Motorized Throttle Plate

The objective of this project was to develop a throttle plate mechanism that can be used to simulate transient engine operation. This throttle plate was designed so as to regulate the quantity of air flow entering a Port Fuel Injected (PFI) spark ignition engine prior to the combustion of the fuel-air mixture. The throttle plate is linked to a data acquisition system in order to study the port fuel injection characteristics of the fuel-air mixture. This data acquisition system links the throttle plate angular position information to data obtained using a nonintrusive laser based diagnostic technique, therefore enabling the study of the effects of a transient throttle and injector

Universal trapping scaling on the unstable manifold for a collisionless electrostatic mode

An amplitude equation for an unstable mode in a collisionless plasma is derived from the dynamics on the two-dimensional unstable manifold of the equilibrium. The mode amplitude $\rho(t)$ decouples from the phase due to the spatial homogeneity of the equilibrium, and the resulting one-dimensional dynamics is analyzed using an expansion in $\rho$. As the linear growth rate $\gamma$ vanishes, the expansion coefficients diverge; a rescaling $\rho(t)\equiv\gamma^2\,r(\gamma t)$ of the mode amplitude absorbs these singularities and reveals that the mode electric field exhibits trapping scaling $|E_1|\sim\gamma^2$ as $\gamma\rightarrow0$. The dynamics for $r(\tau)$ depends only on the phase $e^{i\xi}$ where $d\epsilon_{{k}} /dz=|{\epsilon_{{k}}}|e^{-i\xi/2}$ is the derivative of the dielectric as $\gamma\rightarrow0$.Comment: 11 pages (Latex/RevTex), 2 figures available in hard copy from the Author ([email protected]); paper accepted by Physical Review Letter

Habitat Protection Under The Magnuson-Stevens Act: Can It Really Contribute To Ecosystem Health In The Northeast Atlantic?

New England’s legendary Atlantic cod fishery is in deep trouble. The cod, along with several additional fish species that make up New England’s groundfish fishery, remain critically depleted, and are at only a small fraction of healthy levels. In 2004, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC or Council) and the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) implemented the first comprehensive rebuilding program for groundfish in New England. This plan relies primarily on management measures designed to reduce fishing rates in order to end overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks. The most recent scientific review by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) released in 2005, however, showed that overfishing was still occurring on several groundfish species, including the Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine cod stocks. Their levels had plummeted another twenty-five and twenty-one percent respectively since the last comprehensive NEFSC review in 2001, leaving them at only ten and twenty-three percent of the target levels that scientists consider the minimum for health and sustainability. The continued depletion of New England’s critical groundfish populations is not only bad news for the fish, but also for coastal New England fishermen and their communities, who face economic hardship caused by regulators’ attempts to end overfishing. While ending overfishing is clearly a fundamental first step in addressing our fisheries problems, the healthy growth and development of juvenile fish is essential to rebuilding sustainable commercial fisheries and the healthy ecosystems fish require. Habitat is necessary to fish for food, shelter, and reproduction, and demersal (groundfish) juveniles are particularly dependent upon sea floor structure for predator evasion and energy conservation. Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated that many different types of fishing gear—especially bottom trawls and dredges but also gillnets, traps, longlines and other gear—degrade critical fish habitat which can lead to declines in fish populations. As a result, certain fishing gear should be restricted in sensitive habitat areas to protect juvenile fish habitat and to help ensure that marine fish populations are restored to healthy levels for years to come. Ten years after the Sustainable Fisheries Act was enacted in 1996 to strengthen the conservation provisions of our nation’s fisheries law, protections for Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) from harmful fishing practices remain inadequate. Over this time period, the NEFMC, like most of our nation’s fishery management councils, has demonstrated all the classic failures of protecting habitat by hiding behind scientific uncertainty, maintaining that existing management measures are sufficient, limiting prohibitions of destructive gear to where it currently is not a threat, and providing limited protection for some of the most vulnerable habitat types while ignoring other important areas. The NEFMC itself appears to recognize that it has fallen short in fulfilling the conservation promise offered in the habitat provisions added by the Sustainable Fisheries Act. The NEFMC is currently developing an omnibus habitat amendment designed to review and update its EFH designations and to consider new actions designed to protect habitat. Recently, in response to a request for proposals to identify habitat areas of particular concern in New England waters, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and World Wildlife Fund-Canada (WWF-Canada) developed an innovative new strategy to restore New England’s depleted cod and other groundfish populations. These groups proposed creating a network of Habitat Areas of Particular Concern (HAPC), locations where large concentrations of young fish from eight struggling, overfished species, such as Atlantic cod, hake, and yellowtail flounder live (the Multi-species HAPC proposal). With the aid of a powerful computer modeling tool, the groups generated a unique, objective, and science-based proposal that seeks to restore and protect areas that provide critical habitat for many species at the same time, thus keeping the number of isolated habitat sites to a minimum. If implemented, the result would be an efficient system that conserves critical areas with large numbers of juvenile fish while minimizing the impacts to U.S. and Canadian fishermen. Unfortunately, when called upon to recognize the areas identified in the Multi-species HAPC proposal as HAPCs and to take action to protect them, the NEFMC abruptly set the proposal aside despite the strong support of the leading habitat scientists advising the Council. This rejection by the Council, which is overseeing the demise of one of the world’s legendary fishing grounds, is especially frustrating given modern scientific understanding of the value of habitat protection as the key component of ecological health. This rejection calls into question whether the Magnuson- Stevens Act’s habitat provisions are an adequate tool to help stop the decline of our ocean ecosystems and for restoring such ecosystems to a reasonable approximation of what they once were. This Article looks at the implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s habitat provisions through the prism of the New England groundfish fishery. The fisheries of the Northwest Atlantic, under the oversight of the NEFMC, have played a pivotal role as case studies for Congress throughout the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s history. Examining the New England fishery allows us to evaluate where managers have delivered on the Act’s habitat conservation promises, where they have fallen short, and where one might look to begin to chart a better course for the health of our oceans. The Council’s failures also help bring into focus the need for new tools for restoring and protecting ecological health, the need for reform of the nation’s fishery management councils, and the need for a broader approach to ocean governance

