2,626 research outputs found
Correspondence: Reply to ‘Reassessing the contribution of natural gas to US CO2 emission reductions since 2007’
Our recent study in this journal quantified the drivers of US CO2 emissions between 1997 and 2013, with particular focus on the decline in emissions after 2007. Based on our findings, we argued that economic recession was more important than substitution of natural gas for coal in the power sector. In their comment, Kotchen and Mansur reevaluate and reinterpret our results to
challenge this conclusion. Because their calculations, using two alternative methods, are consistent with our findings, here we respond to their alternative interpretation
PP-111 Hepatitis B virus (HBV) subgenotypes and mutations in core promoter and precore/core and their clinical implications in Xinjiang Uighur patients
Exploring Minimal Scenarios to Produce Transversely Bright Electron Beams Using the Eigen-Emittance Concept
Next generation hard X-ray free electron lasers require electron beams with
low transverse emittance. One proposal to achieve these low emittances is to
exploit the eigen-emittance values of the beam. The eigen-emittances are
invariant under linear beam transport and equivalent to the emittances in an
uncorrelated beam. If a correlated beam with two small eigen-emittances can be
produced, removal of the correlations via appropriate optics will lead to two
small emittance values, provided non-linear effects are not too large. We study
how such a beam may be produced using minimal linear correlations. We find it
is theoretically possible to produce such a beam, however it may be more
difficult to realize in practice. We identify linear correlations that may lead
to physically realizable emittance schemes and discuss promising future
avenues.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, to appear in NIM
Transport across nanogaps using semiclassically consistent boundary conditions
Charge particle transport across nanogaps is studied theoretically within the
Schrodinger-Poisson mean field framework and the existence of limiting current
investigated. It is shown that the choice of a first order WKB wavefunction as
the transmitted wave leads to self consistent boundary conditions and gives
results that are significantly different in the non-classical regime from those
obtained using a plane transmitted wave. At zero injection energies, the
quantum limiting current density, J_c, is found to obey the local scaling law
J_c ~ (V_g)^alpha/(D)^{5-2alpha} with the gap separation D and voltage V_g. The
exponent alpha > 1.1 with alpha --> 3/2 in the classical regime of small de
Broglie wavelengths. These results are consistent with recent experiments using
nanogaps most of which are found to be in a parameter regime where classical
space charge limited scaling holds away from the emission dominated regime.Comment: 4 pages, 4 ps figure
Optimizing cell viability in dropletbased cell deposition
Biofabrication commonly involves the use of liquid droplets to transport cells to the printed structure. However, the viability of the cells after impact is poorly controlled and understood, hampering applications including cell spraying, inkjet bioprinting, and laser-assisted cell transfer. Here, we present an analytical model describing the cell viability after impact as a function of the cell-surrounding droplet characteristics. The model connects (1) the cell survival as a function of cell membrane elongation, (2) the membrane elongation as a function of the cell-containing droplet size and velocity, and (3) the substrate properties. The model is validated by cell viability measurements in cell spraying, which is a method for biofabrication and used for the treatment of burn wounds. The results allow for rational optimization of any droplet-based cell deposition technology, and we include practical suggestions to improve the cell viability in cell spraying
Using enzyme activities as an indicator of soil fertility in grassland - an academic dilemma.
