An Unusual Application of NASTRAN Contour Plotting Capability

A procedure is presented for obtaining contour plots of any physical quantity defined on a number of points of the surface of a structure. Rigid Format 1 of HEAT approach in Cosmic NASTRAN is ALTERED to enable use of contour plotting capability for scalar quantities. The ALTERED DMAP sequence is given. Examples include temperature distribution on the face of a cooled laser mirror and the angle of incidence or a radome surface

Constraining star formation rates in cool-core brightest cluster galaxies

We used broad-band imaging data for 10 cool-core brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) and conducted a Bayesian analysis using stellar population synthesis to determine the likely properties of the constituent stellar populations. Determination of ongoing star formation rates (SFRs), in particular, has a direct impact on our understanding of the cooling of the intracluster medium (ICM), star formation and AGN-regulated feedback. Our model consists of an old stellar population and a series of young stellar components. We calculated marginalized posterior probability distributions for various model parameters and obtained 68% plausible intervals from them. The 68% plausible interval on the SFRs is broad, owing to a wide range of models that are capable of fitting the data, which also explains the wide dispersion in the star formation rates available in the literature. The ranges of possible SFRs are robust and highlight the strength in such a Bayesian analysis. The SFRs are correlated with the X-ray mass deposition rates (the former are factors of 4 to 50 lower than the latter), implying a picture where the cooling of the ICM is a contributing factor to star formation in cool-core BCGs. We find that 9 out of 10 BCGs have been experiencing starbursts since 6 Gyr ago. While four out of 9 BCGs seem to require continuous SFRs, 5 out of 9 seem to require periodic star formation on intervals ranging from 20 Myr to 200 Myr. This time scale is similar to the cooling-time of the ICM in the central (< 5 kpc) regions.Comment: 33 pages, 14 Figures, 14 Tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

The challenging task of determining star formation rates: the case of a massive stellar burst in the brightest cluster galaxy of Phoenix galaxy cluster

Star formation in galaxies at the center of cooling-flow galaxy clusters is an important phenomenon in the context of formation and evolution of massive galaxies in the Universe. Yet, star formation rates (SFRs) in such systems continue to be elusive. We use our Bayesian-motivated spectral energy distribution (SED)-fitting code, BAYESCOOL, to estimate the plausible SFR values in the brightest cluster galaxy of a massive, X-ray luminous galaxy cluster, Phoenix. Previous studies of Phoenix have resulted in the highest measurement of SFR for any galaxy, with the estimates reaching up to 1000 solar masses/yr. However, a very small number of models have been considered in those studies. BAYESCOOL allows us to probe a large parameter space. We consider two models for star formation history, instantaneous bursts and continuous star formation, a wide range of ages for the old and the young stellar population, along with other discrete parameters, such as the initial mass function, metallicities, internal extinction and extinction law. We find that in the absence of any prior except that the maximum cooling rate < 3000 solar masses/yr, the SFR lies in the range (2230-2890) solar masses/yr. If we impose an observational prior on the internal extinction, E(B-V) < 0.6, the best-fit SFR lies in (454-494) solar masses/yr, and we consider this as the most probable range of SFR values for Phoenix. The SFR dependence on the extinction is a reflection of the standard age-extinction degeneracy, which can be overcome by using a prior on one of the two quantities in question.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 1 Table, accepted for publication in MNRA

Parallel finite element simulation of 3d incompressible flows: fluid-structure interactions

Massively parallel finite element computations of 3D, unsteady incompressible flows, including those involving fluid-structure interactions, are presented. The computation with time-varying spatial domains are based on the deforming spatial domain/stabilized space-time (DSD/SST) finite element formulation. The capability to solve 3D problems involving fluid-structure interactions is demonstrated by investigating the dynamics of a flexible cantilevered pipe conveying fluid. Computations of flow past a stationary rectangular wing at Reynolds number 1000, 2500 and 107 reveal interesting flow patterns. In these computations, at each time step approximately 3 &#215; 106 non-linear equations are solved to update the flow field. Also, preliminary results are presented for flow past a wing in flapping motion. In this case a specially designed mesh moving scheme is employed to eliminate the need for remeshing. All these computations are carried out on the Army High Performance Computing Research Center supercomputers CM-200 and CM-5, with major speed-ups compared with traditional supercomputers. The coupled equation systems arising from the finite element discretizations of these large-scale problems are solved iteratively with diagonal preconditioners. In some cases, to reduce the memory requirements even further, these iterations are carried out with a matrix-free strategy. The finite element formulations and their parallel implementations assume unstructured meshes

