Streamwise forced oscillations of circular and square cylinders

The modification of a cylinder wake by streamwise oscillation of the cylinder at the vortex shedding frequency of the unperturbed cylinder is reported. Recent numerical simulations [J. S. Leontini, D. Lo Jacono, and M. C. Thompson, “A numerical study of an inline oscillating cylinder in a free stream,” J. Fluid Mech. 688, 551–568 (2011)] showed that this forcing results in the primary frequency decreasing proportionally to the square of the forcing amplitude, before locking to a subharmonic at higher amplitudes. The experimental results presented here show that this behavior continues at higher Reynolds numbers, although the flow is three-dimensional. In addition, it is shown that this behavior persists when the body is a square cross section, and when the frequency of forcing is detuned from the unperturbed cylinder shedding frequency. The similarity of the results across Reynolds number, geometry, and frequency suggests that the physical mechanism is applicable to periodic forcing of the classic von Ka ́rma ́n vortex street, regardless of the details of the body which forms the street

Non-Scissors-Mode Behaviour of Isovector Magnetic Dipole Orbital Transitions Involving Isospin Transfer

We study the response of isovector orbital magnetic dipole (IOMD) transitions to the quadrupole-quadrupole ($Q \cdot Q$) interaction, to the isospin-conserving pairing interaction (ICP) and to combinations of both. We find qualitatively different behaviours for transitions in which the final isospin differs from the initial isospin versus cases where the two isospins are the same. For $N=Z$ even-even nuclei with $J^{\pi}=0^+, T=0$ ground states such as $^8Be$ and $^{20}Ne$, the summed $T=0 \to T=1$ IOMD from the ground state to all the $J=1, T=1$ states in the $0 \hbar \omega$ space does not vanish when the $Q \cdot Q$ interaction is turned off. The pairing interaction (ICP) alone leads to a finite transition rate. For nuclei with $J=0^+, T=1$ ground states such as $^{10}Be$ and $^{22}Ne$, the summed $T=1 \to T=1$ IOMD $does$ vanish when the $Q \cdot Q$ interaction is turned off, as is expected in a good scissors-mode behaviour. However this is not the case for the corresponding sum of the $T=1 \to T=2$ IOMD transitions. In $^{22}Ne$ (but not in $^{10}Be$) the sum of the $T=1 \to T=2$ IOMD transitions is remarkably insensitive to the strengths of both the $Q \cdot Q$ and the ICP interactions. In $^{22}Ne$ an energy weighted-sum is similarly insensitive. All our calculations were carried out in the $0 \hbar \omega$ space.Comment: 19 pages (including 5 figures). submitted to Nucl. Phys.

Measuring primordial non-Gaussianity through weak lensing peak counts

We explore the possibility of detecting primordial non-Gaussianity of the local type using weak lensing peak counts. We measure the peak abundance in sets of simulated weak lensing maps corresponding to three models f_NL={0, +100, -100}. Using survey specifications similar to those of Euclid and without assuming any knowledge of the lens and source redshifts, we find the peak functions of the non-Gaussian models with f_NL=+-100 to differ by up to 15% from the Gaussian peak function at the high-mass end. For the assumed survey parameters, the probability of fitting an f_NL=0 peak function to the f_NL=+-100 peak functions is less than 0.1%. Assuming the other cosmological parameters known, f_NL can be measured with an error \Delta f_NL ~ 13. It is therefore possible that future weak lensing surveys like Euclid and LSST may detect primordial non-Gaussianity from the abundance of peak counts, and provide complementary information to that obtained from the cosmic microwave background.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Visible Volume: a Robust Measure for Protein Structure Characterization

We propose a new characterization of protein structure based on the natural tetrahedral geometry of the β carbon and a new geometric measure of structural similarity, called visible volume. In our model, the side-chains are replaced by an ideal tetrahedron, the orientation of which is fixed with respect to the backbone and corresponds to the preferred rotamer directions. Visible volume is a measure of the non-occluded empty space surrounding each residue position after the side-chains have been removed. It is a robust, parameter-free, locally-computed quantity that accounts for many of the spatial constraints that are of relevance to the corresponding position in the native structure. When computing visible volume, we ignore the nature of both the residue observed at each site and the ones surrounding it. We focus instead on the space that, together, these residues could occupy. By doing so, we are able to quantify a new kind of invariance beyond the apparent variations in protein families, namely, the conservation of the physical space available at structurally equivalent positions for side-chain packing. Corresponding positions in native structures are likely to be of interest in protein structure prediction, protein design, and homology modeling. Visible volume is related to the degree of exposure of a residue position and to the actual rotamers in native proteins. In this article, we discuss the properties of this new measure, namely, its robustness with respect to both crystallographic uncertainties and naturally occurring variations in atomic coordinates, and the remarkable fact that it is essentially independent of the choice of the parameters used in calculating it. We also show how visible volume can be used to align protein structures, to identify structurally equivalent positions that are conserved in a family of proteins, and to single out positions in a protein that are likely to be of biological interest. These properties qualify visible volume as a powerful tool in a variety of applications, from the detailed analysis of protein structure to homology modeling, protein structural alignment, and the definition of better scoring functions for threading purposes.National Library of Medicine (LM05205-13

Development of a Dairy Management Information Web Site

The Dairy Manager Web site was developed to provide producers access to current, reliable management information. The site is designed for efficient use by the producer or county Extension educator and contains compiled, reviewed, specific, and current dairy management information. The site is updated frequently and a panel of experts in various fields related to dairy production and management review the material prior to posting to the Web site

Eight Lightweight Usable Security Principles for Developers

We propose eight usable security principles that provide software developers with a lightweight framework to help them integrate security in a user-friendly way. These principles should help developers who must weigh usability and security tradeoffs to facilitate adoption

Noisy Preprocessing and the Distillation of Private States

We provide a simple security proof for prepare & measure quantum key distribution protocols employing noisy processing and one-way postprocessing of the key. This is achieved by showing that the security of such a protocol is equivalent to that of an associated key distribution protocol in which, instead of the usual maximally-entangled states, a more general {\em private state} is distilled. Besides a more general target state, the usual entanglement distillation tools are employed (in particular, Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS)-like codes), with the crucial difference that noisy processing allows some phase errors to be left uncorrected without compromising the privacy of the key.Comment: 4 pages, to appear in Physical Review Letters. Extensively rewritten, with a more detailed discussion of coherent --> iid reductio