57,450 research outputs found
A monostrain test apparatus
Test apparatus is designed for determining tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, elongation, and thermal coefficient of contraction or expansion of uniformly shaped plastics, adhesives, and foam materials over temperature range of 700 to 90 K (800 to -300). Tests may be used in design quality control, and in evaluation of new adhesives and plastic materials
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Clothing longevity perspectives: exploring consumer expectations, consumption and use
The production, distribution, use and end-of-life phases of the clothing lifecycle all have significant environmental impacts, but complete lifecycle assessment has identified that extending the active life of garments through design, use and re-use is the single most effective intervention in reducing the overall impact of the clothing industry (WRAP, 2011). In response, Government funded clothing longevity research seeks to develop and test industry-led design strategies to influence and enable consumers to keep garments in active use for longer (Cooper et al., 2014). While recent UK research has indicated significant potential to influence more sustainable consumer behaviour (Langley et al., 2013; YouGov, 2012), up-to-date qualitative research is required to discover how consumer attitudes, expectations and behaviours in relation to clothing lifetimes affects garment care and clothing use. This will help to inform industry-led strategies by understanding where effective changes can be made that will potentially have most impact. This paper presents preliminary findings from a Defra funded action based research project, ‘Strategies to improve design and testing for clothing longevity’. Qualitative research methods are used to explore consumer attitudes, expectations and behaviours at purchase, use and disposal stages of garment lifetimes, and gather data on practices of garment wash, wear, care and maintenance in everyday life. The research findings are discussed in relation to industry-led strategies aimed at extending the life of clothes
Relationship between Thermodynamic Driving Force and One-Way Fluxes in Reversible Chemical Reactions
Chemical reaction systems operating in nonequilibrium open-system states
arise in a great number of contexts, including the study of living organisms,
in which chemical reactions, in general, are far from equilibrium. Here we
introduce a theorem that relates forward and re-verse fluxes and free energy
for any chemical process operating in a steady state. This rela-tionship, which
is a generalization of equilibrium conditions to the case of a chemical process
occurring in a nonequilibrium steady state, provides a novel equivalent
definition for chemical reaction free energy. In addition, it is shown that
previously unrelated theories introduced by Ussing and Hodgkin and Huxley for
transport of ions across membranes, Hill for catalytic cycle fluxes, and Crooks
for entropy production in microscopically reversible systems, are united in a
common framework based on this relationship.Comment: 11 page
Development of ductile claddings for dispersion-strengthened nickel-base alloys Final report
Development of ductile oxidation-resistant cladding alloys for thoria dispersion, strengthened nickel and nickel-chromiu
Influence of damping and mass-stiffness discontinuities upon the dynamic stability of a free-free beam under a gimballed thrust of periodically-varying magnitude Technical memorandum no. 103
Damping and mass stiffness discontinuity effects on dynamic stability of free-free beam under gimballed pulsating end thrus
Sensing of Fluctuating Nanoscale Magnetic Fields Using NV Centres in Diamond
New magnetometry techniques based on Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) defects in diamond
allow for the imaging of static (DC) and oscillatory (AC) nanoscopic magnetic
systems. However, these techniques require accurate knowledge and control of
the sample dynamics, and are thus limited in their ability to image fields
arising from rapidly fluctuating (FC) environments. We show here that FC fields
place restrictions on the DC field sensitivity of an NV qubit magnetometer, and
that by probing the dephasing rate of the qubit in a magnetic FC environment,
we are able to measure fluctuation rates and RMS field strengths that would be
otherwise inaccessible with the use of DC and AC magnetometry techniques. FC
sensitivities are shown to be comparable to those of AC fields, whilst
requiring no additional experimental overheads or control over the sample.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Two hard spheres in a pore: Exact Statistical Mechanics for different shaped cavities
The Partition function of two Hard Spheres in a Hard Wall Pore is studied
appealing to a graph representation. The exact evaluation of the canonical
partition function, and the one-body distribution function, in three different
shaped pores are achieved. The analyzed simple geometries are the cuboidal,
cylindrical and ellipsoidal cavities. Results have been compared with two
previously studied geometries, the spherical pore and the spherical pore with a
hard core. The search of common features in the analytic structure of the
partition functions in terms of their length parameters and their volumes,
