26,904 research outputs found
Absorption of Energy at a Metallic Surface due to a Normal Electric Field
The effect of an oscillating electric field normal to a metallic surface may
be described by an effective potential. This induced potential is calculated
using semiclassical variants of the random phase approximation (RPA). Results
are obtained for both ballistic and diffusive electron motion, and for two and
three dimensional systems. The potential induced within the surface causes
absorption of energy. The results are applied to the absorption of radiation by
small metal spheres and discs. They improve upon an earlier treatment which
used the Thomas-Fermi approximation for the effective potential.Comment: 19 pages (Plain TeX), 2 figures, 1 table (Postscript
A comparison of the in vitro and in planta responses of Phytophthora cinnamomi isolates to phosphite
Research in plant pathology often relies on testing interactions between a fungicide and a pathogen in vitro and extrapolating from these results what may happen in planta. Likewise, results from glasshouse experiments are used to estimate what will happen if the fungicide is applied in the field. However, it is difficult to obtain conditions in vitro and in the glasshouse which reflect the conditions where the fungicide may eventually be used, in the field.
The aim of this paper is to compare results of the effect of phosphite on P. cinnamomi isolates in vitro and in planta
BARTER:promoting local spending behavior
In the wake of the 2008 economic collapse, there is renewed interest in strategies for ensuring the future economic success of nations in a globalized marketplace. One of the main ideas being championed by governments is to promote growth by encouraging local spending, although it is not clear how to motivate this behavioral shift. Local currency initiatives are increasingly popular, though due to certain practicalities are rarely successful in fostering long term and widespread change in spending behaviors. We report on the development of a persuasive system (BARTER) that leverages mobile and ubiquitous technology to overcome some of the limitations of local currencies, while also providing users with the insight needed to determine for themselves how local spending may benet their community
NHS reforms and the working lives of midwives and physiotherapists
From 2000 the NHS was subjected to a series of far reaching reforms, the purposes of which were to increase the role of the primary care sector in commissioning and providing services, promote healthier life styles, reduce health inequality, and improve service standards. These were seen as requiring a greater leadership role from health professionals, closer and more cooperative working between health professionals, and between health professionals, social services, and community and other service providers. The project surveyed a random sample of midwives and physiotherapists to investigate their perceptions of the effectiveness of the reforms, and their effects on working
lives. The predominant perception was that NHS reforms had negatively affected the funding of their services; and had done little to improve service quality, delivery or organisation. Although the potential existed for the reforms
to improve services, the necessary resources and required staffing were not made available and the objectives of the reforms were only partially secured by intensifying of work. The downside of this was a deterioration of the sociopsychological wellbeing of midwives and physiotherapists, especially the former, exacerbating the shortage of skilled and experienced. Shortage of staff
and the associated increased work burdens were demoralising and demotivating; morale and job satisfaction declined, and job insecurity and labour turnover increased
Energy absorption by "sparse" systems: beyond linear response theory
The analysis of the response to driving in the case of weakly chaotic or
weakly interacting systems should go beyond linear response theory. Due to the
"sparsity" of the perturbation matrix, a resistor network picture of
transitions between energy levels is essential. The Kubo formula is modified,
replacing the "algebraic" average over the squared matrix elements by a
"resistor network" average. Consequently the response becomes semi-linear
rather than linear. Some novel results have been obtained in the context of two
prototype problems: the heating rate of particles in Billiards with vibrating
walls; and the Ohmic Joule conductance of mesoscopic rings driven by
electromotive force. Respectively, the obtained results are contrasted with the
"Wall formula" and the "Drude formula".Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, short pedagogical review. Proceedings of FQMT
conference (Prague, 2011). Ref correcte
Crystallization and preliminary crystallographic analysis of the DNA gyrase B protein from B-stearothermophilus
DNA gyrase B (GyrB) from B. stearothermophilus has been crystallized in the presence of the non-hydrolyzable ATP analogue, 5'-adenylpl-beta-gamma-imidodiphosphate (ADPNP), by the dialysis method. A complete native data set to 3.7 Angstrom has been collected from crystals which belonged to the cubic space group I23 with unit-cell dimension a = 250.6 Angstrom. Self-rotation function analysis indicates the position of a molecular twofold axis. Low-resolution data sets of a thimerosal and a selenomethionine derivative have also been analysed. The heavy-atom positions are consistent with one dimer in the asymmetric unit
The path-coalescence transition and its applications
We analyse the motion of a system of particles subjected a random force
fluctuating in both space and time, and experiencing viscous damping. When the
damping exceeds a certain threshold, the system undergoes a phase transition:
the particle trajectories coalesce. We analyse this transition by mapping it to
a Kramers problem which we solve exactly. In the limit of weak random force we
characterise the dynamics by computing the rate at which caustics are crossed,
and the statistics of the particle density in the coalescing phase. Last but
not least we describe possible realisations of the effect, ranging from
trajectories of raindrops on glass surfaces to animal migration patterns.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; revised version, as publishe
Automatic annotation of bioinformatics workflows with biomedical ontologies
Legacy scientific workflows, and the services within them, often present
scarce and unstructured (i.e. textual) descriptions. This makes it difficult to
find, share and reuse them, thus dramatically reducing their value to the
community. This paper presents an approach to annotating workflows and their
subcomponents with ontology terms, in an attempt to describe these artifacts in
a structured way. Despite a dearth of even textual descriptions, we
automatically annotated 530 myExperiment bioinformatics-related workflows,
including more than 2600 workflow-associated services, with relevant
ontological terms. Quantitative evaluation of the Information Content of these
terms suggests that, in cases where annotation was possible at all, the
annotation quality was comparable to manually curated bioinformatics resources.Comment: 6th International Symposium on Leveraging Applications (ISoLA 2014
conference), 15 pages, 4 figure
Caustics in turbulent aerosols
Networks of caustics can occur in the distribution of particles suspended in
a randomly moving gas. These can facilitate coagulation of particles by
bringing them into close proximity, even in cases where the trajectories do not
coalesce. We show that the long-time morphology of these caustic patterns is
determined by the Lyapunov exponents lambda_1, lambda_2 of the suspended
particles, as well as the rate J at which particles encounter caustics. We
develop a theory determining the quantities J, lambda_1, lambda_2 from the
statistical properties of the gas flow, in the limit of short correlation
times.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Gegenbauer-solvable quantum chain model
In an innovative inverse-problem construction the measured, experimental
energies , , ... of a quantum bound-state system are assumed
fitted by an N-plet of zeros of a classical orthogonal polynomial . We
reconstruct the underlying Hamiltonian (in the most elementary
nearest-neighbor-interaction form) and the underlying Hilbert space
of states (the rich menu of non-equivalent inner products is offered). The
Gegenbauer's ultraspherical polynomials are chosen for
the detailed illustration of technicalities.Comment: 29 pp., 1 fi
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