IUE observations of Seyfert galaxies

The L alpha/H beta ratio and line profiles for several galaxies are presented. The continuous energy distribution of NGC 4151 and MKN 509 are presented from the X-ray region to the infrared

Wall Effects in Cavity Flows and their Correction Rules

The wall effects in cavity flows have been long recognized to be more important and more difficult to determine than those in single-phase, nonseparated flows. Earlier theoretical investigations of this problem have been limited largely to simple body forms in plane flows, based on some commonly used cavity-flow models, such as the Riabouchinsky, the reentrant jet, or the linearized flow model, to represent a finite cavity. Although not meant to be exhaustive, references may be made to Cisotti (1922), Birkhoff, Plesset and Simmons (1950, 1952), Gurevich (1953), Cohen et al. (1957, 1958), and Fabula (1964). The wall effects in axisymmetric flows with a finite cavity has been evaluated numerically by Brennen (1969) for a disk and a sphere. Some intricate features of the wall effects have been noted in experimental studies by Morgan (1966) and Dobay (1967). Also, an empirical method for correcting the wall effect has been proposed by Meijer (1967). The presence of lateral flow boundaries in a closed water tunnel introduces the following physical effects: (i) First, in dealing with the part of irrotational flow outside the viscous region, these flow boundaries will impose a condition on the flow direction at the rigid tunnel walls. This "streamline-blocking" effect will produce extraneous forces and modifications of cavity shape. (ii) The boundary layer built up at the tunnel walls may effectively reduce the tunnel cross-sectional area, and generate a longitudinal pressure gradient in the working section, giving rise to an additional drag force known as the "horizontal buoyancy." (iii) The lateral constraint of tunnel walls results in a higher velocity outside the boundary layer, and hence a greater skin friction at the wetted body surface. (iv) The lateral constraint also affects the spreading of the viscous wake behind the cavity, an effect known as the "wake-blocking." (v) It may modify the location of the "smooth detachment" of cavity boundary from a continuously curved body. In the present paper, the aforementioned effect (i) will be investigated for the pure-drag flows so that this primary effect can be clarified first. Two cavity flow models, namely, the Riabouchinsky and the open-wake (the latter has been attributed, independently, to Joukowsky, Roshko, and Eppler) models, are adopted for detailed examination. The asymptotic representations of these theoretical solutions, with the wall effect treated as a small correction to the unbounded-flow limit, have yielded two different wall-correction rules, both of which can be applied very effectively in practice. It is of interest to note that the most critical range for comparison of these results lies in the case when the cavitating body is slender, rather than blunt ones, and when the cavity is short, instead of very long ones in the nearly choked-flow state. Only in this critical range do these flow models deviate significantly from each other, thereby permitting a refined differentiation and a critical examination of the accuracy of these flow models in representing physical flows. A series of experiments carefully planned for this purpose has provided conclusive evidences, which seem to be beyond possible experimental uncertainties, that the Riabouchinsky model gives a very satisfactory agreement with the experimental results, and is superior to other models, even in the most critical range when the wall effects are especially significant and the differences between these theoretical flow models become noticeably large. These outstanding features are effectively demonstrated by the relatively simple case of a symmetric wedge held in a non-lifting flow within a closed tunnel, which we discuss in the sequel

Studying RFID adoption by SMES in the Taiwanese IT industry

With the advent of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), organisations have the opportunity to rethink how their organisation will operate and integrate in the supply chain. Especially for Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs), that they have limited resources adopting such an innovative technology (i.e. RFID) can be daunting. Literature indicates that SMEs that deal with implementation have so far only a few guidelines regarding specific opportunities and risks. This research is therefore trying to fill the gap by employing Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) techniques and utilising a questionnaire survey with the aim of exploring the factors that affect SMEs’ RFID adoption in the Taiwan Information Technology (IT) manufacturing industry. In doing so, the adoption factors which are classified into 3 different adopters categories named ready adopter (cost and management), initiator adopter (competitiveness and process efficiency) and unprepared adopter (IT management difficulties, IT implementation difficulties and cost of implementation) using EFA technique. A SMEs RFID adoption model is then proposed. It is anticipated that the findings of this research will not only enhance the research in RFID adoption in SMEs, but can also act as a reference for practitioners in the industry and researchers in the academic field

Crystal orientation and thickness dependence of superconductivity on tetragonal FeSe1-x thin films

Superconductivity was recently found in the simple tetragonal FeSe structure. Recent studies suggest that FeSe is unconventional, with the symmetry of the superconducting pairing state still under debate. To tackle these problems, clean single crystals and thin films are required. Here we report the fabrication of superconducting beta-phase FeSe1-x thin films on different substrates using a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. Quite interestingly, the crystal orientation, and thus, superconductivity in these thin films is sensitive to the growth temperature. At 320C, films grow preferably along c-axis, but the onset of superconductivity depends on film thickness. At 500C, films grow along (101), with little thickness dependence. These results suggest that the low temperature structural deformation previously found is crucial to the superconductivity of this material

