IMPERFECT SUBSTITUTES, DEFERRED PRODUCER PAYMENT SYSTEM, AND STATE TRADING ENTERPRISES: AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF LEADERSHIP IN THE GLOBAL MALTING BARLEY MARKETS

State Trading Enterprises, imperfect substitute, market leadership, Marketing,

Multipole polarizability of a graded spherical particle

We have studied the multipole polarizability of a graded spherical particle in a nonuniform electric field, in which the conductivity can vary radially inside the particle. The main objective of this work is to access the effects of multipole interactions at small interparticle separations, which can be important in non-dilute suspensions of functionally graded materials. The nonuniform electric field arises either from that applied on the particle or from the local field of all other particles. We developed a differential effective multipole moment approximation (DEMMA) to compute the multipole moment of a graded spherical particle in a nonuniform external field. Moreover, we compare the DEMMA results with the exact results of the power-law graded profile and the agreement is excellent. The extension to anisotropic DEMMA will be studied in an Appendix.Comment: LaTeX format, 2 eps figures, submitted for publication

Hydrogen adsorption on Pd(133) surface

In this study used is an approach based on measurements of the total energy distribution (TED) of field emitted electrons in order to examine the properties of Pd (133) from the aspect of both hydrogen adsorption and surface hydrides formation. The most favourable sites offered to a hydrogen atom to be adsorbed have been indicated and an attempt to describe the peaks of the enhancement factor R spectrum to the specific adsorption sites has also been made.Comment: to be submitted to the Centr. Eur. J. Phy

Relationship between the gamma-ray burst pulse width and energy due to the Doppler effect of fireballs

We study in details how the pulse width of gamma-ray bursts is related with energy under the assumption that the sources concerned are in the stage of fireballs. Due to the Doppler effect of fireballs, there exists a power law relationship between the two quantities within a limited range of frequency. The power law range and the power law index depend strongly on the observed peak energy $E_p$ as well as the rest frame radiation form, and the upper and lower limits of the power law range can be determined by $E_p$. It is found that, within the same power law range, the ratio of the $FWHM$ of the rising portion to that of the decaying phase of the pulses is also related with energy in the form of power laws. A platform-power-law-platform feature could be observed in the two relationships. In the case of an obvious softening of the rest frame spectrum, the two power law relationships also exist, but the feature would evolve to a peaked one. Predictions on the relationships in the energy range covering both the BATSE and Swift bands for a typical hard burst and a typical soft one are made. A sample of FRED (fast rise and exponential decay) pulse bursts shows that 27 out of the 28 sources belong to either the platform-power-law-platform feature class or the peaked feature group, suggesting that the effect concerned is indeed important for most of the sources of the sample. Among these bursts, many might undergo an obvious softening evolution of the rest frame spectrum.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

FPZ evolution of mixed mode fracture in concrete: Experimental and numerical

Digital image correlation (DIC) technique is applied to study the evolution of fracture process zone (FPZ) of mixed mode fracture in concrete. By testing a series of beams of various sizes under four-point shearing, the opening and sliding displacements on the crack surfaces are the fracture process by introducing a crack propagation criterion. The opening and sliding displacements on the crack surfaces obtained from numerical analysis exhibit a reasonable agreement with the experimental results, which verifies the DIC technique presented in the study. By combining experimental observations with numerical simulations, the evolution of the FPZ during the whole crack propagation process of mix mode fracture is investigated and elaborated in depth. The results indicate that the ratio of crack opening to sliding displacement remains approximately constant as crack propagates before reaching a peak load. Meanwhile, the FPZ evolution during the complete fracture process is influenced by the specimen ligament length and the ratio of mode I to II stress intensity factor component. With the decrease of ligament length and the ratio of mode I to II stress intensity factor component, the full FPZ length decreases. However, when the ligament length is less than 63 mm or ratio of mode I to II stress intensity factor component is less than 0.11, the FPZ cannot fully develop, but keeps increasing as crack propagates

A comparative study of optical/ultraviolet variability of narrow-line Seyfert 1 and broad-line Seyfert 1 active galactic nuclei

The ensemble optical/ultraviolet variability of narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) type active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is investigated, based on a sample selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe-82 region with multi-epoch photometric scanning data. As a comparison a control sample of broad-line Seyfert 1 (BLS1) type AGNs is also incorporated. To quantify properly the intrinsic variation amplitudes and their uncertainties, a novel method of parametric maximum-likelihood is introduced, that has, as we argued, certain virtues over previously used methods. The majority of NLS1-type AGNs exhibit significant variability on timescales from about ten days to a few years with, however, on average smaller amplitudes compared to BLS1-type AGNs. About 20 NLS1- type AGNs showing relatively large variations are presented, that may deserve future monitoring observations, for instance, reverberation mapping. The averaged structure functions of variability, constructed using the same maximumlikelihood method, show remarkable similarity in shape for the two types of AGNs on timescales longer than about 10 days, which can be approximated by a power-law or an exponential function. This, along with other similar properties, such as the wavelength-dependent variability, are indicative of a common dominant mechanism responsible for the long-term optical/UV variability of both NLS1- and BLS1-type AGNs. Towards the short timescales, however, there is tentative evidence that the structure function of NLS1-type AGNs continues declining, whereas that of BLS1-type AGNs flattens with some residual variability on timescales of days. If this can be confirmed, it may suggest that an alternative mechanism, such as X-ray reprocessing, starts to become dominating in BLS1-type AGNs, but not in NLS1-, on such timescales.Comment: 53 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables, accepted for pulication in A