Experimental and numerical investigation of enclosed cavity noise in the presence of interior trim materials

This paper presents a rigid walled car cabin model to predict the acoustic effects of vehicle interior trim materials. The car cavity is made of a rigid walled enclosure system with one flexible wall on the front firewall position, where the interior trim materials are applied to the inner surface of the front firewall to modify the coupling between the flexible wall and the cabin air cavity. The car cabin is acoustically excited by using a single point source positioned at one corner of the inner air cavity to imitate the airborne noise. The propagated noise is measured by using pressure microphones at different locations inside the car cabin: one near the driver's ear position and another one near the passenger's ear position. An acoustic FE (Finite Element) model is also developed to investigate and predict the effects of interior trim materials on the car cabin noise level. Finally, the simulation results are compared with the experimentally acquired acoustic effects of the interior trim materials. The predicted acoustic response results show that the simulation agrees well with the experiment data, both with and without the interior trim materials. The noise propagating inside the car cabin is reduced by a similar ratio in both the experimental method and in the numerical analysis. The selected interior trim materials are starting to absorb noise at frequencies above 500 Hz, but they do not reduce the low-frequency noise effectively

Measurement of cosmic-ray low-energy antiproton spectrum with the first BESS-Polar Antarctic flight

The BESS-Polar spectrometer had its first successful balloon flight over Antarctica in December 2004. During the 8.5-day long-duration flight, almost 0.9 billion events were recorded and 1,520 antiprotons were detected in the energy range 0.1-4.2 GeV. In this paper, we report the antiproton spectrum obtained, discuss the origin of cosmic-ray antiprotons, and use antiprotons to probe the effect of charge sign dependent drift in the solar modulation.Comment: 18 pages, 1 table, 5 figures, submitted to Physics Letters

59-Co and 75-As NMR Investigation of Electron-Doped High Tc Superconductor BaFe(1.8)Co(0.2)As(2) (Tc = 22K)

We report an NMR investigation of the superconductivity in BaFe(2)As(2) induced by Co doping (Tc=22K). We demonstrate that Co atoms form an alloy with Fe atoms and donate carriers without creating localized moments. Our finding strongly suggests that the underlying physics of iron-pnictide superconductors is quite different from the widely accepted physical picture of high Tc cuprates as doped Mott insulators. We also show a crossover of electronic properties into a low temperature pseudo-gap phase with a pseudo-gap Delta 560K, where chi(spin) constant and resisitivty T. The NMR Knight shift below Tc decreases for both along the c-axis and ab-plane, and is consistent with the singlet pairing scenario.Comment: Accepted for publication in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. (4 pages

Recent contrasting winter temperature changes over North America linked to enhanced positive Pacific‐North American pattern

Recently enhanced contrasts in winter (December‐January‐February) mean temperatures and extremes (cold southeast and warm northwest) across North America have triggered intensive discussion both within and outside of the scientific community, but the mechanisms responsible for these contrasts remain unresolved. Here we use a combination of observations and reanalysis data sets to show that the strengthened contrasts in winter mean temperatures and extremes across North America are closely related to an enhancement of the positive Pacific‐North American (PNA) pattern during the second half of the 20th century. Recent intensification of positive PNA events is associated with amplified planetary waves over North America, driving cold‐air outbreaks into the southeast and warm tropical/subtropical air into the northwest. This not only results in a strengthened winter mean temperature contrast but increases the occurrence of the opposite‐signed extremes in these two regions.Key PointsThe enhanced contrasts in winter mean temperatures and extremes in North America are observedRecent enhancement of positive PNA is a main cause of the contrasting winter temperature changesThe study provides a framework for detection and attribution of climate change in North AmericaPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/115952/1/grl53404_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/115952/2/grl53404.pd

Effective phase description of noise-perturbed and noise-induced oscillations

An effective description of a general class of stochastic phase oscillators is presented. For this, the effective phase velocity is defined either by invariant probability density or via first passage times. While the first approach exhibits correct frequency and distribution density, the second one yields proper phase resetting curves. Their discrepancy is most pronounced for noise-induced oscillations and is related to non-monotonicity of the phase fluctuations

Novel Use of Matched Filtering for Synaptic Event Detection and Extraction

Efficient and dependable methods for detection and measurement of synaptic events are important for studies of synaptic physiology and neuronal circuit connectivity. As the published methods with detection algorithms based upon amplitude thresholding and fixed or scaled template comparisons are of limited utility for detection of signals with variable amplitudes and superimposed events that have complex waveforms, previous techniques are not applicable for detection of evoked synaptic events in photostimulation and other similar experimental situations. Here we report on a novel technique that combines the design of a bank of approximate matched filters with the detection and estimation theory to automatically detect and extract photostimluation-evoked excitatory postsynaptic currents (EPSCs) from individually recorded neurons in cortical circuit mapping experiments. The sensitivity and specificity of the method were evaluated on both simulated and experimental data, with its performance comparable to that of visual event detection performed by human operators. This new technique was applied to quantify and compare the EPSCs obtained from excitatory pyramidal cells and fast-spiking interneurons. In addition, our technique has been further applied to the detection and analysis of inhibitory postsynaptic current (IPSC) responses. Given the general purpose of our matched filtering and signal recognition algorithms, we expect that our technique can be appropriately modified and applied to detect and extract other types of electrophysiological and optical imaging signals

Baryogenesis with Scalar Bilinears

We show that if a baryon asymmetry of the universe is generated through the out-of-equilibrium decays of heavy scalar bilinears coupling to two fermions of the minimal standard model, it is necessarily an asymmetry conserving $(B-L)$ which cannot survive past the electroweak phase transition because of sphalerons. We then show that a surviving $(B-L)$ asymmetry may be generated if the heavy scalars decay into two fermions, \underline {and into two light scalars} (which may be detectable at hadron colliders). We list all possible such trilinear scalar interactions, and discuss how our new baryogenesis scenario may occur naturally in supersymmetric grand unified theories.Comment: LATEX, 14 pages, one figure include