2,000 research outputs found
Characterisation of porous solids using small-angle scattering and NMR cryoporometry
The characteristics of several porous systems have been studied by the use of small-angle neutron scattering [SANS] and nuclear magnetic resonance [NMR] techniques. The measurements reveal different characteristics for sol-gel silicas, activated carbons and ordered mesoporous silicas of the MCM and SBA type. Good agreement is obtained between gas adsorption measurements and the NMR and SANS results for pore sizes above 10 nm. Recent measurements of the water/ice phase transformation in SBA silicas by neutron diffraction are also presented and indicate a complex relationship that will require more detailed treatment in terms of the possible effects of microporosity in the silica substrate. The complementarity of the different methods is emphasised and there is brief discussion of issues related to possible future developments
Confinement effects on glass forming liquids probed by DMA
Many molecular glass forming liquids show a shift of the glass transition T-g
to lower temperatures when the liquid is confined into mesoporous host
matrices. Two contrary explanations for this effect are given in literature:
First, confinement induced acceleration of the dynamics of the molecules leads
to an effective downshift of T-g increasing with decreasing pore size. Second,
due to thermal mismatch between the liquid and the surrounding host matrix,
negative pressure develops inside the pores with decreasing temperature, which
also shifts T-g to lower temperatures. Here we present dynamic mechanical
analysis measurements of the glass forming liquid salol in Vycor and Gelsil
with pore sizes of d=2.6, 5.0 and 7.5 nm. The dynamic complex elastic
susceptibility data can be consistently described with the assumption of two
relaxation processes inside the pores: A surface induced slowed down relaxation
due to interaction with rough pore interfaces and a second relaxation within
the core of the pores. This core relaxation time is reduced with decreasing
pore size d, leading to a downshift of T-g proportional to 1/d in perfect
agreement with recent differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements.
Thermal expansion measurements of empty and salol filled mesoporous samples
revealed that the contribution of negative pressure to the downshift of T-g is
small (<30%) and the main effect is due to the suppression of dynamically
correlated regions of size xi when the pore size xi approaches
Fast, exact CMB power spectrum estimation for a certain class of observational strategies
We describe a class of observational strategies for probing the anisotropies
in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) where the instrument scans on rings
which can be combined into an n-torus, the {\em ring torus}. This class has the
remarkable property that it allows exact maximum likelihood power spectrum
estimation in of order operations (if the size of the data set is )
under circumstances which would previously have made this analysis intractable:
correlated receiver noise, arbitrary asymmetric beam shapes and far side lobes,
non-uniform distribution of integration time on the sky and partial sky
coverage. This ease of computation gives us an important theoretical tool for
understanding the impact of instrumental effects on CMB observables and hence
for the design and analysis of the CMB observations of the future. There are
members of this class which closely approximate the MAP and Planck satellite
missions. We present a numerical example where we apply our ring torus methods
to a simulated data set from a CMB mission covering a 20 degree patch on the
sky to compute the maximum likelihood estimate of the power spectrum
with unprecedented efficiency.Comment: RevTeX, 14 pages, 5 figures. A full resolution version of Figure 1
and additional materials are at http://feynman.princeton.edu/~bwandelt/RT
Multi-gap superconductivity in a BaFe1.84Co0.16As2 film from optical measurements at terahertz frequencies
We measured the THz reflectance properties of a high quality epitaxial thin
film of the Fe-based superconductor BaFeCoAs with
T=22.5 K. The film was grown by pulsed laser deposition on a DyScO
substrate with an epitaxial SrTiO intermediate layer. The measured
spectrum, i.e. the reflectivity ratio between the superconducting and
normal state reflectance, provides clear evidence of a superconducting gap
close to 15 cm. A detailed data analysis shows that a
two-band, two-gap model is absolutely necessary to obtain a good description of
the measured spectrum. The low-energy gap results to be
well determined (=15.50.5 cm), while the value of the
high-energy gap is more uncertain (=557 cm).
