16,403 research outputs found
Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation from reaction of isoprene with nitrate radicals (NO_3)
Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation from the reaction of isoprene with nitrate radicals (NO3) is investigated in the Caltech indoor chambers. Experiments are performed in the dark and under dry conditions (RH<10%) using N2O5 as a source of NO3 radicals. For an initial isoprene concentration of 18.4 to 101.6 ppb, the SOA yield (defined as the ratio of the mass of organic aerosol formed to the mass of parent hydrocarbon reacted) ranges from 4.3% to 23.8%. By examining the time evolutions of gas-phase intermediate products and aerosol volume in real time, we are able to constrain the chemistry that leads to the formation of low-volatility products. Although the formation of ROOR from the reaction of two peroxy radicals (RO2) has generally been considered as a minor channel, based on the gas-phase and aerosol-phase data it appears that RO2+RO2 reaction (self reaction or cross-reaction) in the gas phase yielding ROOR products is a dominant SOA formation pathway. A wide array of organic nitrates and peroxides are identified in the aerosol formed and mechanisms for SOA formation are proposed. Using a uniform SOA yield of 10% (corresponding to Mo≅10 μg m−3), it is estimated that ~2 to 3 Tg yr−1 of SOA results from isoprene + NO3. The extent to which the results from this study can be applied to conditions in the atmosphere depends on the fate of peroxy radicals (i.e. the relative importance of RO2+RO2 versus RO2+NO3 reactions) in the nighttime troposphere
Exploring Food Detection using CNNs
One of the most common critical factors directly related to the cause of a
chronic disease is unhealthy diet consumption. In this sense, building an
automatic system for food analysis could allow a better understanding of the
nutritional information with respect to the food eaten and thus it could help
in taking corrective actions in order to consume a better diet. The Computer
Vision community has focused its efforts on several areas involved in the
visual food analysis such as: food detection, food recognition, food
localization, portion estimation, among others. For food detection, the best
results evidenced in the state of the art were obtained using Convolutional
Neural Network. However, the results of all these different approaches were
gotten on different datasets and therefore are not directly comparable. This
article proposes an overview of the last advances on food detection and an
optimal model based on GoogLeNet Convolutional Neural Network method, principal
component analysis, and a support vector machine that outperforms the state of
the art on two public food/non-food datasets
Observing two dark accelerators around the Galactic Centre with Fermi Large Area Telescope
We report the results from a detailed ray investigation in the field
of two "dark accelerators", HESS J1745-303 and HESS J1741-302, with years
of data obtained by the Fermi Large Area Telescope. For HESS J1745-303, we
found that its MeV-GeV emission is mainly originated from the "Region A" of the
TeV feature. Its ray spectrum can be modeled with a single power-law
with a photon index of from few hundreds MeV to TeV. Moreover,
an elongated feature, which extends from "Region A" toward northwest for
, is discovered for the first time. The orientation of this
feature is similar to that of a large scale atomic/molecular gas distribution.
