22,104 research outputs found
Simplified Onsager theory for isotropic-nematic phase equilibria of length polydisperse hard rods
Polydispersity is believed to have important effects on the formation of
liquid crystal phases in suspensions of rod-like particles. To understand such
effects, we analyse the phase behaviour of thin hard rods with length
polydispersity. Our treatment is based on a simplified Onsager theory, obtained
by truncating the series expansion of the angular dependence of the excluded
volume. We describe the model and give the full phase equilibrium equations;
these are then solved numerically using the moment free energy method which
reduces the problem from one with an infinite number of conserved densities to
one with a finite number of effective densities that are moments of the full
density distribution. The method yields exactly the onset of nematic ordering.
Beyond this, results are approximate but we show that they can be made
essentially arbitrarily precise by adding adaptively chosen extra moments,
while still avoiding the numerical complications of a direct solution of the
full phase equilibrium conditions.
We investigate in detail the phase behaviour of systems with three different
length distributions: a (unimodal) Schulz distribution, a bidisperse
distribution and a bimodal mixture of two Schulz distributions which
interpolates between these two cases. A three-phase isotropic-nematic-nematic
coexistence region is shown to exist for the bimodal and bidisperse length
distributions if the ratio of long and short rod lengths is sufficiently large,
but not for the unimodal one. We systematically explore the topology of the
phase diagram as a function of the width of the length distribution and of the
rod length ratio in the bidisperse and bimodal cases.Comment: 18 pages, 16 figure
Transform-limited X-ray pulse generation from a high-brightness self-amplified spontaneous-emission free-electron laser
A method to achieve high-brightness self-amplified spontaneous emission (HB-SASE) in the free-electron laser (FEL) is described. The method uses repeated nonequal electron beam delays to delocalize the collective FEL interaction and break the radiation coherence length dependence on the FEL cooperation length. The method requires no external seeding or photon optics and so is applicable at any wavelength or repetition rate. It is demonstrated, using linear theory and numerical simulations, that the radiation coherence length can be increased by approximately 2 orders of magnitude over SASE with a corresponding increase in spectral brightness. Examples are shown of HB-SASE generating transform-limited FEL pulses in the soft x-ray and near transform-limited pulses in the hard x-ray. Such pulses may greatly benefit existing applications and may also open up new areas of scientific research
Connectivity differences between Gulf War Illness (GWI) phenotypes during a test of attention
One quarter of veterans returning from the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf War have developed Gulf War Illness (GWI) with chronic pain, fatigue, cognitive and gastrointestinal dysfunction. Exertion leads to characteristic, delayed onset exacerbations that are not relieved by sleep. We have modeled exertional exhaustion by comparing magnetic resonance images from before and after submaximal exercise. One third of the 27 GWI participants had brain stem atrophy and developed postural tachycardia after exercise (START: Stress Test Activated Reversible Tachycardia). The remainder activated basal ganglia and anterior insulae during a cognitive task (STOPP: Stress Test Originated Phantom Perception). Here, the role of attention in cognitive dysfunction was assessed by seed region correlations during a simple 0-back stimulus matching task (“see a letter, push a button”) performed before exercise. Analysis was analogous to resting state, but different from psychophysiological interactions (PPI). The patterns of correlations between nodes in task and default networks were significantly different for START (n = 9), STOPP (n = 18) and control (n = 8) subjects. Edges shared by the 3 groups may represent co-activation caused by the 0-back task. Controls had a task network of right dorsolateral and left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, posterior insulae and frontal eye fields (dorsal attention network). START had a large task module centered on the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex with direct links to basal ganglia, anterior insulae, and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex nodes, and through dorsal attention network (intraparietal sulci and frontal eye fields) nodes to a default module. STOPP had 2 task submodules of basal ganglia–anterior insulae, and dorsolateral prefrontal executive control regions. Dorsal attention and posterior insulae nodes were embedded in the default module and were distant from the task networks. These three unique connectivity patterns during an attention task support the concept of Gulf War Disease with recognizable, objective patterns of cognitive dysfunction
Control Plane Compression
We develop an algorithm capable of compressing large networks into a smaller
ones with similar control plane behavior: For every stable routing solution in
the large, original network, there exists a corresponding solution in the
compressed network, and vice versa. Our compression algorithm preserves a wide
variety of network properties including reachability, loop freedom, and path
length. Consequently, operators may speed up network analysis, based on
simulation, emulation, or verification, by analyzing only the compressed
network. Our approach is based on a new theory of control plane equivalence. We
implement these ideas in a tool called Bonsai and apply it to real and
synthetic networks. Bonsai can shrink real networks by over a factor of 5 and
speed up analysis by several orders of magnitude.Comment: Extended version of the paper appearing in ACM SIGCOMM 201
The Portrayal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Mass Print Magazines Since 1980
Objectives: The objectives of this study were to examine and describe the portrayal of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in mass print media magazines.
