10,429 research outputs found
Precipitation Trends across the Commonwealth of Virginia (1947 – 2016)
Water is an important resource for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Too much water increases runoff, disrupt transportation networks, and contributes to school closures. Too little water may adversely impact agricultural operations. To improve climate-related information to Virginia citizens, this study assesses means and changes in precipitation across the Commonwealth of Virginia (1947 – 2016). Using daily station-level precipitation data from the Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN), descriptive statistics were calculated for 43 locations in terms of total precipitation (inches decade-1), precipitation days (x\u3e0”), and heavy precipitation days (x\u3e1.0”). On average, locations showed an overall increase in total precipitation across the time period. The frequency of heavy rainfall events has also increased across many of the analyzed locations. Precipitation has important ramifications for agriculture, storm water management, and hazard response, and improved coordination of atmospheric-related information may be beneficial to various stakeholders across the Commonwealth
Plasmas generated by ultra-violet light rather than electron impact
We analyze, in both plane and cylindrical geometries, a collisionless plasma
consisting of an inner region where generation occurs by UV illumination, and
an un-illuminated outer region with no generation. Ions generated in the inner
region flow outwards through the outer region and into a wall. We solve for
this system's steady state, first in the quasi-neutral regime (where the Debye
length vanishes and analytic solutions exist) and then in the
general case, which we solve numerically. In the general case a double layer
forms where the illuminated and un-illuminated regions meet, and an
approximately quasi-neutral plasma connects the double layer to the wall
sheath; in plane geometry the ions coast through the quasi-neutral section at
slightly more than the Bohm speed . The system, although simple, therefore
has two novel features: a double layer that does not require counter-streaming
ions and electrons, and a quasi-neutral plasma where ions travel in straight
lines with at least the Bohm speed. We close with a pr\'{e}cis of our
asymptotic solutions of this system, and suggest how our theoretical
conclusions might be extended and tested in the laboratory.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Physics of Plasma
Local Compressibility Measurements of Correlated States in Suspended Bilayer Graphene
Bilayer graphene has attracted considerable interest due to the important
role played by many-body effects, particularly at low energies. Here we report
local compressibility measurements of a suspended graphene bilayer. We find
that the energy gaps at filling factors v = 4 do not vanish at low fields, but
instead merge into an incompressible region near the charge neutrality point at
zero electric and magnetic field. These results indicate the existence of a
zero-field ordered state and are consistent with the formation of either an
anomalous quantum Hall state or a nematic phase with broken rotational
symmetry. At higher fields, we measure the intrinsic energy gaps of
broken-symmetry states at v = 0, 1 and 2, and find that they scale linearly
with magnetic field, yet another manifestation of the strong Coulomb
interactions in bilayer graphene.Comment: 9 pages, including 4 figures and supplementary material
Lantana urticoides Hayek
https://thekeep.eiu.edu/herbarium_specimens_byname/18904/thumbnail.jp
Computing the local pressure in molecular dynamics simulations
Computer simulations of inhomogeneous soft matter systems often require
accurate methods for computing the local pressure. We present a simple
derivation, based on the virial relation, of two equivalent expressions for the
local (atomistic) pressure in a molecular dynamics simulation. One of these
expressions, previously derived by other authors via a different route,
involves summation over interactions between particles within the region of
interest; the other involves summation over interactions across the boundary of
the region of interest. We illustrate our derivation using simulations of a
simple osmotic system; both expressions produce accurate results even when the
region of interest over which the pressure is measured is very small.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
Tuning density profiles and mobility of inhomogeneous fluids
Density profiles are the most common measure of inhomogeneous structure in
confined fluids, but their connection to transport coefficients is poorly
understood. We explore via simulation how tuning particle-wall interactions to
flatten or enhance the particle layering of a model confined fluid impacts its
self-diffusivity, viscosity, and entropy. Interestingly, interactions that
eliminate particle layering significantly reduce confined fluid mobility,
whereas those that enhance layering can have the opposite effect. Excess
entropy helps to understand and predict these trends.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
The Elmore Ranch and Superstition Hills earthquakes of 24 November 1987: Introduction to the special issue
On 24 November 1987, two significant earthquakes occurred along the southern San Jacinto fault zone and related structural elements in southern California, not far from the International Border. These two events, the Elmore Ranch earthquake (M = 6.2 at 0154 GMT) and the Superstition Hills earthquake (M = 6.6 at 1315 GMT, both moment magnitudes from Sipkin, 1989), and their aftershocks have
yielded a rich harvest of geological, seismological, and engineering data pertinent to the cause and effect of earthquakes in this region, where the southern San Jacinto
fault zone enters the Salton Depression from the Peninsula Ranges bordering it on the southwest (Fig. 1). This special issue of the Bulletin presents 18 geologic and seismologic investigations of these earthquakes, a collection of papers born in El Centro, California, on 8 and 9 February 1988 at a meeting attended by approximately 60 scientists interested in these earthquakes for one reason or another
Web Applet For Predicting Structure And Thermodynamics Of Complex Fluids
Based on a recently introduced analytical strategy [Hollingshead et al., J. Chem. Phys. 139, 161102 (2013)], we present a web applet that can quickly and semi-quantitatively estimate the equilibrium radial distribution function and related thermodynamic properties of a fluid from knowledge of its pair interaction. We describe the applet's features and present two (of many possible) examples of how it can be used to illustrate concepts of interest for introductory statistical mechanics courses: the transition from ideal gas-like behavior to correlated-liquid behavior with increasing density, and the tradeoff between dominant length scales with changing temperature in a system with ramp-shaped repulsions. The latter type of interaction qualitatively captures distinctive thermodynamic properties of liquid water, because its energetic bias toward locally open structures mimics that of water's hydrogen-bond network. (C) 2015 American Association of Physics Teachers.Chemical Engineerin
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