2,258 research outputs found
Do different subjective evaluation criteria reflect distinct constructs?
This is not the published version. Published version available from: http://journals.lww.com/jonmd/pages/default.asp
A scanning drift tube apparatus for spatio-temporal mapping of electron swarms
A "scanning" drift tube apparatus, capable of mapping of the spatio-temporal
evolution of electron swarms, developing between two plane electrodes under the
effect of a homogeneous electric field, is presented. The electron swarms are
initiated by photoelectron pulses and the temporal distributions of the
electron flux are recorded while the electrode gap length (at a fixed electric
field strength) is varied. Operation of the system is tested and verified with
argon gas, the measured data are used for the evaluation of the electron bulk
drift velocity. The experimental results for the space-time maps of the
electron swarms - presented here for the first time - also allow clear
observation of deviations from hydrodynamic transport. The swarm maps are also
reproduced by particle simulations
Drying and cracking mechanisms in a starch slurry
Starch-water slurries are commonly used to study fracture dynamics. Drying
starch-cakes benefit from being simple, economical, and reproducible systems,
and have been used to model desiccation fracture in soils, thin film fracture
in paint, and columnar joints in lava. In this paper, the physical properties
of starch-water mixtures are studied, and used to interpret and develop a
multiphase transport model of drying. Starch-cakes are observed to have a
nonlinear elastic modulus, and a desiccation strain that is comparable to that
generated by their maximum achievable capillary pressure. It is shown that a
large material porosity is divided between pore spaces between starch grains,
and pores within starch grains. This division of pore space leads to two
distinct drying regimes, controlled by liquid and vapor transport of water,
respectively. The relatively unique ability for drying starch to generate
columnar fracture patterns is shown to be linked to the unusually strong
separation of these two transport mechanisms.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures [revised in response to reviewer comments
Drying and cracking mechanisms in a starch slurry
Starch-water slurries are commonly used to study fracture dynamics. Drying
starch-cakes benefit from being simple, economical, and reproducible systems,
and have been used to model desiccation fracture in soils, thin film fracture
in paint, and columnar joints in lava. In this paper, the physical properties
of starch-water mixtures are studied, and used to interpret and develop a
multiphase transport model of drying. Starch-cakes are observed to have a
nonlinear elastic modulus, and a desiccation strain that is comparable to that
generated by their maximum achievable capillary pressure. It is shown that a
large material porosity is divided between pore spaces between starch grains,
and pores within starch grains. This division of pore space leads to two
distinct drying regimes, controlled by liquid and vapor transport of water,
respectively. The relatively unique ability for drying starch to generate
columnar fracture patterns is shown to be linked to the unusually strong
separation of these two transport mechanisms.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures [revised in response to reviewer comments
An Experimental Investigation of the Scaling of Columnar Joints
Columnar jointing is a fracture pattern common in igneous rocks in which
cracks self-organize into a roughly hexagonal arrangement, leaving behind an
ordered colonnade. We report observations of columnar jointing in a laboratory
analog system, desiccated corn starch slurries. Using measurements of moisture
density, evaporation rates, and fracture advance rates as evidence, we suggest
an advective-diffusive system is responsible for the rough scaling behavior of
columnar joints. This theory explains the order of magnitude difference in
scales between jointing in lavas and in starches. We investigated the scaling
of average columnar cross-sectional areas due to the evaporation rate, the
analog of the cooling rate of igneous columnar joints. We measured column areas
in experiments where the evaporation rate depended on lamp height and time, in
experiments where the evaporation rate was fixed using feedback methods, and in
experiments where gelatin was added to vary the rheology of the starch. Our
results suggest that the column area at a particular depth is related to both
the current conditions, and hysteretically to the geometry of the pattern at
previous depths. We argue that there exists a range of stable column scales
allowed for any particular evaporation rate.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, for supporting online movies, go to
http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/nonlinear/movies/starch_movies.htm
Coexistence of ferromagnetism and superconductivity
A comprehensive theory is developed that describes the coexistence of p-wave,
