12,274 research outputs found
Demographic and psychological variables affecting test subject evaluations of ride quality
Ride-quality experiments similar in objectives, design, and procedure were conducted, one using the U.S. Air Force Total In-Flight Simulator and the other using the Langley Passenger Ride Quality Apparatus to provide the motion environments. Large samples (80 or more per experiment) of test subjects were recruited from the Tidewater Virginia area and asked to rate the comfort (on a 7-point scale) of random aircraft motion typical of that encountered during STOL flights. Test subject characteristics of age, sex, and previous flying history (number of previous airplane flights) were studied in a two by three by three factorial design. Correlations were computed between one dependent measure, the subject's mean comfort rating, and various demographic characteristics, attitudinal variables, and the scores on Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. An effect of sex was found in one of the studies. Males made higher (more uncomfortable) ratings of the ride than females. Age and number of previous flights were not significantly related to comfort ratings. No significant interactions between the variables of age, sex, or previous number of flights were observed
Aspects of the biology of the herring gull (larus atgentatus pont.)
A study of the herring gull Larus argentatus emphasising interrelationships of population ecology, social behaviour and breeding biology was undertaken on the Isle of May, Scotland, with some comparative work in a moorland gull colony on Mallowdale Fell in the Pennines. A cull of the herring gull population, which had hitherto been increasing at 13% per annum, has been practised by the Nature Conservancy Council on the Isle of May yearly since 1972, and special attention was given in this study to the biological effects of culling. The population trends were followed in detail up to 1977, and it was shown that the annual, recruitment rate has been very variable since 1972 and there has been a shortfall in the number of young gulls predicted to join the breeding population. These have presumably moved and some ringed gulls were located breeding in other colonies. The population has been held at about 20-25% of its 1972 level since 1975. With many of the older gulls having been culled, the average age of the population had been reduced, so that by 1977 about 50% of the population was breeding for the first time. Despite a strong correlation between parental age and percentage breeding success, the average number of chicks fledged per pair in control areas was 0.82, which was as high as that recorded in a previous study by Parsons (1971, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Durham University) on the Isle of May in the late 1960s. In addition, it was found that the median date of laying was the same as that estimated by Parsons, and that egg size (positively correlated with chick survival) had increased significantly. Experiments on recruitment by manipulating breeding density showed that at the highest densities recorded the annual recruitment rate was close to the average annual mortality rate. In areas where density had been greatly reduced, the recruitment rate was insufficient to replace annual adult mortality, and in some areas no recruitment was recorded. There was a broad, optimal breeding density of between 2 and 10 nests/l00m(^2) where highest recruitment rates took place. Much of the Isle of May was found to be at this density as a result of culling. Birds which spread their nests most uniformly were the most successful breeders, and the majority of nests were thus spaced. Aggression was found to increase with density. The rationale of gull culling has been discussed for the Isle of May, together with recommendations for future culls on the island and elsewhere
The Populations of Comet-Like Bodies in the Solar system
A new classification scheme is introduced for comet-like bodies in the Solar
system. It covers the traditional comets as well as the Centaurs and
Edgeworth-Kuiper belt objects. At low inclinations, close encounters with
planets often result in near-constant perihelion or aphelion distances, or in
perihelion-aphelion interchanges, so the minor bodies can be labelled according
to the planets predominantly controlling them at perihelion and aphelion. For
example, a JN object has a perihelion under the control of Jupiter and aphelion
under the control of Neptune, and so on. This provides 20 dynamically distinct
categories of outer Solar system objects in the Jovian and trans-Jovian
regions. The Tisserand parameter with respect to the planet controlling
perihelion is also often roughly constant under orbital evolution. So, each
category can be further sub-divided according to the Tisserand parameter. The
dynamical evolution of comets, however, is dominated not by the planets nearest
at perihelion or aphelion, but by the more massive Jupiter. The comets are
separated into four categories -- Encke-type, short-period, intermediate and
long-period -- according to aphelion distance. The Tisserand parameter
categories now roughly correspond to the well-known Jupiter-family comets,
transition-types and Halley-types. In this way, the nomenclature for the
Centaurs and Edgeworth-Kuiper belt objects is based on, and consistent with,
that for comets.Comment: MNRAS, in press, 11 pages, 6 figures (1 available as postscript, 5 as
gif). Higher resolution figures available at
http://www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/users/WynEvans/preprints.pd
A Highly Ordered Faraday-Rotation Structure in the Interstellar Medium
We describe a Faraday-rotation structure in the Interstellar Medium detected
through polarimetric imaging at 1420 MHz from the Canadian Galactic Plane
Survey (CGPS). The structure, at l=91.8, b=-2.5, has an extent of ~2 degree,
within which polarization angle varies smoothly over a range of ~100 degree.
