55,510 research outputs found
Condensation risk: comparison of steady-state and transient methods
Accurate assessment of both surface and interstitial condensation risk is important not only to reduce the damaging effect of moisture within the structure of buildings, but also to provide a healthy environment free from mould growth. The current British Standard (BS EN ISO 13788: 2002) contains an assessment procedure based on the assumption of a steady-state heat flow through the building envelope, neglecting the transient nature of the problem. This paper compares and evaluates numerical results of the condensation risk calculation under both steady-state and transient conditions using the existing numerical codes. Significant differences are apparent between the predictions of the simple (steady-state) and complex (transient) methods for all construction details modelled
Tadpole renormalization and relativistic corrections in lattice NRQCD
We make a comparison of two tadpole renormalization schemes in the context of
the quarkonium hyperfine splittings in lattice NRQCD. Improved gauge-field and
NRQCD actions are analyzed using the mean-link in Landau gauge, and
using the fourth root of the average plaquette . Simulations are done
for , , and systems. The hyperfine splittings are
computed both at leading and at next-to-leading order in the relativistic
expansion. Results are obtained at lattice spacings in the range of about
0.14~fm to 0.38~fm. A number of features emerge, all of which favor tadpole
renormalization using . This includes much better scaling behavior of
the hyperfine splittings in the three quarkonium systems when is
used. We also find that relativistic corrections to the spin splittings are
smaller when is used, particularly for the and
systems. We also see signs of a breakdown in the NRQCD expansion when the bare
quark mass falls below about one in lattice units. Simulations with
also appear to be better behaved in this context: the bare quark masses turn
out to be larger when is used, compared to when is used on
lattices with comparable spacings. These results also demonstrate the need to
go beyond tree-level tadpole improvement for precision simulations.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures (minor changes to some phraseology and
references
Quarkonium spin structure in lattice NRQCD
Numerical simulations of the quarkonium spin splittings are done in the
framework of lattice nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics (NRQCD). At leading
order in the velocity expansion the spin splittings are of , where
is the renormalized quark mass and is the mean squared quark
velocity. A systematic analysis is done of all next-to-leading order
corrections. This includes the addition of relativistic
interactions, and the removal of discretization errors in the
leading-order interactions. Simulations are done for both S- and P-wave mesons,
with a variety of heavy quark actions and over a wide range of lattice
spacings. Two prescriptions for the tadpole improvement of the action are also
studied in detail: one using the measured value of the average plaquette, the
other using the mean link measured in Landau gauge. Next-to-leading order
interactions result in a very large reduction in the charmonium splittings,
down by about 60% from their values at leading order. There are further
indications that the velocity expansion may be poorly convergent for
charmonium. Prelimary results show a small correction to the hyperfine
splitting in the Upsilon system.Comment: 16 pages, REVTEX v3.1, 5 postscript figures include
The D234 action for light quarks
We investigate a new light fermion action (the ``D234'' action), which is
accurate up to \O(a^3) and tadpole-improved \O(a \alpha_s) errors. Using
D234 with Symanzik- and tadpole-improved glue we find evidence that continuum
results for the quenched hadron spectrum (pion, rho and nucleon) can be
obtained on coarse lattices.Comment: Latex, 4 pages, submitted to Lattice '95 proceeding
Thermospheric winds and temperatures above Mawson, Antarctica, observed with an all-sky imaging, Fabry-Perot spectrometer
A new all-sky imaging Fabry-Perot spectrometer has been installed at Mawson station (67&deg;36' S, 62&deg;52' E), Antarctica. This instrument is capable of recording independent spectra from many tens of locations across the sky simultaneously. Useful operation began in March 2007, with spectra recorded on a total of 186 nights. Initial analysis has focused on the large-scale daily and average behavior of winds and temperatures derived from observations of the 630.0 nm airglow line of atomic oxygen, originating from a broad layer centered around 240 km altitude, in the ionospheric F-region. <br><br> The 1993 Horizontal Wind Model (HWM93), NRLMSISE-00 atmospheric model, and the Coupled Thermosphere/Ionosphere Plasmasphere (CTIP) model were used for comparison. During the geomagnetically quiet period studied, observed winds and temperatures were generally well modelled, although temperatures were consistently higher than NRLMSISE-00 predicted, by up to 100 K. CTIP temperatures better matched our data, particularly later in the night, but predicted zonal winds which were offset from those observed by 70â180 ms<sup>&minus;1</sup> westward. During periods of increased activity both winds and temperatures showed much greater variability over