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Arts on the edge conference: 30 March - 3 April Perth 1998 Western Australia
Direct numerical simulations of turbulent flow over regular arrays of urban-like, cubical obstacles are reported. Results are analysed in terms of a formal spatial averaging procedure to enable interpretation of the flow within the arrays as a canopy flow, and of the flow above as a rough wall boundary layer. Spatial averages of the mean velocity, turbulent stresses and pressure drag are computed. The statistics compare very well with data from wind-tunnel experiments. Within the arrays the time-averaged flow structure gives rise to significant âdispersive stressâ whereas above the Reynolds stress dominates. The mean flow structure and turbulence statistics depend significantly on the layout of the cubes. Unsteady effects are important, especially in the lower canopy layer where turbulent fluctuations dominate over the mean flow
Prevalence of Rodents and Their Ectoparasitic Fleas in Erstwhile Plague Endemic Nilgiri Hills and Downhill Areas of Tamil Nadu State
A study has been carried out in the Nilgiri hills and downhill areas of erstwhile plague-endemic localities to determine the prevalence, density of rodents and rat fleas, their significance in plague surveillance and control activities undertaken in this region. Four species of rodents, viz., Rattus rattus, Bandicota bengaliensis, Bandicota indica and Mus musculus and one species of insectivore Suncus murianes were trapped in the study. Flea species recorded were given in the order of abundance Xenopsylla cheopis, Styvalius ahale, Nosophylla nilgiriensis and Xenopsylla astia. The absolute and specific flea index of X. cheopis the study computed for hilly and downhill villages were 0.39 and 0.20 respectively. When the prevalence of rodents and fleas was compared between the hilly and downhill areas of the study area, the trap-positive index, prevalence of rodents and fleas, absolute flea index and specific flea indices of X. cheopis were significantly higher in hilly areas than in downhill areas. The implication of the findings of the study on the plague surveillance and control activities undertaken in the erstwhile plague-endemic Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu state was discussed
Collider Production of TeV Scale Black Holes and Higher-Curvature Gravity
We examine how the production of TeV scale black holes at colliders is
influenced by the presence of Lovelock higher-curvature terms in the action of
models with large extra dimensions. Such terms are expected to arise on rather
general grounds, e.g., from string theory and are often used in the literature
to model modifications to the Einstein-Hilbert action arising from quantum
and/or stringy corrections. While adding the invariant which is quadratic in
the curvature leads to quantitative modifications in black hole properties,
cubic and higher invariants are found to produce significant qualitative
changes, e.g., classically stable black holes. We use these higher-order
curvature terms to construct a toy model of the black hole production cross
section threshold. For reasonable parameter values we demonstrate that detailed
measurements of the properties of black holes at future colliders will be
highly sensitive to the presence of the Lovelock higher-order curvature terms.Comment: 37 pages, 11 figures, references adde
Stability of Monomer-Dimer Piles
We measure how strong, localized contact adhesion between grains affects the
maximum static critical angle, theta_c, of a dry sand pile. By mixing dimer
grains, each consisting of two spheres that have been rigidly bonded together,
with simple spherical monomer grains, we create sandpiles that contain strong
localized adhesion between a given particle and at most one of its neighbors.
