Corrosion fatigue of iron-chromium-nickel alloys: Fracture mechanics, microstructure and chemistry

Phase transformation and cracking during RT aging of charged, high-purity Fe18Cr12Ni alloy and commerical 304 ss were examined; results show that [epsilon]* (hcp) hydride formed on Fe18Cr12Ni upon charging, and it decomposed rapidly to form first [epsilon] and then [alpha]' martensite. Morphology of fracture surfaces of Fe18Cr12Ni produced by corrosion fatigue in NaCl solutions and in hydrogen was found to be identical. Effort was made to examine the approaches and methodologies used in service life predictions and reliability analyses

Integral equation method for the electromagnetic wave propagation in stratified anisotropic dielectric-magnetic materials

We investigate the propagation of electromagnetic waves in stratified anisotropic dielectric-magnetic materials using the integral equation method (IEM). Based on the superposition principle, we use Hertz vector formulations of radiated fields to study the interaction of wave with matter. We derive in a new way the dispersion relation, Snell's law and reflection/transmission coefficients by self-consistent analyses. Moreover, we find two new forms of the generalized extinction theorem. Applying the IEM, we investigate the wave propagation through a slab and disclose the underlying physics which are further verified by numerical simulations. The results lead to a unified framework of the IEM for the propagation of wave incident either from a medium or vacuum in stratified dielectric-magnetic materials.Comment: 14pages, 3figure

Entanglement and Quantum Phase Transitions via Adiabatic Quantum Computation

For a finite XY chain and a finite two-dimensional Ising lattice, it is shown that the paramagnetic ground state is adiabatically transformed to the GHZ state in the ferromagnetic phase by slowly turning on the magnetic field. The fidelity between the GHZ state and an adiabatically evolved state shows a feature of the quantum phase transition.Comment: Revise

Path integral solution for an angle-dependent anharmonic oscillator

We have given a straightforward method to solve the problem of noncentral anharmonic oscillator in three dimensions. The relative propagator is presented by means of path integrals in spherical coordinates. By making an adequate change of time we were able to separate the angular motion from the radial one. The relative propagator is then exactly calculated. The energy spectrum and the corresponding wave functions are obtained.Comment: Corrected typos and mistakes, To appear in Communications in Theoretical Physic

Probabilistic instantaneous quantum computation

The principle of teleportation can be used to perform a quantum computation even before its quantum input is defined. The basic idea is to perform the quantum computation at some earlier time with qubits which are part of an entangled state. At a later time a generalized Bell state measurement is performed jointly on the then defined actual input qubits and the rest of the entangled state. This projects the output state onto the correct one with a certain exponentially small probability. The sufficient conditions are found under which the scheme is of benefit.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Modularisation strategies in the AEC industry:a comparative analysis

Many industries have benefited from modularisation; while in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry, the concept of modularisation is associated with dimensional coordination. This has added to an already extensive list of challenges due to market size and the concept of economies of scale in AEC industry, to name but a few. Moreover, there is a myth that the AEC industry is bound to stay associated with build-to-order or made-to-order approach caused the AEC industry to restrict modularisation to the component level. This changes the balance in favour of what this paper calls a bottom-up approach. On the other hand, a valid alternative strategy–referred to in this study as top-down strategy–remains very much underexploited. The clients, therefore, do not have a neutral means by which they can assess which strategy is in their best interest. Likewise, if a construction company plans to make a strategic move towards the principles of modularisation and off-site manufacturing, they do not have clear decision support tools. This study investigates these two main modularisation strategies in the AEC industry to provide some examples of successful cases regarding how, when and where such strategy have been applied by different construction companies in different cases. The collected and collated empirical data and the results from the interviews will help clients and companies to analyse their own cases and make operational decisions on how, when and where to best utilise the bottom-up and top-down modularisation techniques while considering the pros and cons of such decisions

An assessment of pulse transit time for detecting heavy blood loss during surgical operation

Copyright @ Wang et al.; Licensee Bentham Open. This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.The main contribution of this paper is the use of non-invasive measurements such as electrocardiogram (ECG) and photoplethysmographic (PPG) pulse oximetry waveforms to develop a new physiological signal analysis technique for detecting blood loss during surgical operation. Urological surgery cases were considered as the control group due to its generality, and cardiac surgery as experimental group since it involves blood loss and water supply. Results show that the control group has the tendency of a reduction of the pulse transient time (PTT), and this indicates an increment in the blood flow velocity changes from slow to fast. While for the experimental group, the PTT indicates high values during blood loss, and low values during water supply. Statistical analysis shows considerable differences (i.e., P <0.05) between both groups leading to the conclusion that PTT could be a good indicator for monitoring patients' blood loss during a surgical operation.The National Science Council (NSC) of Taiwan and the Centre for Dynamical Biomarkers and Translational Medicine, National Central University, Taiwan

Effects of acceleration on the collision of particles in the rotating black hole spacetime

We study the collision of two geodesic particles in the accelerating and rotating black hole spacetime and probe the effects of the acceleration of black hole on the center-of-mass energy of the colliding particles and on the high-velocity collision belts. We find that the dependence of the center-of-mass energy on the acceleration in the near event-horizon collision is different from that in the near acceleration-horizon case. Moreover, the presence of the acceleration changes the shape and position of the high-velocity collision belts. Our results show that the acceleration of black holes brings richer physics for the collision of particles.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, The corrected version accepted for publication in EPJ

Exact Master Equation and Non-Markovian Decoherence for Quantum Dot Quantum Computing

In this article, we report the recent progress on decoherence dynamics of electrons in quantum dot quantum computing systems using the exact master equation we derived recently based on the Feynman-Vernon influence functional approach. The exact master equation is valid for general nanostructure systems coupled to multi-reservoirs with arbitrary spectral densities, temperatures and biases. We take the double quantum dot charge qubit system as a specific example, and discuss in details the decoherence dynamics of the charge qubit under coherence controls. The decoherence dynamics risen from the entanglement between the system and the environment is mainly non-Markovian. We further discuss the decoherence of the double-dot charge qubit induced by quantum point contact (QPC) measurement where the master equation is re-derived using the Keldysh non-equilibrium Green function technique due to the non-linear coupling between the charge qubit and the QPC. The non-Markovian decoherence dynamics in the measurement processes is extensively discussed as well.Comment: 15 pages, Invited article for the special issue "Quantum Decoherence and Entanglement" in Quantum Inf. Proces

Noncommutative Dipole Field Theories And Unitarity

We extend the argument of Gomis and Mehen for violation of unitarity in field theories with space-time noncommutativity to dipole field theories. In dipole field theories with a timelike dipole vector, we present 1-loop amplitudes that violate the optical theorem. A quantum mechanical system with nonlocal potential of finite extent in time also shows violation of unitarity.Comment: typos corrected, more details added in Sec 5, version to appear in JHE