7,559 research outputs found
Ports and Pests: Assessing the Threat of Aquatic Invasive Species Introduced by Maritime Shipping Activity in Cuba
Aquatic invasive species (AIS) are biological pollutants that cause detrimental ecological, economic, and human-health effects in their introduced communities. With increasing globalization through maritime trade, ports are vulnerable to AIS exposure via commercial vessels. The Cuban Port of Mariel is poised to become a competitive transshipment hub in the Caribbean and the intent of this study was to evaluate present and potential impacts AIS pose with the likely future increase in shipping activity. We utilized previous assessment frameworks and publicly accessible information to rank AIS by level of threat. Fifteen AIS were identified in Cuba and one, the Asian green mussel Perna viridis (Linnaeus, 1758), had repeated harmful economic impacts. Five species associated with trade partners of Port Mariel were considered potentially detrimental to Cuba if introduced through shipping routes. The results presented herein identify species of concern and emphasize the importance of prioritizing AIS prevention and management within Cuba
Design guide for high pressure oxygen systems
A repository for critical and important detailed design data and information, hitherto unpublished, along with significant data on oxygen reactivity phenomena with metallic and nonmetallic materials in moderate to very high pressure environments is documented. This data and information provide a ready and easy to use reference for the guidance of designers of propulsion, power, and life support systems for use in space flight. The document is also applicable to designs for industrial and civilian uses of high pressure oxygen systems. The information presented herein are derived from data and design practices involving oxygen usage at pressures ranging from about 20 psia to 8000 psia equal with thermal conditions ranging from room temperatures up to 500 F
Synthesis, Structure and Properties of Tetragonal Sr2M3As2O2 (M3 = Mn3, Mn2Cu and MnZn2) Compounds Containing Alternating CuO2-Type and FeAs-Type Layers
Polycrystalline samples of Sr2Mn2CuAs2O2, Sr2Mn3As2O2, and Sr2Zn2MnAs2O2 were
synthesized. Their temperature- and applied magnetic field-dependent
structural, transport, thermal, and magnetic properties were characterized by
means of x-ray and neutron diffraction, electrical resistivity rho, heat
capacity, magnetization and magnetic susceptibility measurements. These
compounds have a body-centered-tetragonal crystal structure (space group
I4/mmm) that consists of MO2 (M = Zn and/or Mn) oxide layers similar to the
CuO2 layers in high superconducting transition temperature Tc cuprate
superconductors, and intermetallic MAs (M = Cu and/or Mn) layers similar to the
FeAs layers in high-Tc pnictides. These two types of layers alternate along the
crystallographic c-axis and are separated by Sr atoms. The site occupancies of
Mn, Cu and Zn were studied using Rietveld refinements of x-ray and neutron
powder diffraction data. The temperature dependences of rho suggest metallic
character for Sr2Mn2CuAs2O2 and semiconducting character for Sr2Mn3As2O2 and
Sr2Zn2MnAs2O2. Sr2Mn2CuAs2O2 is inferred to be a ferrimagnet with a Curie
temperature TC = 95(1) K. Remarkably, we find that the magnetic ground state
structure changes from a G-type antiferromagnetic structure in Sr2Mn3As2O2 to
an A-type ferrimagnetic structure in Sr2Mn2CuAs2O2 in which the Mn ions in each
layer are ferromagnetically aligned, but are antiferromagnetically aligned
between layers.Comment: 18 pages, 16 figures, 6 tables; submitted to Phys. Rev.
Faint X-ray Sources in the Globular Cluster Terzan 5
We report our analysis of a Chandra X-ray observation of the rich globular
cluster Terzan 5, in which we detect 50 sources to a limiting 1.0-6 keV X-ray
luminosity of 3*10^{31} ergs/s within the half-mass radius of the cluster.
Thirty-three of these have L_X>10^{32} ergs/s, the largest number yet seen in
any globular cluster. In addition to the quiescent low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB,
identified by Wijnands et al.), another 12 relatively soft sources may be
quiescent LMXBs. We compare the X-ray colors of the harder sources in Terzan 5
to the Galactic Center sources studied by Muno and collaborators, and find the
Galactic Center sources to have harder X-ray colors, indicating a possible
difference in the populations. We cannot clearly identify a metallicity
dependence in the production of low-luminosity X-ray binaries in Galactic
globular clusters, but a metallicity dependence of the form suggested by Jordan
et al. for extragalactic LMXBs is consistent with our data.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures (3 color). Resubmitted to ApJ after
incorporating referee comments. v2: Added references to introductio
Flux pinning and phase separation in oxygen rich La2-xSrxCuO4+y system
We have studied the magnetic characteristics of a series of super-oxygenated
La2-xSrxCuO4+y samples. As shown in previous work, these samples spontaneously
phase separate into an oxygen rich superconducting phase with a TC near 40 K
and an oxygen poor magnetic phase that also orders near 40 K. All samples
studied are highly magnetically reversible even to low temperatures. Although
the internal magnetic regions of these samples might be expected to act as
pinning sites, our present study shows that they do not favor flux pinning.
Flux pinning requires a matching condition between the defect and the
superconducting coherence length. Thus, our results imply that the magnetic
regions are too large to act as pinning centers. This also implies that the
much greater flux pinning in typical La2-xSrxCuO4 materials is the result of
nanoscale inhomogeneities that grow to become the large magnetic regions in the
super-oxygenated materials. The superconducting regions of the phase separated
materials are in that sense cleaner and more homogenous than in the typical
cuprate superconductor.Comment: 4 figures 8 pages Submitted to PR
FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL POLICY AND FAR EAST FARM MARKETS
Agricultural and Food Policy,
Localization length in Dorokhov's microscopic model of multichannel wires
We derive exact quantum expressions for the localization length for
weak disorder in two- and three chain tight-binding systems coupled by random
nearest-neighbour interchain hopping terms and including random energies of the
atomic sites. These quasi-1D systems are the two- and three channel versions of
Dorokhov's model of localization in a wire of periodically arranged atomic
chains. We find that for the considered systems with
, where is Thouless' quantum expression for the inverse
localization length in a single 1D Anderson chain, for weak disorder. The
inverse localization length is defined from the exponential decay of the
two-probe Landauer conductance, which is determined from an earlier transfer
matrix solution of the Schr\"{o}dinger equation in a Bloch basis. Our exact
expressions above differ qualitatively from Dorokhov's localization length
identified as the length scaling parameter in his scaling description of the
distribution of the participation ratio. For N=3 we also discuss the case where
the coupled chains are arranged on a strip rather than periodically on a tube.
From the transfer matrix treatment we also obtain reflection coefficients
matrices which allow us to find mean free paths and to discuss their relation
to localization lengths in the two- and three channel systems
Localization fom conductance in few-channel disordered wires
We study localization in two- and three channel quasi-1D systems using
multichain tight-binding Anderson models with nearest-neighbour interchain
hopping. In the three chain case we discuss both the case of free- and that of
periodic boundary conditions between the chains. The finite disordered wires
are connected to ideal leads and the localization length is defined from the
Landauer conductance in terms of the transmission coefficients matrix. The
transmission- and reflection amplitudes in properly defined quantum channels
are obtained from S-matrices constructed from transfer matrices in Bloch wave
bases for the various quasi-1D systems. Our exact analytic expressions for
localization lengths for weak disorder reduce to the Thouless expression for 1D
systems in the limit of vanishing interchain hopping. For weak interchain
hopping the localization length decreases with respect to the 1D value in all
three cases. In the three-channel cases it increases with interchain hopping
over restricted domains of large hopping
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