Low-amplitude, force gradient imaging of Cu(100) surface using tunnel current feedback

The large corrugation amplitudes in scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) images of metal surfaces have been commonly attributed to the action of forces between the tip and the sample. We have investigated the Cu(100) surface using a high-resolution non-contact atomic force microscope/scanning tunnelling microscope (nc-AFM/STM) in UHV. Force gradient and STM topography images were acquired simultaneously using constant tunnelling current feedback. Force gradient images showed atomic resolution whereas STM scans exhibited almost no contrast, corresponding to a flat tip trajectory during scans. The corrugation height in force gradient images was found to increase as the set tunnelling current was increased. Force gradient and tunnel current were directly measured as a function of separation, to determine the operating conditions during imaging. The STM operation regime is found to lie between the minimum of the stiffness curve and the start of repulsive force

Curricular orientations to real-world contexts in mathematics

A common claim about mathematics education is that it should equip students to use mathematics in the ‘real world’. In this paper, we examine how relationships between mathematics education and the real world are materialised in the curriculum across a sample of eleven jurisdictions. In particular, we address the orientation of the curriculum towards application of mathematics, the ways that real-world contexts are positioned within the curriculum content, the ways in which different groups of students are expected to engage with real-world contexts, and the extent to which high-stakes assessments include real-world problem solving. The analysis reveals variation across jurisdictions and some lack of coherence between official orientations towards use of mathematics in the real world and the ways that this is materialised in the organisation of the content for students

Anisotropic winds in a Wolf-Rayet binary identify a potential gamma-ray burst progenitor

The massive evolved Wolf–Rayet stars sometimes occur in colliding-wind binary systems in which dust plumes are formed as a result of the collision of stellar winds1. These structures are known to encode the parameters of the binary orbit and winds2,3,4. Here we report observations of a previously undiscovered Wolf–Rayet system, 2XMM J160050.7–514245, with a spectroscopically determined wind speed of ~3,400 km s−1. In the thermal infrared, the system is adorned with a prominent ~12″ spiral dust plume, revealed by proper motion studies to be expanding at only ~570 km s−1. As the dust and gas appear to be coeval, these observations are inconsistent with existing models of the dynamics of such colliding-wind systems5,6,7. We propose that this contradiction can be resolved if the system is capable of launching extremely anisotropic winds. Near-critical stellar rotation is known to drive such winds8,9, suggesting that this Wolf–Rayet system may be a Galactic progenitor system for long-duration gamma-ray bursts

Multiband tight-binding theory of disordered ABC semiconductor quantum dots: Application to the optical properties of alloyed CdZnSe nanocrystals

Zero-dimensional nanocrystals, as obtained by chemical synthesis, offer a broad range of applications, as their spectrum and thus their excitation gap can be tailored by variation of their size. Additionally, nanocrystals of the type ABC can be realized by alloying of two pure compound semiconductor materials AC and BC, which allows for a continuous tuning of their absorption and emission spectrum with the concentration x. We use the single-particle energies and wave functions calculated from a multiband sp^3 empirical tight-binding model in combination with the configuration interaction scheme to calculate the optical properties of CdZnSe nanocrystals with a spherical shape. In contrast to common mean-field approaches like the virtual crystal approximation (VCA), we treat the disorder on a microscopic level by taking into account a finite number of realizations for each size and concentration. We then compare the results for the optical properties with recent experimental data and calculate the optical bowing coefficient for further sizes

Cavity modified quantum beats

Published versio

Horizontal Branch Stars: The Interplay between Observations and Theory, and Insights into the Formation of the Galaxy

We review HB stars in a broad astrophysical context, including both variable and non-variable stars. A reassessment of the Oosterhoff dichotomy is presented, which provides unprecedented detail regarding its origin and systematics. We show that the Oosterhoff dichotomy and the distribution of globular clusters (GCs) in the HB morphology-metallicity plane both exclude, with high statistical significance, the possibility that the Galactic halo may have formed from the accretion of dwarf galaxies resembling present-day Milky Way satellites such as Fornax, Sagittarius, and the LMC. A rediscussion of the second-parameter problem is presented. A technique is proposed to estimate the HB types of extragalactic GCs on the basis of integrated far-UV photometry. The relationship between the absolute V magnitude of the HB at the RR Lyrae level and metallicity, as obtained on the basis of trigonometric parallax measurements for the star RR Lyrae, is also revisited, giving a distance modulus to the LMC of (m-M)_0 = 18.44+/-0.11. RR Lyrae period change rates are studied. Finally, the conductive opacities used in evolutionary calculations of low-mass stars are investigated. [ABRIDGED]Comment: 56 pages, 22 figures. Invited review, to appear in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

Star clusters near and far; tracing star formation across cosmic time

© 2020 Springer-Verlag. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-020-00690-x.Star clusters are fundamental units of stellar feedback and unique tracers of their host galactic properties. In this review, we will first focus on their constituents, i.e.\ detailed insight into their stellar populations and their surrounding ionised, warm, neutral, and molecular gas. We, then, move beyond the Local Group to review star cluster populations at various evolutionary stages, and in diverse galactic environmental conditions accessible in the local Universe. At high redshift, where conditions for cluster formation and evolution are more extreme, we are only able to observe the integrated light of a handful of objects that we believe will become globular clusters. We therefore discuss how numerical and analytical methods, informed by the observed properties of cluster populations in the local Universe, are used to develop sophisticated simulations potentially capable of disentangling the genetic map of galaxy formation and assembly that is carried by globular cluster populations.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

ARFIMA-GARCH modeling of HRV: Clinical application in acute brain injury

In the last decade, several HRV based novel methodologies for describing and assessing heart rate dynamics have been proposed in the literature with the aim of risk assessment. Such methodologies attempt to describe the non-linear and complex characteristics of HRV, and hereby the focus is in two of these characteristics, namely long memory and heteroscedasticity with variance clustering. The ARFIMA-GARCH modeling considered here allows the quantification of long range correlations and time-varying volatility. ARFIMA-GARCH HRV analysis is integrated with multimodal brain monitoring in several acute cerebral phenomena such as intracranial hypertension, decompressive craniectomy and brain death. The results indicate that ARFIMA-GARCH modeling appears to reflect changes in Heart Rate Variability (HRV) dynamics related both with the Acute Brain Injury (ABI) and the medical treatments effects. (c) 2017, Springer International Publishing AG

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe