Comment on: “Epidemic spreading on heterogeneous networks with identical infectivity” [Phys. Lett. A 364 (2007) 189]

In [R. Yang, et al., Phys. Lett. A 364 (2007) 189], it has been introduced a network-based Kermack-McKendrick-like SIR epidemic model, in which each node shows an identical capability of contact A and in which it has been claimed that, on scale free networks, the value A⁻¹ would be a threshold value for the density of recovered individuals. We show here that the recovered individuals cannot follow the claimed threshold behaviour. Furthermore, we give a biologically sound threshold ruling the transitory dynamics of the epidemics.     

Comment on: “Globally exponential synchronization in array of asymmetric coupled neural networks” [Phys. Lett. A 369 (2007) 444]

In this Letter, we indicate that the proposed sufficient condition in Letter [J.Q. Lu, W.C. Ho, M. Liu, Phys. Lett. A 369 (2007) 444] does not hold when coupling matrix G satisfies Assumption 3 in Letter [J.Q. Lu, W.C. Ho, M. Liu, Phys. Lett. A 369 (2007) 444]. Besides, there are some mistakes in deducing Theorem 1. The mistakes have been corrected and a correct version is given in this Letter.     

Reply to “Comment on ‘Contextuality within quantum mechanics manifested in subensemble mean values’ [Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 3430]” [Phys. Lett. A 374 (2010) 1397]

In this reply, we point out that the claim by De Zela (2010) [2] is unjustified because the setup he discusses is not equivalent to the setup analysed in our paper (Pan and Home (2009) [1]). Hence his subsequent argument claiming the reproducibility of our demonstrated quantum effect of path-spin contextuality by the Kochen-Specker realist model is not relevant.     

Reply to “Comment on ‘Piezonuclear decay of thorium’ [Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 1956]” [Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 3795]

In a paper appearing in this issue of Physics Letters A, Ericsson et al. raise some critical comments on the experiment [F. Cardone, R. Mignani, A. Petrucci, Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 1956] we carried out by cavitating a solution of thorium-228, which evidenced its anomalous decay behaviour, thus confirming the results previously obtained by Urutskoev et al. by explosion of titanium foils in solutions. In this Letter, we reply to these comments. In our opinion, the main shortcomings of the criticism by the Swedish authors are due to their omitting of inserting our experiment in the wider research stream of piezonuclear reactions, and to the statistical analysis they used, which does not comply with the rules generally accepted for samples with small numbers. However, apart from any possible theoretical speculation, there is the basic fact that two different experiments (ours and that by Urutskoev et al.), carried out independently and by different means, highlight an analogous anomaly in the decay of thorium subjected to pressure waves. Such a convergence of results shows that it is worth to further carry on experimental investigations, in order to get either a confirmation or a disproof of the induced-pressure anomalous behaviour of radioactive nuclides even different from thorium.     

Comment on: “Dense coding and teleportation with one-dimensional cluster states” [Phys. Lett. A 364 (2007) 7]

The schemes on quantum dense coding and teleportation [Phys. Lett. A 364 (2007) 7] are revisited. By reformulizing one-dimensional n-qubit cluster states, we decompose the necessary multi-qubit collective unitary operation into a sequence of single-qubit Hadamard (H) and two-qubit controlled-not (C) operations. Our reduction makes the schemes feasible today.     

Reply to: “Comment on: ‘Efficient high-capacity quantum secret sharing with two-photon entanglement’ [Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 1957]” [Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 396]

A corresponding Comment, raised by Yang and Wen, claimed that (i) our scheme cannot complete the task of secret sharing well even if the agents obtain the information about their measuring bases; (ii) they give a feasible improvement of our protocol. In this Reply, we show that their first judgment is wrong and their improvement is insecure.     

