Volatile organic compounds in the atmosphere of Mexico City

The Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA) is one of the most polluted megacities in North America. Therefore, it is an excellent benchmark city to understand atmospheric chemistry and to implement pilot countermeasures. Air quality in the MCMA is not within acceptable levels, mainly due to high ground levels of ozone (O3). Tropospheric O3 is a secondary pollutant formed from the oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the presence of nitrogen oxides and sunlight. To gain a better understanding of O3 formation in megacities, evaluate the effectiveness of already-implemented countermeasures, and identify new cost-effective alternatives to reduce tropospheric O3 concentrations, researchers and environmental authorities require updated concentrations for a broader range of VOCs. Moreover, in an effort to protect human health and the environment, it is important to understand which VOCs exceed reference safe values or most contribute to O3 formation, as well as to identify the most probable emission sources of those VOCs. In this work, 64 VOCs, including 36 toxic VOCs, were measured at four sites in the MCMA during 2011-2012. VOCs related to liquefied petroleum gas leakages exhibited the highest concentrations. Toxic VOCs with the highest average concentrations were acetone and ethanol. The toxic VOC benzene represented the highest risk to Mexican citizens, and toluene contributed the most to O3 formation. Correlation analysis indicated that the measured VOCs come from vehicular emissions and solvent-related industrial sources. VOC measurements revealed that compounds related to liquefied petroleum gas leakages are the most abundant, the toxic VOC benzene represents the highest risk to citizens, and toluene is the greatest VOC contributor to O3 formation in Mexico City. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.Japan Science and Technology Agency, Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development, Japan International Cooperation Agency1,3 butadiene, 106-99-0, 25339-57-5; 1,4 dichlorobenzene, 106-46-7; acetone, 67-64-1; alcohol, 64-17-5; benzene, 71-43-2; ethylbenzene, 100-41-4; gasoline, 86290-81-5; methyl chloride, 74-87-3; ozone, 10028-15-6; propane, 74-98-6; styrene, 100-42-5; toluene, 108-88-3; xylene, 1330-20-

Green's function approach to the magnetic properties of the kagome antiferromagnet

The $S=1/2$ Heisenberg antiferromagnet is studied on the kagom\'e lattice by using a Green's function method based on an appropriate decoupling of the equations of motion. Thermodynamic properties as well as spin-spin correlation functions are obtained and characterize this system as a two-dimensional quantum spin liquid. Spin-spin correlation functions decay exponentially with distance down to low temperature and the calculated missing entropy at T=0 is found to be $0.46\ln{2}$. Within the present scheme, the specific heat exhibits a single peak structure and a $T^2$ dependence at low temperature.Comment: 6 (two-column revtex4) pages, 5 ps figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Solid-state NMR characterisation of the thermal transformation of a Hungarian white illite

1H, 27Al, 29Si and 39K solid-state NMR are reported from a Hungarian illite 2:1 clay for samples heated up 1600 °C. This single-phase sample has a small amount of aluminium substitution in the silica layer and very low iron-content (0.4 wt%). Thermal analysis shows several events that can be related to features in the NMR spectra, and hence changes in the atomic scale structure. As dehydroxylation occurs there is increasing AlO4 and AlO5-contents. The silica and gibbsite layers become increasingly separated as the dehydroxylation progresses. Between 900 and 1000 °C the silica layer forms a potassium aluminosilicate glass. The gibbsite-layer forms spinel/γ-Al2O3 and some aluminium-rich mullite. Then on heating to 1600 °C changes in the 29Si and 27Al MAS NMR spectra are consistent with the aluminosilicate glass increasing its aluminium-content, the amount of mullite increasing probably with its silicon-content also increasing, and some α-Al2O3 forming

Superprocesses as models for information dissemination in the Future Internet

Future Internet will be composed by a tremendous number of potentially interconnected people and devices, offering a variety of services, applications and communication opportunities. In particular, short-range wireless communications, which are available on almost all portable devices, will enable the formation of the largest cloud of interconnected, smart computing devices mankind has ever dreamed about: the Proximate Internet. In this paper, we consider superprocesses, more specifically super Brownian motion, as a suitable mathematical model to analyse a basic problem of information dissemination arising in the context of Proximate Internet. The proposed model provides a promising analytical framework to both study theoretical properties related to the information dissemination process and to devise efficient and reliable simulation schemes for very large systems

Formation and control of electron molecules in artificial atoms: Impurity and magnetic-field effects

