Outbreak of encephalitic listeriosis in red-legged partridges (Alectoris rufa)

An outbreak of neurological disease was investigated in red-legged partridges between 8 and 28 days of age. Clinical signs included torticollis, head tilt and incoordination and over an initial eight day period approximately 30–40 fatalities occurred per day. No significant gross post mortem findings were detected. Histopathological examination of the brain and bacterial cultures followed by partial sequencing confirmed a diagnosis of encephalitis due to Listeria monocytogenes. Further isolates were obtained from follow-up carcasses, environmental samples and pooled tissue samples of newly imported day-old chicks prior to placement on farm. These isolates had the same antibiotic resistance pattern as the isolate of the initial post mortem submission and belonged to the same fluorescent amplified fragment length polymorphism (fAFLP) subtype. This suggested that the isolates were very closely related or identical and that the pathogen had entered the farm with the imported day-old chicks, resulting in disease manifestation in partridges between 8 and 28 days of age. Reports of outbreaks of encephalitic listeriosis in avian species are rare and this is to the best of our knowledge the first reported outbreak in red-legged partridges

Commercial-Scale Performance Predictions for High-Temperature Electrolysis Plants Coupled to Three Advanced Reactor Types

This report presents results of system analyses that have been developed to assess the hydrogen production performance of commercial-scale high-temperature electrolysis (HTE) plants driven by three different advanced reactor – power-cycle combinations: a high-temperature helium cooled reactor coupled to a direct Brayton power cycle, a supercritical CO2-cooled reactor coupled to a direct recompression cycle, and a sodium-cooled fast reactor coupled to a Rankine cycle. The system analyses were performed using UniSim software. The work described in this report represents a refinement of previous analyses in that the process flow diagrams include realistic representations of the three advanced reactors directly coupled to the power cycles and integrated with the high-temperature electrolysis process loops. In addition, this report includes parametric studies in which the performance of each HTE concept is determined over a wide range of operating conditions. Results of the study indicate that overall thermal-to- hydrogen production efficiencies (based on the low heating value of the produced hydrogen) in the 45 - 50% range can be achieved at reasonable production rates with the high-temperature helium cooled reactor concept, 42 - 44% with the supercritical CO2-cooled reactor and about 33 - 34% with the sodium-cooled reactor

Strong ellipticity and spectral properties of chiral bag boundary conditions

We prove strong ellipticity of chiral bag boundary conditions on even dimensional manifolds. From a knowledge of the heat kernel in an infinite cylinder, some basic properties of the zeta function are analyzed on cylindrical product manifolds of arbitrary even dimension.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, References adde

Optimized Flow Sheet for a Reference Commercial-Scale Nuclear-Driven High-Temperature Electrolysis Hydrogen Production Plant

This report presents results from the development and optimization of a reference commercialscale high-temperature electrolysis (HTE) plant for hydrogen production. The reference plant design is driven by a high-temperature helium-cooled reactor coupled to a direct Brayton power cycle. The reference design reactor power is 600 MWt, with a primary system pressure of 7.0 MPa, and reactor inlet and outlet fluid temperatures of 540° C and 900°C, respectively. The electrolysis unit used to produce hydrogen consists of 4.176 × 10 6 cells with a per-cell active area of 225 cm2. A nominal cell area-specific resistance, ASR, value of 0.4 Ohm•cm2 with a current density of 0.25 A/cm2 was used, and isothermal boundary conditions were assumed. The optimized design for the reference hydrogen production plant operates at a system pressure of 5.0 MPa, and utilizes an air-sweep system to remove the excess oxygen that is evolved on the anode side of the electrolyzer. The inlet air for the air-sweep system is compressed to the system operating pressure of 5.0 MPa in a four-stage compressor with intercooling. The overall system thermal-to-hydrogen production efficiency (based on the low heating value of the produced hydrogen) is 49.07% at a hydrogen production rate of 2.45 kg/s with the high-temperature helium-cooled reactor concept. The information presented in this report is intended to establish an optimized design for the reference nuclear-driven HTE hydrogen production plant so that parameters can be compared with other hydrogen production methods and power cycles to evaluate relative performance characteristics and plant economics