Polarized intensity also varies smoothly, showing a central peak within an
outer shell. This region is in sharp contrast to its surroundings, where
low-level chaotic polarization structure occurs on arcminute scales. The
Faraday-rotation structure has no counterpart in radio total intensity, and is
unrelated to known objects along the line of sight, which include a Lynds
Bright Nebula, LBN 416, and the star cluster M39 (NGC7092). It is interpreted
as a smooth enhancement of electron density. The absence of a counterpart,
either in optical emission or in total intensity, establishes a lower limit to
its distance. An upper limit is determined by the strong beam depolarization in
this direction. At a probable distance of 350 +/- 50 pc, the size of the object
is 10 pc, the enhancement of electron density is 1.7 cm-3, and the mass of
ionized gas is 23 M_sun. It has a very smooth internal magnetic field of
strength 3 microG, slightly enhanced above the ambient field. G91.8-2.5 is the
second such object to be discovered in the CGPS, and it seems likely that such
structures are common in the Magneto-Ionic Medium.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, ApJ accepte
Chiral Loops and Ghost States in the Quenched Scalar Propagator
The scalar, isovector meson propagator is analyzed in quenched QCD, using the
MQA pole-shifting ansatz to study the chiral limit. In addition to the expected
short-range exponential falloff characteristic of a heavy scalar meson, the
propagator also exhibits a longer-range, negative metric contribution which
becomes pronounced for smaller quark masses. We show that this is a quenched
chiral loop effect associated with the anomalous structure of the
propagator in quenched QCD. Both the time dependence and the quark mass
dependence of this effect are well-described by a chiral loop diagram
corresponding to an intermediate state, which is light and
effectively of negative norm in the quenched approximation. The relevant
parameters of the effective Lagrangian describing the scalar sector of the
quenched theory are determined.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures, Late
Energy in Agriculture: Energy for Greenhouses Part 1: Energy Conservation
The increased cost and scarcity of all fuels have affected the greenhouse owner as badly as any segment of industry. For some, crops have been damaged or lost. For others, it has reduced the margin of profit. Growers, manufacturers, suppliers, horticulturists, engineers and many others have studied the situation thoroughly in order to come up with viable solutions and alternatives for conserving fuel
Radio and gamma-ray constraints on dark matter annihilation in the Galactic center
We determine upper limits on the dark matter (DM) self-annihilation cross
section for scenarios in which annihilation leads to the production of
electron--positron pairs. In the Galactic centre (GC), relativistic electrons
and positrons produce a radio flux via synchroton emission, and a gamma ray
flux via bremsstrahlung and inverse Compton scattering. On the basis of
archival, interferometric and single-dish radio data, we have determined the
radio spectrum of an elliptical region around the Galactic centre of extent 3
degrees semi-major axis (along the Galactic plane) and 1 degree semi-minor axis
and a second, rectangular region, also centered on the GC, of extent 1.6
degrees x 0.6 degrees. The radio spectra of both regions are non-thermal over
the range of frequencies for which we have data: 74 MHz -- 10 GHz. We also
consider gamma-ray data covering the same region from the EGRET instrument
(about GeV) and from HESS (around TeV). We show how the combination of these
data can be used to place robust constraints on DM annihilation scenarios, in a
way which is relatively insensitive to assumptions about the magnetic field
amplitude in this region. Our results are approximately an order of magnitude
more constraining than existing Galactic centre radio and gamma ray limits. For
a DM mass of m_\chi =10 GeV, and an NFW profile, we find that the
velocity-averaged cross-section must be less than a few times 10^-25 cm^3 s^-1.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures. Version accepted for publication in PRD.
Reference section updated/extended
Quenched Approximation Artifacts: A study in 2-dimensional QED
The spectral properties of the Wilson-Dirac operator in 2-dimensional QED
responsible for the appearance of exceptional configurations in quenched
simulations are studied in detail. The mass singularity structure of the
quenched functional integral is shown to be extremely compicated, with multiple
branch points and cuts. The connection of lattice topological charge and
exactly real eigenmodes is explored using cooling techniques. The lattice
volume and spacing dependence of these modes is studied, as is the effect of
clover improvement of the action. A recently proposed modified quenched
approximation is applied to the study of meson correlators, and the results
compared with both naive quenched and full dynamical calculations of the same
quantity.Comment: 34 pages (Latex) plus 9 embedded figures; title change
Mobile spin impurity in an optical lattice
We investigate the Fermi polaron problem in a spin-1/2 Fermi gas in an
optical lattice for the limit of both strong repulsive contact interactions and
one dimension. In this limit, a polaronic-like behaviour is not expected, and
the physics is that of a magnon or impurity. While the charge degrees of
freedom of the system are frozen, the resulting tight-binding Hamiltonian for
the impurity's spin exhibits an intriguing structure that strongly depends on
the filling factor of the lattice potential. This filling dependency also
transfers to the nature of the interactions for the case of two magnons and the
important spin balanced case. At low filling, and up until near unit filling,
the single impurity Hamiltonian faithfully reproduces a single-band,
quasi-homogeneous tight-binding problem. As the filling is increased and the
second band of the single particle spectrum of the periodic potential is
progressively filled, the impurity Hamiltonian, at low energies, describes a
single particle trapped in a multi-well potential. Interestingly, once the
first two bands are fully filled, the impurity Hamiltonian is a near-perfect
realisation of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. Our studies, which go well
beyond the single-band approximation, that is, the Hubbard model, pave the way
for the realisation of interacting one-dimensional models of condensed matter
physics.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, accepted in New Journal of Physic
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