Lunar and Solar Tides in the Electric Field of the Earth's Atmosphere

The paper is aimed at solving one of the problems of modern geophysics, namely, investigating a correlation between the Earth's extremely low frequency (<30 Hz) electromagnetic field in the ground atmospheric layer and the global geophysical processes like lunar and solar tides.     

Tides and sea level evolution at Alexandria (Egypt)

Summary The harmonic constants of the tides at Alexandria, in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, have been recalculated by means of a new method. Long period evolution of the sea level in the years 1985–1986 has been also considered.     

Terrestrial Seismic Activity and Neutrons from the Surface of the Earth Associated with Lunar and Solar Tides

drastic increase in the flux of thermal neutrons of secondary cosmic radiation coming from the Earth was observed in the Pamir Mountains during the solar eclipse of July 22, 1990. In the following years, such phenomena were observed on each new moon and each full moon, when lunar and solar tides combine to produce an exceptionally high resultant tide. Tidal forces may serve as a trigger for the release of the deepearth seismic energy in a certain region. This directed our attention to the search for a temporal correlation between earthquakes and new and full moons, which may help identify a new type of seismic activity precursor. Such a correlation was found in the circum-Pacific belt and the adjacent regions at latitudes above 40° N and 10° S. The results of daytime measurements of the thermal neutron flux from the surface of the Earth in the Western Pamirs (Moskvin Glade, 4200 m above sea level) on August 1–14, 1994, are reported in the present study. Since these days were quiet in terms of weather and heliophysical and geophysical activity, the intensity of neutrons of secondary cosmic radiation was expected to remain almost constant. However, twofold (or even larger) intraday variations of the neutron count rate were observed on August 1–14, 1994. These quiet measurement conditions rule out the possibility that these bursts were associated with certain known extraterrestrial factors. It has been demonstrated that the observed neutron-intensity peaks were produced by lunar and solar tides. These results confirm that tidal forces play a prominent part in the generation of neutron fluxes from the surface of the Earth. The Astronomical Yearbook for 1994 published by the Russian Academy of Sciences was used in the present study.     

DNA dynamics and organization in sub-micron scale: Bacterial chromosomes and plasmids in vivo and in vitro

Decades of research have witnessed that the mechanical properties of DNA and the associated protein interactions are crucial to the structural organizations and dynamic behaviors of bacterial DNA molecules. Packaged in a restricted cellular space and respective compositions, the entropic force due to confinement is a major factor driving the basal structural formation of the bacterial chromosome and the distribution of plasmids. The dynamic responses of the DNA-protein interactions also modulate the DNA organization when the cellular functions proceed. In this review, we survey the in-vivo and in-vitro evidence and the current understandings of the cellular phenomena of DNA molecules in the sub-micron scale of the bacterial cellular environment. The physical nature and constraints of DNA in cells and the related biological factors, especially the effects induced by gene expressions, are also discussed. We anticipate that by the methodological advances in vivo and in vitro as well as their combinations, the fundamental insights of the coupling from the physical environment and DNA-protein interactions on bacterial DNA dynamics and organization may be revealed.     

Defects and impurities in amorphous semiconductors and in liquid electrolytes

Amorphous (a-) semiconductors like a-Si:H and the chalcogenide glasses possess a general tendency to establish an overall equilibrium between the electronic system and the lattice with its dopant and defect sites. In the present paper the chemical interactions which establish these equilibria within the bulk of the a-semiconductor lattices are compared to chemical interactions in liquid electrolytes, particularly to those in H₂O. These considerations reveal close similarities between autocompensation doping in a-semiconductors and acid/base reactions in H₂O. The effects of light and field-effect induced defect formation, on the other hand, are shown to be related to the phenomenon of electrolysis in H₂O. The consideration of these analogies further emphasizes the roles of charge-carrier localization and that of H-diffusion in promoting dopant and defect equilibration reactions in a-semiconductors.     

