Ground-state phase diagram of the Kondo lattice model on triangular-to-kagome lattices

We investigate the ground-state phase diagram of the Kondo lattice model with classical localized spins on triangular-to-kagome lattices by using a variational calculation. We identify the parameter regions where a four-sublattice noncoplanar order is stable with a finite spin scalar chirality while changing the lattice structure from triangular to kagome continuously. Although the noncoplanar spin states appear in a wide range of parameters, the spin configurations on the kagome network become coplanar as approaching the kagome lattice; eventually, the scalar chirality vanishes for the kagome lattice model.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Diffuse back-illumination extinction imaging of soot formation from a liquid fuel film

The transient combustion of a liquid iso-octane film, isolated from the often co-existing combustion of liquid sprays, was investigated within the nominally quiescent ambient of a constant volume chamber using a custom-made liquid fuel film generation system. Soot formation throughout the combustion process, from ignition to extinction, was visualized using high-speed diffuse back-illumination extinction imaging technique, providing temporally resolved spatial distribution of soot optical thickness () in the chamber. The impact of ambient pressure and ambient oxygen content on soot formation was examined over a range of 2 – 5 bar (absolute) and 16 – 30% (in terms of molar fraction of oxygen), respectively. Regardless of the test conditions, the fuel film combustion entailed three stages, namely flame initiation, steady burning and flame extinction. While the ambient oxygen content was kept constant, the flame gradually became turbulent-like and the flame flickering less distinct as ambient pressure was increased. The total amount of soot generated within the chamber was found to first increase then decrease with the ambient pressure, due to the competing impacts of increasing pressure on promoting soot-formation reaction rate and enhancing mixing of fuel vapour with the entrained air. Increasing ambient oxygen content, on the other hand, consistently enhanced soot formation, which may be associated with its impact on boosting flame temperature and consequently liquid fuel evaporation rate. In addition, flame flickering remained distinct for ambient oxygen content above atmospheric level, while becoming substantially less observable for that below atmospheric level. Flickering frequency, for all test conditions with distinct flame flickering, had a value of approximately 10 Hz and gradually increased with time during the steady burning stage, suggesting the shrinkage of the fuel film diameter. Flickering of the flame resulted in fluctuations in the total amount of soot presented in the combustion chamber. The power of this fluctuation varied with time, and this temporal variation of fluctuation power also depended on experimental conditions, due to its dependency on the combined effects of soot concentration and volume of the flame

One-dimensional transport in polymer nanofibers

We report our transport studies in quasi one-dimensional (1D) conductors - helical polyacetylene fibers doped with iodine and the data analysis for other polymer single fibers and tubes. We found that at 30 K < T < 300 K the conductance and the current-voltage characteristics follow the power law: G(T) ~ T^alpha with alpha ~ 2.2-7.2 and I(V) ~ V^betta with betta ~ 2-5.7. Both G(T) and I(V) show the features characteristic of 1D systems such as Luttinger liquid or Wigner crystal. The relationship between our results and theories for tunneling in 1D systems is discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Letter

Local ras and ros in the hypertrophic differentiation of chondrocytes

Newsletter of the Boston University School of Medicine, Student American Medical Association (SAMA

