μ-SLS of Metals: Design of the Powder Spreader, Powder Bed Actuators and Optics for the System

Nanopowders have a tendency to form agglomerates due to high surface energy and the presence of attractive van der Waals forces. To overcome this problem, we present a powder spreading mechanism design that can alleviate this phenomenon by using vibration compaction to produce a uniform powder distribution in the bed. Most SLS machines employ either a roller or a blade to spread the powder over the powder bed. However, in order to achieve layer thicknesses of few microns, a new design for the spreading mechanism which includes a combination of a precision blade and a precision roller is employed. Also, the design of a linear actuating system for displacing the powder bed with resolution of few tens of nanometers is presented for the μ-SLS system. Finally, the paper presents a novel optical system that can drastically increase the throughput of the system .The detailed design of these systems are presented in this paper.Mechanical Engineerin

Physics Prospects at the Hadron Colliders

I start with a brief introduction to the elementary particles and their interactions, Higgs mechanism and supersymmetry. The major physics objectives of the Tevatron and LHC colliders are identified. The status and prospects of the top quark, charged Higgs boson and superparticle searches are discussed in detail, while those of the neutral Higgs boson(s) are covered in a parallel talk by R.J.N. Phillips at this workshop.Comment: 16 pages Latex + 15 figures (available on request

Provision of emergency contraceptive services through paraprofessionals in India

In 2004, with funding for technical assistance provided by USAID, the Indian Council of Medical Research funded and collaborated with the Frontiers in Reproductive Health (FRONTIERS) program of the Population Council on a two-year study to assess the usefulness and effectiveness of using paraprofessionals in educating and providing emergency contraception (ECP) services to potential users. Based on the findings and advocacy efforts, the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare introduced ECP as an over-the-counter medication beginning in September 2005. This made it possible for paraprofessionals in the National Family Planning Program to provide ECP services, making the method widely accessible to women who need it. The study demonstrated that paraprofessionals could easily be trained to provide ECP services and that the quality of their services is slightly better than the quality of the same services provided by physicians. Guidelines and funding for the scale-up of ECP services should incorporate the use of paraprofessionals as well as physicians as a best practice in public health

Power quality improvement of distribution network using BESS and capacitor bank

The power demand around the world is increasing rapidly. The aging distribution network architectures are used by the existing utility companies to deliver power to the consumers, which significantly affects the reliability, stability and quality of the delivered power. Different techniques such as compensation devices have been used by power system engineers and researchers to maintain the quality of power transmitted to end users. In this paper, wattage and volt-amp reactive (VAR) planning scheme has been proposed by using the combination of battery energy storage systems and compensators to deal with the vulnerability of networks to voltage drop and system inefficiency. The cost-effective combination of battery energy storage system (BESS) and shunt capacitor bank will then be analyzed to indicate the benefit of the proposed scheme

Electrospun Composite Nanofiltration Membranes for Arsenic Removal

In recent years, significant attention has been paid towards the study and application of mixed matrix nanofibrous membranes for water treatment. The focus of this study is to develop and characterize functional polysulfone (PSf)-based composite nanofiltration (NF) membranes comprising two different oxides, such as graphene oxide (GO) and zinc oxide (ZnO) for arsenic removal from water. PSf/GO- and PSf/ZnO-mixed matrix NF membranes were fabricated using the electrospinning technique, and subsequently examined for their physicochemical properties and evaluated for their performance for arsenite–As(III) and arsenate–As(V) rejection. The effect of GO and ZnO on the morphology, hierarchical structure, and hydrophilicity of fabricated membranes was studied using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), small and ultra-small angle neutron scattering (USANS and SANS), contact angle, zeta potential, and BET (Brunauer, Emmett and Teller) surface area analysis. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to study the elemental compositions and polymer-oxide interaction in the membranes. The incorporation of GO and ZnO in PSf matrix reduced the fiber diameter but increased the porosity, hydrophilicity, and surface negative charge of the membranes. Among five membrane systems, PSf with 1% ZnO has the highest water permeability of 13, 13 and 11 L h-1 m-2 bar-1 for pure water, As(III), and As(V)-contaminated water, respectively. The composite NF membranes of PSf and ZnO exhibited enhanced (more than twice) arsenite removal (at 5 bar pressure) of 71% as compared to pristine PSf membranes, at 43%, whereas both membranes showed only a 27% removal for arsenate.Tawsif Siddique, Rajkamal Balu, Jitendra Mata, Naba K. Dutta, and Namita Roy Choudhur

