The radiation from slots in truncated dielectric-covered surfaces

A theoretical approach based on the geometrical theory of diffraction is used to study the electromagnetic radiation from a narrow slot in a dielectric-covered perfectly-conducting surface terminated at an edge. The total far-zone field is composed of a geometrical optics field and a diffracted field. The geometrical optics field is the direct radiation from the slot to the field point. The slot also generates surface waves which are incident at the termination of the dielectric cover, where singly-diffracted rays and reflected surface waves are excited. The diffraction and reflection coefficients are obtained from the canonical problem of the diffraction of a surface wave by a right-angle wedge where the dielectric-covered surface is approximated by an impedance surface. This approximation is satisfactory for a very thin cover; however, the radiation from its vertical and faces cannot be neglected in treating the thicker dielectric cover. This is taken into account by using a Kirchhoff-type approximation, which contributes a second term to the diffraction coefficient previously obtained. The contributions from the geometrical optics field, the singly-diffracted rays and all significant multiply-diffracted rays are summed to give the total radiation. Calculated and measured patterns are found to be in good agreement

Repulsive Fermions in Optical Lattices: Phase separation versus Coexistence of Antiferromagnetism and d-Superfluidity

We investigate a system of fermions on a two-dimensional optical square lattice in the strongly repulsive coupling regime. In this case, the interactions can be controlled by laser intensity as well as by Feshbach resonance. We compare the energetics of states with resonating valence bond d-wave superfluidity, antiferromagnetic long range order and a homogeneous state with coexistence of superfluidity and antiferromagnetism. We show that the energy density of a hole $e_{hole}(x)$ has a minimum at doping $x=x_c$ that signals phase separation between the antiferromagnetic and d-wave paired superfluid phases. The energy of the phase-separated ground state is however found to be very close to that of a homogeneous state with coexisting antiferromagnetic and superfluid orders. We explore the dependence of the energy on the interaction strength and on the three-site hopping terms and compare with the nearest neighbor hopping {\it t-J} model

Forced Sales and House Prices

This paper uses data on all house transactions in Massachusetts over the last 20 years to show that houses sold after foreclosure, or close in time to the death or bankruptcy of a seller, are sold at lower prices than other houses. Foreclosure discounts are on average at 27 percent of the value of a house. Moreover, foreclosures that take place within small local geographies of a house lower the price at which it is sold. Our preferred estimate is that a foreclosure at a distance of 0.05 miles lowers the price of a house by about 1 percent.Economic

Author Experiences with the IS Journal Review Process

Research publication in peer-reviewed journals is an important avenue for knowledge dissemination. However, information on journal review process metrics are often not available to prospective authors, which may preclude effective targeting of their research work to appropriate outlets. We study these metrics for information systems (IS) researchers through a survey of actual author experiences of the IS journal review process. Our results provide a knowledge base of the length and quality of the review process in various journals; responsiveness of the journal office and publication delay; and correlations of metrics with published studies of journal rankings. The data should enable authors to make effective submission decisions, as well as help to benchmark journal review processes among competing journals

Voltage-Sensing Arginines in a Potassium Channel Permeate and Occlude Cation-Selective Pores

SummaryVoltage-gated ion channels sense voltage by shuttling arginine residues located in the S4 segment across the membrane electric field. The molecular pathway for this arginine permeation is not understood, nor is the filtering mechanism that permits passage of charged arginines but excludes solution ions. We find that substituting the first S4 arginine with smaller amino acids opens a high-conductance pathway for solution cations in the Shaker K+ channel at rest. The cationic current does not flow through the central K+ pore and is influenced by mutation of a conserved residue in S2, suggesting that it flows through a protein pathway within the voltage-sensing domain. The current can be carried by guanidinium ions, suggesting that this is the pathway for transmembrane arginine permeation. We propose that when S4 moves it ratchets between conformations in which one arginine after another occupies and occludes to ions the narrowest part of this pathway

Methane and carbon dioxide adsorption on edge-functionalized graphene: A comparative DFT study

