1,283 research outputs found
Analytical imaging studies of the migration of degraded orpiment, realgar, and emerald green pigments in historic paintings and related conservation issues
Non-equilibrium stationary state of a two-temperature spin chain
A kinetic one-dimensional Ising model is coupled to two heat baths, such that
spins at even (odd) lattice sites experience a temperature ().
Spin flips occur with Glauber-type rates generalised to the case of two
temperatures. Driven by the temperature differential, the spin chain settles
into a non-equilibrium steady state which corresponds to the stationary
solution of a master equation. We construct a perturbation expansion of this
master equation in terms of the temperature difference and compute explicitly
the first two corrections to the equilibrium Boltzmann distribution. The key
result is the emergence of additional spin operators in the steady state,
increasing in spatial range and order of spin products. We comment on the
violation of detailed balance and entropy production in the steady state.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, Revte
A Golf Programme for People with Severe and Enduring Mental Health Problems
This article reports a pioneering golf programme for people with severe and enduring mental health problems. Following a discussion of the problems and possibilities of golf as a form of physical activity for this group, we outline the structure, organisation, and ethos of the golf programme. Through an analysis of qualitative case study data collected during the programme, we discuss the response to the programme from service users and mental health professionals. We conclude by highlighting aspects of the programme which were critical to its success and offering suggestions for further initiatives in this area
Influence of Hydrophobicity on Excitonic Coupling in DNA-Templated Indolenine Squaraine Dye Aggregates
Control over the strength of excitonic coupling in molecular dye aggregates is a substantial factor for the development of technologies such as light harvesting, optoelectronics, and quantum computing. According to the molecular exciton model, the strength of excitonic coupling is inversely proportional to the distance between dyes. Covalent DNA templating was proved to be a versatile tool to control dye spacing on a subnanometer scale. To further expand our ability to control photophysical properties of excitons, here, we investigated the influence of dye hydrophobicity on the strength of excitonic coupling in squaraine aggregates covalently templated by DNA Holliday Junction (DNA HJ). Indolenine squaraines were chosen for their excellent spectral properties, stability, and diversity of chemical modifications. Six squaraines of varying hydrophobicity from highly hydrophobic to highly hydrophilic were assembled in two dimer configurations and a tetramer. In general, the examined squaraines demonstrated a propensity toward face-to-face aggregation behavior observed via steady-state absorption, fluorescence, and circular dichroism spectroscopies. Modeling based on the Kühn–Renger–May approach quantified the strength of excitonic coupling in the squaraine aggregates. The strength of excitonic coupling strongly correlated with squaraine hydrophobic region. Dimer aggregates of dichloroindolenine squaraine were found to exhibit the strongest coupling strength of 132 meV (1065 cm–1). In addition, we identified the sites for dye attachment in the DNA HJ that promote the closest spacing between the dyes in their dimers. The extracted aggregate geometries, and the role of electrostatic and steric effects in squaraine aggregation are also discussed. Taken together, these findings provide a deeper insight into how dye structures influence excitonic coupling in dye aggregates covalently templated via DNA, and guidance in design rules for exciton-based materials and devices
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Ensemble prediction for nowcasting with a convection-permitting model—I: description of the system and the impact of radar-derived surface precipitation rates
A key strategy to improve the skill of quantitative predictions of precipitation, as well as hazardous weather such as severe thunderstorms and flash floods is to exploit the use of observations of convective activity (e.g. from radar). In this paper, a convection-permitting ensemble prediction system (EPS) aimed at addressing the problems of forecasting localized weather events with relatively short predictability time scale and based on a 1.5 km grid-length version of the Met Office Unified Model is presented. Particular attention is given to the impact of using predicted observations of radar-derived precipitation intensity in the ensemble transform Kalman filter (ETKF) used within the EPS. Our initial results based on the use of a 24-member ensemble of forecasts for two summer case studies show that the convective-scale EPS produces fairly reliable forecasts of temperature, horizontal winds and relative humidity at 1 h lead time, as evident from the inspection of rank histograms. On the other hand, the rank histograms seem also to show that the EPS generates too much spread for forecasts of (i) surface pressure and (ii) surface precipitation intensity. These may indicate that for (i) the value of surface pressure observation error standard deviation used to generate surface pressure rank histograms is too large and for (ii) may be the result of non-Gaussian precipitation observation errors. However, further investigations are needed to better understand these findings. Finally, the inclusion of predicted observations of precipitation from radar in the 24-member EPS considered in this paper does not seem to improve the 1-h lead time forecast skill
A generation apart? Youth and political participation in Britain
Conventional wisdom holds that young people in Britain are alienated from politics, with some claiming that this reflects a wider crisis of legitimacy that should be met by initiatives to increase citizenship. This article addresses these areas, presenting both panel survey and focus group data from first-time voters. It concludes that, contrary to the findings from many predominantly quantitative studies of political participation, young people are interested in political matters, and do support the democratic process. However they feel a sense of anti-climax having voted for the first time, and are critical of those who have been elected to positions of political power. If they are a generation apart, this is less to do with apathy, and more to do with their engaged scepticism about ‘formal’ politics in Britain
Neutrino Mass from R-parity Violation in Split Supersymmetry
We investigate how the observed neutrino data can be accommodated by R-parity
violation in Split Supersymmetry. The atmospheric neutrino mass and mixing are
explained by the bilinear parameters inducing the neutrino-neutralino
mixing as in the usual low-energy supersymmetry. Among various one-loop
corrections, only the quark-squark exchanging diagrams involving the order-one
trilinear couplings can generate the solar neutrino mass
and mixing if the scalar mass is not larger than GeV. This scheme
requires an unpleasant hierarchical structure of the couplings, e.g.,
, and . On the other hand, the model has a distinct collider
signature of the lightest neutralino which can decay only to the final states,
and , arising from the bilinear mixing. Thus, the
measurement of the ratio; would provide a clean probe of the small reactor and
large atmospheric neutrino mixing angles as far as the neutralino mass is
larger than 62 GeV.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, version submitted to JHE
First-Principles Studies of Substituent Effects on Squaraine Dyes
Dye molecules that absorb light in the visible region are key components in many applications, including organic photovoltaics, biological fluorescent labeling, super-resolution microscopy, and energy transport. One family of dyes, known as squaraines, has received considerable attention recently due to their favorable electronic and photophysical properties. In addition, these dyes have a strong propensity for aggregation, which results in emergent materials properties, such as exciton delocalization. This will be of benefit in charge separation and energy transport along with fundamental studies in quantum information. Given the high structural tunability of squaraine dyes, it is possible that exciton delocalization could be tailored by modifying the substituents attached to the π-conjugated network. To date, limited theoretical studies have explored the role of substituent effects on the electronic and photophysical properties of squaraines in the context of DNA-templated dye aggregates and resultant excitonic behavior. We used ab initio theoretical methods to determine the effects of substituents on the electronic and photophysical properties for a series of nine different squaraine dyes. Solvation free energy was also investigated as an insight into changes in hydrophobic behavior from substituents. The role of molecular symmetry on these properties was also explored via conformation and substitution. We found that substituent effects are correlated with the empirical Hammett constant, which demonstrates their electron donating or electron withdrawing strength. Electron withdrawing groups were found to impact solvation free energy, transition dipole moment, static dipole difference, and absorbance more than electron donating groups. All substituents showed a redshift in absorption for the squaraine dye. In addition, solvation free energy increases with Hammett constant. This work represents a first step toward establishing design rules for dyes with desired properties for excitonic applications
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