EPJ B Highlight - Angling for gold
- Details
- Published on 21 October 2012
A new model provides an alternative description of atomic level gold bonding.
A study on how gold atoms bond to other atoms using a model that takes into account bonds direction has been carried out by physicist Marie Backman from the University of Helsinki, Finland, and colleagues. These findings, which have just been published in EPJB, are a first step toward better understanding how gold binds to other materials through strong, so-called covalent, bonds.
EPJ B Colloquium - Statistical physics for micro-scale fracture and plasticity
- Details
- Published on 21 October 2012
A review of recent successes and outstanding challenges for statistical physicists working on the mechanical properties of materials.
Most of the complexity in fracture and plasticity stems from the interplay between long-range elastic interactions and structural disorder. Statistical physicists have developed a full machinery of analytical and numerical methods to tackle these problems. Concepts drawn from percolation, fractal geometry, phase-transitions and interface depinning have been used, with varying degrees of success, to understand these problems. In this EPJB colloquium, Stefano Zapperi highlightsEPJ B News – Topical issue on GW Calculations for Complex Systems
- Details
- Published on 21 October 2012
The GW method is emerging as a conceptual and computational platform for developing increasingly more accurate descriptions of electronic excitations. Guest editors Feliciano Giustino, Paolo Umari and Angel Rubio hope that the new EPJB topical issue on the Challenges and Solutions in GW Calculations for Complex Systems will provide an exciting perspective on the state-of-the-art in this fascinating research area, and encourage new developments in view of addressing the widest range of materials. The papers in this topical issue will be free to access through the end of November 2012.
EPJ B - Noise down, neuron signals up
- Details
- Published on 20 August 2012
A new model of background noise present in the nervous system could help better understand neuronal signalling delay in response to a stimulus.
Biomedical engineer Muhammet Uzuntarla from Bulent Ecevit University, Turkey, and his colleagues present a biologically accurate model of the underlying noise which is present in the nervous system. The article has just been published in EPJB. This work has implications for explaining how noise, modulated by unreliable synaptic transmission, induces a delay in the response of neurons to external stimuli as part of the neurons coding mechanism.
EPJ B - Banks’ cash stash: no shield against bankruptcy
- Details
- Published on 20 August 2012
Imposing minimal capital levels for banks is like attempting to solve a complex jigsaw puzzle with a poorly fitting piece that could lead to even greater chaos.
According to theoretical physicists João da Cruz and Pedro Lind from Lisbon University, Portugal, imposing minimum capital levels for banks may not prevent the insolvency of a minority of banks from triggering a widespread banking system collapse. In a study just published in EPJB, the researchers explain why this measure could instead lead to larger crises.
EPJ B - Telling the tale of the wealth tail
- Details
- Published on 10 August 2012
Models designed to represent taxation and wealth redistribution could be adjusted to reflect a target level of wealth distribution.
A mathematical physicist and her colleague, both from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, are just published a study in EPJB on a family of taxation and wealth redistribution models. The findings could lead to numerical simulations of potential wealth distribution scenarios playing out over the long term and could be used for policy decision making.
EPJ B - Turbulences at a standstill
- Details
- Published on 10 August 2012
Energy flowing from large-scale to small-scale places may be prevented from flowing freely in specific conditions.
For theoretical physicist Dima Shepelyansky from the CNRS-University of Toulouse, France, devising models of chaos and turbulence is his bread and butter. In a recent study published in EPJB, he presents an exception he found in a model of turbulence, indicating that there are energy flows from large to small scale in confined space. Indeed, under a specific energy threshold, there are no energy flows, similar to the way electron currents and energy spreading are stopped in disordered solids.
EPJ B has a new Editor in Chief to handle theory and simulations in condensed matter
- Details
- Published on 10 August 2012
From July 2012 Angel Rubio succeeds Luciano Colombo as Editor in Chief of EPJ B for the part of condensed matter theory and modeling. Professor Rubio is the head of the NanoBio spectroscopy group at the Universidad del País Vasco in Spain and leader of the theoretical spectroscopy group at the Fritz Haber Institut in Berlin. His group collaborates with many other experimental and theoretical research groups, as well as groups from industry. He has contributed with a large number of publications to the development of novel theoretical tools to investigate the electronic response of solids, nanostructures, biomolecules and hybrid materials to external electromagnetic fields. He has numerous honors and awards to his name which he garnered throughout his academic career.
EPJ B - Cell dynamics simulations: a fast way to profile block copolymers
- Details
- Published on 10 August 2012
Cell Dynamics Simulation (CDS) is a fast and efficient method for the simulation of kinetic processes in large-scale phase separation systems.
We review the application of this method to block copolymer systems and illustrate its use by examining a set of physical phenomena occurring in these systems. In spite of the simplicity of the model, such applications of CDS demonstrate that it is capable of accurately describing complex phenomena and is, therefore, a complementary method which can serve as a precursor to slower, more elaborate techniques.
Large Scale Simulation of block copolymers with cell dynamics M. Pinna and A.V. Zvelindovsky, Eur. Phys. J. B (2012) 85: 210, DOI: 10.1140/epjb/e2012-20968-6
EPJ B - Spurious switching points in traded stock dynamics
- Details
- Published on 10 August 2012
A selection of biased statistical subsets could yield an inaccurate interpretation of market behaviour and financial returns.
Physicists have rebuffed the existence of power laws governing the dynamics of traded stock volatility, volume and intertrade times at times of stock price extrema. They did this by demonstrating that what appeared as “switching points” in financial markets trends was due to a bias in the interpretation of market data statistics. This study by Vladimir Filimonov and Didier Sornette from the Department of Management, Technology and Economics at ETH Zurich in Switzerland has just been published in EPJB.