time-scales of less than an hour. For the active night presented here, a period of 45 min saw wind speeds decrease by around 180 ms<sup>&minus;1</sup>, and temperatures increase by approximately 100 K. Active-period winds were poorly modelled by HWM93 and CTIP, although observed median temperatures were in better agreement with NRLMSISE-00 during such periods. <br><br> Average behavior was found to be generally consistent with previous studies of thermospheric winds above Mawson. The collected data set was representative of quiet geomagnetic and solar conditions. Geographic eastward winds in the afternoon/evening generally continued until around local midnight, when winds turned equatorward. Geographic meridional and zonal winds in the afternoon were approximately 50 ms<sup>&minus;1</sup> weaker than expected from HWM93, as was the transition to equatorward flow around midnight. There was also a negligible geographic zonal component to the post-midnight wind where HWM93 predicted strong westward flow. Average temperatures between 19:00 and 04:00 local solar time were around 60 K higher than predicted by NRLMSISE-00
Modelling failure mechanisms of soft cliff profiles
A large proportion of the 11,000 km coastline of the United Kingdom is backed by soft cliffs. These cliffs are subject to frequent slumping and landslip events, particularly where sea and ground water percolates into the soil and rock. Many of these cliffs are formed from glaciogenic sediments, which experience severe erosion and rapid recession with long-term horizontal recession rates typically up to 2-3 m/year. A series of scaled physical model tests have been conducted using a large centrifuge facility with two-dimensional cliff models. These were tested in a wave flume container located on the centrifuge. Wave loading was created using a quasi-flap paddle system that was located at the opposite end of the centrifuge box. A number of tests were conducted using different cliff materials (i.e. combinations of sand and Portland cement). A parametric study was carried out to assess the influence of variations in cliff geometry and height, soil properties, wave amplitude and period. From these tests, it has been found that generally, failures occurred by progressive undercutting of the cliff toe, followed by global failure of the cliff mass
Identifying the transporters of different flavonoids in plants
We recently identified a new component of flavonoid transport pathways in Arabidopsis. The MATE protein FFT (Flower Flavonoid Transporter) is primarily found in guard cells and seedling roots, and mutation of the transporter results in floral and growth phenotypes. The nature of FFTâs substrate requires further exploration but our data suggest that it is a kaempferol diglucoside. Here we discuss potential partner H+-ATPases and possible redundancy among the close homologues within the large Arabidopsis MATE family
An initial evaluation of a biohygrothermal model for the purpose of assessing the risk mould growth in UK dwellings
Moulds are organisms that may be found in both the indoor and outdoor environment. Moulds play an important rolebreaking down and digesting organic material, but, if they are significantly present in the indoor environment they mayaffect the health of the occupants. A relative humidity of 80% at wall surfaces is frequently stated as the decisivecriterion for mould growth and methods used to assess the risk of mould growth are often based on steady stateconditions. However, considering the dynamic conditions typically found in the indoor environment, a betterunderstanding of the conditions required for mould to grow would seem desirable. This paper presents initialexploratory work to evaluate and assess ââŹËWUFI-bioââŹâ˘ - ââŹËbiohygrothermalââŹâ˘ software that predicts the likelihood of mould growth under transient conditions. Model predictions are compared with large monitored data set from 1,388 UKdwellings before and after insulation and new heating systems are installed (ââŹËWarm FrontââŹâ˘), the suitability of thissoftware as a tool to predict mould growth will ultimately be assessed. This paper presents some initial, exploratorywork
The thermodynamic evolution of the cosmological event horizon
By manipulating the integral expression for the proper radius of the
cosmological event horizon (CEH) in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW)
universe, we obtain an analytical expression for the change \dd R_e in
response to a uniform fluctuation \dd\rho in the average cosmic background
density . We stipulate that the fluctuation arises within a vanishing
interval of proper time, during which the CEH is approximately stationary, and
evolves subsequently such that \dd\rho/\rho is constant. The respective
variations 2\pi R_e \dd R_e and \dd E_e in the horizon entropy and
enclosed energy should be therefore related through the cosmological
Clausius relation. In that manner we find that the temperature of the CEH
at an arbitrary time in a flat FRW universe is , which recovers
asymptotically the usual static de Sitter temperature. Furthermore, it is
proven that during radiation-dominance and in late times the CEH conforms to
the fully dynamical First Law T_e \drv S_e = P\drv V_e - \drv E_e, where
is the enclosed volume and is the average cosmic pressure.Comment: 6 page
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