780 research outputs found

    Is Child Discipline Changing?

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    Does the kind of authority your child experiences at home make any difference in the way he will rear his children? Or, to put it another way, is the type of authority you use with him related to the kind you experienced in your own childhood home? Perhaps it is-more than you think

    Numerical study of jets produced by conical wire arrays on the Magpie pulsed power generator

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    The aim of this work is to model the jets produced by conical wire arrays on the MAGPIE generator, and to design and test new setups to strengthen the link between laboratory and astrophysical jets. We performed the modelling with direct three-dimensional magneto-hydro-dynamic numerical simulations using the code GORGON. We applied our code to the typical MAGPIE setup and we successfully reproduced the experiments. We found that a minimum resolution of approximately 100 is required to retrieve the unstable character of the jet. We investigated the effect of changing the number of wires and found that arrays with less wires produce more unstable jets, and that this effect has magnetic origin. Finally, we studied the behaviour of the conical array together with a conical shield on top of it to reduce the presence of unwanted low density plasma flows. The resulting jet is shorter and less dense.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Science. HEDLA 2010 conference procedings. Final pubblication will be available on Springe

    Modification of classical electron transport due to collisions between electrons and fast ions

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    A Fokker-Planck model for the interaction of fast ions with the thermal electrons in a quasi-neutral plasma is developed. When the fast ion population has a net flux (i.e. the distribution of the fast ions is anisotropic in velocity space) the electron distribution function is significantly perturbed from Maxwellian by collisions with the fast ions, even if the fast ion density is orders of magnitude smaller than the electron density. The Fokker-Planck model is used to derive classical electron transport equations (a generalized Ohm's law and a heat flow equation) that include the effects of the electron-fast ion collisions. It is found that these collisions result in a current term in the transport equations which can be significant even when total current is zero. The new transport equations are analyzed in the context of a number of scenarios including α\alpha particle heating in ICF and MIF plasmas and ion beam heating of dense plasmas

    Formation of Episodic Magnetically Driven Radiatively Cooled Plasma Jets in the Laboratory

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    We report on experiments in which magnetically driven radiatively cooled plasma jets were produced by a 1 MA, 250 ns current pulse on the MAGPIE pulsed power facility. The jets were driven by the pressure of a toroidal magnetic field in a ''magnetic tower'' jet configuration. This scenario is characterized by the formation of a magnetically collimated plasma jet on the axis of a magnetic ''bubble'', confined by the ambient medium. The use of a radial metallic foil instead of the radial wire arrays employed in our previous work allows for the generation of episodic magnetic tower outflows which emerge periodically on timescales of ~30 ns. The subsequent magnetic bubbles propagate with velocities reaching ~300 km/s and interact with previous eruptions leading to the formation of shocks.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc

    A census of fishes and everything they eat: how the Census of Marine Life advanced fisheries science

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    The Census of Marine Life was a 10-year, international research effort to explore poorly known ocean habitats and conduct large-scale experimentation with new technology. The goal of Census 2010 in its mission statement was to describe what did live in the oceans, what does live in the oceans, and what will live in the ocean. Many of the findings and techniques from census research may prove valuable in making a transition, which many governments have publicly endorsed, from single-species fisheries management to more holistic ecosystem management. Census researchers sampled continental margins, mid-Atlantic ridges, ocean floor vents and seeps, and abyssal plains and polar seas and organized massive amounts of past and new information in a public online database called the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (www.iobis.org). The census described and categorized seamount biology worldwide for its vulnerability to fishing, advanced large-scale animal tracking with acoustic arrays and satellite archival tags, and accelerated species identification, including nearshore, coral reef, and zooplankton sampling using genetic barcoding and pyrotag sequencing for microbes and helped to launch the exciting new field of marine environmental history. Above all, the census showed the value of investing in large-scale, collaborative projects and sharing results publicly

    Extended-magnetohydrodynamics in under-dense plasmas

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    Extended-magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) transports magnetic flux and electron energy in high-energy-density experiments, but individual transport effects remain unobserved experimentally. Two factors are responsible in defining the transport: electron temperature and electron current. Each electron energy transport term has a direct analog in magnetic flux transport. To measure the thermally driven transport of magnetic flux and electron energy, a simple experimental configuration is explored computationally using a laser-heated pre-magnetized under-dense plasma. Changes to the laser heating profile precipitate clear diagnostic signatures from the Nernst, cross-gradient-Nernst, anisotropic conduction, and Righi-Leduc heat-flow. With a wide operating parameter range, this configuration can be used in both small and large scale facilities to benchmark MHD and kinetic transport in collisional/semi-collisional, local/non-local, and magnetized/unmagnetized regimes

    Formation and Structure of a Current Sheet in Pulsed-Power Driven Magnetic Reconnection Experiments

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    We describe magnetic reconnection experiments using a new, pulsed-power driven experimental platform in which the inflows are super-sonic but sub-Alfv\'enic.The intrinsically magnetised plasma flows are long lasting, producing a well-defined reconnection layer that persists over many hydrodynamic time scales.The layer is diagnosed using a suite of high resolution laser based diagnostics which provide measurements of the electron density, reconnecting magnetic field, inflow and outflow velocities and the electron and ion temperatures.Using these measurements we observe a balance between the power flow into and out of the layer, and we find that the heating rates for the electrons and ions are significantly in excess of the classical predictions. The formation of plasmoids is observed in laser interferometry and optical self-emission, and the magnetic O-point structure of these plasmoids is confirmed using magnetic probes.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in Physics of Plasma

    An Experimental Platform for Pulsed-Power Driven Magnetic Reconnection

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    We describe a versatile pulsed-power driven platform for magnetic reconnection experiments, based on exploding wire arrays driven in parallel [Suttle, L. G. et al. PRL, 116, 225001]. This platform produces inherently magnetised plasma flows for the duration of the generator current pulse (250 ns), resulting in a long-lasting reconnection layer. The layer exists for long enough to allow evolution of complex processes such as plasmoid formation and movement to be diagnosed by a suite of high spatial and temporal resolution laser-based diagnostics. We can access a wide range of magnetic reconnection regimes by changing the wire material or moving the electrodes inside the wire arrays. We present results with aluminium and carbon wires, in which the parameters of the inflows and the layer which forms are significantly different. By moving the electrodes inside the wire arrays, we change how strongly the inflows are driven. This enables us to study both symmetric reconnection in a range of different regimes, and asymmetric reconnection.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures. Version revised to include referee's comments. Submitted to Physics of Plasma

    Statistical Methods for Detecting Ichthyoplankton Density Patterns that Influence Entrainment Mortality

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    Samples of drifting American shad eggs were collected at two transects in the Savannah River near industrial water intakes. At each transect the river was divided into four sectors that were sampled at two hour intervals over a 24 hour period. The actual risk of entrainment was approximately 35-50% lower that if the shad eggs were uniformly distributed, and the risk of entrainment was lower at one intake than the other
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