Influence of diffusion on models for non-equilibrium wetting

It is shown that the critical properties of a recently studied model for non-equilibrium wetting are robust if one extends the dynamic rules by single-particle diffusion on terraces of the wetting layer. Examining the behavior at the critical point and along the phase transition line, we identify a special point in the phase diagram where detailed balance of the dynamical processes is partially broken.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figure

The Admiral Raymond A. Spruance Lecture

Introduction: Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale Under stcetary [of the Navy R. James] Woolsey, ladies and gentlemen: My interest in the political history of the Vietnam years is intense and tightly focused. It centers on the variationsin our national military policy. For you see, I represent a constituency of about 400 Americans who were committed to attle by one administration and rescued by another

Causal inference via string diagram surgery

Extracting causal relationships from observed correlations is a growing area in probabilistic reasoning, originating with the seminal work of Pearl and others from the early 1990s. This paper develops a new, categorically oriented view based on a clear distinction between syntax (string diagrams) and semantics (stochastic matrices), connected via interpretations as structure-preserving functors. A key notion in the identification of causal effects is that of an intervention, whereby a variable is forcefully set to a particular value independent of any prior propensities. We represent the effect of such an intervention as an endo-functor which performs 'string diagram surgery' within the syntactic category of string diagrams. This diagram surgery in turn yields a new, interventional distribution via the interpretation functor. While in general there is no way to compute interventional distributions purely from observed data, we show that this is possible in certain special cases using a calculational tool called comb disintegration. We demonstrate the use of this technique on two well-known toy examples: one where we predict the causal effect of smoking on cancer in the presence of a confounding common cause and where we show that this technique provides simple sufficient conditions for computing interventions which apply to a wide variety of situations considered in the causal inference literature; the other one is an illustration of counterfactual reasoning where the same interventional techniques are used, but now in a 'twinned' set-up, with two version of the world - one factual and one counterfactual - joined together via exogenous variables that capture the uncertainties at hand

The glass transition and crystallization kinetic studies on BaNaB9O15 glasses

Transparent glasses of BaNaB9O15 (BNBO) were fabricated via the conventional melt-quenching technique. The amorphous and the glassy nature of the as-quenched samples were respectively, confirmed by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The glass transition and crystallization parameters were evaluated under non-isothermal conditions using DSC. The correlation between the heating rate dependent glass transition and the crystallization temperatures was discussed and deduced the Kauzmann temperature for BNBO glass-plates and powdered samples. The values of the Kauzmann temperature for the plates and powdered samples were 776 K and 768 K, respectively. Approximation-free method was used to evaluate the crystallization kinetic parameters for the BNBO glass samples. The effect of the sample thickness on the crystallization kinetics of BNBO glasses was also investigated.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figure

Globular: an online proof assistant for higher-dimensional rewriting

This article introduces Globular, an online proof assistant for the formalization and veri cation of proofs in higher-dimensional category theory. The tool produces graphical visualizations of higher-dimensional proofs, assists in their construction with a point-and- click interface, and performs type checking to prevent incorrect rewrites. Hosted on the web, it has a low barrier to use, and allows hyperlinking of formalized proofs directly from research papers. It allows the formalization of proofs from logic, topology and algebra which are not formalizable by other methods, and we give several examples

Penapisan Senyawa Fitokimia Dan Pengujian Antioksidan Ekstrak Daun Pohon Merapat

Hutan kerangas merupakan kumpulan vegetasi pohon di hutan hujan tropis, dicirikan antara lain oleh kandungan hara dan keanekaragaman hayati yang rendah, sehingga penggunaan pohonnya menjadi terbatas. Hutan kerangas tersebar luas di Kalimantan (misalnya Kalimantan Selatan). Salah satu jenis pohon yang dapat tumbuh dan berkembang pada kondisi ekstrim adalah merapat (Combretocarpus rotundatus). Daunnya mengandung senyawa kimia tertentu yang mengindikasikan berkemampuan fisiologis menghasilkan bioaktivitas seperti antioksidan. Sebagai konsekuesinya, hal ini diharapkan dapat meningkatkan nilai tambah dari pemanfaatan pohon kerangas. Terkait hal tersebut, pencermatan terhadap kandungan senyawa fitokimia dan pengujian kemampuan antioksidan dilakukan terhadap sampel kering daun merapat yang berasal dari hutan kerangas di Kalimantan Selatan. Awalnya, daun kering diekstrak dengan larutan metanol menghasilkan ekstrak methanol (sampel 1), fraksinasi lanjutan dilakukan dengan kromatografi kolom menggunakan eluent kloroform. Fraksi kloroform yang didapatkan (sampel 2) selanjutnya difraksinasi kembali menggunakan campuran larutan etil asetat-kloroform (dengan proporsi sama), yang menghasilkan sampel 3. Pencermatan fitokimia mengungkapkan bahwa ekstrak metanol mengandung senyawa fitokimia tertentu seperti flavonoid, turunan phenol, hidrokuinon, tanin dan triterpenoid, yang berperan sebagai antioksidan. Ekstrak metanol (sampel 1) menunjukkan aktivitas antioksidan tertinggi dengan memberikan reaksi reduksi terhadap pelepasan radikal bebas oleh Difenil Pikril Hidrazil Hidrat (DPPH) (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl), walaupun penggunaan dari fraksi kloroform (sampel 2) dan fraksi lanjutan etil asetat-kloroform (sampel 3) sangat rendah. Penghambatan radikal bebas dari DPPH pada tingkat 50% (IC 50) oleh ekstrak metanol terjadi pada konsentrasi 21,823 ppm. Sementara itu, vitamin C dan BHT sebagai kontrol aktivitas antioksidan terbentuk lebih efisien pada konsentrasi di bawah 21,823 ppm (berturut-turut pada konsentrasi 6,738 ppm dan 6,279 ppm). Bagaimanapun, nilai IC 50 tersebut memberikan penjelasan kuat bahwa potensi bioaktivitas ekstrak metanol daun merapat dapat digunakan sebagai antioksidan