Metal cooldown, flow instability, and heat transfer in two-phase hydrogen flow

Studies of the properties of five metals with varying tube-wall thickness, with or without and internal coating of trifluorochloroethylene polymer, show that wall characteristics influence flow stability, affect heat transfer coefficients, and influence the transition point from dry- to wet-wall flow

Does volatility improve UK earnings forecasts?

We investigate the relation between UK accounting earnings volatility and the level of future earnings using a unique sample comprising some 10,480 firm-year observations for 1,481 non-financial firms over the 1985-2003 period. The findings confirm the in-sample result of an inverse volatility-earnings relation only for the 1998-2003 sub-period and for the most profitable firms. The out-of-sample forecast accuracy for the top earnings quintile when volatility is added as a regressor is superior to the model including only lagged earnings. The findings are consistent with the over-investment hypothesis and the view that the earnings of the most volatile firms tend to mean-revert more rapidly

Optimising Broadacre Crop Rotations using Dynamic Programming

A Dynamic programming Model is used to select the most profitable crop rotation from seven crop alternatives including pasture. Crop yields within a rotation are estimated by specifying growing season rainfall, water use efficiency and weed and disease penalties caused by the three previous years crop history. A provision exists to include the effect on yield of other natural resource limitations. Regional variations can be accounted for by varying rainfall, management practices, yield penalties and input costs. A nitrogen-phosphorous calculator ensures sufficient fertiliser is applied for the crop to achieve its expected yield. This approach can be used to measure the productivity implications of advances in technology as well as the impact of rainfall, yield and price variations on optimal rotations.Crop Production/Industries,

Progress in the MF radar system at Saskatoon

Two improvements were made to the radar system in the last year, one was the addition of O/X mode capability to the full antenna array used in the real-time wind system, and the other was the development of a coherent receiver. The design of the transmitter antenna is examined. The proposed coherent real-time wind system is also discussed

Why "consciousness" means what it does.

“Consciousness” seems to be a polysemic, ambiguous, term. Because of this, theorists have sought to distinguish the different kinds of phenomena that “consciousness” denotes, leading to a proliferation of terms for different kinds of consciousness. However, some philosophers—univocalists about consciousness—argue that “consciousness” is not polysemic or ambiguous. By drawing upon the history of philosophy and psychology, and some resources from semantic theory, univocalism about consciousness is shown to be implausible. This finding is important, for if we accept the univocalist account then we are less likely to subject our thought and talk about the mind to the kind of critical analysis that it needs. The exploration of the semantics of “consciousness” offered here, by way of contrast, clarifies and fine-tunes our thought and talk about consciousness and conscious mentality and explains why “consciousness” means what it does, and why it means a number of different, but related, things

A Single-Expression Formula for Inverting Strain-Life and Stress-Strain Relationships

Starting with the basic fatigue lift formula, an inversion formula is derived. The inversion formula is valid over the entire life range of engineering interest for all materials examined. Conformity between the two equations is extremely close, suitable for all engineering problems. The approach used to invert the life relation is also suitable for the inversion of other formulas involving the sum of two power-law terms

Theory of Direct Scattering, Trapping and Desorption in Atom-Surface Collisions

When gas atoms or molecules collide with clean and ordered surfaces, under many circumstances the energy-resolved scattering spectra exhibit two clearly distinct features due to direct scattering and to trapping in the physisorption well with subsequent desorption. James Clerk Maxwell is credited with being the first to describe this situation by invoking the simple assumption that when an impinging gas beam is scattered from a surface it can be divided into a part that exchanges no energy and specularly reflects and another part that equilibrates or accommodates completely and then desorbs with an equilibrium distribution. In this paper a scattering theory is developed, using an iterative algorithm and classical mechanics for the collision process, that describes both direct scattering and trapping-desorption of the incident beam. The initially trapped fraction of particles can be followed as they continue to make further interactions with the surface until they are all eventually promoted back into the positive energy continuum and leave the surface region. Consequently, this theory allows a rigorous test of the Maxwell assumption and determines the conditions under which it is valid. The theory also gives quantitative explanations of recent experimental measurements which exhibit both a direct scattering contribution and a trapping-desorption fraction in the energy-resolved spectra.Comment: 46 pages including 14 figure