36,375 research outputs found
Direct thrust measurement of a 30-cm ion thruster
A direct thrust measurement of a 30-cm diameter ion thruster was accomplished by means of a laser interferometer thrust stand. The thruster was supported in a pendulum manner by three 3.65-m long wires. Electrical power was provided by means of 18 mercury filled pots. A movable 23-button planar probe rake was used to determine thrust loss due to ion beam divergence. Values of thrust, thrust loss due to ion beam divergence, and thrust loss due to multiple ionization were measured for ion beam currents ranging from 0.5 A to 2.5 A. Measured thrust values indicate an accuracy of approximately 1% and are in good agreement with thrust values calculated by indirect measurements
Protective telescoping shield for solar concentrator
An apparatus is described for use with a solar concentrator such as a parabolic dish which concentrates sunlight onto a small opening of a solar receiver, for protecting the receiver in the event of a system failure that could cause concentrated sunlight to damage the receiver. The protective apparatus includes a structure which can be moved to a stowed position where it does not block sunlight, to a deployed position. In this position, the structure forms a tube which substantially completely surrounds an axis connecting the receiver opening to the center of the concentrator at locations between the receiver and the concentrator
Inference of epidemiological parameters from household stratified data
We consider a continuous-time Markov chain model of SIR disease dynamics with
two levels of mixing. For this so-called stochastic households model, we
provide two methods for inferring the model parameters---governing
within-household transmission, recovery, and between-household
transmission---from data of the day upon which each individual became
infectious and the household in which each infection occurred, as would be
available from first few hundred studies. Each method is a form of Bayesian
Markov Chain Monte Carlo that allows us to calculate a joint posterior
distribution for all parameters and hence the household reproduction number and
the early growth rate of the epidemic. The first method performs exact Bayesian
inference using a standard data-augmentation approach; the second performs
approximate Bayesian inference based on a likelihood approximation derived from
branching processes. These methods are compared for computational efficiency
and posteriors from each are compared. The branching process is shown to be an
excellent approximation and remains computationally efficient as the amount of
data is increased
Evaluation of the InDUCKtion project at UCL
Executive summary: There is evidence that a good induction to university life can help with student retention; however, there is also a danger of overwhelming students during the intense period of fresher’s week. Under the auspices of a small grant from the Higher Education Academy’s ‘Changing the Learning Landscape’ funding stream, staff at two universities (University College London and Southampton Solent University) collaborated to produce an innovative and engaging induction project entitled ‘InDUCKtion’, based on the idea of an induction duck being a fun character for students to interact with. At UCL, the InDUCKtion duck existed in the form of a physical plastic duck included in international postgraduate student induction packs, and they were encouraged to take photos of themselves in and around UCL and London as part of a photo challenge using social media. It was anticipated that this would enable students to familiarise themselves with the locale, make friends and have fun at the same time. The InDUCKtion duck was also evident on flyers and posters with QR codes advertising an online tour to enable students to gain an accelerated familiarisation with the campus and its facilities. Within UCL, the project was a collaborative, cross-departmental venture instigated by members of UCL’s E-Learning Environments (ELE) working in partnership with the Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT) and Student Support and Wellbeing (SSW). The logistics of the project meant that the team members also had to liaise with a number of other individuals and departments around UCL, to help promote and implement the project. Despite a rapid following on Twitter in a relatively short period, a reasonable hit rate on the QR code for the main page of the online tour resource, and some engagement with the photo challenges using social media, participation in the project was lower than anticipated. Lessons learned from an evaluation perspective revealed that adding another activity to an already overwhelming fresher’s week was problematic, despite its innovative and interactive nature. The use of QR codes was problematic for a number of reasons, and the project needed more buy-in from student representatives and academics to provide institutional endorsement. Recommendations for future instances of the project include securing student representation and academic endorsement, integrating the activity with parallel induction activities – particularly with academic departments, replacing QR codes with an alternative technology-enhanced learning approach and optimising the learning design to better motivate students and promote groupwork