Evolution of trace gases and particles emitted by a chaparral fire in California

Biomass burning (BB) is a major global source of trace gases and particles. Accurately representing the production and evolution of these emissions is an important goal for atmospheric chemical transport models. We measured a suite of gases and aerosols emitted from an 81 hectare prescribed fire in chaparral fuels on the central coast of California, US on 17 November 2009. We also measured physical and chemical changes that occurred in the isolated downwind plume in the first ~4 h after emission. The measurements were carried out onboard a Twin Otter aircraft outfitted with an airborne Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (AFTIR), aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS), single particle soot photometer (SP2), nephelometer, LiCor CO_2 analyzer, a chemiluminescence ozone instrument, and a wing-mounted meteorological probe. Our measurements included: CO_2; CO; NO_x; NH_3; non-methane organic compounds; organic aerosol (OA); inorganic aerosol (nitrate, ammonium, sulfate, and chloride); aerosol light scattering; refractory black carbon (rBC); and ambient temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, and three-dimensional wind velocity. The molar ratio of excess O_3 to excess CO in the plume (ΔO_3/ΔCO) increased from −5.13 (±1.13) × 10^(−3) to 10.2 (±2.16) × 10^(−2) in ~4.5 h following smoke emission. Excess acetic and formic acid (normalized to excess CO) increased by factors of 1.73 ± 0.43 and 7.34 ± 3.03 (respectively) over the same time since emission. Based on the rapid decay of C_2H_4 we infer an in-plume average OH concentration of 5.27 (±0.97) × 10^6 molec cm^(−3), consistent with previous studies showing elevated OH concentrations in biomass burning plumes. Ammonium, nitrate, and sulfate all increased over the course of 4 h. The observed ammonium increase was a factor of 3.90 ± 2.93 in about 4 h, but accounted for just ~36% of the gaseous ammonia lost on a molar basis. Some of the gas phase NH_3 loss may have been due to condensation on, or formation of, particles below the AMS detection range. NO_x was converted to PAN and particle nitrate with PAN production being about two times greater than production of observable nitrate in the first ~4 h following emission. The excess aerosol light scattering in the plume (normalized to excess CO_2) increased by a factor of 2.50 ± 0.74 over 4 h. The increase in light scattering was similar to that observed in an earlier study of a biomass burning plume in Mexico where significant secondary formation of OA closely tracked the increase in scattering. In the California plume, however, ΔOA/ΔCO_2 decreased sharply for the first hour and then increased slowly with a net decrease of ~20% over 4 h. The fraction of thickly coated rBC particles increased up to ~85% over the 4 h aging period. Decreasing OA accompanied by increased scattering/particle coating in initial aging may be due to a combination of particle coagulation and evaporation processes. Recondensation of species initially evaporated from the particles may have contributed to the subsequent slow rise in OA. We compare our results to observations from other plume aging studies and suggest that differences in environmental factors such as smoke concentration, oxidant concentration, actinic flux, and RH contribute significantly to the variation in plume evolution observations

Analysis of quantum conductance of carbon nanotube junctions by the effective mass approximation

The electron transport through the nanotube junctions which connect the different metallic nanotubes by a pair of a pentagonal defect and a heptagonal defect is investigated by Landauer's formula and the effective mass approximation. From our previous calculations based on the tight binding model, it has been known that the conductance is determined almost only by two parameters,i.e., the energy in the unit of the onset energy of more than two channels and the ratio of the radii of the two nanotubes. The conductance is calculated again by the effective mass theory in this paper and a simple analytical form of the conductance is obtained considering a special boundary conditions of the envelop wavefunctions. The two scaling parameters appear naturally in this treatment. The results by this formula coincide fairly well with those of the tight binding model. The physical origin of the scaling law is clarified by this approach.Comment: RevTe

Control and analysis of a unified power flow controller”.

Abstract -This paper presents a control scheme and comprehensive analysis for a UPFC (unified power flow controller), on the basis of theory, computer simulation and experiment. This developed theoretical analysis reveals that a conventional power-feedback control scheme makes the UPFC induce power swings in transient states. The conventional control scheme has no capability of damping power swings, so the time constant of damping is independent of active and reactive power feedback gains integrated in its control circuit. This paper proposes a generalized control scheme which is characterized by successfully damping power swings in transient states. Experimental results obtained from a 10-kVA laboratory setup agree well with both analytical and simulated results. Moreover, it is shown that the proposed control scheme is viable and effective in damping of power swings in transient states

Boreal forest fire emissions in fresh Canadian smoke plumes: C_1-C_(10) volatile organic compounds (VOCs), CO_2, CO, NO_2, NO, HCN and CH_3CN