Design: The sample included all 37 articles found in magazines with circulation rates of greater than 1 million published in the United States and Canada from 1980 to 2005. The analysis was quantitative and qualitative and included investigation of both manifest and latent magazine story messages.
Results: Manifest analysis noted that CAM was largely represented as a treatment for a patient with a medically diagnosed illness or specific symptoms. Discussions used biomedical terms such as patient rather than consumer and disease rather than wellness. Latent analysis revealed three themes: (1) CAMs were described as good but not good enough; (2) individualism and consumerism were venerated; and (3) questions of costs were raised in the context of confusion and ambivalence
Cauchy-characteristic Evolution of Einstein-Klein-Gordon Systems
A Cauchy-characteristic initial value problem for the Einstein-Klein-Gordon
system with spherical symmetry is presented. Initial data are specified on the
union of a space-like and null hypersurface. The development of the data is
obtained with the combination of a constrained Cauchy evolution in the interior
domain and a characteristic evolution in the exterior, asymptotically flat
region. The matching interface between the space-like and characteristic
foliations is constructed by imposing continuity conditions on metric,
extrinsic curvature and scalar field variables, ensuring smoothness across the
matching surface. The accuracy of the method is established for all ranges of
, most notably, with a detailed comparison of invariant observables
against reference solutions obtained with a calibrated, global, null algorithm.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. D, 16 pages, revtex, 7 figures available at
http://nr.astro.psu.edu:8080/preprints.htm
Household Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Using a Farm Simulation Model (FARMSIM): Case Study of Robit in Amhara Region, Ethiopia
The majority of the world’s undernourished people are located in developing countries, including Sub-Saharan Africa. One way of combatting food insecurity is to increase food production and promote the consumption of balanced diets. This study evaluates the impact of small-scale irrigation technologies on food security and nutrition through food production and consumption in Robit village, Amhara region of Ethiopia. Household survey data and a farm level economic and nutrition simulation model (FARMSIM) is used to perform the analysis. A baseline scenario with minimal irrigation and current food consumption is compared to four alternative irrigation scenarios producing vegetables and fodder and aligned with four different food consumption patterns. Nutrition and food security evaluation is based on the intake per day and adult equivalent of calories, proteins, fat, iron, calcium and vitamin A. Food consumption in the baseline scenario indicates a satisfactory intake of calories from a cereal-based diet dominated by teff and maize but limited in consumption of fruits, vegetables, pulses and animal source foods. The alternative scenario under vegetables and fodder production shows the highest nutritional and economic outcomes allowing the household to purchase supplemental food items such as milk, meat, and eggs to meet nutritional needs
Fast and Slow Rotators in the Densest Environments: a SWIFT IFS study of the Coma Cluster
We present integral-field spectroscopy of 27 galaxies in the Coma cluster
observed with the Oxford SWIFT spectrograph, exploring the kinematic
morphology-density relationship in a cluster environment richer and denser than
any in the ATLAS3D survey. Our new data enables comparison of the kinematic
morphology relation in three very different clusters (Virgo, Coma and Abell
1689) as well as to the field/group environment. The Coma sample was selected
to match the parent luminosity and ellipticity distributions of the early-type
population within a radius 15' (0.43 Mpc) of the cluster centre, and is limited
to r' = 16 mag (equivalent to M_K = -21.5 mag), sampling one third of that
population. From analysis of the lambda-ellipticity diagram, we find 15+-6% of
early-type galaxies are slow rotators; this is identical to the fraction found
in the field and the average fraction in the Virgo cluster, based on the
ATLAS3D data. It is also identical to the average fraction found recently in
Abell 1689 by D'Eugenio et al.. Thus it appears that the average slow rotator
fraction of early type galaxies remains remarkably constant across many
different environments, spanning five orders of magnitude in galaxy number
density. However, within each cluster the slow rotators are generally found in
regions of higher projected density, possibly as a result of mass segregation
by dynamical friction. These results provide firm constraints on the mechanisms
that produce early-type galaxies: they must maintain a fixed ratio between the
number of fast rotators and slow rotators while also allowing the total
early-type fraction to increase in clusters relative to the field. A complete
survey of Coma, sampling hundreds rather than tens of galaxies, could probe a
more representative volume of Coma and provide significantly stronger
constraints, particularly on how the slow rotator fraction varies at larger
radii.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
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