3,431 research outputs found

    Historical background and design evolution of the transonic aircraft technology supercritical wing

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    Two dimensional wind tunnel test results obtained for supercritical airfoils indicated that substantial improvements in aircraft performance at high subsonic speeds could be achieved by shaping the airfoil to improve the supercritical flow above the upper surface. Significant increases in the drag divergence Mach number, the maximum lift coefficient for buffer onset, and the Mach number for buffet onset at a given lift coefficient were demonstrated for the supercritical airfoil, as compared with a NACA 6 series airfoil of comparable thickness. These trends were corroborated by results from three dimensional wind tunnel and flight tests. Because these indicated extensions of the buffet boundaries could provide significant improvements in the maneuverability of a fighter airplane, an exploratory wind tunnel investigation was initiated which demonstrated that significant aerodynamic improvements could be achieved from the direct substitution of a supercritical airfoil on a variable wing sweep multimission airplane model

    A new approach to local hardness

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    The applicability of the local hardness as defined by the derivative of the chemical potential with respect to the electron density is undermined by an essential ambiguity arising from this definition. Further, the local quantity defined in this way does not integrate to the (global) hardness - in contrast with the local softness, which integrates to the softness. It has also been shown recently that with the conventional formulae, the largest values of local hardness do not necessarily correspond to the hardest regions of a molecule. Here, in an attempt to fix these drawbacks, we propose a new approach to define and evaluate the local hardness. We define a local chemical potential, utilizing the fact that the chemical potential emerges as the additive constant term in the number-conserving functional derivative of the energy density functional. Then, differentiation of this local chemical potential with respect to the number of electrons leads to a local hardness that integrates to the hardness, and possesses a favourable property; namely, within any given electron system, it is in a local inverse relation with the Fukui function, which is known to be a proper indicator of local softness in the case of soft systems. Numerical tests for a few selected molecules and a detailed analysis, comparing the new definition of local hardness with the previous ones, show promising results.Comment: 30 pages (including 6 figures, 1 table

    Designing for dyslexic students in higher education

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    The definition of dyslexia is variable, from traditional and mainstream view of it is a specific learning disability to the more liberal modern view of dyslexia as unique brain functionality. It can be overwhelming for dyslexic students making the transition from high school to university, which requires more independent learning, assistance and tools. These range from bespoke specialist typefaces to note taking technologies that can record spoken word. The variable definitions of dyslexia cause no standardisation of tools, which causes the market to be limited, causing a majority of tools are often unsuitable for a mature student in higher education, leaving a gap where there is a demand. I have used practice-based research through the design process to develop an understanding of what is best suited for dyslexic’s students. This included background research that utilised traditional research methods including semi-structured interviews with professionals and analysis of literature. As a result of this, I have created a design solution that exampled the knowledge gained in the background research. This was designed and underwent through a process of testing and developing on used in the design processes on the demographic to gain further insight into what they desired from these tools, where previous research methods did not provide knowledge on. This paper questions the success of the government funded Dyslexia Funding Allowance (DSA) assistance and offers a solution that is beneficial, cheaper and more suitable to the demographic. Further insight is discussed and demonstrated what suitable for those who wishto design a tool for dyslexics. The results provide information of the best ways to design for dyslexic and why it is necessary for suitable design to assist in making a dyslexic work with their strengths and develop their weaknesses

    Problematyka badań witraży średniowiecznych

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    Na podstawie badań ponad 900 fragmentów średniowiecznych szkieł witrażowych, pochodzących z różnych miejsc i okresów (od XII do XVIw.), omówionych zostało kilka wybranych zagadnień związanych z metodyką badawczą i interpretacją wyników. Poruszona problematyka dotyczy dziewiętnastowiecznej restauracji witraży i ich współczesnej interpretacji, badań pojedynczej kwatery, okna i zespołu okien oraz szkieł barwnych. W ostatnim przypadku, dokładniej zostały omówione szkła czerwone oraz dwunastowieczne szkła niebieskie, wytwarzane przy użyciu rzymskich tesserae. / Research on more than 900 fragments of medieval stained glass from different places and periods (from the 12th to the 16th c.) gives grounds for a discussion of select issues connected with research methodology and interpretation of results. Topical issues concern 19th c. restoration of stained glass windows and their modern interpretation, research on particular panels, windows and sets of windows, as well as coloured glass, in the lattermost case especially red glass and 12th c. blue glass produced from Roman tesserae

