31,474 research outputs found
Attracted Diffusion-Limited Aggregation
In this paper, we present results of extensive Monte Carlo simulations of
diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) with a seed placed on an attractive plane
as a simple model in connection with the electrical double layers. We compute
the fractal dimension of the aggregated patterns as a function of the
attraction strength \alpha. For the patterns grown in both two and three
dimensions, the fractal dimension shows a significant dependence on the
attraction strength for small values of \alpha, and approaches to that of the
ordinary two-dimensional (2D) DLA in the limit of large \alpha. For
non-attracting case with \alpha=1, our results in three dimensions reproduce
the patterns of 3D ordinary DLA, while in two dimensions our model leads to
formation of a compact cluster with dimension two. For intermediate \alpha, the
3D clusters have quasi-2D structure with a fractal dimension very close to that
of the ordinary 2D-DLA. This allows one to control morphology of a growing
cluster by tuning a single external parameter \alpha.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. E (2012
New Limits on Local Lorentz Invariance in Mercury and Cesium
We report new bounds on Local Lorentz Invariance (LLI) violation in Cs and
Hg. The limits are obtained through the observation of the the spin- precession
frequencies of 199Hg and 133Cs atoms in their ground states as a function of
the orientation of an applied magnetic field with respect to the fixed stars.
We measure the amplitudes of the dipole couplings to a preferred direction in
the equatorial plane to be 19(11) nHz for Hg and 9(5) microHz for Cs. The upper
bounds established here improve upon previous bounds by about a factor of four.
The improvement is primarily due to mounting the apparatus on a rotating table.
New bounds are established on several terms in the standard model extension
including the first bounds on the spin-couplings of the neutron and proton to
the z direction, <7e-30 GeV and <7e-29 GeV, respectively.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure
Measurement of retinal vessel widths from fundus images based on 2-D modeling
Changes in retinal vessel diameter are an important sign of diseases such as hypertension, arteriosclerosis and diabetes mellitus. Obtaining precise measurements of vascular widths is a critical and demanding process in automated retinal image analysis as the typical vessel is only a few pixels wide. This paper presents an algorithm to measure the vessel diameter to subpixel accuracy. The diameter measurement is based on a two-dimensional difference of Gaussian model, which is optimized to fit a two-dimensional intensity vessel segment. The performance of the method is evaluated against Brinchmann-Hansen's half height, Gregson's rectangular profile and Zhou's Gaussian model. Results from 100 sample profiles show that the presented algorithm is over 30% more precise than the compared techniques and is accurate to a third of a pixel
Effective Electrostatic Interactions in Suspensions of Polyelectrolyte Brush-Coated Colloids
Effective electrostatic interactions between colloidal particles, coated with
polyelectrolyte brushes and suspended in an electrolyte solvent, are described
via linear response theory. The inner cores of the macroions are modeled as
hard spheres, the outer brushes as spherical shells of continuously distributed
charge, the microions (counterions and salt ions) as point charges, and the
solvent as a dielectric continuum. The multi-component mixture of macroions and
microions is formally mapped onto an equivalent one-component suspension by
integrating out from the partition function the microion degrees of freedom.
Applying second-order perturbation theory and a random phase approximation,
analytical expressions are derived for the effective pair interaction and a
one-body volume energy, which is a natural by-product of the one-component
reduction. The combination of an inner core and an outer shell, respectively
impenetrable and penetrable to microions, allows the interactions between
macroions to be tuned by varying the core diameter and brush thickness. In the
limiting cases of vanishing core diameter and vanishing shell thickness, the
interactions reduce to those derived previously for star polyelectrolytes and
charged colloids, respectively.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures, Phys. Rev. E (in press
Coarse-grained Interaction Potentials for Anisotropic Molecules
We have proposed an efficient parameterization method for a recent variant of
the Gay-Berne potential for dissimilar and biaxial particles and demonstrated
it for a set of small organic molecules. Compared to the previously proposed
coarse-grained models, the new potential exhibits a superior performance in
close contact and large distant interactions. The repercussions of thermal
vibrations and elasticity has been studied through a statistical method. The
study justifies that the potential of mean force is representable with the same
functional form, extending the application of this coarse-grained description
to a broader range of molecules. Moreover, the advantage of employing
coarse-grained models over truncated atomistic summations with large distance
cutoffs has been briefly studied.Comment: 8 pages, 4 tables and 6 figures. To appear in J. Chem. Phy
New light on the ‘Drummer of Tedworth’: conflicting narratives of witchcraft in Restoration England
This paper presents a definitive text of hitherto little-known early documents concerning ‘The Drummer of Tedworth’, a poltergeist case that occurred in 1662-3 and became famous not least due to its promotion by Joseph Glanvill in his demonological work, Saducismus Triumphatus. On the basis of these and other sources, it is shown how responses to the events at Tedworth evolved from anxious piety on the part of their victim, John Mompesson, to confident apologetic by Glanvill, before they were further affected by the emergence of articulate scepticism about the case
Structure of myelin P2 protein from equine spinal cord
Equine P2 protein has been isolated from horse spinal cord and its structure determined to 2.1 Å. Since equine myelin is a viable alternative to bovine tissue for large-scale preparations, characterization of the proteins from equine spinal cord myelin has been initiated. There is an unusually high amount of P2 protein in equine CNS myelin compared with other species. The structure was determined by molecular replacement and subsequently refined to an R value of 0.187 (<sub>free</sub> = 0.233). The structure contains a molecule of the detergent LDAO and HEPES buffer in the binding cavity and is otherwise analogous to other cellular retinol-binding proteins
Development of a photoelasto-plastic method to study stress distributions in vicinity of a simulated crack - phase I and II
High temperature polymer creep simulation of aluminum alloy stress-strain distribution using photoelastoplastic stress measuremen
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