New Insights on the Photochromism of 2-(2‘,4‘-Dinitrobenzyl)pyridine

The photochromic behavior of 2-(2‘,4‘-dinitrobenzyl)pyridine (α-DNBP) has been followed in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) films and benzene solutions to clarify the behavior of a precursor state, previously identified in studies on crystalline α-DNBP at low temperatures. In PMMA films, photolysis at temperatures ≤50 K led to the concurrent formation of a NH tautomer and a colorless intermediate, which was stable for several hours. On irradiation at low temperatures and warming the sample, the colorless intermediate was seen to react to produce the NH tautomer in a higher yield than that found in the direct photolysis. Further information on this intermediate has come from flash photolysis studies in benzene solution, in which a new transient absorption has been observed at 335 nm and assigned to this species. This decays within a few microseconds at room temperature to form an OH tautomer, which then interconverts to the NH tautomer. The precursor state is not quenched by oxygen or naphthalene. From consideration of the kinetic and spectral data, it is suggested that this new species corresponds to a nonrelaxed tautomeric form of the OH state of α-DNBP

ANALYTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF THE MUZZLE BRAKE EFFICIENCY

The muzzle brake efficiency was investigated both analytically and experimentally in this paper. An experimental test system was developed to measure the recoil force of a 12.7 mm anti-material rifle. Two types of the muzzle brake were used. The recoil force with and without muzzle brake and the muzzle velocity of the projectile were recorded. Then the muzzle brake efficiency was calculated. Besides, an analytical model based on the Orlov method for calculating muzzle brake efficiency was adopted. The obtained results were discussed. The maximum of the muzzle brake force, projectile velocity and muzzle brake efficiency obtained experimentally and analytically were compared. The analytical results were in a good agreement with the experimental ones

Long-time Behavior of a Two-layer Model of Baroclinic Quasi-geostrophic Turbulence

We study a viscous two-layer quasi-geostrophic beta-plane model that is forced by imposition of a spatially uniform vertical shear in the eastward (zonal) component of the layer flows, or equivalently a spatially uniform north-south temperature gradient. We prove that the model is linearly unstable, but that non-linear solutions are bounded in time by a bound which is independent of the initial data and is determined only by the physical parameters of the model. We further prove, using arguments first presented in the study of the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, the existence of an absorbing ball in appropriate function spaces, and in fact the existence of a compact finite-dimensional attractor, and provide upper bounds for the fractal and Hausdorff dimensions of the attractor. Finally, we show the existence of an inertial manifold for the dynamical system generated by the model's solution operator. Our results provide rigorous justification for observations made by Panetta based on long-time numerical integrations of the model equations

Parallel Evaluation of Multi-join Queries

A number of execution strategies for parallel evaluation of multi-join queries have been proposed in the literature. In this paper we give a comparative performance evaluation of four execution strategies by implementing all of them on the same parallel database system, PRISMA/DB. Experiments have been done up to 80 processors. These strategies, coming from the literature, are named: Sequential Parallel, Synchronous Execution, Segmented Right-Deep, and Full Parallel. Based on the experiments clear guidelines are given when to use which strategy. This is an extended abstract; the full paper appeared in Proc. ACM SIGMOD'94, Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 24–27, 199

Assessing the Effects of Climate on Host-Parasite Interactions: A Comparative Study of European Birds and Their Parasites

[Background] Climate change potentially has important effects on distribution, abundance, transmission and virulence of parasites in wild populations of animals. [Methodology/Principal Finding] Here we analyzed paired information on 89 parasite populations for 24 species of bird hosts some years ago and again in 2010 with an average interval of 10 years. The parasite taxa included protozoa, feather parasites, diptera, ticks, mites and fleas. We investigated whether change in abundance and prevalence of parasites was related to change in body condition, reproduction and population size of hosts. We conducted analyses based on the entire dataset, but also on a restricted dataset with intervals between study years being 5–15 years. Parasite abundance increased over time when restricting the analyses to datasets with an interval of 5–15 years, with no significant effect of changes in temperature at the time of breeding among study sites. Changes in host body condition and clutch size were related to change in temperature between first and second study year. In addition, changes in clutch size, brood size and body condition of hosts were correlated with change in abundance of parasites. Finally, changes in population size of hosts were not significantly related to changes in abundance of parasites or their prevalence. [Conclusions/Significance] Climate change is associated with a general increase in parasite abundance. Variation in laying date depended on locality and was associated with latitude while body condition of hosts was associated with a change in temperature. Because clutch size, brood size and body condition were associated with change in parasitism, these results suggest that parasites, perhaps mediated through the indirect effects of temperature, may affect fecundity and condition of their hosts. The conclusions were particularly in accordance with predictions when the restricted dataset with intervals of 5–15 years was used, suggesting that short intervals may bias findings.The Academy of Finland is acknowledged for a grant to TE (project 8119367) and EK (project 250709). PLP was supported by a research grant (TE_291/2010) offered by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Science. T. Szép received funding from OTKA K69068 and JT from OTKA 75618. JMP was supported by a JAE grant from Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. SM-JM, FdL-AM, JF, JJS and FV were respectively supported by projects CGL2009-09439, CGL2012-36665, CGL2009- 11445, CGL2010-19233-C03-01 and CGL2008-00562 by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and FEDER and project EVITAR by the Spanish Ministry of Health. FV was also supported by the European Regional Development Fund. MACT was funded by a predoctoral FPU grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education (AP20043713). PM was supported by grant from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (project 2P04F07030), and the Foundation for Polish Science

Modified Homotopy Analysis Method for Nonlinear Fractional Partial Differential Equations

In this paper, a combined form of natural transform with homotopy analysis method is proposed to solve nonlinear fractional partial differential equations. This method is called the fractional homotopy analysis natural transform method (FHANTM). The FHANTM can easily be applied to many problems and is capable of reducing the size of computational work. The fractional derivative is described in the Caputo sense. The results show that the FHANTM is an appropriate method for solving nonlinear fractional partial differentia equation

Modified Homotopy Analysis Method for Nonlinear Fractional Partial Differential Equations

In this paper, a combined form of natural transform with homotopy analysis method is proposed to solve nonlinear fractional partial differential equations. This method is called the fractional homotopy analysis natural transform method (FHANTM). The FHANTM can easily be applied to many problems and is capable of reducing the size of computational work. The fractional derivative is described in the Caputo sense. The results show that the FHANTM is an appropriate method for solving nonlinear fractional partial differentia equation