With a view towards optimizing gas storage and separation in crystalline and disordered nanoporous carbon-based materials, we use ab initio density functional theory calculations to explore the effect of chemical functionalization on gas binding to exposed edges within model carbon nanostructures. We test the geometry, energetics, and charge distribution of in-plane and out-of-plane binding of CO2 and CH4 to model zigzag graphene nanoribbons edge-functionalized with COOH, OH, NH2, H2PO3, NO2, and CH3. Although different choices for the exchange-correlation functional lead to a spread of values for the binding energy, trends across the functional groups are largely preserved for each choice, as are the final orientations of the adsorbed gas molecules. We find binding of CO2 to exceed that of CH4 by roughly a factor of two. However, the two gases follow very similar trends with changes in the attached functional group, despite different molecular symmetries. Our results indicate that the presence of NH2, H2PO3, NO2, and COOH functional groups can significantly enhance gas binding with respect to a hydrogen-passivated edge, making the edges potentially viable binding sites in materials with high concentrations of edge carbons. To first order, in-plane binding strength correlates with the larger permanent and induced dipole moments on these groups. Implications for tailoring carbon structures for increased gas uptake and improved CO2/CH4 selectivity are discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Forced Sales and House Prices

This paper uses data on house transactions in the state of Massachusetts over the last 20 years to show that houses sold after foreclosure, or close in time to the death or bankruptcy of at least one seller, are sold at lower prices than other houses. Foreclosure discounts are particularly large on average at 28% of the value of a house. The pattern of death-related discounts suggests that they may result from poor home maintenance by older sellers, while foreclosure discounts appear to be related to the threat of vandalism in low-priced neighborhoods. After aggregating to the zipcode level and controlling for regional price trends, the prices of forced sales are mean-reverting, while the prices of unforced sales are close to a random walk. At the zipcode level, this suggests that unforced sales take place at approximately efficient prices, while forced-sales prices reflect time-varying illiquidity in neighborhood housing markets. At a more local level, however, we find that foreclosures that take place within a quarter of a mile, and particularly within a tenth of a mile, of a house lower the price at which it is sold. Our preferred estimate of this effect is that a foreclosure at a distance of 0.05 miles lowers the price of a house by about 1%.

On Two Alternative Uniformly Asymptotic Procedures for Analyzing the High-Frequency Diffraction of a Complex Source Beam by a Straight Wedge

When spectral wave integrals, representing the radiation and diffraction of electromagnetic waves, are characterized by a first-order saddle point and poles in the integrand, they can usually be evaluated, in essentially closed form, at high frequencies by the leading terms of any of the two well-known alternative uniformly asymptotic procedures, namely, the Pauli-Clemmow method (PCM) and the Van der Waerden method (VWM), respectively. The PCM has the advantage that its leading terms directly yield a solution in the simple ray format of the uniform geometrical theory of diffraction (UTD). On the other hand, it is commonly noted that it is not the leading term of the PCM but that of the VWM which remains valid for the case of complex waves. Nevertheless, it is shown here that the PCM can surprisingly work even for some special complex wave cases, only if certain conditions are met. Indeed, it is demonstrated here that the PCM meets these conditions for the special case of the diffraction of a complex source beam (CSB) by a wedge. Also, the PCM directly yields a UTD like solution for this case. The latter result is significant as it provides a strong justification for obtaining a simple UTD type solution for the more general problem of the diffraction of a CSB incident from an arbitrary direction on a wedge with arbitrary curvature, directly via analytic continuation of the corresponding UTD result available for a curved wedge illuminated by a point source in real space. It is also shown that the VWM solution can be trivially cast in the UTD format, by expressing it as a sum of the PCM solution plus a UTD slopelike correction term; a similar result was obtained previously using a higher order term from a generalization of the PCM procedure given elsewhere

DDR2 controls breast tumor stiffness and metastasis by regulating integrin mediated mechanotransduction in CAFs

Biomechanical changes in the tumor microenvironment influence tumor progression and metastases. Collagen content and fiber organization within the tumor stroma are major contributors to biomechanical changes (e., tumor stiffness) and correlated with tumor aggressiveness and outcome. What signals and in what cells control collagen organization within the tumors, and how, is not fully understood. We show in mouse breast tumors that the action of the collagen receptor DDR2 in CAFs controls tumor stiffness by reorganizing collagen fibers specifically at the tumor-stromal boundary. These changes were associated with lung metastases. The action of DDR2 in mouse and human CAFs, and tumors in vivo, was found to influence mechanotransduction by controlling full collagen-binding integrin activation via Rap1-mediated Talin1 and Kindlin2 recruitment. The action of DDR2 in tumor CAFs is thus critical for remodeling collagen fibers at the tumor-stromal boundary to generate a physically permissive tumor microenvironment for tumor cell invasion and metastases