8,970 research outputs found
Standardless Analysis of Biological Tissue Sections
The X-ray microanalysis of thin biological samples which are usually supported on a thin organic film or are self-supporting specimens, has required the use of standards which contain the elements of interest. Spectra from the standards are used to calculate the factors for converting X-ray data recorded on the specimen into elemental concentrations. A method is discussed here, in which these factors are evaluated from formulae. The most important physical process to be evaluated is that of characteristic X-ray production in the specimen. The bremsstrahlung production must also be evaluated if the Hall or continuum normalisation (CN) method of quantitation is to be used.
This paper discusses briefly methods of calculating values for the X-ray production cross-sections for both characteristic and bremsstrahlung radiation. The way in which these are incorporated into standardless quantitation methods for biological samples is described. Calculations of some cross-section data are presented for typical analytical conditions
Sign problems, noise, and chiral symmetry breaking in a QCD-like theory
The Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model reduced to 2+1 dimensions has two different path
integral formulations: at finite chemical potential one formulation has a
severe sign problem similar to that found in QCD, while the other does not. At
large N, where N is the number of flavors, one can compute the probability
distributions of fermion correlators analytically in both formulations. In the
former case one finds a broad distribution with small mean; in the latter one
finds a heavy tailed positive distribution amenable to the cumulant expansion
techniques developed in earlier work. We speculate on the implications of this
model for QCD.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures; Published version with minor changes from the
origina
Systematic study of Optical Feshbach Resonances in an ideal gas
Using a narrow intercombination line in alkaline earth atoms to mitigate
large inelastic losses, we explore the Optical Feshbach Resonance (OFR) effect
in an ultracold gas of bosonic Sr. A systematic measurement of three
resonances allows precise determinations of the OFR strength and scaling law,
in agreement with coupled-channels theory. Resonant enhancement of the complex
scattering length leads to thermalization mediated by elastic and inelastic
collisions in an otherwise ideal gas. OFR could be used to control atomic
interactions with high spatial and temporal resolution.Comment: Significant changes to text and figure presentation to improve
clarity. Extended supplementary material. 4 pages, 4 figures; includes
supplementary material 8 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to Physical Review
Letter
Duality Invariant Magnetohydrodynamics And Dyons
The theory of magnetohydrodynamics is extended to the cases of a plasma of
separate magnetic and electric charges, as well as to a plasma of dyons
respectively. In both these cases the system possesses electric-magnetic
duality symmetry. In the former case we find that because of the existence of
two independent generalized Ohm's law equations, the limit of infinite electric
and magnetic conductivity results in the vanishing of both electric and
magnetic fields, as well as the corresponding currents. In the dyonic case, we
find that the resulting duality-invariant system of equations are equivalent to
those of ordinary MHD, after suitable field redefinitions.Comment: 11 pages, late
A General Framework for Computing Optimal Correlated Equilibria in Compact Games
We analyze the problem of computing a correlated equilibrium that optimizes
some objective (e.g., social welfare). Papadimitriou and Roughgarden [2008]
gave a sufficient condition for the tractability of this problem; however, this
condition only applies to a subset of existing representations. We propose a
different algorithmic approach for the optimal CE problem that applies to all
compact representations, and give a sufficient condition that generalizes that
of Papadimitriou and Roughgarden. In particular, we reduce the optimal CE
problem to the deviation-adjusted social welfare problem, a combinatorial
optimization problem closely related to the optimal social welfare problem.
This framework allows us to identify new classes of games for which the optimal
CE problem is tractable; we show that graphical polymatrix games on tree graphs
are one example. We also study the problem of computing the optimal coarse
correlated equilibrium, a solution concept closely related to CE. Using a
similar approach we derive a sufficient condition for this problem, and use it
to prove that the problem is tractable for singleton congestion games.Comment: 14 pages. Short version to appear in WINE 201
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Amplitude dependent frequency, desynchronization, and stabilization in noisy metapopulation dynamics
The enigmatic stability of population oscillations within ecological systems
is analyzed. The underlying mechanism is presented in the framework of two
interacting species free to migrate between two spatial patches. It is shown
that that the combined effects of migration and noise cannot account for the
stabilization. The missing ingredient is the dependence of the oscillations'
frequency upon their amplitude; with that, noise-induced differences between
patches are amplified due to the frequency gradient. Migration among
desynchronized regions then stabilizes a "soft" limit cycle in the vicinity of
the homogenous manifold. A simple model of diffusively coupled oscillators
allows the derivation of quantitative results, like the functional dependence
of the desynchronization upon diffusion strength and frequency differences. The
oscillations' amplitude is shown to be (almost) noise independent. The results
are compared with a numerical integration of the marginally stable
Lotka-Volterra equations. An unstable system is extinction-prone for small
noise, but stabilizes at larger noise intensity
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