Uncertainty in prediction and in inference

The concepts of uncertainty in prediction and inference are introduced and illustrated using the diffraction of light as an example. The close relationship between the concepts of uncertainty in inference and resolving power is noted. A general quantitative measure of uncertainty in inference can be obtained by means of the so-called statistical distance between probability distributions. When applied to quantum mechanics, this distance leads to a measure of the distinguishability of quantum states, which essentially is the absolute value of the matrix element between the states. The importance of this result to the quantum mechanical uncertainty principle is noted. The second part of the paper provides a derivation of the statistical distance on the basis of the so-called method of support.     

Twin walls in anorthoclase are enriched in alkali and depleted in Ca and Al

Abstract

Composition profiles have been measured in transformation twin walls of the albite type in anorthoclase. Regions close to the walls between two twin domains are enriched in K and Na and depleted in Ca and Al. Microanalysis experiments show high mobility of alkali cations close to twin boundaries. Twin walls are generated via the displacive phase transition C2/m?C[lbar] in Al, Si disordered feldspar, and the chemical heterogeneity is a fingerprint for the subsequent diffusion of alkali and earth alkali ions during the cooling history of the sample.     

Spin populations and free valences in excited molecules and in radicals

Using the DFT PBE0 quantum-chemical method, we have determined the spin populations and the free valences of atoms in (i) 3,4-dimethylenefuran; (ii) exciplex 3,4-dimethylenefuran · O₂; (iii) phthalocyaninates PcCu and PcCo; (iv) cations Pc⁺Cu, Pc⁺Co, and Pc⁺Ni; (v) dication [PcAlOAlPc]²⁺; and (vi) two excited triplet diketones: fulleroid-type C₅₈(CO)₂ and cyclododeca-3,4,9,10-tetraene-1,7-dione. Free valences determine atomic contributions to the doubled variance of the many-electron spin. Unlike spin populations, they are insensitive to the choice of the component of a quasi-degenerate spin state of a chemical compound and account for the regioselectivity of the radical addition to 3,4-dimethylenefuran and the photochemical stability of Pc-containing nanosystems. In a triplet state of C¹²H₁₂O₂, the spin density and the free valence are localized on a single carbonyl group, whereas, in a triplet state of C₅₈(CO)₂, they are delocalized.     

Patterns and Symmetries in the Visual Cortex and in Natural Images

As borders between different entities, lines are an important element of natural images. Indeed, the neurons of the mammalian visual cortex are tuned to respond best to lines of a given orientation. This preferred orientation varies continuously across most of the cortex, but also has vortex-like singularities known as pinwheels. In attempting to describe such patterns of orientation preference, we are led to consider underlying rotation symmetries: Oriented segments in natural images tend to be collinear; neurons are more likely to be connected if their preferred orientations are aligned to their topographic separation. These are indications of a reduced symmetry requiring joint rotations of both orientation preference and the underlying topography. This is verified by direct statistical tests in both natural images and in cortical maps. Using the statistics of natural scenes we construct filters that are best suited to extracting information from such images, and find qualitative similarities to mammalian vision. PACS84.35+i 89.70.+c 87.57.Nk     

Photothermal and electrooptic nonlinearities in ZnSe and ZnTe and their application in bistable devices

In this paper we present results on ZnSe and ZnTe optically bistable elements in connection with electrooptic effects. The behaviour of optical hysteresis under an applied electric field is studied and the electrical characteristics under illumination with monochromatic laser radiation are investigated. Influences of optical bistability on the photocurrent are measured and an attempt is made to explain the unusual behaviour of the current with respect to the absorbed amount of light, namely a switching down in photocurrent when the absorptive switching takes place. Towards this aim we report here for the first time on spatially resolved measurements of photoconductivity in ZnSe to investigate the influence of Schottky contacts on photothermal electrooptic bistability. Furthermore, we report also to our knowledge for the first time on the influence of the 3D-Stank effect on optical bistability.     

