Spheromak Experiment Using Separate Guns For Formation And Sustainment

An experiment is described that incorporates the use of separate magnetized plasma guns for formation and sustainment of a spheromak. It is shown that energy coupling efficiency approaches unity if the gun and spheromak are of comparable size. A large gun should be able to operate at lower current and therefore lower voltage. In addition, it is expected that a gun matched to the size of the spheromak will cause less perturbation to the equilibrium. It is proposed to use a smaller gun for spheromak formation and a large, efficient gun for sustainment. The theoretical basis for the experiment is developed, and the details of the experiment are described. A prediction of the equilibrium magnetic flux surfaces using the EFIT code is presented

Debt overhang in emerging Europe ?

This paper assesses the extent to which debt overhang poses a constraint to economic activity in Emerging Europe, as the region emerges from the recent financial and economic crisis. At the macroeconomic level, it finds that the external imbalance problem for Emerging Europe has been in most cases more one of flows (high current account deficits in the pre-crisis years) rather than large stocks of external debt. A high reliance on equity funding means that net external debt is far lower than net external liabilities. Domestic balance sheets have expanded quite rapidly but sector liabilities remain relatively low compared with advanced economies. With the important exception of Hungary, public debt levels also remain relatively low in Emerging Europe. At the microeconomic level, the potential for debt overhang in the corporate sector is limited to a few countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Slovenia. Due to the low incidence of household debt, hardly any country, except Estonia, seems to face a threat of debt overhang in the household sector. The strong increase in non-performing loans compared with pre-crisis bank profitability suggests that debt overhang in the banking sector is a threat in Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Georgia, and Albania. Financial integration of Emerging Europe seems to have contributed to the transmission of the crisis to the region. At the same time, this integration is helping the region in managing the crisis by concerted actions of the major players.Debt Markets,Access to Finance,Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress,Banks&Banking Reform,Emerging Markets

The Holy Spirit and the Christian Life in Romans 8:1-17

Problem: There is an emphasis in Rom 8:1-17 that is not always seen in its proper dimensions. It is Paul\u27s emphasis on the involvement of the Spirit in every aspect of the Christian life. It is the purpose of this thesis to examine Rom 8:1-17 in order to bring out this emphasis on the work of the Spirit. Procedure: In considering the emphasis on the spirit in Rom 8:1-17, it seems that Rom 8:2 presents a basic statement of the work of the Spirit in the Christian life. The main idea is that the Spirit of life has delivered the believer in Christ Jesus from the power of sin and death. The approach of this thesis is to deal thematically with vss. 3-17 to demonstrate that the theme of Rom 8:2 is in fact developed by Paul in these verses. The Spirit does deliver the believer from the power of sin, according to vss. 12-14. The positive side of this is introduced in Rom 8:4 where the Spirit is seen to enable the believer to live a righteous life. In the face of the inevitability of death, the assurance of life can be the present possession of the believer because of the indwelling Spirit of God (vss. 14-16). The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus gives more than assurance. He is life, now and eternally, as stated in vss. 10-11. Conclusions: Examination of Rom 8:1-17 does show that Paul develops the theme of Rom 8:2 in the following verses of this passage. There is can be seen that Paul sees the Spirit involved in every aspect of Christian living. It is also noted that the experience of the Spirit is only available to those who are in a faith-relationship with Jesus Christ. The understanding of this is vital to a successful Christian life

Composite reinforced propellant tanks

Design studies involving weight and cost were carried out for several structural concepts applicable to space shuttle disposable tankage. An effective design, a honeycomb stabilized pressure vessel, was chosen. A test model was designed and fabricated

The Third Way for the Third Sector: Using Design to Transfer Knowledge and Improve Service in a Voluntary Community Sector Organisation

This paper describes a two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership that concluded in September 2011. Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) is a UK-wide activity that helps organisations to improve their competitiveness and productivity by making better use of knowledge, technology and skills within universities, colleges and research organisations. This paper details the outcome of a KTP between Age UK Newcastle and Northumbria University’s School of Design that aimed to use Design approaches to improve the charity’s services. This paper will describe the recent context for organisations operating in the Voluntary Community Sector and discuss the relevance of a Design approach to both the improvement of customer services in this circumstance, as well as the transfer of knowledge to a capacity-starved organisation. It will also document how Design was used to achieve both of these aims, and the resulting impact of this engagement on the organisation and stakeholders

The Anisotropic Spatial Distribution of Hypervelocity Stars

We study the distribution of angular positions and angular separations of unbound hypervelocity stars (HVSs). HVSs are spatially anisotropic at the 3-sigma level. The spatial anisotropy is significant in Galactic longitude, not in latitude, and the inclusion of lower velocity, possibly bound HVSs reduces the significance of the anisotropy. We discuss how the observed distribution of HVSs may be linked to their origin. In the future, measuring the distribution of HVSs in the southern sky will provide additional constraints on the spatial anisotropy and the origin of HVSs.Comment: 4 pages, accepted to ApJ Letter

Fungal Chitin Dampens Inflammation through IL-10 Induction Mediated by NOD2 and TLR9 Activation

Funding: JW and NARG thank the Wellcome Trust (080088, 086827, 075470), The Wellcome Trust Strategic Award in Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology (097377) and the European Union ALLFUN (FP7/2007 2013, HEALTH-2010-260338) for funding. MGN was supported by a Vici grant of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. AJPB and DMM were funded by STRIFE, ERC-2009-AdG-249793 and AJPB additionally by FINSysB, PITN-GA-2008-214004 and the BBSRC [BB/F00513X/1]. MDL was supported by the MRC (MR/J008230/1). GDB and SV were funded by the Wellcome Trust (086558) and TB and MK were funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Bi 696/3-1; Bi 696/5-2; Bi 696/10-1). MS was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Sch 897/1-3) and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (R01 DE017514-01). TDK and RKSM were funded by the National Institute of Health (AR056296, AI101935) and the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Triton's global heat budget

Internal heat flow from radioactive decay in Triton's interior along with absorbed thermal energy from Neptune total 5 to 20 percent of the insolation absorbed by Triton, thus comprising a significant fraction of Triton's surface energy balance. These additional energy inputs can raise Triton's surface temperature between approx. 0.5 to 1.5 K above that possible with absorbed sunlight alone, resulting in a factor of approx. 1.5 to 2.5 increase in Triton's basal atmospheric pressure. If Triton's internal heatflow is concentrated in some areas, as is likely, local effects such as enhanced sublimation with subsequent modification of albedo could be quite large. Furthermore, indications of recent albedo change on Triton suggest that Triton's surface temperature and pressure may not now be in steady state, further suggesting that atmospheric pressure on Triton was as much as 10 times higher in the recent past

Self-similarity and non-Markovian behavior in traded stock volumes

The volume traded daily for 17 stocks is followed over a period of about half a century. We look at the volume of stocks traded in a certain time interval (day, week, month) and analyze how long that traded volume keeps monotonically increasing or decreasing. On all three times scales we find that the sequence of traded volumes behaves neither like a sequence of independent and identically distributed variables, nor like a Markov sequence. A compressed exponential survival function with the same parameters at all timescales is firmly established. A day with an increase (decrease) of traded volume is most likely followed by a day with a decrease (increase) of traded volume. We show how the apparent self-similarity results because the small day-to-day anticorrelation carries over when larger time intervals are considered. The observed small anticorrelation can be explained as a consequence of market forces and trader reactions