34,967 research outputs found
Experimental probing of the anisotropy of the empty p states near the Fermi level in MgB2
We have studied the Boron K-edge in the superconductor MgB2 by electron
energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and experimentally resolved the empty p states
at the Fermi level that have previously been observed within an energy window
of 0.8eV by soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy. Using angular resolved EELS, we
find that these states at the immediate edge onset have pxy character in
agreement with predictions from first-principle electronic structure
calculations.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure
Torque magnetometry on single-crystal high temperature superconductors near the critical temperature: a scaling approach
Angular-dependent magnetic torque measurements performed near the critical
temperature on single crystals of HgBa_{2}CuO_{4+y}, La_{2-x}Sr{x}CuO_{4}, and
YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{6.93} are scaled, following the 3D XY model, in order to
determine the scaling function dG^{\pm}(z)/dz which describes the universal
critical properties near T_{c}. A systematic shift of the scaling function with
increasing effective mass anisotropy \gamma = (m_{ab}*/m_{c}*)^{1/2} is
observed, which may be understood in terms of a 3D-2D crossover. Further
evidence for a 3D-2D crossover is found from temperature-dependent torque
measurements carried out in different magnetic fields at different field
orientations \delta, which show a quasi 2D "crossing region'' (M*,T*). The
occurrence of this "crossing phenomenon'' is explained in a phenomenological
way from the weak z dependence of the scaling function around a value z = z*.
The "crossing'' temperature T* is found to be angular-dependent. Torque
measurements above T_{c} reveal that fluctuations are strongly enhanced in the
underdoped regime where the anisotropy is large, whereas they are less
important in the overdoped regime.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures, submitted to PR
Beeping a Maximal Independent Set
We consider the problem of computing a maximal independent set (MIS) in an
extremely harsh broadcast model that relies only on carrier sensing. The model
consists of an anonymous broadcast network in which nodes have no knowledge
about the topology of the network or even an upper bound on its size.
Furthermore, it is assumed that an adversary chooses at which time slot each
node wakes up. At each time slot a node can either beep, that is, emit a
signal, or be silent. At a particular time slot, beeping nodes receive no
feedback, while silent nodes can only differentiate between none of its
neighbors beeping, or at least one of its neighbors beeping.
We start by proving a lower bound that shows that in this model, it is not
possible to locally converge to an MIS in sub-polynomial time. We then study
four different relaxations of the model which allow us to circumvent the lower
bound and find an MIS in polylogarithmic time. First, we show that if a
polynomial upper bound on the network size is known, it is possible to find an
MIS in O(log^3 n) time. Second, if we assume sleeping nodes are awoken by
neighboring beeps, then we can also find an MIS in O(log^3 n) time. Third, if
in addition to this wakeup assumption we allow sender-side collision detection,
that is, beeping nodes can distinguish whether at least one neighboring node is
beeping concurrently or not, we can find an MIS in O(log^2 n) time. Finally, if
instead we endow nodes with synchronous clocks, it is also possible to find an
MIS in O(log^2 n) time.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1108.192
Mass-detection of a matter concentration projected near the cluster Abell 1942: Dark clump or high-redshift cluster?
A weak-lensing analysis of wide-field - and -band images centered on
the cluster Abell 1942 has uncovered a mass concentration arcminutes
South of the cluster center. A statistical analysis shows that the detections
are highly significant. No strong concentration of bright galaxies is seen at
the position of the mass concentration, though a slight galaxy number
overdensity and a weak extended X-ray source are present about 1' away from its
center.
From the spatial dependence of the tangential alignment around the center of
the mass concentration, we inferred a lower bound on the mass inside a sphere
of radius \ts Mpc of , much higher
than crude mass estimates based on X-ray data. No firm conclusion can be
inferred about the nature of the clump. If it were a high-redshift cluster, the
weak X-ray flux would indicate that it had an untypically low X-ray luminosity
for its mass; if the X-ray emission were physically unrelated to the mass
concentration, this conclusion would be even stronger.