Fermions and disorder in ising and related models in two dimensions

The aspects of phase transitions in the two-dimensional Ising models modified by quenched and annealed site disorder are discussed in the framework of fermionic approach based on the reformulation of the problem in terms of integrals with anticommuting Grassmann variables.     

Zip and velcro bifurcations in competition models in ecology and economics

During the last six years or so, a number of interesting papers discussed systems with line segments of equilibria, planes of equilibria, and with more general equilibrium configurations. This note draws attention to the fact that such equilibria were considered previously by Miklós Farkas (1932–2007), in papers published in 1984–2005. He called zip bifurcations those involving line segments of equilibria, and velcro bifurcations those involving planes of equilibria. We briefly describe prototypical situations involving zip and velcro bifurcations.

     

Spin-canting and transverse relaxation in maghemite nanoparticles and in tin-doped maghemite

The magnetic properties of maghemite nanoparticles and tin-doped maghemite have been studied by ⁵⁷Fe and ¹¹⁹Sn Mössbauer spectroscopy at temperatures from 6 to 300 K with and without applied magnetic fields. The low-temperature ⁵⁷Fe spectra of both samples, obtained in a field of 4 T, can be described in terms of A-site and B-site components with perfect ferrimagnetic order and a strongly canted component, which seems to have its main contribution from B-site ions. At higher temperatures, the components with strong canting are influenced by transverse relaxation, which results in significant line broadening, a reduction of the magnetic hyperfine splitting and a reduction in the relative areas of lines 2 and 5. The ¹¹⁹Sn spectra show a very broad distribution of magnetic hyperfine fields at low temperatures. When the sample was exposed to applied magnetic fields the distribution became narrower. The spectra show that the direction of the hyperfine field of a large fraction of the tin ions in maghemite is antiparallel to the applied field, but a minor fraction of the tin ions have canted hyperfine fields.     

Clustering phenomena in radioactive and stable nuclei and in heavy-ion collisions

A theory for clustering formation in nuclei and in heavy-ion collisions has been worked out in terms of the quantum-mechanical fragmentation process. Treating the mass fragmentation and relative separation coordinates as weakly coupled, the spontaneous cluster-decay of radioactive nuclei has been considered as a two-step process of clustering formation and tunnelling of the confining nuclear interaction barrier. This model has also been applied to “stable” nuclei, lighter than lead. The effects of adding more and more neutrons to collidingN =Z,A = 4n nuclei are studied for theα-clustering transfer phenomenon.     

Nicholas Copernicus and his traditions in Toruńand in Poland

The system of coherent states for complex bounded homogeneous domains is constructed and the properties of coherent states are investigated. The question of selecting complete subsystems connected with discrete subgroups of the motion groups of Hermitian symmetric spaces is also studied.     

Pairing in exotic and in stable nuclei

The exchange of low-lying collective vibrations between pairs of nucleons moving in time reversal states close to the Fermi energy provides a conspicuous contribution to the nuclear pairing interaction, which accounts for 30-50% of the pairing gap in the case of nuclei along the stability valley, and to essentially all of the pairing correlations of the most loosely bound nucleons in the case of halo nuclei.Received: 30 October 2002, Published online: 23 March 2004PACS: 21.30.Fe Forces in hadronic systems and effective interactions - 21.60.Jz Hartree-Fock and random-phase approximations     

State-transition structures in physics and in computation

In order to establish close connections between physical and computational processes, it is assumed that the concepts of state and of transition are acceptable both to physicists and to computer scientists, at least in an informal way. The aim of this paper is to propose formal definitions of state and transition elements on the basis of very low level physical concepts in such a way that (1) all physically possible computations can be described as embedded in physical processes; (2) the computational aspects of physical processes can be described on a well-defined level of abstraction; (3) the gulf between the continuous models of physics and the discrete models of computer science can be bridged by simple mathematical constructs which may be given a physical interpretation; (4) a combinatorial, nonstatistical definition of information can be given on low levels of abstraction which may serve as a basis to derive higher-level concepts of information, e.g., by a statistical or probabilistic approach. Conceivable practical consequences are discussed.