Transient engine simulation program. NERVA program

IBM 7094 transient engine simulation program for NERV

Angular Normal Modes of a Circular Coulomb Cluster

We investigate the angular normal modes for small oscillations about an equilibrium of a single-component coulomb cluster confined by a radially symmetric external potential to a circle. The dynamical matrix for this system is a Laplacian symmetrically circulant matrix and this result leads to an analytic solution for the eigenfrequencies of the angular normal modes. We also show the limiting dependence of the largest eigenfrequency for large numbers of particles

Acid rain monitoring in East-Central Florida from 1977 to present

Rainfall has been collected on the University of Central Florida campus and at the Kennedy Space Center over a 12 year period. The chemical composition has been determined and summarized by monthly, annual periods, and for the entire 12 year period at both locations. The weighted average pH at each site is 4.58; however, annual weighted average pH has been equal to or above the 12 year average during six of the past eight years. Nitrate concentrations have increased slightly during recent years while excess sulfate concentrations have remained below the 12 year weighted average during six of the past seven years. Stepwise regression suggests that sulfate, nitrate, ammonium ion and calcium play major roles in the description of rainwater acidity. Annual acid deposition and annual rainfall have varied from 20 to 50 meg/(m(exp 2) year) and 100 to 180 cm/year, respectively. Sea salt comprises at least 25 percent of the total ionic composition

From Newton's Laws to the Wheeler-DeWitt Equation

This is a pedagogical paper which explains some ideas in cosmology at a level accessible to undergraduate students. It does not use general relativity, but uses the ideas of Newtonian cosmology worked out by Milne and McCrea. The cosmological constant is also introduced within a Newtonian framework. Following standard quantization procedures the Wheeler-DeWitt equation in the minisuperspace approximation is derived for empty and non-empty universes.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur

Strangelets: Who is Looking, and How?

It has been over 30 years since the first suggestion that the true ground state of cold hadronic matter might be not nuclear matter but rather strange quark matter (SQM). Ever since, searches for stable SQM have been proceeding in various forms and have observed a handful of interesting events but have neither been able to find compelling evidence for stable strangelets nor to rule out their existence. I will survey the current status and near future of such searches with particular emphasis on the idea of SQM from strange star collisions as part of the cosmic ray flux.Comment: Talk given at International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter, 2006. 8 pages. 1 figur

Reference concentrations for trace elements in urine for the Brazilian population based on q-ICP-MS with a simple dilute-and-shoot procedure

