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EPJ Data Science Highlight - Mining digital crumbs helps predict crowds’ mobility
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- Published on 02 November 2016
Analysing the traces of human behaviour from geolocalisation data gives clues for more accurate urban planning
Getting urban planning right is no mean feat. It requires understanding how and when people travel between different places. This knowledge, in turn, helps in dimensioning roads and motorways and in scaling the capacity of utilities, such as power grids or mobile phone towers. Now, physicists at the Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation in Turin, Italy, have exploited the geolocalisation data from millions of users of the photo sharing site Flickr to show how it is possible to predict crowd movements. Mariano Beiró and colleagues have combined this data with existing theoretical models explaining the movement of people. In a study published in EPJ Data Science, they show that their approach can help improve predictions concerning the nature of travel of large crowds of people between two places.
EPJ B Highlight - Supersonic phenomena, the key to extremely low heat loss nano-electronics
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- Published on 25 October 2016
Supersonic solitary waves in nano-electronics crystals show potentials for electric charge or matter transport and energy storage with extremely low heat dissipation
Freak waves, as well as other less striking localised excitations, occur in nature at every scale. The current theory and models of such waves can be applied to physics and, among others, to oceanography, nonlinear optics and lasers, acoustics, plasmas, cosmological relativity and neuro-dynamics. However, they could also play a significant role at the quantum scale in nano-electronics. In a recent study, Manuel G. Velarde from the Pluridisciplinary Institute of the University Complutense of Madrid, Spain, and colleagues, performed computer simulations to compare two types of localised excitations in nano-electronics. Their findings, published in a recent study in EPJ B, confirm that such localised excitations are natural candidates for energy storage and transport. These, in turn, could lead to applications such as transistors with extremely low heat dissipation not using silicon.
EPJ D Highlight - When quantum scale affects the way atoms emit and absorb particles of light
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- Published on 20 October 2016
Exact simulation lifts the 80-year-old mystery of the degree to which atoms can be dressed with photons
In 1937, US physicist Isidor Rabi introduced a simple model to describe how atoms emit and absorb particles of light. Until now, this model had still not been completely explained. In a recent paper, physicists have for the first time used an exact numerical technique: the quantum Monte Carlo technique, which was designed to explain the photon absorption and emission phenomenon. These findings were recently published in EPJ D by Dr Flottat from the Nice –Sophia Antipolis Non Linear Institute (INLN) in France and colleagues. They confirm previous results obtained with approximate simulation methods.
EPJ Plus Highlight - Pushing the boundaries of magnet design
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- Published on 12 October 2016
New method to make permanent magnets more stable over time
For physicists, loss of magnetisation in permanent magnets can be a real concern. In response, the Japanese company Sumitomo created the strongest available magnet—one offering ten times more magnetic energy than previous versions—in 1983. These magnets are a combination of materials including rare-earth metal and so-called transition metals, and are accordingly referred to as RE-TM-B magnets. A Russian team has now been pushing the boundaries of magnet design, as published in a recent study in EPJ Plus. They have developed methods to counter the spontaneous loss of magnetisation, based on their understanding of the underlying physical phenomenon. Roman Morgunov from the Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics at the Russian Academy of Sciences and colleagues have now developed a simple additive-based method for ensuring the stability of permanent magnets over time, with no loss to their main magnetic characteristics.
EPJ A Highlight - Breaking up: a convoluted drama at nuclear scale, too
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- Published on 12 October 2016
Pursuing a detective's approach to carbon atom breakup yields clues relevant to fusion reactions and astrophysics phenomena
Regardless of the scenario, breaking up is dramatic. Take for example the case of carbon (12C) splitting into three nuclei of helium. Until now, due to the poor quality of data and limited detection capabilities, physicists did not know whether the helium fragments were the object of a direct breakup in multiple fragments up front or were formed in a sequence of successive fragmentations. The question has been puzzling physicists for some time. Now, scientists from Denmark's Aarhus University have used a state-of-the-art detector capable of measuring, for the first time, the precise disintegration of the 12C into three helium nuclei. Their findings, released in a study published in EPJ A, reveal a sequence of fragmentations, relevant to developing a specific kind of fusion reactions and in astrophysics.
EPJ H Highlight - The 1950s: the decade in which gravity physics became experimental
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- Published on 12 October 2016
History shows experiments to be just as key as theory in gravity physics
In the 1950s and earlier, the gravity theory of Einstein's general relativity was largely a theoretical science. In a new paper published in EPJ H, Jim Peebles, a physicist and theoretical cosmologist who is currently the Albert Einstein Professor Emeritus of Science at Princeton University, New Jersey, USA, shares a historical account of how the experimental study of gravity evolved.
EPJ E Colloquium: Self-consistent field theory of multicomponent wormlike-copolymer melts
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- Published on 03 October 2016
The self-consistent field theory (FCFT) is a convenient theoretical tool to describe the ordered structures of copolymer melts. It supports the current understanding of many polymeric systems. In a new EPJ E Colloquium Ying Jiang and colleagues showcase the versatility and power of the wormlike-chain formalism for calculating the microphase-separated crystallographic structures of multi-component wormlike polymers.
EPJ D Highlight - Inside an ion-molecule collision
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- Published on 19 September 2016
Physicists elucidate reactions underlying positive ion beams hitting molecular targets relevant in proton therapy
Ion-molecule reactions are ubiquitous. They are important in the emergence of primordial life as solar wind falls onto chemicals turning them into the prebiotic building blocks of life. Ion-molecule reactions are also the basic process underlying the proton-biomolecule collisions relevant in proton therapies in cancer. To better understand these mechanisms, a new study provides novel data on low-energy proton collisions with furan and its derivative molecules, which are models for the deoxyribose sugar unit found in biological processes. These findings have been published in EPJ D by Tomasz Wasowicz from Gdansk University of Technology, Poland, and colleagues, as part of the topical issue “Low-Energy Interactions related to Atmospheric and Extreme Conditions.”
EPJ B Highlight - New method helps stabilise materials with elusive magnetism
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- Published on 09 August 2016
Stabilising materials with transient magnetic characteristics makes it easier to study them
Magnetic materials displaying what is referred to as itinerant ferromagnetism are in an elusive physical state that is not yet fully understood. They behave like a magnets under very specific conditions, such as at ultracold temperatures near absolute zero. Physicists normally have no other choice than to study this very unique state of matter in a controlled fashion, using ultracold atomic gases. Now, a team based at ETH Zurich, Switzerland has introduced two new theoretical approaches to stabilise the ferromagnetic state in quantum gases to help study the characteristics of itinerant ferromagnetic materials. These results were recently published in EPJ B by Ilia Zintchenko and colleagues.
EPJ E Review - Watching crystals grow
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- Published on 08 August 2016
© Philipp Geiger
Crystallization, a typical self-organization process during which a disordered state spontaneously transforms into an ordered one, a crystal, usually proceeds by nucleation and growth. In the initial stages of the transformation, a localized nucleus of the new phase forms due to a random fluctuation. Most of these small nuclei disappear after a short time, but in some rare cases a crystalline embryo may reach a critical size, after which further growth becomes thermodynamically favorable and the entire system is converted into the new phase.
In this EPJ E review paper, Jungblut and Dellago discuss several theoretical concepts and computational methods to better understand crystallization. More specifically, they address the rare event problem arising in the simulation of nucleation processes, and explain how to calculate nucleation rates accurately. Particular emphasis is placed on discussing statistical tools to analyze crystallization trajectories and identify the transition mechanism.