The search for massive halos by weak lensing enables us for the first time to
select halos based on their mass properties only and to detect new types of
objects, e.g., dark halos. The mass concentration in the field of A1942 may be
the first example of such a halo.Comment: Sumitted to A&A Main Journal. 15 pages, 11 figures. 75 Kb gzipped tar
file. Figures with images not included, but available on ftp.iap.fr
/pub/from_users/mellier/A1942: a1942darkclump.ps.gz (2.1 Mb
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Cognitive and behavioral improvement in adults with fragile X syndrome treated with metformin-two cases.
BackgroundThe majority of individuals with fragile X syndrome (FXS) have intellectual disability, behavioral problems, autism, and language deficits. IQ typically declines with age in boys with the full mutation. The results of preclinical studies demonstrated that metformin, a biguanide used to treat type 2 diabetes, rescues multiple phenotypes of FXS in both Drosophila and mouse models. Preliminary studies of patients with FXS demonstrated improvements in behavior.MethodsHere, we present two cases of individuals who have been treated with metformin clinically for one year.ResultsBoth patients demonstrated significant cognitive and behavioral improvements. They also improved eating habits and normalization of their weight percentiles.ConclusionMetformin may be a candidate drug for treatment of several types of symptoms in individuals with FXS
Computing in Additive Networks with Bounded-Information Codes
This paper studies the theory of the additive wireless network model, in
which the received signal is abstracted as an addition of the transmitted
signals. Our central observation is that the crucial challenge for computing in
this model is not high contention, as assumed previously, but rather
guaranteeing a bounded amount of \emph{information} in each neighborhood per
round, a property that we show is achievable using a new random coding
technique.
Technically, we provide efficient algorithms for fundamental distributed
tasks in additive networks, such as solving various symmetry breaking problems,
approximating network parameters, and solving an \emph{asymmetry revealing}
problem such as computing a maximal input.
The key method used is a novel random coding technique that allows a node to
successfully decode the received information, as long as it does not contain
too many distinct values. We then design our algorithms to produce a limited
amount of information in each neighborhood in order to leverage our enriched
toolbox for computing in additive networks
Verifying Policy Enforcers
Policy enforcers are sophisticated runtime components that can prevent
failures by enforcing the correct behavior of the software. While a single
enforcer can be easily designed focusing only on the behavior of the
application that must be monitored, the effect of multiple enforcers that
enforce different policies might be hard to predict. So far, mechanisms to
resolve interferences between enforcers have been based on priority mechanisms
and heuristics. Although these methods provide a mechanism to take decisions
when multiple enforcers try to affect the execution at a same time, they do not
guarantee the lack of interference on the global behavior of the system. In
this paper we present a verification strategy that can be exploited to discover
interferences between sets of enforcers and thus safely identify a-priori the
enforcers that can co-exist at run-time. In our evaluation, we experimented our
verification method with several policy enforcers for Android and discovered
some incompatibilities.Comment: Oliviero Riganelli, Daniela Micucci, Leonardo Mariani, and Yli\`es
Falcone. Verifying Policy Enforcers. Proceedings of 17th International
Conference on Runtime Verification (RV), 2017. (to appear
Probing superconductivity in MgB2 confined to magnetic field tuned cylinders by means of critical fluctuations
We report and analyze reversible magnetization measurements on a high quality
MgB2 single crystal in the vicinity of the zero field transition temperature,
T_c=38.83 K, at several magnetic fields up to 300 Oe, applied along the c-axis.
Though MgB2 is a two gap superconductor our scaling analysis uncovers
remarkable consistency with 3D-xy critical behavior, revealing that close to
criticality the order parameter is a single complex scalar as in 4He. This
opens up the window onto the exploration of the magnetic field induced finite
size effect, whereupon the correlation length transverse to the applied
magnetic field H_i applied along the i-axis cannot grow beyond the limiting
magnetic length L_Hi, related to the average distance between vortex lines. We
find unambiguous evidence for this finite size effect. It implies that in type
II superconductors, such as MgB2, there is the 3D to 1D crossover line H_pi and
xi denotes the critical amplitudes of the correlation lengths above and below
T_c along the respective axis. Consequently, above H_pi(T) and T<T_c
superconductivity is confined to cylinders with diameter L_Hi (1D). In
contrast, above T_c the uncondensed pairs are confined to cylinders.
Accordingly, there is no continuous phase transition in the (H,T)-plane along
the H_c2-lines as predicted by the mean-field treatment
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