Variational calculations for resonance oscillations of inhomogeneous plasmas

The electrostatic resonance properties of an inhomogeneous plasma column are reported by application of the Rayleigh-Ritz method. A description of the rf equation of motion and pressure term that expresses the system of equations in Euler-Lagrange form is presented. The Rayleigh-Ritz procedure is applied to the corresponding Lagrangian to obtain approximate resonance frequencies and eigenfunctions. An appropriate set of trial coordinate functions is defined, which leads to frequency and eigenfunction estimates

Towards Long-endurance Flight: Design and Implementation of a Variable-pitch Gasoline-engine Quadrotor

Majority of today's fixed-pitch, electric-power quadrotors have short flight endurance ($<$ 1 hour) which greatly limits their applications. This paper presents a design methodology for the construction of a long-endurance quadrotor using variable-pitch rotors and a gasoline-engine. The methodology consists of three aspects. Firstly, the rotor blades and gasoline engine are selected as a pair, so that sufficient lift can be comfortably provided by the engine. Secondly, drivetrain and airframe are designed. Major challenges include airframe vibration minimization and power transmission from one engine to four rotors while keeping alternate rotors contra-rotating. Lastly, a PD controller is tuned to facilitate preliminary flight tests. The methodology has been verified by the construction and successful flight of our gasoline quadrotor prototype, which is designed to have a flight time of 2 to 3 hours and a maximum take-off weight of 10 kg.Comment: 6 page

Magnitude and Sign Correlations in Heartbeat Fluctuations

We propose an approach for analyzing signals with long-range correlations by decomposing the signal increment series into magnitude and sign series and analyzing their scaling properties. We show that signals with identical long-range correlations can exhibit different time organization for the magnitude and sign. We find that the magnitude series relates to the nonlinear properties of the original time series, while the sign series relates to the linear properties. We apply our approach to the heartbeat interval series and find that the magnitude series is long-range correlated, while the sign series is anticorrelated and that both magnitude and sign series may have clinical applications.Comment: 4 pages,late

Unsteady disturbances in a swept wing boundary layer due to plasma forcing

This work investigates the response of a transitional boundary layer to spanwise-invariant dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator (PA) forcing on a 45 swept wing at a chord Reynolds number of 2:17 106. Two important parameters of the PA operation are scrutinized, namely, the forcing frequency and the streamwise location of forcing. An array of passive discrete roughness elements is installed near the leading edge to promote and condition a set of critical stationary crossflow (CF) instability modes. Numerical solutions of the boundary layer equations and linear stability theory are used in combination with the experimental pressure distribution to provide predictions of critical stationary and traveling CF instabilities. The laminar–turbulent transition front is visualized and quantified by means of infrared thermography. Measurements of velocity fields are performed using hotwire anemometry scans at specific chordwise locations. The results demonstrate the inherent introduction of unsteady velocity disturbances by the plasma forcing. It is shown that, depending on actuator frequency and location, these disturbances can evolve into typical CF instabilities. Positive traveling low-frequency type III modes are generally amplified by PA in all tested cases, while the occurrence of negative traveling high-frequency type I secondary modes is favored when PA is operating at high frequency and at relatively downstream locations, with respect to the leading edg

Pupillometry, a bioengineering overview

The pupillary control system is examined using a microprocessor based integrative pupillometer. The real time software functions of the microprocessor include: data collection, stimulus generation and area to diameter conversion. Results of an analysis of linear and nonlinear phenomena are presented

Attosecond Precision Multi-km Laser-Microwave Network

Synchronous laser-microwave networks delivering attosecond timing precision are highly desirable in many advanced applications, such as geodesy, very-long-baseline interferometry, high-precision navigation and multi-telescope arrays. In particular, rapidly expanding photon science facilities like X-ray free-electron lasers and intense laser beamlines require system-wide attosecond-level synchronization of dozens of optical and microwave signals up to kilometer distances. Once equipped with such precision, these facilities will initiate radically new science by shedding light on molecular and atomic processes happening on the attosecond timescale, such as intramolecular charge transfer, Auger processes and their impact on X-ray imaging. Here, we present for the first time a complete synchronous laser-microwave network with attosecond precision, which is achieved through new metrological devices and careful balancing of fiber nonlinearities and fundamental noise contributions. We demonstrate timing stabilization of a 4.7-km fiber network and remote optical-optical synchronization across a 3.5-km fiber link with an overall timing jitter of 580 and 680 attoseconds RMS, respectively, for over 40 hours. Ultimately we realize a complete laser-microwave network with 950-attosecond timing jitter for 18 hours. This work can enable next-generation attosecond photon-science facilities to revolutionize many research fields from structural biology to material science and chemistry to fundamental physics.Comment: 42 pages, 13 figure