9,771 research outputs found
Hypervelocity impact facility for simulating materials exposure to impact by space debris
As a result of man's venturing into space, the local debris contributed by his presence exceeds, at some orbital altitudes, that of the natural component. Man's contribution ranges from fuel residue to large derelect satellites that weigh many kilograms. Current debris models are able to predict the growth of the problem and suggest that spacecraft must employ armor or bumper shields for some orbital altitudes now, and that, the problem will become worse as a function of time. The practical upper limit to the velocity distribution is on the order of 40 km/s and is associated with the natural environment. The maximum velocity of the man-made component is in the 14-16 km/s range. The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) has verified that the 'high probability of impact' particles are in the microgram to milligram range. These particles can have significant effects on coatings, insulators, and thin metallic layers. The surface of thick materials becomes pitted and the local debris component is enhanced by ejecta from the debris spectrum in a controlled environment. The facility capability is discussed in terms of drive geometry, energetics, velocity distribution, diagnostics, and projectile/debris loading. The facility is currently being used to study impact phenomena on Space Station Freedom's solar array structure, other solar array materials, potential structural materials for use in the station, electrical breakdown in the space environment, and as a means of clarifying or duplicating the impact phenomena on the LDEF surfaces. The results of these experiments are described in terms of the mass/velocity distribution incident on selected samples, crater dynamics, and sample geometry
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Modelling the partitioning of turbulent fluxes at urban sites with varying vegetation cover
Inclusion of vegetation is critical for urban land surface models (ULSM) to represent reasonably the turbulent sensible and latent heat flux densities in an urban environment. Here the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES), an ULSM, is used to simulate the Bowen ratio at a number of urban and rural sites with vegetation cover varying between 1% and 98%. The results show that JULES is able to represent the observed Bowen ratios, but only when the additional anthropogenic water supplied into the urban ecosystem is considered. The impact of the external water use (irrigation, street cleaning), for example, on the surface energy flux partitioning can be as substantial as that of the anthropogenic heat flux on the sensible and latent heat fluxes. The Bowen ratio varies from 1-2 when the plan area vegetation fraction is between 30% and 70%. However, when the vegetation fraction is less than 20%, the Bowen ratios increase substantially (2-10) and have greater sensitivity to assumptions about external water use. As there are few long term observational sites with vegetation cover less than 30%, there is a clear need for more measurement studies in such environments
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Investigation of the impact of anthropogenic heat flux within an urban land surface model and PILPS-urban
Results from the first international urban model comparison experiment (PILPS-Urban) suggested that models which neglected the anthropogenic heat flux within the surface energy balance performed at least as well as models that include the source term, but this could not be explained. The analyses undertaken show that the results from PILPS-Urban were masked by the signal from including vegetation, which was identified in PILPS-Urban as being important. Including the anthropogenic heat flux does give improved performance, but the benefit is small for the site studied given the relatively small magnitude of this flux relative to other terms in the surface energy balance. However, there is no further benefit from including temporal variations in the flux at this site. The importance is expected to increase at sites with a larger anthropogenic heat flux and greater temporal variations
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Key conclusions of the first international urban land surface model comparison project
he first international urban land surface model comparison was designed to identify three aspects of the urban surface-atmosphere interactions: (1) the dominant physical processes, (2) the level of complexity required to model these, and 3) the parameter requirements for such a model. Offline simulations from 32 land surface schemes, with varying complexity, contributed to the comparison. Model results were analysed within a framework of physical classifications and over four stages. The results show that the following are important urban processes; (i) multiple reflections of shortwave radiation within street canyons, (ii) reduction in the amount of visible sky from within the canyon, which impacts on the net long-wave radiation, iii) the contrast in surface temperatures between building roofs and street canyons, and (iv) evaporation from vegetation. Models that use an appropriate bulk albedo based on multiple solar reflections, represent building roof surfaces separately from street canyons and include a representation of vegetation demonstrate more skill, but require parameter information on the albedo, height of the buildings relative to the width of the streets (height to width ratio), the fraction of building roofs compared to street canyons from a plan view (plan area fraction) and the fraction of the surface that is vegetated. These results, whilst based on a single site and less than 18 months of data, have implications for the future design of urban land surface models, the data that need to be measured in urban observational campaigns, and what needs to be included in initiatives for regional and global parameter databases
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Evaluation of the urban tile in MOSES using surface energy balance observations
The UK Met Office has introduced a new scheme for its urban tile in MOSES 2.2
(Met Office Surface Exchange Scheme version 2.2), which is currently implemented within
the operational Met Office weather forecasting model. Here, the performance of the urban
tile is evaluated in two urban areas: the historic core of downtown Mexico City and a light
industrial site in Vancouver, Canada. The sites differ in terms of building structures and
mean building heights. In both cases vegetation cover is less than 5%. The evaluation is
based on surface energy balance flux measurements conducted at approximately the blend-