Our results provide evidence of a nodeless isotropic double-gap scenario, with
the presence of two optical gaps corresponding to 2 values close
to 2 and 7.Comment: Published Versio
Small and large polarons in nickelates, manganites, and cuprates
By comparing the optical conductivities of La_{1.67}Sr_{0.33}NiO_{4} (LSNO),
Sr_{1.5}La_{0.5}MnO_4 (SLMO), Nd_2CuO_{4-y} (NCO), and
Nd_{1.96}Ce_{0.04}CuO_{4} (NCCO), we have identified a peculiar behavior of
polarons in this cuprate family. While in LSNO and SLMO small polarons localize
into ordered structures below a transition temperature, in those cuprates the
polarons appear to be large, and at low T their binding energy decreases. This
reflects into an increase of the polaron radius, which may trigger coherent
transport.Comment: File latex, 15 p. incl. 4 Figs. epsf, to appear on the Journal of
Superconductivity - Proc. "Stripes 1996" - Roma Dec 199
Temperature Evolution of Sodium Nitrite Structure in a Restricted Geometry
The NaNO nanocomposite ferroelectric material in porous glass was
studied by neutron diffraction. For the first time the details of the crystal
structure including positions and anisotropic thermal parameters were
determined for the solid material, embedded in a porous matrix, in ferro- and
paraelectric phases. It is demonstrated that in the ferroelectric phase the
structure is consistent with bulk data but above transition temperature the
giant growth of amplitudes of thermal vibrations is observed, resulting in the
formation of a "premelted state". Such a conclusion is in a good agreement with
the results of dielectric measurements published earlier.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Factors associated with severity of hepatic fibrosis in people with chronic hepatitis C infection
The document attached has been archived with permission from the editor of the Medical Journal of Australia. An external link to the publisher’s copy is included.OBJECTIVE: To determine factors associated with hepatic fibrosis development in people with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. METHODS: As a requirement for access to interferon therapy through the S100 scheme in Australia, individual pretreatment demographic and clinical information was collected on 2986 patients from 61 hospital-based liver clinics from 1 October 1994 through 31 December 1996. Patients with both a hepatic fibrosis score and an estimated duration of HCV infection (910) were divided into 540 with no or minimal hepatic fibrosis (stage 0–1) and 370 with moderate to severe hepatic fibrosis (stage 2–3). Seven factors were examined: age at HCV infection, sex, ethnicity, source of infection, duration of infection, alcohol intake, and mean ALT level. A further analysis was performed for all 1135 patients with a hepatic fibrosis score disregarding age at and duration of HCV infection. RESULTS: In multivariate analysis, four factors were significantly associated with moderate to severe hepatic fibrosis: age at infection (OR, 2.33 for age 31–40 years, 5.27 for age > 40 years, and 0.20 for age 30 years, compared with 3 times, compared with 1.5–2 times the upper limit of normal). In the analysis disregarding age at HCV infection and duration of HCV infection, older age was strongly associated with moderate to severe hepatic fibrosis (OR, 2.32 for age 36–40 years, 2.46 for age 41–50 years, 7.87 for age 51–60 years, and 7.15 for age > 60 years, compared with 16–30 years). There was no association in either analysis with sex or source of HCV infection. CONCLUSION: These factors may assist in targeting patients for both liver biopsy-based investigation and therapeutic intervention.Mark Danta, Gregory J Dore, Lisa Hennessy, Yueming Li, Chris R Vickers, Hugh Harley, Meng Ngu, William Reed, Paul V Desmond, William Sievert, Geoff C Farrell, John M Kaldor and Robert G Bate
Infrared response of ordered polarons in layered perovskites
We report on the infrared absorption spectra of three oxides where charged
superlattices have been recently observed in diffraction experiments. In
LaSrNiO, polaron localization is found to suppress the
low-energy conductivity through the opening of a gap and to split the
- vibrational manifold of the oxygen octahedra. Similar effects
are detected in SrLaMnO and in LaNiO, with
peculiar differences related to the type of charge ordering.Comment: File latex, 11 p. + 3 Figures, to appear on Phys. Rev. B (Rapid
Commun.), 1 Oct. 1996. The figures will be faxed upon request.
E-mail:[email protected] Fax: +39-6-446315
Molecular biological methods for studying the gut microbiota:the EU human gut flora project
Seven European laboratories co-operated in a joint project (FAIR CT97-3035) to develop, refine and apply molecular methods towards facilitating elucidation of the complex composition of the human intestinal microflora and to devise robust methodologies for monitoring the gut flora in response to diet. An extensive database of 16S rRNA sequences for tracking intestinal bacteria was generated by sequencing the 16S rRNA genes of new faecal isolates and of clones obtained by amplification with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on faecal DNA from subjects belonging to different age groups. The analyses indicated that the number of different species (diversity) present in the human gut increased with age. The sequence information generated, provided the basis for design of 16S rRNA-directed oligonucleotide probes to specifically detect bacteria at various levels of phylogenetic hierarchy. The probes were tested for their specificity and used in whole-cell and dot-blot hybridisations. The applicability of the developed methods was demonstrated in several studies and the major outcomes are described
Supercooled confined water and the Mode Coupling crossover temperature
We present a Molecular Dynamics study of the single particle dynamics of
supercooled water confined in a silica pore. Two dynamical regimes are found:
close to the hydrophilic substrate molecules are below the Mode Coupling
crossover temperature, , already at ambient temperature. The water closer
to the center of the pore (free water) approaches upon supercooling as
predicted by Mode Coupling Theories. For free water the crossover temperature
and crossover exponent are extracted from power-law fits to both the
diffusion coefficient and the relaxation time of the late region.Comment: To be published, Phys. Rev. Lett., 4 pages, 3 figures, revTeX, minor
changes in the figures, references added, changes in the tex
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