Base manifolds for fibrations of projective irreducible symplectic manifolds

Given a projective irreducible symplectic manifold $M$ of dimension $2n$, a projective manifold $X$ and a surjective holomorphic map $f:M \to X$ with connected fibers of positive dimension, we prove that $X$ is biholomorphic to the projective space of dimension $n$. The proof is obtained by exploiting two geometric structures at general points of $X$: the affine structure arising from the action variables of the Lagrangian fibration $f$ and the structure defined by the variety of minimal rational tangents on the Fano manifold $X$

Development of a solar-powered residential air conditioner: System optimization preliminary specification

Investigations aimed at the optimization of a baseline Rankine cycle solar powered air conditioner and the development of a preliminary system specification were conducted. Efforts encompassed the following: (1) investigations of the use of recuperators/regenerators to enhance the performance of the baseline system, (2) development of an off-design computer program for system performance prediction, (3) optimization of the turbocompressor design to cover a broad range of conditions and permit operation at low heat source water temperatures, (4) generation of parametric data describing system performance (COP and capacity), (5) development and evaluation of candidate system augmentation concepts and selection of the optimum approach, (6) generation of auxiliary power requirement data, (7) development of a complete solar collector-thermal storage-air conditioner computer program, (8) evaluation of the baseline Rankine air conditioner over a five day period simulating the NASA solar house operation, and (9) evaluation of the air conditioner as a heat pump

Travelling waves in hyperbolic chemotaxis equations

Mathematical models of bacterial populations are often written as systems of partial differential equations for the densities of bacteria and concentrations of extracellular (signal) chemicals. This approach has been employed since the seminal work of Keller and Segel in the 1970s [Keller and Segel, J. Theor. Biol., 1971]. The system has been shown to permit travelling wave solutions which correspond to travelling band formation in bacterial colonies, yet only under specific criteria, such as a singularity in the chemotactic sensitivity function as the signal approaches zero. Such a singularity generates infinite macroscopic velocities which are biologically unrealistic. In this paper, we formulate a model that takes into consideration relevant details of the intracellular processes while avoiding the singularity in the chemotactic sensitivity. We prove the global existence of solutions and then show the existence of travelling wave solutions both numerically and analytically

Enhanced toluene removal using granular activated carbon and a yeast strain candida tropicalis in bubble-column bioreactors

The yeast strain Candida tropicalis was used for the biodegradation of gaseous toluene. Toluene was effectively treated by a liquid culture of C. tropicalis in abubble-column bioreactor, and the tolueneremoval efficiency increased with decreasing gas flow rate. However, toluene mass transfer from the gas-to-liquid phase was a major limitation for the uptake of toluene by C. tropicalis. The tolueneremoval efficiency was enhanced when granularactivatedcarbon (GAC) was added as a fluidized material. The GAC fluidized bioreactor demonstrated tolueneremoval efficiencies ranging from 50 to 82% when the inlet toluene loading was varied between 13.1 and 26.9 g/m3/h. The yield value of C. tropicalis ranged from 0.11 to 0.21 g-biomass/g-toluene, which was substantially lower than yield values for bacteria reported in the literature. The maximum elimination capacity determined in the GAC fluidized bioreactor was 172 g/m3/h at atoluene loading of 291 g/m3/h. Transient loading experiments revealed that approximately 50% of the toluene introduced was initially adsorbed onto the GAC during an increased loading period, and then slowly desorbed and became available to the yeast culture. Hence, the fluidized GAC mediated in improving the gas-to-liquid mass transfer of toluene, resulting in a high tolueneremoval capacity. Consequently, the GAC bubble-column bioreactor using the culture of C. tropicalis can be successfully applied for the removal of gaseous toluene

Cosmological perturbations in a gravity with quadratic order curvature couplings

We present a set of equations describing the evolution of the scalar-type cosmological perturbation in a gravity with general quadratic order curvature coupling terms. Equations are presented in a gauge ready form, thus are ready to implement various temporal gauge conditions depending on the problems. The Ricci-curvature square term leads to a fourth-order differential equation for describing the spacetime fluctuations in a spatially homogeneous and isotropic cosmological background.Comment: 5 pages, no figure, To appear in Phys. Rev.

Exploring the Physics of Type Ia Supernovae Through the X-ray Spectra of their Remnants

We present the results of an ongoing project to use the X-ray observations of Type Ia Supernova Remnants to constrain the physical processes involved in Type Ia Supernova explosions. We use the Tycho Supernova Remnant (SN 1572) as a benchmark case, comparing its observed spectrum with models for the X-ray emission from the shocked ejecta generated from different kinds of Type Ia explosions. Both the integrated spectrum of Tycho and the spatial distribution of the Fe and Si emission in the remnant are well reproduced by delayed detonation models with stratified ejecta. All the other Type Ia explosion models fail, including well-mixed deflagrations calculated in three dimensions.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the "Stellar end products" workshop, 13-15 April 2005, Granada, Spain, ed. M.A. Perez-Torres, Vol. 77 (Jan 2006) of MmSA