Durable and ductile double-network material for dust control

Dust generation is a world-wide issue due to its serious deleterious effects on the environment, human health and safety, and the economy. Although various dust suppression methods have been used for decades, some critical drawbacks in state-of-the-art technology still remain unsolved, such as short-lasting, ground water impact, and prone to water. This work reports a soil stabilizer based on non-toxic material and forms a ductile and durable double-network in soil, namely “D3 soil stabilizer”, which not only improves soil mechanical toughness of surface soil but also suppresses dust generation. A copolymer comprising hydrophilic and hydrophobic components combined with enzyme-induced carbonate precipitation is utilized as an in-situ gelation binder to soil particle. The tunable hydrophobic-to-hydrophilic component ratio minimizes undesirable soil matrix expansion and mechanical strength loss upon experiencing wet-dry processes, while still retains good water affinity. We further demonstrated controllable treatment depth by fine-tuning precursor composition, which is essential to minimize environmental impact. The double-network morphology with carbonate precipitate embedded uniformly in polymer matrix is observed via microscopic imaging. The nature of outstanding ductility, high durability against water, and good long-term stability were supported by systematic unconfined compressive strength (UCS) measurements on treated soil, which show strong inter-particles binding, good retention of peak strength, increased strain at peak strength, and increased toughness after soil samples have experienced wet-dry processes

The role of positronium decoherence in the studies of positron annihilation in matter

A small difference between the energy of the para-positronium (p-Ps) and ortho-positronium (o-Ps) states suggests the possibility of superposition of p-Ps and o-Ps during the formation of positronium (Ps) from pre-Ps terminating its migration in the matter in a void ('free volume'). It is shown that such a superposition decohere in the basis of p-Ps and o-Ps and the decoherence time is estimated. The time scale of the decoherence estimated here motivates respective correction in decomposition of the positron annihilation lifetime spectra. The way of the correction is sketched. The timescale of the decoherence suggests a need of awareness when experimental data from positron annihilation techniques are processed. More generally, the superposited state of Ps should contribute to the evolution theory of positronium in matter.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure

A Query Performance Analysis for Result Diversification

Which queries stand to gain or loose from diversifying their results? Some queries are more difficult than others for diversification. Across a number of conceptually different diversification methods, performance on such queries tends to deteriorate after applying these diversification methods, even though their initial performance in terms of relevance or diversity tends to be good

A New Method for Finding Vacua in String Phenomenology

One of the central problems of string-phenomenology is to find stable vacua in the four dimensional effective theories which result from compactification. We present an algorithmic method to find all of the vacua of any given string-phenomenological system in a huge class. In particular, this paper reviews and then extends hep-th/0606122 to include various non-perturbative effects. These include gaugino condensation and instantonic contributions to the superpotential.Comment: 27 pages, 5 .eps figures. V2: Minor corrections, reference adde

Asymptotic wave-splitting in anisotropic linear acoustics

Linear acoustic wave-splitting is an often used tool in describing sound-wave propagation through earth's subsurface. Earth's subsurface is in general anisotropic due to the presence of water-filled porous rocks. Due to the complexity and the implicitness of the wave-splitting solutions in anisotropic media, wave-splitting in seismic experiments is often modeled as isotropic. With the present paper, we have derived a simple wave-splitting procedure for an instantaneously reacting anisotropic media that includes spatial variation in depth, yielding both a traditional (approximate) and a `true amplitude' wave-field decomposition. One of the main advantages of the method presented here is that it gives an explicit asymptotic representation of the linear acoustic-admittance operator to all orders of smoothness for the smooth, positive definite anisotropic material parameters considered here. Once the admittance operator is known we obtain an explicit asymptotic wave-splitting solution.Comment: 20 page