An aid to the development of Botswana's resources: Section on hydrology

The author has identified the following significant results. It is proved that FCC's can be used for a simple estimate of the total evaportranspiring area of the Okavango Delta, sufficiently accurate for preliminary inputs for the development of mathematical model of the surface hydrology of the delta. The color coded matrix has shown as interesting inverse correlation with an array on the same grid prepared by ecologists from air photography study, for percent liable to flood

Algorithmic approach to adiabatic quantum optimization

It is believed that the presence of anticrossings with exponentially small gaps between the lowest two energy levels of the system Hamiltonian, can render adiabatic quantum optimization inefficient. Here, we present a simple adiabatic quantum algorithm designed to eliminate exponentially small gaps caused by anticrossings between eigenstates that correspond with the local and global minima of the problem Hamiltonian. In each iteration of the algorithm, information is gathered about the local minima that are reached after passing the anticrossing non-adiabatically. This information is then used to penalize pathways to the corresponding local minima, by adjusting the initial Hamiltonian. This is repeated for multiple clusters of local minima as needed. We generate 64-qubit random instances of the maximum independent set problem, skewed to be extremely hard, with between 10^5 and 10^6 highly-degenerate local minima. Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, it is found that the algorithm can trivially solve all the instances in ~10 iterations.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Leading-edge vortices elevate lift of autorotating plant seeds

As they descend, the autorotating seeds of maples and some other trees generate unexpectedly high lift, but how they attain this elevated performance is unknown. To elucidate the mechanisms responsible, we measured the three-dimensional flow around dynamically scaled models of maple and hornbeam seeds. Our results indicate that these seeds attain high lift by generating a stable leading-edge vortex (LEV) as they descend. The compact LEV, which we verified on real specimens, allows maple seeds to remain in the air more effectively than do a variety of nonautorotating seeds. LEVs also explain the high lift generated by hovering insects, bats, and possibly birds, suggesting that the use of LEVs represents a convergent aerodynamic solution in the evolution of flight performance in both animals and plants

Unsteadiness in Flow over a Flat Plate at Angle-of-Attack at Low Reynolds Numbers

Flow over an impulsively started low-aspect-ratio flat plate at angle-of-attack is investigated for a Reynolds number of 300. Numerical simulations, validated by a companion experiment, are performed to study the influence of aspect ratio, angle of attack, and planform geometry on the interaction of the leading-edge and tip vortices and resulting lift and drag coefficients. Aspect ratio is found to significantly influence the wake pattern and the force experienced by the plate. For large aspect ratio plates, leading-edge vortices evolved into hairpin vortices that eventually detached from the plate, interacting with the tip vortices in a complex manner. Separation of the leading-edge vortex is delayed to some extent by having convective transport of the spanwise vorticity as observed in flow over elliptic, semicircular, and delta-shaped planforms. The time at which lift achieves its maximum is observed to be fairly constant over different aspect ratios, angles of attack, and planform geometries during the initial transient. Preliminary results are also presented for flow over plates with steady actuation near the leading edge

MUBs inequivalence and affine planes

There are fairly large families of unitarily inequivalent complete sets of N+1 mutually unbiased bases (MUBs) in C^N for various prime powers N. The number of such sets is not bounded above by any polynomial as a function of N. While it is standard that there is a superficial similarity between complete sets of MUBs and finite affine planes, there is an intimate relationship between these large families and affine planes. This note briefly summarizes "old" results that do not appear to be well-known concerning known families of complete sets of MUBs and their associated planes.Comment: This is the version of this paper appearing in J. Mathematical Physics 53, 032204 (2012) except for format changes due to the journal's style policie

Purification and Characterization of meta-Cresol Purple for Spectrophotometric Seawater pH Measurements

Spectrophotometric procedures allow rapid and precise measurements of the pH of natural waters. However, impurities in the acid–base indicators used in these analyses can significantly affect measurement accuracy. This work describes HPLC procedures for purifying one such indicator, meta-cresol purple (mCP), and reports mCP physical–chemical characteristics (thermodynamic equilibrium constants and visible-light absorbances) over a range of temperature (T) and salinity (S). Using pure mCP, seawater pH on the total hydrogen ion concentration scale (pHT) can be expressed in terms of measured mCP absorbance ratios (R = λ2A/λ1A) as follows:where −log(K2Te2) = a + (b/T) + c ln T – dT; a = −246.64209 + 0.315971S + 2.8855 × 10–4S2; b = 7229.23864 – 7.098137S – 0.057034S2; c = 44.493382 – 0.052711S; d = 0.0781344; and mCP molar absorbance ratios (ei) are expressed as e1 = −0.007762 + 4.5174 × 10–5T and e3/e2 = −0.020813 + 2.60262 × 10–4T + 1.0436 × 10–4 (S – 35). The mCP absorbances, λ1A and λ2A, used to calculate R are measured at wavelengths (λ) of 434 and 578 nm. This characterization is appropriate for 278.15 ≤ T ≤ 308.15 and 20 ≤ S ≤ 40

