Assessing the Sensitivity of Different Life Stages for Sexual Disruption in Roach (Rutilus rutilus) Exposed to Effluents from Wastewater Treatment Works

Surveys of U.K. rivers have shown a high incidence of sexual disruption in populations of wild roach (Rutilus rutilus) living downstream from wastewater treatment works (WwTW), and the degree of intersex (gonads containing both male and female structural characteristics) has been correlated with the concentration of effluent in those rivers. In this study, we investigated feminized responses to two estrogenic WwTWs in roach exposed for periods during life stages of germ cell division (early life and the postspawning period). Roach were exposed as embryos from fertilization up to 300 days posthatch (dph; to include the period of gonadal sex differentiation) or as postspawning adult males, and including fish that had received previous estrogen exposure, for either 60 or 120 days when the annual event of germ cell proliferation occurs. Both effluents induced vitellogenin synthesis in both life stages studied, and the magnitude of the vitellogenic responses paralleled the effluent content of steroid estrogens. Feminization of the reproductive ducts occurred in male fish in a concentration-dependent manner when the exposure occurred during early life, but we found no effects on the reproductive ducts in adult males. Depuration studies (maintenance of fish in clean water after exposure to WwTW effluent) confirmed that the feminization of the reproductive duct was permanent. We found no evidence of ovotestis development in fish that had no previous estrogen exposure for any of the treatments. In wild adult roach that had previously received exposure to estrogen and were intersex, the degree of intersex increased during the study period, but this was not related to the immediate effluent exposure, suggesting a previously determined programming of ovotestis formation

Metallic phase in the two-dimensional ionic Hubbard model

We investigate the phases of the ionic Hubbard model in a two-dimensional square lattice using determinant quantum Monte Carlo (DQMC). At half-filling, when the interaction strength or the staggered potential dominate we find Mott and band insulators, respectively. When these two energies are of the same order we find a metallic region. Charge and magnetic structure factors demonstrate the presence of antiferromagnetism only in the Mott region, although the externally imposed density modulation is present everywhere in the phase diagram. Away from half-filling, other insulating phases are found. Kinetic energy correlations do not give clear signals for the existence of a bond-ordered phase

First-Principles Study on Electron Conduction in Sodium Nanowire

We present detailed first-principles calculations of the electron-conduction properties of a three-sodium-atom nanowire suspended between semi-infinite crystalline Na(001) electrodes during its elongation. Our investigations reveal that the conductance is ~1 G0 before the nanowire breaks and only one channel with the characteristic of the $3s$ orbital of the center atom in the nanowire contributes to the electron conduction. Moreover, the channel fully opens around the Fermi level, and the behavior of the channel-current density is insensitive to the structural deformation of the nanowire. These results verify that the conductance trace as a function of the electrode spacing exhibits a flat plateau at ~1 G0 during elongation.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Topological nature of polarization and charge pumping in ferroelectrics

Electric polarization or transferred charge due to an adiabatic change of external parameters $\vec{Q}$ is expressed in terms of a vector field defined in the $\vec{Q}$ space. This vector field is characterized by strings, i.e., trajectories of band-crossing points. In particular, the transverse component is given by the Biot-Savart law in a nonlocal way. For a cyclic change of $\vec{Q}$ along a loop C, the linking number between this string and C represents the amount of the pumped charge, which is quantized to be an integer as discussed by Thouless.Comment: 5 pages including 4 figure

Content-based Map of Science using Cross-lingual Document Embedding - A Comparison of US-Japan Funded Projects

Maps depicting the structure of science help us understand the development of science and technology. However, as it is difficult to apply inter-citation and co-citation analysis to recently published papers and ongoing projects that have few or no references, our previous work developed a content-based map by locating research papers and funding projects using word/document embedding. Because difficulties arise when comparing the content-based map in different languages, this paper improves our content-based map by developing a method for generating multi-dimensional vectors in the same space from cross-lingual (English and Japanese) documents. Using 1,000 IEEE papers, we confirmed a similarity of 0.76 for matching bilingual contents. Finally, we constructed a map from 34,000 projects of the National Science Foundation and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science from 2012 to 2015, and we indicate the findings obtained from a comparison of the US-Japan funded projects

