Tsallis statistics generalization of non-equilibrium work relations

We use third constraint formulation of Tsallis statistics and derive the $q$-statistics generalization of non-equilibrium work relations such as the Jarzynski equality and the Crooks fluctuation theorem which relate the free energy differences between two equilibrium states and the work distribution of the non-equilibrium processes.Comment: 5 page

Popular Feminism(s) Reconsidered: Popular, Racialized, and Decolonial Subjectivities in Contention

This issue is concerned with the salience of “popular feminism” as an analytic category for naming the myriad contemporary forms of gendered awareness and agency appearing among Latin America’s poor, working-class and racialized communities. Although we have an analytic agenda, our underlying concern here is with the politics of feminism—the construction of intersectional feminist praxes of gender, race, and economic justice and their relation to other projects for social justice. Our focus on popular feminism addresses the relationship between the subaltern subjectivities of marginalized women, their relation to feminist political agency, and the relation of both to mixed-gender efforts for social transformation on the broader left. Although it may be a current within them, popular feminism is distinct from the mass feminisms on the streets and online, the “feminisms of the 99 percent,” that have gripped the continent in recent years. It is the feminism of the poor and the subaltern, whose concerns for gender justice are inescapably co-constituted with their collective struggles for material, cultural and psychic survival against racist violence, land dispossession, environmental despoliation, and economic deprivation. One well-known contemporary example of self-identified popular feminism is that of the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares y Indígenas de Honduras (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras—COPINH) whose founder, Berta Cáceres, a recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize, was assassinated in 2016. Her assassination signaled retribution for COPINH’s hard-fought struggle against the rapacious capitalist, patriarchal, and colonizing practices destroying the land, rivers, and lives of the Lenca people. COPINH activists recently participated in an International Feminist Organizing School involving 200 grassroots feminists from around the world organized by the World – a popular feminist initiative March of Women, among others

Nonequilibrium entropy production for open quantum systems

We consider open quantum systems weakly coupled to a heat reservoir and driven by arbitrary time-dependent parameters. We derive exact microscopic expressions for the nonequilibrium entropy production and entropy production rate, valid arbitrarily far from equilibrium. By using the two-point energy measurement statistics for system and reservoir, we further obtain a quantum generalization of the integrated fluctuation theorem put forward by Seifert [PRL 95, 040602 (2005)].Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Chiral Polyalkylthiophenes for Organic Light Emitting Diodes

Chiral polyalkylthiophenes are noncentrosymmetric organic materials which can be used both in second harmonic-generation devices and in polarized light emitting diodes. In this work we present the synthesis and the characterization of a polyalkylthiophene with a chiral center very close to the conjugated backbone: poly(3-[(S)-2-methylbutyl]thiophene) (PMBT). Circular dichroism (CD) measurements have been carried out to ascertain the chirality of these materials. The CD spectra show intense signals both in mixed solvents and in the solid state. The strong Cotton effect can be associated to a highly ordered aggregated phase whose nature is still under investigation. We also present the photo and electroluminescence characterization of single layer light emitting diode (LED) with the following configuration: ITO (Tin Indium Oxide)/PMBT/Al

A cohesive zone model for fracture initiation and propagation of fused silica direct bonding interface

International audienceFused silica direct bonding is of particular interest for optical system manufacturing for spatial applications. However, in order to validate the European Space Agency standards, a better understanding of the assemblies mechanical behavior is required. Therefore, it is important to develop some predictive tools to determine numerically mechanical strength of complex assemblies. In this paper, a cohesive zone model is proposed to model the direct bonding interface behavior. In order to determine the mechanical strength of the interface, a propagation test, and an initiation test on a free edge the cleavage test have been performed on direct bonded fused silica samples. The FIT test (Flexible Initiation Test) is also used to identify the properties of the direct bonding joint. At the end, a comparative analyses is proposed between experimental results and finite elements models of the propagation and initiation tests

Information compressibility, entropy production and approach to steady state in open systems

We introduce the concept of {\em information compressibility}, $K_I$, which measures the relative change of number of available microstates of an open system in response to an energy variation. We then prove that at the time in which the system reaches a steady state, the second and third time derivatives of the information entropy are proportional to the corresponding time derivatives of the energy, the proportionality constant being $K_I$. We argue that if two steady states with different but same-sign $K_I$ are dynamically connected in a non-adiabatic way it takes a longer time to reach the state with compressibility closer to zero than the reverse. This concept, that applies to both classical and quantum open systems, thus provides insight into the properties of non-equilibrium steady states.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in Europhysics Letter

Influence of surfactants on the structure of titanium oxide gels : experiments and simulations

We report here on experimental and numerical studies of the influence of surfactants on mineral gel synthesis. The modification of the gel structure when the ratios water-precursor and water-surfactant vary is brought to the fore by fractal dimension measures. A property of {\em polydispersity of the initial hydrolysis} is proposed to explain these results, and is successfuly tested through numerical experiments of three dimensional chemically limited aggregation.Comment: 12 pages, 4 Postscript figures, uses RevTe

The Intestinal Microbiota Contributes to the Ability of Helminths to Modulate Allergic Inflammation

We thank Manuel Kulagin for technical help, Pierre Bonnaventure for portal vein blood sampling, Francisco Sepulveda for technical assistance in GS-MS acquisition, and Dorothee Hahne (Metabolomics Australia, University of Western Australia) for human samples SCFA isolation, acquisition, and analysis. We also thank Cristina Cartoni (Phenotyping Unit, EPFL) for Milliplex analysis, Jessica Dessimoz and her team from the Histology Core Facility (EPFL), Miguel Garcia and his team from the Flow Cytometry Core Facility (EPFL), and staff from the EPFL CPG animal house for excellent animal care. The computations were partially performed at the Vital-IT Center for high-performance computing of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (http://www.vital-it.ch). The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 310948. Funding for A.W.W. and a subset of the 16S rRNA gene sequencing was provided by the Wellcome Trust (grant number WT 098051). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD