Coherent structures in an electron beam

The formation and evolution of coherent structures in a low-energy electron beam produced in a Malmberg-Penning trap is investigated by means of CCD diagnostics. The electrons are emitted from a thermionic cathode and their energy is controlled by an acceleration grid. By varying the spatial distribution of the energy of emitted electrons, different space charge effects are observed, as, e. g., a sharp or a gradual transition to a space charge dominated regime. The variation of the coherent structures along the beam is studied by varying the electron density or/and the value of the confined magnetic field. The observed processes are interpreted using a tridimensional particle-in-cell code which solves the Vlasov-Poisson system in zeroth order drift approximation.Comment: 12th International Congress on Plasma Physics, 25-29 October 2004, Nice (France

Parameterized Algorithms and Data Reduction for Safe Convoy Routing

We study a problem that models safely routing a convoy through a transportation network, where any vertex adjacent to the travel path of the convoy requires additional precaution: Given a graph G=(V,E), two vertices s,t in V, and two integers k,l, we search for a simple s-t-path with at most k vertices and at most l neighbors. We study the problem in two types of transportation networks: graphs with small crossing number, as formed by road networks, and tree-like graphs, as formed by waterways. For graphs with constant crossing number, we provide a subexponential 2^O(sqrt n)-time algorithm and prove a matching lower bound. We also show a polynomial-time data reduction algorithm that reduces any problem instance to an equivalent instance (a so-called problem kernel) of size polynomial in the vertex cover number of the input graph. In contrast, we show that the problem in general graphs is hard to preprocess. Regarding tree-like graphs, we obtain a 2^O(tw) * l^2 * n-time algorithm for graphs of treewidth tw, show that there is no problem kernel with size polynomial in tw, yet show a problem kernel with size polynomial in the feedback edge number of the input graph

Evaluation of the United States National Air Quality Forecast Capability experimental real-time predictions in 2010 using Air Quality System ozone and NO₂ measurements

The National Air Quality Forecast Capability (NAQFC) project provides the US with operational and experimental real-time ozone predictions using two different versions of the three-dimensional Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system. Routine evaluation using near-real-time AIRNow ozone measurements through 2011 showed better performance of the operational ozone predictions. In this work, quality-controlled and -assured Air Quality System (AQS) ozone and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) observations are used to evaluate the experimental predictions in 2010. It is found that both ozone and NO₂ are overestimated over the contiguous US (CONUS), with annual biases of +5.6 and +5.1 ppbv, respectively. The annual root mean square errors (RMSEs) are 15.4 ppbv for ozone and 13.4 ppbv for NO₂. For both species the overpredictions are most pronounced in the summer. The locations of the AQS monitoring sites are also utilized to stratify comparisons by the degree of urbanization. Comparisons for six predefined US regions show the highest annual biases for ozone predictions in Southeast (+10.5 ppbv) and for NO₂ in the Lower Middle (+8.1 ppbv) and Pacific Coast (+7.1 ppbv) regions. The spatial distributions of the NO₂ biases in August show distinctively high values in the Los Angeles, Houston, and New Orleans areas. In addition to the standard statistics metrics, daily maximum eight-hour ozone categorical statistics are calculated using the current US ambient air quality standard (75 ppbv) and another lower threshold (70 ppbv). Using the 75 ppbv standard, the hit rate and proportion of correct over CONUS for the entire year are 0.64 and 0.96, respectively. Summertime biases show distinctive weekly patterns for ozone and NO₂. Diurnal comparisons show that ozone overestimation is most severe in the morning, from 07:00 to 10:00 local time. For NO₂, the morning predictions agree with the AQS observations reasonably well, but nighttime concentrations are overpredicted by around 100%

Plasma analog of particle-pair production

It is shown that the plasma axial shear flow instability satisfies the Klein-Gordon equation. The plasma instability is then shown to be analogous to spontaneous particle-pair production when a potential energy is present that is greater than twice the particle rest mass energy. Stability criteria can be inferred based on field theoretical conservation laws

Serial and parallel kernelization of Multiple Hitting Set parameterized by the Dilworth number, implemented on the GPU

The NP-hard Multiple Hitting Set problem is finding a minimum-cardinality set intersecting each of the sets in a given input collection a given number of times. Generalizing a well-known data reduction algorithm due to Weihe, we show a problem kernel for Multiple Hitting Set parameterized by the Dilworth number, a graph parameter introduced by Foldes and Hammer in 1978 yet seemingly so far unexplored in the context of parameterized complexity theory. Using matrix multiplication, we speed up the algorithm to quadratic sequential time and logarithmic parallel time. We experimentally evaluate our algorithms. By implementing our algorithm on GPUs, we show the feasability of realizing kernelization algorithms on SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Date) architectures.Comment: Added experiments on one more data se

Survival Estimates of Western Gray Whales \u3ci\u3eEschrichtius robustus\u3c/i\u3e Incorporating Individual Heterogeneity and Temporary Emigration

Gray whales Eschrichtius robustus exist as a 2 geographically and genetically distinct populations in the eastern and western North Pacific. Subjected to intensive commercial whaling during the 19th and 20th centuries, the western population presently numbers approximately 100 individuals and is regarded as one of the most endangered baleen whale populations in the world

Survival Estimates of Western Gray Whales \u3ci\u3eEschrichtius robustus\u3c/i\u3e Incorporating Individual Heterogeneity and Temporary Emigration

Gray whales Eschrichtius robustus exist as a 2 geographically and genetically distinct populations in the eastern and western North Pacific. Subjected to intensive commercial whaling during the 19th and 20th centuries, the western population presently numbers approximately 100 individuals and is regarded as one of the most endangered baleen whale populations in the world