ing height, which is the location where the surface scheme passes flux data into the atmo-
spheric model. At both sites, MOSES 2.2 correctly simulates the net radiation, but there are
discrepancies in the partitioning of turbulent and storage heat fluxes between predicted and
observed values. Of the turbulent fluxes, latent heat fluxes were underpredicted by about one
order of magnitude. Multiple model runs revealed MOSES 2.2 to be sensitive to changes in
the canopy heat storage and in the ratio between the aerodynamic roughness length and that
for heat transfer (temperature). Model performance was optimum with heat capacity values
smaller than those generally considered for these sites. The results suggest that the current
scheme is probably too simple, and that improvements may be obtained by increasing the
complexity of the model
Perception of nonnative tonal contrasts by Mandarin-English and English-Mandarin sequential bilinguals
This study examined the role of acquisition order and crosslinguistic similarity in influencing transfer at the initial stage of perceptually acquiring a tonal third language (L3). Perception of tones in Yoruba and Thai was tested in adult sequential bilinguals representing three different first (L1) and second language (L2) backgrounds: L1 Mandarin-L2 English (MEBs), L1 English-L2 Mandarin (EMBs), and L1 English-L2 intonational/non-tonal (EIBs). MEBs outperformed EMBs and EIBs in discriminating L3 tonal contrasts in both languages, while EMBs showed a small advantage over EIBs on Yoruba. All groups showed better overall discrimination in Thai than Yoruba, but group differences were more robust in Yoruba. MEBs’ and EMBs’ poor discrimination of certain L3 contrasts was further reflected in the L3 tones being perceived as similar to the same Mandarin tone; however, EIBs, with no knowledge of Mandarin, showed many of the same similarity judgments. These findings thus suggest that L1 tonal experience has a particularly facilitative effect in L3 tone perception, but there is also a facilitative effect of L2 tonal experience. Further, crosslinguistic perceptual similarity between L1/L2 and L3 tones, as well as acoustic similarity between different L3 tones, play a significant role at this early stage of L3 tone acquisition.Published versio
QSO Absorbing Galaxies at z<~1: Deep Imaging and Spectroscopy in the Field of 3C 336
We present very deep WFPC2 images and FOS spectroscopy from the Hubble Space
Telescope (HST) together with numerous supporting ground-based observations of
the field of the quasar 3C 336 (). The observations are designed
to investigate the nature of galaxies producing metal line absorption systems
in the spectrum of the QSO. Along a single line of sight, we find at least 6
metal line absorption systems (of which 3 are newly discovered) ranging in
redshift from 0.317 to 0.892. Through an extensive program of optical and IR
imaging, QSO spectroscopy, and faint galaxy spectroscopy, we have identified 5
of the 6 metal line absorption systems with luminous (L_K > 0.1 L*_K) galaxies.
These have morphologies ranging from very late-type spiral to S0, and exhibit a
wide range of inclination and position angles with respect to the QSO
sightline. The only unidentified absorber, despite our intensive search, is a
damped Lyman system at . Analysis of the absorption
spectrum suggests that the metal abundances ([Fe/H]) in this system are
similar to those in damped systems at , and to the two other damped
systems for which abundances have been determined at . We have found no
examples of intrinsically faint galaxies () at small impact
parameters that might have been missed as absorber candidates in our previous
ground-based imaging and spectroscopic programs on MgII absorbing galaxies.
There are no bright galaxies (L > 0.1 L_K) within 50h^{-1} kpc which do not
produce detectable metal lines (of Mg II 2796, 2803 and/or C IV 1548, 1550) in
the QSO spectrum. All of these results generally support the inferences which
we have previously reached from a larger survey for absorption-selected
galaxies at z\simlt 1.Comment: 32 pages latex (AAS v4.0 style). 8 Postscript figures (including HST
plate) available at ftp://astro.caltech.edu/users/ccs/3c336_figs.ps.gz .
Submitted to Ap
Pair creation in transport equations using the equal-time Wigner function
Based on the equal-time Wigner function for the Klein-Gordon field, we
discuss analytically the mechanism of pair creation in a classical
electromagnetic field including back-reaction. It is shown that the equations
of motion for the Wigner function can be reduced to a variable-frequency
oscillator. The pair-creation rate results then from a calculation analogous to
barrier penetration in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. The Wigner function
allows one to utilize this treatment for the formulation of an effective
transport theory for the back-reaction problem with a pair-creation source term
including Bose enhancement.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, UFTP 316/199
Spatial variation and temporal trends of testicular cancer in Great Britain
Increases in testicular cancer incidence have been reported in several countries over a long period. Geographical variability has also been reported in some studies. We have investigated temporal trends and spatial variation of testicular cancer at ages 20–49 in Britain. Temporal trends in testicular cancer incidence were examined, 1974 to 1991 and in mortality, 1981–1997. Spatial variation in incidence was analysed across electoral wards, 1975 to 1991. We used Poisson regression to examine for regional and socio-economic effects and Bayesian mapping techniques to analyse small-area spatial variability. Incidence increased from 6.5 to 11.1 per 100 000 in men at ages 20–34, and from 5.6 to 9.7 per 100 000 in men at ages 35–49, while mortality declined by 50% in both age groups. Risks of testicular cancer varied across regional cancer registries, ranging from 0.79 (95% CI: 0.73–0.84) to 1.32 (95% CI: 1.25–1.38), and was higher in the most affluent compared with the most deprived areas. Analyses within 2 regions (one predominantly urban, the other predominantly rural) did not indicate any localized geographical clustering. The increasing incidence contrasted with a decreasing mortality over time in Great Britain, similar to that found in other countries. The higher risk in more affluent areas is not consistent with findings on social class at the individual level. The absence of any marked geographical variability at small area scale argues against a geographically varying environmental factor operating strongly in the aetiology of testicular cancer. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.co
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