Detection of topological transitions by transport through molecules and nanodevices

We analyze the phase transitions of an interacting electronic system weakly coupled to free-electron leads by considering its zero-bias conductance. This is expressed in terms of two effective impurity models for the cases with and without spin degeneracy. We demonstrate using the half-filled ionic Hubbard ring that the weight of the first conductance peak as a function of external flux or of the difference in gate voltages between even and odd sites allows one to identify the topological charge transition between a correlated insulator and a band insulator.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Exact Bond Ordered Ground State for the Transition Between the Band and the Mott Insulator

We derive an effective Hamiltonian $H_{eff}$ for an ionic Hubbard chain, valid for $t\ll U,\Delta$, where $t$ is the hopping, $U$ the Coulomb repulsion, and $\Delta$ the charge transfer energy. $H_{eff}$ is the minimal model for describing the transition from the band insulator (BI) ($\Delta -U\gg t$) and the Mott insulator (MI) ($U-\Delta \gg t$). Using spin-particle transformations (Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{86}, 1082 (2001)), we map $H_{eff}(U=\Delta)$ into an SU(3) antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model whose exact ground state is known. In this way, we show rigorously that a spontaneously dimerized insulating ferroelectric phase appears in the transition region between the BI and MI

Influence of vacuum carburizing treatment on fatigue crack growth characteristic in DSG2

The aim of this research is to clarify the influence of vacuum carburizing on the fatigue-crack progresscharacteristics of DSG2 steel. The test specimen tempering material (QT material) and vacuum carburizingmaterial (VC material) has been used. The fatigue-crack progress was examined by subjecting the samples tofour-point bending. The loading-capacity fixed experiment was done using a maximum load of Pmax = 4000–7000 N. The ?K fixed experiment was done using a load of ?K = 18–36 MPa?m.The crack progress speed of VC material fell, after the high crack progress speed was shown, and after itshowed the minimum, it showed the tendency to go up again. This is considered to be what is depended on thecompressive residual stress given to the carburizing layer. From this, it is thinkable that there is a crack progress depression effect in a carburizing layer.In VC material, a carburizing layer has a crack progress depression effect from a plunger-helix bottom to about2.6 mm, and it turned out that it is larger than an effective carburizing layer. Moreover, in each ?K, it wasshown that depression effect revelation differs and the crack progress process accompanying it was able to beshown typically

Stabilization of Polar Nano Regions in Pb-free ferroelectrics

Formation of polar nano regions through solid-solution additions are known to enhance significantly the functional properties of ferroelectric materials. Despite considerable progress in characterizing the microscopic behavior of polar nano regions, understanding their real-space atomic structure and dynamics of formation remains a considerable challenge. Here, using the method of dynamic pair distribution function, we provide direct insights into the role of solid-solution additions towards the stabilization of polar nano regions in the Pb-free ferroelectric of Ba(Zr,Ti)O3. It is shown that for an optimum level of substitution of Ti by larger Zr ions, the dynamics of atomic displacements for ferroelectric polarization are slowed sufficiently, which leads to increased local correlation among dipoles below THz frequencies. The dynamic pair distribution function technique demonstrates unique capability to obtain insights into locally correlated atomic dynamics in disordered materials, including new Pb-free ferroelectrics, which is necessary to understand and control their functional properties

The Infrared Array Camera Dark Field: Far-Infrared to X-ray Data

We present 20 band photometry from the far-IR to X-ray in the Spitzer Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) dark field. The bias for the near-IR camera on Spitzer is calibrated by observing a ~20' diameter "dark" field near the north ecliptic pole roughly every two-to-three weeks throughout the mission duration of Spitzer. The field is unique for its extreme depth, low background, high quality imaging, time-series information, and accompanying photometry including data taken with Akari, Palomar, MMT, KPNO, Hubble, and Chandra. This serendipitous survey contains the deepest mid-IR data taken to date. This data set is well suited for studies of intermediate-redshift galaxy clusters, high-redshift galaxies, the first generation of stars, and the lowest mass brown dwarfs, among others. This paper provides a summary of the data characteristics and catalog generation from all bands collected to date as well as a discussion of photometric redshifts and initial and expected science results and goals. To illustrate the scientific potential of this unique data set, we also present here IRAC color-color diagrams