Applications of control theory

Applications of control theory are considered in the areas of decoupling and wake steering control of submersibles, a method of electrohydraulic conversion with no moving parts, and socio-economic system modelling

The Age of the Inner Halo Globular Cluster NGC 6652

HST (V,I) photometry has been obtained for the inner halo globular cluster NGC 6652. The photometry reaches approximately 4 mag below the turn-off and includes a well populated horizontal branch. This cluster is located close to the Galactic center at a galactocentric distance of approximately 2.0 kpc with a reddening of E(V-I) = 0.15 +/- 0.02 and has a metallicity of [Fe/H] approximately -0.85. Based upon Delta(V) between the point on the sub-giant branch which is 0.05 mag redder than the turn-off and the horizontal branch, NGC 6652 is 11.7 +/- 1.6 Gyr old. Using this same Delta(V), precise differential ages for 47 Tuc (a thick disk globular), M107 and NGC 1851 (both halo clusters) were obtained. NGC 6652 appears to be the same age as 47 Tuc and NGC 1851 (within +/- 1.2 Gyr), while there is a slight suggestion that M107 is older than NGC 6652 by 2.3 +/- 1.5 Gyr. As this is a less than 2-sigma result, this issue needs to be investigated further before a definitive statement regarding the relative age of M107 and NGC 6652 may be made.Comment: accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal, December 2000 issu

Anisotropy of graphite optical conductivity

The graphite conductivity is evaluated for frequencies between 0.1 eV, the energy of the order of the electron-hole overlap, and 1.5 eV, the electron nearest hopping energy. The in-plane conductivity per single atomic sheet is close to the universal graphene conductivity $e^2/4\hbar$ and, however, contains a singularity conditioned by peculiarities of the electron dispersion. The conductivity is less in the $c-$direction by the factor of the order of 0.01 governed by electron hopping in this direction.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure

Heisenberg realization for U_q(sln) on the flag manifold

We give the Heisenberg realization for the quantum algebra $U_q(sl_n)$, which is written by the $q$-difference operator on the flag manifold. We construct it from the action of $U_q(sl_n)$ on the $q$-symmetric algebra $A_q(Mat_n)$ by the Borel-Weil like approach. Our realization is applicable to the construction of the free field realization for the $U_q(\widehat{sl_n})$ [AOS].Comment: 10 pages, YITP/K-1016, plain TEX (some mistakes corrected and a reference added

Development and validation of the brief esophageal dysphagia questionnaire

BackgroundEsophageal dysphagia is common in gastroenterology practice and has multiple etiologies. A complication for some patients with dysphagia is food impaction. A valid and reliable questionnaire to rapidly evaluate esophageal dysphagia and impaction symptoms can aid the gastroenterologist in gathering information to inform treatment approach and further evaluation, including endoscopy.Methods1638 patients participated over two study phases. 744 participants completed the Brief Esophageal Dysphagia Questionnaire (BEDQ) for phase 1; 869 completed the BEDQ, Visceral Sensitivity Index, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease Questionnaire, and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale for phase 2. Demographic and clinical data were obtained via the electronic medical record. The BEDQ was evaluated for internal consistency, split‐half reliability, ceiling and floor effects, and construct validity.Key ResultsThe BEDQ demonstrated excellent internal consistency, reliability, and construct validity. The symptom frequency and severity scales scored above the standard acceptable cutoffs for reliability while the impaction subscale yielded poor internal consistency and split‐half reliability; thus the impaction items were deemed qualifiers only and removed from the total score. No significant ceiling or floor effects were found with the exception of 1 item, and inter‐item correlations fell within accepted ranges. Construct validity was supported by moderate yet significant correlations with other measures. The predictive ability of the BEDQ was small but significant.Conclusions & InferencesThe BEDQ represents a rapid, reliable, and valid assessment tool for esophageal dysphagia with food impaction for clinical practice that differentiates between patients with major motor dysfunction and mechanical obstruction.Validated, rapid clinical assessment tools for esophageal dysphagia are lacking. The brief esophageal dysphagia questionnaire aims to gauge the severity and frequency of dysphagia with additional items to gauge food impaction. The BEDQ is a reliable and valid tool to assess esophageal dysphagia.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135130/1/nmo12889.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135130/2/nmo12889_am.pd

Neutron-Capture Elements in the Early Galaxy: Insights from a Large Sample of Metal-Poor Giants

New abundances for neutron-capture (n-capture) elements in a large sample of metal-poor giants from the Bond survey are presented. The spectra were acquired with the KPNO 4-m echelle and coude feed spectrographs, and have been analyzed using LTE fine-analysis techniques with both line analysis and spectral synthesis. Abundances of eight n-capture elements (Sr, Y, Zr, Ba, La, Nd, Eu, Dy) in 43 stars have been derived from blue (lambda = 4070--4710, R~20,000, S/N ratio~100-200) echelle spectra and red (lambda = 6100--6180, R~22,000, S/N ratio~100-200) coude spectra, and the abundance of Ba only has been derived from the red spectra for an additional 27 stars. Overall, the abundances show clear evidence for a large star-to-star dispersion in the heavy element-to-iron ratios. The new data also confirm that at metallicities [Fe/H] <~ --2.4, the abundance pattern of the heavy (Z >= 56) n-capture elements in most giants is well-matched to a scaled Solar System r-process nucleosynthesis pattern. The onset of the main r-process can be seen at [Fe/H] ~ --2.9. Contributions from the s-process can first be seen in some stars with metallicities as low as [Fe/H] ~ --2.75, and are present in most stars with metallicities [Fe/H] > --2.3. The lighter n-capture elements (Sr-Y-Zr) are enhanced relative to the heavier r-process element abundances. Their production cannot be attributed solely to any combination of the Solar System r- and main s-processes, but requires a mixture of material from the r-process and from an additional n-capture process which can operate at early Galactic time.Comment: Text + 5 Tables and 11 Figures: Submitted to the Astrophysical Journa

