14,643 research outputs found
Swinging and tumbling of elastic capsules in shear flow
The deformation of an elastic micro-capsule in an infinite shear flow is
studied numerically using a spectral method. The shape of the capsule and the
hydrodynamic flow field are expanded into smooth basis functions. Analytic
expressions for the derivative of the basis functions permit the evaluation of
elastic and hydrodynamic stresses and bending forces at specified grid points
in the membrane. Compared to methods employing a triangulation scheme, this
method has the advantage that the resulting capsule shapes are automatically
smooth, and few modes are needed to describe the deformation accurately.
Computations are performed for capsules both with spherical and ellipsoidal
unstressed reference shape. Results for small deformations of initially
spherical capsules coincide with analytic predictions. For initially
ellipsoidal capsules, recent approximative theories predict stable oscillations
of the tank-treading inclination angle, and a transition to tumbling at low
shear rate. Both phenomena have also been observed experimentally. Using our
numerical approach we could reproduce both the oscillations and the transition
to tumbling. The full phase diagram for varying shear rate and viscosity ratio
is explored. While the numerically obtained phase diagram qualitatively agrees
with the theory, intermittent behaviour could not be observed within our
simulation time. Our results suggest that initial tumbling motion is only
transient in this region of the phase diagram.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure
The Effects of Cardiac Specialty Hospitals on the Cost and Quality of Medical Care
The recent rise of specialty hospitals -- typically for-profit firms that are at least partially owned by physicians -- has led to substantial debate about their effects on the cost and quality of care. Advocates of specialty hospitals claim they improve quality and lower cost; critics contend they concentrate on providing profitable procedures and attracting relatively healthy patients, leaving (predominantly nonprofit) general hospitals with a less-remunerative, sicker patient population. We find support for both sides of this debate. Markets experiencing entry by a cardiac specialty hospital have lower spending for cardiac care without significantly worse clinical outcomes. In markets with a specialty hospital, however, specialty hospitals tend to attract healthier patients and provide higher levels of intensive procedures than general hospitals.
Temporal frequency dependence of the polarity inversion between upper and lower visual field in the pattern-onset steady-state visual evoked potential
Purpose: According to the cruciform model, the upper and lower halves of the visual field representation in the primary visual cortex are located mainly on the opposite sides of the calcarine sulcus. Such a shape would have consequences for the surface-recorded visual evoked potential (VEP), as V1 responses to stimulation of the upper and lower hemifield manifest with opposite polarity (i.e., polarity inversion). However, the steady-state VEP results from a complex superposition of response components from different cortical sources, which can obscure the inversion of polarity. The present study assesses the issue for different stimulation frequencies which result in different patterns of superposition in the steady-state response. Methods: Sequences of brief pattern-onset stimuli were presented at different stimulation rates ranging from 2 Hz (transient VEP) to 13 Hz (steady-state VEP). The upper and lower hemifields were tested separately and simultaneously. The data were assessed both in the time domain and in the frequency domain. Results: Comparing the responses to the stimulation of upper and lower hemifield, polarity inversion was present within a limited time interval following individual stimulus onsets. With increasing frequency, this resulted in an approximate inversion of the full steady-state response and consequently in a phase shift of approximately 180° in the time-domain response. Polarity inversion was more prominent at electrode Pz, also for transient responses. Our data also demonstrated that the sum of the hemifield responses is a good approximation of the full-field response. Conclusion: While the basic phenomenon of polarity inversion occurs irrespective of the stimulus frequency, its relative impact on the steady-state response as a whole is the largest for high stimulation rates. We propose that this is because longer-lasting response components from other visual areas are not well represented in the steady-state VEP at higher frequencies
Solution of an infection model near threshold
We study the Susceptible-Infected-Recovered model of epidemics in the
vicinity of the threshold infectivity. We derive the distribution of total
outbreak size in the limit of large population size . This is accomplished
by mapping the problem to the first passage time of a random walker subject to
a drift that increases linearly with time. We recover the scaling results of
Ben-Naim and Krapivsky that the effective maximal size of the outbreak scales
as , with the average scaling as , with an explicit form for
the scaling function
Signatures of Dark Matter Scattering Inelastically Off Nuclei
Direct dark matter detection focuses on elastic scattering of dark matter
