199 research outputs found
Small-Scale Finance for Water and Sanitation
The author argues that the case of lending for water and sanitation is a "classic market failure". Though it can be a productive activity for lenders and borrowers, there are a variety of factors that cause it to remain a small share of local commercial banks and micro-finance institutions' portfolios. The report outlines ways that government donors and philanthropists can be effective at spurring on this market
Direct and inverse measurement of thin films magnetostriction
Two techniques of measurements of thin film magnetostriction are compared:
direct, when changes of the substrate curvature caused by the film
magnetization are controlled, and inverse ("indirect"), when the modification
of the magnetic anisotropy induced by the substrate deformation (usually
bending) is measured. We demonstrate how both the elastic strength of the
substrate and the effective magneto-mechanical coupling between the substrate
deformation and magnetic anisotropy of the film depend on different conditions
of bending. Equations to be used for magnetostriction value determination in
typical cases are given and critical parameters for the corresponding
approximations are identified.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, 1 table, submitted to JMM
Ossen – Le Castet
Date de l'opération : 1984 (SD) Inventeur(s) : Trémolet Cécile Au sud du village d’Ossen en Lavedan, le Castet est une motte d’éperon utilisant un relief naturel remodelé. La plate-forme sommitale présente une surface plane, tandis qu’un segment de fossé isole au sud le tertre du plateau voisin qui ne porte aucun vestige d’une basse-cour. Trois sondages ouverts sur la plate-forme ont permis d’identifier un bâtiment ruiné de plan rectangulaire (18,60 m x 9,30 m) construit en moellons liés au ..
Evaluating the Potential of Container-Based Sanitation
In the face of urbanization, alternative approaches are needed to deliver adequate and inclusive sanitation services across the full sanitation service chain. Container-based sanitation (CBS) consists of an end-to-end service—that is, one provided along the whole sanitation service chain—that collects excreta hygienically from toilets designed with sealable, removable containers and strives to ensure that the excreta is safely treated, disposed of, and reused. This report builds on four case studies (SOIL – Haiti, x-runner – Peru, Clean Team – Ghana, Sanergy – Kenya) to assess the role CBS can play in a portfolio of solutions for citywide inclusive sanitation (CWIS) services. The authors conclude that CBS approaches should be part of the CWIS portfolio of solutions, especially for poor urban populations for whom alternative on-site or sewer-based sanitation services might not be appropriate. Customer satisfaction with existing services is high and services provided by existing CBS providers are considered safe but have some areas for improvement. While the proportion of total CBS service costs covered by revenues is still small, CBS services are considered to be priced similarly to the main sanitation alternatives in their service areas. Recommendations include adopting a conducive policy and regulatory environment and exploring ways to ensure that CBS services are sustainably financed. The report also identifies areas for further analysis
Anomalous Hall effect in NiPt thin films
We study Hall effect in sputtered NixPt1-x thin films with different Ni
concentrations. Temperature, magnetic field and angular dependencies are
analyzed and the phase diagram of NiPt thin films is obtained. It is found that
films with sub-critical Ni concentration exhibit cluster-glass behavior at low
temperatures with a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy below the freezing
temperature. Films with over-critical Ni concentration are ferromagnetic with
parallel anisotropy. At the critical concentration the state of the film is
strongly frustrated. Such films demonstrate canted magnetization with the easy
axis rotating as a function of temperature. The magnetism appears via
consecutive paramagnetic - cluster glass - ferromagnetic transitions, rather
than a single second-order phase transition. But most remarkably, the
extraordinary Hall effect changes sign at the critical concentration. We
suggest that this is associated with a reconstruction of the electronic
structure of the alloy at the normal metal - ferromagnet quantum phase
transition.Comment: 12 pages, 17 figure
Size and polydispersity effect on the magnetization of densely packed magnetic nanoparticles
The magnetic properties of densely packed magnetic nanoparticles (MNP)
assemblies are investigated from Monte Carlo simulations. The case of iron
oxide nanoparticles is considered as a typical example of MNP. The main focus
is put on particle size and size polydispersity influences on the magnetization
curve. The particles are modeled as uniformly magnetized spheres isolated one
from each other by a non magnetic layer representing the organic coating. A
comparison with recent experimental results on FeO powder
samples differing by their size is given.Comment: To be published in the Journal of Applied Physics, to be found at
http://jap.aip.org
First-principles calculation of magnetoelastic coefficients and magnetostriction in the spinel ferrites CoFe2O4 and NiFe2O4
We present calculations of magnetostriction constants for the spinel ferrites
CoFe2O4 and NiFe2O4 using density functional theory within the GGA+U approach.