Towards Universal Topological Quantum Computation in the Fractional Quantum Hall State
The Pfaffian state, which may describe the quantized Hall plateau observed at
Landau level filling fraction , can support topologically-protected
qubits with extremely low error rates. Braiding operations also allow perfect
implementation of certain unitary transformations of these qubits. However, in
the case of the Pfaffian state, this set of unitary operations is not quite
sufficient for universal quantum computation (i.e. is not dense in the unitary
group). If some topologically unprotected operations are also used, then the
Pfaffian state supports universal quantum computation, albeit with some
operations which require error correction. On the other hand, if certain
topology-changing operations can be implemented, then fully
topologically-protected universal quantum computation is possible. In order to
accomplish this, it is necessary to measure the interference between
quasiparticle trajectories which encircle other moving trajectories in a
time-dependent Hall droplet geometry.Comment: A related paper, cond-mat/0512072, explains the topological issues in
greater detail. It may help the reader to look at this alternate presentation
if confused about any poin
A Supersymmetric Flipped SU(5) Intersecting Brane World
We construct an N=1 supersymmetric three-family flipped SU(5) model from type
IIA orientifolds on with D6-branes intersecting at
general angles. The spectrum contains a complete grand unified and electroweak
Higgs sector. In addition, it contains extra exotic matter both in
bi-fundamental and vector-like representations as well as two copies of matter
in the symmetric representation of SU(5).Comment: 17 pages, 3 tables, v2 published in Phys.Lett.
A Lattice Test of 1/N_c Baryon Mass Relations
1/N_c baryon mass relations are compared with lattice simulations of baryon
masses using different values of the light-quark masses, and hence different
values of SU(3) flavor-symmetry breaking. The lattice data clearly display both
the 1/N_c and SU(3) flavor-symmetry breaking hierarchies. The validity of 1/N_c
baryon mass relations derived without assuming approximate SU(3)
flavor-symmetry also can be tested by lattice data at very large values of the
strange quark mass. The 1/N_c expansion constrains the form of discretization
effects; these are suppressed by powers of 1/N_c by taking suitable
combinations of masses. This 1/N_c scaling is explicitly demonstrated in the
present work.Comment: 13 pages, 20 figures; v2 version to be published in PR
The JCMT dense gas survey of the Perseus Molecular Cloud
We present the results of a large-scale survey of the very dense gas in the
Perseus molecular cloud using HCO+ and HCN (J = 4 - 3) transitions. We have
used this emission to trace the structure and kinematics of gas found in pre-
and protostellar cores, as well as in outflows. We compare the HCO+/HCN data,
highlighting regions where there is a marked discrepancy in the spectra of the
two emission lines. We use the HCO+ to identify positively protostellar
outflows and their driving sources, and present a statistical analysis of the
outflow properties that we derive from this tracer. We find that the relations
we calculate between the HCO+ outflow driving force and the Menv and Lbol of
the driving source are comparable to those obtained from similar outflow
analyses using 12CO, indicating that the two molecules give reliable estimates
of outflow properties. We also compare the HCO+ and the HCN in the outflows,
and find that the HCN traces only the most energetic outflows, the majority of
which are driven by young Class 0 sources. We analyse the abundances of HCN and
HCO+ in the particular case of the IRAS 2A outflows, and find that the HCN is
much more enhanced than the HCO+ in the outflow lobes. We suggest that this is
indicative of shock-enhancement of HCN along the length of the outflow; this
process is not so evident for HCO+, which is largely confined to the outflow
base.Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures, 9 table
Feedback Control of Quantum Transport
The current through nanostructures like quantum dots can be stabilized by a
feedback loop that continuously adjusts system parameters as a function of the
number of tunnelled particles . At large times, the feedback loop freezes
the fluctuations of which leads to highly accurate, continuous single
particle transfers. For the simplest case of feedback acting simultaneously on
all system parameters, we show how to reconstruct the original full counting
statistics from the frozen distribution.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
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