17,143 research outputs found
New system for bathing bedridden patients
Multihead shower facility can be used with minimal patient handling. Waterproof curtain allows patient to bathe with his head out of shower. He can move completely inside shower to wash his face and hair. Main advantage of shower system is time saved in giving bath
Gravitational waves from an accreting neutron star with a magnetic mountain
We calculate the amplitude of gravitational waves from a neutron star accreting symmetrically at its magnetic poles. The magnetic field, which is compressed into an equatorial belt during accretion, confines accreted matter in a mountain at the magnetic pole, producing gravitational waves. We compute hydromagnetic equilibria and the corresponding quadrupole moment as a function of the accreted mass, Ma, finding the polarization- and orientation- averaged wave strain at Earth to be h_c = 6.3 × 10^(–25)(M_a/10^(–5)M_☉)(ƒ/0.6kHz)^2(d/1kpc)^(–1) for a range of conditions, where ƒ is the wave frequency and d is the distance to the source. This is ~ 10^2 times greater than previous estimates, which failed to treat the mass-flux distribution self-consistently with respect to flux-freezin
Spectroscopy of drums and quantum billiards: perturbative and non-perturbative results
We develop powerful numerical and analytical techniques for the solution of
the Helmholtz equation on general domains. We prove two theorems: the first
theorem provides an exact formula for the ground state of an arbirtrary
membrane, while the second theorem generalizes this result to any excited state
of the membrane. We also develop a systematic perturbative scheme which can be
used to study the small deformations of a membrane of circular or square
shapes. We discuss several applications, obtaining numerical and analytical
results.Comment: 29 pages, 12 figures, 7 tabl
Weak Measurement of the Arrival Times of Single Photons and Pairs of Entangled Photons
In this paper we propose a setup for the weak measurement of photon arrival
time. It is found that the weak values of this arrival time can lie far away
from the expectation value, and in principle also in regions forbidden by
special relativity. We discuss in brief the implications of these results as
well as their reconciliation with the principle of causality. Furthermore, an
analysis of the weak arrival times of a pair of photons in a Bell state shows
that these weak arrival times are correlated.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
Fabrication and evaluation of advanced titanium and composite structural panels
Advanced manufacturing methods for titanium and composite material structures are being developed and evaluated. The focus for the manufacturing effort is the fabrication of full-scale structural panels which replace an existing shear panel on the upper wing surface of the NASA YF-12 aircraft. The program involves design, fabrication, ground testing, and Mach 3 flight service of full-scale structural panels and laboratory testing of representative structural element specimens
The Strongest 100 Point Radio Sources in the LMC at 1.4 GHz
We present the 100 strongest 1.4 GHz point sources from a new mosaic image in
the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The observations making up
the mosaic were made over a ten year period and were combined with Parkes
single dish data at 1.4 GHz to complete the image for short spacing. An initial
list of co-identifications within 10" at 0.843, 4.8 and 8.6 GHz consisted of
2682 sources. Elimination of extended objects and artifact noise allowed the
creation of a refined list containing 1988 point sources. Most of these are
presumed to be background objects seen through the LMC; a small portion may
represent compact H II regions, young SNRs and radio planetary nebulae. For the
1988 point sources we find a preliminary average spectral index of -0.53 and
present a 1.4 GHz image showing source location in the direction of the LMC.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure
The accelerating influence of humans on mammalian macroecological patterns over the late Quaternary
The transition of hominins to a largely meat-based diet ~1.8 million years ago led to the exploitation of other mammals for food and resources. As hominins, particularly archaic and modern humans, became increasingly abundant and dispersed across the globe, a temporally and spatially transgressive extinction of large-bodied mammals followed; the degree of selectivity was unprecedented in the Cenozoic fossil record. Today, most remaining large-bodied mammal species are confined to Africa, where they coevolved with hominins. Here, using a comprehensive global dataset of mammal distribution, life history and ecology, we examine the consequences of “body size downgrading” of mammals over the late Quaternary on fundamental macroecological patterns. Specifically, we examine changes in species diversity, global and continental body size distributions, allometric scaling of geographic range size with body mass, and the scaling of maximum body size with area. Moreover, we project these patterns toward a potential future scenario in which all mammals currently listed as vulnerable on the IUCN\u27s Red List are extirpated. Our analysis demonstrates that anthropogenic impact on earth systems predates the terminal Pleistocene and has grown as populations increased and humans have become more widespread. Moreover, owing to the disproportionate influence on ecosystem structure and function of megafauna, past and present body size downgrading has reshaped Earth\u27s biosphere. Thus, macroecological studies based only on modern species yield distorted results, which are not representative of the patterns present for most of mammal evolution. Our review supports the concept of benchmarking the “Anthropocene” with the earliest activities of Homo sapiens
New Consequences of Induced Transparency in a Double-Lambda scheme: Destructive Interference In Four-wave Mixing
We investigate a four-state system interacting with long and short laser
pulses in a weak probe beam approximation. We show that when all lasers are
tuned to the exact unperturbed resonances, part of the four-wave mixing (FWM)
field is strongly absorbed. The part which is not absorbed has the exact
intensity required to destructively interfere with the excitation pathway
involved in producing the FWM state. We show that with this three-photon
destructive interference, the conversion efficiency can still be as high as
25%. Contrary to common belief,our calculation shows that this process, where
an ideal one-photon electromagnetically induced transparency is established, is
not most suitable for high efficiency conversion. With appropriate
phase-matching and propagation distance, and when the three-photon destructive
interference does not occur, we show that the photon flux conversion efficiency
is independent of probe intensity and can be close to 100%. In addition, we
show clearly that the conversion efficiency is not determined by the maximum
atomic coherence between two lower excited states, as commonly believed. It is
the combination of phase-matching and constructive interference involving the
two terms arising in producing the mixing wave that is the key element for the
optimized FWM generation. Indeed, in this scheme no appreciable excited state
is produced, so that the atomic coherence between states |0> and |2> is always
very small.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. A, 7 pages, 4 figure
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