477 research outputs found
Bifurcation analysis of a normal form for excitable media: Are stable dynamical alternans on a ring possible?
We present a bifurcation analysis of a normal form for travelling waves in
one-dimensional excitable media. The normal form which has been recently
proposed on phenomenological grounds is given in form of a differential delay
equation. The normal form exhibits a symmetry preserving Hopf bifurcation which
may coalesce with a saddle-node in a Bogdanov-Takens point, and a symmetry
breaking spatially inhomogeneous pitchfork bifurcation. We study here the Hopf
bifurcation for the propagation of a single pulse in a ring by means of a
center manifold reduction, and for a wave train by means of a multiscale
analysis leading to a real Ginzburg-Landau equation as the corresponding
amplitude equation. Both, the center manifold reduction and the multiscale
analysis show that the Hopf bifurcation is always subcritical independent of
the parameters. This may have links to cardiac alternans which have so far been
believed to be stable oscillations emanating from a supercritical bifurcation.
We discuss the implications for cardiac alternans and revisit the instability
in some excitable media where the oscillations had been believed to be stable.
In particular, we show that our condition for the onset of the Hopf bifurcation
coincides with the well known restitution condition for cardiac alternans.Comment: to be published in Chao
Cultures of caste and rural development in the social network of a south Indian village
Cultures of caste in much of rural India have become entangled with institutions of rural development. In community-driven development, emphasis on âlocal resource personsâ and âcommunity spokespersonsâ has created new opportunities for brokerage and patronage within some villages, which interact with existing forms of authority and community afforded by caste identity and intra-caste headmanship. In this article, we study how these entangled cultures of caste and development translate into social network structures using data on friendship ties from a south Indian village. We find that although caste continues to be important in shaping community structures and leadership in the villageâs network, its influence varies across different communities. This fluidity of casteâs influence on community network structures is argued to be the result of multiple distinct yet partially overlapping cultural-political forces, which include sharedness afforded by caste identity and new forms of difference and inequality effected through rural development
Instability and Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Alternans in Paced Cardiac Tissue
We derive an equation that governs the spatiotemporal dynamics of small
amplitude alternans in paced cardiac tissue. We show that a pattern-forming
linear instability leads to the spontaneous formation of stationary or
traveling waves whose nodes divide the tissue into regions with opposite phase
of oscillation of action potential duration. This instability is important
because it creates dynamically an heterogeneous electrical substrate for
inducing fibrillation if the tissue size exceeds a fraction of the pattern
wavelength. We compute this wavelength analytically as a function of three
basic length scales characterizing dispersion and inter-cellular electrical
coupling.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PR
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United States Bureau of Mines Bulletin 88
From Introduction: "This report treats of method of preventing some of the waste of the natural gas incidental to oil mining. This method, the condensation of gasoline from natural gas, offers to the oil operator and others a profitable means of utilizing some of the oil-well gas now being wasted.
Rubber Impact on 3D Textile Composites
A low velocity impact study of aircraft tire rubber on 3D textile-reinforced composite plates was performed experimentally and numerically. In contrast to regular unidirectional composite laminates, no delaminations occur in such a 3D textile composite. Yarn decohesions, matrix cracks and yarn ruptures have been identified as the major damage mechanisms under impact load. An increase in the number of 3D warp yarns is proposed to improve the impact damage resistance. The characteristic of a rubber impact is the high amount of elastic energy stored in the impactor during impact, which was more than 90% of the initial kinetic energy. This large geometrical deformation of the rubber during impact leads to a less localised loading of the target structure and poses great challenges for the numerical modelling. A hyperelastic Mooney-Rivlin constitutive law was used in Abaqus/Explicit based on a step-by-step validation with static rubber compression tests and low velocity impact tests on aluminium plates. Simulation models of the textile weave were developed on the meso- and macro-scale. The final correlation between impact simulation results on 3D textile-reinforced composite plates and impact test data was promising, highlighting the potential of such numerical simulation tools
Being Tamil, being Hindu:Tamil migrantsâ negotiations of the absence of Tamil Hindu spaces in the West Midlands and South West of England
This paper considers the religious practices of Tamil Hindus who have settled in the West Midlands and South West of England in order to explore how devotees of a specific ethno-regional Hindu tradition with a well-established UK infrastructure in the site of its adherentsâ population density adapt their religious practices in settlement areas which lack this infrastructure. Unlike the majority of the UK Tamil population who live in the London area, the participants in this study did not have ready access to an ethno-religious infrastructure of Tamil-orientated temples and public rituals. The paper examines two means by which this absence was addressed as well as the intersections and negotiations of religion and ethnicity these entailed: firstly, Tamil Hindusâ attendance of temples in their local area which are orientated towards a broadly imagined Hindu constituency or which cater to a non-Tamil ethno-linguistic or sectarian community; and, secondly, through the âDIYâ performance of ethnicised Hindu ritual in non-institutional settings
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