Polyethylene under tensile load: strain energy storage and breaking of linear and knotted alkanes probed by first-principles molecular dynamics calculations

The mechanical resistance of a polyethylene strand subject to tension and the way its properties are affected by the presence of a knot is studied using first-principles molecular dynamics calculations. The distribution of strain energy for the knotted chains has a well-defined shape that is very different from the one found in the linear case. The presence of a knot significantly weakens the chain in which it is tied. Chain rupture invariably occurs just outside the entrance to the knot, as is the case for a macroscopic rope.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, to appear on J. Chem. Phy

Performance of concatenated Reed-Solomon trellis-coded modulation over Rician fading channels

A concatenated coding scheme for providing very reliable data over mobile-satellite channels at power levels similar to those used for vocoded speech is described. The outer code is a shorter Reed-Solomon code which provides error detection as well as error correction capabilities. The inner code is a 1-D 8-state trellis code applied independently to both the inphase and quadrature channels. To achieve the full error correction potential of this inner code, the code symbols are multiplexed with a pilot sequence which is used to provide dynamic channel estimation and coherent detection. The implementation structure of this scheme is discussed and its performance is estimated

Norm Shifts in Union Wages: Will 1989 Be a Replay of 1969?

macroeconomics, union wages, 1989

Purposive discovery of operations

The Generate, Prune & Prove (GPP) methodology for discovering definitions of mathematical operators is introduced. GPP is a task within the IL exploration discovery system. We developed GPP for use in the discovery of mathematical operators with a wider class of representations than was possible with the previous methods by Lenat and by Shen. GPP utilizes the purpose for which an operator is created to prune the possible definitions. The relevant search spaces are immense and there exists insufficient information for a complete evaluation of the purpose constraint, so it is necessary to perform a partial evaluation of the purpose (i.e., pruning) constraint. The constraint is first transformed so that it is operational with respect to the partial information, and then it is applied to examples in order to test the generated candidates for an operator's definition. In the GPP process, once a candidate definition survives this empirical prune, it is passed on to a theorem prover for formal verification. We describe the application of this methodology to the (re)discovery of the definition of multiplication for Conway numbers, a discovery which is difficult for human mathematicians. We successfully model this discovery process utilizing information which was reasonably available at the time of Conway's original discovery. As part of this discovery process, we reduce the size of the search space from a computationally intractable size to 3468 elements

Comments and Discussion [Union Wage Determination: Policy Implications and Outlook]

macroeconomics, wage determination, inflation, unions

A Nanoscale Parametric Feedback Oscillator

We describe and demonstrate a new oscillator topology, the parametric feedback oscillator (PFO). The PFO paradigm is applicable to a wide variety of nanoscale devices and opens the possibility of new classes of oscillators employing innovative frequency-determining elements, such as nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), facilitating integration with circuitry and system-size reduction. We show that the PFO topology can also improve nanoscale oscillator performance by circumventing detrimental effects that are otherwise imposed by the strong device nonlinearity in this size regime