Description: Author(s): Ryan Stearrett, W. G. Wang, Xiaoming Kou, J. F. Feng, J. M. D. Coey, J. Q. Xiao, and E. R. Nowak The strength of the exchange bias field is found to influence the low-frequency magnetoresistive noise associated with the magnetic reference layer in sputtered-deposited and electron-beam-evaporated CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB tunnel junctions. The noise is due to magnetic losses arising in the reference layer... [Phys. Rev. B 86, 014415] Published Mon Jul 16, 2012

Description: Cases of convergent evolution, particularly within ecomorphological contexts, are instructive in identifying universally adaptive morphological features across clades. Tracing of evolutionary pathways by which ecomorphological convergence takes place can further reveal mechanisms of adaptation, which may be strongly influenced by phylogeny. Ecomorphologies of carnivorous mammals represent some of the most outstanding cases of convergent evolution in the Cenozoic radiation of mammals. This study examined patterns of cranial shape change in the dog (Canidae) and hyena (Hyaenidae) families, in order to compare the evolutionary pathways that led to the independent specialization of bone-cracking hypercarnivores within each clade. Geometric morphometrics analyses of cranial shape in fossil hyaenids and borophagine canids provided evidence for deep-time convergence in morphological pathways toward the independent evolution of derived bone-crackers. Both clades contained stem members with plesiomorphic generalist/omnivore cranial shapes, which evolved into doglike species along parallel pathways of shape change. The evolution of specialized bone-crackers from these doglike forms, however, continued under the constraint of a full cheek dentition and restriction on rostrum length reduction in canids, but not hyaenids. Functionally, phylogenetic constraint may have limited borophagine canids to crack bones principally with their carnassial instead of the third premolar as in hyaenids, but other cranial shape changes associated with durophagy nevertheless evolved in parallel in the two lineages. Size allometry was not a major factor in cranial shape evolution in either lineage, supporting the interpretation of functional demands as drivers for the observed convergence. The comparison between borophagines and hyaenids showed that differential effects of alternative functional "solutions" that arise during morphological evolution may be multiplied with processes of the "macroevolutionary ratchet" already in place to further limit the evolutionary pathways available to specialized lineages.

Description: Author(s): Si Li, Zhi-Ming Yu, Ying Liu, Shan Guan, Shan-Shan Wang, Xiaoming Zhang, Yugui Yao, and Shengyuan A. Yang A nodal loop appears when two bands, typically one electronlike and one holelike, are crossing each other linearly along a one-dimensional manifold in reciprocal space. Here, we propose a type of nodal loop which emerges from the crossing between two bands which are both electronlike (or holelike) a... [Phys. Rev. B 96, 081106(R)] Published Mon Aug 14, 2017

Description: Author(s): Xiaofei Shao, Xiaobiao Liu, Xinrui Zhao, Junru Wang, Xiaoming Zhang, and Mingwen Zhao Two-dimensional (2D) lattices composed exclusively of pentagons represent an exceptional structure of materials correlated to the famous pentagonal tiling problem in mathematics, but their π conjugation and the related electronic properties have never been reported. Here, we propose a tight-binding ... [Phys. Rev. B 98, 085437] Published Thu Aug 30, 2018