Electronic Properties of the Vortex State in Cuprate Superconductors

The superconducting state of the cuprates in the presence of a magnetic field has been investigated very actively in the past few years through measurements of electrical and thermal transport, ac conductivity, specific heat, and other quantities. The observed behavior is not well understood; it probes the nature of quasiparticies, vortices, and their interactions in a superconductor with nodes in the pair amplitude. We summarize here experimental results and our attempts to understand the phenomena.

The ultimate edge: The case for planning media for sustaining space communities

Governments and intergovernmental organisations have long recognised that space communities – the ultimate ‘settlements at the edge’ – will exist one day and have based their first plans for these on another region ‘at the edge’, the Antarctic. United States President Eisenhower proposed to the United Nations in 1960 that the principles of the Antarctic Treaty be applied to outer space and celestial bodies (State Department, n.d.). Three years later the UN adopted the Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space and in 1967 that became the Outer Space Treaty. According to the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, ‘the Treaty was opened for signature by the three depository Governments (the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States of America) in January 1967, and it entered into force in October 1967’ (Office for Outer Space Affairs, n.d). The status of the treaty (at time of writing) was 89 signatories and 102 parties (Office for Disarmament Affairs, n.d.). Other related instruments include the Rescue Agreement, the Liability Convention, the Registration Convention and the Moon Agreement (Office for Outer Space Affairs, n.d.-a). Jumping to the present, a newsagency reported in July 2014 (Reuters, 2014) that the British Government had shortlisted eight aerodromes in its search for a potential base for the UK’s first spaceplane flights which Ministers want to happen by 2018 (UK Space Agency, 2014). The United States already has a spaceport, in New Mexico (Cokley, Rankin, Heinrich, & McAuliffe, 2013)...

Sizable photocurrent and emission from solid state devices based on CdS nanoparticles

CdS nanoparticles exhibit size dependent optical and electrical properties. We report here the photocurrent and I-V characteristic studies of CdS nanoparticle devices. A sizable short circuit photocurrent was observed in the detection range governed by the size of the clusters. We speculate on the mechanisms leading to the photocurrent and emission in these nanometer scale systems.

Stress-state permeability relationships for clays with coarse fraction

In standard laboratory consolidation tests, only the fraction of soil passing through a particular size of the sieve, called the matrix material, is used. This size is usually restricted to 1/10 of the height of the consolidation ring. Particles larger than this size that are removed before the test may consist of gravel, fragments of rock, or other coarse materials. Hence, it is not possible to estimate the compressibility and permeability of the total material based on the compressibility and permeability behavior obtained from laboratory consolidation tests on the matrix material. In the present investigation an attempt has been made to estimate the compressibility and permeability behavior of the total material based on the compressibility and permeability behavior of the matrix material. The results indicate that the presence of coarse particles will reduce the compressibility of the soil in proportion to the coarse fraction present in the whole soil and will not affect the permeability of the soil for the range investigated. If the coarse fraction exceeds the Limiting percentage, the void ratio-vertical effective stress path will also start to deviate from the predicted path. An expression has been developed to estimate approximately the deviating pressure, and it is found to depend on the soil type as well as the percent clay fraction.

Exact ground state and kink-like excitations of a two-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet

A rare example of a two-dimensional Heisenberg model with an exact dimerized ground state is presented. This model, which can be regarded as a variation on the kagome' lattice, has several features of interest: it has a highly (but not macroscopically) degenerate ground state; it is closely related to spin chains studied by earlier authors; in particular, it exhibits domain-wall-like "kink" excitations normally associated only with one-dimensional systems. In some limits it decouples into noninteracting chains; unusually, this happens in the limit of strong, rather than weak, interchain coupling. [S0163-1829(99)50338-X].