Special emphasis is devoted to the influence of different possible cation
distributions on the B site sublattice of the inverse spinel structure on the
calculated elastic and magnetoelastic constants. We show that the resulting
symmetry-lowering has only a negligible effect on the elastic constants of both
systems as well as on the magnetoelastic response of NiFe2O4, whereas the
magnetoelastic response of CoFe2O4 depends more strongly on the specific cation
arrangement. In all cases our calculated magnetostriction constants are in good
agreement with available experimental data. Our work thus paves the way for
more detailed first-principles studies regarding the effect of stoichiometry
and cation inversion on the magnetostrictive properties of spinel ferrites.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure
Low rank updates in preconditioning the saddle point systems arising from data assimilation problems
The numerical solution of saddle point systems has received a lot of attention over the past few years in a wide variety of applications such as constrained optimization, computational fluid dynamics and optimal control, to name a few. In this paper, we focus on the saddle point formulation of a large-scale variational data assimilation problem, where the computations involving the constraint blocks are supposed to be much more expensive than those related to the (1, 1) block of the saddle point matrix. New low-rank limited memory preconditioners exploiting the particular structure of the problem are proposed and analysed theoretically. Numerical experiments performed within the Object-Oriented Prediction System are presented to highlight the relevance of the proposed preconditioners
Accounting for model error in strong-constraint 4DVar data assimilation
The strong constraint formulation of four-dimensional variational data assimilation (4DVar) assumes that the model used in the process perfectly describes the true dynamics of the system. However, this assumption often does not hold and the use of an erroneous model in strong constraint 4DVar can lead to a sub-optimal estimation of the initial conditions. We show how the presence of model error can be correctly accounted for in strong constraint 4D-Var by allowing for errors in both the observations and the model when considering the statistics of the innovation vector. We demonstrate that when these combined model error and observation error statistics are used in place of the standard observation error statistics in the strong constraint formulation of 4DVar, a statistically more accurate estimate of the initial state is obtained.
The calculation of the combined model error and observation error statistics requires the specification of model error covariances, which in practice are often unknown. We present a method to estimate the combined statistics from innovation data that does not require explicit specification of the model error covariances. Numerical experiments using the linear advection equation and a simple nonlinear coupled model demonstrate the success of the new methods in reducing the error in the estimate of the initial state, even in the case when only the uncorrelated part of the model error is accounted for
Magnetoelectric coupling in polycrystalline FeVO4
We report coupling between magnetic and electric orders for antiferromagnetic
polycrystalline FeVO4 in which magnetism-induced polarization has been recently
found in noncollinear antiferromagnetic state below the second
antiferromagnetic phase transition at TN2=15.7K. In this low symmetry phase
space group P-1, the magnetic field dependence of electric polarization
evidences a clear magnetoelectric coupling in the noncollinear spin-configured
antiferromagnetic phase. The discontinuity of magnetodielectric effect observed
at the vicinity of the polar to nonpolar transition evidences competition
between different magnetodielectric couplings in the two different
antiferromagnetic states. The existence of thermal expansion anomaly near TN2
and magnetostriction effect support magnetoelastically mediated scenario of the
observed magnetoelectric effect.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, Phys. Rev. B 80, 172103 (2009
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