Water resource problems of energy projects in the Colorado River Basin

The successful development of western coal and oil shale deposits is dependent, to a significant degree, on the availability of adequate water supplies. EQL is involved in a study of the aggregate effects of various energy activities in the upper Colorado River Basin on downstream water quantity and quality. These activities will tend to reduce the available water in the river, and could increase its salinity, which is already so high as to interfere with downstream domestic and agricultural use

Surface Operators in N=2 Abelian Gauge Theory

We generalise the analysis in [arXiv:0904.1744] to superspace, and explicitly prove that for any embedding of surface operators in a general, twisted N=2 pure abelian theory on an arbitrary four-manifold, the parameters transform naturally under the SL(2,Z) duality of the theory. However, for nontrivially-embedded surface operators, exact S-duality holds if and only if the "quantum" parameter effectively vanishes, while the overall SL(2,Z) duality holds up to a c-number at most, regardless. Nevertheless, this observation sets the stage for a physical proof of a remarkable mathematical result by Kronheimer and Mrowka--that expresses a "ramified" analog of the Donaldson invariants solely in terms of the ordinary Donaldson invariants--which, will appear, among other things, in forthcoming work. As a prelude to that, the effective interaction on the corresponding u-plane will be computed. In addition, the dependence on second Stiefel-Whitney classes and the appearance of a Spin^c structure in the associated low-energy Seiberg-Witten theory with surface operators, will also be demonstrated. In the process, we will stumble upon an interesting phase factor that is otherwise absent in the "unramified" case.Comment: 46 pages. Minor refinemen

Variations in coastal temperatures on the southern and central California coast

The results of a time series analysis of several years of coastal ocean temperature records are presented for discussion. The records have been analyzed by using digital filtering, covariance and spectral analysis. The low-frequency component of the temperature signal shows a strong seasonal component in southern California. There is little seasonal fluctuation between Point Conception and Pacific Grove. A period of midwinter warming is apparent in southern California. Intermediate frequency components show strong correlations in southern California with the presence of distinct and substantial temperature events occurring almost simultaneously over distances of the order of 200 km. High-frequency components have a large standard deviation in summer (0.8°C) and a low standard deviation in winter (0.4°C); these components are uncorrelated at stations even a few miles apart. Some coastal stations show a strong possible diurnal component; others, including the offshore islands, show no such components. Morro Bay appears to have an extraordinarily large diurnal component of temperature fluctuation. No attempt has been made in this paper to relate these phenomena to other oceanographic or meteorological variables

Extremely high room-temperature two-dimensional hole gas mobility in Ge/Si0.33Ge0.67/Si(001) p-type modulation-doped heterostructures

To extract the room-temperature drift mobility and sheet carrier density of two-dimensional hole gas (2DHG) that form in Ge strained channels of various thicknesses in Ge/Si0.33Ge0.67/Si(001) p-type modulation-doped heterostructures, the magnetic field dependences of the magnetoresistance and Hall resistance at temperature of 295 K were measured and the technique of maximum entropy mobility spectrum analysis was applied. This technique allows a unique determination of mobility and sheet carrier density of each group of carriers present in parallel conducting multilayers semiconductor heterostructures. Extremely high room-temperature drift mobility (at sheet carrier density) of 2DHG 2940 cm2 V–1 s–1 (5.11×1011 cm–2) was obtained in a sample with a 20 nm thick Ge strained channel

Interpretations of results from hydraulic modeling of thermal outfall diffusers for the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant

This report presents and interpretation of results obtained during the hydraulic model study previously documented in "Hydraulic Modeling of Thermal Outfall Diffusers for the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant" which described the hydraulic laboratory studies conducted to investigate outfall configurations for the thermal discharge from proposed Units 2 and 3 at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, jointly owned by the Southern California Edison Company and San Diego Gas and Electric Company. A number of different experimental investigations were performed to develop the conceptual design for the new Units 2 and 3 discharge diffusers. The primary reason for the investigations was the new California thermal standards (essentially ambient temperature increment less than 4°F), which in effect precluded the use of shoreline or single outlet discharges for new units and necessitated the use of multiport diffusers. The result of the investigations of different diffuser concepts was the establishment of a preliminary design for the discharge structures for Units 2 and 3, each consisting of a diffuser 2500 ft long containing 76 discharge nozzles with a nominal discharge velocity of 13 ft/sec. This preliminary design was later modified somewhat by the engineers of the Southern California Edison Company (SCE) in consideration of other factors such as structural requirements, cost, construction problems, and more accurate bathymetric details at the site. As a result the final design for each diffuser contains 63 discharge ports of diameters varying from 21.85 to 23.9 inches. The discharge ports are nozzle-riser assemblies at alternate angles of ±25° with respect to the longitudinal axis of the diffuser and 20° up from horizontal. The nozzles are positioned approximately 6 ft from the ocean bottom. The diffusers are aligned perpendicular to shore and extend from approximately 3500 ft to 8500 ft offshore. The performance of the final diffuser design was evaluated in a series of confirming tests. The major results will be summarized and discussed in section 3 of this report. Sections 3 and 4 will also include projections and elaborations on several aspects of the diffuser performance to be expected in the prototype. The possible interactions of the proposed diffuser operation with existing site factors such as ocean currents, water temperature, heat losses, and the existing power plant (Unit 1) will also be discussed in section 4

Inward Leakage in Tight-Fitting PAPRs

A combination of local flow measurement techniques and fog flow visualization was used to determine the inward leakage for two tight-fitting powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs), the 3M Breathe-Easy PAPR and the SE 400 breathing demand PAPR. The PAPRs were mounted on a breathing machine head form, and flows were measured from the blower and into the breathing machine. Both respirators leaked a little at the beginning of inhalation, probably through their exhalation valves. In both cases, the leakage was not enough for fog to appear at the mouth of the head form

Janus and Multifaced Supersymmetric Theories

We investigate the various properties Janus supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories. A novel vacuum structure is found and BPS monopoles and dyons are studied. Less supersymmetric Janus theories found before are derived by a simpler method. In addition, we find the supersymmetric theories when the coupling constant depends on two and three spatial coordinates.Comment: 20 pages, no figures, typos, equations corrected. Additional comment

Statistical Basis for Predicting Technological Progress

Forecasting technological progress is of great interest to engineers, policy makers, and private investors. Several models have been proposed for predicting technological improvement, but how well do these models perform? An early hypothesis made by Theodore Wright in 1936 is that cost decreases as a power law of cumulative production. An alternative hypothesis is Moore's law, which can be generalized to say that technologies improve exponentially with time. Other alternatives were proposed by Goddard, Sinclair et al., and Nordhaus. These hypotheses have not previously been rigorously tested. Using a new database on the cost and production of 62 different technologies, which is the most expansive of its kind, we test the ability of six different postulated laws to predict future costs. Our approach involves hindcasting and developing a statistical model to rank the performance of the postulated laws. Wright's law produces the best forecasts, but Moore's law is not far behind. We discover a previously unobserved regularity that production tends to increase exponentially. A combination of an exponential decrease in cost and an exponential increase in production would make Moore's law and Wright's law indistinguishable, as originally pointed out by Sahal. We show for the first time that these regularities are observed in data to such a degree that the performance of these two laws is nearly tied. Our results show that technological progress is forecastable, with the square root of the logarithmic error growing linearly with the forecasting horizon at a typical rate of 2.5% per year. These results have implications for theories of technological change, and assessments of candidate technologies and policies for climate change mitigation