Observation of spontaneous pattern with six-fold symmetry in disk-shaped ZnO complex microstructures

Using a simple vapor phase transport technique, we have fabricated unique complex disk-shaped ZnO microstructures comprising a small disk coaxially grown on a large one and observed spatially perfect six-fold symmetric patterns. The observed results can be explained based on the spontaneous nanoindentation (NI) effect under the geometric constraints and the explanation can be extended to fathom the growth mechanism of other highly symmetrical ZnO nanostructures. Our results indicate that NI not only can elucidate the mechanical properties of surfaces and thin films but also is an effective approach to fabricate ordered nanostructures with high precision on the location of the building blocks. PACS 81.16.Rf; 81.07.-b; 81.05.Dz     

Preparation of MgB<Subscript>2</Subscript>/Fe superconductor wire by electrical self-heating

MgB₂/Fe wires were prepared by electrical self-heating of in situ powder-in-tube wires for the first time at ambient conditions. Characterization of the wires processed at 750 °C, 800 °C and 850 °C for 15 min by XRD, SEM, ϱ–T, susceptibility and J_C measurements shows that the MgB₂ formed is of high quality particularly with respect to phase purity and transport J_C. The method considerably reduces the overall energy consumption vis-à-vis the production cost, simplifies the complexity of the fabrication procedure and is promising for manufacture of high-quality MgB₂ superconducting wires. PACS 74.70.Ad; 74.62.Bf; 74.25.Fy; 74.25.Ha; 81.20.Hy     

Efficiency and effectiveness of Spanish football teams: a three-stage-DEA approach

In this paper, we apply a three-stage-DEA model to the Spanish Professional Football League, which means separating the teams’ economic behaviour into three components: operating efficiency—of the offence and defence—athletic or operating effectiveness, and social effectiveness. The results showed that the technical inefficiency of the defence is greater than that of the offence, both being caused by aspects linked to the poor management of players’ abilities and by the football team’s size. Teams showed a favourable evolution of their offensive and defensive efficiency during the 2004/2005 season and to a lesser extent in the season before. The point system assigned by the professional football league regulations evaluates the teams’ athletic effectiveness, but we detected that the teams with the most experience perform athletically in a more effective manner. Their social effectiveness is strongly related to the level of play in itself and to factors linked to their PFL ranking: participation in international competitions for important football teams; or the struggle of minor football teams to stay in the first division.     

The Transport Properties of the Cell Membrane Ion Channels in Electric Fields: Bethe Lattice Treatment

The interactive two-state model of cell membrane ion channels in an electric field is formulated on the Bethe lattice by means of the exact recursion relations. The probability of channel opening or maximum fractions of open potassium and sodium channels are obtained by solving a non-linear algebraic equation. Using known parameters for the conventional mean-field theory the model gives a good agreement with the experiment both at low and high trans-membrane potential values. For intermediate voltages, the numerical results imply that collective effects are introduced by trans-membrane voltage.     

Comment on “The Free Will Theorem”

In a recent paper Conway and Kochen, Found. Phys. 36, 2006, claim to have established that theories of the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber (RW) type, i.e., of spontaneous wave function collapse, cannot be made relativistic. On the other hand, relativistic GRW-type theories have already been presented, in my recent paper, J. Stat. Phys. 125, 2006, and by Dowker and Henson, J. Stat. Phys. 115, 2004. Here, I elucidate why these are not excluded by the arguments of Conway and Kochen.      

Random Classical Fidelity

We introduce a random perturbed version of the classical fidelity and we show that it converges with the same rate of decay of correlations, but not uniformly in the noise. This makes the classical fidelity unstable in the zero-noise limit.     

Anomalies of the external and internal gravitational fields of the Earth’s isostatically balanced crust in the quadratic approximation

Formulas that include the contribution from dipole-distributed anomalous masses represented as layers distributed in height relative to the reference ellipsoid to the gravitational field in the quadratic approximation have been derived. The relationships between the expansion coefficients of some function and its square in terms of spherical functions have been established. The contribution from the relief masses and the density jump at the Mohorovicic discontinuity is used to illustrate the results.