The National Model of Sweden

National agricultural systems are highly independent, and yet major policy options exist at the national level. To explore these options, therefore, it is necessary both to develop policy models for national economies and to link them together by trade and by capital transfers. For greater realism the models in this scheme of analysis are kept descriptive rather than normative. Models of some 20 countries (where the CMEA and EC countries with common agricultural policies are counted as single units), which together account for nearly 80% of such important agricultural attributes as area, production, population, exports and imports, are linked together to constitute the basic linked system. Work on the Swedish model started in 1978 and was finished in 1984. In this report the authors describe what is specific to the Swedish case within the framework of model characteristics and policy problems

Follow that plant!

A report on the talks presented at the Cold Spring Harbor 2000 Meeting on Arabidopsis Genomics, New York, 7-10 December, 2000

Analysis of a dry friction problem under small displacements: application to a bolted joint

This study presents an analysis of the problem of macroscopic contact of steel upon steel with dry friction, in the specific case of a bolted joint. The configurations of these types of joints result in very small displacements and interface sliding velocities. To understand how the system formed by the two surfaces in contact works, an experiment was carried out. The analysis of the results obtained made it possible to define the behavior of the system and to model the variations of the main parameters by original and continuous laws. These laws accurately correlate to all the results of the tests effectuated

Resistance Thermometer for Heat Transfer Measurements in a Shock Tube

This report describes a method for the application of the well-known principle of the resistance thermometer to the problem of measuring surface temperatures and heat transfer rates under highly transient conditions, such as are experienced in a shock tube. By using a thin platinum film sputtered on glass, a resistance thermometer gage is obtained which has a response lag of less than 1 µ sec, a linear output of 2-3 mv/°c, repeatability and durability. The gage preparation, including the sputtering technique, calibration method, and response characteristics are discussed, and some measurements of surface temperatures and heat transfer rates on models in the shock tube are presented in order to illustrate the performance that can be expected from this instrument

Breakdown of disordered media by surface loads

We model an interface layer connecting two parts of a solid body by N parallel elastic springs connecting two rigid blocks. We load the system by a shear force acting on the top side. The springs have equal stiffness but are ruptured randomly when the load reaches a critical value. For the considered system, we calculate the shear modulus, G, as a function of the order parameter, \phi, describing the state of damage, and also the ``spalled'' material (burst) size distribution. In particular, we evaluate the relation between the damage parameter and the applied force and explore the behaviour in the vicinity of material breakdown. Using this simple model for material breakdown, we show that damage, caused by applied shear forces, is analogous to a first-order phase transition. The scaling behaviour of G with \phi is explored analytically and numerically, close to \phi=0 and \phi=1 and in the vicinity of \phi_c, when the shear load is close but below the threshold force that causes material breakdown. Our model calculation represents a first approximation of a system subject to wear induced loads.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

The distance upon contact: Determination from roughness profile

The point at which two random rough surfaces make contact takes place at the contact of the highest asperities. The distance upon contact d_0 in the limit of zero load has crucial importance for determination of dispersive forces. Using gold films as an example we demonstrate that for two parallel plates d_0 is a function of the nominal size of the contact area L and give a simple expression for d_0(L) via the surface roughness characteristics. In the case of a sphere of fixed radius R and a plate the scale dependence manifests itself as an additional uncertainty \delta d(L) in the separation, where the scale L is related with the separation d via the effective area of interaction L^2\sim\pi Rd. This uncertainty depends on the roughness of interacting bodies and disappears in the limit L\to \infty.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to be published in PR

Solution of the Roth-Marques-Durian Rotational Abrasion Model

We solve the rotational abrasion model of Roth, Marques and Durian (arXiv:1009.3492), a one-dimensional quasilinear partial differential equation resembling the inviscid Burgers equation with the unusual feature of a step function factor as a coefficient. The complexity of the solution is primarily in keeping track of the cases in the piecewise function that results from certain amputation and interpolation processes, so we also extract from it a model of an evolving planar tree graph that tracks the evolution of the coarse features of the contour.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Friction and wear behavior of glasses and ceramics

Adhesion, friction, and wear behavior of glasses and ionic solids are reviewed. These materials are shown to behave in a manner similar to other solids with respect to adhesion. Their friction characteristics are shown to be sensitive to environmental constituents and surface films. This sensitivity can be related to a reduction in adhesive bonding and the changes in surficial mechanical behavior associated with Rehbinder and Joffe effects. Both friction and wear properties of ionic crystalline solids are highly anisotropic. With metals in contact with ionic solids the fracture strength of the ionic solid and the shear strength in the metal and those properties that determine these will dictate which of the materials undergoes adhesive wear. The chemical activity of the metal plays an important role in the nature and strength of the adhesive interfacial bond that develops between the metal and a glass or ionic solid

Resistance Thermometer for Transient High-Temperature Studies

Current interest in ultra-high-speed flight has stimulated the development of the shock tube as a device for simulating high stagnation temperatures in supersonic flow. The main difficulty in these tests is the extremely short duration of uniform flow, of the order of 100-500 µsec. This time interval dictates extremely fast response of any measuring instrument applied to shock tube research

Body-assisted van der Waals interaction between two atoms

Using fourth-order perturbation theory, a general formula for the van der Waals potential of two neutral, unpolarized, ground-state atoms in the presence of an arbitrary arrangement of dispersing and absorbing magnetodielectric bodies is derived. The theory is applied to two atoms in bulk material and in front of a planar multilayer system, with special emphasis on the cases of a perfectly reflecting plate and a semi-infinite half space. It is demonstrated that the enhancement and reduction of the two-atom interaction due to the presence of a perfectly reflecting plate can be understood, at least in the nonretarded limit, by using the method of image charges. For the semi-infinite half space, both analytical and numerical results are presented.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figure