Comment on: “Electromagnetic wave propagation in single-wall carbon nanotubes” [Phys. Lett. A 333 (2004) 303]

In a recent article [L. Wei, Y.-N. Wang, Phys. Lett. A 333 (2004) 303], Li Wei and You-Nian Wang studied the propagation of electromagnetic wave in single-wall carbon nanotubes and presented different expressions of the dispersions relations of TE and TM modes, respectively. Here we have derived the correct form of the dispersion relation for TM mode on low-frequency electromagnetic wave. It is shown numerically that asymptotic behaviours of the TM and TE modes are quite similar in single-wall carbon nanotubes.     

Reply to: “Comment on: ‘Effects of including the counterrotating term and virtual photons on the eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of a scalar photon collective emission theory’ [Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 2514]” [Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 5732]

We compute the emission amplitude for the collective emission from a sphere of identical atoms in the scalar photon theory for both the cases of the complex kernel (i.e. including virtual photons) and real kernel. We explicitly show that the single mode theory based on the real kernel neglects the effects of the different decay rates and frequency shifts associated with the eigenfunctions belonging to the same angular index but with different radial indices. We show that these effects modify, for k₀R?1, both the time dependence of the emission amplitude and its angular distribution, in clear contradiction to the assertions made by the Comment's authors.     

Comment on: “A simple chaotic delay differential equation” [Phys. Lett. A 366 (2007) 397]

The purpose of this Letter is to give the reference for the model proposed in the discussion section of the above paper [J.C. Sprott, Phys. Lett. A 366 (2007) 397] and to show that chaotic behavior of this model has been studied in [A. Uçar, Int. J. Eng. Sci. 40 (2002) 251; A. Uçar, Chaos Solitons Fractals 16 (2003) 187].     

Comment on “Piezonuclear decay of thorium” [Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 1956]

Subjecting a solution of ²²⁸Th to ultrasound (20 kHz, 100 W), Cardone et al. [F. Cardone, R. Mignani, A. Petrucci, Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 1956] claim to observe an increase in the transformation or decay rate of ²²⁸Th by a factor of 10⁴. The evidence provided seems however far from conclusive and in part contradictory to the claims made. In fact, looking at the presented data we find it cannot be taken as justification to discard the null hypothesis, namely, that the data from exposed and non-exposed samples are drawn from the same distribution. We suggest a number of additional tests that should be made in order to improve the quality of the study and test the hypothesis of so-called piezonuclear reactions.     

Comment on: “A class of bound entangled states” [Phys. Lett. A 352 (2006) 321]

We generalize the condition keeping the special states bound entangled [S.-M. Fei, X. Li-Jost, B.-Z. Sun, Phys. Lett. A 352 (2006) 321] to the general states. Taking the original 4×4$4\times 4$ states as 2×8$2\times 8$ states we show that they still can be bound entangled.     

Comment on: “Dynamical analysis of Cohen-Grossberg neural networks with continuously distributed delays” [Phys. Lett. A 364 (2007) 38]

Recently, Mao and Zhao [Z. Mao, H. Zhao, Phys. Lett. A 364 (2007) 38] considered the existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium point of the Cohen-Grossberg neural network model with continuously distributed delays. Mao and Zhao established Theorem 1. In this Letter, we would like to point out that Theorem 1 given by Mao and Zhao is incorrect in general.     

Comment on: “Construction of bound entangled edge states with special ranks” [Phys. Lett. A 359 (2006) 603]

In a Letter by Clarisse [L. Clarisse, Phys. Lett. A 359 (2006) 603–607] the open problem of the existence of (5,5)$(5,5)$ and (6,6)$(6,6)$ PPT edge states has been solved. Here we report the existence of another large class of (5,5)$(5,5)$ entangled edge states with positive partial transposes. We also give a PPT edge state with range dimensions (6,6)$(6,6)$.     

