112,556 research outputs found
Non-Arrhenius ionic conductivities in glasses due to a distribution of activation energies
Previously observed non-Arrhenius behavior in fast ion conducting glasses
[\textit{Phys.\ Rev.\ Lett.}\ \textbf{76}, 70 (1996)] occurs at temperatures
near the glass transition temperature, , and is attributed to changes in
the ion mobility due to ion trapping mechanisms that diminish the conductivity
and result in a decreasing conductivity with increasing temperature. It is
intuitive that disorder in glass will also result in a distribution of the
activation energies (DAE) for ion conduction, which should increase the
conductivity with increasing temperature, yet this has not been identified in
the literature. In this paper, a series of high precision ionic conductivity
measurements are reported for
glasses with compositions ranging from . The impact of the
cation site disorder on the activation energy is identified and explained using
a DAE model. The absence of the non-Arrhenius behavior in other glasses is
explained and it is predicted which glasses are expected to accentuate the DAE
effect on the ionic conductivity.Comment: 2 figure
Ecodriving and Carbon Footprinting: Understanding How Public Education Can Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Use
Ecodriving is a collection of changes to driving behavior and vehicle maintenance designed to impact fuel consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in existing vehicles. Because of its promise to improve fuel economy within the existing fleet, ecodriving has gained increased attention in North America. One strategy to improve ecodriving is through public education with information on how to ecodrive. This report provides a review and study of ecodriving from several angles. The report offers a literature review of previous work and programs in ecodriving across the world. In addition, researchers completed interviews with experts in the field of public relations and public message campaigns to ascertain best practices for public campaigns. Further, the study also completed a set of focus groups evaluating consumer response to a series of websites that displayed ecodriving information. Finally, researchers conducted a set of surveys, including a controlled stated-response study conducted with approximately 100 University of California, Berkeley faculty, staff, and students, assessing the effectiveness of static ecodriving web-based information as well as an intercept clipboard survey in the San Francisco Bay Area. The stated-response study consisted of a comparison of the experimental and control groups. It found that exposure to ecodriving information influenced people’s driving behavior and some maintenance practices. The experimental group’s distributional shift was statistically significant, particularly for key practices including: lower highway cruising speed, driving behavior adjustment, and proper tire inflation. Within the experimental group (N = 51), fewer respondents significantly changed their maintenance practices (16%) than the majority that altered some driving practices (71%). This suggests intentionally altering driving behavior is easier than planning better maintenance practices. While it was evident that not everyone modifies their behavior as a result of reviewing the ecodriving website, even small shifts in behavior due to inexpensive information dissemination could be deemed cost effective in reducing fuel consumption and emissions
Capillary Waves at Liquid/Vapor Interfaces: A Molecular Dynamics Simulation
Evidence for capillary waves at a liquid/vapor interface are presented from
extensive molecular dynamics simulations of a system containing up to 1.24
million Lennard-Jones particles. Careful measurements show that the total
interfacial width depends logarithmically on , the length of the
simulation cell parallel to the interface, as predicted theoretically. The
strength of the divergence of the interfacial width on depends
inversely on the surface tension . This allows us to measure
two ways since can also be obtained from the difference in the
pressure parallel and perpendicular to the interface. These two independent
measures of agree provided that the interfacial order parameter
profile is fit to an error function and not a hyperbolic tangent, as often
assumed. We explore why these two common fitting functions give different
results for
Current dependence of grain boundary magnetoresistance in La_0.67Ca_0.33MnO_3 films
We prepared epitaxial ferromagnetic manganite films on bicrystal substrates
by pulsed laser ablation. Their low- and high-field magnetoresistance (MR) was
measured as a function of magnetic field, temperature and current. At low
temperatures hysteretic changes in resistivity up to 70% due to switching of
magnetic domains at the coercitive field are observed. The strongly non-ohmic
behavior of the current-voltage leads to a complete suppression of the MR
effect at high bias currents with the identical current dependence at low and
high magnetic fields. We discuss the data in view of tunneling and mesoscale
magnetic transport models and propose an explicit dependence of the spin
polarization on the applied current in the grain boundary region.Comment: 5 pages, to appear in J. Appl. Phy
On the O II ground configuration energy levels
The most accurate way to measure the energy levels for the O II 2p^3 ground
configuration has been from the forbidden lines in planetary nebulae. We
present an analysis of modern planetary nebula data that nicely constrain the
splitting within the ^2D term and the separation of this term from the ground
^4S_{3/2} level. We extend this method to H II regions using high-resolution
spectroscopy of the Orion nebula, covering all six visible transitions within
the ground configuration. These data confirm the splitting of the ^2D term
while additionally constraining the splitting of the ^2P term. The energies of
the ^2P and ^2D terms relative to the ground (^4S) term are constrained by
requiring that all six lines give the same radial velocity, consistent with
independent limits placed on the motion of the O+ gas and the planetary nebula
data.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures. To be published in Ap
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