15,876 research outputs found
Modeling of combustion processes of stick propellants via combined Eulerian-Lagrangian approach
This research is motivated by the improved ballistic performance of large-caliber guns using stick propellant charges. A comprehensive theoretical model for predicting the flame spreading, combustion, and grain deformation phenomena of long, unslotted stick propellants is presented. The formulation is based upon a combined Eulerian-Lagrangian approach to simulate special characteristics of the two phase combustion process in a cartridge loaded with a bundle of sticks. The model considers five separate regions consisting of the internal perforation, the solid phase, the external interstitial gas phase, and two lumped parameter regions at either end of the stick bundle. For the external gas phase region, a set of transient one-dimensional fluid-dynamic equations using the Eulerian approach is obtained; governing equations for the stick propellants are formulated using the Lagrangian approach. The motion of a representative stick is derived by considering the forces acting on the entire propellant stick. The instantaneous temperature and stress fields in the stick propellant are modeled by considering the transient axisymmetric heat conduction equation and dynamic structural analysis
System Design for a Nuclear Electric Spacecraft Utilizing Out-of-core Thermionic Conversion
Basic guidelines are presented for a nuclear space power system which utilizes heat pipes to transport thermal power from a fast nuclear reactor to an out of core thermionic converter array. Design parameters are discussed for the nuclear reactor, heat pipes, thermionic converters, shields (neutron and gamma), waste heat rejection systems, and the electrical bus bar-cable system required to transport the high current/low voltage power to the processing equipment. Dimensions are compatible with shuttle payload bay constraints
Correlation of the Hippocampal theta rhythm to changes in hypothalamic temperature
Warming and cooling the preoptic anterior hypothalamic area in awake, loosely restrained rabbits was found to evoke theta rhythm. This is consistent with previous studies indicating that theta rhythm is a nonspecific response evoked by stimulation of several sensory modalities. Several studies have correlated theta rhythm with alertness. A neural pathway involving the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, the septal area, and the reticular formation is proposed. Thus, a role of this pathway may be to alert the animal to changes in its body temperature
Observations of breakup processes of liquid jets using real-time X-ray radiography
To unravel the liquid-jet breakup process in the nondilute region, a newly developed system of real-time X-ray radiography, an advanced digital image processor, and a high-speed video camera were used. Based upon recorded X-ray images, the inner structure of a liquid jet during breakup was observed. The jet divergence angle, jet breakup length, and fraction distributions along the axial and transverse directions of the liquid jets were determined in the near-injector region. Both wall- and free-jet tests were conducted to study the effect of wall friction on the jet breakup process
Analytical technique for simplification of the encoder-decoder circuit for a perfect five-qubit error correction
Simpler encoding and decoding networks are necessary for more reliable
quantum error correcting codes (QECCs). The simplification of the
encoder-decoder circuit for a perfect five-qubit QECC can be derived
analytically if the QECC is converted from its equivalent one-way entanglement
purification protocol (1-EPP). In this work, the analytical method to simplify
the encoder-decoder circuit is introduced and a circuit that is as simple as
the existent simplest circuits is presented as an example. The encoder-decoder
circuit presented here involves nine single- and two-qubit unitary operations,
only six of which are controlled-NOT (CNOT) gates
Toeplitz Inverse Covariance-Based Clustering of Multivariate Time Series Data
Subsequence clustering of multivariate time series is a useful tool for
discovering repeated patterns in temporal data. Once these patterns have been
discovered, seemingly complicated datasets can be interpreted as a temporal
sequence of only a small number of states, or clusters. For example, raw sensor
data from a fitness-tracking application can be expressed as a timeline of a
select few actions (i.e., walking, sitting, running). However, discovering
these patterns is challenging because it requires simultaneous segmentation and
clustering of the time series. Furthermore, interpreting the resulting clusters
is difficult, especially when the data is high-dimensional. Here we propose a
new method of model-based clustering, which we call Toeplitz Inverse