particles off nuclei. In this study, we explore inelastic scattering where the
nucleus is excited to a low-lying state of 10-100 keV, with subsequent prompt
de-excitation. We calculate the inelastic structure factors for the odd-mass
xenon isotopes based on state-of-the-art large-scale shell-model calculations
with chiral effective field theory WIMP-nucleon currents. For these cases, we
find that the inelastic channel is comparable to or can dominate the elastic
channel for momentum transfers around 150 MeV. We calculate the inelastic
recoil spectra in the standard halo model, compare these to the elastic case,
and discuss the expected signatures in a xenon detector, along with
implications for existing and future experiments. The combined information from
elastic and inelastic scattering will allow to determine the dominant
interaction channel within one experiment. In addition, the two channels probe
different regions of the dark matter velocity distribution and can provide
insight into the dark halo structure. The allowed recoil energy domain and the
recoil energy at which the integrated inelastic rates start to dominate the
elastic channel depend on the mass of the dark matter particle, thus providing
a potential handle to constrain its mass.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures. Matches resubmitted version to Phys. Rev. D. One
figure added; supplemental material (fits to the structure functions) added
as an Appendi
Microscopic Selection of Fluid Fingering Pattern
We study the issue of the selection of viscous fingering patterns in the
limit of small surface tension. Through detailed simulations of anisotropic
fingering, we demonstrate conclusively that no selection independent of the
small-scale cutoff (macroscopic selection) occurs in this system. Rather, the
small-scale cutoff completely controls the pattern, even on short time scales,
in accord with the theory of microscopic solvability. We demonstrate that
ordered patterns are dynamically selected only for not too small surface
tensions. For extremely small surface tensions, the system exhibits chaotic
behavior and no regular pattern is realized.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
BEAMS: separating the wheat from the chaff in supernova analysis
We introduce Bayesian Estimation Applied to Multiple Species (BEAMS), an
algorithm designed to deal with parameter estimation when using contaminated
data. We present the algorithm and demonstrate how it works with the help of a
Gaussian simulation. We then apply it to supernova data from the Sloan Digital
Sky Survey (SDSS), showing how the resulting confidence contours of the
cosmological parameters shrink significantly.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures. Chapter 4 in "Astrostatistical Challenges for
the New Astronomy" (Joseph M. Hilbe, ed., Springer, New York, forthcoming in
2012), the inaugural volume for the Springer Series in Astrostatistic
Recombination dramatically speeds up evolution of finite populations
We study the role of recombination, as practiced by genetically-competent
bacteria, in speeding up Darwinian evolution. This is done by adding a new
process to a previously-studied Markov model of evolution on a smooth fitness
landscape; this new process allows alleles to be exchanged with those in the
surrounding medium. Our results, both numerical and analytic, indicate that for
a wide range of intermediate population sizes, recombination dramatically
speeds up the evolutionary advance
Precision Measurement of the 29Si, 33S, and 36Cl Binding Energies
The binding energies of 29Si, 33S, and 36Cl have been measured with a
relative uncertainty using a flat-crystal spectrometer.
The unique features of these measurements are 1) nearly perfect crystals whose
lattice spacing is known in meters, 2) a highly precise angle scale that is
derived from first principles, and 3) a gamma-ray measurement facility that is
coupled to a high flux reactor with near-core source capability. The binding
energy is obtained by measuring all gamma-rays in a cascade scheme connecting
the capture and ground states. The measurements require the extension of
precision flat-crystal diffraction techniques to the 5 to 6 MeV energy region,
a significant precision measurement challenge. The binding energies determined
from these gamma-ray measurements are consistent with recent highly accurate
atomic mass measurements within a relative uncertainty of .
The gamma-ray measurement uncertainties are the dominant contributors to the
uncertainty of this consistency test. The measured gamma-ray energies are in
agreement with earlier precision gamma-ray measurements.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure
Two-finger selection theory in the Saffman-Taylor problem
We find that solvability theory selects a set of stationary solutions of the
Saffman-Taylor problem with coexistence of two \it unequal \rm fingers
advancing with the same velocity but with different relative widths
and and different tip positions. For vanishingly small
dimensionless surface tension , an infinite discrete set of values of the
total filling fraction and of the relative
individual finger width are selected out of a
two-parameter continuous degeneracy. They scale as
and . The selected values of differ from
those of the single finger case. Explicit approximate expressions for both
spectra are given.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
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