44,005 research outputs found
Water content and wind acceleration in the envelope around the oxygen-rich AGB star IK Tauri as seen by Herschel/HIFI
During their asymptotic giant branch evolution, low-mass stars lose a significant fraction of their mass through an intense wind, enriching the interstellar medium with products of nucleosynthesis. We observed the nearby oxygen-rich asymptotic giant branch star IK Tau using the highresolution HIFI spectrometer onboard Herschel. We report on the first detection of H^(16)_2O and the rarer isotopologues H^(17)_2O and H^(18)_2O in both the
ortho and para states. We deduce a total water content (relative to molecular hydrogen) of 6.6 × 10^(−5), and an ortho-to-para ratio of 3:1. These results are consistent with the formation of H_2O in thermodynamical chemical equilibrium at photospheric temperatures, and does not require pulsationally induced non-equilibrium chemistry, vaporization of icy bodies or grain surface reactions. High-excitation lines of ^(12)CO, ^(13)CO, ^(28)SiO, ^(29)SiO, ^(30)SiO, HCN, and SO have also been detected. From the observed line widths, the acceleration region in the inner wind zone can be characterized, and we show that the wind acceleration is slower than hitherto anticipated
Automatic quantitative analysis of ultrasound tongue contours via wavelet-based functional mixed models
Variance Reduction For A Discrete Velocity Gas
We extend a variance reduction technique developed by Baker and Hadjiconstantinou [1] to a discrete velocity gas. In our previous work, the collision integral was evaluated by importance sampling of collision partners [2]. Significant computational effort may be wasted by evaluating the collision integral in regions where the flow is in equilibrium. In the current approach, substantial computational savings are obtained by only solving for the deviations from equilibrium. In the near continuum regime, the deviations from equilibrium are small and low noise evaluation of the collision integral can be achieved with very coarse statistical sampling. Spatially homogenous relaxation of the Bobylev-Krook-Wu distribution [3,4], was used as a test case to verify that the method predicts the correct evolution of a highly non-equilibrium distribution to equilibrium. When variance reduction is not used, the noise causes the entropy to undershoot, but the method with variance reduction matches the analytic curve for the same number of collisions. We then extend the work to travelling shock waves and compare the accuracy and computational savings of the variance reduction method to DSMC over Mach numbers ranging from 1.2 to 10.Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanic
Lie symmetries of (1+2) nonautonomous evolution equations in Financial Mathematics
We analyse two classes of evolution equations which are of special
interest in Financial Mathematics, namely the Two-dimensional Black-Scholes
Equation and the equation for the Two-factor Commodities Problem. Our approach
is that of Lie Symmetry Analysis. We study these equations for the case in
which they are autonomous and for the case in which the parameters of the
equations are unspecified functions of time. For the autonomous Black-Scholes
Equation we find that the symmetry is maximal and so the equation is reducible
to the Classical Heat Equation. This is not the case for the
nonautonomous equation for which the number of symmetries is submaximal. In the
case of the two-factor equation the number of symmetries is submaximal in both
autonomous and nonautonomous cases. When the solution symmetries are used to
reduce each equation to a equation, the resulting equation is of
maximal symmetry and so equivalent to the Classical Heat Equation.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure, to be published in Mathematics in the Special
issue "Mathematical Finance
Far Field Deposition Of Scoured Regolith Resulting From Lunar Landings
As a lunar lander approaches a dusty surface, the plume from the descent engine impinges on the ground, entraining loose regolith into a high velocity dust spray. Without the inhibition of a background atmosphere, the entrained regolith can travel many kilometers from the landing site. In this work, we simulate the flow field from the throat of the descent engine nozzle to where the dust grains impact the surface many kilometers away. The near field is either continuum or marginally rarefied and is simulated via a loosely coupled hybrid DSMC - Navier Stokes (DPLR) solver. Regions of two-phase and polydisperse granular flows are solved via DSMC. The far field deposition is obtained by using a staged calculation, where the first stages are in the near field where the flow is quasi-steady and the outer stages are unsteady. A realistic landing trajectory is approximated by a set of discrete hovering altitudes which range from 20m to 3m. The dust and gas motions are fully coupled using an interaction model that conserves mass, momentum, and energy statistically and inelastic collisions between dust particles are also accounted for. Simulations of a 4 engine configuration are also examined, and the erosion rates as well as near field particle fluxes are discussed.Astronom
