784 research outputs found

    USING EXERGY LOSS PROFILES AND ENTHALPY-TEMPERATURE PROFILES FOR THE EVALUATION OF THERMODYNAMIC EFFICIENCY IN DISTILLATION COLUMNS

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    In this work the temperature-enthalpy profile and the exergy loss profile are used together to improve thermodynamic efficiency of distillation columns, by identifying possible benefits of using side exchangers. The method proposed is to compute the exergy loss profile and to analyse the distribution of the losses across the column stages. The present work aims at applying the stage-by-stage exergy analysis to the distillation of non-ideal mixtures, e.g. methanol/water. For these systems the use of thermodynamic excess properties is required: Gibbs free energy for phase equilibrium and enthalpy of solution for energy balance. Initial studies showed that the enthalpy of solution has a small effect on the overall energy balance of the distillation column, but a significant impact on the exergy loss profiles. Some profiles even showed a violation of the second law of thermodynamics, with entropy being destroyed on some stages, clearly indicating that a wrong approach to exergy calculation was being used.A model for exergy calculations of non-ideal solutions is presented. The exergy values so computed are then checked by a consistency test, using the reversible column profile. Finally, the exergy procedures are used to study a typical methanol/water distillation columns, where the exergy profiles are used to identify scope for intermediate heat exchange

    Realtime Photoacoustic Microscopy of Murine Cardiovascular Dynamics

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    Non-invasive visualization of cardiovascular dynamics in small animals is challenging due to their rapid heart-rates. We present a realtime photoacoustic imaging system consisting of a 30-MHz ultrasound array transducer, receive electronics, a high-repetition-rate laser, and a multicore-computer, and demonstrate its ability to image optically-absorbing structures of the beating hearts of young athymic nude mice at rates of ~50 frames per second with 100 µm×25 µm spatial resolution. To our knowledge this is the first report of realtime photoacoustic imaging of physiological dynamics

    Occupational sitting behaviour and its relationship with back pain – A pilot study

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    AbstractNowadays, working in an office environment is ubiquitous. At the same time, progressively more people suffer from occupational musculoskeletal disorders. Therefore, the aim of this pilot study was to analyse the influence of back pain on sitting behaviour in the office environment.A textile pressure mat (64-sensor-matrix) placed on the seat pan was used to identify the adopted sitting positions of 20 office workers by means of random forest classification. Additionally, two standardised questionnaires (Korff, BPI) were used to assess short and long-term back pain in order to divide the subjects into two groups (with and without back pain). Independent t-test indicated that subjects who registered back pain within the last 24 h showed a clear trend towards a more static sitting behaviour. Therefore, the developed sensor system has successfully been introduced to characterise and compare sitting behaviour of subjects with and without back pain

    The formation of ultra-compact dwarf galaxies and nucleated dwarf galaxies

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    Ultra compact dwarf galaxies (UCDs) have similar properties as massive globular clusters or the nuclei of nucleated galaxies. Recent observations suggesting a high dark matter content and a steep spatial distribution within groups and clusters provide new clues as to their origins. We perform high-resolution N-body / smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations designed to elucidate two possible formation mechanisms for these systems: the merging of globular clusters in the centre of a dark matter halo, or the massively stripped remnant of a nucleated galaxy. Both models produce density profiles as well as the half light radii that can fit the observational constraints. However, we show that the first scenario results to UCDs that are underluminous and contain no dark matter. This is because the sinking process ejects most of the dark matter particles from the halo centre. Stripped nuclei give a more promising explanation, especially if the nuclei form via the sinking of gas, funneled down inner galactic bars, since this process enhances the central dark matter content. Even when the entire disk is tidally stripped away, the nucleus stays intact and can remain dark matter dominated even after severe stripping. Total galaxy disruption beyond the nuclei only occurs on certain orbits and depends on the amount of dissipation during nuclei formation. By comparing the total disruption of CDM subhaloes in a cluster potential we demonstrate that this model also leads to the observed spatial distribution of UCDs which can be tested in more detail with larger data sets.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, final version accepted for publication in MNRA

    Halo orbits in cosmological disk galaxies : tracers of information history

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    We analyze the orbits of stars and dark matter particles in the halo of a disk galaxy formed in a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation. The halo is oblate within the inner ∼20 kpc and triaxial beyond this radius. About 43% of orbits are short axis tubes—the rest belong to orbit families that characterize triaxial potentials (boxes, long-axis tubes and chaotic orbits), but their shapes are close to axisymmetric. We find no evidence that the self-consistent distribution function of the nearly oblate inner halo is comprised primarily of axisymmetric short-axis tube orbits. Orbits of all families and both types of particles are highly eccentric, with mean eccentricity �0.6. We find that randomly selected samples of halo stars show no substructure in “integrals of motion” space. However, individual accretion events can clearly be identified in plots of metallicity versus formation time. Dynamically young tidal debris is found primarily on a single type of orbit. However, stars associated with older satellites become chaotically mixed during the formation process (possibly due to scattering by the central bulge and disk, and baryonic processes), and appear on all four types of orbits. We find that the tidal debris in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations experiences significantly more chaotic evolution than in collisionless simulations, making it much harder to identify individual progenitors using phase space coordinates alone. However, by combining information on stellar ages and chemical abundances with the orbital properties of halo stars in the underlying self-consistent potential, the identification of progenitors is likely to be possible