Surface Contribution to Raman Scattering from Layered Superconductors

Generalizing recent work, the Raman scattering intensity from a semi-infinite superconducting superlattice is calculated taking into account the surface contribution to the density response functions. Our work makes use of the formalism of Jain and Allen developed for normal superlattices. The surface contributions are shown to strongly modify the bulk contribution to the Raman-spectrum line shape below $2\Delta$, and also may give rise to additional surface plasmon modes above $2\Delta$. The interplay between the bulk and surface contribution is strongly dependent on the momentum transfer $q_\parallel$ parallel to layers. However, we argue that the scattering cross-section for the out-of-phase phase modes (which arise from interlayer Cooper pair tunneling) will not be affected and thus should be the only structure exhibited in the Raman spectrum below $2\Delta$ for relatively large $q_\parallel\sim 0.1\Delta/v_F$. The intensity is small but perhaps observable.Comment: 14 pages, RevTex, 6 figure

Synchronization of Coupled Nonidentical Genetic Oscillators

The study on the collective dynamics of synchronization among genetic oscillators is essential for the understanding of the rhythmic phenomena of living organisms at both molecular and cellular levels. Genetic oscillators are biochemical networks, which can generally be modelled as nonlinear dynamic systems. We show in this paper that many genetic oscillators can be transformed into Lur'e form by exploiting the special structure of biological systems. By using control theory approach, we provide a theoretical method for analyzing the synchronization of coupled nonidentical genetic oscillators. Sufficient conditions for the synchronization as well as the estimation of the bound of the synchronization error are also obtained. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our theoretical results, a population of genetic oscillators based on the Goodwin model are adopted as numerical examples.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure

A current disruption mechanism in the neutral sheet for triggering substorm expansions

Two main areas were addressed in support of an effort to understand mechanism responsible for the broadband electrostatic noise (BEN) observed in the magnetotail. The first area concerns the generation of BEN in the boundary layer region of the magnetotail whereas the second area concerns the occassional presence of BEN in the neutral sheet region. For the generation of BEN in the boundary layer region, a hybrid simulation code was developed to perform reliable longtime, quiet, highly resolved simulations of field aligned electron and ion beam flow. The result of the simulation shows that broadband emissions cannot be generated by beam-plasma instability if realistic values of the ion beam parameters are used. The waves generated from beam-plasma instability are highly discrete and are of high frequencies. For the plasma sheet boundary layer condition, the wave frequencies are in the kHz range, which is incompatible with the observation that the peak power in BEN occur in the 10's of Hz range. It was found that the BEN characteristics are more consistent with lower hybrid drift instability. For the occasional presence of BEN in the neutral sheet region, a linear analysis of the kinetic cross-field streaming instability appropriate to the neutral sheet condition just prior to onset of substorm expansion was performed. By solving numerically the dispersion relation, it was found that the instability has a growth time comparable to the onset time scale of substorm onset. The excited waves have a mixed polarization in the lower hybrid frequency range. The imposed drift driving the instability corresponds to unmagnetized ions undergoing current sheet acceleration in the presence of a cross-tail electric field. The required electric field strength is in the 10 mV/m range which is well within the observed electric field values detected in the neutral sheet during substorms. This finding can potentially account for the disruption of cross-tail current and its diversion to the ionosphere to form the substorm current wedge. Furthermore, a number of features associated with substorm expansion onset can be understood based on this substorm onset scenario

Towards a guided atom interferometer based on a superconducting atom chip

We evaluate the realization of a novel geometry of a guided atom interferometer based on a high temperature superconducting microstructure. The interferometer type structure is obtained with a guiding potential realized by two current carrying superconducting wires in combination with a closed superconducting loop sustaining a persistent current. We present the layout and realization of our superconducting atom chip. By employing simulations we discuss the critical parameters of the interferometer guide in particular near the splitting regions of the matter waves. Based on measurements of the relevant chip properties we discuss the application of a compact and reliable on-chip atom interferometer.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, accepted for New Journal of Physic

The Connes-Lott program on the sphere

We describe the classical Schwinger model as a study of the projective modules over the algebra of complex-valued functions on the sphere. On these modules, classified by $\pi_2(S^2)$, we construct hermitian connections with values in the universal differential envelope which leads us to the Schwinger model on the sphere. The Connes-Lott program is then applied using the Hilbert space of complexified inhomogeneous forms with its Atiyah-Kaehler structure. It splits in two minimal left ideals of the Clifford algebra preserved by the Dirac-Kaehler operator D=i(d-delta). The induced representation of the universal differential envelope, in order to recover its differential structure, is divided by the unwanted differential ideal and the obtained quotient is the usual complexified de Rham exterior algebra over the sphere with Clifford action on the "spinors" of the Hilbert space. The subsequent steps of the Connes-Lott program allow to define a matter action, and the field action is obtained using the Dixmier trace which reduces to the integral of the curvature squared.Comment: 34 pages, Latex, submitted for publicatio