Pressure dependence of the thermoelectric power of single-walled carbon nanotubes

We have measured the thermoelectric power (S) of high purity single-walled carbon nanotube mats as a function of temperature at various hydrostatic pressures up to 2.0 GPa. The thermoelectric power is positive, and it increases in a monotonic way with increasing temperature for all pressures. The low temperature (T < 40 K) linear thermoelectric power is pressure independent and is characteristic for metallic nanotubes. At higher temperatures it is enhanced and though S(T) is linear again above about 100 K it has a nonzero intercept. This enhancement is strongly pressure dependent and is related to the change of the phonon population with hydrostatic pressure.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Observation of Resonant Diffusive Radiation in Random Multilayered Systems

Diffusive Radiation is a new type of radiation predicted to occur in randomly inhomogeneous media due to the multiple scattering of pseudophotons. This theoretical effect is now observed experimentally. The radiation is generated by the passage of electrons of energy 200KeV-2.2MeV through a random stack of films in the visible light region. The radiation intensity increases resonantly provided the Cherenkov condition is satisfied for the average dielectric constant of the medium. The observed angular dependence and electron resonance energy are in agreement with the theoretical predictions. These observations open a road to application of diffusive radiation in particle detection, astrophysics, soft X-ray generation and etc.. `Comment: 4pages, 4figure

The metastasis associated protein S100A4: role in tumour progression and metastasis

The metastasis associated protein S100A4 is a small calcium binding protein that is associated with metastatic tumors and appears to be a molecular marker for clinical prognosis. Below we discuss its biochemical properties and possible cellular functions in metastasis including cell motility, invasion, apoptosis, angiogenesis and differentiation

Structure and cooling of compact stars

We study the structure and evolution of neutron stars (NS) the interiors of which are modeled using microscopic approaches and constrained by the condition that the equation of state (EoS) of matter extrapolated to high densities should not contradict known observational data from compact stars and experimental data from heavy-ion collisions (HIC). We use modern cooling simulations to extract distributions of NS masses required to reproduce those of the yet sparse data in the Temperature-Age (TA) plane. By comparing the results with a mass distribution for young, nearby NSs used in population synthesis we can sharpen the NS cooling constraints.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, Lecture notes for the Helmholtz International Summer School on "Dense Matter in Heavy-Ion Collisions and Astrophysics", JINR, Dubna, August 21 - September 1, 200

The phase diagram of three-flavor quark matter under compact star constraints

The phase diagram of three-flavor quark matter under compact star constraints is investigated within a Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. Local color and electric charge neutrality is imposed for beta-equilibrated superconducting quark matter. The constituent quark masses and the diquark condensates are determined selfconsistently in the plane of temperature and quark chemical potential. Both strong and intermediate diquark coupling strengths are considered. We show that in both cases, gapless superconducting phases do not occur at temperatures relevant for compact star evolution, i.e., below T ~ 50 MeV. The stability and stucture of isothermal quark star configurations are evaluated. For intermediate coupling, quark stars are composed of a mixed phase of normal (NQ) and two-flavor superconducting (2SC) quark matter up to a maximum mass of 1.21 M_sun. At higher central densities, a phase transition to the three-flavor color flavor locked (CFL) phase occurs and the configurations become unstable. For the strong diquark coupling we find stable stars in the 2SC phase, with masses up to 1.326 M_sun. A second family of more compact configurations (twins) with a CFL quark matter core and a 2SC shell is also found to be stable. The twins have masses in the range 1.301 ... 1.326 M_sun. We consider also hot isothermal configurations at temperature T=40 MeV. When the hot maximum mass configuration cools down, due to emission of photons and neutrinos, a mass defect of 0.1 M_sun occurs and two final state configurations are possible.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figure

Five problems in legal maintenance of IT projects

Objective: to assess the compliance of traditional approaches to IT projects legal maintenance with the modern methods of organizing the process of digital products development, to identify the existing problems in this area and suggest possible ways to resolve them. Methods: the research used the logical method and the method of analyzing judicial practice, the inductive method, the method of comparison, and the method of scientific abstraction. Results: digitalization facilitated the development of the services market for IT projects and their maintenance. Legal maintenance of such projects often faces a significant discrepancy between the positions of the customer and the contractor, especially when part of the project is accomplished. Based on the analysis of judicial practice of IT projects using the Agile methodology, the most significant and problematic legal aspects of implementation were identified, and conflict situations between customers and performers of IT projects were analyzed.Scientific novelty: five key problems of IT projects legal maintenance that use flexible management methods are identified. A universal model for implementing legal functions in Agile projects is proposed.Practical significance: the proposed scheme of legal maintenance of IT projects can be used to regulate the legal relationships of their participants and may help to reduce the conflict level and speed up the process of digital products development using the Agile methodology

First results from the NA60 experiment at CERN

Since 1986, several heavy ion experiments have studied some signatures of the formation of the quark-gluon plasma and a few exciting results have been found. However, some important questions are still unanswered and require new measurements. The NA60 experiment, with a new detector concept that vastly improves dimuon detection in proton-nucleus and heavy-ion collisions, studies several of those open questions, including the production of open charm. This paper presents the experiment and some first results from data collected in 2002.Comment: Paper presented at the XXXVIII Rencontres de Moriond, QCD and High Energy Hadronic Interactions, Les Arcs, March 22-29, 2003. 4 pages, 6 figure