2,175 research outputs found
Investigation of reliability attributes and accelerated stress factors on terrestrial solar cells
Major effort during this reporting period was devoted to two tasks: improvement of the electrical measurement instrumentation through the design and construction of a microcomputer controlled short interval tester, and better understanding of second quadrant behavior by developing a mathematical model relating cell temperature to electrical characteristics. In addition, some preliminary work is reported on an investigation into color changes observed after stressing
The Power of Duples (in Self-Assembly): It's Not So Hip To Be Square
In this paper we define the Dupled abstract Tile Assembly Model (DaTAM),
which is a slight extension to the abstract Tile Assembly Model (aTAM) that
allows for not only the standard square tiles, but also "duple" tiles which are
rectangles pre-formed by the joining of two square tiles. We show that the
addition of duples allows for powerful behaviors of self-assembling systems at
temperature 1, meaning systems which exclude the requirement of cooperative
binding by tiles (i.e., the requirement that a tile must be able to bind to at
least 2 tiles in an existing assembly if it is to attach). Cooperative binding
is conjectured to be required in the standard aTAM for Turing universal
computation and the efficient self-assembly of shapes, but we show that in the
DaTAM these behaviors can in fact be exhibited at temperature 1. We then show
that the DaTAM doesn't provide asymptotic improvements over the aTAM in its
ability to efficiently build thin rectangles. Finally, we present a series of
results which prove that the temperature-2 aTAM and temperature-1 DaTAM have
mutually exclusive powers. That is, each is able to self-assemble shapes that
the other can't, and each has systems which cannot be simulated by the other.
Beyond being of purely theoretical interest, these results have practical
motivation as duples have already proven to be useful in laboratory
implementations of DNA-based tiles
Variational bound on energy dissipation in turbulent shear flow
We present numerical solutions to the extended Doering-Constantin variational
principle for upper bounds on the energy dissipation rate in plane Couette
flow, bridging the entire range from low to asymptotically high Reynolds
numbers. Our variational bound exhibits structure, namely a pronounced minimum
at intermediate Reynolds numbers, and recovers the Busse bound in the
asymptotic regime. The most notable feature is a bifurcation of the minimizing
wavenumbers, giving rise to simple scaling of the optimized variational
parameters, and of the upper bound, with the Reynolds number.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, 5 postscript figures are available as one .tar.gz
file from [email protected]
Population-Induced Phase Transitions and the Verification of Chemical Reaction Networks
We show that very simple molecular systems, modeled as chemical reaction networks, can have behaviors that exhibit dramatic phase transitions at certain population thresholds. Moreover, the magnitudes of these thresholds can thwart attempts to use simulation, model checking, or approximation by differential equations to formally verify the behaviors of such systems at realistic populations. We show how formal theorem provers can successfully verify some such systems at populations where other verification methods fail
Morphological variation in Leptodactylus lutzi (Anura, Leptodactylidae) with description of its advertisement call and notes on its courtship behavior
Prior to this study, Leptodactylus lutzi was known only from three localities in west-central Guyana. We refer here to a series of 60 additional specimens of L. lutzi collected in Kaieteur National Park, Mount Ayanganna, Mount Wokomung and the Merume Mountains in the Pakaraima Mountains region, substantially extending the known distribution of the species. We provide a revised diagnosis and an expanded description of L. lutzi discussing the extent of color-pattern variation in the species. Additionally, we describe its advertisement call and provide data on its reproductive biology
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