Intensive Archaeological Survey For Asphalt Package 4, Precinct 3 (UPIN: 21103N3044-30001), Hockley, Harris County, Texas

Raba Kistner, Inc. (RKI) was contracted by Harris County Engineering Department (CLIENT), to conduct archaeological investigations in support of road improvements along 7 miles of existing road along Botkins, Roberts, AJ Foyt, Nichols, and Becker Roads, located in northwest Harris County, Texas. The purpose of this investigation was to identify any surface-exposed or shallowly buried cultural deposits within the limits of the proposed undertaking and, if possible, assess their significance and eligibility for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and for formal designation as State Antiquities Landmarks (SALs). As the project will be conducted on publicly-owned land and is sponsored by the Harris County Engineering Department, an entity of the State of Texas, the proposed project is subject to review under the Antiquities Code of Texas (ACT) (Texas Natural Resources Code, Title 9, Chapter 191). All work was conducted in accordance with the Archeological Survey Standards for Texas, as set forth by the Council of Texas Archeologists (CTA) and the Texas Historical Commission (THC) under Texas Antiquities Committee Permit Number 9580. Investigations consisted of a background review and intensive pedestrian survey augmented with shovel testing within the APE. The background review revealed that the majority of the project area is underlain by soils derived from loamy deposits of the Pliocene-age Willis Formation. Only a small portion, approximately 2,313 feet, along Nichols Road contains Holocene-age deposits. As such, in a background review submitted for consultation to the THC, RKI recommended that archaeological investigations focus on the area containing the Holocene-age deposits. Based on the information provided in the background review, the THC concurred with the recommendation. Therefore, the Area of Potential Effects (APE) for the project is defined as the 2,313-feet (705 m) portion of Nichols Road within a 75-foot (22.3 m) corridor, totaling 3.98 acres. The maximum depth of impact for proposed undertaking is 3 feet (0.91 m) below surface. On September 3, 2020, RKI archaeologists conducted an intensive pedestrian survey augmented with shovel testing of the approximately 3.98-acre APE. Antonio E. Padilla served as the Principal Investigator for the project and all fieldwork was conducted by Staff Archaeologists Adam Birge and Charles Neel. During the survey, the APE was found to be lightly graded for existing roadbed with shoulders on the east side consisting of manicured Bermuda grass and the shoulder on the west consisting of an overgrown hedge. As a result of the survey, 12 shovel tests (AB1–AB8 and CN1–CN4) were excavated which resulted in the documentation of one isolated find (IF-01). The single IF consisted of a primary reduction flake identified at an approximate depth of 82 centimeters below surface. Due to a lack of additional cultural materials, the single flake was designated as isolated find and was not designated as an archaeological site. RKI has made a reasonable and good faith effort to identified cultural resources within the given APE. No significant deposits or features were identified during the intensive pedestrian survey of the APE. RKI recommends no further archaeological investigations within the APE. However, should changes be made within the APE, further work may be required. All field records and photographs produced during investigations will be permanently housed at the Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio

Intensive Archaeological Survey For Asphalt Package 2020-1 (Upin 21103N304101), Harris County, Texas

