Josephson effect in mesoscopic graphene strips with finite width

We study Josephson effect in a ballistic graphene strip of length $L$ smaller than the superconducting coherence length and arbitrary width $W$. We find that the dependence of the critical supercurrent $I_{c}$ on $W$ is drastically different for different types of the edges. For \textit{smooth} and \textit{armchair} edges at low concentration of the carriers $I_{c}$ decreases monotonically with decreasing $W/L$ and tends to a constant minimum for a narrow strip $W/L\lesssim1$. The minimum supercurrent is zero for smooth edges but has a finite value $e\Delta_{0}/\hbar$ for the armchair edges. At higher concentration of the carriers, in addition to this overall monotonic variation, the critical current undergoes a series of peaks with varying $W$. On the other hand in a strip with \textit{zigzag} edges the supercurrent is half-integer quantized to $(n+1/2)4e\Delta_{0}/\hbar$, showing a step-wise variation with $W$.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Coherent current states in mesoscopic four-terminal Josephson junction

A theory is offered for the ballistic 4-terminal Josephson junction. The studied system consists of a mesoscopic two-dimensional normal rectangular layer which is attached in each side to the bulk superconducting banks (terminals). The relation between the currents through the different terminals, which is valid for arbitrary temperatures and junction sizes, is obtained. The nonlocal coupling of the supercurrents leads to a new effect, specific for the mesoscopic weak link between two superconducting rings; an applied magnetic flux through one of the rings produces a magnetic flux in the other ring even in the absence of an external flux through the other one. The phase dependent distributions of the local density of Andreev states, of the supercurrents and of the induced order parameter are obtained. The "interference pattern" for the anomalous average inside the two dimensional region can be regulated by the applied magnetic fluxes or the transport currents. For some values of the phase differences between the terminals, the current vortex state and the two dimensional phase slip center are appeared.Comment: 17 pages in Latex and 6 ps Figures. Will be published in Low Temp.Phy

Aging detection of glass disc insulator by using infrared camera

Suitable diagnostic techniques for outdoor glass insulators are important for ensuring the reliablilty and stability of power system. The possibility of insulator flash-over increases, especially when the insulator is covered by pollution layers or has an internal defect. In this paper, a new technique to detect the pollution level and invisible damage by measuring the surface temperature of glass disc insulators is proposed. A high definition camera had been used to determine the surface temperatures of four glass insulators. The effects ofapplied voltage on the surface temperature and its distribution were studied. The results show the possibility of using the infrarad camera to detect the aging level and invisible damages of the glass insulators

Induced Voltages on a Gas Pipeline due to Lightning Strikes on Nearby Overhead Transmission Line

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the severity of lightning induced voltages on a gas pipeline installed in parallel with overhead transmission line using two different simulation packages. The results from this study using CDEGS, which solves a given problem based on electromagnetic computations, reveal that the induced voltages on the pipeline are more accurate compared to that obtained by PSCAD simulation, which is based on the circuit approach. Unlike PSCAD, CDEGS considers many salient factors such as soil model, inductive, capacitive and conductive couplings, and multiple soil structures.  Models of a double circuit 132kV transmission line, gas pipelines, soil with different resistivities and variable lightning surges were developed. The effects of pipelines located at various heights above ground and distance of pipeline from the power lines were also studied. Compared to previously published work using PSCAD, it is found that CDEGS has given more accurate results. Several findings which were not possible using PSCAD were observed such as the effect of soil structure on induced voltage and multiple layers soil. This also led to better understanding of the conductive coupling from lightning strikes and fault conditions. The modeling work using CDEGS not only useful for providing more reliable data for further protection and mitigation techniques, but is  also very versatile to study the effects of various other important factors affecting the induced voltage on the pipelines.

The Psychological Motives Towards Practicing Sports Among Jordanian Youth

The purpose of this study is to examine the psychological motives towards practicing sports among Jordanian youth. The study participants included 102 youth (55 males and 47 female). The study employed a descriptive research design where a sports motives scale founded by Luc G. Pelletier, et al.1995, was used to identify the psychological motives towards practicing sports. Results of this study indicated that the intrinsic motives "to know", extrinsic motives "external regulation", and extrinsic motivation "identified" are the most effective motives among Jordanian youth respectively. Furthermore, there was statistically differences among Jordanian youth concerning psychological motives based on gender and qualification variables. Keywords: Psychological motives, practicing sports, and Jordanian youth

