Use of hydraulic rating to set environmental flows in the Zhangxi River, China

Ningbo city, China, is a rapidly growing residential and industrial centre, with a current population of 4 million. Its development has required a major water supply expansion programme providing 400,000 m3 of water per day from the upper reaches of the Zhangxi River by means of a cascade of reservoirs. Water resources management is achieved through operation of two major reservoirs, Jiaokou (75 million m3) and Zhougongzhai (93 million m3). Water is released from the reservoirs, via turbines (generating hydropower), for local industry, irrigated agriculture and public supply along the lower reaches of the River and to maintain the river ecosystem. Surveys of local residents along the Zhangxi River showed its important role in aspects of life, social activity, culture and leisure. Analysis of ecological monitoring data demonstrated the diverse nature of fish, plants and invertebrates within the river. Some elements of the ecosystem have a high local economic value to local people. This paper reports an assessment of the environmental flow needed to support key species in the river ecosystem. It employs hydraulic ratings to define sections of the river where flow velocity reaches 0.5 ms-1, required to stimulate spawning of the moonlight fish, an economically important and indicator species in the river. In two out of 6 cross-sections studied, flow releases from the reservoirs meet the needs of fish. The reservoirs reduce flood flows, which may lead to a loss of deep pools that are essential for the fish to survive during winter month

Electron energy loss and induced photon emission in photonic crystals

The interaction of a fast electron with a photonic crystal is investigated by solving the Maxwell equations exactly for the external field provided by the electron in the presence of the crystal. The energy loss is obtained from the retarding force exerted on the electron by the induced electric field. The features of the energy loss spectra are shown to be related to the photonic band structure of the crystal. Two different regimes are discussed: for small lattice constants $a$ relative to the wavelength of the associated electron excitations $\lambda$, an effective medium theory can be used to describe the material; however, for $a\sim\lambda$ the photonic band structure plays an important role. Special attention is paid to the frequency gap regions in the latter case.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Bs(d)0−Bˉs(d)0B^0_{s(d)} - \bar{B}^0_{s(d)} mixing and new physics effects in a top quark two-Higgs doublet model

We calculate the new physics contributions to the neutral $B_d^0$ and $B_s^0$ meson mass splitting $\Delta M_d$ and $\Delta M_s$ induced by the box diagrams involving the charged-Higgs bosons in the top quark two-Higgs doublet model (T2HDM). Using the precision data, we obtain the bounds on the parameter space of the T2HDM: (a) for fixed $M_H=400$ GeV and $\delta=[0^\circ,60^\circ]$, the upper bound on $\tan{\beta}$ is $\tan \beta \leq 30$ after the inclusion of major theoretical uncertainties; (b) for the case of $\tan{\beta} \leq 20$, a light charged Higgs boson with a mass around 300 GeV is allowed; and (c) the bounds on $\tan{\beta}$ and $M_H$ are strongly correlated: a smaller (larger) $\tan{\beta}$ means a lighter (heavier) charged Higgs boson.Comment: 11 pages, 2 EPS figures, RevTex, new references adde

Colliding Plane Waves in String Theory

We construct colliding plane wave solutions in higher dimensional gravity theory with dilaton and higher form flux, which appears naturally in the low energy theory of string theory. Especially, the role of the junction condition in constructing the solutions is emphasized. Our results not only include the previously known CPW solutions, but also provide a wide class of new solutions that is not known in the literature before. We find that late time curvature singularity is always developed for the solutions we obtained in this paper. This supports the generalized version of Tipler's theorem in higher dimensional supergravity.Comment: latex, 25 pages, 1 figur

Intelligent tracking control of a DC motor driver using self-organizing TSK type fuzzy neural networks

