934 research outputs found
Microgravity nucleation and particle coagulation experiments support
A hollow sphere model is developed to predict the range of supersaturation ratio values for refractory metal vapors in a proposed experimental nucleation apparatus. Since the experiments are to be carried out in a microgravity environment, the model neglects the effects of convection and assumes that the only transfer of vapors through an inert gas atmosphere is by conduction and molecular diffusion. A consistent set of physical properties data is assembled for the various candidate metals and inert ambient gases expected to be used in the nucleation experiments. Transient partial pressure profiles are computed for the diffusing refractory species for two possible temperature distributions. The supersaturation ratio values from both candidate temperature profiles are compared with previously obtained experimetnal data on a silver-hydrogen system. The model is used to simulate the diffusion of magnesium vapor through argon and other inert gas atmospheres over ranges of initial and boundary conditions. These results identify different combinations of design and operating parameters which are liekly to produce supersaturation ratio values high enough to induce homogeneous nucleation in the apparatus being designed for the microgravity nucleation experiments
Heller, McDonald, Bruen, and the Unconstitutional Tax Burden of the NFA
During the gangland-era crime sprees of the 1920s and 1930s, Congress enacted the National Firearms Act in an attempt to make it more difficult to acquire the types of weapons favored by gangsters by imposing an extreme tax on these weapons. The draconian rules governing the purchase of these firearms are still in place today, but, with the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, the National Firearms Act may soon fall to challenges presented by Second Amendment activists. In Bruen, the Court ruled that, when the plain text of the Second Amendment protects a citizen’s conduct, if the government wants to burden that conduct, it must first show historical precedent for the gun control measure in both purpose and method. This article argues that the NFA will likely not survive a challenge if it is put to the test under the Bruen standard of review. However, minor changes to its enforcement may be enough to rehabilitate the National Firearms Act should it be found to be unconstitutional
Market Power in Direct Marketing of Fresh Produce: Community Supported Agriculture Farms
CSA farms establish a loyal customer base and, potentially, market power. A new empirical industrial organization (NEIO) approach and survey data from Northeast CSA farms are used to determine whether CSA farms have market power and the extent to which they exercise their market power. Results suggest CSA farms exert about two percent of their potential monopoly power.Community Supported Agriculture; New Empirical Industrial Organization; Market Power; Fresh Produce; Organic Agriculture
Concordant cues in faces and voices: testing the backup signal hypothesis
Information from faces and voices combines to provide multimodal signals about a person. Faces and voices may offer redundant, overlapping (backup signals), or complementary information (multiple messages). This article reports two experiments which investigated the extent to which faces and voices deliver concordant information about dimensions of fitness and quality. In Experiment 1, participants rated faces and voices on scales for masculinity/femininity, age, health, height, and weight. The results showed that people make similar judgments from faces and voices, with particularly strong correlations for masculinity/femininity, health, and height. If, as these results suggest, faces and voices constitute backup signals for various dimensions, it is hypothetically possible that people would be able to accurately match novel faces and voices for identity. However, previous investigations into novel face–voice matching offer contradictory results. In Experiment 2, participants saw a face and heard a voice and were required to decide whether the face and voice belonged to the same person. Matching accuracy was significantly above chance level, suggesting that judgments made independently from faces and voices are sufficiently similar that people can match the two. Both sets of results were analyzed using multilevel modeling and are interpreted as being consistent with the backup signal hypothesis
A key-formula to compute the gravitational potential of inhomogeneous discs in cylindrical coordinates
We have established the exact expression for the gravitational potential of a
homogeneous polar cell - an elementary pattern used in hydrodynamical
simulations of gravitating discs. This formula, which is a closed-form, works
for any opening angle and radial extension of the cell. It is valid at any
point in space, i.e. in the plane of the distribution (inside and outside) as
well as off-plane, thereby generalizing the results reported by Durand (1953)
for the circular disc. The three components of the gravitational acceleration
are given. The mathematical demonstration proceeds from the "incomplete version
of Durand's formula" for the potential (based on complete elliptic integrals).
We determine first the potential due to the circular sector (i.e. a pie-slice
sheet), and then deduce that of the polar cell (from convenient radial scaling
and subtraction). As a by-product, we generate an integral theorem stating that
"the angular average of the potential of any circular sector along its tangent
circle is 2/PI times the value at the corner". A few examples are presented.
For numerical resolutions and cell shapes commonly used in disc simulations, we
quantify the importance of curvature effects by performing a direct comparison
between the potential of the polar cell and that of the Cartesian (i.e.
rectangular) cell having the same mass. Edge values are found to deviate
roughly like 2E-3 x N/256 in relative (N is the number of grid points in the
radial direction), while the agreement is typically four orders of magnitude
better for values at the cell's center. We also produce a reliable
approximation for the potential, valid in the cell's plane, inside and close to
the cell. Its remarkable accuracy, about 5E-4 x N/256 in relative, is
sufficient to estimate the cell's self-acceleration.Comment: Accepted for publication in Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical
Astronom
Whole-Genome Sequencing of the Opportunistic Yeast Pathogen <i>Candida inconspicua</i> Uncovers Its Hybrid Origin
Model Order Reduction for Rotating Electrical Machines
The simulation of electric rotating machines is both computationally
expensive and memory intensive. To overcome these costs, model order reduction
techniques can be applied. The focus of this contribution is especially on
machines that contain non-symmetric components. These are usually introduced
during the mass production process and are modeled by small perturbations in
the geometry (e.g., eccentricity) or the material parameters. While model order
reduction for symmetric machines is clear and does not need special treatment,
the non-symmetric setting adds additional challenges. An adaptive strategy
based on proper orthogonal decomposition is developed to overcome these
difficulties. Equipped with an a posteriori error estimator the obtained
solution is certified. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the
effectiveness of the proposed method
Proof of Concept for MBT ASTRA, a Rapid Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization–Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS)-Based Method To Detect Caspofungin Resistance in <em>Candida albicans</em> and <em>Candida glabrata</em>
Sharp transition towards shared vocabularies in multi-agent systems
What processes can explain how very large populations are able to converge on
the use of a particular word or grammatical construction without global
coordination? Answering this question helps to understand why new language
constructs usually propagate along an S-shaped curve with a rather sudden
transition towards global agreement. It also helps to analyze and design new
technologies that support or orchestrate self-organizing communication systems,
such as recent social tagging systems for the web. The article introduces and
studies a microscopic model of communicating autonomous agents performing
language games without any central control. We show that the system undergoes a
disorder/order transition, going trough a sharp symmetry breaking process to
reach a shared set of conventions. Before the transition, the system builds up
non-trivial scale-invariant correlations, for instance in the distribution of
competing synonyms, which display a Zipf-like law. These correlations make the
system ready for the transition towards shared conventions, which, observed on
the time-scale of collective behaviors, becomes sharper and sharper with system
size. This surprising result not only explains why human language can scale up
to very large populations but also suggests ways to optimize artificial
semiotic dynamics.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
The Emergence of Rare Clinical <i>Aspergillus </i>Species in Qatar: Molecular Characterization and Antifungal Susceptibility Profiles
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