Excited nucleons with chirally improved fermions

We study positive and negative parity nucleons on the lattice using the chirally improved lattice Dirac operator. Our analysis is based on a set of three operators chi_i with the nucleon quantum numbers but in different representations of the chiral group and with different diquark content. We use a variational method to separate ground state and excited states and determine the mixing coefficients for the optimal nucleon operators in terms of the chi_i. We clearly identify the negative parity resonances N(1535) and N(1650) and their masses agree well with experimental data. The mass of the observed excited positive parity state is too high to be interpreted as the Roper state. Our results for the mixing coefficients indicate that chiral symmetry is important for N(1535) and N(1650) states. We confront our data for the mixing coefficients with quark models and provide insights into the physics of the nucleon system and the nature of strong decays.Comment: Tables added, small modifications in the tex

Social product development:the democratization of design, manufacture, and innovation

With increasing globalization and 21st century trends such as the personalization and commoditization of technology, product design has become a level playing field for both engineering professionals and members of the maker’s communities. Terms associated with this shift in the industry include crowdsourcing, cloud-based design and manufacture, mass collaboration and Open Innovation. While academics have considered the impact of these phenomena individually, there has yet to be a discussion on how these terms work together to influence the process of product development. This paper serves as an introduction to a new area of research that treats these terms as tenants of a multi-faceted term labelled Social Product Development. By considering the relationships and impacts of these modern phenomena as a group for the first time, progress can be made in evolving traditional product development frameworks to take advantage of the tools the 21st century has to offer. In this paper, the authors present an overview of the tenants of Social Product Development and discuss what they actually mean in the context of 21st century product development. Future work is then discussed which considers how an SPD framework could be formed

Melting and freezing of argon in a granular packing of linear mesopore arrays

Freezing and melting of Ar condensed in a granular packing of template-grown arrays of linear mesopores (SBA-15, mean pore diameter 8 nanometer) has been studied by specific heat measurements C as a function of fractional filling of the pores. While interfacial melting leads to a single melting peak in C, homogeneous and heterogeneous freezing along with a delayering transition for partial fillings of the pores result in a complex freezing mechanism explainable only by a consideration of regular adsorption sites (in the cylindrical mesopores) and irregular adsorption sites (in niches of the rough external surfaces of the grains, and at points of mutual contact of the powder grains). The tensile pressure release upon reaching bulk liquid/vapor coexistence quantitatively accounts for an upward shift of the melting/freeezing temperature observed while overfilling the mesopores.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear as a Letter in Physical Review Letter

Reactive transport modeling to assess geochemical monitoring for detection of CO2 intrusion into shallow aquifers

AbstractThe hypothesis is tested if changes in electric conductivity of groundwater (EC) in response to gaseous CO2 intrusion are sufficient to be detected using probe measurements and geophysical electromagnetic measurements, e.g. airborne electromagnetic measurements. Virtual reactive scenario modelling is used to simulate the effects of the presence of calcite, CO2 intrusion rates, depth of the aquifer formation, initial salinity of groundwater and CO2 intrusion time on changes in EC. In all simulations, EC rises rapidly in response to CO2 intrusion, however in different magnitudes. When calcite is present, EC changes are strong (+1.11 mS/cm after 24 hours of CO2 intrusion) mainly due to calcite dissolution, whereas in aquifers without calcite changes are very low (+0.02 mS/cm after 24 hours) and close to the resolution range of probes. Increased depth (250 m / 500 m), i.e. higher temperature and pressure, and higher intrusion rates (up to full saturation) result in stronger rises in EC (+5.08 mS/cm in 500 m depth and 100 % saturation), and initial salinity has a negligible influence on changes in EC. Temporally limited CO2 intrusion leads to EC values close to pre- CO2-intrusion-levels in the long-term. Measurement resolution of commercial EC probes is sufficient to detect CO2 intrusion in almost all cases. In terms of geophysical electromagnetic measurements, applications in the field of monitoring saltwater-freshwater interfaces indicate a sufficient measurement resolution to detect changes in all simulations. However, practical limitations are expected due to the dependence of measurement resolutions on the applied measurement devices and site-specific geological settings

A New Method for Variant Design Technology in ECAD

One of the most important approaches to enable cost and time reduction with respect to Computer-AidedDesign for electrical/electromechanical engineering (ECAD/ECAE) is to develop, generate, and handle designvariants in an efficient manner. The objective of this paper is to present a generic variant design technologyapproach that has a high potential for the efficient reusability of existing projects. More precisely, the paperwill present the procedure to allow the new methodology in variant design technology to be implementedwithin an arbitrary ECAD environment. The method presented automatically generates a complete technicaldocumentation of an electrical installation on the basis of a placed order specification. This involves threemajor steps. Firstly, a product variant of an installation is configured on the basis of existing standardisedmodules. Secondly, based upon the corresponding configuration file, a set of commands describing thegeneration of a typical ECAD project containing the configured modules is automatically compiled. This is akey novelty, as all commands are expressed in a non-system specific meta-language, which can then beautomatically translated into a macro programming language of a specific ECAD system and stored as a file.Thirdly, the specific ECAD system can import and process the file to create a practical ECAD project ofrealistic complexity

Advising the Advisor: Professional Development of Junior Faculty

Currently there is a growing demand for universities to create rigorous professional developmentprograms aimed at helping their junior faculty rise to their full potential as academic educators and advisors. Suchinitiatives have to be anchored in the scholarship of education, but additionally need to address a variety of subjectspecificissues. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it presents an approach to enhancing facultydevelopment offered by an increasing number of universities in the UK where new faculty are required tosuccessfully complete a program in “Learning and Teaching in Higher Education” as part of the criteria to be metfor earning tenure. Key aspects, including rationale, objectives, learning outcomes and implementation of the abovementionedprogram, are described and, based on further reflection, conclusions regarding the applicability of such aprogram to the US system are drawn. Secondly, the topic of professional faculty development is considered from aUS perspective. Within that context associated activities, including mentoring and junior-senior facultycollaboration in general, are discussed