Some of the features of the viscoplastic media

The article considers the influence of the structure and the chemical composition of ground blast furnace slag on rheological properties of slag suspensions. Different composition and structure of blast furnace slags were studie

Demonstration of a Transportable 1 Hz-Linewidth Laser

We present the setup and test of a transportable clock laser at 698 nm for a strontium lattice clock. A master-slave diode laser system is stabilized to a rigidly mounted optical reference cavity. The setup was transported by truck over 400 km from Braunschweig to D\"usseldorf, where the cavity-stabilized laser was compared to a stationary clock laser for the interrogation of ytterbium (578 nm). Only minor realignments were necessary after the transport. The lasers were compared by a Ti:Sapphire frequency comb used as a transfer oscillator. The thus generated virtual beat showed a combined linewidth below 1 Hz (at 1156 nm). The transport back to Braunschweig did not degrade the laser performance, as was shown by interrogating the strontium clock transition.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure

Coherent spin relaxation in molecular magnets

Numerical modelling of coherent spin relaxation in nanomagnets, formed by magnetic molecules of high spins, is accomplished. Such a coherent spin dynamics can be realized in the presence of a resonant electric circuit coupled to the magnet. Computer simulations for a system of a large number of interacting spins is an efficient tool for studying the microscopic properties of such systems. Coherent spin relaxation is an ultrafast process, with the relaxation time that can be an order shorter than the transverse spin dephasing time. The influence of different system parameters on the relaxation process is analysed. The role of the sample geometry on the spin relaxation is investigated.Comment: Latex file, 22 pages, 7 figure

Effect of low temperature RF plasma treatment on electrical properties of junctionless InGaAs MOSFETs

In this paper, we study the effect of low-temperature RF plasma treatment in forming gas (10%H2+90%N2) on the electrical characteristics of junctionless MOSFETs with n-In0.53Ga0.47As channel and an Al2O3 gate dielectric. The impact of plasma power density on the device parameters is investigated. It is found that RF plasma annealing with a low power density (0.5 W/cm2) at 150°C for 10 min provides substantial improvement of source/drain contacts resistance and the carrier mobility resulting in a considerable increase of the on-state current and transconductance. It also improves the subthreshold slope and reduces the fixed positive charge in Al2O3 under the gate, shifting the threshold voltage toward positive values. It is demonstrated that non-thermal factors play a principle role in modification of electrical properties of the JL MOSFETs under RF plasma treatment. Such treatment may be an efficient tool for the improvement of the performance of the advanced MOSFETs with III-V channel materials

Electroluminescent properties of Tb-doped carbon-enriched silicon oxide

An electroluminescent device utilizing a heterostructure of amorphous terbium doped carbon-rich SiOx (a - SiOx : C : Tb) on silicon has been developed. The a - SiOx : C : Tb active layer was formed by RF magnetron sputtering of a - SiO₁₋x : Cx : H(:Tb) film followed by high-temperature oxidation. It was shown that, depending on the polarity of the applied voltage, the electroluminescence is either green or white, which can be attributed to different mechanisms of current transport through the oxide film – space charge limited bipolar double injection current for green electroluminescence and trap assisted tunneling or Fowler-Nordheim tunneling for white electroluminescence

LegacyClimate 1.0: a dataset of pollen-based climate reconstructions from 2594 Northern Hemisphere sites covering the last 30 kyr and beyond

Here we describe LegacyClimate 1.0, a dataset of the reconstruction of the mean July temperature (TJuly), mean annual temperature (Tann), and annual precipitation (Pann) from 2594 fossil pollen records from the Northern Hemisphere, spanning the entire Holocene, with some records reaching back to the Last Glacial Period. Two reconstruction methods, the modern analog technique (MAT) and weighted averaging partial least squares regression (WA-PLS), reveal similar results regarding spatial and temporal patterns. To reduce the impact of precipitation on temperature reconstruction, and vice versa, we also provide reconstructions using tailored modern pollen data, limiting the range of the corresponding other climate variables. We assess the reliability of the reconstructions, using information from the spatial distributions of the root mean squared error in the prediction and reconstruction significance tests. The dataset is beneficial for synthesis studies of proxy-based reconstructions and to evaluate the output of climate models and thus help to improve the models themselves. We provide our compilation of reconstructed TJuly, Tann, and Pann as open-access datasets at PANGAEA (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.930512; Herzschuh et al., 2023a). The R code for the reconstructions is provided at Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7887565; Herzschuh et al., 2023b), including the harmonized open-access modern and fossil datasets used for the reconstructions, so that customized reconstructions can be easily established.</p

Global, regional, and national age-sex specific all-cause and cause-specific mortality for 240 causes of death, 1990-2013: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013