Jump-like unravelings for non-Markovian open quantum systems

Non-Markovian evolution of an open quantum system can be `unraveled' into pure state trajectories generated by a non-Markovian stochastic (diffusive) Schr\"odinger equation, as introduced by Di\'osi, Gisin, and Strunz. Recently we have shown that such equations can be derived using the modal (hidden variable) interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this paper we generalize this theory to treat jump-like unravelings. To illustrate the jump-like behavior we consider a simple system: A classically driven (at Rabi frequency $\Omega$) two-level atom coupled linearly to a three mode optical bath, with a central frequency equal to the frequency of the atom, $\omega_0$, and the two side bands have frequencies $\omega_0\pm\Omega$. In the large $\Omega$ limit we observed that the jump-like behavior is similar to that observed in this system with a Markovian (broad band) bath. This is expected as in the Markovian limit the fluorescence spectrum for a strongly driven two level atom takes the form of a Mollow triplet. However the length of time for which the Markovian-like behaviour persists depends upon {\em which} jump-like unraveling is used.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Evaluation of the Wood and Plastic Formworks in Building Construction Industry for Sustainable Development

This research work assessed wood and plastic in building construction. The study was a descriptive survey design and as such made use of questionnaire with 42 items. The Population of the study was 110 respondents which include 40 building professional and 70 non-building professional. The data were analysed using mean and standard deviation. The finding of the study shows that plastic work form can be used for casting slab, concrete wall among others. The finding also revealed some factors that determines the selection of form work such as climatic condition, labour efficiency and that plastic formwork saves cost as a result of long reuse period. It is therefore recommended that; plastic and wooden formwork should be integrated often in the casting of slabs, beam and columns without discrimination, proper adherence to standards and specifications for use of any type of formwork, there should be large scale production of plastic formwork to conserve forest and wood, factors to be considered in the selection of formwork should not be ignored, there should be proper weighing of the advantages and disadvantages of each type of formwork relating to the scale of construction before the choice of any formwork

Fibroblast-like synoviocytes orchestrate daily rhythmic inflammation in arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disease that shows characteristic diurnal variation in symptom severity, where joint resident fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS) act as important mediators of arthritis pathology. We investigate the role of FLS circadian clock function in directing rhythmic joint inflammation in a murine model of inflammatory arthritis. We demonstrate FLS time-of-day-dependent gene expression is attenuated in arthritic joints, except for a subset of disease-modifying genes. The deletion of essential clock gene Bmal1 in FLS reduced susceptibility to collagen-induced arthritis but did not impact symptomatic severity in affected mice. Notably, FLS Bmal1 deletion resulted in loss of diurnal expression of disease-modulating genes across the joint, and elevated production of MMP3, a prognostic marker of joint damage in inflammatory arthritis. This work identifies the FLS circadian clock as an influential driver of daily oscillations in joint inflammation, and a potential regulator of destructive pathology in chronic inflammatory arthritis

Turning dynamics and passive damping in flapping flight

We investigated whether flapping flight has an inherent stability by analyzing the inertial and aerodynamic effects of flapping wings on body dynamics. Based on wing and body kinematics of free flying fruit flies during rapid maneuvers, we found a passive counter torque due to body rotation. It is identified both in simulation through quasi-steady state aerodynamic model and through experiments on a dynamically scaled robotic wing. An analytical form is derived correspondingly. In the turning yaw axis, the estimated damping coefficient of flapping wings is significantly higher than body frictional damping; this indicates a passive deceleration during turning. By simulating insect to rotate about each principal axis of inertial and body frames, we calculated the corresponding damping coefficients, and further analyzed the attitude stability. The result reveals that, passive damping of flapping flight, while does not necessarily lead to a stable full body dynamics, provides a considerable passive restoring torque that could be critical for flight stabilization and control in the design of micro aerial vehicles. Preliminary analysis on the scaling parameters of passive damping was also performed