Leaching of bornite

Imperial Users onl

Concurrent Specification of Embedded Systems: An Insight into the Flexibility vs Correctness Trade-Off

Diseases & disorder

Is Small Perfect? Size Limit to Defect Formation in Pyramidal Pt Nanocontacts

We report high resolution transmission electron microscopy and ab initio calculation results for the defect formation in Pt nanocontacts (NCs). Our results show that there is a size limit to the existence of twins (extended structural defects). Defects are always present but blocked away from the tip axes. The twins may act as scattering plane, influencing contact electron transmission for Pt NC at room temperature and Ag/Au NC at low temperature.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Surface Effects on the Mechanical Elongation of AuCu Nanowires: De-alloying and the Formation of Mixed Suspended Atomic Chains

We report here an atomistic study of the mechanical deformation of AuxCu(1-x) atomic-size wires (NWs) by means of high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) experiments. Molecular dynamics simulations were also carried out in order to obtain deeper insights on the dynamical properties of stretched NWs. The mechanical properties are significantly dependent on the chemical composition that evolves in time at the junction; some structures exhibit a remarkable de-alloying behavior. Also, our results represent the first experimental realization of mixed linear atomic chains (LACs) among transition and noble metals; in particular, surface energies induce chemical gradients on NW surfaces that can be exploited to control the relative LAC compositions (different number of gold and copper atoms). The implications of these results for nanocatalysis and spin transport of one-atom-thick metal wires are addressed.Comment: Accepted to Journal of Applied Physics (JAP

Size Limit Of Defect Formation In Pyramidal Pt Nanocontacts.

We report high resolution transmission electron microscopy and ab initio calculation results for defect formation in sharp pyramidal Pt nanocontacts. Our results show that there is a size limit to the existence of twins (extended structural defects). These defects are always present but blocked away from the tip axes. They may act as scattering planes, influencing the electron conductance for Pt nanocontacts at room temperature and Ag/Au nanocontacts at low temperature (<150 K).9925550

Checking unimodality using isotonic regression: an application to breast cancer mortality rates

In some diseases it is well-known that a unimodal mortality pattern exists. A clear example in developed countries is breast cancer, where mortality increased sharply until the nineties and then decreased. This clear unimodal pattern is not necessarily applicable to all regions within a country. In this paper, we develop statistical tools to check if the unimodality pattern persists within regions using order restricted inference. Break points as well as confidence intervals are also provided. In addition, a new test for checking monotonicity against unimodality is derived allowing to discriminate between a simple increasing pattern and an up-then-down response pattern. A comparison with the widely used joinpoint regression technique under unimodality is provided. We show that the joinpoint technique could fail when the underlying function is not piecewise linear. Results will be illustrated using age-specific breast cancer mortality data from Spain in the period 1975-2005.This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (project MTM 2011-22664 jointly sponsored with Feder grants, project MTM 2012-37129 and project MTM2014-51992-R). The work has been also partially supported by the Health Department of Navarre Government (Project 113, Res. 2186/2014)