Background Up-to-date evidence on levels and trends for age-sex-specific all-cause and cause-specific mortality is essential for the formation of global, regional, and national health policies. In the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 (GBD 2013) we estimated yearly deaths for 188 countries between 1990, and 2013. We used the results to assess whether there is epidemiological convergence across countries. Methods We estimated age-sex-specific all-cause mortality using the GBD 2010 methods with some refinements to improve accuracy applied to an updated database of vital registration, survey, and census data. We generally estimated cause of death as in the GBD 2010. Key improvements included the addition of more recent vital registration data for 72 countries, an updated verbal autopsy literature review, two new and detailed data systems for China, and more detail for Mexico, UK, Turkey, and Russia. We improved statistical models for garbage code redistribution. We used six different modelling strategies across the 240 causes; cause of death ensemble modelling (CODEm) was the dominant strategy for causes with sufficient information. Trends for Alzheimer's disease and other dementias were informed by meta-regression of prevalence studies. For pathogen-specific causes of diarrhoea and lower respiratory infections we used a counterfactual approach. We computed two measures of convergence (inequality) across countries: the average relative difference across all pairs of countries (Gini coefficient) and the average absolute difference across countries. To summarise broad findings, we used multiple decrement life-tables to decompose probabilities of death from birth to exact age 15 years, from exact age 15 years to exact age 50 years, and from exact age 50 years to exact age 75 years, and life expectancy at birth into major causes. For all quantities reported, we computed 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs). We constrained cause-specific fractions within each age-sex-country-year group to sum to all-cause mortality based on draws from the uncertainty distributions. Findings Global life expectancy for both sexes increased from 65·3 years (UI 65·0-65·6) in 1990, to 71·5 years (UI 71·0-71·9) in 2013, while the number of deaths increased from 47·5 million (UI 46·8-48·2) to 54·9 million (UI 53·6-56·3) over the same interval. Global progress masked variation by age and sex: for children, average absolute differences between countries decreased but relative differences increased. For women aged 25-39 years and older than 75 years and for men aged 20-49 years and 65 years and older, both absolute and relative differences increased. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the prominent role of reductions in age-standardised death rates for cardiovascular diseases and cancers in high-income regions, and reductions in child deaths from diarrhoea, lower respiratory infections, and neonatal causes in low-income regions. HIV/AIDS reduced life expectancy in southern sub-Saharan Africa. For most communicable causes of death both numbers of deaths and age-standardised death rates fell whereas for most non-communicable causes, demographic shifts have increased numbers of deaths but decreased age-standardised death rates. Global deaths from injury increased by 10·7%, from 4·3 million deaths in 1990 to 4·8 million in 2013; but age-standardised rates declined over the same period by 21%. For some causes of more than 100 000 deaths per year in 2013, age-standardised death rates increased between 1990 and 2013, including HIV/AIDS, pancreatic cancer, atrial fibrillation and flutter, drug use disorders, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and sickle-cell anaemias. Diarrhoeal diseases, lower respiratory infections, neonatal causes, and malaria are still in the top five causes of death in children younger than 5 years. The most important pathogens are rotavirus for diarrhoea and pneumococcus for lower respiratory infections. Country-specific probabilities of death over three phases of life were substantially varied between and within regions. Interpretation For most countries, the general pattern of reductions in age-sex specific mortality has been associated with a progressive shift towards a larger share of the remaining deaths caused by non-communicable disease and injuries. Assessing epidemiological convergence across countries depends on whether an absolute or relative measure of inequality is used. Nevertheless, age-standardised death rates for seven substantial causes are increasing, suggesting the potential for reversals in some countries. Important gaps exist in the empirical data for cause of death estimates for some countries; for example, no national data for India are available for the past decade. Funding Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation

Non-Gaussian elliptic-flow fluctuations in PbPb collisions at root S-NN=5.02 TeV

Event-by-event fluctuations in the elliptic-flow coefficient v(2) are studied in PbPb collisions at root S-NN = 5.02 TeV using the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. Elliptic-flow probability distributions p(v(2)) for charged particles with transverse momentum 0.3 < p(T) < 3.0 GeV/c and pseudorapidity vertical bar eta vertical bar < 1.0 are determined for different collision centrality classes. The moments of the p(v(2)) distributions are used to calculate the v(2) coefficients based on cumulant orders 2, 4, 6, and 8. A rank ordering of the higher-order cumulant results and nonzero standardized skewness values obtained for the p(v(2)) distributions indicate non-Gaussian initial-state fluctuations. Bessel-Gaussian and elliptic power fits to the flow distributions are studied to characterize the initial-state spatial anisotropy. (C) 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe