24,590 research outputs found
Light weight fire resistant graphite composites
Composite structures with a honeycomb core and characterized by lightweight and excellent fire resistance are provided. These sandwich structures employ facesheets made up of bismaleimide-vinyl styrylpyridine copolymers with fiber reinforcement such as carbon fiber reinforcement. In preferred embodiments the facesheets are over layered with a decorative film. The properties of these composites make them attractive materials of construction aircraft and spacecraft
Palatable Meal Anticipation in Mice
The ability to sense time and anticipate events is a critical skill in nature. Most efforts to understand the neural and molecular mechanisms of anticipatory behavior in rodents rely on daily restricted food access, which induces a robust increase of locomotor activity in anticipation of daily meal time. Interestingly, rats also show increased activity in anticipation of a daily palatable meal even when they have an ample food supply, suggesting a role for brain reward systems in anticipatory behavior, and providing an alternate model by which to study the neurobiology of anticipation in species, such as mice, that are less well adapted to "stuff and starve" feeding schedules. To extend this model to mice, and exploit molecular genetic resources available for that species, we tested the ability of wild-type mice to anticipate a daily palatable meal. We observed that mice with free access to regular chow and limited access to highly palatable snacks of chocolate or âFruit Crunchiesâ avidly consumed the snack but did not show anticipatory locomotor activity as measured by running wheels or video-based behavioral analysis. However, male mice receiving a snack of high fat chow did show increased food bin entry prior to access time and a modest increase in activity in the two hours preceding the scheduled meal. Interestingly, female mice did not show anticipation of a daily high fat meal but did show increased activity at scheduled mealtime when that meal was withdrawn. These results indicate that anticipation of a scheduled food reward in mice is behavior, diet, and gender specific
Investigation of Corrosion in Aluminum/Adhesive Lap-Splices Using Pulse-Echo Ultrasonic Techniques
Corrosion can exist in any layer of a simple aluminum/adhesive lap-splice. For lap- splices where only one aluminum surface is accessible, first layer corrosion is corrosion that occurs on or under the accessible skin; and second layer corrosion is that which exists behind the adhesive/scrim layer on the upper or lower surface of the inaccessible skin. Many different nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques can detect first layer corrosion, and much progress has been made quantifying corrosion that exists in this layer[l]. Due to the layered nature of a lap-splice, second layer corrosion is much more difficult to detect, and also more difficult to quantify. Current maintenance procedures also make it difficult for researchers to obtain lap-splice corrosion samples from serviceable aircraft. The detection of corrosion in lap-splice assemblies has been given an important inspection priority by the airline industry, and regular inspection procedures have been developed to meet these new requirements. During maintenance, if corrosion is suspected in a lap-splice area, the area is opened up for further inspection by removing the rivets, adhesive and sometimes the paint. If the corrosion damage is beyond the manufacturerâs tolerances, the corroded area is cut out and patch-repaired; otherwise, the corrosion is removed by chemical or mechanical means, leaving a serviceable but thinner metal skin when the joint is reassembled[2]. In either case the original character of the lap-splice has been destroyed by the maintenance process, and its use for NDE purposes is lost. In this light, it becomes necessary for researchers to fabricate their own laboratory samples and compare these artificial samples with actual in-service samples
Gravitational Flux Tubes
By studying multidimensional Kaluza-Klein theories, or gravity plus U(1) or
SU(2) gauge fields it is shown that these theories possess similar flux tube
solutions. The gauge field which fills the tube geometry of these solutions
leads to a comparision with the flux tube structures in QCD. These solutions
also carry a ``magnetic'' charge, Q, which for the SU(2) Einstein-Yang-Mills
(EYM) system exhibits a dual relationship with the Yang-Mills gauge coupling,
g, (). As or , or
respectively. Thus within this classical EYM field theory we find solutions
which have features - flux tubes, magnetic charges, large value of the gauge
coupling - that are similar to the key ingredients of confinement in QCD.Comment: REVTEX, 12 p
STEPS - an approach for human mobility modeling
In this paper we introduce Spatio-TEmporal Parametric Stepping (STEPS) - a simple parametric mobility model which can cover a large spectrum of human mobility patterns. STEPS makes abstraction of spatio-temporal preferences in human mobility by using a power law to rule the nodes movement. Nodes in STEPS have preferential attachment to favorite locations where they spend most of their time. Via simulations, we show that STEPS is able, not only to express the peer to peer properties such as inter-ontact/contact time and to reflect accurately realistic routing performance, but also to express the structural properties of the underlying interaction graph such as small-world phenomenon. Moreover, STEPS is easy to implement, exible to configure and also theoretically tractable
Violating conformal invariance: Two-dimensional clusters grafted to wedges, cones, and branch points of Riemann surfaces
We present simulations of 2-d site animals on square and triangular lattices
in non-trivial geomeLattice animals are one of the few critical models in
statistical mechanics violating conformal invariance. We present here
simulations of 2-d site animals on square and triangular lattices in
non-trivial geometries. The simulations are done with the newly developed PERM
algorithm which gives very precise estimates of the partition sum, yielding
precise values for the entropic exponent (). In particular, we studied animals grafted to the tips of wedges
with a wide range of angles , to the tips of cones (wedges with the
sides glued together), and to branching points of Riemann surfaces. The latter
can either have sheets and no boundary, generalizing in this way cones to
angles degrees, or can have boundaries, generalizing wedges. We
find conformal invariance behavior, , only for small
angles (), while for
. These scalings hold both for wedges and cones. A heuristic
(non-conformal) argument for the behavior at large is given, and
comparison is made with critical percolation.Comment: 4 pages, includes 3 figure
Fundamental limits to optical response in absorptive systems
At visible and infrared frequencies, metals show tantalizing promise for
strong subwavelength resonances, but material loss typically dampens the
response. We derive fundamental limits to the optical response of absorptive
systems, bounding the largest enhancements possible given intrinsic material
losses. Through basic conservation-of-energy principles, we derive
geometry-independent limits to per-volume absorption and scattering rates, and
to local-density-of-states enhancements that represent the power radiated or
expended by a dipole near a material body. We provide examples of structures
that approach our absorption and scattering limits at any frequency, by
contrast, we find that common "antenna" structures fall far short of our
radiative LDOS bounds, suggesting the possibility for significant further
improvement. Underlying the limits is a simple metric, for a material with susceptibility , that enables
broad technological evaluation of lossy materials across optical frequencies.Comment: 21 pages and 6 figures (excluding appendices, references
Grain Boundary Induced Magneto-Far Infrared Resonances in Superconducting YBaCuO Thin Films
Spectral features induced by 45 in-plane misoriented grains have
been observed in the far infrared magneto-transmission of YBaCuO thin films. Two strong dispersive features are found at 80 and
160 and a weaker one at 116 . The data can be well
represented by Lorentzian oscillator contributions to the conductivity. Several
possible interpretations are discussed. We conclude that the resonances are due
to vortex core excitations.Comment: Latex file (14 pages) + 4 Postscript figures, uuencode
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