Biomonitoring of trace elements is of critical importance in human health assessment. However, trace element concentrations in biological fluids are affected by environmental and physiological parameters, and therefore considerable variations can occur between specific population subgroups. Brazil is a large country with large environmental diversity and with a limited knowledge of the reference values (baseline data) for trace elements in biological fluids. Atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) and inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) are still the dominant analytical techniques used for biomonitoring trace element analysis in clinical specimens. However, the use of ICP-MS is becoming more usual in clinical laboratory analysis. Then, we evaluated here a simple dilute-and-shoot method for sequential determination of Al, Ba, Be, Cd, Co, Cu, Cs, Mn, Ni, Pb, Pt, Sb, Se, Sn, Tl and U in urine by quadrupole inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (q-ICP-MS). Urine samples (500 µL) were accurately pipetted into conical tubes (15 mL) and diluted to 10 mL with a solution containing 0.5 % (v/v) HNO3 + 0.005% (v/v) Triton X-100. Diluted urine samples also contain rhodium, iridium and yttrium added as internal standards. After that, samples were directly analyzed by ICP-MS against matrix-matching calibration. Method detection limit (3s, n = 20) were in the ng L-1 range for all analytes. The method was applied to the analysis of 412 ordinary urine samples from Brazilian healthy and non-exposed subjects to establish reference values. Data validation was provided by the analysis of the standard reference material (SRM) 2670a toxic elements in urine (freeze-dried) (high and low levels) from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and reference urine samples from the trace elements intercomparison program operated by the Institut National de Sante' Publique du Quebec, Canada.O biomonitoramento de elementos químicos é de extrema importância na avaliação da saúde humana. Entretanto, as concentrações dos elementos químicos nos fluidos biológicos são afetadas por parâmetros ambientais e fisiológicos e, consequentemente, consideráveis variações podem ocorrer entre subgrupos de populações específicas. O Brasil é um país com ampla diversidade ambiental e existe limitado conhecimento de valores de referência para elementos químicos em fluidos biológicos. A espectrometria de absorção atômica (AAS) e a espectrometria de emissão ótica com plasma acoplado indutivamente (ICP-OES) ainda são as técnicas analíticas mais comumente empregadas no biomonitoramento de elementos químicos em amostras clínicas. Entretanto, o uso da espectrometria de massas com plasma acoplado indutivamente (ICP-MS) está se tornando a cada dia mais comum nos laboratórios clínicos. Neste estudo, foi avaliado um método rápido envolvendo simples diluição da amostra para determinação de Al, Ba, Be, Cd, Co, Cu, Cs, Mn, Ni, Pb, Pt, Sb, Se, Sn, Tl e U em urina por ICP-MS. Amostras de urina (500 μL) foram pipetadas em frascos cônicos de 15 mL e diluídas para 10 mL com uma solução contendo 0,5 % (v/v) HNO3 + 0,005% (v/v) Triton X-100. Ródio, irídio e ítrio foram adicionados como padrões internos. Em seguida, as amostras foram diretamente analisadas por ICP-MS com calibração por ajuste de matriz. Os limites de detecção do método (3s, n = 20) foram da ordem de ng L-1 para todos os analitos em estudo. O método foi aplicado para a análise de 412 amostras de urina de brasileiros saudáveis e não expostos ambientalmente ou ocupacionalmente a metais para o estabelecimento de valores de referência na população brasileira. A validação dos resultados foi acompanhada pela análise de material de referência certificada de urina (SRM) 2670a proveniente do National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) e de materiais de referência provenientes do Institut National de Sante' Publique Du Quebec, no Canadá.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

Semiclassical collapse of a sphere of dust

The semiclassical collapse of a homogeneous sphere of dust is studied. After identifying the independent dynamical variables, the system is canonically quantised and coupled equations describing matter (dust) and gravitation are obtained. The conditions for the validity of the adiabatic (Born--Oppenheimer) and semiclassical approximations are derived. Further on neglecting back--reaction effects, it is shown that in the vicinity of the horizon and inside the dust the Wightman function for a conformal scalar field coupled to a monopole emitter is thermal at the characteristic Hawking temperature.Comment: LaTeX, 25 pages, no figures, final version accepted for publication in Class. and Quantum Gra

Compact Einstein-Weyl four-dimensional manifolds

We look for four dimensional Einstein-Weyl spaces equipped with a regular Bianchi metric. Using the explicit 4-parameters expression of the distance obtained in a previous work for non-conformally-Einstein Einstein-Weyl structures, we show that only four 1-parameter families of regular metrics exist on orientable manifolds : they are all of Bianchi $IX$ type and conformally K\"ahler ; moreover, in agreement with general results, they have a positive definite conformal scalar curvature. In a Gauduchon's gauge, they are compact and we obtain their topological invariants. Finally, we compare our results to the general analyses of Madsen, Pedersen, Poon and Swann : our simpler parametrisation allows us to correct some of their assertions.Comment: Latex file, 13 pages, an important reference added and a critical discussion of its claims offered, others minor modification

The effect of Coulomb interaction at ferromagnetic-paramagnetic metallic perovskite junctions

We study the effect of Coulomb interactions in transition metal oxides junctions. In this paper we analyze charge transfer at the interface of a three layer ferromagnetic-paramagnetic-ferromagnetic metallic oxide system. We choose a charge model considering a few atomic planes within each layer and obtain results for the magnetic coupling between the ferromagnetic layers. For large number of planes in the paramagnetic spacer we find that the coupling oscillates with the same period as in RKKY but the amplitude is sensitive to the Coulomb energy. At small spacer thickness however, large differences may appear as function of : the number of electrons per atom in the ferromagnetics and paramagnetics materials, the dielectric constant at each component, and the charge defects at the interface plane emphasizing the effects of charge transfer.Comment: tex file and 7 figure