Oxygen tri-clusters make glass highly crack-resistant

Identifying key structural factors that surmount their intrinsic brittleness and poor crack initiation resistance (CR) is crucial for designing glass efficiently and predictably. In this study, we present three significant discoveries that contribute to the design of glasses with superior mechanical performances. Firstly, the CR of the aluminosilicate glasses exhibited a drastic increase when the alumina content surpasses a critical threshold. Secondly, the fraction of three-coordinated oxygens (i.e., oxygen tri-cluster fraction [(3)O]) was successfully quantified using our new Nuclear Magnetic Resonance technique. Thirdly, a correlation between the evolution trend of the [(3)O] and the alumina content was established, which aligns closely with the CR trend. These findings suggest that oxygen tri-clusters play a crucial role in significantly enhancing CR in aluminosilicate glasses.</p

The rare top quark decays t→cVt\to cV in the topcolor-assisted technicolor model

We consider the rare top quark decays in the framework of topcolor-assisted technicolor (TC2) model. We find that the contributions of top-pions and top-Higgs predicted by the TC2 model can enhance the SM branching ratios by as much as 6-9 orders of magnitude. i.e., in the most case, the orders of magnitude of branching ratios are $Br(t\to c g)\sim 10^{-5}$, $Br(t\to c Z)\sim 10^{-5}$, $Br(t\to c \gamma)\sim 10^{-7}$. With the reasonable values of the parameters in TC2 model, such rare top quark decays may be testable in the future experiments. So, rare top quark decays provide us a unique way to test TC2 model.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

Scale dependency of biocapacity and the fallacy of unsustainable development

Area-based information obtained from remote sensing and aerial photography is often used in studies on ecological footprint and sustainability, especially in calculating biocapacity. Given the importance of the modi fi able areal unit problem (MAUP; i.e. the scale dependency of area-based information), a compre- hensive understanding of how the changes of biocapacity across scales (i.e. the resolution of data) is pivotal for regional sustainable development. Here, we present case studies on the effect of spatial scales on the biocapacity estimated for two typical river basin and watershed in Northwest China. The analysis demonstrated that the area sizes of major land covers and subsequently biocapacity showed strong signals of scale dependency, with minor land covers in the region shrinking while major land covers expanding when using large-grain (low resolution) data. The relationship between land cover sizes and their change ratio across scales was shown to follow a logarithm function. The biocapacity estimated at 10 10 km resolution is 10% lower than the one estimated at 1 1 km resolution, casting doubts on many regional and global studies which often rely on coarse scale datasets. Our results not only suggest that fi ne-scale biocapacity estimates can be extrapolated from coarse-scale ones according to the speci fi c scale-dependent patterns of land covers, but also serve as a reminder that conclusions of regional and global un-sustainability derived from low-resolution datasets could be a fallacy due to the MAUP

Study of the dependence of 198Au half-life on source geometry

We report the results of an experiment to determine whether the half-life of \Au{198} depends on the shape of the source. This study was motivated by recent suggestions that nuclear decay rates may be affected by solar activity, perhaps arising from solar neutrinos. If this were the case then the $\beta$-decay rates, or half-lives, of a thin foil sample and a spherical sample of gold of the same mass and activity could be different. We find for \Au{198}, $(T_{1/2})_{\rm foil}/(T_{1/2})_{\rm sphere} = 0.999 \pm 0.002$, where $T_{1/2}$ is the mean half-life. The maximum neutrino flux at the sample in our experiments was several times greater than the flux of solar neutrinos at the surface of the Earth. We show that this increase in flux leads to a significant improvement in the limits that can be inferred on a possible solar contribution to nuclear decays.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

The productions of the top-pions and top-Higgs associated with the charm quark at the hadron colliders

In the topcolor-assistant technicolor (TC2) model, the typical physical particles, top-pions and top-Higgs, are predicted and the existence of these particles could be regarded as the robust evidence of the model. These particles are accessible at the Tevatron and LHC, and furthermore the flavor-changing(FC) feature of the TC2 model can provide us a unique chance to probe them. In this paper, we study some interesting FC production processes of top-pions and top-Higgs at the Tevatron and LHC, i.e., $c\Pi_{t}^{-}$ and $c\Pi_{t}^{0}(h_{t}^{0})$ productions. We find that the light charged top-pions are not favorable by the Tevatron experiments and the Tevatron has a little capability to probe neutral top-pion and top-Higgs via these FC production processes. At the LHC, however, the cross section can reach the level of $10\sim 100$ pb for $c\Pi_t^-$ production and $10\sim 100$ fb for $c\Pi_t^0(h_t^0)$ production. So one can expect that enough signals could be produced at the LHC experiments. Furthermore, the SM background should be clean due to the FC feature of the processes and the FC decay modes $\Pi_t^-\to b\bar{c}, \Pi_t^0(h_t^0)\to t\bar{c}$ can provide us the typical signal to detect the top-pions and top-Higgs. Therefore, it is hopeful to find the signal of top-pions and top-Higgs with the running of the LHC via these FC processes.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Combining nano-silicon with oxide glass in anodes for Li-ion batteries

Vanadium-tellurite glasses (VT) have emerged as promising anode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Despite this, the Li-ion storage capacity of the VT glass anode is still insufficient to meet the demands for the next generation of advanced LIBs. Silicon (Si) anode has ultrahigh theoretical capacity but suffers from significant volume expansion during lithiation and delithiation. In this work, we combined Si nanoparticles with VT glass to prepare Si@VT composite anode for LIBs. The composite was produced through heat-treatment at different temperatures, some of which were hot-pressed under the isostatic pressure of 100 MPa. The Si@VT composite exhibited a synergistic effect that integrated the strengths of both VT glass and Si, resulting in a substantial enhancement of its electrochemical performance. The systematic characterizations of the composite-based anodes revealed the optimal conditions for fabricating the high-performance Si@VT composite: a silicon fraction of 10 wt% and a hot-pressing temperature of 620 K. This composite stood out as the optimal choice, exhibiting a capacity of 353 mA h g−1 at 1 A g−1 after 1000 cycles. This capacity surpasses that of VT glass anode by over threefold and that of pure Si anode by twelvefold.</p