913 research outputs found
Influence of local fullerene orientation on the electronic properties of A3C60 compounds
We have investigated sodium containing fullerene superconductors Na2AC60, A =
Cs, Rb, and K, by Na-23 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy at 7.5 T
in the temperature range of 10 to 400 K. Despite the structural differences
from the Rb3C60 class of fullerene superconductors, in these compounds the NMR
line of the tetrahedrally coordinated alkali nuclei also splits into two lines
(T and T') at low temperature. In Na2CsC60 the splitting occurs at 170 K; in
the quenched cubic phase of Na2RbC60 and Na2KC60 we observe split lines at 80
K. Detailed investigations of the spectrum, spin-spin and spin-lattice
relaxation as well as spin-echo double resonance (SEDOR) in Na2CsC60 we show
that these two different tetrahedral sites are mixed on a microscopic scale.
The T and T' sites differ in the orientation of first-neighbor C60 molecules.
We present evidence that the orientations of neighboring molecules are
uncorrelated. Thermally activated molecular reorientations cause an exchange
between the T and T' sites and motional narrowing at high temperature. We infer
the same activation energy, 3300 K, in the temperature range 125 to 300 K. The
spin lattice relaxation rate is the same for T and T' down to 125 K but
different below. Both the spin-lattice relaxation rate and Knight shift are
strongly temperature dependent in the whole range investigated. We interpret
this temperature variation by the effect of phonon excitations involving the
rigid librational motion of the C60 molecules. By extending the understanding
of the structure and molecular dynamics of C60 superconductors, these results
may help in clarifying the effects of the structure on the superconducting
properties.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, submitted to PR
Charge-Stripe Order and Superconductivity in
A combined resistivity and hard x-ray diffraction study of superconductivity
and charge ordering in , as a function of Pt
substitution and externally applied hydrostatic pressure, is presented.
Experiments are focused on samples near the critical composition where competition and switching between charge order and
superconductivity is established. We show that charge order as a function of
pressure in is preempted - and hence
triggered - by a structural transition. Charge ordering appears uniaxially
along the short crystallographic (1,0,1) domain axis with a
modulation. Based on these results we
draw a charge-order phase diagram and discuss the relation between stripe
ordering and superconductivity.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures: Accepted in Scientific Report
Optical excitations in hexagonal nanonetwork materials
Optical excitations in hexagonal nanonetwork materials, for example,
Boron-Nitride (BN) sheets and nanotubes, are investigated theoretically. The
bonding of BN systems is positively polarized at the B site, and is negatively
polarized at the N site. There is a permanent electric dipole moment along the
BN bond, whose direction is from the B site to the N site. When the exciton
hopping integral is restricted to the nearest neighbors, the flat band of the
exciton appears at the lowest energy. The higher optical excitations have
excitation bands similar to the electronic bands of graphene planes and carbon
nanotubes. The symmetry of the flat exciton band is optically forbidden,
indicating that the excitons related to this band will show quite long lifetime
which will cause strong luminescence properties.Comment: 4 pages; 3 figures; proceedings of "XVIth International Winterschool
on Electronic Properties of Novel Materials (IWEPNM2002)
Promoter propagation in prokaryotes
Transcriptional activation or 'rewiring' of silent genes is an important, yet poorly understood, phenomenon in prokaryotic genomes. Anecdotal evidence coming from experimental evolution studies in bacterial systems has shown the promptness of adaptation upon appropriate selective pressure. In many cases, a partial or complete promoter is mobilized to silent genes from elsewhere in the genome. We term hereafter such recruited regulatory sequences as Putative Mobile Promoters (PMPs) and we hypothesize they have a large impact on rapid adaptation of novel or cryptic functions. Querying all publicly available prokaryotic genomes (1362) uncovered >4000 families of highly conserved PMPs (50 to 100 long with =80% nt identity) in 1043 genomes from 424 different genera. The genomes with the largest number of PMP families are Anabaena variabilis (28 families), Geobacter uraniireducens (27 families) and Cyanothece PCC7424 (25 families). Family size varied from 2 to 93 homologous promoters (in Desulfurivibrio alkaliphilus). Some PMPs are present in particular species, but some are conserved across distant genera. The identified PMPs represent a conservative dataset of very recent or conserved events of mobilization of non-coding DNA and thus they constitute evidence of an extensive reservoir of recyclable regulatory sequences for rapid transcriptional rewirin
Vibrational spectra of C60C8H8 and C70C8H8 in the rotor-stator and polymer phases
C60-C8H8 and C70-C8H8 are prototypes of rotor-stator cocrystals. We present
infrared and Raman spectra of these materials and show how the rotor-stator
nature is reflected in their vibrational properties. We measured the
vibrational spectra of the polymer phases poly(C60C8H8) and poly(C70C8H8)
resulting from a solid state reaction occurring on heating. Based on the
spectra we propose a connection pattern for the fullerene in poly(C60C8H8),
where the symmetry of the C60 is D2h. On illuminating the C60-C8H8 cocrystal
with green or blue light a photochemical reaction was observed leading to a
similar product to that of the thermal polymerization.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures, to appear in Journal of Physical Chemistry B 2nd
