Technique for predicting the thermal expansion coefficients of cryogenic metallic alloys

Series of measurements on the thermal expansion coefficients of several aerospace alloys and standard materials establish relationships between related alloys that would aid in predicting their thermal expansion reliability. Thermal expansion data are also necessary for the reduction of electrical resistivity measurements of those same materials

Laser-initiated combustion studies of selected aluminum, copper, iron, and nickel alloys

The results of combustion studies at atmospheric pressure on ten metal alloys are presented. The alloys studied were aluminum alloys 1100, 2219, 6061, and tensile-50; 304, 347 and 21-6-9 stainless steel; inconel 600; beryllium copper and a bronze. It was found that once ignition was achieved all alloys would generally burn to completion. The overall combustion process appears to obey a first order rate process. Preliminary conclusions are presented along with recommendations for future work

Investigating dark matter substructure with pulsar timing: I. Constraints on ultracompact minihalos

Small-scale dark matter structure within the Milky Way is expected to affect pulsar timing. The change in gravitational potential induced by a dark matter halo passing near the line of sight to a pulsar would produce a varying delay in the light travel time of photons from the pulsar. Individual transits produce an effect that would either be too rare or too weak to be detected in 30-year pulsar observations. However, a population of dark matter subhalos would be expected to produce a detectable effect on the measured properties of pulsars if the subhalos constitute a significant fraction of the total halo mass. The effect is to increase the dispersion of measured period derivatives across the pulsar population. By statistical analysis of the ATNF pulsar catalogue, we place an upper limit on this dispersion of $\log \sigma_{\dot{P}} \leq -17.05$. We use this to place strong upper limits on the number density of ultracompact minihalos within the Milky Way. These limits are completely independent of the particle nature of dark matter.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figues, includes erratum published in MNRA

A survey of compatibility of materials with high pressure oxygen service

The available information on the compatibility of materials with oxygen as applied to the production, transport, and applications experience of high pressure liquid and gaseous oxygen is compiled. High pressure is defined as about 2000 to 3000 psia. Since high pressure projections sometimes can be made from lower pressure data, some low pressure data are also included. Low pressure data are included if they are considered helpful to a better understanding of the behavior at high pressures

Metal alloy resistivity measurements at very low temperatures

High speed, automated system accurately measures to approximately one percent in three minutes. System identifies materials having constant thermal or electric conductivity, predicts new material properties, develops alloys in accordance with desired specifications, and develops nondestructive devices for measuring precipitation hardening

Transcriptomic profiling of human breast and melanoma cells selected by migration through narrow constraints

The metastatic spread of cancer cells is a step-wise process that starts with dissociation from primary tumours and local invasion of adjacent tissues. The ability to invade local tissues is the product of several processes, including degradation of extracellular matrices (ECM) and movement of tumour cells through physically-restricting gaps. To identify properties contributing to tumour cells squeezing through narrow gaps, invasive MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer and MDA-MB-435 human melanoma cells were subjected to three successive rounds of selection using cell culture inserts with highly constraining 3 μm pores. For comparison purposes, flow cytometry was also employed to enrich for small diameter MDA-MB-231 cells. RNA-Sequencing (RNA-seq) using the Illumina NextSeq 500 platform was undertaken to characterize how gene expression differed between parental, invasive pore selected or small diameter cells. Gene expression results obtained by RNA-seq were validated by comparing with RT-qPCR. Transcriptomic data generated could be used to determine how alterations that enable cell passage through narrow spaces contribute to local invasion and metastasis

Inventory of wetlands and agricultural land cover in the upper Sevier River Basin, Utah

The use of color infrared aerial photography in the mapping of agricultural land use and wetlands in the Sevier River Basin of south central utah is described. The efficiency and cost effectiveness of utilizing LANDSAT multispectral scanner digital data to augment photographic interpretations are discussed. Transparent overlays for 27 quadrangles showing delineations of wetlands and agricultural land cover were produced. A table summarizing the acreage represented by each class on each quadrangle overlay is provided

Creating a supersolid in one-dimensional Bose mixtures

We identify a one-dimensional supersolid phase in a binary mixture of near-hardcore bosons with weak, local inter-species repulsion. We find realistic conditions under which such a phase, defined here as the coexistence of quasi-superfluidity and quasi-charge density wave order, can be produced and observed in finite ultra-cold atom systems in a harmonic trap. Our analysis is based on Luttinger liquid theory supported with numerical calculations using the time-evolving block decimation method. Clear experimental signatures of these two orders can be found, respectively, in time-of-flight interference patterns, and the structure factor S(k) derived from density correlations.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, changed Fig. 4, and minor edit

Heating of galactic gas by dark matter annihilation in ultracompact minihalos

The existence of substructure in halos of annihilating dark matter would be expected to substantially boost the rate at which annihilation occurs. Ultracompact minihalos of dark matter (UCMHs) are one of the more extreme examples of this. The boosted annihilation can inject significant amounts of energy into the gas of a galaxy over its lifetime. Here we determine the impact of the boost factor from UCMH substructure on the heating of galactic gas in a Milky Way-type galaxy, by means of N-body simulation. If $1\%$ of the dark matter exists as UCMHs, the corresponding boost factor can be of order $10^5$. For reasonable values of the relevant parameters (annihilation cross section $3\times10^{-26} ~\textrm{cm}^3~ \textrm{s}^{-1}$, dark matter mass 100 GeV, 10% heating efficiency), we show that the presence of UCMHs at the 0.1% level would inject enough energy to eject significant amounts of gas from the halo, potentially preventing star formation within $\sim$1 kpc of the halo centre.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure