Structural and electronic properties of Al nanowires: an ab initio pseudopotential study

The stability and electronic structure of a single monatomic Al wire has been studied using the ab initio pseudopotential method. The Al wire undergoes two structural rearrangements under compression, i.e., zigzag configurations at angles of $140^o$ and $60^o$. The evolution of electronic structures of the Al chain as a function of structural phase transition has been investigated. The relationship between electronic structure and geometric stability is also discussed. The 2p bands in the Al nanowire are shown to play a critical role in its stability. The effects of density functionals (GGA and LDA) on cohesive energy and bond length of Al nanostructures (dimmer, chains, and monolayers) are also examined. The link between low dimensional 0D structure (dimmer) to high dimensional 3D bulk Al is estimated. An example of optimized tip-suspended finite atomic chain is presented to bridge the gap between hypothetical infinite chains and experimental finite chains.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Feasibility Study of Tractor-Test Vehicle Technique for Practical Structural Condition Assessment of Beam-Like Bridge Deck

The tractor-test vehicle technique of non-destructive testing for indirect measurement of the modal properties of a bridge deck is revisited in this paper with several improvements for possible practical application to the structural condition assessment of a beam-like bridge deck. The effect of damping of the vehicle-bridge system is considered and the modal properties from only the first vibration mode of the structure will be used for a quick and simple assessment. The two test vehicles are designed to have the same modal frequency and damping ratio but with parameters in the follower No.2 test vehicle proportional to those in the follower No.1 test vehicle. This effectively removes the effect of road surface roughness in the response of an equivalent vehicle such that the error in the subsequent condition assessment is reduced. Through data collected on-site transmitted to the remote computer platform, a simple technique based on the moment-curvature relationship acceptable to practical engineers is adopted for the condition assessment with improvements in the estimation of the element bending stiffness of the deck. Scenarios with different damping, vehicle speed, road surface roughness, and local damages in the bridge structure are studied with or without temperature effect in the measurement. Through numerical simulations and field tests, the tractor-test vehicle technique of non-destructive testing with the proposed modifications and improvements has been demonstrated to give consistently accurate estimates of the element bending stiffness of the bridge deck but with a small error close to the end of the deck

Surface glycoproteins of influenza A H3N2 virus modulate virus replication in the respiratory tract of ferrets

AbstractThe hemagglutinin (HA) genes of the influenza A H3N2 subtype viruses isolated from 1968 to 2010 have evolved substantially but their neuraminidase (NA) genes have been relatively less divergent. The H3N2 viruses isolated since 1995 were found to replicate in the lower respiratory tract of ferrets less efficiently than the earlier isolates. To evaluate whether the HA or/and NA or the internal protein gene segments of the H3N2 virus affected viral replication in the respiratory tract of ferrets, recombinant A/California/07/2004 (CA04) (H3N2) virus and its reassortants that contained the same CA04 internal protein gene segments and the HA and/or NA of A/Udorn/309/1972 (UD72) or A/Wuhan/359/1995 (WH95) H3N2 viruses were generated and evaluated for their replication in the respiratory tract of ferrets. All the reassortant viruses replicated efficiently in the upper respiratory tract of ferrets, but their replication in the lower respiratory tract of ferrets varied. In contrast to the UD72-HA reassortant virus that replicated efficiently in the lungs of ferrets, the virus with the WH95-HA or the CA04-HA either replicated modestly or did not replicate in the lungs of ferrets. The reassortants with the WH95-HA and UD72-NA or CA04-NA had the tendency to lose a N-linked glycosylation site at residue 246 in the HA, resulting in viral lung titer of 100-fold higher than the virus with the HA and NA from WH95. The UD72-NA had the highest neuraminidase activity and increased viral replication by up to 100-fold in tissue culture cells during early infection. Thus, our data indicate that both the HA and NA glycoproteins play important roles in viral replication of the H3N2 influenza virus in ferrets

Evolutionary Many-objective Optimization of Hybrid Electric Vehicle Control: From General Optimization to Preference Articulation