Rotational modes in molecular magnets with antiferromagnetic Heisenberg exchange

In an effort to understand the low temperature behavior of recently synthesized molecular magnets we present numerical evidence for the existence of a rotational band in systems of quantum spins interacting with nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic Heisenberg exchange. While this result has previously been noted for ring arrays with an even number of spin sites, we find that it also applies for rings with an odd number of sites as well as for all of the polytope configurations we have investigated (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron, triangular prism, and axially truncated icosahedron). It is demonstrated how the rotational band levels can in many cases be accurately predicted using the underlying sublattice structure of the spin array. We illustrate how the characteristics of the rotational band can provide valuable estimates for the low temperature magnetic susceptibility.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Model Exact Low-Lying States and Spin Dynamics in Ferric Wheels; Fe6_6 to Fe12_{12}

Using an efficient numerical scheme that exploits spatial symmetries and spin-parity, we have obtained the exact low-lying eigenstates of exchange Hamiltonians for ferric wheels up to Fe$_{12}$. The largest calculation involves the Fe$_{12}$ ring which spans a Hilbert space dimension of about 145 million for M$_s$=0 subspace. Our calculated gaps from the singlet ground state to the excited triplet state agrees well with the experimentally measured values. Study of the static structure factor shows that the ground state is spontaneously dimerized for ferric wheels. Spin states of ferric wheels can be viewed as quantized states of a rigid rotor with the gap between the ground and the first excited state defining the inverse of moment of inertia. We have studied the quantum dynamics of Fe$_{10}$ as a representative of ferric wheels. We use the low-lying states of Fe$_{10}$ to solve exactly the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation and find the magnetization of the molecule in the presence of an alternating magnetic field at zero temperature. We observe a nontrivial oscillation of magnetization which is dependent on the amplitude of the {\it ac} field. We have also studied the torque response of Fe$_{12}$ as a function of magnetic field, which clearly shows spin-state crossover.Comment: Revtex, 24 pages, 8 eps figure

Lateral interaction of CO and H 2 molecules on ZnO surfaces: an AM1 study

Abstract We have studied the effects of lateral interactions for CO and H 2 adsorbed on large (ZnO) 60 cluster models. The calculations were performed with the AM1 semi-empirical method. The geometric parameters of the adsorbed molecules were fully optimized. CO interacts with the zinc cation located at the site having the lowest coordination at the edge sites between the (0001) and 10 10 surfaces. The binding energy is increased as we increase the number of adsorbed CO molecules on the ZnO surface. For H 2 molecular interaction, the calculated energy gaps and ionization potentials are modified relative to the bare cluster. We have analyzed the optimized geometric parameters, charge transfer as well as the density of states and compared our results with available experimental data such as density of states, vibrational frequencies, adsorption energies and surface charge.

Masked suffix priming and morpheme positional constraints

Although masked stem priming (e.g., dealer\u2013DEAL) is one of the most established effects in visual word identification (e.g., Grainger et al., 1991), it is less clear whether primes and targets sharing a suffix (e.g., kindness\u2013WILDNESS) also yield facilitation (Giraudo & Grainger, 2003; Du\uf1abeitia et al., 2008). In a new take on this issue, we show that prime nonwords facilitate lexical decisions to target words ending with the same suffix (sheeter\uac\u2013TEACHER) compared to a condition where the critical suffix was substituted by another one (sheetal\u2013TEACHER) or by an unrelated non\u2013morphological ending (sheetub\u2013 TEACHER). We also show that this effect is genuinely morphological, as no priming emerged in non\u2013complex items with the same orthographic characteristics (sportel\u2013BROTHEL vs. sportic\u2013BROTHEL vs. sportur\u2013BROTHEL). In a further experiment, we took advantage of these results to assess whether suffixes are recognized in a position\u2013specific fashion. Masked suffix priming did not emerge when the relative order of stems and suffixes was reversed in the prime nonwords\u2014ersheet did not yield any time saving in the identification of teacher as compared to either alsheet or obsheet. We take these results to show that \u2013er was not identified as a morpheme in ersheet, thus indicating that suffix identification is position specific. This conclusion is in line with data on interference effects in nonword rejection (Crepaldi, Rastle, & Davis, 2010), and strongly constrains theoretical proposals on how complex words are identified. In particular, because these findings were reported in a masked priming paradigm, they suggest that positional constraints operate early, most likely at a pre\u2013lexical level of morpho\u2013orthographic analysi