Neutrino Clustering in the Galaxy with a Global Monopole

In spherically symmetric, static spacetime, we show that only j=1/2 fermions can satisfy both Einstein's field equation and Dirac's equation. It is also shown that neutrinos are able to have effective masses and cluster in the galactic halo when they are coupled to a global monopole situated at the galactic core. Astronomical implications of the results are discussed.Comment: 8 pages, Revtex

Economic Analysis of a Nuclear Reactor Powered High-Temperature Electrolysis Hydrogen Production Plant

A reference design for a commercial-scale high-temperature electrolysis (HTE) plant for hydrogen production was developed to provide a basis for comparing the HTE concept with other hydrogen production concepts. The reference plant design is driven by a high-temperature helium-cooled nuclear reactor coupled to a direct Brayton power cycle. The reference design reactor power is 600 MWt, with a primary system pressure of 7.0 MPa, and reactor inlet and outlet fluid temperatures of 540°C and 900°C, respectively. The electrolysis unit used to produce hydrogen includes 4,009,177 cells with a per-cell active area of 225 cm2. The optimized design for the reference hydrogen production plant operates at a system pressure of 5.0 MPa, and utilizes an air-sweep system to remove the excess oxygen that is evolved on the anode (oxygen) side of the electrolyzer. The inlet air for the air-sweep system is compressed to the system operating pressure of 5.0 MPa in a four-stage compressor with intercooling. The alternating-current, AC, to direct-current, DC, conversion efficiency is 96%. The overall system thermal-to-hydrogen production efficiency (based on the lower heating value of the produced hydrogen) is 47.12% at a hydrogen production rate of 2.356 kg/s. An economic analysis of this plant was performed using the standardized H2A Analysis Methodology developed by the Department of Energy (DOE) Hydrogen Program, and using realistic financial and cost estimating assumptions. The results of the economic analysis demonstrated that the HTE hydrogen production plant driven by a high-temperature helium-cooled nuclear power plant can deliver hydrogen at a competitive cost. A cost of $3.23/kg of hydrogen was calculated assuming an internal rate of return of 10%

Relativistic Aharonov-Casher Phase in Spin One

The Aharonov-Casher (AC) phase is calculated in relativistic wave equations of spin one. The AC phase has previously been calculated from the Dirac-Pauli equation using a gauge-like technique \cite{MK1,MK2}. In the spin-one case, we use Kemmer theory (a Dirac-like particle theory) to calculate the phase in a similar manner. However the vector formalism, the Proca theory, is more widely known and used. In the presence of an electromagnetic field, the two theories are `equivalent' and may be transformed into one another. We adapt these transformations to show that the Kemmer theory results apply to the Proca theory. Then we calculate the Aharonov-Casher phase for spin-one particles directly in the Proca formalism.Comment: 12 page

CP Violation in a Multi-Higgs Doublet Model

We study CP violation in a multi-Higgs doublet model based on a $S_3 \times Z_3$ horizontal symmetry. We consider two mechanisms for CP violation in this model: a) CP violation due to complex Yukawa couplings; and b) CP violation due to scalar-pseudoscalar mixings. We find that the predictions for $\epsilon'/\epsilon$, CP violation in B decays and the electric dipole moments of neutron and electron are different between these two mechanisms. These predictions are also dramatically different from the minimal Standard Model predictions.Comment: 17 pages + one figure, Revtex. Talk presented by Deshpande at the Conference WHEPP-3, December 199

Parity Violation in gamma proton Compton Scattering

A measurement of parity-violating spin-dependent gamma proton Compton scattering will provide a theoretically clean determination of the parity-violating pion-nucleon coupling constant $h_{\pi NN}^{(1)}$. We calculate the leading parity-violating amplitude arising from one-loop pion graphs in chiral perturbation theory. An asymmetry of ~5 10^{-8} is estimated for Compton scattering of 100 MeV photons.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, latex. Reference adde

Operator interpretation of resonances generated by some operator matrices

We consider the analytic continuation of the transfer function for a 2x2 matrix Hamiltonian into the unphysical sheets of the energy Riemann surface. We construct a family of non-selfadjoint operators which reproduce certain parts of the transfer-function spectrum including resonances situated on the unphysical sheets neighboring the physical sheet. On this basis, completeness and basis properties for the root vectors of the transfer function (including those for the resonances) are proved.Comment: LaTeX, 15 pages, no figures; Contribution to Proceedings of the Mark Krein International Conference on Operator Theory and Applications, Odessa, August 18-22, 199