4,196 research outputs found
Alcohol-Based Adsorption Heat Pumps using Hydrophobic Metal-Organic Frameworks
The building climate industry and its influence on energy consumption have
consequences on the environment due to the emission of greenhouse gasses.
Improving the efficiency of this sector is essential to reduce the effect on
climate change. In recent years, the interest in porous materials in
applications such as heat pumps has increased for their promising potential. To
assess the performance of adsorption heat pumps and cooling systems, here we
discuss a multistep approach based on the processing of adsorption data
combined with a thermodynamic model. The process provides properties of
interest, such as the coefficient of performance, the working capacity, the
specific heat or cooling effect, or the released heat upon adsorption and
desorption cycles, and it also has the advantage of identifying the optimal
conditions for each adsorbent-fluid pair. To test this method, we select
several metal-organic frameworks that differ in topology, chemical composition,
and pore size, which we validate with available experiments. Adsorption
equilibrium curves were calculated using molecular simulations to describe the
adsorption mechanisms of methanol and ethanol as working fluids in the selected
adsorbents. Then, using a thermodynamic model we calculate the energetic
properties combined with iterative algorithms that simultaneously vary all the
required working conditions. We discuss the strong influence of operating
temperatures on the performance of heat pump devices. Our findings point to the
highly hydrophobic metal azolate framework MAF-6 as a very good candidate for
heating and cooling applications for its high working capacity and excellent
energy efficiency
Comparative Analysis of Some Modal Reconstruction Methods of the Shape of the Cornea from Corneal Elevation Data
Purpose: A comparative study of the ability of some modal schemes to reproduce corneal shapes of varying complexity was performed, by using both standard radial polynomials and radial basis functions (RBFs). The hypothesis was that the correct approach in the case of highly irregular corneas should combine several bases.
Methods: Standard approaches of reconstruction by Zernike and other types of radial polynomials were compared with the discrete least-squares fit (LSF) by the RBF in three theoretical surfaces, synthetically generated by computer algorithms in the absence of measurement noise. For the reconstruction by polynomials, the maximal radial order 6 was chosen, which corresponds to the first 28 Zernike polynomials or the first 49 Bhatia-Wolf polynomials. The fit with the RBF was performed by using a regular grid of centers.
Results: The quality of fit was assessed by computing for each surface the mean square errors (MSEs) of the reconstruction by LSF, measured at the same nodes where the heights were collected. Another criterion of the fit quality used was the accuracy in recovery of the Zernike coefficients, especially in the case of incomplete data.
Conclusions: The Zernike (and especially, the Bhatia-Wolf) polynomials constitute a reliable reconstruction method of a nonseverely aberrated surface with a small surface regularity index (SRI). However, they fail to capture small deformations of the anterior surface of a synthetic cornea. The most promising approach is a combined one that balances the robustness of the Zernike fit with the localization of the RBF
Formation of a disk-structure and jets in the symbiotic prototype Z And during its 2006-2010 active phase
We present an analysis of spectrophotometric observations of the latest cycle
of activity of the symbiotic binary Z And from 2006 to 2010. We estimate the
temperature of the hot component of Z And to be \approx 150000 - 170000 K at
minimum brightness, decreasing to \approx 90000 K at the brightness maximum.
Our estimate of the electron density in the gaseous nebula is
N_{e}=10^{10}-10^{12} cm^{-3} in the region of formation of lines of neutral
helium and 10^6-10^7 cm^{-3} in the region of formation of the [OIII] and
[NeIII] nebular lines. A trend for the gas density derived from helium lines to
increase and the gas density derived from [OIII] and [NeIII] lines to
simultaneously decrease with increasing brightness of the system was observed.
Our estimates show that the ratios of the theoretical and observed fluxes in
the [OIII] and [NeIII] lines agree best when the O/Ne ratio is similar to its
value for planetary nebulae. The model spectral energy distribution showed
that, in addition to a cool component and gaseous nebula, a relatively cool
pseudophotosphere (5250-11 500 K) is present in the system. The simultaneous
presence of a relatively cool pseudophotosphere and high-ionization spectral
lines is probably related to a disk-like structure of the pseudophotosphere.