Comment on “Remarks on the structure of states of composite quantum systems and envariance” [Phys. Lett. A 355 (2006) 180]

Let ρ∈S(H₁⊗H₂) with dim(H₁⊗H₂)=∞. Suppose that L:S(H₁⊗H₂)→S(H₁) is a map. It is asserted in [1] that if L satisfies the condition Tr(PL(ρ))=Tr((P⊗I₂)ρ) for all rank-one orthogonal projectors P∈B(H₁), then L is given by L(ρ)=Tr₂(ρ). However the proof in Blanchard and Bruning (2006) [1] is not correct. The purpose of this short Letter is to give a proof of this result.     

Comment on: “Synchronization of two chaotic nonlinear gyros using active control” [Phys. Lett. A 343 (2005) 153]

A modification to the control law presented in [Y. Lei, W. Xu, H. Zheng, Synchronization of two chaotic nonlinear gyros using active control, Phys. Lett. A 343 (2005) 153] is proposed.     

Comment on: “Dynamical analysis of Cohen-Grossberg neural networks with distributed delays” [Phys. Lett. A 364 (2007) 38]

It is pointed out that an unnatural assumption is made in the following Letter [Z. Mao, H. Zhao, Phys. Lett. A 364 (1) (2007) 38]. Therefore, the results of the Letter are not relevant to the real Cohen-Grossberg neural network model.     

Superconducting transition parameters in aluminum-lithium alloys (0-10 at.% Li)

The superconducting transition temperatures T_c of face-centered cubic Al_1−x-Li_x alloys (x=0-0.10) exhibit a minimum near x=0.03 (3 at.% Li). The McMillan strong-coupling T_c equation yields a similar trend of the electron-phonon coupling constant λ. Meanwhile, the density of states at the Fermi level N(0) decreases monotonically with increasing x. It appears that T_c drops initially due to a reduced N(0), which is then overtaken by alloying-enhanced factors of phonon or electron-phonon interaction.     

Femtosecond pulsed laser ablation of diamond-like carbon films on silicon

Femtosecond pulsed laser ablation (τ = 120 fs, λ = 800 nm, repetition rate = 1 kHz) of thin diamond-like carbon (DLC) films on silicon was conducted in air using a direct focusing technique for estimating ablation threshold and investigating the influence of ablation parameter on the morphological features of ablated regions. The single-pulse ablation threshold estimated by two different methods were ?_th(1) = 2.43 and 2.51 J/cm². The morphological changes were evaluated by means of scanning electron microscopy. A comparison with picosecond pulsed laser ablation shows lower threshold and reduced collateral thermal damage.     

EPR study of Cu(II) dopant ions in single crystals of bis(l-asparaginato)Zn(II)

We report an electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) study at 33.9 GHz and room temperature of oriented single crystal samples of bis(l-asparaginato)Zn(II) doped with Cu(II). The variation of the spectra with magnetic field orientation was measured in three crystal planes (a*b, bc and a*c, with a*=b×c). These spectra display two groups of four peaks arising from the hyperfine interaction with the I_Cu=3/2 nuclear spins of copper. They were assigned to Cu(II) ions in two lattice sites related by a 180° rotation around the b-crystal axis. The g and hyperfine coupling (A) tensors of the Cu(II) ions were evaluated from the single crystal data. Some indeterminacy in the assignment of the signals was avoided measuring the EPR spectrum of a powder sample. Their principal values are g₁=2.060(1), g₂=2.068(2), g₃=2.283(2), and A₁≈0.1×10⁻⁴, A₂=13×10⁻⁴ and A₃=165×10⁻⁴ cm⁻¹. The eigenvectors corresponding to g₃ and A₃ are coincident within the experimental error; the other eigenvectors are rotated 5.6° in the perpendicular plane. Considering the crystal structure of bis(l-asparaginato)Zn(II), our EPR results indicate that the Cu(II) impurities replace Zn(II) ions in the host crystal. We propose a molecular model based on the EPR data and the structural information, and analyse the results comparing the measured values with those obtained in similar systems.