27,448 research outputs found
TNT equivalency of M10 propellant
Peak, side-on blast overpressure and scaled, positive impulse have been measured for M10 single-perforated propellant, web size 0.018 inches, using configurations that simulate the handling of bulk material during processing and shipment. Quantities of 11.34, 22.7, 45.4, and 65.8 kg were tested in orthorhombic shipping containers and fiberboard boxes. High explosive equivalency values for each test series were obtained as a function of scaled distance by comparison to known pressure, arrival time and impulse characteristics for hemispherical TNT surface bursts. The equivalencies were found to depend significantly on scaled distance, with higher values of 150-100 percent (pressure) and 350-125 percent (positive impulse) for the extremes within the range from 1.19 to 3.57 m/cube root of kg. Equivalencies as low as 60-140 percent (pressure) and 30-75 percent (positive impulse) were obtained in the range of 7.14 to 15.8 m/cube root of kg. Within experimental error, both peak pressure and positive impulse scaled as a function of charge weight for all quantities tested in the orthorhombic configuration
Burden of podoconiosis in poor rural communities in Guliso woreda, western Ethiopia
Background. Podoconiosis is an environmental lymphoedema affecting people living and working barefoot on irritant red clay soil. Podoconiosis is relatively well described in southern Ethiopia, but remains neglected in other parts of the Ethiopian highlands. This study aimed to assess the burden of podoconiosis in rural communities in western Ethiopia.
Methodology/Principal Findings. A cross-sectional study was conducted in Gulliso woreda (district), west Ethiopia. A household survey in the 26 rural kebeles (villages) of this district was conducted to identify podoconiosis patients and to measure disease prevalence. A more detailed study was done in six randomly selected kebeles to describe clinical features of the disease, patients’ experiences of foot hygiene, and shoe wearing practice. 1,935 cases of podoconiosis were registered, giving a prevalence of 2.8%. The prevalence was higher in those aged 15 – 64 years (5.2%) and in females than males (prevalence ratio 2.6:1). 90.3% of patients were in the 15 – 64 year age group. In the detailed study, 335 cases were interviewed and their feet assessed. The majority of patients were farmers, uneducated, and poor. Two-third of patients developed the disease before the age of thirty. Almost all patients (97.0%) had experienced adenolymphangitis (ALA - red, hot legs, swollen and painful groin) at least once during the previous year. Patients experienced an average of 5.5 ALA episodes annually, each of average 4.4 days, thus 24 working days were lost annually. The incidence of ALA in podoconiosis patients was higher than that reported for filariasis in other countries. Shoe wearing was limited mainly due to financial problems.
Conclusions. We have documented high podoconiosis prevalence, frequent adenolymphangitis and high disease-related morbidity in west Ethiopia. Interventions must be developed to prevent, treat and control podoconiosis, one of the core neglected tropical diseases in Ethiopia
Simulation of a Hybrid Optical/Radio/Acoustic Extension to IceCube for EeV Neutrino Detection
Astrophysical neutrinos at EeV energies promise to be an interesting
source for astrophysics and particle physics. Detecting the predicted
cosmogenic (``GZK'') neutrinos at 10 - 10 eV would test models of
cosmic ray production at these energies and probe particle physics at 100
TeV center-of-mass energy. While IceCube could detect 1 GZK event per
year, it is necessary to detect 10 or more events per year in order to study
temporal, angular, and spectral distributions. The IceCube observatory may be
able to achieve such event rates with an extension including optical, radio,
and acoustic receivers. We present results from simulating such a hybrid
detector.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; to appear in the Proceedings of the 29th ICRC,
Pune, Indi
Entropic issues in contemporary cosmology
Penrose [1] has emphasized how the initial big bang singularity requires a
special low entropy state. We address how recent brane cosmological schemes
address this problem and whether they offer any apparent resolution. Pushing
the start time back to or utilizing maximally symmetric AdS spaces
simply exacerbates or transfers the problem.
Because the entropy of de Sitter space is , using the
present acceleration of the universe as a low energy )
inflationary stage, as in cyclic ekpyrotic models, produces a gravitational
heat death after one cycle. Only higher energy driven inflation, together with
a suitable, quantum gravity holography style, restriction on {\em ab initio}
degrees of freedom, gives a suitable low entropy initial state. We question the
suggestion that a high energy inflationary stage could be naturally reentered
by Poincare recurrence within a finite causal region of an accelerating
universe.