Habitat Protection Under The Magnuson-Stevens Act: Can It Really Contribute To Ecosystem Health In The Northeast Atlantic?

New England’s legendary Atlantic cod fishery is in deep trouble. The cod, along with several additional fish species that make up New England’s groundfish fishery, remain critically depleted, and are at only a small fraction of healthy levels. In 2004, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC or Council) and the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) implemented the first comprehensive rebuilding program for groundfish in New England. This plan relies primarily on management measures designed to reduce fishing rates in order to end overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks. The most recent scientific review by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) released in 2005, however, showed that overfishing was still occurring on several groundfish species, including the Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine cod stocks. Their levels had plummeted another twenty-five and twenty-one percent respectively since the last comprehensive NEFSC review in 2001, leaving them at only ten and twenty-three percent of the target levels that scientists consider the minimum for health and sustainability. The continued depletion of New England’s critical groundfish populations is not only bad news for the fish, but also for coastal New England fishermen and their communities, who face economic hardship caused by regulators’ attempts to end overfishing. While ending overfishing is clearly a fundamental first step in addressing our fisheries problems, the healthy growth and development of juvenile fish is essential to rebuilding sustainable commercial fisheries and the healthy ecosystems fish require. Habitat is necessary to fish for food, shelter, and reproduction, and demersal (groundfish) juveniles are particularly dependent upon sea floor structure for predator evasion and energy conservation. Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated that many different types of fishing gear—especially bottom trawls and dredges but also gillnets, traps, longlines and other gear—degrade critical fish habitat which can lead to declines in fish populations. As a result, certain fishing gear should be restricted in sensitive habitat areas to protect juvenile fish habitat and to help ensure that marine fish populations are restored to healthy levels for years to come. Ten years after the Sustainable Fisheries Act was enacted in 1996 to strengthen the conservation provisions of our nation’s fisheries law, protections for Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) from harmful fishing practices remain inadequate. Over this time period, the NEFMC, like most of our nation’s fishery management councils, has demonstrated all the classic failures of protecting habitat by hiding behind scientific uncertainty, maintaining that existing management measures are sufficient, limiting prohibitions of destructive gear to where it currently is not a threat, and providing limited protection for some of the most vulnerable habitat types while ignoring other important areas. The NEFMC itself appears to recognize that it has fallen short in fulfilling the conservation promise offered in the habitat provisions added by the Sustainable Fisheries Act. The NEFMC is currently developing an omnibus habitat amendment designed to review and update its EFH designations and to consider new actions designed to protect habitat. Recently, in response to a request for proposals to identify habitat areas of particular concern in New England waters, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and World Wildlife Fund-Canada (WWF-Canada) developed an innovative new strategy to restore New England’s depleted cod and other groundfish populations. These groups proposed creating a network of Habitat Areas of Particular Concern (HAPC), locations where large concentrations of young fish from eight struggling, overfished species, such as Atlantic cod, hake, and yellowtail flounder live (the Multi-species HAPC proposal). With the aid of a powerful computer modeling tool, the groups generated a unique, objective, and science-based proposal that seeks to restore and protect areas that provide critical habitat for many species at the same time, thus keeping the number of isolated habitat sites to a minimum. If implemented, the result would be an efficient system that conserves critical areas with large numbers of juvenile fish while minimizing the impacts to U.S. and Canadian fishermen. Unfortunately, when called upon to recognize the areas identified in the Multi-species HAPC proposal as HAPCs and to take action to protect them, the NEFMC abruptly set the proposal aside despite the strong support of the leading habitat scientists advising the Council. This rejection by the Council, which is overseeing the demise of one of the world’s legendary fishing grounds, is especially frustrating given modern scientific understanding of the value of habitat protection as the key component of ecological health. This rejection calls into question whether the Magnuson- Stevens Act’s habitat provisions are an adequate tool to help stop the decline of our ocean ecosystems and for restoring such ecosystems to a reasonable approximation of what they once were. This Article looks at the implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s habitat provisions through the prism of the New England groundfish fishery. The fisheries of the Northwest Atlantic, under the oversight of the NEFMC, have played a pivotal role as case studies for Congress throughout the Magnuson-Stevens Act’s history. Examining the New England fishery allows us to evaluate where managers have delivered on the Act’s habitat conservation promises, where they have fallen short, and where one might look to begin to chart a better course for the health of our oceans. The Council’s failures also help bring into focus the need for new tools for restoring and protecting ecological health, the need for reform of the nation’s fishery management councils, and the need for a broader approach to ocean governance