The pseudophotosphere formed very rapidly, over several weeks, during a period
of increasing brightness of Z And. We infer that in 2009, as in 2006, the
activity of the system was accompanied by a collimated bipolar ejection of
matter. In contrast to the situation in 2006, the jets were detected even
before the system reached its maximum brightness. Moreover, components with
velocities close to 1200 km/s disappeared at the maximum, while those with
velocities close to 1800 km/s appeared.Comment: 18 pages, 19 figures, Accepted for publication in Astronomy Report
Long-term precipitation in Southwestern Europe reveals no clear trend attributable to anthropogenic forcing
We present a long-term assessment of precipitation trends in Southwestern Europe (1850-2018) using data from multiple sources, including observations, gridded datasets and global climate model experiments. Contrary to previous investigations based on shorter records, we demonstrate, using new long-term, quality controlled precipitation series, the lack of statistically significant long-term decreasing trends in precipitation for the region. Rather, significant trends were mostly found for shorter periods, highlighting the prevalence of interdecadal and interannual variability at these time-scales. Global climate model outputs from three CMIP experiments are evaluated for periods concurrent with observations. Both the CMIP3 and CMIP5 ensembles show precipitation decline, with only CMIP6 showing agreement with long term trends in observations. However, for both CMIP3 and CMIP5 large interannual and internal variability among ensemble members makes it difficult to identify a trend that is statistically different from observations. Across both observations and models, our results make it difficult to associate any declining trends in precipitation in Southwestern Europe to anthropogenic forcing at this stage
Effect of iron addition on the crystal structure of the α-AlFeMnSi phase formed in the quaternary Al-Fe-Mn-Si system
High-spatial-resolution probability maps of drought duration and magnitude across Spain
Assessing the probability of occurrence of drought is important for improving
current drought assessment, management and mitigation measures, and strategies
across Spain. This study employed two well-established drought indices, the
Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation
Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), to characterize drought duration and
magnitude at different timescales over Spain. In order to map the drought
hazard probability, we applied the extreme value theory and tested different
thresholds to generate peak-over-threshold (POT) drought duration and
magnitude series. Our results demonstrate that the generalized Pareto (GP)
distribution performs well in estimating the frequencies of drought magnitude
and duration. Specifically, we found a good agreement between the observed and
modelled data when using upper percentiles to generate the POT series.
Spatially, our estimations suggest a higher probability of extreme drought
events in southern and central Spain compared to the northern and eastern
regions. Also, our study found spatial differences in drought probability
estimations as a function of the selected drought index (i.e. SPI vs. SPEI)
and timescale (i.e. 1, 3, 6, and 12 months). Drought hazard probability maps
can contribute to the better management of different sectors (e.g. agriculture,
water resources management, urban water supply, and tourism) at national,
regional, and even local scale in Spain.</p
Constraining the Ratio in TeV Cosmic Rays with Observations of the Moon Shadow by HAWC
An indirect measurement of the antiproton flux in cosmic rays is possible as
the particles undergo deflection by the geomagnetic field. This effect can be
measured by studying the deficit in the flux, or shadow, created by the Moon as
it absorbs cosmic rays that are headed towards the Earth. The shadow is
displaced from the actual position of the Moon due to geomagnetic deflection,
which is a function of the energy and charge of the cosmic rays. The
displacement provides a natural tool for momentum/charge discrimination that
can be used to study the composition of cosmic rays. Using 33 months of data
comprising more than 80 billion cosmic rays measured by the High Altitude Water
Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, we have analyzed the Moon shadow to search for
TeV antiprotons in cosmic rays. We present our first upper limits on the
fraction, which in the absence of any direct measurements, provide
the tightest available constraints of on the antiproton fraction for
energies between 1 and 10 TeV.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by Physical Review
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