We find that tan(theta_c) increases from 0.45 to 1.1 and the grain packing
fraction, Phi, decreases from 0.58 to 0.52 as we increase the relative number
fraction of dimer particles in the pile, nu_d, from 0 to 1. We attribute the
increase in tan(theta_c(nu_d)) to the enhanced stability of dimers on the
surface, which reduces the density of monomers that need to be accomodated in
the most stable surface traps. A full characterization and geometrical
stability analysis of surface traps provides a good quantitative agreement
between experiment and theory over a wide range of nu_d, without any fitting
parameters.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures consisting of 21 eps files, submitted to PR
Searching for Lee-Wick Gauge Bosons at the LHC
In an extension of the Standard Model(SM) based on the ideas of Lee and Wick,
Grinstein, O'Connell and Wise have found an interesting way to remove the usual
quadratically divergent contributions to the Higgs mass induced by radiative
corrections. Phenomenologically, the model predicts the existence of Terascale,
negative-norm copies of the usual SM fields with rather unique properties:
ghost-like propagators and negative decay widths, but with otherwise SM-like
couplings. The model is both unitary and causal on macroscopic scales. In this
paper we examine whether or not such states with these unusual properties can
be uniquely identified as such at the LHC. We find that in the extended strong
and electroweak gauge boson sector of the model, which is the simplest one to
analyze, such an identification can be rather difficult. Observation of heavy
gluon-like resonances in the dijet channel offers the best hope for this
identification.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figs; discussion adde
Flow around a cube in a turbulent boundary layer: LES and experiment
We present a numerical simulation of flow around a surface mounted cube placed in a turbulent boundary layer which, although representing a typical wind environment, has been specifically tailored to match a series of wind tunnel observations. The simulations were carried out at a Reynolds number, based on the velocity U at the cube height h, of 20,000âlarge enough that many aspects of the flow are effectively Reynolds number independent. The turbulence intensity was about 18% at the cube height, and the integral length scale was about 0.8 times the cube height h. The Jenson number Je=h/z0, based on the approach flow roughness length z0, was 600, to match the wind tunnel situation. The computational mesh was uniform with a spacing of h/32, aiding rapid convergence of the multigrid solver, and the governing equations were discretised using second-order finite differences within a parallel multiblock environment. The results presented include detailed comparison between measurements and LES computations of both the inflow boundary layer and the flow field around the cube including mean and fluctuating surface pressures. It is concluded that provided properly formulated inflow and surface boundary conditions are used, LES is now a viable tool for use in wind engineering problems concerning flow over isolated bodies. In particular, both mean and fluctuating surface pressures can be obtained with a similar degree of uncertainty as usually associated with wind tunnel modelling
Unique Identification of Lee-Wick Gauge Bosons at Linear Colliders
Grinstein, O'Connell and Wise have recently presented an extension of the
Standard Model (SM), based on the ideas of Lee and Wick (LW), which
demonstrates an interesting way to remove the quadratically divergent
contributions to the Higgs mass induced by radiative corrections. This model
predicts the existence of negative-norm copies of the usual SM fields at the
TeV scale with ghost-like propagators and negative decay widths, but with
otherwise SM-like couplings. In earlier work, it was demonstrated that the LW
states in the gauge boson sector of these models, though easy to observe,
cannot be uniquely identified as such at the LHC. In this paper, we address the
issue of whether or not this problem can be resolved at an collider
with a suitable center of mass energy range. We find that measurements of the
cross section and the left-right polarization asymmetry associated with Bhabha
scattering can lead to a unique identification of the neutral electroweak gauge
bosons of the Lee-Wick type.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures; discussion and references adde
Spliced DNA sequences in the Paramecium germline: their properties and evolutionary potential
Despite playing a crucial role in germline-soma differentiation, the evolutionary significance of developmentally regulated genome rearrangements (DRGRs) has received scant attention. An example of DRGR is DNA splicing, a process that removes segments of DNA interrupting genic and/or intergenic sequences. Perhaps, best known for shaping immune-system genes in vertebrates, DNA splicing plays a central role in the life of ciliated protozoa, where thousands of germline DNA segments are eliminated after sexual reproduction to regenerate a functional somatic genome. Here, we identify and chronicle the properties of 5,286 sequences that putatively undergo DNA splicing (i.e., internal eliminated sequences [IESs]) across the genomes of three closely related species of the ciliate Paramecium (P. tetraurelia, P. biaurelia, and P. sexaurelia). The study reveals that these putative IESs share several physical characteristics. Although our results are consistent with excision events being largely conserved between species, episodes of differential IES retention/excision occur, may have a recent origin, and frequently involve coding regions. Our findings indicate interconversion between somaticâoften codingâDNA sequences and noncoding IESs, and provide insights into the role of DNA splicing in creating potentially functional genetic innovation
Searching For Anomalous Couplings
The capability of current and future measurements at low and high energy
colliders to probe for the existence of anomalous, CP conserving,
dipole moment-type couplings is examined. At present, constraints
on the universality of the tau charged and neutral current interactions as well
as the shape of the energy spectrum provide the strongest
bounds on such anomalous couplings. The presence of these dipole moments are
shown to influence, e.g., the extraction of from
decays and can lead to apparent violations of CVC expectations.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure
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