Leakage current based thermal modeling of glass disc insulator surface

The stability of transmission lines relies on the health of the insulators, such as glass string insulators, which may occasionally flashover during an overvoltage. The likelihood of flashover increases notably when the glass insulator is wrapped by a wet contaminant layer. In this paper a study of the surface thermal profile of glass disc insulators insulation had been carried out for both clean and polluted surfaces. A finite-element simulation with time dependent model was carried out using COMSOL Multiphysics software. The variation of the insulator surface temperature with applied voltage as well as with pollution layer thickness is explained. The results illustrate the significant effect of pollution conductivity on heat propagate along the surface of the glass insulators with the increase higher voltages’ magnitudes. Study of the aging level impact on a steady state thermal for glass insulation surface is also carried out

AC Interference on Gas Pipeline due to Phase to Ground Faults in Overhead Transmission Line

The purpose of this research is to investigate the severity of voltages induced on gas pipeline installed in parallel to a 115 kV overhead transmission line. The overhead transmission line (OHTL) is configured as a single-circuit. One of the phases exposed to single phase to ground fault. Transmission of high voltage along the same right of way (ROW) with metallic conductor may possibly introduce interference on metallic conductors such as gas pipeline (GPL) due to power frequency voltage as well as due to phase faults and switching phenomena. Two main approaches were used to compute the induced voltages, namely the method of moment (MOM), which is based on electromagnetic field theory, and circuit based method. The simulation considers the length of OHTL and GPL are 30 km and 10km respectively. The pipeline buried at 1 m underground in homogenous earth structure with various soil resistivites ranged from 10 to 1000 Ω-m. The transmission line consists of 150 towers and 200 m span length. The separation distance between the GPL and OHTL is varied from 5 to 100 m. The phase to ground fault current changed from 0.5 to 10 kA. Several observation points are made throughout the corridor, to examinant the induced voltages at different locations. The result show that, the soil resistivity, separation distance, and fault current had significant effect on pipeline induced voltage. In case of the observation points lying on the soil or on the outer surface of the pipeline coating, the induced voltage increased, when the soil resistivity increase, as expected. In case of the observation points placed inside the pipeline metal, and the pipeline is well coated, the induced voltage will decreased, when the soil resistivity increase

Use of Hypertonic Continuous Venovenous Hemodiafiltration to Control Intracranial Hypertension in an End-Stage Renal Disease Patient

Continuous venovenous hemodiafiltration (CVVHDF) using solutions designed to maintain hypernatremia is described in an end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patient with cerebral edema (CE) due to an intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Hypernatremia was readily achieved and maintained without complication. CVVHDF should be considered as an alternative treatment option in ESRD patients with cerebral edema who require hypertonic saline therapy

Predicting Intermediate Storage Performance for Workflow Applications

Configuring a storage system to better serve an application is a challenging task complicated by a multidimensional, discrete configuration space and the high cost of space exploration (e.g., by running the application with different storage configurations). To enable selecting the best configuration in a reasonable time, we design an end-to-end performance prediction mechanism that estimates the turn-around time of an application using storage system under a given configuration. This approach focuses on a generic object-based storage system design, supports exploring the impact of optimizations targeting workflow applications (e.g., various data placement schemes) in addition to other, more traditional, configuration knobs (e.g., stripe size or replication level), and models the system operation at data-chunk and control message level. This paper presents our experience to date with designing and using this prediction mechanism. We evaluate this mechanism using micro- as well as synthetic benchmarks mimicking real workflow applications, and a real application.. A preliminary evaluation shows that we are on a good track to meet our objectives: it can scale to model a workflow application run on an entire cluster while offering an over 200x speedup factor (normalized by resource) compared to running the actual application, and can achieve, in the limited number of scenarios we study, a prediction accuracy that enables identifying the best storage system configuration

Role of heterogeneous astrocyte receptor expression in determining astrocytic response to neuronal disorders

Following neuronal disorders, astrocytes carry out either neuroprotection or neurodegeneration. Previous authors suggest that favoring of neurodegeneration or neuroprotection by astrocytes can be due to many factors such as the influence of cytokines following their binding on their receptors on astrocytes. These receptors have however been shown to be region specific and heterogeneous. Further, research exploiting their role and influence in determining astrocytic response remains partly elucidated. A review of previous and ongoing research on these receptors would be helpful in the disclosure of astrocytic responses to neuronal disorders.Keywords: Astrogliosis, Heterogenous astrocyte expression, Antagonistic astrocyte reaction, Nervous injury, Astrocyte mediated neurodegeneratio