3,617 research outputs found
International Cometary Explorer (ICE)
The primary mission objectives of the International Cometary Explorer (ICE) Comet Mission are to determine the composition and physical state of the Giacobini-Zinner Comet's nucleus; to determine the processes that governs the composition and distribution of neutral and ionized species in the cometary atmosphere; and to investigate the interaction between the solar wind and the cometary atmosphere. The spacecraft was in a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth libration point until it was moved 10 Jun. 1982 to the Earth's Geomagnetic Tail (GT). The spacecraft reached the GT in Jan. 1983 and remained there until Dec. 1983, at which time a lunar swing-by placed the spacecraft in a trajectory heliocentric orbit which encountered the comet Giacobini-Zinner in Sep. 1985. The spacecraft provided observations of solar wind upstream of Halley's Comet in 1986. Information is presented in tabular form and includes the following areas: Deep Space Network support, frequency assignments, telemetry, command, and tracking support responsibilities
Some Further Results for the Stationary Points and Dynamics of Supercooled Liquids
We present some new theoretical and computational results for the stationary
points of bulk systems. First we demonstrate how the potential energy surface
can be partitioned into catchment basins associated with every stationary point
using a combination of Newton-Raphson and eigenvector-following techniques.
Numerical results are presented for a 256-atom supercell representation of a
binary Lennard-Jones system. We then derive analytical formulae for the number
of stationary points as a function of both system size and the Hessian index,
using a framework based upon weakly interacting subsystems. This analysis
reveals a simple relation between the total number of stationary points, the
number of local minima, and the number of transition states connected on
average to each minimum. Finally we calculate two measures of localisation for
the displacements corresponding to Hessian eigenvectors in samples of
stationary points obtained from the Newton-Raphson-based geometry optimisation
scheme. Systematic differences are found between the properties of eigenvectors
corresponding to positive and negative Hessian eigenvalues, and localised
character is most pronounced for stationary points with low values of the
Hessian index.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure
Dutch listeners' use of suprasegmental cues to English stress
Dutch listeners outperform native listeners in identifying syllable stress in English. This is because lexical stress is more useful in recognition of spoken words of Dutch than of English, so that Dutch listeners pay greater attention to stress in general. We examined Dutch listeners’ use of the acoustic correlates of English stress. Primary- and secondary-stressed syllables differ significantly on acoustic measures, and some differences, in F0 especially, correlate with data of earlier listening experiments. The correlations found in the Dutch responses were not paralleled in data from native listeners. Thus the acoustic cues which distinguish English primary versus secondary stress are better exploited by Dutch than by native listeners
Landscapes, dynamic heterogeneity and kinetic facilitation in a simple off-lattice model
We present a simple off-lattice hard-disc model that exhibits glassy
dynamics. The inherent structures are enumerated exactly, transitions between
metabasins are well understood, and the particle configurations that act to
facilitate dynamics are easily identified. The model readily maps to a coarse
grained dynamic facilitation description.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PR
Understanding the role of ions and water molecules in the NaCl dissolution process
The dissolution of NaCl in water is one of the most common everyday
processes, yet it remains poorly understood at the molecular level. Here we
report the results of an extensive density functional theory study in which the
initial stages of NaCl dissolution have been examined at low water coverages.
Our specific approach is to study how the energetic cost of moving an ion or a
pair of ions to a less coordinated site at the surface of various NaCl crystals
varies with the number of water molecules adsorbed on the surface. This
"microsolvation" approach allows us to study the dependence of the defect
energies on the number of water molecules in the cluster and thus to establish
when and where dissolution becomes favorable. Moreover, this approach allows us
to understand the roles of the individual ions and water molecules in the
dissolution process. Consistent with previous work we identify a clear
preference for dissolution of Cl ions over Na ions. However, the detailed
information obtained here leads to the conclusion that the process is governed
by the higher affinity of the water molecules to Na ions than to Cl ions. The
Cl ions are released first as this exposes more Na ions at the surface creating
favorable adsorption sites for water. We discuss how this mechanism is likely
to be effective for other alkali halides
NP-hardness of the cluster minimization problem revisited
The computational complexity of the "cluster minimization problem" is
revisited [L. T. Wille and J. Vennik, J. Phys. A 18, L419 (1985)]. It is argued
that the original NP-hardness proof does not apply to pairwise potentials of
physical interest, such as those that depend on the geometric distance between
the particles. A geometric analog of the original problem is formulated, and a
new proof for such potentials is provided by polynomial time transformation
from the independent set problem for unit disk graphs. Limitations of this
formulation are pointed out, and new subproblems that bear more direct
consequences to the numerical study of clusters are suggested.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, accepted to J. Phys. A: Math. and Ge
NADP-Dependent Aliphatic Alcohol Dehydrogenases in Micro-Organisms
1. NADP-dependent aliphatic alcohol dehydrogenases had been previously identified in various strains of Acinetobacter calcoaceticus, including A. calcoaceticus NCIB 8250 and Acinetobacter sp. HO1-N. During the course of this study similar enzymes were identified in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae D273-10B and in all of the other Gram negative and Gram positive eubacteria and yeasts that were examined. This thesis is chiefly concerned with purification and characterisation of these enzymes in A. calcoaceticus and S. cerevisiae and with studies on the physiological role of the enzyme of A. calcoaceticus
Excess entropy, Diffusivity and Structural Order in liquids with water-like anomalies
The excess entropy, Se, defined as the difference between the entropies of
the liquid and the ideal gas under identical density and temperature
conditions, is shown to be the critical quantity connecting the structural,
diffusional and density anomalies in water-like liquids. Based on simulations
of silica and the two-scale ramp liquids, water-like density and diffusional
anomalies can be seen as consequences of a characteristic non-monotonic density
dependence of Se. The relationship between excess entropy, the order metrics
and the structural anomaly can be understood using a pair correlation
approximation to Se.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figues in ps forma
The Origins of Phase Transitions in Small Systems
The identification and classification of phases in small systems, e.g.
nuclei, social and financial networks, clusters, and biological systems, where
the traditional definitions of phase transitions are not applicable, is
important to obtain a deeper understanding of the phenomena observed in such
systems. Within a simple statistical model we investigate the validity and
applicability of different classification schemes for phase transtions in small
systems. We show that the whole complex temperature plane contains necessary
information in order to give a distinct classification.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, revtex 4 beta 5, for further information see
http://www.smallsystems.d
Thermodynamics and the Global Optimization of Lennard-Jones clusters
Theoretical design of global optimization algorithms can profitably utilize
recent statistical mechanical treatments of potential energy surfaces (PES's).
Here we analyze the basin-hopping algorithm to explain its success in locating
the global minima of Lennard-Jones (LJ) clusters, even those such as \LJ{38}
for which the PES has a multiple-funnel topography, where trapping in local
minima with different morphologies is expected. We find that a key factor in
overcoming trapping is the transformation applied to the PES which broadens the
thermodynamic transitions. The global minimum then has a significant
probability of occupation at temperatures where the free energy barriers
between funnels are surmountable.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, revte
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