Covariance-based Clustering (TICC). Each cluster in the TICC method is defined
by a correlation network, or Markov random field (MRF), characterizing the
interdependencies between different observations in a typical subsequence of
that cluster. Based on this graphical representation, TICC simultaneously
segments and clusters the time series data. We solve the TICC problem through
alternating minimization, using a variation of the expectation maximization
(EM) algorithm. We derive closed-form solutions to efficiently solve the two
resulting subproblems in a scalable way, through dynamic programming and the
alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), respectively. We validate
our approach by comparing TICC to several state-of-the-art baselines in a
series of synthetic experiments, and we then demonstrate on an automobile
sensor dataset how TICC can be used to learn interpretable clusters in
real-world scenarios.Comment: This revised version fixes two small typos in the published versio
An upper limit for the water outgassing rate of the main-belt comet 176P/LINEAR observed with Herschel/HIFI
176P/LINEAR is a member of the new cometary class known as main-belt comets
(MBCs). It displayed cometary activity shortly during its 2005 perihelion
passage that may be driven by the sublimation of sub-surface ices. We have
therefore searched for emission of the H2O 110-101 ground state rotational line
at 557 GHz toward 176P/LINEAR with the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far
Infrared (HIFI) on board the Herschel Space Observatory on UT 8.78 August 2011,
about 40 days after its most recent perihelion passage, when the object was at
a heliocentric distance of 2.58 AU. No H2O line emission was detected in our
observations, from which we derive sensitive 3-sigma upper limits for the water
production rate and column density of < 4e25 molec/s and of < 3e10 cm^{-2},
respectively. From the peak brightness measured during the object's active
period in 2005, this upper limit is lower than predicted by the relation
between production rates and visual magnitudes observed for a sample of comets
by Jorda et al. (2008) at this heliocentric distance. Thus, 176P/LINEAR was
likely less active at the time of our observation than during its previous
perihelion passage. The retrieved upper limit is lower than most values derived
for the H2O production rate from the spectroscopic search for CN emission in
MBCs.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Minor changes to match published versio
Herzberg Circuit and Berry's Phase in Chirality-based Coded Qubit in a Triangular Triple Quantum Dot
We present a theoretical proposal for the Herzberg circuit and controlled
accumulation of Berry's phase in a chirality-based coded qubit in a triangular
triple quantum dot molecule with one electron spin each. The qubit is encoded
in the two degenerate states of a three spin complex with total spin .
Using a Hubbard and Heisenberg model the Herzberg circuit encircling the
degeneracy point is realized by adiabatically tuning the successive on-site
energies of quantum dots and tunnel couplings across a pair of neighbouring
dots. It is explicitly shown that encircling the degeneracy point leads to the
accumulation of the geometrical Berrys phase. We show that only triangular but
not linear quantum dot molecule allows for the generation of Berry's phase and
we discuss a protocol to detect this geometrical phase
HIV with contact-tracing: a case study in Approximate Bayesian Computation
Missing data is a recurrent issue in epidemiology where the infection process
may be partially observed. Approximate Bayesian Computation, an alternative to
data imputation methods such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo integration, is
proposed for making inference in epidemiological models. It is a
likelihood-free method that relies exclusively on numerical simulations. ABC
consists in computing a distance between simulated and observed summary
statistics and weighting the simulations according to this distance. We propose
an original extension of ABC to path-valued summary statistics, corresponding
to the cumulated number of detections as a function of time. For a standard
compartmental model with Suceptible, Infectious and Recovered individuals
(SIR), we show that the posterior distributions obtained with ABC and MCMC are
similar. In a refined SIR model well-suited to the HIV contact-tracing data in
Cuba, we perform a comparison between ABC with full and binned detection times.
For the Cuban data, we evaluate the efficiency of the detection system and
predict the evolution of the HIV-AIDS disease. In particular, the percentage of
undetected infectious individuals is found to be of the order of 40%
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