Combustion of Gaseous Fuels Under Reduced-Gravity Conditions

The need for an improved understanding of fires is becoming critically important with increased space travel and utilization. While the control of fires in low-gravity environments is not well understood, it is known that buoyancy significantly affects flame behavior and characteristics. The objective of this research is to gain a more fundamental understanding of fires, and to quantify flame behavior under reduced-gravity levels. Non-premixed flames of gaseous fuels are considered in this study because they are relatively simple and easy to control, yet embody mechanisms found in all types of combustion processes ranging from uncontrolled fires to practical combustion systems. This paper presents some recent results from microgravity studies of these flames. In addition, the potential usefulness of lunar- and Martian-based laboratories is discussed in order to understand the characteristics and behavior of fires in reduced-gravity environments

Superdiffusion in the Dissipative Standard Map

We consider transport properties of the chaotic (strange) attractor along unfolded trajectories of the dissipative standard map. It is shown that the diffusion process is normal except of the cases when a control parameter is close to some special values that correspond to the ballistic mode dynamics. Diffusion near the related crisises is anomalous and non-uniform in time: there are large time intervals during which the transport is normal or ballistic, or even superballistic. The anomalous superdiffusion seems to be caused by stickiness of trajectories to a non-chaotic and nowhere dense invariant Cantor set that plays a similar role as cantori in Hamiltonian chaos. We provide a numerical example of such a sticky set. Distribution function on the sticky set almost coincides with the distribution function (SRB measure) of the chaotic attractor.Comment: 10 Figure

Visual binding, reentry, and neuronal synchrony in a physically situated brain-based device

By constructing and analyzing a physically situated brain-based device (i.e. a device with sensors and actuators whose behavior is guided by a simulated nervous system), we show that reentrant connectivity and dynamic synchronization can provide an effective mechanism for binding the visual features of objects

Report of conference evaluation committee

A general classification is made of a number of approaches used for the prediction of turbulent shear flows. The sensitivity of these prediction methods to parameter values and initial data are discussed in terms of variable density, pressure fluctuation, gradient diffusion, low Reynolds number, and influence of geometry

Statistics of real eigenvalues in Ginibre's Ensemble of random real matrices

The integrable structure of Ginibre's orthogonal ensemble of random matrices is looked at through the prism of the probability pn,k to find exactly k real eigenvalues in the spectrum of an n×n real asymmetric Gaussian random matrix. The exact solution for the probability function pn,k is presented, and its remarkable connection to the theory of symmetric functions is revealed. An extension of the Dyson integration theorem is a key ingredient of the theory presented