4,643 research outputs found
Hydrostatic pressure induced Dirac semimetal in black phosphorus
Motivated by recent experimental observation of an hydrostatic pressure
induced transition from semiconductor to semimetal in black phosphorus [Chen et
al. in arXiv:1504.00125], we present the first principles calculation on the
pressure effect of the electronic structures of black phosphorus. It is found
that the band crossover and reversal at the Z point occur around the critical
pressure Pc1=1.23 Gpa, and the band inversion evolves into 4 twofold-degenerate
Dirac cones around the Z point, suggesting a 3D Dirac semimetal. With further
increasing pressure the Dirac cones in the Gamma-Z line move toward the Gamma
point and evolve into two hole-type Fermi pockets, and those in the Z-M lines
move toward the M point and evolve into 2 hole-type Fermi pockets up to P=4.0
Gpa. It demonstrates clearly that the Lifshitz transition occurs at
from semiconductor to 3D Dirac semimetal protected by the nonsymmorphic space
symmetry of bulk. This suggests the bright perspective of black phosphorus for
optoelectronic and electronic devices due to its easy modulation by pressure.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, and 2 table
Phonons of Metallic Vicinal Surfaces
We present an analysis of the vibrational dynamics of metal vicinal surfaces
using the embedded atom method to describe the interaction potential and both a
real space Green's function method and a slab method to calculate the phonons.
We report two main general characteristics : a global shift of the surface
vibrational density of states resulting from a softening of the force field.
The latter is a direct result of the reduction of coordination for the
different type of surface atoms; and an appearance of high frequency modes
above the bulk band, resulting from a stiffening of the force field near the
step atom. The latter is due to a rearrangement of the atomic positions during
the relaxation of the surface atoms yielding a large shortening of the nearest
neighbor distances near the step atoms.Comment: 6 figures, to appear in Sur. Sci. proceedings of VAS1
Combining Fine- and Coarse-Grained Classifiers for Diabetic Retinopathy Detection
Visual artefacts of early diabetic retinopathy in retinal fundus images are
usually small in size, inconspicuous, and scattered all over retina. Detecting
diabetic retinopathy requires physicians to look at the whole image and fixate
on some specific regions to locate potential biomarkers of the disease.
Therefore, getting inspiration from ophthalmologist, we propose to combine
coarse-grained classifiers that detect discriminating features from the whole
images, with a recent breed of fine-grained classifiers that discover and pay
particular attention to pathologically significant regions. To evaluate the
performance of this proposed ensemble, we used publicly available EyePACS and
Messidor datasets. Extensive experimentation for binary, ternary and quaternary
classification shows that this ensemble largely outperforms individual image
classifiers as well as most of the published works in most training setups for
diabetic retinopathy detection. Furthermore, the performance of fine-grained
classifiers is found notably superior than coarse-grained image classifiers
encouraging the development of task-oriented fine-grained classifiers modelled
after specialist ophthalmologists.Comment: Pages 12, Figures
Rule-Driven Mobile Intelligent Agents for Real-Time Configuration of IP Networks
Even though intelligent agent has proven itself to be a promising branch of artificial intelligence (AI), its mobility capacity has yet been paid enough attention to match the pervasive trend of networks. This paper proposes to inject intelligence into mobile agent of cur-rent literature by introducing rule-driven mobile agent so as to maintain both intelligence and mobility of current agent. Particularly, this methodology is fully exemplified in the context of real-time IP network configuration through intelligent mobile agent based network management architecture, policy specification language and policy information model. A case study for inter-domain IP VPN configuration demonstrates the design and implementation of this management system based on the test-bed developed in the context of European Union IST Project CONTEXT
Kinetic roughening of ion-sputtered Pd(001) surface: Beyond the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky model
The kinetic roughening of Ar+ ion-sputtered Pd(001) surface was investigated. The facet formation on the sputtered surface was studied by tracing the extradiffraction peaks or satellites around the diffraction peaks corresponding to the sample surface. The morphological evolution of the sputtered Pd(001) surface was also investigated by an scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). It was shown that the nanoscale adatom islands form and grow with increasing sputter time.open313
Maximal Spontaneous Photon Emission and Energy Loss from Free Electrons
Free electron radiation such as Cerenkov, Smith--Purcell, and transition
radiation can be greatly affected by structured optical environments, as has
been demonstrated in a variety of polaritonic, photonic-crystal, and
metamaterial systems. However, the amount of radiation that can ultimately be
extracted from free electrons near an arbitrary material structure has remained
elusive. Here we derive a fundamental upper limit to the spontaneous photon
emission and energy loss of free electrons, regardless of geometry, which
illuminates the effects of material properties and electron velocities. We
obtain experimental evidence for our theory with quantitative measurements of
Smith--Purcell radiation. Our framework allows us to make two predictions. One
is a new regime of radiation operation---at subwavelength separations, slower
(nonrelativistic) electrons can achieve stronger radiation than fast
(relativistic) electrons. The second is a divergence of the emission
probability in the limit of lossless materials. We further reveal that such
divergences can be approached by coupling free electrons to photonic bound
states in the continuum (BICs). Our findings suggest that compact and efficient
free-electron radiation sources from microwaves to the soft X-ray regime may be
achievable without requiring ultrahigh accelerating voltages.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Interactions among mitochondrial proteins altered in glioblastoma
Mitochondrial dysfunction is putatively central to glioblastoma (GBM) pathophysiology but there has been no systematic analysis in GBM of the proteins which are integral to mitochondrial function. Alterations in proteins in mitochondrial enriched fractions from patients with GBM were defined with label-free liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. 256 mitochondrially-associated proteins were identified in mitochondrial enriched fractions and 117 of these mitochondrial proteins were markedly (fold-change ≥2) and significantly altered in GBM (p ≤ 0.05). Proteins associated with oxidative damage (including catalase, superoxide dismutase 2, peroxiredoxin 1 and peroxiredoxin 4) were increased in GBM. Protein–protein interaction analysis highlighted a reduction in multiple proteins coupled to energy metabolism (in particular respiratory chain proteins, including 23 complex-I proteins). Qualitative ultrastructural analysis in GBM with electron microscopy showed a notably higher prevalence of mitochondria with cristolysis in GBM. This study highlights the complex mitochondrial proteomic adjustments which occur in GBM pathophysiology
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