Self-healing WS2 tribofilms: An in-situ appraisal of mechanisms

Self-healing tribocoatings are being developed for aerospace applications to improve the lifetime and reduce the surface maintenance of components in motion. Here the tribo-induced self-healing behaviour of a WS2/a-C tribocoating has been evaluated for the first time by in-situ scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to evaluate the mechanisms of damage and self-recovery. In-situ SEM imaging reveals that scratch damage results in coating brittle fracture and spalling, and that Hertzian pressure affects healing rate at early stages of sliding. WS2 nanocrystallites, formed via atomic rearrangement at flexural interfaces, enable the healing of irregular damages and congruently offer superlubrication in vacuum. Such damage control in tribo-service may make flawless coatings an unnecessary prerequisite in tribo-applications

Boolean Game on Scale-free Networks

Inspired by the local minority game, we propose a network Boolean game and investigate its dynamical properties on scale-free networks. The system can self-organize to a stable state with better performance than random choice game, although only the local information is available to the agent. By introducing the heterogeneity of local interactions, we find the system has the best performance when each agent's interaction frequency is linear correlated with its information capacity. Generally, the agents with more information gain more than those with less information, while in the optimal case, each agent almost has the same average profit. In addition, we investigate the role of irrational factor and find an interesting symmetrical behavior.Comment: 12 pages and 6 figure

Applying Factor Analysis Combined with Kriging and Information Entropy Theory for Mapping and Evaluating the Stability of Groundwater Quality Variation in Taiwan

In Taiwan many factors, whether geological parent materials, human activities, and climate change, can affect the groundwater quality and its stability. This work combines factor analysis and kriging with information entropy theory to interpret the stability of groundwater quality variation in Taiwan between 2005 and 2007. Groundwater quality demonstrated apparent differences between the northern and southern areas of Taiwan when divided by the Wu River. Approximately 52% of the monitoring wells in southern Taiwan suffered from progressing seawater intrusion, causing unstable groundwater quality. Industrial and livestock wastewaters also polluted 59.6% of the monitoring wells, resulting in elevated EC and TOC concentrations in the groundwater. In northern Taiwan, domestic wastewaters polluted city groundwater, resulting in higher NH3-N concentration and groundwater quality instability was apparent among 10.3% of the monitoring wells. The method proposed in this study for analyzing groundwater quality inspects common stability factors, identifies potential areas influenced by common factors, and assists in elevating and reinforcing information in support of an overall groundwater management strategy

CDK Inhibitor p18INK4c Is a Downstream Target of GATA3 and Restrains Mammary Luminal Progenitor Cell Proliferation and Tumorigenesis

Mammary epithelia are composed of luminal and myoepithelial/basal cells whose neoplastic transformations lead to distinct types of breast cancers with diverse clinical features. We report that mice deficient for the CDK4/6 inhibitor p18Ink4c spontaneously develop ER-positive luminal tumors at a high penetrance. Ink4c deletion stimulates luminal progenitor cell proliferation at pubertal age and maintains an expanded luminal progenitor cell population throughout life. We demonstrate that GATA3 binds to and represses INK4C transcription. In human breast cancers, low INK4C and high GATA3 expressions are simultaneously observed in luminal A type tumors and predict a favorable patient outcome. Hence, p18INK4C is a downstream target of GATA3, constrains luminal progenitor cell expansion and suppresses luminal tumorigenesis in the mammary gland

Centrality and transverse momentum dependence of elliptic flow of multi-strange hadrons and ϕ\phi meson in Au+Au collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200 GeV

We present high precision measurements of elliptic flow near midrapidity ($|y|<1.0$) for multi-strange hadrons and $\phi$ meson as a function of centrality and transverse momentum in Au+Au collisions at center of mass energy $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$ 200 GeV. We observe that the transverse momentum dependence of $\phi$ and $\Omega$ $v_{2}$ is similar to that of $\pi$ and $p$, respectively, which may indicate that the heavier strange quark flows as strongly as the lighter up and down quarks. This observation constitutes a clear piece of evidence for the development of partonic collectivity in heavy-ion collisions at the top RHIC energy. Number of constituent quark scaling is found to hold within statistical uncertainty for both 0-30$\%$ and 30-80$\%$ collision centrality. There is an indication of the breakdown of previously observed mass ordering between $\phi$ and proton $v_{2}$ at low transverse momentum in the 0-30$\%$ centrality range, possibly indicating late hadronic interactions affecting the proton $v_{2}$.Comment: 7 pages and 4 figures, Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Elliptic flow of electrons from heavy-flavor hadron decays in Au+Au collisions at sNN=\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 200, 62.4, and 39 GeV

We present measurements of elliptic flow ($v_2$) of electrons from the decays of heavy-flavor hadrons ($e_{HF}$) by the STAR experiment. For Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} =$ 200 GeV we report $v_2$, for transverse momentum ($p_T$) between 0.2 and 7 GeV/c using three methods: the event plane method ($v_{2}${EP}), two-particle correlations ($v_2${2}), and four-particle correlations ($v_2${4}). For Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 62.4 and 39 GeV we report $v_2${2} for $p_T< 2$ GeV/c. $v_2${2} and $v_2${4} are non-zero at low and intermediate $p_T$ at 200 GeV, and $v_2${2} is consistent with zero at low $p_T$ at other energies. The $v_2${2} at the two lower beam energies is systematically lower than at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} =$ 200 GeV for $p_T < 1$ GeV/c. This difference may suggest that charm quarks interact less strongly with the surrounding nuclear matter at those two lower energies compared to $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 200$ GeV.Comment: Version accepted by PR

Centrality dependence of identified particle elliptic flow in relativistic heavy ion collisions at sqrt(s)= 7.7--62.4 GeV

Elliptic flow (v_2) values for identified particles at midrapidity in Au + Au collisions measured by the STAR experiment in the Beam Energy Scan at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at sqrt{s_{NN}}= 7.7--62.4 GeV are presented for three centrality classes. The centrality dependence and the data at sqrt{s_{NN}}= 14.5 GeV are new. Except at the lowest beam energies we observe a similar relative v_2 baryon-meson splitting for all centrality classes which is in agreement within 15% with the number-of-constituent quark scaling. The larger v_2 for most particles relative to antiparticles, already observed for minimum bias collisions, shows a clear centrality dependence, with the largest difference for the most central collisions. Also, the results are compared with A Multiphase Transport Model and fit with a Blast Wave model.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, Phys. Rev. C, to be published. Data tables available at https://drupal.star.bnl.gov/STAR/publications/centrality-dependence-identified-particle-elliptic-flow-relativistic-heavy-ion-collisi