For HESS J1741-302, our analysis does not yield any MeV-GeV counterpart for
this unidentified TeV source. On the other hand, we have detected a new point
source, Fermi J1740.1-3013, serendipitously. Its spectrum is apparently curved
which resembles that of a ray pulsar. This makes it possibly
associated with PSR B1737-20 or PSR J1739-3023.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA
Lyapunov exponent of the random frequency oscillator: cumulant expansion approach
We consider a one-dimensional harmonic oscillator with a random frequency,
focusing on both the standard and the generalized Lyapunov exponents,
and respectively. We discuss the numerical difficulties that
arise in the numerical calculation of in the case of strong
intermittency. When the frequency corresponds to a Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process,
we compute analytically by using a cumulant expansion including
up to the fourth order. Connections with the problem of finding an analytical
estimate for the largest Lyapunov exponent of a many-body system with smooth
interactions are discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, to appear in J. Phys. Conf. Series - LAWNP0
Quantum Dot in 2D Topological Insulator: The Two-channel Kondo Fixed Point
In this work, a quantum dot couples to two helical edge states of a 2D
topological insulator through weak tunnelings is studied. We show that if the
electron interactions on the edge states are repulsive, with Luttinger liquid
parameter , the system flows to a stable two-channel fixed point at
low temperatures. This is in contrast to the case of a quantum dot couples to
two Luttinger liquid leads. In the latter case, a strong electron-electron
repulsion is needed, with , to reach the two-channel fixed point. This
two-channel fixed point is described by a boundary Sine-Gordon Hamiltonian with
a dependent boundary term. The impurity entropy at zero temperature is
shown to be . The impurity specific heat is when , and when . We
also show that the linear conductance across the two helical edges has
non-trivial temperature dependence as a result of the renormalization group
flow.Comment: 4+\epsilon page
Photonic Clusters
We show through rigorous calculations that dielectric microspheres can be
organized by an incident electromagnetic plane wave into stable cluster
configurations, which we call photonic molecules. The long-range optical
binding force arises from multiple scattering between the spheres. A photonic
molecule can exhibit a multiplicity of distinct geometries, including
quasicrystal-like configurations, with exotic dynamics. Linear stability
analysis and dynamical simulations show that the equilibrium configurations can
correspond with either stable or a type of quasi-stable states exhibiting
periodic particle motion in the presence of frictional dissipation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Effect of NOx level on secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation from the photooxidation of terpenes
Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation from the photooxidation of one monoterpene (α-pinene) and two sesquiterpenes (longifolene and aromadendrene) is investigated in the Caltech environmental chambers. The effect of NOx on SOA formation for these biogenic hydrocarbons is evaluated by performing photooxidation experiments under varying NOx conditions. The NOx dependence of α-pinene SOA formation follows the same trend as that observed previously for a number of SOA precursors, including isoprene, in which SOA yield (defined as the ratio of the mass of organic aerosol formed to the mass of parent hydrocarbon reacted) decreases as NOx level increases. The NOx dependence of SOA yield for the sesquiterpenes, longifolene and aromadendrene, however, differs from that determined for isoprene and α-pinene; the aerosol yield under high-NOx conditions substantially exceeds that under low-NOx conditions. The reversal of the NOx dependence of SOA formation for the sesquiterpenes is consistent with formation of relatively low-volatility organic nitrates, and/or the isomerization of large alkoxy radicals leading to less volatile products. Analysis of the aerosol chemical composition for longifolene confirms the presence of organic nitrates under high-NOx conditions. Consequently the formation of SOA from certain biogenic hydrocarbons such as sesquiterpenes (and possibly large anthropogenic hydrocarbons as well) may be more efficient in polluted air
Peroxy radical chemistry and OH radical production during the NO_3-initiated oxidation of isoprene
Peroxy radical reactions (RO_2 + RO_2) from the NO3-initiated oxidation of isoprene are studied with both gas chromatography and a chemical ionization mass spectrometry technique that allows for more specific speciation of products than in previous studies of this system. We find high nitrate yields (~ 80%), consistent with other studies. We further see evidence of significant hydroxyl radical (OH) formation in this system, which we propose comes from RO_2 + HO_2 reactions with a yield of ~38–58%. An additional OH source is the second generation oxidation of the nitrooxyhydroperoxide, which produces OH and a dinitrooxyepoxide with a yield of ~35%. The branching ratio of the radical propagating, carbonyl- and alcohol-forming, and organic peroxide-forming channels of the RO_2 + RO_2 reaction are found to be ~18–38%, ~59–77%, and ~3–4%, respectively. HO_2 formation in this system is lower than has been previously assumed. Addition of RO_2 to isoprene is suggested as a possible route to the formation of several isoprene C_(10)-organic peroxide compounds (ROOR). The nitrooxy, allylic, and C_5 peroxy radicals present in this system exhibit different behavior than the limited suite of peroxy radicals that have been studied to date
Maximum-entropy theory of steady-state quantum transport
We develop a theoretical framework for describing steady-state quantum transport phenomena, based on the general maximum-entropy principle of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. The general form of the many-body density matrix is derived, which contains the invariant part of the current operator that guarantees the nonequilibrium and steady-state character of the ensemble. Several examples of the theory are given, demonstrating the relationship of the present treatment to the widely used scattering-state occupation schemes at the level of the self-consistent single-particle approximation. The latter schemes are shown not to maximize the entropy, except in certain limits
- …