Two Dimensional Ir-Cluster Lattices on Moir\'e of Graphene with Ir(111)

Lattices of Ir clusters have been grown by vapor phase deposition on graphene moir\'{e}s on Ir(111). The clusters are highly ordered, spatially and thermally stable below 500K. Their narrow size distribution is tunable from 4 to about 130 atoms. A model for cluster binding to the graphene is presented based on scanning tunneling microscopy and density functional theory. The proposed binding mechanism suggests that similar cluster lattices might be grown of materials other than Ir.Comment: Submitted to PRL on 27Apr0

Acoustic improvement of stator–rotor interaction with nonuniform trailing edge blowing

The results of unsteady-flow simulations and experiments are discussed to investigate active noise-reduction effects on the stator–rotor interaction in a single-stage low-speed compressor with nonuniform trailing edge blowing. It is found that for the investigated type of stator–rotor interaction noise, nonuniform trailing edge blowing has beneficial noise-reducing effects. The overall aim is to demonstrate that nonuniform trailing edge blowing can compensate momentum loss and reduce the axial thrust on rotor blades. The results illustrate how nonuniform trailing edge blowing influences the sound pressure level of the blade-passing frequencies and results in active noise reduction effects. The study was conducted using a trailing edge blowing system, a four-hole dynamic flow-field measurement system, and phase lock technology. The results obtained show that nonuniform trailing edge blowing leads to substantial noise-reduction effects, lowering sound levels by more than 10 dB with about 5‰ of inlet mass flow

Low-frequency active noise control of an underwater large-scale structure with distributed giant magnetostrictive actuators

A light and thin underwater large-plate active acoustic structure is developed that satisfies the particular requirements of high pressure resilience, low frequency and high efficiency encountered in underwater work environments. A low-frequency miniaturized active control unit, with a thickness of less than 50 mm, is designed using giant magnetostrictive material (GMM). The noise reduction performance is measured with an active control system based on a multi-channel adaptive filter. The active control system is developed within a LabVIEW environment and can achieve significant levels of noise reduction within time intervals of less than one second achieving absorption coefficients far exceeding 0.8 even under high pressures. The new active-control system incorporates hardware and software components and represents a novel technology for low-frequency underwater noise reduction

Asymptotic enumeration of incidence matrices

We discuss the problem of counting {\em incidence matrices}, i.e. zero-one matrices with no zero rows or columns. Using different approaches we give three different proofs for the leading asymptotics for the number of matrices with $n$ ones as $n\to\infty$. We also give refined results for the asymptotic number of $i\times j$ incidence matrices with $n$ ones.Comment: jpconf style files. Presented at the conference "Counting Complexity: An international workshop on statistical mechanics and combinatorics." In celebration of Prof. Tony Guttmann's 60th birthda

A frequency-response-based method of sound velocity measurement in an impedance tube

A stable and accurate new method for the measurement of the velocity of sound is proposed. The method is based on the characteristics of the frequency response measured at different positions in an impedance tube and it eliminates adverse effects caused by reflections from the transmitting transducer at the bottom of the impedance tube. A series of experiments is conducted, at different water temperatures, different positions in the impedance tube and under constant pressure, to validate the feasibility and stability of the new method. The new technique is also extended to hydrostatic pressure conditions with stable sound velocity. Our method generates an accurate measurement result in comparison to the estimated or average value obtained with currently existing methods. The novel method is suitable to be widely used in underwater acoustics

Surface plasmons at the Brillouin zone boundary of an oblique lattice

Copyright © 2015 AIP PublishingIn periodic systems of low-symmetry, the Bragg condition for the complete interference of waves along the contour of the Brillouin zone (BZ) boundary is not generally satisfied. As a result, band-gaps do not necessarily occur at this boundary. This letter demonstrates this experimentally by recording the iso-frequency contours for surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) supported on a diffraction grating with an underlying 2D oblique Bravias lattice. It is shown that these contours do not intersect the BZ boundary perpendicularly, as the symmetry operations of the lattice place no conditions on the surface wave interference at this boundary.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)HP Labs BristolUSA

Molecular and fossil evidence place the origin of cichlid fishes long after Gondwanan rifting.

Cichlid fishes are a key model system in the study of adaptive radiation, speciation and evolutionary developmental biology. More than 1600 cichlid species inhabit freshwater and marginal marine environments across several southern landmasses. This distributional pattern, combined with parallels between cichlid phylogeny and sequences of Mesozoic continental rifting, has led to the widely accepted hypothesis that cichlids are an ancient group whose major biogeographic patterns arose from Gondwanan vicariance. Although the Early Cretaceous (ca 135 Ma) divergence of living cichlids demanded by the vicariance model now represents a key calibration for teleost molecular clocks, this putative split pre-dates the oldest cichlid fossils by nearly 90 Myr. Here, we provide independent palaeontological and relaxed-molecular-clock estimates for the time of cichlid origin that collectively reject the antiquity of the group required by the Gondwanan vicariance scenario. The distribution of cichlid fossil horizons, the age of stratigraphically consistent outgroup lineages to cichlids and relaxed-clock analysis of a DNA sequence dataset consisting of 10 nuclear genes all deliver overlapping estimates for crown cichlid origin centred on the Palaeocene (ca 65-57 Ma), substantially post-dating the tectonic fragmentation of Gondwana. Our results provide a revised macroevolutionary time scale for cichlids, imply a role for dispersal in generating the observed geographical distribution of this important model clade and add to a growing debate that questions the dominance of the vicariance paradigm of historical biogeography