809 research outputs found
Economic method for measuring ultra-low flow rates of fluids
Capillary tube flowmeter measures ultra-low flows of very corrosive fluids /such as chlorine trifluoride and liquid fluorine/ and other liquids with reasonable accuracy. Flowmeter utilizes differential pressure transducer and operates on the principle that for laminar flow in the tube, pressure drop is proportional to flow rate
Simulations of MHD Instabilities in Intracluster Medium Including Anisotropic Thermal Conduction
We perform a suite of simulations of cooling cores in clusters of galaxies in
order to investigate the effect of the recently discovered heat flux buoyancy
instability (HBI) on the evolution of cores. Our models follow the
3-dimensional magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) of cooling cluster cores and capture
the effects of anisotropic heat conduction along the lines of magnetic field,
but do not account for the cosmological setting of clusters or the presence of
AGN. Our model clusters can be divided into three groups according to their
final thermodynamical state: catastrophically collapsing cores, isothermal
cores, and an intermediate group whose final state is determined by the initial
configuration of magnetic field. Modeled cores that are reminiscent of real
cluster cores show evolution towards thermal collapse on a time scale which is
prolonged by a factor of ~2-10 compared with the zero-conduction cases. The
principal effect of the HBI is to re-orient field lines to be perpendicular to
the temperature gradient. Once the field has been wrapped up onto spherical
surfaces surrounding the core, the core is insulated from further conductive
heating (with the effective thermal conduction suppressed to less than 1/100th
of the Spitzer value) and proceeds to collapse. We speculate that, in real
clusters, the central AGN and possibly mergers play the role of "stirrers,"
periodically disrupting the azimuthal field structure and allowing thermal
conduction to sporadically heat the core.Comment: 16 pages, 3 tables, 17 figures, accepted to ApJ with minor revisions,
to appear in Volume 704, Oct 20, 2009 issu
Factors that affect scrub practitioner non-technical skills: A literature review
Non-technical skills are the cognitive and interpersonal behaviours that compliment clinical competence in surgery. Effective use of non-technical skills is essential for scrub practice, because they facilitate anticipation of the surgeon’s requirements and promote appropriate communication behaviours. This literature review analyses the factors that may influence a scrub practitioner’s use of non-technical skills during surgery. Recommendations are made that are intended to improve their use by reducing behavioural variations during surgery
Electronic Structure of the Complex Hydride NaAlH4
Density functional calculations of the electronic structure of the complex
hydride NaAlH4 and the reference systems NaH and AlH3 are reported. We find a
substantially ionic electronic structure for NaAlH4, which emphasizes the
importance of solid state effects in this material. The relaxed hydrogen
positions in NaAlH4 are in good agreement with recent experiment. The
electronic structure of AlH3 is also ionic. Implications for the binding of
complex hydrides are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Structure and Thermodynamics of the Mixed Alkali Alanates
The thermodynamics and structural properties of the hexahydride alanates
(M2M'AlH6) with the elpasolite structure have been investigated. A series of
mixed alkali alanates (Na2LiAlH6, K2LiAlH6 and K2NaAlH6) were synthesized and
found to reversibly absorb and desorb hydrogen without the need for a catalyst.
Pressure-composition isotherms were measured to investigate the thermodynamics
of the absorption and desorption reactions with hydrogen. Isotherms for
catalyzed (4 mol% TiCl3) and uncatalyzed Na2LiAlH6 exhibited an increase in
kinetics, but no change in the bulk thermodynamics with the addition of a
dopant. A structural analysis using synchrotron x-ray diffraction showed that
these compounds favor the Fm-3m space group with the smaller ion (M') occupying
an octahedral site. These results demonstrate that appropriate cation
substitutions can be used to stabilize or destabilize the material and may
provide an avenue to improving the unfavorable thermodynamics of a number of
materials with promising gravimetric hydrogen densities.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures,3 tables, submitted to PR
Multi-phonon scattering and Ti-induced hydrogen dynamics in sodium alanate
We use ab initio methods and neutron inelastic scattering (NIS) to study the
structure, energetics, and dynamics of pure and Ti-doped sodium alanate
(NaAlH_4), focusing on the possibility of substitutional Ti doping. The NIS
spectrum is found to exhibit surprisingly strong and sharp two-phonon features.
The calculations reveal that substitutional Ti doping is energetically
possible. Ti prefers to substitute for Na and is a powerful hydrogen attractor
that facilitates multiple Al--H bond breaking. Our results hint at new ways of
improving the hydrogen dynamics and storage capacity of the alanates.Comment: 5 pages, with 4 postscript figures embedded. Uses REVTEX4 and
graphicx macro
Anisotropic Thermal Conduction and the Cooling Flow Problem in Galaxy Clusters
We examine the long-standing cooling flow problem in galaxy clusters with 3D
MHD simulations of isolated clusters including radiative cooling and
anisotropic thermal conduction along magnetic field lines. The central regions
of the intracluster medium (ICM) can have cooling timescales of ~200 Myr or
shorter--in order to prevent a cooling catastrophe the ICM must be heated by
some mechanism such as AGN feedback or thermal conduction from the thermal
reservoir at large radii. The cores of galaxy clusters are linearly unstable to
the heat-flux-driven buoyancy instability (HBI), which significantly changes
the thermodynamics of the cluster core. The HBI is a convective,
buoyancy-driven instability that rearranges the magnetic field to be
preferentially perpendicular to the temperature gradient. For a wide range of
parameters, our simulations demonstrate that in the presence of the HBI, the
effective radial thermal conductivity is reduced to less than 10% of the full
Spitzer conductivity. With this suppression of conductive heating, the cooling
catastrophe occurs on a timescale comparable to the central cooling time of the
cluster. Thermal conduction alone is thus unlikely to stabilize clusters with
low central entropies and short central cooling timescales. High central
entropy clusters have sufficiently long cooling times that conduction can help
stave off the cooling catastrophe for cosmologically interesting timescales.Comment: Submitted to ApJ, 14 pages, 14 figure
Chemical Composition, Antioxidant, and Antimicrobial Activities of Lichen Umbilicaria cylindrica (L.) Delise (Umbilicariaceae)
The phytochemical analysis of methanol and chloroform extracts of Umbilicaria cylindrica was determined by HPLC-UV method. The predominant phenolic compound in both extracts was depsidone, salazinic acid (1). Besides salazinic acid, the tested extracts of U. cylindrica contain norstictic acid (2), methyl-β-orcinol carboxylate (3), ethyl haematommate (4), atranorin (5), and usnic acid (6), in different amounts and relations. The lichen extracts showed comparable and strong antioxidant activity, exhibited higher DPPH and hydroxyl radical scavengings, chelating activity, and inhibitory activity towards lipid peroxidation. The lichen extracts demonstrated important antimicrobial activity against eight strains with MIC values from 15.62 to 62.50 μg/mL. This is the first report of the detail chemical composition and antioxidant activity of the lichen Umbilicaria cylindrica, and the results suggest that this lichen can be used as a new source of the natural antioxidants and the substances with antimicrobial features
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