163 research outputs found
Direct Observation of Propagating Gigahertz Coherent Guided Acoustic Phonons in Free Standing Single Copper Nanowires
We report on gigahertz acoustic phonon waveguiding in free-standing single
copper nanowires studied by femtosecond transient reflectivity measurements.
The results are discussed on the basis of the semianalytical resolution of the
Pochhammer and Chree equation. The spreading of the generated Gaussian wave
packet of two different modes is derived analytically and compared with the
observed oscillations of the sample reflectivity. These experiments provide a
unique way to independently obtain geometrical and material characterization.
This direct observation of coherent guided acoustic phonons in a single
nano-object is also the first step toward nanolateral size acoustic transducer
and comprehensive studies of the thermal properties of nanowires
Magnetic polarons in weakly doped high-Tc superconductors
We consider a spin Hamiltonian describing - exchange interactions
between localized spins of a finite antiferromagnet as well as -
interactions between a conducting hole () and localized spins. The spin
Hamiltonian is solved numerically with use of Lanczos method of
diagonalization. We conclude that - exchange interaction leads to
localization of magnetic polarons. Quantum fluctuations of the antiferromagnet
strengthen this effect and make the formation of polarons localized in one site
possible even for weak - coupling. Total energy calculations, including
the kinetic energy, do not change essentially the phase diagram of magnetic
polarons formation. For parameters reasonable for high- superconductors
either a polaron localized on one lattice cell or a small ferron can form. For
reasonable values of the dielectric function and - coupling, the
contributions of magnetic and phonon terms in the formation of a polaron in
weakly doped high- materials are comparable.Comment: revised, revtex-4, 12 pages 8 eps figure
Ab initio Pseudopotential Plane-wave Calculations of the Electronic Structure of YBa_2Cu_3O_7
We present an ab initio pseudopotential local density functional calculation
for stoichiometric high-Tc cuprate YBa_2Cu_3O_7 using the plane-wave basis set.
We have overcome well-known difficulties in applying pseudopotential methods to
first-row elements, transition metals, and rare-earth materials by carefully
generating norm-conserving pseudopotentials with excellent transferability and
employing an extremely efficient iterative diagonalization scheme optimized for
our purpose. The self-consistent band structures, the total and site-projected
densities of states, the partial charges and their symmetry-decompositions, and
some characteristic charge densities near E_f are presented. We compare our
results with various existing (F)LAPW and (F)LMTO calculations and establish
that the ab initio pseudopotential method is competitive with other methods in
studying the electronic structure of such complicated materials as high-Tc
cuprates. [8 postscript files in uuencoded compressed form]Comment: 14 pages, RevTeX v3.0, 8 figures (appended in postscript file), SNUTP
94-8
Natural images from the birthplace of the human eye
Here we introduce a database of calibrated natural images publicly available
through an easy-to-use web interface. Using a Nikon D70 digital SLR camera, we
acquired about 5000 six-megapixel images of Okavango Delta of Botswana, a
tropical savanna habitat similar to where the human eye is thought to have
evolved. Some sequences of images were captured unsystematically while
following a baboon troop, while others were designed to vary a single parameter
such as aperture, object distance, time of day or position on the horizon.
Images are available in the raw RGB format and in grayscale. Images are also
available in units relevant to the physiology of human cone photoreceptors,
where pixel values represent the expected number of photoisomerizations per
second for cones sensitive to long (L), medium (M) and short (S) wavelengths.
This database is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial
Unported license to facilitate research in computer vision, psychophysics of
perception, and visual neuroscience.Comment: Submitted to PLoS ON
Femtosecond nonlinear ultrasonics in gold probed with ultrashort surface plasmons
Fundamental interactions induced by lattice vibrations on ultrafast time
scales become increasingly important for modern nanoscience and technology.