[[abstract]]In this paper, a self-organizing Takagi–Sugeno–Kang (TSK) type fuzzy neural network (STFNN) is proposed. The self-organizing approach demonstrates the property of automatically generating and pruning the fuzzy rules of STFNN without the preliminary knowledge. The learning algorithms not only extract the fuzzy rule of STFNN but also adjust the parameters of STFNN. Then, an adaptive self-organizing TSK-type fuzzy network controller (ASTFNC) system which is composed of a neural controller and a robust compensator is proposed. The neural controller uses an STFNN to approximate an ideal controller, and the robust compensator is designed to eliminate the approximation error in the Lyapunov stability sense without occurring chattering phenomena. Moreover, a proportional-integral (PI) type parameter tuning mechanism is derived to speed up the convergence rates of the tracking error. Finally, the proposed ASTFNC system is applied to a DC motor driver on a field-programmable gate array chip for low-cost and high-performance industrial applications. The experimental results verify the system stabilization and favorable tracking performance, and no chattering phenomena can be achieved by the proposed ASTFNC scheme.[[notice]]補正完畢[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]紙本[[booktype]]電子

Interpreting Helioseismic Structure Inversion Results of Solar Active Regions

Helioseismic techniques such as ring-diagram analysis have often been used to determine the subsurface structural differences between solar active and quiet regions. Results obtained by inverting the frequency differences between the regions are usually interpreted as the sound-speed differences between them. These in turn are used as a measure of temperature and magnetic-field strength differences between the two regions. In this paper we first show that the "sound-speed" difference obtained from inversions is actually a combination of sound-speed difference and a magnetic component. Hence, the inversion result is not directly related to the thermal structure. Next, using solar models that include magnetic fields, we develop a formulation to use the inversion results to infer the differences in the magnetic and thermal structures between active and quiet regions. We then apply our technique to existing structure inversion results for different pairs of active and quiet regions. We find that the effect of magnetic fields is strongest in a shallow region above 0.985R_sun and that the strengths of magnetic-field effects at the surface and in the deeper (r < 0.98R_sun) layers are inversely related, i.e., the stronger the surface magnetic field the smaller the magnetic effects in the deeper layers, and vice versa. We also find that the magnetic effects in the deeper layers are the strongest in the quiet regions, consistent with the fact that these are basically regions with weakest magnetic fields at the surface. Because the quiet regions were selected to precede or follow their companion active regions, the results could have implications about the evolution of magnetic fields under active regions.Comment: Accepted for publication in Solar Physic

Random and block copolymers of bioreducible poly(amido amine)s with high- and low-basicity amino groups: study of DNA condensation and buffer capacity on gene transfection

Poly(amido amine) (SS-PAA) random and block copolymers having bioreducible disulfide bonds in the main chain and amino groups with distinctly different basicity in the side chain were designed and synthesized by Michael addition polymerization between N, N′-cystaminebisacrylamide (CBA) and two amine monomers, i.e., histamine (HIS) and 3-(dimethylamino)-1-propylamine (DMPA). Copolymers containing variable HIS/DMPA ratios show higher ability to bind DNA than p(CBA-HIS) homopolymer and condense DNA into the polyplexes with particle sizes (< 150 nm) that are smaller than polyplexes of p(CBA-HIS) (not, vert, similar 220 nm). The buffer capacities of the copolymers increase with increasing HIS/DMPA ratio. These copolymers are able to transfect COS-7 cells in vitro with efficiencies that increase with increasing HIS/DMPA ratio. The random and block copolymers at a HIS/DMPA ratio of 70/30 combines optimal DNA condensation capability and buffer capacity, thereby inducing higher transfection efficiency in the absence and presence of serum as compared to p(CBA-HIS) homopolymer. Moreover, random and block copolymers show a similar transfection capacity, but both have higher capacity than the physical mixtures of p(CBA-HIS) and p(CBA-DMPA) homopolymers. XTT assay reveals that the polyplexes of the SS-PAA copolymers have essentially low cytotoxicity when the highest transfection activity is observed

Closed geodesics in Alexandrov spaces of curvature bounded from above

In this paper, we show a local energy convexity of $W^{1,2}$ maps into $CAT(K)$ spaces. This energy convexity allows us to extend Colding and Minicozzi's width-sweepout construction to produce closed geodesics in any closed Alexandrov space of curvature bounded from above, which also provides a generalized version of the Birkhoff-Lyusternik theorem on the existence of non-trivial closed geodesics in the Alexandrov setting.Comment: Final version, 22 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the Journal of Geometric Analysi