Many real-world optimization problems have more than three objectives, which has triggered increasing research interest in developing efficient and effective evolutionary algorithms for solving many-objective optimization problems. However, most many-objective evolutionary algorithms have only been evaluated on benchmark test functions and few applied to real-world optimization problems. To move a step forward, this paper presents a case study of solving a many-objective hybrid electric vehicle controller design problem using three state-of-the-art algorithms, namely, a decomposition based evolutionary algorithm (MOEA/D), a non-dominated sorting based genetic algorithm (NSGA-III), and a reference vector guided evolutionary algorithm (RVEA). We start with a typical setting aiming at approximating the Pareto front without introducing any user preferences. Based on the analyses of the approximated Pareto front, we introduce a preference articulation method and embed it in the three evolutionary algorithms for identifying solutions that the decision-maker prefers. Our experimental results demonstrate that by incorporating user preferences into many-objective evolutionary algorithms, we are not only able to gain deep insight into the trade-off relationships between the objectives, but also to achieve high-quality solutions reflecting the decision-maker’s preferences. In addition, our experimental results indicate that each of the three algorithms examined in this work has its unique advantages that can be exploited when applied to the optimization of real-world problems

Antisymmetric magnetoresistance in magnetic multilayers with perpendicular anisotropy

While magnetoresistance (MR) has generally been found to be symmetric in applied field in non-magnetic or magnetic metals, we have observed antisymmetric MR in Co/Pt multilayers. Simultaneous domain imaging and transport measurements show that the antisymmetric MR is due to the appearance of domain walls that run perpendicular to both the magnetization and the current, a geometry existing only in materials with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. As a result, the extraordinary Hall effect (EHE) gives rise to circulating currents in the vicinity of the domain walls that contributes to the MR. The antisymmetric MR and EHE have been quantitatively accounted for by a theoretical model.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure

High-Order-Harmonic Generation using Gas-Phase H₂O Molecules

We investigate high-order-harmonic generation of isotropically distributed gas-phase H₂O molecules exposed to an intense laser field. The induced dipole of each individual molecule by the laser field is first calculated using the recently developed quantitative rescattering theory. In a thin medium, harmonic spectra generated coherently from all the molecules are then calculated by solving Maxwell\u27s equation of propagation. By using accurate transition dipoles of H₂O, we show that the harmonics in the lower plateau region are quite different from models that employ the simpler strong-field approximation. We also examine the magnitude and phase of the harmonics and their dependence on laser focusing conditions

Predicting Absolute Rate Constants for Huisgen Reactions of Unsaturated Iminium Ions with Diazoalkanes

The kinetics and stereochemistry of the reactions of iminium ions derived from cinnamaldehydes and MacMillan's imidazolidinones with diphenyldiazomethane and aryldiazomethanes were investigated experimentally and with DFT calculations. The reactions of diphenyldiazomethane with iminium ions derived from MacMillan's second-generation catalysts gave 3-aryl-2,2-diphenylcyclopropanecarbaldehydes with yields >90 % and enantiomeric ratios of >= 90:10. Predominantly 2:1 products were obtained from the corresponding reactions with monoaryldiazomethanes. The measured rate constants are in good agreement with the rate constants derived from the one-center nucleophilicity parameters N and s(N) of diazomethanes and the one-center electrophilicity parameters E of iminium ions as well as with quantum chemically calculated activation energies

Inverse Spin Hall Effect and Anomalous Hall Effect in a Two-Dimensional Electron Gas

We study the coupled dynamics of spin and charge currents in a two-dimensional electron gas in the transport diffusive regime. For systems with inversion symmetry there are established relations between the spin Hall effect, the anomalous Hall effect and the inverse spin Hall effect. However, in two-dimensional electron gases of semiconductors like GaAs, inversion symmetry is broken so that the standard arguments do not apply. We demonstrate that in the presence of a Rashba type of spin-orbit coupling (broken structural inversion symmetry) the anomalous Hall effect, the spin Hall and inverse spin Hall effect are substantially different effects. Furthermore we discuss the inverse spin Hall effect for a two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling; our results agree with a recent experiment.Comment: 5 page