1,109 research outputs found
Ising Spin Glasses on Wheatstone-Bridge Hierarchical Lattices
Nearest-neighbor-interaction Ising spin glasses are studied on three
different hierarchical lattices, all of them belonging to the Wheatstone-Bridge
family. It is shown that the spin-glass lower critical dimension in these
lattices should be greater than 2.32. Finite-temperature spin-glass phases are
found for a lattice of fractal dimension (whose unit cell is
obtained from a simple construction of a part of the cubic lattice), as well as
for a lattice of fractal dimension close to five.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physics Letters
Direct thermal conductance measurements on suspended monocrystalline nanostructures
We describe and demonstrate a new class of devices that enable direct thermal conductance measurements on monocrystalline nanostructures. These are possible through our newly developed techniques for three-dimensional, successive surface nanomachining of GaAs-based heterostructures. Our methods allow the patterning of complex devices comprising electrically insulating, mesoscopic thermal conductors with separate, thermal transducers in situ. Intimate thermal contact between these elements is provided by their epitaxial registry. Low-temperature thermal conductance measurements indicate that phonon boundary scattering in these initial nanometer is scale structures is partially specular. These devices offer promise for ultrasensitive bolometry and calorimetry
User's Guide for ERB 7 SEFDT. Volume 1: User's Guide. Volume 2: Quality Control Report, Year 1
The Nimbus-7 ERB SEFDT Data User's Guide is presented. The guide consists of four subsections which describe: (1) the scope of the data User's Guide; (2) the background on Nimbus-7 Spacecraft and the ERB experiment; (3) the SEFDT data product and processing scenario; and (4) other related products and documents
Contact Changes of Sheared Systems: Scaling, Correlations, and Mechanisms
We probe the onset and effect of contact changes in 2D soft harmonic particle
packings which are sheared quasistatically under controlled strain. First, we
show that in the majority of cases, the first contact changes correspond to the
creation or breaking of contacts on a single particle, with contact breaking
overwhelmingly likely for low pressures and/or small systems, and contact
making and breaking equally likely for large pressures and in the thermodynamic
limit. The statistics of the corresponding strains are near-Poissonian. The
mean characteristic strains exhibit scaling with the number of particles N and
pressure P, and reveal the existence of finite size effects akin to those seen
for linear response quantities. Second, we show that linear response accurately
predicts the strains of the first contact changes, which allows us to study the
scaling of the characteristic strains of making and breaking contacts
separately. Both of these show finite size scaling, and we formulate scaling
arguments that are consistent with the observed behavior. Third, we probe the
effect of the first contact change on the shear modulus G, and show in detail
how the variation of G remains smooth and bounded in the large system size
limit: even though contact changes occur then at vanishingly small strains,
their cumulative effect, even at a fixed value of the strain, are limited, so
that effectively, linear response remains well-defined. Fourth, we explore
multiple contact changes under shear, and find strong and surprising
correlations between alternating making and breaking events. Fifth, we show
that by making a link with extremal statistics, our data is consistent with a
very slow crossover to self averaging with system size, so that the
thermodynamic limit is reached much more slowly than expected based on finite
size scaling of elastic quantities or contact breaking strains
Force balance in canonical ensembles of static granular packings
We investigate the role of local force balance in the transition from a
microcanonical ensemble of static granular packings, characterized by an
invariant stress, to a canonical ensemble. Packings in two dimensions admit a
reciprocal tiling, and a collective effect of force balance is that the area of
this tiling is also invariant in a microcanonical ensemble. We present
analytical relations between stress, tiling area and tiling area fluctuations,
and show that a canonical ensemble can be characterized by an intensive
thermodynamic parameter conjugate to one or the other. We test the equivalence
of different ensembles through the first canonical simulations of the force
network ensemble, a model system.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, submitted to JSTA
Microorganisms and Common Ophthalmic Diseases
The human eye is in constant contact to environmental conditions that increase its likelihood in being exposed to a multitude of pathogens. Studies have revealed that the normal microbial flora found around the ocular area contribute to the well-being of ocular health as they play a critical role in inhibiting the proliferation of other pathogenic species and maintaining the homeostatic balance. However an imbalance in this status quo may lead to diseases including dry eye syndrome, meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD), blepharitis, rosacea, allergies, keratitis, conjunctivitis and immunological conditions such as mucous membrane pemphigoid and Sjogren’s syndrome. Thus, it is important to investigate and understand the role of various microorganisms that lead to these ocular diseases, and this knowledge may lead to better future treatments. This review focuses on recent advances and insights of pathogens and related ocular diseases which can help the audience further understand the etiology and the control of these disease
Geometry and Topology of Escape I: Epistrophes
We consider a dynamical system given by an area-preserving map on a
two-dimensional phase plane and consider a one-dimensional line of initial
conditions within this plane. We record the number of iterates it takes a
trajectory to escape from a bounded region of the plane as a function along the
line of initial conditions, forming an ``escape-time plot''. For a chaotic
system, this plot is in general not a smooth function, but rather has many
singularities at which the escape time is infinite; these singularities form a
complicated fractal set. In this article we prove the existence of regular
repeated sequences, called ``epistrophes'', which occur at all levels of
resolution within the escape-time plot. (The word ``epistrophe'' comes from
rhetoric and means ``a repeated ending following a variable beginning''.) The
epistrophes give the escape-time plot a certain self-similarity, called
``epistrophic'' self-similarity, which need not imply either strict or
asymptotic self-similarity.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, to appear in Chaos, first of two paper
Group versus one‐to‐one multi‐component lifestyle interventions for weight management: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials
Background
Multi-component lifestyle interventions that incorporate diet, physical activity and behaviour change are effective for weight management. However, it is not clear whether delivery in a group or one-to-one format influences weight loss efficacy. The present study aimed to systematically review the evidence of the effectiveness of group compared to one-to-one multi-component lifestyle interventions for weight management.
Methods
MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, CENTRAL and ISRCTN databases were searched from inception up to February 2020 for randomised controlled trials comparing group versus one-to-one multi-component lifestyle interventions for weight loss in adults with a body mass index ≥ 25 kg m–2. The primary outcome was weight loss (kg) at 12 months and the secondary outcome was attainment of ≥5% weight loss at 12 months. Risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool. Meta-analysis used random effects and estimated risk ratios and continuous inverse variance methods. Heterogeneity was investigated using I2 statistics and sensitivity analyses.
Results
Seven randomised controlled trials with 2576 participants were included. Group interventions were favoured over one-to-one interventions for weight loss at 12 months (−1.9 kg, 95% confidence interval = −1.3 to −2.6; I2 = 99%). Participants of group interventions were more likely to attain ≥5% weight loss at 12 months relative to one-to-one interventions (relative risk = 1.58, 95% confidence interval = 1.25–2.00; I2 = 60%).
Conclusions
Group multi-component lifestyle interventions are superior for weight loss compared to one-to-one interventions with respect to adult weight management. Further research is required to determine whether specific components of group interventions can explain the superiority of weight loss outcomes in group interventions
- …