surface area, edges length and curvatures is addressed too. A general framework
for the exact thermodynamic analysis of systems with few and many particles in
terms of a set of thermodynamic measures is discussed. We found that an exact
thermodynamic description is feasible based in the adoption of an adequate set
of measures and the search of the free energy dependence on the adopted measure
set. A relation similar to the Laplace equation for the fluid-vapor interface
is obtained which express the equilibrium between magnitudes that in extended
systems are intensive variables. This exact description is applied to study the
thermodynamic behavior of the two Hard Spheres in a Hard Wall Pore for the
analyzed different geometries. We obtain analytically the external work, the
pressure on the wall, the pressure in the homogeneous zone, the wall-fluid
surface tension, the line tension and other similar properties
Surface phase transitions in one-dimensional channels arranged in a triangular cross-sectional structure: Theory and Monte Carlo simulations
Monte Carlo simulations and finite-size scaling analysis have been carried
out to study the critical behavior in a submonolayer lattice-gas of interacting
monomers adsorbed on one-dimensional channels arranged in a triangular
cross-sectional structure. The model mimics a nanoporous environment, where
each nanotube or unit cell is represented by a one-dimensional array. Two kinds
of lateral interaction energies have been considered: , interaction
energy between nearest-neighbor particles adsorbed along a single channel and
, interaction energy between particles adsorbed across
nearest-neighbor channels. For and , successive planes are
uncorrelated, the system is equivalent to the triangular lattice and the
well-known
ordered phase is found at low temperatures and a coverage, , of 1/3
. In the more general case ( and ), a
competition between interactions along a single channel and a transverse
coupling between sites in neighboring channels allows to evolve to a
three-dimensional adsorbed layer. Consequently, the and structures "propagate" along the
channels and new ordered phases appear in the adlayer. The Monte Carlo
technique was combined with the recently reported Free Energy Minimization
Criterion Approach (FEMCA), to predict the critical temperatures of the
order-disorder transformation. The excellent qualitative agreement between
simulated data and FEMCA results allow us to interpret the physical meaning of
the mechanisms underlying the observed transitions.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figure
Electricity deregulation and the valuation of visibility loss in wilderness areas: A research note.
Visibility in most wilderness areas in the northeastern United States has declined substantially since the 1970s. As noted by Hill et al. (2000), despite the 1977 Clean Air Act and subsequent amendments, human induced smog conditions are becoming increasingly worse. Average visibility in class I airsheds, such as the Great Gulf Wilderness in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, is now about one-third of natural conditions. A particular concern is that deregulation of electricity production could result in further degradation because consumers may switch to lower cost fossil fuel generation (Harper 2000). To the extent that this system reduces electricity costs, it may also affect firm location decisions (Halstead and Deller 1997). Yet, little is known about the extent to which consumers are likely to make tradeoffs between electric bills and reduced visibility in nearby wilderness areas. This applied research uses a contingent valuation approach in an empirical case study of consumers’ tradeoffs between cheaper electric bills and reduced visibility in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. We also examine some of the problems associated with uncertainty with this type of analysis; that is, how confident respondents are in their answers to the valuation questions. Finally, policy implications of decreased visibility due to electricity deregulation are discussed
Generalized Haldane Equation and Fluctuation Theorem in the Steady State Cycle Kinetics of Single Enzymes
Enyzme kinetics are cyclic. We study a Markov renewal process model of
single-enzyme turnover in nonequilibrium steady-state (NESS) with sustained
concentrations for substrates and products. We show that the forward and
backward cycle times have idential non-exponential distributions:
\QQ_+(t)=\QQ_-(t). This equation generalizes the Haldane relation in
reversible enzyme kinetics. In terms of the probabilities for the forward
() and backward () cycles, is shown to be the
chemical driving force of the NESS, . More interestingly, the moment
generating function of the stochastic number of substrate cycle ,
follows the fluctuation theorem in the form of
Kurchan-Lebowitz-Spohn-type symmetry. When $\lambda$ = $\Delta\mu/k_BT$, we
obtain the Jarzynski-Hatano-Sasa-type equality:
1 for all , where is the fluctuating chemical work
done for sustaining the NESS. This theory suggests possible methods to
experimentally determine the nonequilibrium driving force {\it in situ} from
turnover data via single-molecule enzymology.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
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