Second Life in Libraries

An introduction to Second Life, and the uses that various libraries have made of it. Presentation made at the 2009 SNRG conference

On the meaning of mixing efficiency for buoyancy-driven mixing in stratified turbulent flows

The concept of a mixing efficiency is widely used to relate the amount of irreversible diabatic mixing in a stratified flow to the amount of energy available to support mixing. This common measure of mixing in a flow is based on the change in the background potential energy, which is the minimum gravitational potential energy of the fluid that can be achieved by an adiabatic rearrangement of the instantaneous density field. However, this paper highlights examples of mixing that is primarily ‘buoyancy-driven’ (i.e. energy is released to the flow predominantly from a source of available potential energy) to demonstrate that the mixing efficiency depends not only on the specific characteristics of the turbulence in the region of the flow that is mixing, but also on the density profile in regions remote from where mixing physically occurs. We show that this behaviour is due to the irreversible and direct conversion of available potential energy into background potential energy in those remote regions (a mechanism not previously described). This process (here termed ‘relabelling’) occurs without requiring either a local flow or local mixing, or any other process that affects the internal energy of that fluid. Relabelling is caused by initially available potential energy, associated with identifiable parcels of fluid, becoming dynamically inaccessible to the flow due to mixing elsewhere. These results have wider relevance to characterising mixing in stratified turbulent flows, including those involving an external supply of kinetic energy.G.O.H. was supported by Australian Research Council Future Fellowship FT100100869 and was hosted by DAMTP during this work. M.S.D.W. was funded by EPSRC (grant number EP/P505445/1) and an AWE CASE award (AWE contract number 30174006).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Cambridge University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2015.46

Energetics of mixing for the filling box and the emptying-filling box

The mixing efficiency of a plume in a filling box and an emptying-filling box is calculated for both transient and steady states. The mixing efficiency of a plume in a filling box in an asymptotic steady state is 1/2, independent of the details of this state or how the plume is modelled. The mixing efficiency of a plume in an emptying-filling box in steady state is 1 - xi, where xi = h/H, the depth of the ambient layer h non-dimensionalised by the height of the box H. A deeper mixed layer therefore corresponds to a higher mixing efficiency

OncoLog Volume 46, Number 10, October 2001

Surgical Techniques, New Agents Target Breast Disease with Increasing Accuracy Undiagnosed Breast Clinic Provides Answers for Concerned Patients House Call: Tips for Coping with the Cosmetic Effects of Breast Cancer DiaLog: Breast Cancer and Body Image, by Mary K. Hughes, MS, RN, Department of Psychiatry New Screening and Diagnostic Techniques Are Changing the Practice of Breast Imaginghttps://openworks.mdanderson.org/oncolog/1100/thumbnail.jp

Decoherence Rates in Large Scale Quantum Computers and Macroscopic Systems

Markovian regime decoherence effects in quantum computers are studied in terms of the fidelity for the situation where the number of qubits N becomes large. A general expression giving the decoherence time scale in terms of Markovian relaxation elements and expectation values of products of system fluctuation operators is obtained, which could also be applied to study decoherence in other macroscopic systems such as Bose condensates and superconductors. A standard circuit model quantum computer involving three-state lambda system ionic qubits is considered, with qubits localised around well-separated positions via trapping potentials. The centre of mass vibrations of the qubits act as a reservoir. Coherent one and two qubit gating processes are controlled by time dependent localised classical electromagnetic fields that address specific qubits, the two qubit gating processes being facilitated by a cavity mode ancilla, which permits state interchange between qubits. With a suitable choice of parameters, it is found that the decoherence time can be made essentially independent of N.Comment: Minor revisions. To be published in J Mod Opt. One figur

Eddy Current Corner Crack Inspection

The purpose of this paper is to report on the development of an eddy current (EC) measurement model applicable to corner crack inspections. Naturally, corner cracks are more difficult to detect than those on flat surfaces, because the specimen edge itself gives a large response to the EC probe. The flaw signal, if any, tends to be obscured by the large edge signal. Thus, probe impedance should be determined more accurately than usual in order to extract flaw signals out of the background. Experimentally, this requires high-accuracy impedance measurements with rigid control over probe motion. In modeling point of view, this means that predictions should be made from an exact model, or at least from a model which can achieve the required level of accuracy [1–3]

Point-of-care screening for a current Hepatitis C virus infection: influence on uptake of a concomitant offer of HIV screening

Eliminating hepatitis C as a public health threat requires an improved understanding of how to increase testing uptake. We piloted point-of-care testing (POCT) for a current HCV infection in an inner-city Emergency Department (ED) and assessed the influence on uptake of offering concomitant screening for HIV. Over four months, all adults attending ED with minor injuries were first invited to complete an anonymous questionnaire then invited to test in alternating cycles offering HCV POCT or HCV+HIV POCT. Viral RNA was detected in finger-prick blood by GeneXpert. 814/859 (94.8%) questionnaires were returned and 324/814 (39.8%) tests were accepted, comprising 211 HCV tests and 113 HCV+HIV tests. Offering concomitant HIV screening reduced uptake after adjusting for age and previous HCV testing (odds ratio 0.51; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.38–0.68; p < 0.001). HCV prevalence was 1/324 (0.31%; 95% CI 0.05–1.73); no participant tested positive for HIV. 167/297 (56.2%) POCT participants lived in the most deprived neighbourhoods in England. HCV RNA testing using finger-prick blood was technically feasible. Uptake was moderate and the offer of concomitant HIV screening showed a detrimental impact on acceptability in this low prevalence population. The findings should be confirmed in a variety of other community settings