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Predicting and Controlling Resolution and Surface Finish of Ceramic Objects Produced by Stereodeposition Processes
Stereodeposition techniques are well suited for the Solid Freeform Fabrication of dense ceramic
components. As opposed to forming a pattern in a particle bed or polymer bath, stereodeposition
processes deposit material directly onto the previously created layer. The key to stereodeposition is
a material's ability to be dispensed as a fluid, yet rapidly stiffen to hold the shape of the object.
This is accomplished by either solidification of a thermoplastic binder upon cooling from a melt
(Fused Deposition) or by polymerization of a binder (Reactive Stereodeposition). We are
developing both techniques for the production of functional ceramic and engineering polymer
objects.
A key issue in developing a successful stereodeposition system is controlling the rate of bead
transformation from liquid to solid. Control is critical to achieving high resolution and low surface
roughness of the finished product, but is made complex by the large number of parameters
involved. These include binder parameters (surface tension, gelling characteristics), slurry
parameters (viscosity, particle loading and size distribution), and process parameters (deposition
rate, temperature). Current efforts at the University of Arizona are focused on modeling and
controlling the deposition and transformation of ceramic slurries used in the Reactive
Stereodeposition process.Mechanical Engineerin
Milagrito: a TeV air-shower array
Milagrito, a large, covered water-Cherenkov detector, was the world's first
air-shower-particle detector sensitive to cosmic gamma rays below 1 TeV. It
served as a prototype for the Milagro detector and operated from February 1997
to May 1998. This paper gives a description of Milagrito, a summary of the
operating experience, and early results that demonstrate the capabilities of
this technique.Comment: 38 pages including 24 figure
Learning Mazes with Aliasing States: An LCS Algorithm with Associative Perception
Learning classifier systems (LCSs) belong to a class of algorithms based on the principle of self-organization and have frequently been applied to the task of solving mazes, an important type of reinforcement learning (RL) problem. Maze problems represent a simplified virtual model of real environments that can be used for developing core algorithms of many real-world applications related to the problem of navigation. However, the best achievements of LCSs in maze problems are still mostly bounded to non-aliasing environments, while LCS complexity seems to obstruct a proper analysis of the reasons of failure. We construct a new LCS agent that has a simpler and more transparent performance mechanism, but that can still solve mazes better than existing algorithms. We use the structure of a predictive LCS model, strip out the evolutionary mechanism, simplify the reinforcement learning procedure and equip the agent with the ability of associative perception, adopted from psychology. To improve our understanding of the nature and structure of maze environments, we analyze mazes used in research for the last two decades, introduce a set of maze complexity characteristics, and develop a set of new maze environments. We then run our new LCS with associative perception through the old and new aliasing mazes, which represent partially observable Markov decision problems (POMDP) and demonstrate that it performs at least as well as, and in some cases better than, other published systems
Asymptotic stability of breathers in some Hamiltonian networks of weakly coupled oscillators
We consider a Hamiltonian chain of weakly coupled anharmonic oscillators. It
is well known that if the coupling is weak enough then the system admits
families of periodic solutions exponentially localized in space (breathers). In
this paper we prove asymptotic stability in energy space of such solutions. The
proof is based on two steps: first we use canonical perturbation theory to put
the system in a suitable normal form in a neighborhood of the breather, second
we use dispersion in order to prove asymptotic stability. The main limitation
of the result rests in the fact that the nonlinear part of the on site
potential is required to have a zero of order 8 at the origin. From a technical
point of view the theory differs from that developed for Hamiltonian PDEs due
to the fact that the breather is not a relative equilibrium of the system
Upper critical field for underdoped high-T_c superconductors. Pseudogap and stripe--phase
We investigate the upper critical field in a stripe--phase and in the
presence of a phenomenological pseudogap. Our results indicate that the
formation of stripes affects the Landau orbits and results in an enhancement of
. On the other hand, phenomenologically introduced pseudogap leads to a
reduction of the upper critical field. This effect is of particular importance
when the magnitude of the gap is of the order of the superconducting transition
temperature. We have found that a suppression of the upper critical field takes
place also for the gap that originates from the charge--density waves.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
A systematic review of techniques and effects of self-help interventions for tinnitus: application of taxonomies from health psychology
Objective: Self-help interventions are followed by people independently with minimal or no therapist contact. This review aims to assess the effectiveness of self-help interventions for adults with chronic tinnitus and systematically identify the self-help techniques used. Design: Systematic review and application of health psychology taxonomies. Electronic database searches were conducted, supplemented by citation searching and hand-searching of key journals. Prospective controlled trials, which used measures of tinnitus distress, functional management, anxiety, depression, and quality of life, were included. Michie et al’s behaviour change techniques (BCTs) taxonomy and Taylor et al’s PRISMS taxonomy of self-management components were applied to describe interventions. Study sample: Five studies were included, providing low-to-moderate levels of evidence. Results: Randomized controlled trial studies were too few and heterogeneous for meta-analysis to be performed. Studies comparing self-help interventions to therapist-guided interventions and assessing non tinnitus-specific psychosocial outcomes and functional management were lacking. Fifteen BCTs and eight self-management components were identified across interventions. Conclusions: A lack of high-quality and homogeneous studies meant that confident conclusions could not be drawn regarding the efficacy of self-help interventions for tinnitus. Better reporting and categorization of intervention techniques is needed for replication in research and practice and to facilitate understanding of intervention mechanisms
Red Queen Coevolution on Fitness Landscapes
Species do not merely evolve, they also coevolve with other organisms.