Interelectron interactions and correlations in quantum dots can lead to spontaneous symmetry breaking of the self-consistent mean field resulting in formation of Wigner molecules. With the use of spin-and-space unrestricted Hartree-Fock (sS-UHF) calculations, such symmetry breaking is discussed for field-free conditions, as well as under the influence of an external magnetic field. Using as paradigms impurity-doped (as well as the limiting case of clean) two-electron quantum dots (which are analogs to helium-like atoms), it is shown that the interplay between the interelectron repulsion and the electronic zero-point kinetic energy leads, for a broad range of impurity parameters, to formation of a singlet ground-state electron molecule, reminiscent of the molecular picture of doubly-excited helium. Comparative analysis of the conditional probability distributions for the sS-UHF and the exact solutions for the ground state of two interacting electrons in a clean parabolic quantum dot reveals that both of them describe formation of an electron molecule with similar characteristics. The self-consistent field associated with the triplet excited state of the two-electron quantum dot (clean as well as impurity-doped) exhibits symmetry breaking of the Jahn-Teller type, similar to that underlying formation of nonspherical open-shell nuclei and metal clusters. Furthermore, impurity and/or magnetic-field effects can be used to achieve controlled manipulation of the formation and pinning of the discrete orientations of the Wigner molecules. Impurity effects are futher illustrated for the case of a quantum dot with more than two electrons.Comment: Latex/Revtex, 10 pages with 4 gif figures. Small changes to explain the difference between Wigner and Jahn-Teller electron molecules. A complete version of the paper with high quality figures inside the text is available at http://shale.physics.gatech.edu/~costas/qdhelium.html For related papers, see http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~ph274c

Synchronization and resonance in a driven system of coupled oscillators

We study the noise effects in a driven system of globally coupled oscillators, with particular attention to the interplay between driving and noise. The self-consistency equation for the order parameter, which measures the collective synchronization of the system, is derived; it is found that the total order parameter decreases monotonically with noise, indicating overall suppression of synchronization. Still, for large coupling strengths, there exists an optimal noise level at which the periodic (ac) component of the order parameter reaches its maximum. The response of the phase velocity is also examined and found to display resonance behavior.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figure

Extreme Ultra-Violet Spectroscopy of the Lower Solar Atmosphere During Solar Flares

The extreme ultraviolet portion of the solar spectrum contains a wealth of diagnostic tools for probing the lower solar atmosphere in response to an injection of energy, particularly during the impulsive phase of solar flares. These include temperature and density sensitive line ratios, Doppler shifted emission lines and nonthermal broadening, abundance measurements, differential emission measure profiles, and continuum temperatures and energetics, among others. In this paper I shall review some of the advances made in recent years using these techniques, focusing primarily on studies that have utilized data from Hinode/EIS and SDO/EVE, while also providing some historical background and a summary of future spectroscopic instrumentation.Comment: 34 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to Solar Physics as part of the Topical Issue on Solar and Stellar Flare

Phase synchronization and noise-induced resonance in systems of coupled oscillators

We study synchronization and noise-induced resonance phenomena in systems of globally coupled oscillators, each possessing finite inertia. The behavior of the order parameter, which measures collective synchronization of the system, is investigated as the noise level and the coupling strength are varied, and hysteretic behavior is manifested. The power spectrum of the phase velocity is also examined and the quality factor as well as the response function is obtained to reveal noise-induced resonance behavior.Comment: to be published in Phys. Rev.

Combined Atomic Force Microscope and Volumetric Light Sheet System for Correlative Force and Fluorescence Mechanobiology Studies

The central goals of mechanobiology are to understand how cells generate force and how they respond to environmental mechanical stimuli. A full picture of these processes requires high-resolution, volumetric imaging with time-correlated force measurements. Here we present an instrument that combines an open-top, single-objective light sheet fluorescence microscope with an atomic force microscope (AFM), providing simultaneous volumetric imaging with high spatiotemporal resolution and high dynamic range force capability (10 pN – 100 nN). With this system we have captured lysosome trafficking, vimentin nuclear caging, and actin dynamics on the order of one second per single-cell volume. To showcase the unique advantages of combining Line Bessel light sheet imaging with AFM, we measured the forces exerted by a macrophage during FcɣR-mediated phagocytosis while performing both sequential two-color, fixed plane and volumetric imaging of F-actin. This unique instrument allows for a myriad of novel studies investigating the coupling of cellular dynamics and mechanical forces

Spectra of prompt electrons from decays of B+ and B0 mesons and ratio of inclusive semielectronic branching fractions

We present spectra of prompt electrons from decays of neutral and charged B mesons. The results are based on 140 /fb of data collected by the Belle detector on the Upsilon(4S) resonance at the KEKB e+e- asymmetric collider. We tag Upsilon(4S) -> B \bar{B} events by reconstructing a B meson in one of several hadronic decay modes; the semileptonic decay of the other B meson is inferred from the presence of an identified electron. We obtain for charged and neutral B mesons the partial rates of semileptonic decay, to electrons with momentum greater than 0.6 GeV/c in the B rest frame, and their ratio b_+/b_0 = 1.08 +- 0.05 +- 0.02, where the first and second errors are statistical and systematic, respectively.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure files, submitted to Phys. Lett.