28,538 research outputs found
Air Taxi Skyport Location Problem for Airport Access
Witnessing the rapid progress and accelerated commercialization made in
recent years for the introduction of air taxi services in near future across
metropolitan cities, our research focuses on one of the most important
consideration for such services, i.e., infrastructure planning (also known as
skyports). We consider design of skyport locations for air taxis accessing
airports, where we present the skyport location problem as a modified
single-allocation p-hub median location problem integrating choice-constrained
user mode choice behavior into the decision process. Our approach focuses on
two alternative objectives i.e., maximizing air taxi ridership and maximizing
air taxi revenue. The proposed models in the study incorporate trade-offs
between trip length and trip cost based on mode choice behavior of travelers to
determine optimal choices of skyports in an urban city. We examine the
sensitivity of skyport locations based on two objectives, three air taxi
pricing strategies, and varying transfer times at skyports. A case study of New
York City is conducted considering a network of 149 taxi zones and 3 airports
with over 20 million for-hire-vehicles trip data to the airports to discuss
insights around the choice of skyport locations in the city, and demand
allocation to different skyports under various parameter settings. Results
suggest that a minimum of 9 skyports located between Manhattan, Queens and
Brooklyn can adequately accommodate the airport access travel needs and are
sufficiently stable against transfer time increases. Findings from this study
can help air taxi providers strategize infrastructure design options and
investment decisions based on skyport location choices.Comment: 25 page
Yang-Mills Flow and Uniformization Theorems
We consider a parabolic-like systems of differential equations involving
geometrical quantities to examine uniformization theorems for two- and
three-dimensional closed orientable manifolds. We find that in the
two-dimensional case there is a simple gauge theoretic flow for a connection
built from a Riemannian structure, and that the convergence of the flow to the
fixed points is consistent with the Poincare Uniformization Theorem. We
construct a similar system for the three-dimensional case. Here the connection
is built from a Riemannian geometry, an SO(3) connection and two other 1-form
fields which take their values in the SO(3) algebra. The flat connections
include the eight homogeneous geometries relevant to the three-dimensional
uniformization theorem conjectured by W. Thurston. The fixed points of the flow
include, besides the flat connections (and their local deformations), non-flat
solutions of the Yang-Mills equations. These latter "instanton" configurations
may be relevant to the fact that generic 3-manifolds do not admit one of the
homogeneous geometries, but may be decomposed into "simple 3-manifolds" which
do.Comment: 21 pages, Latex, 5 Postscript figures, uses epsf.st
Large Universality of The Baryon Isgur--Wise Form Factor: The Group Theoretical Approach
In a previous article, it has been proved under the framework of chiral
soliton model that the same Isgur--Wise form factor describes the semileptonic
and decays in the
large limit. It is shown here that this result is in fact independent of
the chiral soliton model and is solely the consequence of the spin-flavor SU(4)
symmetry which arises in the baryon sector in the large limit.Comment: 10 pages in REVTeX, no figure
Locally addressable tunnel barriers within a carbon nanotube
We report the realization and characterization of independently controllable
tunnel barriers within a carbon nanotube. The nanotubes are mechanically bent
or kinked using an atomic force microscope, and top gates are subsequently
placed near each kink. Transport measurements indicate that the kinks form
gate-controlled tunnel barriers, and that gates placed away from the kinks have
little or no effect on conductance. The overall conductance of the nanotube can
be controlled by tuning the transmissions of either the kinks or the
metal-nanotube contacts.Comment: related papers at http://marcuslab.harvard.ed
New negative differential resistance device based on resonant interband tunneling
We propose and demonstrate a novel negative differential resistance device based on resonant interband tunneling. Electrons in the InAs/AlSb/GaSb/AlSb/InAs structure tunnel from the InAs conduction band into a quantized state in the GaSb valence band, giving rise to a peak in the current-voltage characteristic. This heterostructure design virtually eliminates many of the competing transport mechanisms which limit the performance of conventional double-barrier structures. Peak-to-valley current ratios as high as 20 and 88 are observed at room temperature and liquid-nitrogen temperature, respectively. These are the highest values reported for any tunnel structure
Cooperative hunting in a discrete predator-prey system
We propose and investigate a discrete-time predator-prey system with
cooperative hunting in the predator population. The model is constructed from
the classical Nicholson-Bailey host-parasitoid system with density dependent
growth rate. A sufficient condition based on the model parameters for which
both populations can coexist is derived, namely that the predator's maximal
reproductive number exceeds one. We study existence of interior steady states
and their stability in certain parameter regimes. It is shown that the system
behaves asymptotically similar to the model with no cooperative hunting if the
degree of cooperation is small. Large cooperative hunting, however, may promote
persistence of the predator for which the predator would otherwise go extinct
if there were no cooperation
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Direct Formation of Structural Components Using a Martian Soil Simulant.
Martian habitats are ideally constructed using only locally available soils; extant attempts to process structural materials on Mars, however, generally require additives or calcination. In this work we demonstrate that Martian soil simulant Mars-1a can be directly compressed at ambient into a strong solid without additives, highlighting a possible aspect of complete Martian in-situ resource utilization. Flexural strength of the compact is not only determined by the compaction pressure but also significantly influenced by the lateral boundary condition of processing loading. The compression loading can be applied either quasi-statically or through impact. Nanoparticulate iron oxide (npOx), commonly detected in Martian regolith, is identified as the bonding agent. Gas permeability of compacted samples was measured to be on the order of 10-16 m2, close to that of solid rocks. The compaction procedure is adaptive to additive manufacturing
Observation of large peak-to-valley current ratios and large peak current densities in AlSb/InAs/AlSb double-barrier tunnel structures
We report improved peak-to-valley current ratios and peak current densities in InAs/AlSb double-barrier, negative differential resistance tunnel structures. Our peak-to-valley current ratios are 2.9 at room temperature and 10 at liquid-nitrogen temperatures. Furthermore, we have observed peak current densities of 1.7×10^5 A/cm^2. These figures of merit are substantially better than previously reported values. The improvements are obtained by adding spacer layers near the barriers, thinner well regions, and thinner barriers
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