Raba Kistner, Inc. (RKI) was contracted by Harris County Engineering Department (CLIENT), to conduct archaeological investigations in support of a road improvements along 8.09 miles (13 km) of existing road along Old Washington County Road and Binford Roads, located in northwestern Harris County, Texas. The purpose of this investigation was to identify any surface-exposed or shallowly buried cultural deposits within the limits of the proposed undertaking and, if possible, assess their significance and eligibility for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and for formal designation as State Antiquities Landmarks (SALs). As the project will be conducted on publicly-owned land and is sponsored by the Harris County Engineering Department, an entity of the State of Texas, the proposed project is subject to review under the Antiquities Code of Texas (ACT) (Texas Natural Resources Code, Title 9, Chapter 191). All work was conducted in accordance with the Archeological Survey Standards for Texas, as set forth by the Council of Texas Archeologists (CTA) and the Texas Historical Commission (THC) under Texas Antiquities Committee Permit Number 9622. Investigations consisted of a background review and intensive pedestrian survey augmented with shovel testing within the APE. The background review revealed that the majority of the project area is underlain by soils derived from loamy deposits of the Pliocene-age Willis Formation. Only six separate areas along Binford Road totaling 4,410-feet (1,344 m) contain Holocene-age deposits. As such, in a background review submitted for consultation to the THC, RKI recommended that archaeological investigations focus on the area containing the Holocene-age deposits. Based on the information provided in the background review, the THC concurred with the recommendation. Therefore, the Area of Potential Effects (APE) for the project is defined as the six areas along Binford Road totaling 4,410-feet (1,344 m), within the 75-foot (22.8 m) ROW, totaling approximately 7.59-acres (3.07 ha). Field investigations were conducted on October 7, 2020. Antonio E. Padilla served as the Principal Investigator for the project and all fieldwork was conducted by Staff Archaeologists Adam Birge, Chris Matthews, and Archaeologist Tiffany Lindley. Report preparation was conducted by Adam Birge. Adam Birge and Bruce Martin provided geographical information system (GIS) during fieldwork and report production. During the pedestrian survey of the APE, it was found that the area had been lightly graded for the existing roadbed with both shoulders consisting of graded shoulders with ditches. Vegetation ranged from manicured lawns to tall grasses with hardwood trees. As a result of the investigations, 15 shovel tests (AB1–AB2, CM1–CM9, and TL1–TL4) were attempted; however, only 14 were excavated. The fifteenth was not excavated due to the lack of soil. No cultural materials were observed on the surface or encountered within any of the shovel tests. RKI has made a reasonable and good faith effort to identified cultural resources within the given APE. No significant deposits or features were identified during the intensive pedestrian survey of the APE. As such, RKI recommends no further archaeological investigations within the APE. However, should changes be made within the APE, further work may be required. All field records and photographs produced during investigations will be permanently housed at the Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio

Measurement of spin memory lengths in PdNi and PdFe ferromagnetic alloys

Weakly ferromagnetic alloys are being used by several groups in the study of superconducting/ferromagnetic hybrid systems. Because spin-flip and spin-orbit scattering in such alloys disrupt the penetration of pair correlations into the ferromagnetic material, it is desirable to have a direct measurement of the spin memory length in such alloys. We have measured the spin memory length at 4.2 K in sputtered Pd0.88Ni0.12 and Pd0.987Fe0.013 alloys using methods based on current-perpendicular-to-plane giant magnetoresistance. The alloys are incorporated into hybrid spin valves of various types, and the spin memory length is determined by fits of the Valet-Fert spin-transport equations to data of magnetoresistance vs. alloy thickness. For the case of PdNi alloy, the resulting values of the spin memory length are lsf(PdNi) = 2.8 +/- 0.5 nm and 5.4 +/- 0.6 nm, depending on whether or not the PdNi is exchange biased by an adjacent Permalloy layer. For PdFe, the spin memory length is somewhat longer, lsf(PdFe) = 9.6 +/- 2 nm, consistent with earlier measurements indicating lower spin-orbit scattering in that material. Unfortunately, even the longer spin memory length in PdFe may not be long enough to facilitate observation of spin-triplet superconducting correlations predicted to occur in superconducting/ferromagnetic hybrid systems in the presence of magnetic inhomogeneity.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

Supercurrent-induced temperature gradient across a nonequilibrium SNS Josephson junction

Using tunneling spectroscopy, we have measured the local electron energy distribution function in the normal part of a superconductor-normal metal-superconductor (SNS) Josephson junction containing an extra lead to a normal reservoir. In the presence of simultaneous supercurrent and injected quasiparticle current, the distribution function exhibits a sharp feature at very low energy. The feature is odd in energy, and odd under reversal of either the supercurrent or the quasiparticle current direction. The feature represents an effective temperature gradient across the SNS Josephson junction that is controllable by the supercurrent.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, corrected typos, added plot to figure