(Ap)pointing the canon Rousseau's Émile, visions of the state, and education

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Émile, ou de I’Education (Émile, or on Education) has been described by Rousseau scholars in latter twentieth century English-language philosophy as an educational classic. In 1995 Robert Wokler argued that together with Montesquieu, Hume, Smith, and Kant among his contemporaries, Rousseau had exerted the most profound influence on modern European intellectual history, “perhaps even surpassing anyone else of his day." For Wokler Émile is “the most significant work on education after Plato’s Republic.” Earlier in 1977, Allan Bloom questioned why Émile had not been the subject of analysis in philosophy relative to the rest of Rousseau‘s work, for “Émile is truly a great book, one that lays out for the first time and with the greatest clarity and vitality the modern way of posing the problems of psychology.” Bloom also saw Émile as “one of those rare total or synoptic books... a book comparable to Plato’s Republic, which it is meant to rival or supersede” and argued that Rousseau himself was at the source of a new tradition: “Whatever else Rousseau may have accomplished, he presented alternatives available to man more comprehensively and profoundly and articulated them in the form which has dominated discussion since his time." Even Peter Gay’s earlier commentary on John Locke and education in 1964 could not escape this central positioning of the text. The significance of Locke’s Some Thoughts on Education is weighed in relation to its impact on Rousseau‘s Émile. For Gay, the latter is “probably the most influential revolutionary tract on education that we have.”

State-formation, teaching techniques, and globalization as aporia

Eleanor Smith [pseudonym], teacher : I was talking to the kids about MacDonalds*/I forget exactly what the context was*/I said ‘‘ah, the Americans call them French fries, and, you know, MacDonalds is an American chain and they call them French fries because the Americans call them French fries’’, and this little Australian kid in the front row, very Australian child, said to me, ‘‘I call them French fries!’’ . . . Um, a fourth grade boy whom I taught in 1993 at this school, the world basketball championships were on . . . Americans were playing their dream machine and the Boomers were up against them . . . and, ah, this boy was very interested in basketball . . . but it’s not in my blood, not in the way cricket is for example . . . Um, Um, and I said to this fellow, ‘‘um, well’’, I said, ‘‘Australia’s up against Dream Machine tomorrow’’. He [Jason, pseudonym] said, ‘‘Ah, you know, Boomers probably won’t win’’. . . . I said, ‘‘Well that’s sport, mate’’. I said, ‘‘You never know in sport. Australia might win’’. And he looked at me and he said, ‘‘I’m not going for Australia, I’m going for America’’. This is from an Australian boy! And I thought so strong is the hype, so strong is the, is the, power of the media, etc., that this boy is not [pause], I can’t tell you how outraged I was. Here’s me as an Australian and I don’t even support basketball, it’s not even my sport, um, but that he would respond like that because of the power of the American machine that’s converting kids’ minds, the way they think, where they’re putting their loyalties, etc. I was just appalled, but that’s where he was. And when I asked kids for their favourite place, he said Los Angeles.

Preparation of lamellar and hexagonal forms of mesoporous silica and zirconiaby the neutral amine route: lamellar-hexagonal transformation in the solid state

The chain length of the surfactant and the solvent composition are two of the factors that determine whether the lamellar or the hexagonal form of mesoporous SiO2 (or ZrO2) is formed by the neutral amine route; a lamellar-hexagonal transformation occurs on removal of the amine from the former.

The nature of the charge-ordered state in Y0.5Ca0.5MnO3 with a very small average radius of the A-site cations

A detailed investigation of Y0.5Ca0.5MnO3 with a very small radius of the A-site cations ([r(A)] approximate to 1.13 Angstrom reveals the occurrence of a charge-ordering transition in the paramagnetic state, at a relatively high temperature of 260 K. The orthorhombic lattice distortion, as measured by the dimensionless index D, is large (similar to 1.75%) over the entire 300-100 K range, but the antiferromagnetic interactions become prominent only at low temperatures (< 160 K). The charge-ordering gap in Y0.5Ca0.5MnO3, measured by low-temperature vacuum tunnelling spectroscopy, is large (similar to 0.5 eV) and the charge-ordered state is unaffected by the application of a magnetic field of 6 T. The study indicates that the nature of charge-ordering in Y0.5Ca0.5MnO3 which is dominated by the cooperative Jahn-Teller effect and the associated lattice distortion is distinctly different from analogous manganates with larger [r(A)].

Unusual photodimerization of 7-fluoro-4-methylcoumarin and 6-fluoro-4-methylcoumarin in the solid state

Photodimerization of 7-fluoro-4-methylcoumarin 1 is topochemical while 6-fluoro-4-methylcoumarin 2 does not lead to the expected product based on the topochemical principles. Compound 1 yield an anti-MT photodimer with a lower dimer conversion while compound 2 results in a syn-HH photodimer. The packing features of 1, 2 and 2a (the photodimer of 2) have been unequivocally established by single crystal X-ray diffraction studies. The rationale for the significant lower dimer conversion in 1 is provided. The defect induced dimerization reaction in 2 as a function of temperature is analyzed which verifies that the reaction proceeds with an induction period. The details of the interactions involving fluorine are analyzed.

