1,456 research outputs found
Mechanical and Psychological Effects of Electoral Reform
Duverger (1954) noted that changes in electoral systems will have two types of effects: mechanical effects, and reactions of political agents in anticipation of these, which he referred to as psychological effects. It is complicated to empirically separate the two effects since these occur simultaneously. In this paper we use a large set of counterfactual election outcomes to address this issue. Our application is based on a nationwide municipal electoral reform in Norway, which changed the seat allocation method from d’Hondt to modified Sainte-Lagüe. Even though this electoral reform is of a relatively small magnitude, we document substantial psychological effects.
Effect of uniaxial strain on the site occupancy of hydrogen in vanadium from density-functional calculations
We investigate the influence of uniaxial strain on site occupancy of hydrogen
vanadium, using density functional theory. The site occupancy is found to be
strongly influenced by the strain state of the lattice. The results provide the
conceptual framework of the atomistic description of the observed hysteresis in
the alpha to beta phase transition in bulk, as well as the preferred octahedral
occupancy of hydrogen in strained V layers
Multiphysics CFD Simulation for Design and Analysis of Thermoelectric Power Generation
The multiphysics simulation methodology presented in this paper permits extension of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to account for electric power generation and its effect on the energy transport, the Seebeck voltage, the electrical currents in thermoelectric systems. The energy transport through Fourier, Peltier, Thomson and Joule mechanisms as a function of temperature and electrical current, and the electrical connection between thermoelectric modules, is modeled using subgrid CFD models which make the approach computational efficient and generic. This also provides a solution to the scale separation problem that arise in CFD analysis of thermoelectric heat exchangers and allows the thermoelectric models to be fully coupled with the energy transport in the CFD analysis. Model validation includes measurement of the relevant fluid dynamic properties (pressure and temperature distribution) and electric properties (current and voltage) for a turbulent flow inside a thermoelectric heat exchanger designed for automotive applications. Predictions of pressure and temperature drop in the system are accurate and the error in predicted current and voltage is less than 1.5% at all exhaust gas flow rates and temperatures studied which is considered very good. Simulation results confirm high computational efficiency and stable simulations with low increase in computational time compared to standard CFD heat-transfer simulations. Analysis of the results also reveals that even at the lowest heat transfer rate studied it is required to use a full two way coupling in the energy transport to accurately predict the electric power generation
Water transport on infinite graphs
If the nodes of a graph are considered to be identical barrels – featuring different water levels – and the edges to be (locked) water‐filled pipes in between the barrels, consider the optimization problem of how much the water level in a fixed barrel can be raised with no pumps available, that is, by opening and closing the locks in an elaborate succession. This model is related to an opinion formation process, the so‐called Deffuant model. We consider the initial water profile to be given by i.i.d. unif(0,1) random variables, investigate the supremum of achievable water levels at a given node – or to be more precise, the support of its distribution – and ask in which settings it becomes degenerate, that is, reduces to a single value. This turns out to be the case for all infinite connected quasi‐transitive graphs, with exactly one exception: the two‐sided infinite path
Organic solar cells based on non-fullerene acceptors.
Organic solar cells (OSCs) have been dominated by donor:acceptor blends based on fullerene acceptors for over two decades. This situation has changed recently, with non-fullerene (NF) OSCs developing very quickly. The power conversion efficiencies of NF OSCs have now reached a value of over 13%, which is higher than the best fullerene-based OSCs. NF acceptors show great tunability in absorption spectra and electron energy levels, providing a wide range of new opportunities. The coexistence of low voltage losses and high current generation indicates that new regimes of device physics and photophysics are reached in these systems. This Review highlights these opportunities made possible by NF acceptors, and also discuss the challenges facing the development of NF OSCs for practical applications
An AGI Modifying Its Utility Function in Violation of the Strong Orthogonality Thesis
An artificial general intelligence (AGI) might have an instrumental drive to modify its utility function to improve its ability to cooperate, bargain, promise, threaten, and resist and engage in blackmail. Such an AGI would necessarily have a utility function that was at least partially observable and that was influenced by how other agents chose to interact with it. This instrumental drive would conflict with the strong orthogonality thesis since the modifications would be influenced by the AGI\u27s intelligence. AGIs in highly competitive environments might converge to having nearly the same utility function, one optimized to favorably influencing other agents through game theory. Nothing in our analysis weakens arguments concerning the risks of AGI
Dynamics of magnetization coupled to a thermal bath of elastic modes
We study the dynamics of magnetization coupled to a thermal bath of elastic
modes using a system plus reservoir approach with realistic magnetoelastic
coupling. After integrating out the elastic modes we obtain a self-contained
equation for the dynamics of the magnetization.
