A wall interference assessment/correction system

The Hackett method (a Wall Pressure Signature Method) was selected to be adapted for the 12 ft Wind Tunnel WIAC system. This method uses limited measurements of the static pressure at the wall, in conjunction with the solid wall boundary condition, to determine the strength and distribution of singularities representing the test article. The singularities are used in term for estimating wall interference at the model location. Hackett's method will have to be formulated for application to the unique geometry of the 12 ft tunnel. The WIAC code will be validated by conducting numerically simulated experiments rather than actual wind tunnel experiments. The simulations will be used to generate both free air and confined wind tunnel flow fields for each of the test articles over a range of test configurations. Specifically the pressure signature at the test section wall will be computed for the confined case to provide the simulated 'measured' data. These data will serve as the input for the WIAC method. The performance of the WIAC method then may be evaluated by comparing the corrected parameters with those for the free air simulation

Graphing and communicating compositional data in high dimensions

Visualization of data becomes more challenging as the dimensionality of the data increases, impacting not only the display of the data itself but also the modeling results. This paper discusses common visualization techniques for compositional data. None of them seem to be well suited for changes in compositions that depend on either a metric covariate or a factor. The clr-deviation chart as a chart with a factor or covariate as abscissa and all centered log ratio-transformed component values superimposed on the ordinate axis is then introduced jointly with the clr-component chart. The clr-deviation chart takes advantage of the sum-equals-zero property of clr-transformed compositional data. It has some theoretical and practical advantages over alternatives and one major disadvantage – an arbitrarily scaled ordinate axis; its properties are discussed. The usefulness of the methods are illustrated using an example analyzing the changes of proportions of the different diseases treated by hospitalization over a period of 13 years in Germany

A wall interference assessment/correction system

A Wall Signature method, the Hackett method, has been selected to be adapted for the 12-ft Wind Tunnel wall interference assessment/correction (WIAC) system in the present phase. This method uses limited measurements of the static pressure at the wall, in conjunction with the solid wall boundary condition, to determine the strength and distribution of singularities representing the test article. The singularities are used in turn for estimating wall interferences at the model location. The Wall Signature method will be formulated for application to the unique geometry of the 12-ft Tunnel. The development and implementation of a working prototype will be completed, delivered and documented with a software manual. The WIAC code will be validated by conducting numerically simulated experiments rather than actual wind tunnel experiments. The simulations will be used to generate both free-air and confined wind-tunnel flow fields for each of the test articles over a range of test configurations. Specifically, the pressure signature at the test section wall will be computed for the tunnel case to provide the simulated 'measured' data. These data will serve as the input for the WIAC method-Wall Signature method. The performance of the WIAC method then may be evaluated by comparing the corrected parameters with those for the free-air simulation. Each set of wind tunnel/test article numerical simulations provides data to validate the WIAC method. A numerical wind tunnel test simulation is initiated to validate the WIAC methods developed in the project. In the present reported period, the blockage correction has been developed and implemented for a rectangular tunnel as well as the 12-ft Pressure Tunnel. An improved wall interference assessment and correction method for three-dimensional wind tunnel testing is presented in the appendix

A wall interference assessment/correction system

A Wall Signature method originally developed by Hackett has been selected to be adapted for the Ames 12-ft Wind Tunnel WIAC system in the project. This method uses limited measurements of the static pressure at the wall, in conjunction with the solid wall boundary condition, to determine the strength and distribution of singularities representing the test article. The singularities are used in turn for estimating blockage wall interference. The lifting interference will be treated separately by representing in a horseshoe vortex system for the model's lifting effects. The development and implementation of a working prototype will be completed, delivered and documented with a software manual. The WIAC code will be validated by conducting numerically simulated experiments rather than actual wind tunnel experiments. The simulations will be used to generate both free-air and confined wind-tunnel flow fields for each of the test articles over a range of test configurations. Specifically, the pressure signature at the test section wall will be computed for the tunnel case to provide the simulated 'measured' data. These data will serve as the input for the WIAC method--Wall Signature method. The performance of the WIAC method then may be evaluated by comparing the corrected data with those of the free-air simulation

UHF and VHF radar observations of thunderstorms

A study of thunderstorms was made in the Summer of 1985 with the 430-MHz and 50-MHz radars at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Both radars use the 300-meter dish, which gives a beam width of less than 2 degrees even at these long wavelengths. Though the radars are steerable, only vertical beams were used in this experiment. The height resolution was 300 and 150 meters for the UHF and VHF, respectively. Lightning echoes, as well as returns from precipitation and clear-air turbulence were detected with both wavelengths. Large increases in the returned power were found to be coincident with increasing downward vertical velocities at UHF, whereas at VHF the total power returned was relatively constant during the life of a storm. This was attributed to the fact that the VHF is more sensitive to scattering from the turbulence-induced inhomogeneities in the refractive index and less sensitive to scatter from precipitation particles. On occasion, the shape of the Doppler spectra was observed to change with the occurrence of a lightning discharge in the pulse volume. Though the total power and mean reflectivity weighted Doppler velocity changed little during these events, the power is Doppler frequency bins near that corresponding to the updraft did increase substantially within a fraction of a second after a discharge was detected in the beam. This suggests some interaction between precipitation and lightning

