1,668 research outputs found
Reduced chemistry for butanol isomers at engine-relevant conditions
Butanol has received significant research attention as a second-generation
biofuel in the past few years. In the present study, skeletal mechanisms for
four butanol isomers were generated from two widely accepted, well-validated
detailed chemical kinetic models for the butanol isomers. The detailed models
were reduced using a two-stage approach consisting of the directed relation
graph with error propagation and sensitivity analysis. During the reduction
process, issues were encountered with pressure-dependent reactions formulated
using the logarithmic pressure interpolation approach; these issues are
discussed and recommendations made to avoid ambiguity in its future
implementation in mechanism development. The performance of the skeletal
mechanisms generated here was compared with that of detailed mechanisms in
simulations of autoignition delay times, laminar flame speeds, and perfectly
stirred reactor temperature response curves and extinction residence times,
over a wide range of pressures, temperatures, and equivalence ratios. The
detailed and skeletal mechanisms agreed well, demonstrating the adequacy of the
resulting reduced chemistry for all the butanol isomers in predicting global
combustion phenomena. In addition, the skeletal mechanisms closely predicted
the time-histories of fuel mass fractions in homogeneous compression-ignition
engine simulations. The performance of each butanol isomer was additionally
compared with that of a gasoline surrogate with an antiknock index of 87 in a
homogeneous compression-ignition engine simulation. The gasoline surrogate was
consumed faster than any of the butanol isomers, with tert-butanol exhibiting
the slowest fuel consumption rate. While n-butanol and isobutanol displayed the
most similar consumption profiles relative to the gasoline surrogate, the two
literature chemical kinetic models predicted different orderings.Comment: 39 pages, 16 figures. Supporting information available via
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.6b0185
The Evolution of Bias - Generalized
Fry (1996) showed that galaxy bias has the tendency to evolve towards unity,
i.e. in the long run, the galaxy distribution tends to trace that of matter.
Generalizing slightly Fry's reasoning, we show that his conclusion remains
valid in theories of modified gravity (or equivalently, complex clustered dark
energy). This is not surprising: as long as both galaxies and matter are
subject to the same force, dynamics would drive them towards tracing each
other. This holds, for instance, in theories where both galaxies and matter
move on geodesics. This relaxation of bias towards unity is tempered by cosmic
acceleration, however: the bias tends towards unity but does not quite make it,
unless the formation bias were close to unity. Our argument is extended in a
straightforward manner to the case of a stochastic or nonlinear bias. An
important corollary is that dynamical evolution could imprint a scale
dependence on the large scale galaxy bias. This is especially pronounced if
non-standard gravity introduces new scales to the problem: the bias at
different scales relaxes at different rates, the larger scales generally more
slowly and retaining a longer memory of the initial bias. A consistency test of
the current (general relativity + uniform dark energy) paradigm is therefore to
look for departure from a scale independent bias on large scales. A simple way
is to measure the relative bias of different populations of galaxies which are
at different stages of bias relaxation. Lastly, we comment on the possibility
of directly testing the Poisson equation on cosmological scales, as opposed to
indirectly through the growth factor.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures. References added. Accepted for publication in
Physical Review
Convergent and diver gent brain structural and functional abnormalities associated with developmental dyslexia
Brain abnormalities in the reading network have been repeatedly reported in individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD); however, it is still not totally understood where the structural and functional abnormalities are consistent/inconsistent across languages. In the current multimodal meta-analysis, we found convergent structural and functional alterations in the left superior temporal gyrus across languages, suggesting a neural signature of DD. We found greater reduction in grey matter volume and brain activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus in morpho-syllabic languages (e.g. Chinese) than in alphabetic languages, and greater reduction in brain activation in the left middle temporal gyrus and fusiform gyrus in alphabetic languages than in morpho-syllabic languages. These language differences are explained as consequences of being DD while learning a specific language. In addition, we also found brain regions that showed increased grey matter volume and brain activation, presumably suggesting compensations and brain regions that showed inconsistent alterations in brain structure and function. Our study provides important insights about the etiology of DD from a cross-linguistic perspective with considerations of consistency/inconsistency between structural and functional alterations
Transcutaneous Electrical Spinal Cord Neuromodulator (TESCoN) Improves Symptoms of Overactive Bladder
Non-Surgical modality to reduce incidence of urinary incontinence and improve neurogenic bladder symptom scores (NBSS) in individuals with neurogenic bladder due to spinal cord injury or stroke
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