    Characterization of the near-Earth Asteroid 2002NY40

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    In August 2002, the near-Earth asteroid 2002 NY40, made its closest approach to the Earth. This provided an opportunity to study a near-Earth asteroid with a variety of instruments. Several of the telescopes at the Maui Space Surveillance System were trained at the asteroid and collected adaptive optics images, photometry and spectroscopy. Analysis of the imagery reveals the asteroid is triangular shaped with significant self-shadowing. The photometry reveals a 20-hour period and the spectroscopy shows that the asteroid is a Q-type

    Determination of Ice Water Path in Ice-over-Water Cloud Systems Using Combined MODIS and AMSR-E Measurements

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    To provide more accurate ice cloud properties for evaluating climate models, the updated version of multi-layered cloud retrieval system (MCRS) is used to retrieve ice water path (IWP) in ice-over-water cloud systems over global ocean using combined instrument data from the Aqua satellite. The liquid water path (LWP) of lower layer water clouds is estimated from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) measurements. With the lower layer LWP known, the properties of the upper-level ice clouds are then derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer measurements by matching simulated radiances from a two-cloud layer radiative transfer model. Comparisons with single-layer cirrus systems and surface-based radar retrievals show that the MCRS can significantly improve the accuracy and reduce the over-estimation of optical depth and ice water path retrievals for ice over-water cloud systems. During the period from December 2004 through February 2005, the mean daytime ice cloud optical depth and IWP for overlapped ice-over-water clouds over ocean from Aqua are 7.6 and 146.4 gm(sup -2), respectively, significantly less than the initial single layer retrievals of 17.3 and 322.3 gm(sup -2). The mean IWP for actual single-layer clouds was 128.2 gm(sup -2)

    Method For Making 2-Electron Response Reduced Density Matrices Approximately N-representable

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    In methods like geminal-based approaches or coupled cluster that are solved using the projected Schr\"odinger equation, direct computation of the 2-electron reduced density matrix (2-RDM) is impractical and one falls back to a 2-RDM based on response theory. However, the 2-RDMs from response theory are not NN-representable. That is, the response 2-RDM does not correspond to an actual physical NN-electron wave function. We present a new algorithm for making these non-NN-representable 2-RDMs approximately NN-representable, i.e. it has the right symmetry and normalization and it fulfills the PP-, QQ- and GG-conditions. Next to an algorithm which can be applied to any 2-RDM, we have also developed a 2-RDM optimization procedure specifically for seniority-zero 2-RDMs. We aim to find the 2-RDM with the right properties that is the closest (in the sense of the Frobenius norm) to the non-N-representable 2-RDM by minimizing the square norm of the difference between the initial 2-RDM and the targeted 2-RDM under the constraint that the trace is normalized and the 2-RDM, QQ- and GG-matrices are positive semidefinite, i.e. their eigenvalues are non-negative. Our method is suitable for fixing non-N-respresentable 2-RDMs which are close to being N-representable. Through the N-representability optimization algorithm we add a small correction to the initial 2-RDM such that it fulfills the most important N-representability conditions.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure

    Virial theorem in the Kohn-Sham density-functional theory formalism: Accurate calculation of the atomic quantum theory of atoms in molecules energies

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    A new approach for computing the atom-in-molecule [quantum theory of atoms in molecule (QTAIM)] energies in Kohn-Sham density-functional theory is presented and tested by computing QTAIM energies for a set of representative molecules. In the new approach, the contribution for the correlation-kinetic energy (

    The Physicist's Guide to the Orchestra

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    An experimental study of strings, woodwinds (organ pipe, flute, clarinet, saxophone and recorder), and the voice was undertaken to illustrate the basic principles of sound production in music instruments. The setup used is simple and consists of common laboratory equipment. Although the canonical examples (standing wave on a string, in an open and closed pipe) are easily reproduced, they fail to explain the majority of the measurements. The reasons for these deviations are outlined and discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures (jpg files). Submitted to European Journal of Physic
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