version: minor changes in wording, accepted version by journa
Polaron formation for a non-local electron-phonon coupling: A variational wave-function study
We introduce a variational wave-function to study the polaron formation when
the electronic transfer integral depends on the relative displacement between
nearest-neighbor sites giving rise to a non-local electron-phonon coupling with
optical phonon modes. We analyze the ground state properties such as the
energy, the electron-lattice correlation function, the phonon number and the
spectral weight. Variational results are found in good agreement with analytic
weak-coupling perturbative calculations and exact numerical diagonalization of
small clusters. We determine the polaronic phase diagram and we find that the
tendency towards strong localization is hindered from the pathological sign
change of the effective next-nearest-neighbor hopping.Comment: 11 page
Vaccination Week in the Americas: An Opportunity to Integrate Other Health Services With Immunization
Vaccination Week in the Americas (VWA) is an initiative of the countries and territories of the Americas that works to advance equity and access to vaccination. The initiative focuses on reaching populations with limited access to regular health services and promotes solidarity among countries. As the Expanded Program on Immunization is one of the world’s best-established health programs, integrating other interventions with immunization services has been highly promoted. Using data available from the Pan American Health Organization, we explored the extent of integration of other interventions with immunization in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries as part of VWA. At least 14 countries or territories have integrated other interventions with immunization during VWA. The most common integrated intervention is vitamin A supplementation, followed by deworming. However, a variety of other interventions have been integrated, such as educational activities, supplementation with vitamins and minerals, and provision of health services. Data on coverage of integrated interventions are limited. Integration of other interventions with immunization in LAC countries is widespread, and its impact and lessons learned merit further examination
Global Health and Economic Impacts of Future Ozone Pollution
Abstract and PDF report are also available on the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://globalchange.mit.edu/).We assess the human health and economic impacts of projected 2000-2050 changes in ozone pollution using the MIT Emissions Prediction and Policy Analysis-Health Effects (EPPA-HE) model, in combination with results from the GEOS-Chem global tropospheric chemistry model that simulated climate and chemistry effects of IPCC SRES emissions. We use EPPA to assess the human health damages (including acute mortality and morbidity outcomes) caused by ozone pollution and quantify their economic impacts in sixteen world regions. We compare the costs of ozone pollution under scenarios with 2000 and 2050 ozone precursor and greenhouse gas emissions (SRES A1B scenario). We estimate that health costs due to global ozone pollution above pre-industrial levels by 2050 will be ) and that acute mortalities will exceed 2 million. We find that previous methodologies underestimate costs of air pollution by more than a third because they do not take into account the long-term, compounding effects of health costs. The economic effects of emissions changes far exceed the influence of climate alone.United States Department of Energy, Office of
Science (BER) grants DE-FG02-94ER61937 and DE-FG02-93ER61677, the United States
Environmental Protection Agency grant EPA-XA-83344601-0, and the industrial and foundation
sponsors of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
Relación entre el bienestar y el rendimiento académico en alumnos de primer año de medicina
Background: Stress may affect the sense of wellbeing and academic achievement of university students. Aim: To assess the relationship of academic engagement and burnout with academic achievement among first year medical students. Material and Methods: The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale-Student and Maslach Burnout Inventory Student Survey (MBI-SS) were applied to 277 first year medical students of four universities. Their results were correlated with the grades obtained in the different courses. Results: Moderately high engagement and low burnout levels were detected. There was a high level of satisfaction with studies and a moderate exhaustion level. Academic achievement was associated with the degree of engagement with studies but not with burnout. Conglomerate analysis detected a group of students with high levels of wellbeing, characterized by high levels of academic engagement and low burnout. Other group had moderate levels of engagement and lack of personal fulfilment. Other group, identified as extenuated, had high levels of personal exhaustion and depersonalization. Finally the disassociated group had a low academic engagement, low emotional exhaustion, high levels of depersonalization and lack of personal fulfillment. Conclusions: Academic achievement is associated with the level of engagement with studies but not with burnout
Quantum fluctuations of polarons on molecules
The dynamic Jahn-Teller splitting of the six equivalent polarons due
to quantum fluctuations is studied in the framework of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes
formalism. The tunneling induced level splittings are determined to be and for and
, respectively, which should give rise to observable effects in
experiments.Comment: REVTEX 3.0, 13 pages, to be published in Phys. Rev.
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