The stratification of regolith on celestial objects

All atmosphere-less planetary bodies are covered with a dust layer, the so-called regolith, which determines the optical, mechanical and thermal properties of their surface. These properties depend on the regolith material, the size distribution of the particles it consists of, and the porosity to which these particles are packed. We performed experiments in parabolic flights to determine the gravity dependency of the packing density of regolith for solid-particle sizes of 60 $\mu$m and 1 mm as well as for 100-250 $\mu$m-sized agglomerates of 1.5 $\mu$m-sized solid grains. We utilized g-levels between 0.7 m s$^{-2}$ and 18 m s$^{-2}$ and completed our measurements with experiments under normal gravity conditions. Based on previous experimental and theoretical literature and supported by our new experiments, we developed an analytical model to calculate the regolith stratification of celestial rocky and icy bodies and estimated the mechanical yields of the regolith under the weight of an astronaut and a spacecraft resting on these objects.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figure

On propagators and vertices of Landau gauge Yang-Mills theory

We calculate the three-point functions of pure Landau gauge QCD and investigate their influence on the propagators. As expected, the ghost-gluon vertex leads only to minor modifications, while the three-gluon vertex has a sizeable impact on the mid-momentum regime of the gluon propagator. We describe an effective model of the three-gluon vertex that includes contributions from the neglected two-loop diagrams and thus allows to obtain propagators in good agreement with lattice results. We also determine the three-gluon vertex from these propagators and find good agreement with lattice results as well. In turn, these results allow us to assess the effect of the missing two-loop diagrams in the gluon propagator equation. Finally, we present the first self-consistent calculation that includes all two-and three-point functions.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figs., contribution to "QCD-TNT-III: From quarks and gluons to hadronic matter: A bridge too far?", 2-6 Sept 2013, ECT*, Trento, Ital

Underpotential deposition of Cu on Au(111) in sulfate-containing electrolytes: a theoretical and experimental study

We study the underpotential deposition of Cu on single-crystal Au(111) electrodes in sulfate-containing electrolytes by a combination of computational statistical-mechanics based lattice-gas modeling and experiments. The experimental methods are in situ cyclic voltammetry and coulometry and ex situ Auger electron spectroscopy and low-energy electron diffraction. The experimentally obtained voltammetric current and charge densities and adsorbate coverages are compared with the predictions of a two-component lattice-gas model for the coadsorption of Cu and sulfate. This model includes effective, lateral interactions out to fourth-nearest neighbors. Using group-theoretical ground-state calculations and Monte Carlo simulations, we estimate effective electrovalences and lateral adsorbate--adsorbate interactions so as to obtain overall agreement with experiments, including both our own and those of other groups. In agreement with earlier work, we find a mixed R3xR3 phase consisting of 2/3 monolayer Cu and 1/3 monolayer sulfate at intermediate electrode potentials, delimited by phase transitions at both higher and lower potentials. Our approach provides estimates of the effective electrovalences and lateral interaction energies, which cannot yet be calculated by first-principles methods.Comment: 36 pages, 14 Postscript figures are in uufiles for

Technology for large-scale translation of clinical practice guidelines : a pilot study of the performance of a hybrid human and computer-assisted approach

Background: The construction of EBMPracticeNet, a national electronic point-of-care information platform in Belgium, was initiated in 2011 to optimize quality of care by promoting evidence-based decision-making. The project involved, among other tasks, the translation of 940 EBM Guidelines of Duodecim Medical Publications from English into Dutch and French. Considering the scale of the translation process, it was decided to make use of computer-aided translation performed by certificated translators with limited expertise in medical translation. Our consortium used a hybrid approach, involving a human translator supported by a translation memory (using SDL Trados Studio), terminology recognition (using SDL Multiterm termbases) from medical termbases and support from online machine translation. This has resulted in a validated translation memory which is now in use for the translation of new and updated guidelines. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of the hybrid human and computer-assisted approach in comparison with translation unsupported by translation memory and terminology recognition. A comparison was also made with the translation efficiency of an expert medical translator. Methods: We conducted a pilot trial in which two sets of 30 new and 30 updated guidelines were randomized to one of three groups. Comparable guidelines were translated (a) by certificated junior translators without medical specialization using the hybrid method (b) by an experienced medical translator without this support and (c) by the same junior translators without the support of the validated translation memory. A medical proofreader who was blinded for the translation procedure, evaluated the translated guidelines for acceptability and adequacy. Translation speed was measured by recording translation and post-editing time. The Human Translation Edit Rate was calculated as a metric to evaluate the quality of the translation. A further evaluation was made of translation acceptability and adequacy. Results: The average number of words per guideline was 1,195 and the mean total translation time was 100.2 min/1,000 words. No meaningful differences were found in the translation speed for new guidelines. The translation of updated guidelines was 59 min/1,000 words faster (95% CI 2-115; P=.044) in the computer-aided group. Revisions due to terminology accounted for one third of the overall revisions by the medical proofreader. Conclusions: Use of the hybrid human and computer-aided translation by a non-expert translator makes the translation of updates of clinical practice guidelines faster and cheaper because of the benefits of translation memory. For the translation of new guidelines there was no apparent benefit in comparison with the efficiency of translation unsupported by translation memory (whether by an expert or non-expert translator

Thermopower of Single-Molecule Devices

We investigate the thermopower of single molecules weakly coupled to metallic leads. We model the molecule in terms of the relevant electronic orbitals coupled to phonons corresponding to both internal vibrations and to oscillations of the molecule as a whole. The thermopower is computed by means of rate equations including both sequential-tunneling and cotunneling processes. Under certain conditions, the thermopower allows one to access the electronic and phononic excitation spectrum of the molecule in a linear-response measurement. In particular, we find that the phonon features are more pronounced for weak lead-molecule coupling. This way of measuring the excitation spectrum is less invasive than the more conventional current-voltage characteristic, which, by contrast, probes the system far from equilibrium.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures included; minor changes, version published in PR

Quantum nondemolition-like, fast measurement scheme for a superconducting qubit

We present a measurement protocol for a flux qubit coupled to a dc-Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID), representative of any two-state system with a controllable coupling to an harmonic oscillator quadrature, which consists of two steps. First, the qubit state is imprinted onto the SQUID via a very short and strong interaction. We show that at the end of this step the qubit dephases completely, although the perturbation of the measured qubit observable during this step is weak. In the second step, information about the qubit is extracted by measuring the SQUID. This step can have arbitrarily long duration, since it no longer induces qubit errors.Comment: published version, minor correction