We further give a heuristic argument that so-called eternal inflation is not
consistent with the 2nd law of thermodynamics within a causal patch.Comment: brief discussion on Poincare recurrence include
Boeing 747 aircraft with large external pod for transporting outsize cargo
The effect on structural arrangement, system weight, and range performance of the cargo pod payload carrying capability was determined to include either the bridge launcher or a spacelab module on a Boeing 747 aircraft. Modifications to the carrier aircraft and the installation time required to attach the external pod to the 747 were minimized. Results indicate that the increase in pod size was minimal, and that the basic 747 structure was adequate to safely absorb the load induced by ground or air operation while transporting either payload
Individual correlates of podoconiosis in areas of varying endemicity: a case-control study
BACKGROUND
Podoconiosis is a non-filarial form of elephantiasis resulting in lymphedema of the lower legs. Previous studies have suggested that podoconiosis arises from the interplay of individual and environmental factors. Here, our aim was to understand the individual-level correlates of podoconiosis by comparing 460 podoconiosis-affected individuals and 707 unaffected controls.
METHODS/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
This was a case-control study carried out in six kebeles (the lowest governmental administrative unit) in northern Ethiopia. Each kebele was classified into one of three endemicity levels: 'low' (prevalence 5%). A total of 142 (30.7%) households had two or more cases of podoconiosis. Compared to controls, the majority of the cases, especially women, were less educated (OR = 1.7, 95% CI = 1.3 to 2.2), were unmarried (OR = 3.4, 95% CI = 2.6-4.6) and had lower income (t = -4.4, p<0.0001). On average, cases started wearing shoes ten years later than controls. Among cases, age of first wearing shoes was positively correlated with age of onset of podoconiosis (r = 0.6, t = 12.5, p<0.0001). Among all study participants average duration of shoe wearing was less than 30 years. Between both cases and controls, people in 'high' and 'medium' endemicity kebeles were less likely than people in 'low' endemicity areas to 'ever' have owned shoes (OR = 0.5, 95% CI = 0.4-0.7).
CONCLUSIONS
Late use of shoes, usually after the onset of podoconiosis, and inequalities in education, income and marriage were found among cases, particularly among females. There were clustering of cases within households, thus interventions against podoconiosis will benefit from household-targeted case tracing. Most importantly, we identified a secular increase in shoe-wearing over recent years, which may give opportunities to promote shoe-wearing without increasing stigma among those at high risk of podoconiosis
Electrical switching of magnetic polarity in a multiferroic BiFeO3 device at room temperature
We have directly imaged reversible electrical switching of the cycloidal
rotation direction (magnetic polarity) in a (111)-BiFeO3 epitaxial-film device
at room temperature by non-resonant x-ray magnetic scattering. Consistent with
previous reports, fully relaxed (111)-BiFeO3 epitaxial films consisting of a
single ferroelectric domain were found to comprise a sub-micron-scale mosaic of
magneto-elastic domains, all sharing a common direction of the magnetic
polarity, which was found to switch reversibly upon reversal of the
ferroelectric polarization without any measurable change of the magneto-elastic
domain population. A real-space polarimetry map of our device clearly
distinguished between regions of the sample electrically addressed into the two
magnetic states with a resolution of a few tens of micron. Contrary to the
general belief that the magneto-electric coupling in BiFeO3 is weak, we find
that electrical switching has a dramatic effect on the magnetic structure, with
the magnetic moments rotating on average by 90 degrees at every cycle.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures; corrected figure
Word Length Perturbations in Certain Symmetric Presentations of Dihedral Groups
Given a finite group with a generating subset there is a well-established
notion of length for a group element given in terms of its minimal length
expression as a product of elements from the generating set. Recently, certain
quantities called and have been defined that allow
for a precise measure of how stable a group is under certain types of small
perturbations in the generating expressions for the elements of the group.
These quantities provide a means to measure differences among all possible
paths in a Cayley graph for a group, establish a group theoretic analog for the
notion of stability in nonlinear dynamical systems, and play an important role
in the application of groups to computational genomics. In this paper, we
further expose the fundamental properties of and by
establishing their bounds when the underlying group is a dihedral group. An
essential step in our approach is to completely characterize so-called
symmetric presentations of the dihedral groups, providing insight into the
manner in which and interact with finite group
presentations. This is of interest independent of the study of the quantities
. Finally, we discuss several conjectures and open
questions for future consideration
The Effects of Turbulence on Three-Dimensional Magnetic Reconnection at the Magnetopause
Two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of a recent encounter
of the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) with an electron diffusion
region at the magnetopause are presented. While the two-dimensional simulation
is laminar, turbulence develops at both the x-line and along the magnetic
separatrices in the three-dimensional simulation. The turbulence is strong
enough to make the magnetic field around the reconnection island chaotic and
produces both anomalous resistivity and anomalous viscosity. Each contribute
significantly to breaking the frozen-in condition in the electron diffusion
region. A surprise is that the crescent-shaped features in velocity space seen
both in MMS observations and in two-dimensional simulations survive, even in
the turbulent environment of the three-dimensional system. This suggests that
MMS's measurements of crescent distributions do not exclude the possibility
that turbulence plays an important role in magnetopause reconnection.Comment: Revised version accepted by GR
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