7,328 research outputs found
Method of improving contact bonds in silicon integrated circuits
Fabrication method produces stable and reliable metallic systems for interconnections, contact pads, and bonded leads in silicon planar integrated circuits. The method is based on substrate isolation of the interconnection metal from the contact pad and bonded wire
Host-Parasite Co-evolution and Optimal Mutation Rates for Semi-conservative Quasispecies
In this paper, we extend a model of host-parasite co-evolution to incorporate
the semi-conservative nature of DNA replication for both the host and the
parasite. We find that the optimal mutation rate for the semi-conservative and
conservative hosts converge for realistic genome lengths, thus maintaining the
admirable agreement between theory and experiment found previously for the
conservative model and justifying the conservative approximation in some cases.
We demonstrate that, while the optimal mutation rate for a conservative and
semi-conservative parasite interacting with a given immune system is similar to
that of a conservative parasite, the properties away from this optimum differ
significantly. We suspect that this difference, coupled with the requirement
that a parasite optimize survival in a range of viable hosts, may help explain
why semi-conservative viruses are known to have significantly lower mutation
rates than their conservative counterparts
Rubidium in Metal-Deficient Disk and Halo Stars
We report the first extensive study of stellar Rb abundances. High-resolution
spectra have been used to determine, or set upper limits on, the abundances of
this heavy element and the associated elements Y, Zr, and Ba in 44 dwarfs and
giants with metallicities spanning the range -2.0 <[Fe/H] < 0.0. In
metal-deficient stars Rb is systematically overabundant relative to Fe; we find
an average [Rb/Fe] of +0.21 for the 32 stars with [Fe/H] < -0.5 and measured
Rb. This behavior contrasts with that of Y, Zr, and Ba, which, with the
exception of three new CH stars (HD 23439A and B and BD +5 3640), are
consistently slightly deficient relative to Fe in the same stars; excluding the
three CH stars, we find the stars with [Fe/H] < -0.5 have average [Y/Fe],
[Zr/Fe], and [Ba/Fe] of --0.19 (24 stars), --0.12 (28 stars), and --0.06 (29
stars), respectively. The different behavior of Rb on the one hand and Y, Zr,
and Ba on the other can be attributed in part to the fact that in the Sun and
in these stars Rb has a large r-process component while Y, Zr, and Ba are
mostly s-process elements with only small r-process components. In addition,
the Rb s-process abundance is dependent on the neutron density at the
s-processing site. Published observations of Rb in s-process enriched red
giants indicate a higher neutron density in the metal-poor giants. These
observations imply a higher s-process abundance for Rb in metal-poor stars. The
calculated combination of the Rb r-process abundance, as estimated for the
stellar Eu abundances, and the s-process abundance as estimated for red giants
accounts satisfactorily for the observed run of [Rb/Fe] with [Fe/H].Comment: 23 pages, 5 tables, 7 figure
On Multilingual Training of Neural Dependency Parsers
We show that a recently proposed neural dependency parser can be improved by
joint training on multiple languages from the same family. The parser is
implemented as a deep neural network whose only input is orthographic
representations of words. In order to successfully parse, the network has to
discover how linguistically relevant concepts can be inferred from word
spellings. We analyze the representations of characters and words that are
learned by the network to establish which properties of languages were
accounted for. In particular we show that the parser has approximately learned
to associate Latin characters with their Cyrillic counterparts and that it can
group Polish and Russian words that have a similar grammatical function.
Finally, we evaluate the parser on selected languages from the Universal
Dependencies dataset and show that it is competitive with other recently
proposed state-of-the art methods, while having a simple structure.Comment: preprint accepted into the TSD201
New Lithium Measurements in Metal-Poor Stars
We provide *lambda*6708 Li 1 measurements in 37 metal-poor stars, most of
which are poorly-studied or have no previous measurements, from high-resolution
and high-S/N spectroscopy obtained with the McDonald Observatory 2.1m and 2.7m
telescopes. The typical line strength and abundance uncertainties, confirmed by
the thinness of the Spite plateau manifested by our data and by comparison with
previous measurements, are <=4 mAng and <=0.07-0.10 dex respectively. Two rare
moderately metal-poor solar-Teff dwarfs, HIP 36491 and 40613, with
significantly depleted but still detectable Li are identified; future light
element determinations in the more heavily depeleted HIP 40613 may provide
constraints on the Li depletion mechanism acting in this star. We note two
moderately metal-poor and slightly evolved stars, HIP 105888 and G265-39, that
appear to be analogs of the low-Li moderately metal-poor subgiant HD 201889.
Preliminary abundance analysis of G 265-39 finds no abnormalities that suggest
the low Li content is associated with AGB mass-transfer or deep mixing and
p-capture. We also detect line doubling in HIP 4754, heretofore classified as
SB1.Comment: Accepted for publication in PASP, volume 912 (Feb 2012) 15 pages, 3
figures, 2 table
Calculating the Fine Structure of a Fabry-Perot Resonator using Spheroidal Wave Functions
A new set of vector solutions to Maxwell's equations based on solutions to
the wave equation in spheroidal coordinates allows laser beams to be described
beyond the paraxial approximation. Using these solutions allows us to calculate
the complete first-order corrections in the short-wavelength limit to
eigenmodes and eigenfrequencies in a Fabry-Perot resonator with perfectly
conducting mirrors. Experimentally relevant effects are predicted. Modes which
are degenerate according to the paraxial approximation are split according to
their total angular momentum. This includes a splitting due to coupling between
orbital angular momentum and spin angular momentum
Do columnar defects produce bulk pinning?
From magneto-optical imaging performed on heavy-ion irradiated YBaCuO single
crystals, it is found that at fields and temperatures where strong single
vortex pinning by individual irradiation-induced amorphous columnar defects is
to be expected, vortex motion is limited by the nucleation of vortex kinks at
the specimen surface rather than by half-loop nucleation in the bulk. In the
material bulk, vortex motion occurs through (easy) kink sliding. Depinning in
the bulk determines the screening current only at fields comparable to or
larger than the matching field, at which the majority of moving vortices is not
trapped by an ion track.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letter
Stochastic gain in population dynamics
We introduce an extension of the usual replicator dynamics to adaptive
learning rates. We show that a population with a dynamic learning rate can gain
an increased average payoff in transient phases and can also exploit external
noise, leading the system away from the Nash equilibrium, in a reasonance-like
fashion. The payoff versus noise curve resembles the signal to noise ratio
curve in stochastic resonance. Seen in this broad context, we introduce another
mechanism that exploits fluctuations in order to improve properties of the
system. Such a mechanism could be of particular interest in economic systems.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let
Sierpinski signal generates spectra
We investigate the row sum of the binary pattern generated by the Sierpinski
automaton: Interpreted as a time series we calculate the power spectrum of this
Sierpinski signal analytically and obtain a unique rugged fine structure with
underlying power law decay with an exponent of approximately 1.15. Despite the
simplicity of the model, it can serve as a model for spectra in a
certain class of experimental and natural systems like catalytic reactions and
mollusc patterns.Comment: 4 pages (4 figs included). Accepted for publication in Physical
Review
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