1,010 research outputs found
Teaching and learning analogue electronics in undergraduate courses : preliminary findings from the ETL project
This paper describes ongoing research into the teaching and learning of analogue electronics in three course units at two research-intensive universities. It draws on students' experiences of teaching and learning in analogue course units to explore the nature of the learning they were undertaking and examines the teaching-learning activities they found most supportive of their studying
Financial diversification before modern portfolio theory: UK financial advice documents in the late nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century
The paper offers textual evidence from a series of financial advice documents in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century of how UK investors perceived of and managed risk. In the worldâs largest financial centre of the time, UK investors were familiar with the concept of correlation and financial advisersâ suggestions were consistent with the recommendations of modern portfolio theory in relation to portfolio selection strategies. From the 1870s, there was an increased awareness of the benefits of financial diversification - primarily putting equal amounts into a number of different securities - with much of the emphasis being on geographical rather than sectoral diversification and some discussion of avoiding highly correlated investments. Investors in the past were not so naĂŻve as mainstream financial discussions suggest today
Deterministic delivery of externally cold and precisely positioned single molecular ions
We present the preparation and deterministic delivery of a selectable number
of externally cold molecular ions. A laser cooled ensemble of Mg^+ ions
subsequently confined in several linear Paul traps inter-connected via a
quadrupole guide serves as a cold bath for a single or up to a few hundred
molecular ions. Sympathetic cooling embeds the molecular ions in the
crystalline structure. MgH^+ ions, that serve as a model system for a large
variety of other possible molecular ions, are cooled down close to the Doppler
limit and are positioned with an accuracy of one micrometer. After the
production process, severely compromising the vacuum conditions, the molecular
ion is efficiently transfered into nearly background-free environment. The
transfer of a molecular ion between different traps as well as the control of
the molecular ions in the traps is demonstrated. Schemes, optimized for the
transfer of a specific number of ions, are realized and their efficiencies are
evaluated. This versatile source applicable for broad charge-to-mass ratios of
externally cold and precisely positioned molecular ions can serve as a
container-free target preparation device well suited for diffraction or
spectroscopic measurements on individual molecular ions at high repetition
rates (kHz).Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure
Spin, charge and orbital ordering in ferrimagnetic insulator YBaMnO
The oxygen-deficient (double) perovskite YBaMnO, containing
corner-linked MnO square pyramids, is found to exhibit ferrimagnetic
ordering in its ground state. In the present work we report
generalized-gradient-corrected, relativistic first-principles full-potential
density-functional calculations performed on YBaMnO in the nonmagnetic,
ferromagnetic and ferrimagnetic states. The charge, orbital and spin orderings
are explained with site-, angular momentum- and orbital-projected density of
states, charge-density plots, electronic structure and total energy studies.
YBaMnO is found to stabilize in a G-type ferrimagnetic state in
accordance with experimental results. The experimentally observed insulating
behavior appears only when we include ferrimagnetic ordering in our
calculation. We observed significant optical anisotropy in this material
originating from the combined effect of ferrimagnetic ordering and crystal
field splitting. In order to gain knowledge about the presence of different
valence states for Mn in YBaMnO we have calculated -edge x-ray
absorption near-edge spectra for the Mn and O atoms. The presence of the
different valence states for Mn is clearly established from the x-ray
absorption near-edge spectra, hyperfine field parameters and the magnetic
properties study. Among the experimentally proposed structures, the recently
reported description based on 4/ is found to represent the stable
structure
Direct monitoring of pulmonary disease treatment biomarkers using plasmonic gold nanorods with diffusion-sensitive OCT
The solid concentration of pulmonary mucus (wt%) is critical to respiratory health. In patients with respiratory disease, such as Cystic Fibrosis (CF) and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD), mucus hydration is impaired, resulting in high wt%. Mucus with high wt% is a hallmark of pulmonary disease that leads to obstructed airways, inflammation, and infection. Methods to measure mucus hydration in situ and in real-time are needed for drug development and personalized therapy. We employed plasmonic gold nanorod (GNR) biosensors that intermittently collide with macromolecules comprising the mucus mesh as they self-diffuse, such that GNR translational diffusion (DT) is sensitive to wt%. GNRs are attractive candidates for bioprobes due to their anisotropic optical scattering that makes them easily distinguishable from native tissue using polarization-sensitive OCT. Using principles of heterodyne dynamic light scattering, we developed diffusion-sensitive optical coherence tomography (DS-OCT) to spatially-resolve changing DT in real-time. DS-OCT enables, for the first time, direct monitoring of changes in nanoparticle diffusion rates that are sensitive to nanoporosity with spatial and temporal resolutions of 4.7 ÎŒm and 0.2 s. DS-OCT therefore enables us to measure spatially-resolved changes in mucus wt% over time. In this study, we demonstrate the applicability of DS-OCT on well-differentiated primary human bronchial epithelial cells during a clinical mucus-hydrating therapy, hypertonic saline treatment (HST), to reveal, for the first time, mucus mixing, cellular secretions, and mucus hydration on the micrometer scale that translate to long-term therapeutic effects
Plasmon-Coupled Gold Nanoparticles in Stretched Shape-Memory Polymers for Mechanical/Thermal Sensing
The organization of plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) determines the strength and polarization dependence of coupling of their surface plasmons. In this study, plasmon coupling of spherical Au NPs with an average diameter of 15 nm was investigated in shape-memory polymer films before and after mechanical stretching and then after thermally driving shape recovery. Clusters of Au NPs form when preparing the films that exhibit strong plasmon coupling. During stretching, a significant polarization-dependent response develops, where the optical extinction maximum corresponding to the surface plasmon resonance is redshifted by 19 nm and blueshifted by 7 nm for polarization parallel and perpendicular to the stretching direction, respectively. This result can be explained by non-uniform stretching on the nanoscale, where plasmon coupling increases parallel to the shear direction as Au NPs are pulled into each other during stretching. The polarization dependence vanishes after shape recovery, and structural characterization confirms the return of isotropy consistent with complete nanoscale recovery of the initial arrangement of Au NPs. Simulations of the polarized optical responses of Au NP dimers at different interparticle spacings establish a plasmon ruler for estimating the average interparticle spacings within the experimental samples. An investigation of the temperature-dependent recovery behavior demonstrates an application of these materials as optical thermal history sensors
A new upper bound for the cross number of finite Abelian groups
In this paper, building among others on earlier works by U. Krause and C.
