Profiles of thermal line emission from advection dominated accretion flows

Recently, Narayan & Raymond (1999) proposed that the thermal emission lines from the hot plasma in advection dominated accretion flows (ADAFs) are potentially observable with the next generation of X-ray observatories, with which the physical properties of some X-ray sources can be probed. In ADAFs, the temperature of the ion is so high that the thermal broadening of the line is important. We calculate the profiles of thermal line emission from ADAFs, in which both the thermal and Doppler broadening have been considered. It is found that the double-peaked profiles are present for high inclination angles between the axis of disk and the line of sight. The double-peaked profiles are smeared in low inclination cases, and completely disappear while the inclination angle is less than $15^{\circ}$, where the thermal and turbulent broadening dominated on the line profiles. We also note that the thermal line profile is affected by the location of the transition radius of ADAF. The self-similar height-integrated disk structure and the emissivity with power-law dependence of radius are adopted in our calculations. The results obtained in this work can be used as a diagnosis on the future X-ray observations of the thermal lines. Some important physical quantities of ADAFs could be inferred from future thermal line observations.Comment: 7 page

The effects of surface finish and grain size on the strength of sintered silicon carbide

The effects of surface treatment and microstructure, especially abnormal grain growth, on the strength of sintered SiC were studied. The surfaces of sintered SiC were treated with 400, 800 and 1200 grit diamond wheels. Grain growth was induced by increasing the sintering times at 2050 C. The beta to alpha transformation occurred during the sintering of beta-phase starting materials and was often accompanied by abnormal grain growth. The overall strength distributions were established using Weibull statistics. The strength of the sintered SiC is limited by extrinsic surface flaws in normal-sintered specimens. The finer the surface finish and grain size, the higher the strength. But the strength of abnormal sintering specimens is limited by the abnormally grown large tabular grains. The Weibull modulus increases with decreasing grain size and decreasing grit size for grinding

Exotic Topological States with Raman-Induced Spin-Orbit Coupling

We propose a simple experimental scheme to realize simultaneously the one-dimensional spin-orbit coupling and the staggered spin-flip in ultracold pseudospin-$1/2$ atomic Fermi gases trapped in square optical lattices. In the absence of interspecies interactions, the system supports gapped Chern insulators and gapless topological semimetal states. By turning on the $s$-wave interactions, a rich variety of gapped and gapless inhomogeneous topological superfluids can emerge. In particular, a gapped topological Fulde-Ferrell superfluid, in which the chiral edge states at opposite boundaries possess the same chirality, is predicted.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

International intermediaries: A systematic literature review and research agenda

Intermediaries such as trading companies, agents and merchants have played a key role in international business for centuries. Despite the growing importance of understanding the phenomenon of intermediaries, there are misperceptions and confusions regarding the concept and value of intermediaries, which result in disconnected and fragmented research findings. This study – based on an analysis of 101 articles published between 1985 and 2021 – aims to synthesise the conceptual developments and provide a more integrated understanding of both sourcing and trading intermediaries whose activities extend across national borders. The findings help to pave the way for further academic research by highlighting what we currently know and do not know about intermediaries, outlining the theoretically grounded research agenda for each of the three identified themes: (1) What are intermediaries? (2) When should intermediaries be used? and (3) How do intermediaries work and develop? The study shows that despite decades of research on this topic, the literature to date has been limited and scattered. Researchers are encouraged to consider the role of intermediaries in a bigger picture where intermediated exchanges exist not only in dyadic relationships, but also in triads or even in broader webs of networks

Performance Calculation of Floating Wind Turbine Tension Leg Platform in the South China Sea

The harvesting of wind energy is expected to increase greatly in the future because of its stability, abundance, and renewability in large coastal states such as China. The floating support structure will likely become the major structural form for wind turbines in the future due to its cost advantages when the water depth reaches 50 m. The 5MW wind turbine model from National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) and the modified tension leg platform model proposed by Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) were applied to certain sea conditions in the South China Sea in order to consider the effects of external load coupling actions. In this study, the internal force, mooring system force, as well as the acceleration, displacement and velocity of the floating structure of the modified HIT Tension Leg Platform (HIT-TLP) were calculated. During this process, the physical parameters of its tension leg structure at a specific frequency domain were obtained to find the technical reserves for its practical application in the future

Optimal Designs for Evaluating a Series of Treatments

Several articles in this journal have studied optimal designs for testing a series of treatments to identify promising ones for further study. These designs formulate testing as an ongoing process until a promising treatment is identified. This formulation is considered to be more realistic but substantially increases the computational complexity. In this article, we show that these new designs, which control the error rates for a series of treatments, can be reformulated as conventional designs that control the error rates for each individual treatment. This reformulation leads to a more meaningful interpretation of the error rates and hence easier specification of the error rates in practice. The reformulation also allows us to use conventional designs from published tables or standard computer programs to design trials for a series of treatments. We illustrate these using a study in soft tissue sarcoma