16,018 research outputs found
Particle simulation of vibrated gas-fluidized beds of cohesive fine powders
We use three-dimensional particle dynamics simulations, coupled with
volume-averaged gas phase hydrodynamics, to study vertically vibrated
gas-fluidized beds of fine, cohesive powders. The volume-averaged interstitial
gas flow is restricted to be one-dimensional (1D). This simplified model
captures the spontaneous development of 1D traveling waves, which corresponds
to bubble formation in real fluidized beds. We use this model to probe the
manner in which vibration and gas flow combine to influence the dynamics of
cohesive particles. We find that as the gas flow rate increases, cyclic
pressure pulsation produced by vibration becomes more and more significant than
direct impact, and in a fully fluidized bed this pulsation is virtually the
only relevant mechanism. We demonstrate that vibration assists fluidization by
creating large tensile stresses during transient periods, which helps break up
the cohesive assembly into agglomerates.Comment: to appear in I&EC Research, a special issue (Oct. 2006) in honor of
Prof. William B. Russe
Strong Correlation to Weak Correlation Phase Transition in Bilayer Quantum Hall Systems
At small layer separations, the ground state of a nu=1 bilayer quantum Hall
system exhibits spontaneous interlayer phase coherence and has a
charged-excitation gap E_g. The evolution of this state with increasing layer
separation d has been a matter of controversy. In this letter we report on
small system exact diagonalization calculations which suggest that a single
phase transition, likely of first order, separates coherent incompressible (E_g
>0) states with strong interlayer correlations from incoherent compressible
states with weak interlayer correlations. We find a dependence of the phase
boundary on d and interlayer tunneling amplitude that is in very good agreement
with recent experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures included, version to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Generating Human Motion by Symbolic Reasoning
This paper describes work on applying AI planning methods to generate human body motion for the purpose of animation. It is based on the fact that although we do not know how the body actually controls massively redundant degrees of freedom of its joints and moves in given situations, the appropriateness of specific behavior for particular conditions can be axiomatized at a gross level using commonsensical observations. Given the motion axioms (rules), the task of the planner is to find a discrete sequence of intermediate postures of the body via goal reduction reasoning based on the rules along with a procedure to discover specific collision-avoidance constraints, such that any two consecutive postures are related via primitive motions of the feet, the pelvis, the torso, the head, the hands, or other body parts. Our planner also takes account of the fact that body motions are continuous by taking advantage of execution-time feedback. Planning decisions are made in the task space where our elementary spatial intuition is preserved as far as possible, only dropping down to a joint space formulation typical in robot motion planning when absolutely necessary. We claim that our work is the first serious attempt to use an AI planning paradigm for animation of human body motion
Polarized beam operation of the Hybrid Spectrometer at the pulsed Spallation Neutron Source
The concept of a neutron Hybrid Spectrometer (HYSPEC) combines the
time-of-flight spectroscopy with the focusing Bragg optics and incorporates a
polarized beam option. Here we describe the polarization analysis scheme
proposed for HYSPEC and quantify its performance via the Monte-Carlo
simulations. We find that the broadband supermirror-bender transmission
polarizers provide reasonably good polarization analysis capability within
about 8-10 meV energy window for scattered neutron energies in the thermal
range up to about 25 meV.Comment: Preprint, to appear in Physica B. 10 pages, 4 figure
Compaction and dilation rate dependence of stresses in gas-fluidized beds
A particle dynamics-based hybrid model, consisting of monodisperse spherical
solid particles and volume-averaged gas hydrodynamics, is used to study
traveling planar waves (one-dimensional traveling waves) of voids formed in
gas-fluidized beds of narrow cross sectional areas. Through ensemble-averaging
in a co-traveling frame, we compute solid phase continuum variables (local
volume fraction, average velocity, stress tensor, and granular temperature)
across the waves, and examine the relations among them. We probe the
consistency between such computationally obtained relations and constitutive
models in the kinetic theory for granular materials which are widely used in
the two-fluid modeling approach to fluidized beds. We demonstrate that solid
phase continuum variables exhibit appreciable ``path dependence'', which is not
captured by the commonly used kinetic theory-based models. We show that this
path dependence is associated with the large rates of dilation and compaction
that occur in the wave. We also examine the relations among solid phase
continuum variables in beds of cohesive particles, which yield the same path
dependence. Our results both for beds of cohesive and non-cohesive particles
suggest that path-dependent constitutive models need to be developed.Comment: accepted for publication in Physics of Fluids (Burnett-order effect
analysis added
T2 and T2⁎ mapping and weighted imaging in cardiac MRI
Cardiac imaging is progressing from simple imaging of heart structure and function to techniques visualizing and measuring underlying tissue biological changes that can potentially define disease and therapeutic options. These techniques exploit underlying tissue magnetic relaxation times: T1, T2 and T2*. Initial weighting methods showed myocardial heterogeneity, detecting regional disease. Current methods are now fully quantitative generating intuitive color maps that do not only expose regionality, but also diffuse changes – meaning that between-scan comparisons can be made to define disease (compared to normal) and to monitor interval change (compared to old scans). T1 is now familiar and used clinically in multiple scenarios, yet some technical challenges remain. T2 is elevated with increased tissue water – edema. Should there also be blood troponin elevation, this edema likely reflects inflammation, a key biological process. T2* falls in the presence of magnetic/paramagnetic materials – practically, this means it measures tissue iron, either after myocardial hemorrhage or in myocardial iron overload. This review discusses how T2 and T2⁎ imaging work (underlying physics, innovations, dependencies, performance), current and emerging use cases, quality assurance processes for global delivery and future research directions
UMMS: constrained harmonic and anharmonic analyses of macromolecules based on elastic network models
UMass Morph Server (UMMS) has been developed for the broad impact on the study of molecular dynamics (MD). The elastic network model (ENM) of a given macromolecule has been proven as a useful tool for analyzing thermal behaviors locally and predicting folding pathways globally. UMMS utilizes coarse-grained ENMs at various levels. These simplifications remarkably save computation time compared with all-atom MD simulations so that one can bring down massive computational problems from a supercomputer to a PC. To improve computational efficiency and physical reality of ENMs, the symmetry-constrained, rigid-cluster, hybrid and chemical-bond ENMs have been developed and implemented at UMMS. One can request both harmonic normal mode analysis of a single macromolecule and anharmonic pathway generation between two conformations of a same molecule using elastic network interpolation at
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