Structure of the neutron-rich N=7 isotones 10Li and 9He

The near threshold structure of the unbound N=7 isotones 10Li and 9He has been investigated using proton removal and breakup from intermediate energy (35 MeV/nucleon) secondary beams of 11Be and 14,15B. The coincident detection of the beam velocity 9Li and 8He fragments and neutrons permitted the relative energy of the in-flight decay of 10Li and 9He to be reconstructed. Both systems were found to exhibited virtual s-wave strength near threshold together with a higher-lying resonance.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Contribution to INPC2010 - "International Nuclear Physics Conference", Vancouver, Canada, 4-9 July 2010, Proceedings to be published in Journal of Physics: Conference Serie

Collective Coordinate Approach to the Dynamics of Various Soliton-Obstruction Systems

Various soliton-obstruction systems have been studied from analytical perspective. We have used collective coordinate to approach the dynamics of solitons as they meet a potential obstruction in a form of square barriers and holes for three models in (1+1) dimensions, namely: $\lambda\phi^{4}$ model, deformed Sine-Gordon model, and a model that give rise to Q-ball solution. We have shown that our approximated field solution is valid enough to describe the behaviour of solitons scattering off a potential obstruction.Comment: 26 pages, 18 figure

Hybrid techniques to enhance solar thermal: the way forward

Solar is one of the pillars for clean and environment friendly energy. The drawback of the solar is the interruption during the night and cloudy and rainy weather. This paper presents the author’s experience on enhancing the solar thermal systems by integration techniques with either other energy resources or thermal energy storages (TES). The present works includes the hybrid solar drying through integration with thermal backup unit. The experimental results on hybrid drying showed enhancement of 64.1% for Empty Fruit Bunch, and 61.1% for chili pepper, compared with open solar mode drying. Secondly, solar water heating was proved to be sufficient to supply hot water during the day and night time by integration with TES. The experimented system was able to maintain the water hot up to the next morning. On large scale and industrial application, experimental results on modified inclined solar chimney had shown enhancement via integration with wasted flue gas. By this technique, the system was developed to operate 24 hours a day. The efficiency was enhanced by 100% in case of hybrid operation compared with solar mode operation. The research results are demonstrating that the integration techniques can contribute effectively in enhancing the performance of the thermal solar systems.The author acknowledges Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS for providing the financial, technical and logistic support to execute the solar hybrid program. The program is sponsored under many internal research funds, e.g. STIRF no. 24/07.08, STIRF no. 44/08.09, URIF 19/2012 and URIF 22/2013. Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia is acknowledged for providing the research fund of the solar hybrid drying program under PRGS scheme

A classification of emerging and traditional grid systems

The grid has evolved in numerous distinct phases. It started in the early ’90s as a model of metacomputing in which supercomputers share resources; subsequently, researchers added the ability to share data. This is usually referred to as the first-generation grid. By the late ’90s, researchers had outlined the framework for second-generation grids, characterized by their use of grid middleware systems to “glue” different grid technologies together. Third-generation grids originated in the early millennium when Web technology was combined with second-generation grids. As a result, the invisible grid, in which grid complexity is fully hidden through resource virtualization, started receiving attention. Subsequently, grid researchers identified the requirement for semantically rich knowledge grids, in which middleware technologies are more intelligent and autonomic. Recently, the necessity for grids to support and extend the ambient intelligence vision has emerged. In AmI, humans are surrounded by computing technologies that are unobtrusively embedded in their surroundings. However, third-generation grids’ current architecture doesn’t meet the requirements of next-generation grids (NGG) and service-oriented knowledge utility (SOKU).4 A few years ago, a group of independent experts, arranged by the European Commission, identified these shortcomings as a way to identify potential European grid research priorities for 2010 and beyond. The experts envision grid systems’ information, knowledge, and processing capabilities as a set of utility services.3 Consequently, new grid systems are emerging to materialize these visions. Here, we review emerging grids and classify them to motivate further research and help establish a solid foundation in this rapidly evolving area