Spin-orbit scattering in d-wave superconductors

When non-magnetic impurities are introduced in a d-wave superconductor, both thermodynamic and spectral properties are strongly affected if the impurity potential is close to the strong resonance limit. In addition to the scalar impurity potential, the charge carriers are also spin-orbit coupled to the impurities. Here it is shown that (i) close to the unitarity limit for the impurity scattering, the spin-orbit contribution is of the same order of magnitude than the scalar scattering and cannot be neglected, (ii) the spin-orbit scattering is pair-breaking and (iii) induces a small id_xy component to the off-diagonal part of the self-energy.Comment: 9 pages, 3 postscript figures, euromacr.tex-europhys.sty, submitted to Europhysics Letter

Effect of Dzyaloshinskii Moriya interaction on magnetic vortex

The effect of the Dzyaloshinskii Moriya interaction on the vortex in magnetic microdisk was investigated by micro magnetic simulation based on the Landau Lifshitz Gilbert equation. Our results show that the DM interaction modifies the size of the vortex core, and also induces an out of plane magnetization component at the edge and inside the disk. The DM interaction can destabilizes one vortex handedness, generate a bias field to the vortex core and couple the vortex polarity and chirality. This DM-interaction-induced coupling can therefore provide a new way to control vortex polarity and chirality

Deregulation and efficiency: the case of private Korean banks

This paper examines the productive efficiency of a sample of private Korean banks over the 1985 to 1995 time period. The goal of the analysis is to identify the key determinants of Korean bank efficiency (inefficiency) following the program of deregulation initiated by the government in the early 1980s and augmented in the early 1990s. Using the stochastic frontier cost function approach, efficiency scores were determined for each bank in the sample. A second stage efficiency regression was then estimated to identify the key determinants of operating efficiency. In general, the results show that banks with higher rates of asset growth, fewer employees per million won of assets, larger amounts of core deposits, and lower expense ratios were more efficient. In addition, banks which branched nationwide were found to be more efficient. The financial deregulation of 1991 was found to have had little or no significant effect on the level of sample bank efficiency.Banks and banking - Korea ; Korea

rMAPS: RNA map analysis and plotting server for alternative exon regulation.

RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) play a critical role in the regulation of alternative splicing (AS), a prevalent mechanism for generating transcriptomic and proteomic diversity in eukaryotic cells. Studies have shown that AS can be regulated by RBPs in a binding-site-position dependent manner. Depending on where RBPs bind, splicing of an alternative exon can be enhanced or suppressed. Therefore, spatial analyses of RBP motifs and binding sites around alternative exons will help elucidate splicing regulation by RBPs. The development of high-throughput sequencing technologies has allowed transcriptome-wide analyses of AS and RBP-RNA interactions. Given a set of differentially regulated alternative exons obtained from RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) experiments, the rMAPS web server (http://rmaps.cecsresearch.org) performs motif analyses of RBPs in the vicinity of alternatively spliced exons and creates RNA maps that depict the spatial patterns of RBP motifs. Similarly, rMAPS can also perform spatial analyses of RBP-RNA binding sites identified by cross-linking immunoprecipitation sequencing (CLIP-seq) experiments. We anticipate rMAPS will be a useful tool for elucidating RBP regulation of alternative exon splicing using high-throughput sequencing data

Neural-Network Vector Controller for Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Motor Drives: Simulated and Hardware-Validated Results

This paper focuses on current control in a permanentmagnet synchronous motor (PMSM). The paper has two main objectives: The first objective is to develop a neural-network (NN) vector controller to overcome the decoupling inaccuracy problem associated with conventional PI-based vector-control methods. The NN is developed using the full dynamic equation of a PMSM, and trained to implement optimal control based on approximate dynamic programming. The second objective is to evaluate the robust and adaptive performance of the NN controller against that of the conventional standard vector controller under motor parameter variation and dynamic control conditions by (a) simulating the behavior of a PMSM typically used in realistic electric vehicle applications and (b) building an experimental system for hardware validation as well as combined hardware and simulation evaluation. The results demonstrate that the NN controller outperforms conventional vector controllers in both simulation and hardware implementation