Grasslands play an important role in conserving natural biodiversity and providing ecosystem functions and services for societies. Soil fertility is an important property in grassland, and the monitoring of soil fertility can provide crucial information to optimize ecosystem productivity and sustainability. Testing various soil physiochemical properties related to fertility usually relies on traditional measures, such as destructive sampling, pre-test treatments, labor-intensive procedures, and costly laboratory measurements, which are often difficult to perform. However, soil enzyme activity reflecting the intensity of soil biochemical reactions is a reliable indicator of soil properties and thus enzyme assays could be an efficient alternative to evaluate soil fertility. Here, we review the latest research on the features and functions of enzymes catalyzing the biochemical processes that convert organic materials to available plant nutrients, increase soil carbon and nutrient cycling, and enhance microbial activities to improve soil fertility. We focus on the complex relationships among soil enzyme activities and functions, microbial biomass, physiochemical properties, and soil/crop management practices. We highlight the biochemistry of enzymes and the rationale for using enzyme activities to indicate soil fertility. Finally, we discuss the limits and disadvantages of the potential new molecular tool and provide suggestions to improve the reliability and feasibility of the proposed alternative
Thermal properties of coal during low temperature oxidation using a grey correlation method
The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.The low temperature oxidation of coal is a contradictory and unified dynamic process of coexisting mass and heat transfer. The thermophysical properties are crucial during coal spontaneous combustion. In the current paper, the variations of moisture, ash, volatiles, fixed carbon and thermophysical properties (thermal diffusivity, specific heat and thermal conductivity) of three coal samples from 30 °C to 300 °C were studied, and their grey correlation was analyzed. The results indicated that with the increase of temperature, the free moisture of Coals A and B decreased first but then increased, while the free moisture of Coal C kept decreasing without a later increase. The variation of surface moisture was consistent with that of free moisture. The trend of volatiles and fixed carbon was completely the opposite, showing a significant negative correlation. Ash was less affected by temperature. Along with the rise of temperature, the thermal diffusivity of three coal samples decreased first but later increased, and the specific heat was always in a state of increasing. The change in thermal conductivity was mainly affected by specific heat. By calculating the gray correlation degree, the major factors affecting the thermophysical properties were obtained
Revisiting the -Meson Production at the Hadronic Colliders
The production of heavy-flavored hadron at the hadronic colliders provides a
challenging opportunity to test the validity of pQCD predictions. There are two
mechanisms for the hadroproduction, i.e. the gluon-gluon fusion
mechanism via the subprocess and the
extrinsic heavy quark mechanism via the subprocesses and , both of which shall have sizable
contributions in proper kinematic region. Different from the
fixed-flavor-number scheme (FFNS) previously adopted in the literature, we
study the hadroproduction under the general-mass
variable-flavor-number scheme (GM-VFNS), in which we can consistently deal with
the double counting problem from the above two mechanisms. Properties for the
hadroproduction are discussed. To be useful reference, a
comparative study of FFNS and GM-VFNS is presented. Both of which can provide
reasonable estimations for the hadroproduction. At the Tevatron,
the difference between these two schemes is small, however such difference is
obvious at the LHC. The forthcoming more precise data on LHC shall provide a
good chance to check which scheme is more appropriate to deal with the
-meson production and to further study the heavy quark components in
hadrons.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables. To match the published version. To be
published in Eur.Phys.J.
Signal and System Approximation from General Measurements
In this paper we analyze the behavior of system approximation processes for
stable linear time-invariant (LTI) systems and signals in the Paley-Wiener
space PW_\pi^1. We consider approximation processes, where the input signal is
not directly used to generate the system output, but instead a sequence of
numbers is used that is generated from the input signal by measurement
functionals. We consider classical sampling which corresponds to a pointwise
evaluation of the signal, as well as several more general measurement
functionals. We show that a stable system approximation is not possible for
pointwise sampling, because there exist signals and systems such that the
approximation process diverges. This remains true even with oversampling.
However, if more general measurement functionals are considered, a stable
approximation is possible if oversampling is used. Further, we show that
without oversampling we have divergence for a large class of practically
relevant measurement procedures.Comment: This paper will be published as part of the book "New Perspectives on
Approximation and Sampling Theory - Festschrift in honor of Paul Butzer's
85th birthday" in the Applied and Numerical Harmonic Analysis Series,
Birkhauser (Springer-Verlag). Parts of this work have been presented at the
IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing
2014 (ICASSP 2014
Left-right asymmetry for pion and kaon production in the semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering process
We analyze the left-right asymmetry in the semi-inclusive deep inelastic
scattering (SIDIS) process without introducing any weighting functions. With
the current theoretical understanding, we find that the Sivers effect plays a
key role in our analysis. We use the latest parametrization of the Sivers and
fragmentation functions to reanalyze the production process and find
that the results are sensitive to the parametrization. We also extend our
calculation on the production, which can help us know more about the
Sivers distribution of the sea quarks and the unfavored fragmentation
processes. HERMES kinematics with a proton target, COMPASS kinematics with a
proton, deuteron, and neutron target (the information on the neutron target can
be effectively extracted from the He target), and JLab kinematics (both 6
GeV and 12 GeV) with a proton and neutron target are considered in our paper.Comment: 7 latex pages, 11 figures, final version for publication, with
references update
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