it is believed that they are quite fragile states and disappear when B and N atoms are doped at around the edges. In this paper, we theoretically investigate electronic and magnetic properties of boron-carbon-nitride (BCN) nanoribbons with zigzag edges where the outermost C atoms on the edges are alternately replaced with B and N atoms using the first principles calculations. We show that BCN nanoribbons have the flat bands and edge states at the Fermi level in both H_2 rich and poor environments. The flat bands are similar to those at graphene nanoribbons with zigzag edges, but the distributions of charge and spin densities are different between them. A tight binding model and the Hubbard model analysis show that the difference in the distribution of charge and spin densities is caused by the different site energies of B and N atoms compared with C atoms.Comment: 5 pages; 3 figure