Stochastic make-to-stock inventory deployment problem: an endosymbiotic psychoclonal algorithm based approach

Integrated steel manufacturers (ISMs) have no specific product, they just produce finished product from the ore. This enhances the uncertainty prevailing in the ISM regarding the nature of the finished product and significant demand by customers. At present low cost mini-mills are giving firm competition to ISMs in terms of cost, and this has compelled the ISM industry to target customers who want exotic products and faster reliable deliveries. To meet this objective, ISMs are exploring the option of satisfying part of their demand by converting strategically placed products, this helps in increasing the variability of product produced by the ISM in a short lead time. In this paper the authors have proposed a new hybrid evolutionary algorithm named endosymbiotic-psychoclonal (ESPC) to decide what and how much to stock as a semi-product in inventory. In the proposed theory, the ability of previously proposed psychoclonal algorithms to exploit the search space has been increased by making antibodies and antigen more co-operative interacting species. The efficacy of the proposed algorithm has been tested on randomly generated datasets and the results compared with other evolutionary algorithms such as genetic algorithms (GA) and simulated annealing (SA). The comparison of ESPC with GA and SA proves the superiority of the proposed algorithm both in terms of quality of the solution obtained and convergence time required to reach the optimal/near optimal value of the solution

Conductance fluctuations in the presence of spin scattering

Electron transport through disordered systems that include spin scatterers is studied numerically. We consider three kinds of magnetic impurities: the Ising, the XY and the Heisenberg. By extending the transfer matrix method to include the spin degree of freedom, the two terminal conductance is calculated. The variance of conductance is halved as the number of spin components of the magnetic impurities increases. Application of the Zeeman field in the lead causes a further halving of the variance under certain conditions.Comment: to be published in Phys. Rev.

Robust optimization revisited via robust vector Farkas lemmas

This paper provides characterizations of the weakly minimal elements of vector optimization problems and the global minima of scalar optimization problems posed on locally convex spaces whose objective functions are deterministic while the uncertain constraints are treated under the robust (or risk-averse) approach, i.e. requiring the feasibility of the decisions to be taken for any possible scenario. To get these optimality conditions we provide Farkas-type results characterizing the inclusion of the robust feasible set into the solution set of some system involving the objective function and possibly uncertain parameters. In the particular case of scalar convex optimization problems, we characterize the optimality conditions in terms of the convexity and closedness of an associated set regarding a suitable point.This research was partially supported by MINECO of Spain and FEDER of EU, [grant number MTM2011-29064-C03-02] and by the project [B2015-28-04]: “A new approach to some classes of optimization problems”, Vietnam National University – HCMC, Vietnam

Shifting a Quantum Wire through a Disordered Crystal: Observation of Conductance Fluctuations in Real Space

A quantum wire is spatially displaced by suitable electric fields with respect to the scatterers inside a semiconductor crystal. As a function of the wire position, the low-temperature resistance shows reproducible fluctuations. Their characteristic temperature scale is a few hundred millikelvin, indicating a phase-coherent effect. Each fluctuation corresponds to a single scatterer entering or leaving the wire. This way, scattering centers can be counted one by one.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Observation of Fluctuation-Dissipation-Theorem Violations in a Structural Glass

The fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT), connecting dielectric susceptibility and polarization noise was studied in glycerol below its glass transition temperature Tg. Weak FDT violations were observed after a quench from just above to just below Tg, for frequencies above the alpha peak. Violations persisted up to 10^5 times the thermal equilibration time of the configurational degrees of freedom under study, but comparable to the average relaxation time of the material. These results suggest that excess energy flows from slower to faster relaxing modes.Comment: Improved discussion; final version to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. 4 pages, 5 PS figures, RevTe