Solid state stacked trimers of 1,10-phenanthroline in a supramolecular tubular motif of C-methyl calix[4]resorcinarene

The self-assembly of bidentate ligand, 1,10-phenanthroline with C-methyl calix[4]resorcinarene (CMCR) in presence of coumarin results in a unique trimer stacking arrangement of phenanthroline molecules in a nanotubular motif generated by the supramolecular assembly of the host.

Ground and Excited State Intramolecular Proton Transfer in Salicylic Acid: an Ab Initio Electronic Structure Investigation

Energetics of the ground and excited state intramolecular proton transfer in salicylic acid have been studied by ab initio molecular orbital calculations using the 6-31G** basis set at the restricted Hartree-Fock (RHF) and configuration interaction-single excitation (CIS) levels and also using the semiempirical method AM1 at the RHF level as well as with single and pair doubles excitation configuration interaction spanning eight frontier orbitals (PECI = 8). The ab initio potential energy profile for intramolecular proton transfer in the ground state reveals a single minimum corresponding to the primary form, in the first excited singlet state, however, there are two minima corresponding to the primary and tautomeric forms, separated by a barrier of similar to 6 kcal/mol, thus accounting for dual emission in salicylic acid. Electron density changes with electronic excitation and tautomerism indicate no zwitterion formation. Changes in spectral characteristics with change in pH, due to protonation and deprotonation of salicylic acid, are also accounted for, qualitatively. Although the AM1 calculations suggest a substantial barrier for proton transfer in the ground as well as the first excited state of SA, it predicts the transition wavelength in near quantitative accord with the experimental results for salicylic acid and its protonated and deprotonated forms.

Japanese women and the ‘new’ administrative state

This chapter questions whether Japanese administrative law reform agenda aimed at promoting greater transparency in decision-making will necessarily lead to better policy outcomes for Japanese women. The chapter evaluates recent legislative reforms and policymaking initiatives in the area of sexual harassment and argues that these developments do not improve the situation for Japanese women. The reason is that the new rules effectively charge corporations with the responsibility to self-regulate, thereby transforming sexual harassment from a public issue of human rights to a domestic issue of corporate governance.

Identification of the nature of platinum related midgap state in silicon by deep level transient spectroscopy

In this article, we present the detailed investigations on platinum related midgap state corresponding to E-c -0.52 eV probed by deep level transient spectroscopy. By irradiating the platinum doped samples with high-energy (1.1 MeV) gamma rays, we observed that the concentration of the midgap state increases and follows a square dependence with irradiation dose. However, the concentration of the acceptor corresponding to E-c -20.28 eV remained constant. Furthermore, from the studies on passivation by atomic hydrogen and thermal reactivation, we noticed that the E-c -0.52 eV level reappears in the samples annealed at high temperatures after hydrogenation. The interaction of platinum with various defects and the qualitative arguments based on the law of mass action suggest that the platinum related midgap defect might possibly correspond to the interstitial platinum-divacancy complex (V-Pt-V).

Implicit and multigrid procedures for steady-state computations with upwind algorithms

A computational study for the convergence acceleration of Euler and Navier-Stokes computations with upwind schemes has been conducted in a unified framework. It involves the flux-vector splitting algorithms due to Steger-Warming and Van Leer, the flux-difference splitting algorithms due to Roe and Osher and the hybrid algorithms, AUSM (Advection Upstream Splitting Method) and HUS (Hybrid Upwind Splitting). Implicit time integration with line Gauss-Seidel relaxation and multigrid are among the procedures which have been systematically investigated on an individual as well as cumulative basis. The upwind schemes have been tested in various implicit-explicit operator combinations such that the optimal among them can be determined based on extensive computations for two-dimensional flows in subsonic, transonic, supersonic and hypersonic flow regimes. In this study, the performance of these implicit time-integration procedures has been systematically compared with those corresponding to a multigrid accelerated explicit Runge-Kutta method. It has been demonstrated that a multigrid method employed in conjunction with an implicit time-integration scheme yields distinctly superior convergence as compared to those associated with either of the acceleration procedures provided that effective smoothers, which have been identified in this investigation, are prescribed in the implicit operator.