819 research outputs found
Modelling hazardous distances for large-scale liquid hydrogen pool releases
Abstract An analysis has been carried out using a CFD model (FLACS) to simulate large-scale liquid hydrogen (LH2) pool releases to examine their behaviour and predict the LH2 pool size, downwind hazardous distance, and flammable mass of the hydrogen-air clouds formed for different environmental conditions and release scenarios. The FLACS pool model reproduces similar qualitative trends with regard to the effect of spill rate, spill duration and wind speed on the flammable cloud extent to those observed in the NASA WSTF experimental tests, although significant quantitative differences in the results are also apparent. FLACS simulations were also performed for a number of different transient and continuous LH2 spill release rates to predict the maximum downwind hazardous distances as a function of the LH2 spill release rate. The results are intended to assist with assessing the safety of future LH2 aircraft and airport LH2 storage facilities, being considered as part of the EU ENABLEH2 project
The challenges of titanium metal injection moulding
Published ArticleTitanium has fired the imagination of engineers and designers for decades by its 'ideal' combination of high strength, low density and good corrosion resistance. However, its application has unfortunately been limited to those niche markets where performance is more important than cost, such as in the aerospace, military, medical and off-shore oil drilling fields. Extensive efforts have been and still are being expended on ways to make this metal cheaper. There are promising new processes but these have yet to be demonstrated commercially. Nevertheless, there has been a global surge in interest in titanium over the past decade, and in South Africa the government has recently made this a particular focus for research and development funding. With the increased availability of higher quality titanium powder, metal injection moulding offers an attractive method for producing small, intricate components at a reasonable cost. This paper will present an overview of the metal injection moulding process and discuss the particular challenges related to the use of titanium and titanium alloy powders. The state of the global and local industry and markets will also be reviewed
Geographic Variation In Resource Dominance Discovery In Brazilian Ant Communities
A predictive framework for the ecology of species invasions requires that we learn what limits successful invaders in their native range. The red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) is invasive in the United States, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, and China, Solenopsis invicta appears to be a superior competitor in its introduced range, where it can cause the local extirpation of native species, but little is known about its competitive ability in its native range in South America. Here we examine the competitive ability of S. invicta for food resources in three widely separated Brazilian ant communities. Each of these communities contains 20-40 ant species, 8-10 of which were common and frequently interacted with S. invicta. S. invicta at all three sites was attacked by several species-specific phorid parasitoids, and at one site, two other species were attacked by their own specialized parasitoids. We examined interactions in these local communities for evidence that trade-offs among ant species between resource dominance and resource discovery, and between resource dominance and parasitoid vulnerability facilitate local coexistence. The trade-off between resource dominance and resource discovery was strong and significant only at Santa Genebra, where parasitoids had no effect on the outcome of confrontations at resources. At Bonito, parasitoids significantly reduced the ability of S. invicta, which was the top-ranked behavioral dominant, from defending and usurping food resources from subordinate species. In the Pantanal, S. invicta ranked behind three other ant species in a linear hierarchy of behavioral dominance, and lost the majority of its interactions with a fourth more subordinate species, Paratrechina fulva, another invasive species. 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Optimising a nonlinear utility function in multi-objective integer programming
In this paper we develop an algorithm to optimise a nonlinear utility
function of multiple objectives over the integer efficient set. Our approach is
based on identifying and updating bounds on the individual objectives as well
as the optimal utility value. This is done using already known solutions,
linear programming relaxations, utility function inversion, and integer
programming. We develop a general optimisation algorithm for use with k
objectives, and we illustrate our approach using a tri-objective integer
programming problem.Comment: 11 pages, 2 tables; v3: minor revisions, to appear in Journal of
Global Optimizatio
Aldehyde dehydrogenase-1a1 induces oncogene suppressor genes in B cell populations
AbstractThe deregulation of B cell differentiation has been shown to contribute to autoimmune disorders, hematological cancers, and aging. We provide evidence that the retinoic acid-producing enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase 1a1 (Aldh1a1) is an oncogene suppressor in specific splenic IgG1+/CD19− and IgG1+/CD19+ B cell populations. Aldh1a1 regulated transcription factors during B cell differentiation in a sequential manner: 1) retinoic acid receptor alpha (Rara) in IgG1+/CD19− and 2) zinc finger protein Zfp423 and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (Pparg) in IgG1+/CD19+ splenocytes. In Aldh1a1−/− mice, splenic IgG1+/CD19− and IgG1+/CD19+ B cells acquired expression of proto-oncogenic genes c-Fos, c-Jun, and Hoxa10 that resulted in splenomegaly. Human multiple myeloma B cell lines also lack Aldh1a1 expression; however, ectopic Aldh1a1 expression rescued Rara and Znf423 expressions in these cells. Our data highlight a mechanism by which an enzyme involved in vitamin A metabolism can improve B cell resistance to oncogenesis