Evaluation of Formal posterior distributions via Markov chain arguments
We consider evaluation of proper posterior distributions obtained from
improper prior distributions. Our context is estimating a bounded function
of a parameter when the loss is quadratic. If the posterior mean of
is admissible for all bounded , the posterior is strongly
admissible. We give sufficient conditions for strong admissibility. These
conditions involve the recurrence of a Markov chain associated with the
estimation problem. We develop general sufficient conditions for recurrence of
general state space Markov chains that are also of independent interest. Our
main example concerns the -dimensional multivariate normal distribution with
mean vector when the prior distribution has the form on the parameter space . Conditions on for strong
admissibility of the posterior are provided.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/07-AOS542 the Annals of
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Development of a solid electrolyte carbon dioxide and water reduction system for oxygen recovery
A 1/4-man solid electrolyte oxygen regeneration system, consisting of an electrolyzer, a carbon deposition reactor, and palladium membranes for separating hydrogen, was operated continuously in a 180-day test. Oxygen recovery from the carbon dioxide-water feed was 95%. One percent of the oxygen was lost to vacuum with the hydrogen off-gas. In a space cabin, the remaining 4% would have been recycled to the cabin and recovered. None of the electrolysis cells used in the 180-day test failed. Electrolysis power rose 20% during the test; the average power was 283.5 watts/man. Crew time was limited to 18 min/day of which 12 min/day was used for removing carbon. The success achieved in operating the system can be attributed to an extensive component development program, which is described. Stability of operation, ease of control, and flexibility in feed composition were demonstrated by the life test
Survival with Treated and Well-Controlled Blood Pressure: Findings from a Prospective Cohort Study.
AIM: To compare survival and incident cardiovascular disease between normotensive, untreated hypertensive, treated and poorly-controlled hypertensive and treated and well-controlled hypertensive adults.
METHODS AND RESULTS: Data from the British Regional Heart Study (men) and British Women's Heart and Health Study (women) were used (N = 6476). Blood pressure and treatment were assessed at baseline (1998-2001) when participants were aged 60-79 years and participants were followed up for a median of 8 years. Date and cause of death were obtained from death certificates and non-fatal cardiovascular disease events were obtained from repeat detailed medical record reviews. Of the whole cohort 52% of women and 49% of men had untreated hypertension and a further 22% and 18%, respectively, had poorly treated hypertension. Just 3% of women and 4% of men had treated and well controlled hypertension and 23% and 29%, respectively, were normotensive. Compared to normotensive individuals, incident cardiovascular disease (fatal and non-fatal) was increased in those with poorly-controlled hypertension (Hazard Ratio (HR): 1.88; 95%CI: 1.53, 2.30), those with untreated hypertension (HR 1.46; 95%CI 1.22, 1.75) and those who were well-controlled hypertension (HR 1.38; 95%CI 0.94, 2.03). Adjustment for baseline differences in mean blood pressure between the groups resulted in attenuation of the increased risk in the poorly-controlled (1.52 (1.18, 1.97) and untreated groups (1.21 (0.97, 1.52), but did not change the association in the well-controlled group. All-cause mortality was also increased in all three hypertension groups but estimates were imprecise with wide confidence intervals.
CONCLUSIONS: Half of women and men aged 60-79 in Britain had untreated hypertension and only a very small proportion of those with diagnosed and treated hypertension were well controlled. Those with hypertension, irrespective of whether this was treated and controlled or not, were at greater risk of future cardiovascular disease than those who are normotensive
Psychological Issues in Online Adaptive Task Allocation
Adaptive aiding is an idea that offers potential for improvement over many current approaches to aiding in human-computer systems. The expected return of tailoring the system to fit the user could be in the form of improved system performance and/or increased user satisfaction. Issues such as the manner in which information is shared between human and computer, the appropriate division of labor between them, and the level of autonomy of the aid are explored. A simulated visual search task was developed. Subjects are required to identify targets in a moving display while performing a compensatory sub-critical tracking task. By manipulating characteristics of the situation such as imposed task-related workload and effort required to communicate with the computer, it is possible to create conditions in which interaction with the computer would be more or less desirable. The results of preliminary research using this experimental scenario are presented, and future directions for this research effort are discussed
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