    The Role of Dwarf Galaxies in Building Large Stellar Halos

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    The hierarchical theory of galaxy formation rests on the idea that smaller galactic structures merge to form the galaxies that we see today. The past decade has provided remarkable observational support for this scenario, driven in part by advances in spectroscopic instrumentation. Multi-object spectroscopy enabled the discovery of kinematically cold substructures around the Milky Way and M31 that are likely the debris of disrupting satellites. Improvements in high-resolution spectroscopy have produced key evidence that the abundance patterns of the Milky Way halo and its dwarf satellites can be explained by Galactic chemical evolution models based on hierarchical assembly. These breakthroughs have depended almost entirely on observations of nearby stars in the Milky Way and luminous red giant stars in M31 and Local Group dwarf satellites. In the next decade, extremely large telescopes will allow observations far down the luminosity function in the known dwarf galaxies, and they will enable observations of individual stars far out in the Galactic halo. The chemical abundance census now available for the Milky Way will become possible for our nearest neighbor, M31. Velocity dispersion measurements now available in M31 will become possible for systems beyond the Local Group such as Sculptor and M81 Group galaxies. Detailed studies of a greater number of individual stars in a greater number of spiral galaxies and their satellites will test hierarchical assembly in new ways because dynamical and chemical evolution models predict different outcomes for halos of different masses in different environments.Comment: Astro2010 Decadal Survey White Paper, 8 page

    Antenatal care and skilled delivery service utilisation in Somali pastoral communities of Eastern Ethiopia

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    To assess maternal health care service utilisation and associated factors in Somali pastoral communities of eastern Ethiopia.; Community-based cross-sectional study complemented by qualitative assessments in Adadle district, Somali region, eastern Ethiopia, among 450 women in six kebeles from August to September 2016. Logistic regression was used to assess factors associated with antenatal care use and skilled delivery care use, controlling for confounders.; About 27% [95%CI 22.8-31.2%] of women used antenatal care, and 22.6% [95%CI 18.7-26.5%] received skilled delivery service. None of the respondents reported post-natal care. About 43% reported that they had no knowledge of antenatal care, and 46% did not perceive delivery at a health facility as important. Pastoral lifestyle, husband's educational status, women's attitude towards health care service and financial support from the husband were significantly associated with antenatal care utilisation. Health professionals' attitudes, perceptions of institutional delivery, antenatal care utilisation and information about exemptions from maternal health care fees were associated with skilled delivery service utilisation.; Improving community awareness of antenatal care, employing female health professionals and culturally adapted guidelines could improve skilled delivery utilisation. In a patriarchal society, involving male partners in all maternal health issues is essential to increase use of maternal health services and to decrease maternal mortality

    Constraining Cluster Physics with the Shape of X-ray Clusters: Comparison of Local X-ray Clusters versus LCDM Clusters

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    Simulations of cluster formation have demonstrated that condensation of baryons into central galaxies during cluster formation can drive the shape of the gas distribution in galaxy clusters significantly rounder, even at radii as large as half of the virial radius. However, such simulations generally predict stellar fractions within cluster virial radii that are ~2 to 3 times larger than the stellar masses deduced from observations. In this work we compare ellipticity profiles of clusters simulated with and without baryonic cooling to the cluster ellipticity profiles derived from Chandra and ROSAT observations in an effort to constrain the fraction of gas that cools and condenses into the central galaxies within clusters. We find that the observed ellipticity profiles are fairly constant with radius, with an average ellipticity of 0.18 +/- 0.05. The observed ellipticity profiles are in good agreement with the predictions of non-radiative simulations. On the other hand, the ellipticity profiles of the clusters in simulations that include radiative cooling, star formation, and supernova feedback (but no AGN feedback) deviate significantly from the observed ellipticity profiles at all radii. The simulations with cooling overpredict (underpredict) ellipticity in the inner (outer) regions of galaxy clusters. By comparing the simulations with and without cooling, we show that the cooling of gas via cooling flows in the central regions of simulated clusters causes the gas distribution to be more oblate in the central regions, but makes the outer gas distribution more spherical. We find that late-time gas cooling and star formation are responsible for the significantly oblate gas distributions in cluster cores, but the gas shapes outside of cluster cores are set primarily by baryon dissipation at high redshift z > 2.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, matching the published version in ApJ. Corrected missing reference in the arxiv versio

    Realtime Photoacoustic Microscopy of Murine Cardiovascular Dynamics

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    Non-invasive visualization of cardiovascular dynamics in small animals is challenging due to their rapid heart-rates. We present a realtime photoacoustic imaging system consisting of a 30-MHz ultrasound array transducer, receive electronics, a high-repetition-rate laser, and a multicore-computer, and demonstrate its ability to image optically-absorbing structures of the beating hearts of young athymic nude mice at rates of ~50 frames per second with 100 µm×25 µm spatial resolution. To our knowledge this is the first report of realtime photoacoustic imaging of physiological dynamics
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