We find explicit expressions for the memory friction kernel and hence, {\em
via} the Fluctuation-Dissipation
Theorem, for the spectral density of the magnetization thermal fluctuations.
For magnetic samples in which the single domain approximation is valid, we
derive an equation for the dynamics of the uniform mode.
Finally we apply this equation to study the dynamics of the uniform
magnetization mode in insulating ferromagnetic thin films.
As experimental consequences we find that the fluctuation correlation time is
of the order of the ratio between the film thickness, , and the speed of
sound in the magnet and that the line-width of the ferromagnetic resonance peak
should scale as where is the magnetoelastic coupling constant.Comment: Revised version as appeared in print. 12 pages 9 figure
Adsorption of Cu, Ag, and Au atoms on graphene including van der Waals interactions
We performed a systematic density functional study of the adsorption of
copper, silver, and gold adatoms on graphene, especially accounting for van der
Waals interactions by the vdW-DF and the PBE+D2 methods. In particular, we
analyze the preferred adsorption site (among top, bridge, and hollow positions)
together with the corresponding distortion of the graphene sheet and identify
diffusion paths. Both vdW schemes show that the coinage metal atoms do bind to
the graphene sheet and that in some cases the buckling of the graphene can be
significant. The results for silver are at variance with those obtained with
GGA, which gives no binding in this case. However, we observe some quantitative
differences between the vdW-DF and the PBE+D2 methods. For instance the
adsorption energies calculated with the PBE+D2 method are systematically higher
than the ones obtained with vdW-DF. Moreover, the equilibrium distances
computed with PBE+D2 are shorter than those calculated with the vdW-DF method
All-thermal switching of amorphous Gd-Fe alloys: analysis of structural properties and magnetization dynamics
In recent years, there has been an intense interest in understanding the
microscopic mechanism of thermally induced magnetization switching driven by a
femtosecond laser pulse. Most of the effort has been dedicated to periodic
crystalline structures while the amorphous counterparts have been less studied.
By using a multiscale approach, i.e. first-principles density functional theory
combined with atomistic spin dynamics, we report here on the very intricate
structural and magnetic nature of amorphous Gd-Fe alloys for a wide range of Gd
and Fe atomic concentrations at the nanoscale level. Both structural and
dynamical properties of Gd-Fe alloys reported in this work are in good
agreement with previous experiments. We calculated the dynamic behavior of
homogeneous and inhomogeneous amorphous Gd-Fe alloys and their response under
the influence of a femtosecond laser pulse. In the homogeneous sample, the Fe
sublattice switches its magnetization before the Gd one. However, the temporal
sequence of the switching of the two sublattices is reversed in the
inhomogeneous sample. We propose a possible explanation based on a mechanism
driven by a combination of the Dzyaloshiskii-Moriya interaction and exchange
frustration, modeled by an antiferromagnetic second-neighbour exchange
interaction between Gd atoms in the Gd-rich region. We also report on the
influence of laser fluence and damping effects in the all-thermal switching.Comment: Accepted in Physical Review B as a regular article. It contains 14
pages and 14 figure
Thermal conductivity in PbTe from first principles
We investigate the harmonic and anharmonic contributions to the phonon spectrum of lead telluride and perform a complete characterization of how thermal properties of PbTe evolve as temperature increases. We analyze the thermal resistivity's variation with temperature and clarify misconceptions about existing experimental literature. The resistivity initially increases sublinearly because of phase space effects and ultra strong anharmonic renormalizations of specific bands. This effect is the strongest factor in the favorable thermoelectric properties of PbTe, and it explains its limitations at higher T . This quantitative prediction opens the prospect of phonon phase space engineering to tailor the lifetimes of crucial heat carrying phonons by considering different structure or nanostructure geometries. We analyze the available scattering volume between TO and LA phonons as a function of temperature and correlate its changes to features in the thermal conductivity
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