726 research outputs found
Direct solar energy conversion for large scale terrestrial use
Various techniques to increase the open circuit voltage are being explored. It had been previously observed that cells made on CdS deposited from a single source gave a consistently higher V sub oc. Further tests have now shown that this effect may in fact relate to differences in source and substrate temperatures. The resulting differences in CdS structure and crystallinity are being documented. Deposits of mixed CdS and ZnS are being produced and will be initially made into cells using the conventional barriering technique. Analysis of I-V characteristics at temperatures between 25 and 110 C is being perfected to provide nondestructive analysis of the Cu2S. Changes due to vacuum heat treatments and exposure to oxygen are also being monitored by the same technique. Detailed spectral response measurements are being made
Anisotropic anomalous diffusion modulated by log-periodic oscillations
We introduce finite ramified self-affine substrates in two dimensions with a
set of appropriate hopping rates between nearest-neighbor sites, where the
diffusion of a single random walk presents an anomalous {\it anisotropic}
behavior modulated by log-periodic oscillations. The anisotropy is revealed by
two different random walk exponents, and , in the {\it x} and
{\it y} direction, respectively. The values of these exponents, as well as the
period of the oscillation, are analytically obtained and confirmed by Monte
Carlo simulations.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure
The effect of axial load on the sagittal plane curvature of the upright human spine in vivo
Copyright © 2008 Elsevier. NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Pattern Recognition . Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Biomechanics, Vol. 41 Issue 13 (2008), DOI: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2008.06.035Determining the effect of load carriage on the human spine in vivo is important for determining spinal forces and establishing potential mechanisms of back injury. Previous studies have suggested that the natural curvature of the spine straightens under load, but are based on modelling and external measurements from the surface of the back. In the current study, an upright positional MRI scanner was used to acquire sagittal images of the lumbar and lower thoracic spine of 24 subjects. The subjects were imaged in standing whilst supporting 0, 8 and 16 kg of load which was applied axially across the shoulders using an apron. An active shape model of the vertebral bodies from T10 to S1 was created and used to characterise the effect of load. The results from the shape model showed that the behaviour of the average-shaped spine was to straighten slightly. However, the shape model also showed that the effect of load exhibited systematic variation between individuals. Those who had a smaller than average curvature before loading straightened under load, whereas those who had a greater than average curvature before loading showed an increase in curvature under load. The variation in behaviour of differently shaped spines may have further implications for the effects of load in lifting manoeuvres and in understanding the aetiology of back pain
Inverse monoids and immersions of 2-complexes
It is well known that under mild conditions on a connected topological space
, connected covers of may be classified via conjugacy
classes of subgroups of the fundamental group of . In this paper,
we extend these results to the study of immersions into 2-dimensional
CW-complexes. An immersion between
CW-complexes is a cellular map such that each point has a
neighborhood that is mapped homeomorphically onto by . In order
to classify immersions into a 2-dimensional CW-complex , we need to
replace the fundamental group of by an appropriate inverse monoid.
We show how conjugacy classes of the closed inverse submonoids of this inverse
monoid may be used to classify connected immersions into the complex
No self-similar aggregates with sedimentation
Two-dimensional cluster-cluster aggregation is studied when clusters move
both diffusively and sediment with a size dependent velocity. Sedimentation
breaks the rotational symmetry and the ensuing clusters are not self-similar
fractals: the mean cluster width perpendicular to the field direction grows
faster than the height. The mean width exhibits power-law scaling with respect
to the cluster size, ~ s^{l_x}, l_x = 0.61 +- 0.01, but the mean height
does not. The clusters tend to become elongated in the sedimentation direction
and the ratio of the single particle sedimentation velocity to single particle
diffusivity controls the degree of orientation. These results are obtained
using a simulation method, which becomes the more efficient the larger the
moving clusters are.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure
The thermodynamics and roughening of solid-solid interfaces
The dynamics of sharp interfaces separating two non-hydrostatically stressed
solids is analyzed using the idea that the rate of mass transport across the
interface is proportional to the thermodynamic potential difference across the
interface. The solids are allowed to exchange mass by transforming one solid
into the other, thermodynamic relations for the transformation of a mass
element are derived and a linear stability analysis of the interface is carried
out. The stability is shown to depend on the order of the phase transition
occurring at the interface. Numerical simulations are performed in the
non-linear regime to investigate the evolution and roughening of the interface.
It is shown that even small contrasts in the referential densities of the
solids may lead to the formation of finger like structures aligned with the
principal direction of the far field stress.Comment: (24 pages, 8 figures; V2: added figures, text revisions
Microstructure and velocity of field-driven solid-on-solid interfaces moving under stochastic dynamics with local energy barriers
We study the microscopic structure and the stationary propagation velocity of
(1+1)-dimensional solid-on-solid interfaces in an Ising lattice-gas model,
which are driven far from equilibrium by an applied force, such as a magnetic
field or a difference in (electro)chemical potential. We use an analytic
nonlinear-response approximation [P.A. Rikvold and M. Kolesik, J. Stat. Phys.
100, 377 (2000)] together with kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. Here we
consider interfaces that move under Arrhenius dynamics, which include a
microscopic energy barrier between the allowed Ising/lattice-gas states. Two
different dynamics are studied: the standard one-step dynamic (OSD) [H.C. Kang
and W. Weinberg, J. Chem. Phys. 90, 2824 (1992)] and the two-step
transition-dynamics approximation (TDA) [T. Ala-Nissila, J. Kjoll, and S.C.
Ying, Phys. Rev. B 46, 846 (1992)]. In the OSD the effects of the applied force
and the interaction energies in the model factorize in the transition rates (a
soft dynamic), while in the TDA such factorization is not possible (a hard
dynamic). In full agreement with previous general theoretical results we find
that the local interface width under the TDA increases dramatically with the
applied force. In contrast, the interface structure with the OSD is only weakly
influenced by the force, in qualitative agreement with the theoretical
expectations. Results are also obtained for the force-dependence and anisotropy
of the interface velocity, which also show differences in good agreement with
the theoretical expectations for the differences between soft and hard
dynamics. Our results confirm that different stochastic interface dynamics that
all obey detailed balance and the same conservation laws nevertheless can lead
to radically different interface responses to an applied force.Comment: 18 pages RevTex. Minor revisions. Phys. Rev. B, in pres
A pseudo-spectral approach to inverse problems in interface dynamics
An improved scheme for computing coupling parameters of the
Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation from a collection of successive interface
profiles, is presented. The approach hinges on a spectral representation of
this equation. An appropriate discretization based on a Fourier representation,
is discussed as a by-product of the above scheme. Our method is first tested on
profiles generated by a one-dimensional Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation where it
is shown to reproduce the input parameters very accurately. When applied to
microscopic models of growth, it provides the values of the coupling parameters
associated with the corresponding continuum equations. This technique favorably
compares with previous methods based on real space schemes.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, revtex 3.0 with epsf style, to appear in Phys.
Rev.
Dynamic scaling approach to study time series fluctuations
We propose a new approach for properly analyzing stochastic time series by
mapping the dynamics of time series fluctuations onto a suitable nonequilibrium
surface-growth problem. In this framework, the fluctuation sampling time
interval plays the role of time variable, whereas the physical time is treated
as the analog of spatial variable. In this way we found that the fluctuations
of many real-world time series satisfy the analog of the Family-Viscek dynamic
scaling ansatz. This finding permits to use the powerful tools of kinetic
roughening theory to classify, model, and forecast the fluctuations of
real-world time series.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures, 1 tabl
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