1,940 research outputs found
Studies in zirconium oxidation
Study provides insight into the oxidation mechanism of zirconium by combining electrical measurements with oxidation data. The measurement of electrical potential across growing scale on zirconium and the determination of conventional weight-change oxidation data were carried out at 550, 700, and 800 degrees C
SUSY transformation of the Green function and a trace formula
An integral relation is established between the Green functions corresponding
to two Hamiltonians which are supersymmetric (SUSY) partners and in general may
possess both discrete and continuous spectra. It is shown that when the
continuous spectrum is present the trace of the difference of the Green
functions for SUSY partners is a finite quantity which may or may not be equal
to zero despite the divergence of the traces of each Green function. Our
findings are illustrated by using the free particle example considered both on
the whole real line and on a half line
Topological model of soap froth evolution with deterministic T2-processes
We introduce a topological model for the evolution of 2d soap froth. The
topological rearrangements (T2 processes) are deterministic (unlike the
standard stochastic model): the final topology depends on the areas of the
neighboring cells. The new model gives agreement with experiments in the
transient regime, where the previous models failed qualitatively, and also
improves agreement in the scaling state.Comment: latex, 12 pages, 2 figure
Ocean acidification changes the male fitness landscape.
Sperm competition is extremely common in many ecologically important marine taxa. Ocean acidification (OA) is driving rapid changes to the marine environments in which freely spawned sperm operate, yet the consequences of OA on sperm performance are poorly understood in the context of sperm competition. Here, we investigated the impacts of OA (+1000 μatm pCO2) on sperm competitiveness for the sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus. Males with faster sperm had greater competitive fertilisation success in both seawater conditions. Similarly, males with more motile sperm had greater sperm competitiveness, but only under current pCO2 levels. Under OA the strength of this association was significantly reduced and there were male sperm performance rank changes under OA, such that the best males in current conditions are not necessarily best under OA. Therefore OA will likely change the male fitness landscape, providing a mechanism by which environmental change alters the genetic landscape of marine species.We acknowledge Catherina Artikis and Yueling Hao for their contributions to the molecular analysis. We thank
the team at Exeter Biosciences for their help and support. A.L.C. was supported by a Natural Environment
Research Council (NERC) PhD studentship to Exeter, and received additional funding from Exeter CLES
PREF and a Santander Postgraduate Research Award (2014/2015). C.L. was supported by a UK-OARP NERC
consortium grant NE/H017496/1 and a NERC UK Fellowship: NE/G014728/1. DRL was supported by funding
from the United States, National Science Foundation (Grant DEB 1354272) which helped to fund the molecular
analysis
Agricultural Plastics: What are they? Why are they 'hard stuff'? Can the challenges be surmounted?
Presentation slides illustrate the array of agricultural plastic products, the plastic resins they are made from, and qualities and practices that increase suitability for recycling. The reasons that agricultural plastics have been difficult to recycle are outlined, including (1) often contamination with a higher percentage of soil, moisture, etc. than typically permissible for recyclable materials; (2) possibility of contamination with equipment-damaging grit, gravel and rocks; (3) perception or possibility of contamination with pesticide residue; and/or (4) with soil pathogens and weed seeds. Also (5) the expense of collecting bulky material dispersed across the rural landscape, which is greater than collecting waste plastic that is neatly contained within a factory or store; (6) agricultural plastics are often dark colored or a mix of black and white, which process into a muddy gray; and (7) products may be an unidentified mix of different plastic resins and additives. Plastic films are increasingly complex, often made with multiple extrusion layers to meet specific technical criteria. However, new equipment and markets are emerging with capability of processing even the most difficult of agricultural films
Discarded Agricultural Plastics: Evolving Infrastructure & Markets for Recycling
Presentation made at the SWANA, NYS Chapter, Technical Training Session: Plastics – Myths & Mysteries, Nov 2, 2011. Covers types of agricultural plastic products, reasons for recycling these materials, organizational structure and objectives of the Recycling Agricultural Plastics Project (RAPP) and marketing options and criteria
Effects of Noise in a Cortical Neural Model
Recently Segev et al. (Phys. Rev. E 64,2001, Phys.Rev.Let. 88, 2002) made
long-term observations of spontaneous activity of in-vitro cortical networks,
which differ from predictions of current models in many features. In this paper
we generalize the EI cortical model introduced in a previous paper (S.Scarpetta
et al. Neural Comput. 14, 2002), including intrinsic white noise and analyzing
effects of noise on the spontaneous activity of the nonlinear system, in order
to account for the experimental results of Segev et al.. Analytically we can
distinguish different regimes of activity, depending from the model parameters.
Using analytical results as a guide line, we perform simulations of the
nonlinear stochastic model in two different regimes, B and C. The Power
Spectrum Density (PSD) of the activity and the Inter-Event-Interval (IEI)
distributions are computed, and compared with experimental results. In regime B
the network shows stochastic resonance phenomena and noise induces aperiodic
collective synchronous oscillations that mimic experimental observations at 0.5
mM Ca concentration. In regime C the model shows spontaneous synchronous
periodic activity that mimic activity observed at 1 mM Ca concentration and the
PSD shows two peaks at the 1st and 2nd harmonics in agreement with experiments
at 1 mM Ca. Moreover (due to intrinsic noise and nonlinear activation function
effects) the PSD shows a broad band peak at low frequency. This feature,
observed experimentally, does not find explanation in the previous models.
Besides we identify parametric changes (namely increase of noise or decreasing
of excitatory connections) that reproduces the fading of periodicity found
experimentally at long times, and we identify a way to discriminate between
those two possible effects measuring experimentally the low frequency PSD.Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Convergence of expansions in Schr\"odinger and Dirac eigenfunctions, with an application to the R-matrix theory
Expansion of a wave function in a basis of eigenfunctions of a differential
eigenvalue problem lies at the heart of the R-matrix methods for both the
Schr\"odinger and Dirac particles. A central issue that should be carefully
analyzed when functional series are applied is their convergence. In the
present paper, we study the properties of the eigenfunction expansions
appearing in nonrelativistic and relativistic -matrix theories. In
particular, we confirm the findings of Rosenthal [J. Phys. G: Nucl. Phys. 13,
491 (1987)] and Szmytkowski and Hinze [J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 29, 761
(1996); J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 29, 6125 (1996)] that in the most popular
formulation of the R-matrix theory for Dirac particles, the functional series
fails to converge to a claimed limit.Comment: Revised version, accepted for publication in Journal of Mathematical
Physics, 21 pages, 1 figur
A Tale of Two Democrats: How Authoritarianism Divides the Democratic Party
Authoritarianism has been predominantly used in American politics as a predictor of Republican identification and conservative policy preferences. We argue that this approach has neglected the role authoritarianism plays among Democrats and how it can operate within political parties regardless of their ideological orientation. Drawing from three distinct sets of data, we demonstrate the impact of authoritarianism in the 2016 Democratic Party’s primaries. Authoritarianism consistently predicts differences in primary voting among Democrats, particularly support for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. This effect is robust across various model specifications including controls for ideology, partisan strength, and other predispositions. These results highlight the potential of authoritarianism to shape leadership preferences within the Democratic Party. We advocate for a reconsideration of authoritarianism as a disposition with meaningful consequences for intraparty dynamics and conclude with practical implications regarding the future of the Democratic Party
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