Boreal regions comprise about 17% of the global land area, and they both affect and are influenced by climate change. To better understand boreal forest fire emissions and plume evolution, 947 whole air samples were collected aboard the NASA DC-8 research aircraft in summer 2008 as part of the ARCTAS-B field mission, and analyzed for 79 non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) using gas chromatography. Together with simultaneous measurements of CO_2, CO, CH_4, CH_2O, NO_2, NO, HCN and CH_3CN, these measurements represent the most comprehensive assessment of trace gas emissions from boreal forest fires to date. Based on 105 air samples collected in fresh Canadian smoke plumes, 57 of the 80 measured NMVOCs (including CH_2O) were emitted from the fires, including 45 species that were quantified from boreal forest fires for the first time. After CO_2, CO and CH_4, the largest emission factors (EFs) for individual species were formaldehyde (2.1 ± 0.2 g kg^(−1)), followed by methanol, NO_2, HCN, ethene, α-pinene, β-pinene, ethane, benzene, propene, acetone and CH_3CN. Globally, we estimate that boreal forest fires release 2.4 ± 0.6 Tg C yr^(−1) in the form of NMVOCs, with approximately 41% of the carbon released as C_1-C_2 NMVOCs and 21% as pinenes. These are the first reported field measurements of monoterpene emissions from boreal forest fires, and we speculate that the pinenes, which are relatively heavy molecules, were detected in the fire plumes as the result of distillation of stored terpenes as the vegetation is heated. Their inclusion in smoke chemistry models is expected to improve model predictions of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. The fire-averaged EF of dichloromethane or CH_2Cl_2, (6.9 ± 8.6) × 10^(−4)gkg^(−1), was not significantly different from zero and supports recent findings that its global biomass burning source appears to have been overestimated. Similarly, we found no evidence for emissions of chloroform (CHCl_3) or methyl chloroform (CH_3CCl_3) from boreal forest fires. The speciated hydrocarbon measurements presented here show the importance of carbon released by short-chain NMVOCs, the strong contribution of pinene emissions from boreal forest fires, and the wide range of compound classes in the most abundantly emitted NMVOCs, all of which can be used to improve biomass burning inventories in local/global models and reduce uncertainties in model estimates of trace gas emissions and their impact on the atmosphere

Band structures of periodic carbon nanotube junctions and their symmetries analyzed by the effective mass approximation

The band structures of the periodic nanotube junctions are investigated by the effective mass theory and the tight binding model. The periodic junctions are constructed by introducing pairs of a pentagonal defect and a heptagonal defect periodically in the carbon nanotube. We treat the periodic junctions whose unit cell is composed by two kinds of metallic nanotubes with almost same radii, the ratio of which is between 0.7 and 1 . The discussed energy region is near the undoped Fermi level where the channel number is kept to two, so there are two bands. The energy bands are expressed with closed analytical forms by the effective mass theory with some assumptions, and they coincide well with the numerical results by the tight binding model. Differences between the two methods are also discussed. Origin of correspondence between the band structures and the phason pattern discussed in Phys. Rev. B {\bf 53}, 2114, is clarified. The width of the gap and the band are in inverse proportion to the length of the unit cell, which is the sum of the lengths measured along the tube axis in each tube part and along 'radial' direction in the junction part. The degeneracy and repulsion between the two bands are determined only from symmetries.Comment: RevTeX, gif fil

Energy efficiency parametric design tool in the framework of holistic ship design optimization

Recent International Maritime Organization (IMO) decisions with respect to measures to reduce the emissions from maritime greenhouse gases (GHGs) suggest that the collaboration of all major stakeholders of shipbuilding and ship operations is required to address this complex techno-economical and highly political problem efficiently. This calls eventually for the development of proper design, operational knowledge, and assessment tools for the energy-efficient design and operation of ships, as suggested by the Second IMO GHG Study (2009). This type of coordination of the efforts of many maritime stakeholders, with often conflicting professional interests but ultimately commonly aiming at optimal ship design and operation solutions, has been addressed within a methodology developed in the EU-funded Logistics-Based (LOGBASED) Design Project (2004–2007). Based on the knowledge base developed within this project, a new parametric design software tool (PDT) has been developed by the National Technical University of Athens, Ship Design Laboratory (NTUA-SDL), for implementing an energy efficiency design and management procedure. The PDT is an integral part of an earlier developed holistic ship design optimization approach by NTUA-SDL that addresses the multi-objective ship design optimization problem. It provides Pareto-optimum solutions and a complete mapping of the design space in a comprehensive way for the final assessment and decision by all the involved stakeholders. The application of the tool to the design of a large oil tanker and alternatively to container ships is elaborated in the presented paper