Thermodynamics predicts how confinement modifies hard-sphere dynamics

We study how confining the equilibrium hard-sphere fluid to restrictive one- and two-dimensional channels with smooth interacting walls modifies its structure, dynamics, and entropy using molecular dynamics and transition-matrix Monte Carlo simulations. Although confinement strongly affects local structuring, the relationships between self-diffusivity, excess entropy, and average fluid density are, to an excellent approximation, independent of channel width or particle-wall interactions. Thus, thermodynamics can be used to predict how confinement impacts dynamics.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Batch and bulk adsorptive removal of anionic dye using metal/halide-free ordered mesoporous carbon as adsorbent

The authors are grateful to the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India for financial support through the SPARC Project- SPARC/2018–2019/P307/SL. One of the authors (Asna Mariyam) is also grateful to MANIT, Bhopal for providing fellowship assistance. We thank the University of St Andrews for a PhD scholarship for FS. We acknowledge EPSRC Strategic Resources Grant (EP/R023751/1).The present report is an outcome of investigations to assess the adsorptive potential of a synthesized metal- and halide-free variant of ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) towards an anionic azo dye, Methyl Orange. The results of preliminary studies, carried out in batch mode, helped in setting up the process variables to achieve optimum adsorption conditions. The experimental data were then fitted to Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, and Dubinin-Radushkevitch isotherm models. The equilibrium data fitted well to the Langmuir model at 303 K and the monolayer adsorption capacity was 0.33 mmol g−1. The adsorption kinetics were explored by fitting the data to pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. The latter described the kinetics well, as indicated by higher regression coefficients. To elucidate the mechanism of mass transfer, various well-known mathematical models were employed. The adsorption of the dye was found to involve particle diffusion. Thermodynamic studies revealed that the adsorptive uptake of Methyl Orange by the OMC was spontaneous (ΔG0 = −23.71 kJ mol−1) and exergonic (ΔH0 = −123.15 kJ mol−1). Finally, the bulk removal of the anionic dye was investigated through column operations followed by column regeneration (desorption) studies. Column saturation of up to 96.55% could be realized. Values for dye recovery reached up to 93.26%. The column efficiency was then evaluated by carrying out three consecutive adsorption/desorption cycles. The results obtained indicated that the adsorbent has a good ability to eliminate Methyl Orange from wastewater, both in batch and column operations.PostprintPeer reviewe

Sync-DRAW: Automatic GIF Generation using Deep Recurrent Attentive Architectures

This paper introduces a novel approach for generating GIFs called Synchronized Deep Recurrent Attentive Writer (Sync-DRAW). Sync-DRAW employs a Recurrent Variational Autoencoder (R-VAE) and an attention mechanism in a hierarchical manner to create a temporally dependent sequence of frames that are gradually formed over time. The attention mechanism in Sync-DRAW attends to each individual frame of the GIF in sychronization, while the R-VAE learns a latent distribution for the entire GIF at the global level. We studied the performance of our Sync-DRAW network on the Bouncing MNIST GIFs Dataset and also, the newly available TGIF dataset. Experiments have suggested that Sync-DRAW is efficient in learning the spatial and temporal information of the GIFs and generates frames where objects have high structural integrity. Moreover, we also demonstrate that Sync-DRAW can be extended to even generate GIFs automatically given just text captions

Accuracy of computerized tomography in determining hepatic tumor size in patients receiving liver transplantation or resection

Computerized tomography (CT) of liver is used in oncologic practice for staging tumors, evaluating response to treatment, and screening patients for hepatic resection. Because of the impact of CT liver scan on major treatment decisions, it is important to assess its accuracy. Patients undergoing liver transplantation or resection provide a unique opportunity to test the accuracy of hepatic-imaging techniques by comparison of finding of preoperative CT scan with those at gross pathologic examination of resected specimens. Forty-one patients who had partial hepatic resection (34 patients) or liver transplantation (eight patients) for malignant (30 patients) or benign (11 patients) tumors were evaluable. Eight (47%) of 17 patients with primary malignant liver tumors, four (31%) of 13 patients with metastatic liver tumors, and two (20%) of 10 patients with benign liver tumors had tumor nodules in resected specimens that were not apparent on preoperative CT studies. These nodules varied in size from 0.1 to 1.6 cm. While 11 of 14 of these nodules were 1.0 cm. These results suggest that conventional CT alone may be insufficient to accurately determine the presence or absence of liver metastases, extent of liver involvement, or response of hepatic metastases to treatment