Constraining R-parity violating couplings using dimuon data at Tevatron Run-II

The dimuon plus dijet signal is analyzed in the top squark pair production at Tevatron Run-II experiment and the total event rate is compared with the existing dimuon data. This comparison rules out top squark mass upto 188(104) GeV for the branching fraction 100%(50%) of top squark decay into the muon plus quark via lepton number violating coupling. Interpretation of this limit in the framework of R-parity violating(RPV) SUSY model puts limit on relevant RPV coupling for a given top squark mass and other supersymmetric model parameters. If \MST \lsim 180 GeV we found that the RPV couplings are roughly restricted to be within $\sim 10^{-4}$ which is at the same ballpark value obtained from the neutrino data. The limits are very stringent for a scenario where top squarks appear to be the next lightest supersymmetric particles.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures,added minor clarifications,version to appear in Phys. Lett.

Fractional Quantum Hall Effect via Holography: Chern-Simons, Edge States, and Hierarchy

We present three holographic constructions of fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) via string theory. The first model studies edge states in FQHE using supersymmetric domain walls in N=6 Chern-Simons theory. We show that D4-branes wrapped on CP^1 or D8-branes wrapped on CP^3 create edge states that shift the rank or the level of the gauge group, respectively. These holographic edge states correctly reproduce the Hall conductivity. The second model presents a holographic dual to the pure U(N)_k (Yang-Mills-)Chern-Simons theory based on a D3-D7 system. Its holography is equivalent to the level-rank duality, which enables us to compute the Hall conductivity and the topological entanglement entropy. The third model introduces the first string theory embedding of hierarchical FQHEs, using IIA string on C^2/Z_n.Comment: 36 pages, 6 figures; v2: with an improved derivation of Hall conductivity in section 3.2, typo corrections, and additional references; v3: explanations and comments adde

Stars in the braneworld

We show that in a Randall-Sundrum II type braneworld, the vacuum exterior of a spherical star is not in general a Schwarzschild spacetime, but has radiative-type stresses induced by 5-dimensional graviton effects. Standard matching conditions do not lead to a unique exterior on the brane because of these 5-dimensional graviton effects. We find an exact uniform-density stellar solution on the brane, and show that the general relativity upper bound $GM/R<{4\over9}$ is reduced by 5-dimensional high-energy effects. The existence of neutron stars leads to a constraint on the brane tension that is stronger than the big bang nucleosynthesis constraint, but weaker than the Newton-law experimental constraint. We present two different non-Schwarzschild exteriors that match the uniform-density star on the brane, and we give a uniqueness conjecture for the full 5-dimensional problem.Comment: 6 pages RevTex, 2 figs, minor corrections to match version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Spin magnetosonic shocks in quantum plasmas

The one-dimensional shock structures of magnetosonic waves (MSWs) propagating in a dissipative quantum plasma medium is studied. A quantum magnetohydrodynamic (QMHD) model is used to take into account the quantum force term due to Bohm potential and the pressure-like spin force term for electrons. The nonlinear evolution (Korteweg de-Vries-Burger) equation, derived to describe the dynamics of small amplitude MSWs, where the dissipation is provided by the plasma resistivity, is solved numerically to obtain both oscillatory and monotonic shock structures. The shock strength decreases with increasing the effects of collective tunneling and increases with increasing the effects of spin alignment. The theoretical results could be of importance for astrophysical (e.g., magnetars) as well as for ultracold laboratory plasmas (e.g., Rydberg plasmas).Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure