Crossovers in the Two Dimensional Ising Spin Glass with ferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor interactions

By means of extensive computer simulations we analyze in detail the two dimensional $\pm J$ Ising spin glass with ferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor interactions. We found a crossover from ferromagnetic to ``spin glass'' like order both from numerical simulations and analytical arguments. We also present evidences of a second crossover from the ``spin glass'' behavior to a paramagnetic phase for the largest volume studied.Comment: 19 pages with 9 postscript figures also available at http://chimera.roma1.infn.it/index_papers_complex.html. Some changes in captions of figures 1 and

Nonequilibrium Dynamics and Aging in the Three--Dimensional Ising Spin Glass Model

The low temperature dynamics of the three dimensional Ising spin glass in zero field with a discrete bond distribution is investigated via MC simulations. The thermoremanent magnetization is found to decay algebraically and the temperature dependent exponents agree very well with the experimentally determined values. The nonequilibrium autocorrelation function $C(t,t_w)$ shows a crossover at the waiting (or {\em aging}) time $t_w$ from algebraic {\em quasi-equilibrium} decay for times $t$$\ll$$t_w$ to another, faster algebraic decay for $t$$\gg$$t_w$ with an exponent similar to one for the remanent magnetization.Comment: Revtex, 11 pages + 4 figures (included as Latex-files

Evaluation of a microbial muramidase supplementation on growth performance, apparent ileal digestibility, and intestinal histology of broiler chickens

The current study evaluated the effects of different inclusion levels of microbial muramidase (Muramidase 007, DSM Nutritional Products) on gastrointestinal functionality by determination of apparent ileal digestibility (AID) of nutrients, investigation of intestinal histomorphology, and quantification of resulting growth performance. Four maize-wheat-soybean experimental diets were produced without (C) and with different dosages of muramidase: low (L, 25,000 LSU(F)/kg), medium (M, 35,000 LSU(F)/kg), and high (H, 45,000 LSU(F)/kg); diets were fed to broilers for 35 d. At the end of the experiment, AID of ether extract (EE), crude protein (CP), Ca, and P were determined and samples of the mid-jejunum and -ileum were collected for histomorphological observations. Data were subjected to ANOVA analysis using the GLM procedure. Orthogonal polynomial contrasts were used to assess linear and quadratic effects of different levels of the muramidase. At the end of the trial, Muramidase 007 supplementation linearly increased body weight gain and decreased feed conversion ratio (FCR) (P ≤ 0.05). Adding the muramidase to broiler diets also linearly increased the European poultry efficiency factor (P ≤ 0.05). Inclusion of the muramidase in broiler diets linearly increased AID of CP, EE, and P (P ≤ 0.05), and the H group had a higher AID of EE and CP compared to C group (P ≤ 0.05). Microbial muramidase supplementation linearly increased ileal villus length to crypt depth ratio and decreased the number of ileal CD45 cells (P ≤ 0.05). Broilers fed M and H diets had fewer number of CD45 cells in the ileum compared to those in C group (P ≤ 0.05). In conclusion, the results of the present study demonstrated that inclusion of the microbial muramidase in broiler diets could increase AID of key nutrients and improve growth performance in broilers. Adding microbial muramidase to broiler diets can therefore be considered as an interesting prospect to improve gastrointestinal functionality. Biological mechanisms causing these improvements need to be studied further

Chaos in the Random Field Ising Model

The sensitivity of the random field Ising model to small random perturbations of the quenched disorder is studied via exact ground states obtained with a maximum-flow algorithm. In one and two space dimensions we find a mild form of chaos, meaning that the overlap of the old, unperturbed ground state and the new one is smaller than one, but extensive. In three dimensions the rearrangements are marginal (concentrated in the well defined domain walls). Implications for finite temperature variations and experiments are discussed.Comment: 4 pages RevTeX, 6 eps-figures include