Coevolution is a major force driving interacting species to continuously evolve
ex- ploring their fitness landscapes. Coevolution involves the coupling of
species fit- ness landscapes, linking species genetic changes with their
inter-specific ecological interactions. Here we first introduce the Red Queen
hypothesis of evolution com- menting on some theoretical aspects and empirical
evidences. As an introduction to the fitness landscape concept, we review key
issues on evolution on simple and rugged fitness landscapes. Then we present
key modeling examples of coevolution on different fitness landscapes at
different scales, from RNA viruses to complex ecosystems and macroevolution.Comment: 40 pages, 12 figures. To appear in "Recent Advances in the Theory and
Application of Fitness Landscapes" (H. Richter and A. Engelbrecht, eds.).
Springer Series in Emergence, Complexity, and Computation, 201
Competing orders in a magnetic field: spin and charge order in the cuprate superconductors
We describe two-dimensional quantum spin fluctuations in a superconducting
Abrikosov flux lattice induced by a magnetic field applied to a doped Mott
insulator. Complete numerical solutions of a self-consistent large N theory
provide detailed information on the phase diagram and on the spatial structure
of the dynamic spin spectrum. Our results apply to phases with and without
long-range spin density wave order and to the magnetic quantum critical point
separating these phases. We discuss the relationship of our results to a number
of recent neutron scattering measurements on the cuprate superconductors in the
presence of an applied field. We compute the pinning of static charge order by
the vortex cores in the `spin gap' phase where the spin order remains
dynamically fluctuating, and argue that these results apply to recent scanning
tunnelling microscopy (STM) measurements. We show that with a single typical
set of values for the coupling constants, our model describes the field
dependence of the elastic neutron scattering intensities, the absence of
satellite Bragg peaks associated with the vortex lattice in existing neutron
scattering observations, and the spatial extent of charge order in STM
observations. We mention implications of our theory for NMR experiments. We
also present a theoretical discussion of more exotic states that can be built
out of the spin and charge order parameters, including spin nematics and phases
with `exciton fractionalization'.Comment: 36 pages, 33 figures; for a popular introduction, see
http://onsager.physics.yale.edu/superflow.html; (v2) Added reference to new
work of Chen and Ting; (v3) reorganized presentation for improved clarity,
and added new appendix on microscopic origin; (v4) final published version
with minor change
Evolution of the nuclear spin-orbit splitting explored via the <sup>32</sup>Si<i>(d,p)</i><sup>33</sup>Si reaction using SOLARIS
The spin-orbit splitting between neutron 1p orbitals at 33Si has been deduced using the single-neutron-adding (d,p) reaction in inverse kinematics with a beam of 32Si, a long-lived radioisotope. Reaction products were analyzed by the newly implemented SOLARIS spectrometer at the reaccelerated-beam facility at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. The measurements show reasonable agreement with shell-model calculations that incorporate modern cross-shell interactions, but they contradict the prediction of proton density depletion based on relativistic mean-field theory. The evolution of the neutron 1p-shell orbitals is systematically studied using the present and existing data in the isotonic chains of = 17, 19, and 21. In each case, a smooth decrease in the separation of the - orbitals is seen as the respective p-orbitals approach zero binding, suggesting that the finite nuclear potential strongly influences the evolution of nuclear structure in this region
Longitudinal double-spin asymmetry and cross section for inclusive neutral pion production at midrapidity in polarized proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV
We report a measurement of the longitudinal double-spin asymmetry A_LL and
the differential cross section for inclusive Pi0 production at midrapidity in
polarized proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV. The cross section was
measured over a transverse momentum range of 1 < p_T < 17 GeV/c and found to be
in good agreement with a next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculation.
The longitudinal double-spin asymmetry was measured in the range of 3.7 < p_T <
11 GeV/c and excludes a maximal positive gluon polarization in the proton. The
mean transverse momentum fraction of Pi0's in their parent jets was found to be
around 0.7 for electromagnetically triggered events.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D (RC
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