spin-triplet superconductivity and itinerant ferromagnetism. It is shown how to
use field-theoretic techniques to derive both conventional strong-coupling
theory, and analogous gap equations for superconductivity induced by magnetic
fluctuations. It is then shown and discussed in detail that the magnetic
fluctuations are generically stronger on the ferromagnetic side of the magnetic
phase boundary, which substantially enhances the superconducting critical
temperature in the ferromagnetic phase over that in the paramagnetic one. The
resulting phase diagram is compared with the experimental observations in UGe_2
and ZrZn_2.Comment: 16 pp., REVTeX, 6 eps figs; final version as publishe
Deviations from the local field approximation in negative streamer heads
Negative streamer ionization fronts in nitrogen under normal conditions are
investigated both in a particle model and in a fluid model in local field
approximation. The parameter functions for the fluid model are derived from
swarm experiments in the particle model. The front structure on the inner scale
is investigated in a 1D setting, allowing reasonable run-time and memory
consumption and high numerical accuracy without introducing super-particles. If
the reduced electric field immediately before the front is >= 50kV/(cm bar),
solutions of fluid and particle model agree very well. If the field increases
up to 200kV/(cm bar), the solutions of particle and fluid model deviate, in
particular, the ionization level behind the front becomes up to 60% higher in
the particle model while the velocity is rather insensitive. Particle and fluid
model deviate because electrons with high energies do not yet fully run away
from the front, but are somewhat ahead. This leads to increasing ionization
rates in the particle model at the very tip of the front. The energy overshoot
of electrons in the leading edge of the front actually agrees quantitatively
with the energy overshoot in the leading edge of an electron swarm or avalanche
in the same electric field.Comment: The paper has 17 pages, including 15 figures and 3 table
Analytic solution of the fractional advection diffusion equation for the time-of-flight experiment in a finite geometry
A general analytic solution to the fractional advection diffusion equation is
obtained in plane parallel geometry. The result is an infinite series of
spatial Fourier modes which decay according to the Mittag-Leffler function,
which is cast into a simple closed form expression in Laplace space using the
Poisson summation theorem. An analytic expression for the current measured in a
time-of-flight experiment is derived, and the sum of the slopes of the two
respective time regimes on logarithmic axes is demonstrated to be -2, in
agreement with the well known result for a continuous time random walk model.
The sensitivity of current and particle number density to variation of
experimentally controlled parameters is investigated in general, and the
results applied to analyze selected experimental data.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
Nodal domains of Maass forms I
This paper deals with some questions that have received a lot of attention
since they were raised by Hejhal and Rackner in their 1992 numerical
computations of Maass forms. We establish sharp upper and lower bounds for the
-restrictions of these forms to certain curves on the modular surface.
These results, together with the Lindelof Hypothesis and known subconvex
-bounds are applied to prove that locally the number of nodal domains
of such a form goes to infinity with its eigenvalue.Comment: To appear in GAF
Coupled Systems of Differential-Algebraic and Kinetic Equations with Application to the Mathematical Modelling of Muscle Tissue
We consider a coupled system composed of a linear differential-algebraic
equation (DAE) and a linear large-scale system of ordinary differential
equations where the latter stands for the dynamics of numerous identical
particles. Replacing the discrete particles by a kinetic equation for a
particle density, we obtain in the mean-field limit the new class of partially
kinetic systems. We investigate the influence of constraints on the kinetic
theory of those systems and present necessary adjustments.
We adapt the mean-field limit to the DAE model and show that index reduction
and the mean-field limit commute. As a main result, we prove Dobrushin's
stability estimate for linear systems. The estimate implies convergence of the
mean-field limit and provides a rigorous link between the particle dynamics and
their kinetic description.
Our research is inspired by mathematical models for muscle tissue where the
macroscopic behaviour is governed by the equations of continuum mechanics,
often discretised by the finite element method, and the microscopic muscle
contraction process is described by Huxley's sliding filament theory. The
latter represents a kinetic equation that characterises the state of the
actin-myosin bindings in the muscle filaments. Linear partially kinetic systems
are a simplified version of such models, with focus on the constraints.Comment: 32 pages, 18 figure
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