942 research outputs found
Classification analysis on physicochemical properties of coloured and non-coloured waxy rice
Six coloured and six non-coloured waxy rice varieties were analyzed by determining amylose, fat, and protein content, pasting, and thermal properties. Significant differences in protein content as well as pasting properties between coloured and non-coloured waxy rice were identified. It was demonstrated that protein may have a main influence on pasting and thermal properties of waxy rice. In addition, the optimal linear relationship between protein and pasting or thermal properties was found by combining RVA and DSC data using Principal component analysis (PCA). Typical indicators, which can classify coloured and non-coloured waxy rice, could be identified by Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). In pasting properties, trough and consistency viscosity were typical indicators; in thermal properties, enthalpy and stop temperature were typical indicators
A failure study of the railway rail serviced for heavy cargo trains
AbstractIn this case study, a failed railway rail which was used for heavy cargo trains was investigated in order to find out its root cause. The macroscopic beach marks and microscopic fatigue striations were not observed by macro and microscopic observations. The chevron patterns were observed by macro observations. The crack origin was at the tip of chevron patterns. The fan-shaped patterns, cleavage step and the river patterns were observed at the crack origin, which demonstrated the feature of cleavage fracture. The metallurgical structures at the crack origin were pearlite and ferrite networks. The crack is supposed to be initiated from the weaker ferrite networks. Given all of that, the failed railway rail is considered to be caused by overload. It is of great importance to improve the welding technology, and control the load of train in order to prevent similar failure in future
Enhanced Properties of Dissimilar Rubber Blends using Microencapsulated Sulfur through Acetylene Plasma Polymerization
Surface modification of sulfur by vacuum plasma polymerization with acetylene was applied in order to modify its surface properties without losing reactivity for vulcanization. A nm-thin layer of crosslinked polyacetylene was deposited on the surface of the sulfur powder. Its surface energy was decreased as monitored by wetting in liquids of various polarities. A delay in the onset of weight loss by sublimation in thermal gravimetric analysis was shown by the plasma-modified sulfur. Scanning electron microscopy showed a core/shell structure of the coated sulfur. In 50:50 blends of styrene-butadiene rubber and ethylene-propylene-diene rubber, the encapsulated sulfur samples resulted in pronounced improvements in the mechanical properties relative to the use of unmodified sulfur
Interacting Agegraphic Dark Energy
A new dark energy model, named "agegraphic dark energy", has been proposed
recently, based on the so-called K\'{a}rolyh\'{a}zy uncertainty relation, which
arises from quantum mechanics together with general relativity. In this note,
we extend the original agegraphic dark energy model by including the
interaction between agegraphic dark energy and pressureless (dark) matter. In
the interacting agegraphic dark energy model, there are many interesting
features different from the original agegraphic dark energy model and
holographic dark energy model. The similarity and difference between agegraphic
dark energy and holographic dark energy are also discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, revtex4; v2: references added; v3: accepted by
Eur. Phys. J. C; v4: published versio
Non-Markovian dynamics in a spin star system: The failure of thermalization
In most cases, a small system weakly interacting with a thermal bath will
finally reach the thermal state with the temperature of the bath. We show that
this intuitive picture is not always true by a spin star model where non-Markov
effect predominates in the whole dynamical process. The spin star system
consists a central spin homogeneously interacting with an ensemble of identical
noninteracting spins. We find that the correlation time of the bath is
infinite, which implies that the bath has a perfect memory, and that the
dynamical evolution of the central spin must be non- Markovian. A direct
consequence is that the final state of the central spin is not the thermal
state equilibrium with the bath, but a steady state which depends on its
initial state.Comment: 8 page
Autonomous Morphogenesis in Self-assembling Robots Using IR-Based Sensing and Local Communications
This paper presents a simple decentralised morphology control mechanism for a swarm of self-assembling robots. Each robot in the system is fully autonomous and controlled using a behaviour-based approach with only infrared-based local sensing and communications. A graph-based recruitment strategy is proposed to guide the growth of 2D planar organisms, and local communications are used to self-organise the behaviours of robots during the morphogenesis process. The effectiveness of the approach has been verified, in simulation, for a diverse set of target structures. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
Semileptonic decays of , , and
Stimulated by recent observations of the excited bottom-strange mesons
and , we calculate the semileptonic decays , which is relevant for the exploration of the
potential of searching these semileptonic decays in experiment.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, 9 tables. More discussion added, some
descriptions changed. The version to appear in EPJ
Polaron formation for a non-local electron-phonon coupling: A variational wave-function study
We introduce a variational wave-function to study the polaron formation when
the electronic transfer integral depends on the relative displacement between
nearest-neighbor sites giving rise to a non-local electron-phonon coupling with
optical phonon modes. We analyze the ground state properties such as the
energy, the electron-lattice correlation function, the phonon number and the
spectral weight. Variational results are found in good agreement with analytic
weak-coupling perturbative calculations and exact numerical diagonalization of
small clusters. We determine the polaronic phase diagram and we find that the
tendency towards strong localization is hindered from the pathological sign
change of the effective next-nearest-neighbor hopping.Comment: 11 page
Gravitational Coupling and Dynamical Reduction of The Cosmological Constant
We introduce a dynamical model to reduce a large cosmological constant to a
sufficiently small value. The basic ingredient in this model is a distinction
which has been made between the two unit systems used in cosmology and particle
physics. We have used a conformal invariant gravitational model to define a
particular conformal frame in terms of large scale properties of the universe.
It is then argued that the contributions of mass scales in particle physics to
the vacuum energy density should be considered in a different conformal frame.
In this manner, a decaying mechanism is presented in which the conformal factor
appears as a dynamical field and plays a key role to relax a large effective
cosmological constant. Moreover, we argue that this model also provides a
possible explanation for the coincidence problem.Comment: To appear in GR
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