Specific heat in two-dimensional melting

We report the specific heat $c_N$ around the melting transition(s) of micrometer-sized superparamagnetic particles confined in two dimensions, calculated from fluctuations of positions and internal energy, and corresponding Monte Carlo simulations. Since colloidal systems provide single particle resolution, they offer the unique possibility to compare the experimental temperatures of peak position of $c_N(T)$ and symmetry breaking, respectively. While order parameter correlation functions confirm the Kosterlitz-Thouless-Halperin-Nelson-Young melting scenario where translational and orientational order symmetries are broken at different temperatures with an intermediate so called hexatic phase, we observe a single peak of the specific heat within the hexatic phase, with excellent agreement between experiment and simulation. Thus, the peak is not associated with broken symmetries but can be explained with the total defect density, which correlates with the maximum increase of isolated dislocations. The absence of a latent heat strongly supports the continuous character of both transitions

FAIR, POSTFAIR, AND NOFAIR: A COMPARISON OF CROPPING ALTERNATIVES FOR THE SOUTHERN GREAT PLAINS

The Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 was promoted as legislation that would enable and encourage farmers to base planting decisions on market incentives rather than commodity programs. Data from a designed experiment are used to compare the economics of three cropping systems for alternative commodity programs.Crop Production/Industries,

Do Engineering Students Learn Ethics From an Ethics Course?

The goal of the present research is to develop machine-assisted methods that can assist in the analysis of students’ written compositions in ethics courses. As part of this research, we analyzed Social Impact Assessment (SIA) papers submitted by engineering undergraduates in a course on engineering ethics. The SIA papers required students to identify and discuss a contemporary engineering technology (e.g., autonomous tractor trailers) and to explicitly discuss the ethical issues involved in that technology. Here we describe the ability of three machine tools to discriminate differences in the technical compared to ethical portions of the SIA papers. First, using LIWC (Language Inquiry and Word Count) we quantified differences in analytical thinking, expertise and self-confidence, disclosure, and affect, in the technical and ethical portions of the papers. Next, we applied MEH (Meaning Extraction Helper) to examine differences in critical concepts in the technical and ethical portions of the papers. Finally, we used LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) to examine differences in the topics in the technical and ethical portions of the papers. The results of these three tests demonstrate the ability of machine-based tools to discriminate conceptual, affective, and motivational differences in the texts that students compose that relate to engineering technology and to engineering ethics. We discuss the utility and future directions for this research.Cockrell School of Engineerin

Onset of intruder ground state in exotic Na isotopes and evolution of the N=20 shell gap

The onset of intruder ground states in Na isotopes is investigated by comparing experimental data and shell-model calculations. This onset is one of the consequences of the disappearance of the N=20 magic structure, and the Na isotopes are shown to play a special role in clarifying the change of this magic structure. Both the electromagnetic moments and the energy levels clearly indicate an onset of ground state intruder configurations at neutron number N=19 already, which arises only with a narrow N=20 shell gap in Na isotopes resulting from the spin-isospin dependence of the nucleon-nucleon interaction (as compared to a wider gap in stable nuclei like 40Ca). It is shown why the previous report based on the mass led to a wrong conclusion.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Are there spurious temperature trends in the United States Climate Division database

The United States (U.S.) Climate Division data set is commonly used in applied climatic studies in the United States. The divisional averages are calculated by including all available stations within a division at any given time. The averages are therefore vulnerable to shifts in average station location or elevation over time, which may introduce spurious trends within these data. This paper examines temperature trends within the 15 climate divisions of New England, comparing the NCDC\u27s U.S. Divisional Data to the U.S. Historical Climate Network (USHCN) data. Correlation and multiple regression revealed that shifts in latitude, longitude, and elevation have affected the quality of the NCDC divisional data with respect to the USHCN. As a result, there may be issues with regard to their use in decadal- to century-scale climate change studies

Frank's constant in the hexatic phase

Using video-microscopy data of a two-dimensional colloidal system the bond-order correlation function G6 is calculated and used to determine the temperature-dependence of both the orientational correlation length xi6 in the isotropic liquid phase and the Frank constant F_A in the hexatic phase. F_A takes the value 72/pi at the hexatic to isotropic liquid phase transition and diverges at the hexatic to crystal transition as predicted by the KTHNY-theory. This is a quantitative test of the mechanism of breaking the orientational symmetry by disclination unbinding

AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY IN OVERCOMING HYPOTHESIS-CONFIRMING SEARCH STRATEGIES IN COMPUTERIZED INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS

A recent trend in information retrieval systems technology is the development of on-line information retrieval systems. One objective of these systems has been to attempt to enhance decision effectiveness by allowing users to preferentially seek information, thereby facilitating the reduction or elimination of information overload. Since information systems users may preferentially seek information to confirm their initial beliefs, decision making effectiveness may be dependent on the accuracy of the decision maker\u27s initial hypothesis of causality. The basic research question addressed in this paper is: Will the use of a knowledge-based DSS (KBDSS), designed to search for and present both confirming and disconfirming evidence, result in enhanced decision effectiveness? To assess the effect of information retrieval system type on decision effectiveness, a laboratory experiment was conducted in which participants were required to make an initial attribution of causality for a problem, to query either a conventional on-line information retrieval system or a KBDSS for additional information, and then to make a final attribution of causality. The conclusions reached from this experiment provide constructive guidance for information systems designers in overcoming the concept known as confirmation bias, that tendency to seek information that confirms the user\u27s first impression