1,257 research outputs found

    Complementary spin-Hall and inverse spin-galvanic effect torques in a ferromagnet/semiconductor bilayer.

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    This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from NPG at http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150331/ncomms7730/abs/ncomms7730.html.Recently discovered relativistic spin torques induced by a lateral current at a ferromagnet/paramagnet interface are a candidate spintronic technology for a new generation of electrically controlled magnetic memory devices. The focus of our work is to experimentally disentangle the perceived two model physical mechanisms of the relativistic spin torques, one driven by the spin-Hall effect and the other one by the inverse spin-galvanic effect. Here, we show a vector analysis of the torques in a prepared epitaxial transition-metal ferromagnet/semiconductor-paramagnet single-crystal structure by means of the all-electrical ferromagnetic resonance technique. By choice of our structure in which the semiconductor paramagnet has a Dresselhaus crystal inversion asymmetry, the system is favourable for separating the torques due to the inverse spin-galvanic effect and spin-Hall effect mechanisms into the field-like and antidamping-like components, respectively. Since they contribute to distinct symmetry torque components, the two microscopic mechanisms do not compete but complement each other in our system.The authors acknowledge support from EU European Research Council (ERC) advanced grant no. 268066, from the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic grant no. LM2011026, from the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic grant no. 14-37427G and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Praemium Academiae. A.J.F. acknowledges support from a Hitachi research fellowship. H.K. acknowledges financial support from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)

    A framework for monitoring the safety of water services: from measurements to security

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    The sustainable developments goals (SDGs) introduced monitoring of drinking water quality to the international development agenda. At present, Escherichia coli are the primary measure by which we evaluate the safety of drinking water from an infectious disease perspective. Here, we propose and apply a framework to reflect on the purposes of and approaches to monitoring drinking water safety. To deliver SDG 6.1, universal access to safe drinking water, a new approach to monitoring is needed. At present, we rely heavily on single measures of E. coli contamination to meet a normative definition of safety. Achieving and sustaining universal access to safe drinking water will require monitoring that can inform decision making on whether services are managed to ensure safety and security of access

    Key epidemiological drivers and impact of interventions in the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in England

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    We fitted a model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in care homes and the community to regional surveillance data for England. Compared with other approaches, our model provides a synthesis of multiple surveillance data streams into a single coherent modelling framework allowing transmission and severity to be disentangled from features of the surveillance system. Of the control measures implemented, only national lockdown brought the reproduction number (Rteff ) below 1 consistently; if introduced one week earlier it could have reduced deaths in the first wave from an estimated 48,600 to 25,600 (95% credible interval [95%CrI]: 15,900-38,400). The infection fatality ratio decreased from 1.00% (95%CrI: 0.85%-1.21%) to 0.79% (95%CrI: 0.63%-0.99%), suggesting improved clinical care. The infection fatality ratio was higher in the elderly residing in care homes (23.3%, 95%CrI: 14.7%-35.2%) than those residing in the community (7.9%, 95%CrI: 5.9%-10.3%). On 2nd December 2020 England was still far from herd immunity, with regional cumulative infection incidence between 7.6% (95%CrI: 5.4%-10.2%) and 22.3% (95%CrI: 19.4%-25.4%) of the population. Therefore, any vaccination campaign will need to achieve high coverage and a high degree of protection in vaccinated individuals to allow non-pharmaceutical interventions to be lifted without a resurgence of transmission

    Key epidemiological drivers and impact of interventions in the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in England

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    We fitted a model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in care homes and the community to regional surveillance data for England. Compared with other approaches, our model provides a synthesis of multiple surveillance data streams into a single coherent modelling framework allowing transmission and severity to be disentangled from features of the surveillance system. Of the control measures implemented, only national lockdown brought the reproduction number (Rteff ) below 1 consistently; if introduced one week earlier it could have reduced deaths in the first wave from an estimated 48,600 to 25,600 (95% credible interval [95%CrI]: 15,900-38,400). The infection fatality ratio decreased from 1.00% (95%CrI: 0.85%-1.21%) to 0.79% (95%CrI: 0.63%-0.99%), suggesting improved clinical care. The infection fatality ratio was higher in the elderly residing in care homes (23.3%, 95%CrI: 14.7%-35.2%) than those residing in the community (7.9%, 95%CrI: 5.9%-10.3%). On 2nd December 2020 England was still far from herd immunity, with regional cumulative infection incidence between 7.6% (95%CrI: 5.4%-10.2%) and 22.3% (95%CrI: 19.4%-25.4%) of the population. Therefore, any vaccination campaign will need to achieve high coverage and a high degree of protection in vaccinated individuals to allow non-pharmaceutical interventions to be lifted without a resurgence of transmission

    The ethics of digital well-being: a multidisciplinary perspective

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    This chapter serves as an introduction to the edited collection of the same name, which includes chapters that explore digital well-being from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, psychology, economics, health care, and education. The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide a short primer on the different disciplinary approaches to the study of well-being. To supplement this primer, we also invited key experts from several disciplines—philosophy, psychology, public policy, and health care—to share their thoughts on what they believe are the most important open questions and ethical issues for the multi-disciplinary study of digital well-being. We also introduce and discuss several themes that we believe will be fundamental to the ongoing study of digital well-being: digital gratitude, automated interventions, and sustainable co-well-being

    The role of dietary fibre in pig production, with a particular emphasis on reproduction

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    Abstract Fibres from a variety of sources are a common constituent of pig feeds. They provide a means to utilise locally-produced plant materials which are often a by-product of the food or drink industry. The value of a high fibre diet in terms of producing satiety has long been recognised. However the addition of fibre can reduce feed intake, which is clearly detrimental during stages of the production cycle when nutrient needs are high, for example in growing piglets and during lactation. More recently, fibre has been found to promote novel benefits to pig production systems, particularly given the reduction in antimicrobial use world-wide, concern for the welfare of animals fed a restricted diet and the need to ensure that such systems are more environmentally friendly. For example, inclusion of dietary fibre can alter the gut microbiota in ways that could reduce the need for antibiotics, while controlled addition of certain fibre types may reduce nitrogen losses into the environment and so reduce the environmental cost of pig production. Of particular potential value is the opportunity to use crude fibre concentrates as ‘functional’ feed additives to improve young pig growth and welfare. Perhaps the greatest opportunity for the use of high fibre diets is to improve the reproductive efficiency of pigs. Increased dietary fibre before mating improves oocyte maturation, prenatal survival and litter size; providing a consumer-acceptable means of increasing the amount of saleable meat produced per sow. The mechanisms responsible for these beneficial effects remain to be elucidated. However, changes in plasma and follicular fluid concentrations of key hormones and metabolites, as well as effects of the hypothalamic satiety centre on gonadotrophin secretion and epigenetic effects are strong candidates

    Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

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    The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

    Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

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    The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

    Azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles at high transverse momenta in PbPb collisions at sqrt(s[NN]) = 2.76 TeV

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    The azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in PbPb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 2.76 TeV is measured with the CMS detector at the LHC over an extended transverse momentum (pt) range up to approximately 60 GeV. The data cover both the low-pt region associated with hydrodynamic flow phenomena and the high-pt region where the anisotropies may reflect the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the created medium. The anisotropy parameter (v2) of the particles is extracted by correlating charged tracks with respect to the event-plane reconstructed by using the energy deposited in forward-angle calorimeters. For the six bins of collision centrality studied, spanning the range of 0-60% most-central events, the observed v2 values are found to first increase with pt, reaching a maximum around pt = 3 GeV, and then to gradually decrease to almost zero, with the decline persisting up to at least pt = 40 GeV over the full centrality range measured.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO
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