Preface: Understanding dynamics and current developments of climate extremes in the Mediterranean region

There is an increasing interest of scientists on climate extremes. A progressively larger number of papers dealing with climate issues have been produced in the past 15 yr, and those dealing with extremes have increased at an even faster pace. The number of papers on extremes in the Mediterranean follows this overall trend and confirms how extremes are perceived to be important by the scientific community and by society. This special issue (which is mainly related to activities of the MedCLIVAR (Mediterranean CLImate VARiability and Predictability) and CIRCE (Climate Change and Impact Research: the Mediterranean Environment) projects), contains thirteen papers that are representative of current research on extremes in the Mediterranean region. Five have precipitation as its main target, four temperature (one paper addresses both variables), and two droughts; the remaining papers consider sea level, winds and impacts on society. Results are quite clear concerning climate evolution toward progressively hotter temperature extremes, but more controversial for precipitation, though in the published literature there are indications for a future increasing intensity of hydrological extremes (intense precipitation events and droughts). Scenario simulations suggest an attenuation of extreme storms, winds, waves and surges, but more results are requested for confirming this future change

Distributed controller design for a class of sparse singular systems with privacy constraints

In the current research on distributed control of interconnected large-scale dynamical systems an often neglected issue is the desire to ensure privacy of subsystems. This gives motivation for the presented distributed controller design method which requires communication and the exchange of model data only with direct neighbors. Thus, no global system knowledge is required. An important property of many large-scale systems is the presence of algebraic conservation constraints, for example in terms of energy or mass flow. Therefore, the presented controller design takes these constraints explicitly into account while preserving the sparsity structure of the distributed system necessary for a distributed design. The computation is based on the simulation of the system states and of adjoint states. The control objective is represented by the finite horizon linear quadratic cost functional

Rugate filter for light-trapping in solar cells

We suggest a design for a coating that could be applied on top of any solar cell having at least one diffusing surface. This coating acts as an angle and wavelength selective filter, which increases the average path length and absorptance at long wavelengths without altering the solar cell performance at short wavelengths. The filter design is based on a continuous variation of the refractive index in order to minimize undesired reflection losses. Numerical procedures are used to optimize the filter for a 10 μm thick monocrystalline silicon solar cell, which lifts the efficiency above the Auger limit for unconcentrated illumination. The feasibility to fabricate such filters is also discussed, considering a finite available refractive index range

Spin-wave excitations in the ferromagnetic-metallic and in the charge, orbital and spin ordered states in Nd1−x_{1-x}Srx_{x}MnO3_{3} with x≈\approx0.5

Inelastic neutron scattering experiments have been performed on single crystals of Nd$_{1-x}$Sr$_{x}$MnO$_{3}$ with x$\approx$0.5. Colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) in the manganites arises from the interplay between a ferromagnetic metallic and antiferromagnetic charge and orbital ordered insulating state. Therefore, it appears important to compare these phases concerning their underlying magnetic interaction parameters. Our investigations of the spin-wave disperion in the AFM ordered state of Nd$_{0.5}$Sr$_{0.5}$MnO$_{3}$ exhibits a strongly anisotropic stiffness. The sign of the anisotropy is characteristic for the site-centered model for charge and orbital ordering in half-doped manganites. Within this model, linear spin-wave theory yields a perfect description of the experimental dispersion. Furthermore, magnetic excitations in the ferromagnetic metallic state of Nd$_{1-x}$Sr$_{x}$MnO$_{3}$ with x=0.49 and x=0.50 exhibit nearly the same magnon dispersion which can be described with a Heisenberg model including nearest-neighbor interactions

On the Connection of Anisotropic Conductivity to Tip Induced Space Charge Layers in Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy of p-doped GaAs

The electronic properties of shallow acceptors in p-doped GaAs{110} are investigated with scanning tunneling microscopy at low temperature. Shallow acceptors are known to exhibit distinct triangular contrasts in STM images for certain bias voltages. Spatially resolved I(V)-spectroscopy is performed to identify their energetic origin and behavior. A crucial parameter - the STM tip's work function - is determined experimentally. The voltage dependent potential configuration and band bending situation is derived. Ways to validate the calculations with the experiment are discussed. Differential conductivity maps reveal that the triangular contrasts are only observed with a depletion layer present under the STM tip. The tunnel process leading to the anisotropic contrasts calls for electrons to tunnel through vacuum gap and a finite region in the semiconductor.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure