Highly Ionised Gas as a Diagnostic of the Inner NLR

The spectra of AGN from the ultraviolet to the near infrared, exhibit emission lines covering a wide range of ionisation states, from neutral species such as [O I] 6300A, up to [Fe XIV] 5303A. Here we report on some recent studies of the properties of highly ionised lines (HILs), plus two case studies of individual objects. Future IFU observations at high spatial and good spectral resolution, will probe the excitation and kinematics of the gas in the zone between the extended NLR and unresolved BLR. Multi-component SED fitting can be used to link the source of photoionisation with the strengths and ratios of the HILs.Comment: Proceedings of the IAU Symposium: Co-evolution of Central Black Holes and Galaxie

Changes in the measured image separation of the gravitational lens system, PKS 1830-211

We present eight epochs of 43 GHz, dual-polarisation VLBA observations of the gravitational lens system PKS 1830-211, made over fourteen weeks. A bright, compact ``core'' and a faint extended ``jet'' are clearly seen in maps of both lensed images at all eight epochs. The relative separation of the radio centroid of the cores (as measured on the sky) changes by up to 87 micro arcsec between subsequent epochs. A comparison with the previous 43 GHz VLBA observations (Garrett et al. 1997) made 8 months earlier show even larger deviations in the separation of up to 201 micro arcsec. The measured changes are most likely produced by changes in the brightness distribution of the background source, enhanced by the magnification of the lens. A relative magnification matrix that is applicable on the milliarcsecond scale has been determined by relating two vectors (the ``core-jet'' separations and the offsets of the polarised and total intensity emission) in the two lensed images. The determinant of this matrix, -1.13 +/-0.61, is in good agreement with the measured flux density ratio of the two images. The matrix predicts that the 10 mas long jet, that is clearly seen in previous 15 and 8.4 GHz VLBA observations (Garrett et al. 1997, Guirado et al. 1999), should correspond to a 4 mas long jet trailing to the south-east of the SW image. The clear non-detection of this trailing jet is a strong evidence for sub-structure in the lens and may require more realistic lens models to be invoked, e.g. Nair & Garrett (2000).Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

A Manganin Foil Sensor for Small Uniaxial Stress

We describe a simple manganin foil resistance manometer for uniaxial stress measurements. The manometer functions at low pressures and over a range of temperatures. In this design no temperature seasoning is necessary, although the manometer must be prestressed to the upper end of the desired pressure range. The prestress pressure cannot be increased arbitrarily; irreversibility arising from shear stress limits its range. Attempting larger pressures yields irreproducible resistance measurements.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure

The second phase transition in the pyrochlore oxide Cd2Re2O7

Evidence for another phase transition at 120 K in the metallic pyrochlore oxide Cd2Re2O7, following the structural transition at 200 K and followed by the superconducting transition at 1.0 K, is given through resistivity, magnetoresistance, specific heat, and X-ray diffraction measurements. The results indicate unique successive structural and electronic transitions occurring in the pyrochlore compound, revealing an interesting interplay between the crystal and electronic structures on the itinerant electron system in the pyrochlore lattice

Identifiability and parameter estimation of the single particle lithium-ion battery model

This paper investigates the identifiability and estimation of the parameters of the single particle model (SPM) for lithium-ion battery simulation. Identifiability is addressed both in principle and in practice. The approach begins by grouping parameters and partially non-dimensionalising the SPM to determine the maximum expected degrees of freedom in the problem. We discover that, excluding open circuit voltage, there are only six independent parameters. We then examine the structural identifiability by considering whether the transfer function of the linearised SPM is unique. It is found that the model is unique provided that the electrode open circuit voltage functions have a known non-zero gradient, the parameters are ordered, and the electrode kinetics are lumped into a single charge transfer resistance parameter. We then demonstrate the practical estimation of model parameters from measured frequency-domain experimental electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) data, and show additionally that the parametrised model provides good predictive capabilities in the time domain, exhibiting a maximum voltage error of 20 mV between model and experiment over a 10 minute dynamic discharge.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, pre-print submitted to the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technolog

Thermal conductance of graphene and dimerite

We investigate the phonon thermal conductance of graphene regarding the graphene sheet as the large-width limit of graphene strips in the ballistic limit. We find that the thermal conductance depends weakly on the direction angle $\theta$ of the thermal flux periodically with period $\pi/3$. It is further shown that the nature of this directional dependence is the directional dependence of group velocities of the phonon modes in the graphene, originating from the $D_{6h}$ symmetry in the honeycomb structure. By breaking the $D_{6h}$ symmetry in graphene, we see more obvious anisotropic effect in the thermal conductance as demonstrated by dimerite.Comment: enlarged version, in PR

Elastic-Net Regularization: Error estimates and Active Set Methods

This paper investigates theoretical properties and efficient numerical algorithms for the so-called elastic-net regularization originating from statistics, which enforces simultaneously l^1 and l^2 regularization. The stability of the minimizer and its consistency are studied, and convergence rates for both a priori and a posteriori parameter choice rules are established. Two iterative numerical algorithms of active set type are proposed, and their convergence properties are discussed. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the features of the functional and algorithms