Astrophysical Configurations with Background Cosmology: Probing Dark Energy at Astrophysical Scales

We explore the effects of a positive cosmological constant on astrophysical and cosmological configurations described by a polytropic equation of state. We derive the conditions for equilibrium and stability of such configurations and consider some astrophysical examples where our analysis may be relevant. We show that in the presence of the cosmological constant the isothermal sphere is not a viable astrophysical model since the density in this model does not go asymptotically to zero. The cosmological constant implies that, for polytropic index smaller than five, the central density has to exceed a certain minimal value in terms of the vacuum density in order to guarantee the existence of a finite size object. We examine such configurations together with effects of $\Lambda$ in other exotic possibilities, such as neutrino and boson stars, and we compare our results to N-body simulations. The astrophysical properties and configurations found in this article are specific features resulting from the existence of a dark energy component. Hence, if found in nature would be an independent probe of a cosmological constant, complementary to other observations.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables. Reference added. Mon. Not. Roy. Astro. Soc in prin

Race and Racism: A Critical Dialogue

This is a dialogue between Elizabeth Peterson, a black, female adult educator and Stephen Brookfield, a white male. The question was whether or not we could come together and engage in a critical dialogue about race and racism

Reply to comment by J.-P. Renaud et al. on “An assessment of the tracer-based approach to quantifying groundwater contributions to streamflow”

This is the published version. Copyright Wiley [Commercial Publisher

An assessment of the tracer-based approach to quantifying groundwater contributions to streamflow

This is the published version. Copyright American Geophysical Union[1] The use of conservative geochemical and isotopic tracers along with mass balance equations to determine the pre-event groundwater contributions to streamflow during a rainfall event is widely used for hydrograph separation; however, aspects related to the influence of surface and subsurface mixing processes on the estimates of the pre-event contribution remain poorly understood. Moreover, the lack of a precise definition of “pre-event” versus “event” contributions on the one hand and “old” versus “new” water components on the other hand has seemingly led to confusion within the hydrologic community about the role of Darcian-based groundwater flow during a storm event. In this work, a fully integrated surface and subsurface flow and solute transport model is used to analyze flow system dynamics during a storm event, concomitantly with advective-dispersive tracer transport, and to investigate the role of hydrodynamic mixing processes on the estimates of the pre-event component. A number of numerical experiments are presented, including an analysis of a controlled rainfall-runoff experiment, that compare the computed Darcian-based groundwater fluxes contributing to streamflow during a rainfall event with estimates of these contributions based on a tracer-based separation. It is shown that hydrodynamic mixing processes can dramatically influence estimates of the pre-event water contribution estimated by a tracer-based separation. Specifically, it is demonstrated that the actual amount of bulk flowing groundwater contributing to streamflow may be much smaller than the quantity indirectly estimated from a separation based on tracer mass balances, even if the mixing processes are weak

Hydrologic response of catchments to precipitation: Quantification of mechanical carriers and origins of water

This is the published version. Copyright American Geophysical Union[1] Precipitation-induced overland and groundwater flow and mixing processes are quantified to analyze the temporal (event and pre-event water) and spatial (groundwater discharge and overland runoff) origins of water entering a stream. Using a distributed-parameter control volume finite-element simulator that can simultaneously solve the fully coupled partial differential equations describing 2-D Manning and 3-D Darcian flow and advective-dispersive transport, mechanical flow (driven by hydraulic potential) and tracer-based hydrograph separation (driven by dispersive mixing as well as mechanical flow) are simulated in response to precipitation events in two cross sections oriented parallel and perpendicular to a stream. The results indicate that as precipitation becomes more intense, the subsurface mechanical flow contributions tend to become less significant relative to the total pre-event stream discharge. Hydrodynamic mixing can play an important role in enhancing pre-event tracer signals in the stream. This implies that temporally tagged chemical signals introduced into surface-subsurface flow systems from precipitation may not be strong enough to detect the changes in the subsurface flow system. It is concluded that diffusive/dispersive mixing, capillary fringe groundwater ridging, and macropore flow can influence the temporal sources of water in the stream, but any sole mechanism may not fully explain the strong pre-event water discharge. Further investigations of the influence of heterogeneity, residence time, geomorphology, and root zone processes are required to confirm the conclusions of this study