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Coherent transition radiation produced by a 1.2 MeV electron beam
We describe a method of generating very high-frequency coherent radiation using an electron beam source with a maximum beam energy of 1.2 MeV. We show that, though the high frequency cutoff for the radiation generated when the beam impacts a target at normal incidence is reduced by transverse beam size effects, it is nevertheless possible to generate much higher frequencies by a judicious choice of the angles of incidence and observation. 5 refs., 4 figs., 1 tab
An entangled two photon source using biexciton emission of an asymmetric quantum dot in a cavity
A semiconductor based scheme has been proposed for generating entangled
photon pairs from the radiative decay of an electrically-pumped biexciton in a
quantum dot. Symmetric dots produce polarisation entanglement, but
experimentally-realised asymmetric dots produce photons entangled in both
polarisation and frequency. In this work, we investigate the possibility of
erasing the `which-path' information contained in the frequencies of the
photons produced by asymmetric quantum dots to recover polarisation-entangled
photons. We consider a biexciton with non-degenerate intermediate excitonic
states in a leaky optical cavity with pairs of degenerate cavity modes close to
the non-degenerate exciton transition frequencies. An open quantum system
approach is used to compute the polarisation entanglement of the two-photon
state after it escapes from the cavity, measured by the visibility of
two-photon interference fringes. We explicitly relate the two-photon visibility
to the degree of Bell-inequality violation, deriving a threshold at which
Bell-inequality violations will be observed. Our results show that an ideal
cavity will produce maximally polarisation-entangled photon pairs, and even a
non-ideal cavity will produce partially entangled photon pairs capable of
violating a Bell-inequality.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, submitted to PR
Helioseismic Holography of an Artificial Submerged Sound Speed Perturbation and Implications for the Detection of Pre-Emergence Signatures of Active Regions
We use a publicly available numerical wave-propagation simulation of Hartlep
et al. 2011 to test the ability of helioseismic holography to detect signatures
of a compact, fully submerged, 5% sound-speed perturbation placed at a depth of
50 Mm within a solar model. We find that helioseismic holography as employed in
a nominal "lateral-vantage" or "deep-focus" geometry employing quadrants of an
annular pupil is capable of detecting and characterizing the perturbation. A
number of tests of the methodology, including the use of a plane-parallel
approximation, the definition of travel-time shifts, the use of different
phase-speed filters, and changes to the pupils, are also performed. It is found
that travel-time shifts made using Gabor-wavelet fitting are essentially
identical to those derived from the phase of the Fourier transform of the
cross-covariance functions. The errors in travel-time shifts caused by the
plane-parallel approximation can be minimized to less than a second for the
depths and fields of view considered here. Based on the measured strength of
the mean travel-time signal of the perturbation, no substantial improvement in
sensitivity is produced by varying the analysis procedure from the nominal
methodology in conformance with expectations. The measured travel-time shifts
are essentially unchanged by varying the profile of the phase-speed filter or
omitting the filter entirely. The method remains maximally sensitive when
applied with pupils that are wide quadrants, as opposed to narrower quadrants
or with pupils composed of smaller arcs. We discuss the significance of these
results for the recent controversy regarding suspected pre-emergence signatures
of active regions
Eye-movements reveal attention to social information in autism spectrum disorder
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition in which children show reduced attention to social aspects of the environment. However in adults with ASD, evidence for social attentional deficits is equivocal. One problem is that many paradigms present social information in an unrealistic, isolated way. This study presented adults and adolescents, with and without ASD, with a complex social scene alongside another, non-social scene, and measured eye-movements during a 3-s viewing period. Analyses first identified viewing time to different regions and then investigated some more complex issues. These were: the location of the very first fixation in a trial (indicating attentional priority); the effect of a task instruction on scan paths; the extent to which gaze-following was evident; and the degree to which participants’ scan paths were influenced by the low-level properties of a scene. Results indicate a superficially normal attentional preference for social information in adults with ASD. However, more sensitive measures show that ASD does entail social attention problems across the lifespan, supporting accounts of the disorder which emphasise lifelong neurodevelopmental atypicalities. These subtle abnormalities may be sufficient to produce serious difficulties in real-life scenarios
Core Structure of Global Vortices in Brane World Models
We study analytically and numerically the core structure of global vortices
forming on topologically deformed brane-worlds with a single toroidally compact
extra dimension. It is shown that for an extra dimension size larger than the
scale of symmetry breaking the magnitude of the complex scalar field at the
vortex center can dynamically remain non-zero. Singlevaluedness and regularity
are not violated. Instead, the winding escapes to the extra dimension at the
vortex center. As the extra dimension size decreases the field magnitude at the
core dynamically decreases also and in the limit of zero extra dimension size
we reobtain the familiar global vortex solution. Extensions to other types of
defects and gauged symmetries are also discussed.Comment: 6 two column pages, 3 figure
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