Glass breaks like metal,but at the nanometer scale

We report in situ atomic force microscopy experiments which reveal the presence of nanoscale damage cavities ahead of a stress-corrosion crack tip in glass. Their presence might explain the departure from linear elasticity observed in the vicinity of a crack tip in glass. Such a ductile fracture mechanism, widely observed in the case of metallic materials at the micrometer scale, might be also at the origin of the striking similarity of the morphologies of fracture surfaces of glass and metallic alloys at different length scales.     

The contribution of high frequencies to human brain activity underlying horizontal localization of natural spatial sounds

Background  

In the field of auditory neuroscience, much research has focused on the neural processes underlying human sound localization. A recent magnetoencephalography (MEG) study investigated localization-related brain activity by measuring the N1m event-related response originating in the auditory cortex. It was found that the dynamic range of the right-hemispheric N1m response, defined as the mean difference in response magnitude between contralateral and ipsilateral stimulation, reflects cortical activity related to the discrimination of horizontal sound direction. Interestingly, the results also suggested that the presence of realistic spectral information within horizontally located spatial sounds resulted in a larger right-hemispheric N1m dynamic range. Spectral cues being predominant at high frequencies, the present study further investigated the issue by removing frequencies from the spatial stimuli with low-pass filtering. This resulted in a stepwise elimination of direction-specific spectral information. Interaural time and level differences were kept constant. The original, unfiltered stimuli were broadband noise signals presented from five frontal horizontal directions and binaurally recorded for eight human subjects with miniature microphones placed in each subject's ear canals. Stimuli were presented to the subjects during MEG registration and in a behavioral listening experiment.     

The xraylib library for X-ray–matter interactions. Recent developments

This work presents the recent developments of xraylib, an ANSI C library that provides convenient access to a large number of X-ray related databases, with a focus on quantitative X-ray fluorescence applications. The enhancements include improved X-ray fluorescence production cross sections that take into account cascade effects and M-lines, as well as revised line energies, atomic level widths, Compton broadening profiles etc. A full overview of the complete application programming interface is presented.     

Flexoelectro-optic effect in a hybrid nematic liquid crystal cell

W e analyse the influence of charged impurities and flexoelectric polarization on the optical transmission of a hybrid aligned nematic liquid crystal cell. The theoretical results obtained within the framework of the Poisson-Boltzmann equation and Frank elastic theory are compared with the observed optical response [N. V. Madhusudana and G. Durand,J. Phys.Lett. 46, L-195 (1985)]. We show that impurities can be very important for the behaviour of the system in the low field regime where the flexoelectric effect is relevant, and we determine the flexoelectric coefficient, the anchoring strength, and the concentration of impurities in the sample previously studied by Madhusudana and Durand.     

Die Schnellanalyse einiger Aluminiumlegierungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

An statistical analysis of stratification and inequity in the income distribution

The analysis of the USA 2001 income distribution shows that it can be described by at least two main components, which obey the generalized Tsallis statistics with different values of the q parameter. Theoretical calculations using the gas kinetics model with a distributed saving propensity factor and two ensembles reproduce the empirical data and provide further information on the structure of the distribution, which shows a clear stratification. This stratification is amenable to different interpretations, which are analyzed. The distribution function is invariant with the average individual income, which implies that the inequity of the distribution cannot be modified by increasing the total income.     

An experiment to test the reality of de Broglie waves

A second-order interferometric experiment in which de Broglie waves pass through a set of beamsplitters and progressively lose intensity, leading to a decrease in the visibility, is presented. On the contrary, since the intensity reduction is the same in the two overlapping waves, quantum mechanics predicts a constant visibility.     

The unimolecular decomposition and isomerization of chemically activated 1-methyl-2,2,3,3-tetrafluorocyclopropane

The reaction of CH₂(¹A₁) with 1,1,2,2-tetrafluorocyclopropane was studied at 300 K and at pressures between 9.0 and 365.0 torr. Chemically activated 1-methyl-2,2,3,3-tetrafluorocyclopropane was formed and two competitive reaction paths, namely decomposition and isomerization, were observed. By fitting the experimental results to calculated values from RRKM theory, we estimated the Arrhenius parameters for both reaction processess as well as the heat of formation of 1-methyl-2,2,3,3-tetrafluorocyclopropane. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.