Financing in the United States capital market: Accounting and reporting considerations for foreign issuers;

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/dl_dhs/1051/thumbnail.jp

Scaling and singularities in the entrainment of globally-coupled oscillators

The onset of collective behavior in a population of globally coupled oscillators with randomly distributed frequencies is studied for phase dynamical models with arbitrary coupling. The population is described by a Fokker-Planck equation for the distribution of phases which includes the diffusive effect of noise in the oscillator frequencies. The bifurcation from the phase-incoherent state is analyzed using amplitude equations for the unstable modes with particular attention to the dependence of the nonlinearly saturated mode $|\alpha_\infty|$ on the linear growth rate $\gamma$. In general we find $|\alpha_\infty|\sim \sqrt{\gamma(\gamma+l^2D)}$ where $D$ is the diffusion coefficient and $l$ is the mode number of the unstable mode. The unusual $(\gamma+l^2D)$ factor arises from a singularity in the cubic term of the amplitude equation.Comment: 11 pages (Revtex); paper submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

A Strategic Approach to Agricultural Research Program Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa

Recent studies have shown that agricultural research can have high payoffs in Africa, but impact depends on how well technology fits with evolving needs and capacity in the agricultural sector and the rest of the economy. Structural adjustment policies (e.g., market liberalization, currency devaluation) and political change are transforming user demands for new technology and the economic environment in which technology must perform. The challenge is how to design agricultural research as a strategic input to promote broad-based economic growth, structural transformation, and food security in the increasingly market-driven, but fragile, economies of Africa.Food Security, Food Policy, Agricultural Research, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Downloads May 2008-July 2009: 44, Q18,

A Strategic Approach to Agricultural Research Program Planning in Sub-Saharan Africa

Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Downloads May 2008-July 2009: 13,

Nonlinear saturation of electrostatic waves: mobile ions modify trapping scaling

The amplitude equation for an unstable electrostatic wave in a multi-species Vlasov plasma has been derived. The dynamics of the mode amplitude $\rho(t)$ is studied using an expansion in $\rho$; in particular, in the limit $\gamma\rightarrow0^+$, the singularities in the expansion coefficients are analyzed to predict the asymptotic dependence of the electric field on the linear growth rate $\gamma$. Generically $|E_k|\sim \gamma^{5/2}$, as $\gamma\rightarrow0^+$, but in the limit of infinite ion mass or for instabilities in reflection-symmetric systems due to real eigenvalues the more familiar trapping scaling $|E_k|\sim \gamma^{2}$ is predicted.Comment: 13 pages (Latex/RevTex), 4 postscript encapsulated figures which are included using the utility "uufiles". They should be automatically included with the text when it is downloaded. Figures also available in hard copy from the authors ([email protected]

Differential gene expression in multiple neurological, inflammatory and connective tissue pathways in a spontaneous model of human small vessel stroke

Aims: Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) causes a fifth of all strokes plus diffuse brain damage leading to cognitive decline, physical disabilities and dementia. The aetiology and pathogenesis of SVD are unknown, but largely attributed to hypertension or microatheroma. Methods: We used the spontaneously hypertensive stroke-prone rat (SHRSP), the closest spontaneous experimental model of human SVD, and age-matched control rats kept under identical, non-salt-loaded conditions, to perform a blinded analysis of mRNA microarray, qRT-PCRand pathway analysis in two brain regions (frontal and midcoronal) commonly affected by SVD in the SHRSP at age five, 16 and 21 weeks. Results: We found gene expression abnormalities, with fold changes ranging from 2.5 to 59 for the 10 most differentially expressed genes, related to endothelial tight junctions (reduced), nitric oxide bioavailability (reduced), myelination (impaired), glial and microglial activity (increased), matrix proteins (impaired), vascular reactivity (impaired) and albumin (reduced), consistent with protein expression defects in the same rats. All were present at age 5 weeks thus pre-dating blood pressure elevation. ‘Neurological’ and ‘inflammatory’ pathways were more affected than ‘vascular’ functional pathways. Conclusions: This set of defects, although individually modest, when acting in combination could explain the SHRSP's susceptibility to microvascular and brain injury, compared with control rats. Similar combined, individually modest, but multiple neurovascular unit defects, could explain susceptibility to spontaneous human SVD