Zahlten (dealing with the case of cyclic groups), we obtain a new upper bound
for the little cross number valid in the general case of arbitrary finite
Abelian groups. Given a finite Abelian group, this upper bound appears to
depend only on the rank and on the number of distinct prime divisors of the
exponent. The main theorem of this paper allows us, among other consequences,
to prove that a classical conjecture concerning the cross and little cross
numbers of finite Abelian groups holds asymptotically in at least two different
directions.Comment: 21 pages, to appear in Israel Journal of Mathematic
Determinants of international students' academic performance: A comparison between Chinese and other international students
With the increasing number of international students travelling to well-developed countries for higher education, there has been a growing interest in exploring the factors that influence their academic performance during their overseas studies. This study aims to give an insight into international students' learning experience by investigating the differences between Chinese and non-Chinese cultural groups and leads to the identification of the key predictors of their academic achievement via multiple regression analysis. The results suggest that the perceived importance of learning success to family, English writing ability, and social communication with their compatriots are significant predictors for all international students. As the predominant group, Chinese students display some distinctive characteristics. A less active learning strategy is observed among Chinese students relative to others, but no evidence has found that this negatively affects their academic achievement. © 2010 Nuffic
Increased replication stress determines ATR inhibitor sensitivity in neuroblastoma cells
Despite intensive high-dose multimodal therapy, high-risk neuroblastoma (NB) confers a less than 50% survival rate. This study investigates the role of replication stress in sensitivity to inhibition of Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related (ATR) in pre-clinical models of high-risk NB. Amplification of the oncogene MYCN always imparts high-risk disease and occurs in 25% of all NB. Here, we show that MYCN-induced replication stress directly increases sensitivity to the ATR inhibitors VE-821 and AZD6738. PARP inhibition with Olaparib also results in replication stress and ATR activation, and sensitises NB cells to ATR inhibition independently of MYCN status, with synergistic levels of cell death seen in MYCN expressing ATR- and PARP-inhibited cells. Mechanistically, we demonstrate that ATR inhibition increases the number of persistent stalled and collapsed replication forks, exacerbating replication stress. It also abrogates S and G2 cell cycle checkpoints leading to death during mitosis in cells treated with an ATR inhibitor combined with PARP inhibition. In summary, increased replication stress through high MYCN expression, PARP inhibition or chemotherapeutic agents results in sensitivity to ATR inhibition. Our findings provide a mechanistic rationale for the inclusion of ATR and PARP inhibitors as a potential treatment strategy for high-risk NB
Deconfining Phase Transition as a Matrix Model of Renormalized Polyakov Loops
We discuss how to extract renormalized from bare Polyakov loops in SU(N)
lattice gauge theories at nonzero temperature in four spacetime dimensions.
Single loops in an irreducible representation are multiplicatively renormalized
without mixing, through a renormalization constant which depends upon both
representation and temperature. The values of renormalized loops in the four
lowest representations of SU(3) were measured numerically on small, coarse
lattices. We find that in magnitude, condensates for the sextet and octet loops
are approximately the square of the triplet loop. This agrees with a large
expansion, where factorization implies that the expectation values of loops in
adjoint and higher representations are just powers of fundamental and
anti-fundamental loops. For three colors, numerically the corrections to the
large relations are greatest for the sextet loop, ; these
represent corrections of for N=3. The values of the renormalized
triplet loop can be described by an SU(3) matrix model, with an effective
action dominated by the triplet loop. In several ways, the deconfining phase
transition for N=3 appears to be like that in the matrix model of
Gross and Witten.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures; v2, 27 pages, 12 figures, extended discussion
for clarity, results unchange
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