Reduction of turbomachinery noise

In the invention, propagating broad band and tonal acoustic components of noise characteristic of interaction of a turbomachine blade wake, produced by a turbomachine blade as the blade rotates, with a turbomachine component downstream of the rotating blade, are reduced. This is accomplished by injection of fluid into the blade wake through a port in the rotor blade. The mass flow rate of the fluid injected into the blade wake is selected to reduce the momentum deficit of the wake to correspondingly increase the time-mean velocity of the wake and decrease the turbulent velocity fluctuations of the wake. With this fluid injection, reduction of both propagating broad band and tonal acoustic components of noise produced by interaction of the blade wake with a turbomachine component downstream of the rotating blade is achieved. In a further noise reduction technique, boundary layer fluid is suctioned into the turbomachine blade through a suction port on the side of the blade that is characterized as the relatively low-pressure blade side. As with the fluid injection technique, the mass flow rate of the fluid suctioned into the blade is here selected to reduce the momentum deficit of the wake to correspondingly increase the time-mean velocity of the wake and decrease the turbulent velocity fluctuations of the wake; reduction of both propagating broad band and tonal acoustic components of noise produced by interaction of the blade wake with a turbomachine component downstream of the rotating blade is achieved with this suction technique. Blowing and suction techniques are also provided in the invention for reducing noise associated with the wake produced by fluid flow around a stationary blade upstream of a rotating turbomachine

Racializing The Discourse of Adult Education

This symposium began in 2002 as a dialogue between Stephen Brookfield, Scipio Colin III and me. The circumstances that brought about the dialogue are indicative of the need for a symposium on race talk among educators and even more specifically among adult educators. At the time, Stephen was at Harvard and because of his work there he was asked to contribute an article to the Harvard Educational Review about racializing the discourse of adult education. As a White male Stephen felt strongly that minority voices should included and proposed inviting several African American academics as well—the topic was important enough to warrant a special issue

Transforming practice, transforming practitioners:reflections on the TQFE in Scotland

This study offers reflections on the TQFE in Scotland as an example of the transformative professional learning model as identified by various authors. The focus of this study is the professional learning of lecturers in Scotland’s colleges. Informed by wider considerations of teacher education more broadly, it will be of particular interest to those supporting a transformative model of professional learning in a variety of educational contexts. The research was undertaken as a collaborative initiative between each of the three universities which offer the TQFE in Scotland. Qualitative data are drawn from former TQFE participants and college mentors, and thematic analysis used to gain further insight from participant interviews. Findings highlight the transformative nature of the TQFE with an impact that is beyond the currency of the TQFE programme duration. The provision of transformative professional learning opportunities is now imperative given various pressures and tensions around the development of educators more generally and within contemporary Scottish Further Education in particular. Such pressures and tensions include: the varied demands within the Professional Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges, and the need for professional learning for college lecturers to go beyond a competency or tool-kit based approach and to be sustainable

Rearranging the centromere of the human Y chromosome with φC31 integrase

We have investigated the ability of the integrase from the Streptomyces φC31 ‘phage to either delete or invert 1 Mb of DNA around the centromere of the human Y chromosome in chicken DT40 hybrid somatic cells. Reciprocal and conservative site-specific recombination was observed in 54% of cells expressing the integrase. The sites failed to recombine in the remaining cells because the sites had been damaged. The sequences of the damaged sites indicated that the damage arose as a result of repair of recombination intermediates by host cell pathways. The liability of recombination intermediates to damage is consistent with what is known about the mechanism of serine recombinase reactions. The structures of the products of the chromosome rearrangements were consistent with the published sequence of the Y chromosome indicating that the assembly of the highly repeated region between the sites is accurate to a resolution of about 50 kb. Mini-chromosomes lacking a centromere were not recovered which also suggested that neo-centromere formation occurs infrequently in vertebrate somatic cells. No ectopic recombination was observed between a φC31 integrase attB site and the chicken genome