116 research outputs found
Mass and charge transport in micro and nano-fluidic channels
We consider laminar flow of incompressible electrolytes in long, straight
channels driven by pressure and electro-osmosis. We use a Hilbert space
eigenfunction expansion to address the general problem of an arbitrary cross
section and obtain general results in linear-response theory for the mass and
charge transport coefficients which satisfy Onsager relations. In the limit of
non-overlapping Debye layers the transport coefficients are simply expressed in
terms of parameters of the electrolyte as well as the hydraulic radius R=2A/P
with A and P being the cross-sectional area and perimeter, respectively. In
articular, we consider the limits of thin non-overlapping as well as strongly
overlapping Debye layers, respectively, and calculate the corrections to the
hydraulic resistance due to electro-hydrodynamic interactions.Comment: Invited paper presented at the Second International Conference on
Transport Phenomena in Micro and Nanodevices, Il Ciocco Hotel and Conference
Center, Barga, Italy, 11-15 June 2006. Accepted for publication in a special
issue of Nanoscale and Microscale Thermophysical Engineering (Taylor &
Francis
Vortex lattice stability in the SO(5) model
We study the energetics of superconducting vortices in the SO(5) model for
high- materials proposed by Zhang. We show that for a wide range of
parameters normally corresponding to type II superconductivity, the free energy
per unit flux \FF(m) of a vortex with flux quanta is a decreasing
function of , provided the doping is close to its critical value. This
implies that the Abrikosov lattice is unstable, a behaviour typical of type I
superconductors. For dopings far from the critical value, \FF(m) can become
very flat, indicating a less rigid vortex lattice, which would melt at a lower
temperature than expected for a BCS superconductor.Comment: 4 pp, revtex, 5 figure
Anomalous density of states in a metallic film in proximity with a superconductor
We investigated the local electronic density of states in
superconductor-normal metal (Nb-Au) bilayers using a very low temperature (60
mK) STM. High resolution tunneling spectra measured on the normal metal (Au)
surface show a clear proximity effect with an energy gap of reduced amplitude
compared to the bulk superconductor (Nb) gap. Within this mini-gap, the density
of states does not reach zero and shows clear sub-gap features. We show that
the experimental spectra cannot be described with the well-established Usadel
equations from the quasi-classical theory.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Continuous catalytic hydrodeoxygenation of guaiacol over Pt/SiO₂ and Pt/H-MFI-90
Hydrodeoxygenation of guaiacol in the presence of 1-octanol was studied in a fixed-bed reactor under mild conditions (50-250 °C) over platinum particles supported on silica (Pt/SiO2) and a zeolite with framework type MFI at a Si/Al-ratio of 45 (Pt/H-MFI-90). The deoxygenation selectivity strongly depended on the support and the temperature. Both guaiacol and octanol were rapidly deoxygenated in the presence of hydrogen over Pt/H-MFI-90 at 250 °C to cyclohexane and octane, respectively. In contrast, Pt/SiO2 mostly showed hydrogenation, but hardly any deoxygenation activity. The acidic sites of the MFI-90 support lead to improved deoxygenation performance at the mild temperature conditions of this study. Significant conversions under reaction conditions applied already occurred at temperatures of 200 °C. However, during long-term stability tests, the Pt/H-MFI-90 catalyst deactivated after more than 30 h, probably due to carbon deposition, whereas Pt/SiO2 was more stable. The catalytic activity of the zeolite catalyst could only partly be regained by calcination in air, as some of the acidic sites were lost
Magnetothemopower study of quasi two-dimensional organic conductor -(BEDT-TTF)KHg(SCN)
We have used a low-frequency magneto-thermopower (MTEP) method to probe the
high magnetic field ground state behavior of
-(BEDT-TTF)KHg(SCN) along all three principal crystallographic
axes at low temperatures. The thermopower tensor coefficients (
and ) have been measured to 30 T, beyond the anomalous low temperature,
field-induced transition at 22.5 T. We find a significant anisotropy in the
MTEP signal, and also observe large quantum oscillations associated with the de
Haas - van Alphen effect. The anisotropy indicates that the ground state
properties are clearly driven by mechanisms that occur along specific
directions for the in-plane electronic structure. Both transverse and
longitudinal magnetothermopower show asymptotic behavior in field, which can be
explained in terms of magnetic breakdown of compensated closed orbits.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure
Spin-polarized transport and Andreev reflection in semiconductor/superconductor hybrid structures
We show that spin-polarized electron transmission across
semiconductor/superconductor (Sm/S) hybrid structures depends sensitively on
the degree of spin polarization as well as the strengths of potential and
spin-flip scattering at the interface. We demonstrate that increasing the Fermi
velocity mismatch in the Sm and S regions can lead to enhanced junction
transparency in the presence of spin polarization. We find that the Andreev
reflection amplitude at the superconducting gap energy is a robust measure of
the spin polarization magnitude, being independent of the strengths of
potential and spin-flip scattering and the Fermi velocity of the
superconductor.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Improving Genetic Prediction by Leveraging Genetic Correlations Among Human Diseases and Traits
Genomic prediction has the potential to contribute to precision medicine. However, to date, the utility of such predictors is limited due to low accuracy for most traits. Here theory and simulation study are used to demonstrate that widespread pleiotropy among phenotypes can be utilised to improve genomic risk prediction. We show how a genetic predictor can be created as a weighted index that combines published genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics across many different traits. We apply this framework to predict risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in the Psychiatric Genomics consortium data, finding substantial heterogeneity in prediction accuracy increases across cohorts. For six additional phenotypes in the UK Biobank data, we find increases in prediction accuracy ranging from 0.7 for height to 47 for type 2 diabetes, when using a multi-trait predictor that combines published summary statistics from multiple traits, as compared to a predictor based only on one trait. © 2018 The Author(s)
Identification of common genetic risk variants for autism spectrum disorder
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly heritable and heterogeneous group of neurodevelopmental phenotypes diagnosed in more than 1% of children. Common genetic variants contribute substantially to ASD susceptibility, but to date no individual variants have been robustly associated with ASD. With a marked sample-size increase from a unique Danish population resource, we report a genome-wide association meta-analysis of 18,381 individuals with ASD and 27,969 controls that identified five genome-wide-significant loci. Leveraging GWAS results from three phenotypes with significantly overlapping genetic architectures (schizophrenia, major depression, and educational attainment), we identified seven additional loci shared with other traits at equally strict significance levels. Dissecting the polygenic architecture, we found both quantitative and qualitative polygenic heterogeneity across ASD subtypes. These results highlight biological insights, particularly relating to neuronal function and corticogenesis, and establish that GWAS performed at scale will be much more productive in the near term in ASD.Peer reviewe
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