Experimental access to the physical properties of acoustic phonons in the THz
frequency range and over the entire Brillouin zone is crucial for understanding
electric and thermal transport in solids and their compounds. Here, we report
on the generation and nonlinear propagation of giant (1 percent) acoustic
strain pulses in hybrid gold/cobalt bilayer structures probed with ultrafast
surface plasmon interferometry. This new technique allows for unambiguous
characterization of arbitrary ultrafast acoustic transients. The giant acoustic
pulses experience substantial nonlinear reshaping already after a propagation
distance of 100 nm in a crystalline gold layer. Excellent agreement with the
Korteveg-de Vries model points to future quantitative nonlinear femtosecond
THz-ultrasonics at the nano-scale in metals at room temperature
TOM40 Mediates Mitochondrial Dysfunction Induced by α-Synuclein Accumulation in Parkinson's Disease.
Alpha-synuclein (α-Syn) accumulation/aggregation and mitochondrial dysfunction play prominent roles in the pathology of Parkinson's disease. We have previously shown that postmortem human dopaminergic neurons from PD brains accumulate high levels of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) deletions. We now addressed the question, whether alterations in a component of the mitochondrial import machinery -TOM40- might contribute to the mitochondrial dysfunction and damage in PD. For this purpose, we studied levels of TOM40, mtDNA deletions, oxidative damage, energy production, and complexes of the respiratory chain in brain homogenates as well as in single neurons, using laser-capture-microdissection in transgenic mice overexpressing human wildtype α-Syn. Additionally, we used lentivirus-mediated stereotactic delivery of a component of this import machinery into mouse brain as a novel therapeutic strategy. We report here that TOM40 is significantly reduced in the brain of PD patients and in α-Syn transgenic mice. TOM40 deficits were associated with increased mtDNA deletions and oxidative DNA damage, and with decreased energy production and altered levels of complex I proteins in α-Syn transgenic mice. Lentiviral-mediated overexpression of Tom40 in α-Syn-transgenic mice brains ameliorated energy deficits as well as oxidative burden. Our results suggest that alterations in the mitochondrial protein transport machinery might contribute to mitochondrial impairment in α-Synucleinopathies
An Image Statistics–Based Model for Fixation Prediction
The problem of predicting where people look at, or equivalently salient region detection, has been related to the statistics of several types of low-level image features. Among these features, contrast and edge information seem to have the highest correlation with the fixation locations. The contrast distribution of natural images can be adequately characterized using a two-parameter Weibull distribution. This distribution catches the structure of local contrast and edge frequency in a highly meaningful way. We exploit these observations and investigate whether the parameters of the Weibull distribution constitute a simple model for predicting where people fixate when viewing natural images. Using a set of images with associated eye movements, we assess the joint distribution of the Weibull parameters at fixated and non-fixated regions. Then, we build a simple classifier based on the log-likelihood ratio between these two joint distributions. Our results show that as few as two values per image region are already enough to achieve a performance comparable with the state-of-the-art in bottom-up saliency prediction
Spatial and socio-demographic determinants of contraceptive use in the Upper East region of Ghana
Two Kinds of Adaptation, Two Kinds of Relativity
This paper presents a review of adaptation concepts at the evolutionary, environmental, neural, sensory, mental and mathematical levels, including Helson’s and Parducci’s theories of perception and category judgments. Two kinds of adaptation can be clearly distinguished. The first, known as level adaptation, refers to the shift of the neutral perception level to the average stimulus value. It results in a single reference point and stimuli changes represented in absolute terms. This concept is employed by Prospect Theory, which assumes that gains and losses are perceived as monetary amounts. The second kind of adaptation refers to the adjustment of perception sensitivity to stimuli range. It results in two reference points (minimum and maximum stimulus) and stimuli changes perceived in relative terms. Both range adaptation and range relativity are well documented phenomena and have even been confirmed by the creators of Prospect Theory. This makes room for another decision making theory based on the range relativity approach. As shown by Kontek (2009), such a theory would not require the concept of probability weighting to describe lottery experiments or behavioral paradoxes
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