An experimental investigation of drop deformation and breakup in steady, two-dimensional linear flows

We consider the deformation and burst of small fluid droplets in steady linear, two-dimensional motions of a second immiscible fluid. Experiments using a computer-controlled, four-roll mill to investigate the effect of flow type are described, and the results compared with predictions of several available asymptotic deformation and burst theories, as well as numerical calculations. The comparison clarifies the range of validity of the theories, and demonstrates that they provide quite adequate predictions over a wide range of viscosity ratio, capillary number, and flow type

A computer-controlled four-roll mill for investigations of particle and drop dynamics in two-dimensional linear shear flows

In this paper we describe the design and operating characteristics of a computer-controlled four-roll mill for investigations of particle and drop dynamics in two-dimensional linear flows. The control system is based upon the use of: a video camera to visualize the instantaneous position of the drop or particle; a PDP 11/23 computer, with a pipeline processor acting as an interface between the camera and computer, to calculate the position and implement a control strategy, and d.c. stepping motors to convert an electronic signal to angular velocities of the four rollers. The control objective is to keep the centre of mass of the drop/particle at the centre of the region between the rollers where there is a stagnation point in the undisturbed flow, while maintaining the shear-rate and the ratio of vorticity to strain rate in the flow at fixed values. The resulting system is suitable for studies of: the rotational motions of single solid particles; the deformation and burst of single droplets; or the hydrodynamic interactions of two particles or drops, one of which is held with its centre-of-mass fixed at the stagnation point of the undisturbed flow. In all cases, the flow can be varied from pure rotation to pure strain, and the shear rate can be either steady or changing as a prescribed function of time

Written evidence to the House of Commons Business and Skills Committee (ed) Local enterprise partnerships and the Regional Growth Fund

The Business, Innovation and Skills Committee announced an inquiry looking into the Local Enterprise Partnerships and the Regional Growth Fund. In particular, the Committee examined how the proposed new structures would work, alongside issues such as distribution of funding, value for money, accountability, timing, transitional arrangements and required legislation. A Report on the Local Enterprise Partnerships was published on 26 April 2013

Diffraction and Imaging Theory of Inelastically Scattered Electrons - A New Approach

A new dynamical theory is developed for describing inelastic electron scattering in thin crystals. Compared to existing theories, the first advantage of this new theory is that the incoherent summation of the diffracted intensities contributed by electrons after exciting vast numbers of degenerate excited states has been evaluated before any numerical calculation. The second advantage is that only the modulus squared of the transition matrix elements are needed in the final computation. This greatly reduces the effort in searching for phase shifts in inelastic scattering matrix calculations. By iterative operation of this single-inelastic scattering theory, multiple-inelastic electron scattering of phonons, single-electrons and valence (or plasmon) excitations can be included in diffraction pattern calculations. High resolution images formed by valence excited electrons can also be calculated in this theoretical scheme for relatively thick crystals. The sharpness of thermal diffuse scattering (TDS) streaks is determined by the phonon dispersion relationships of the acoustic branches; optical branches contribute only a diffuse background. Dynamical scattering effects can change the intensity distribution of TDS electrons but have almost no effect on the sharpness of TDS streaks. To a good approximation, the TDS streaks are defined by the qx - qy curves which satisfy ωj(q) = 0, where ωj(q) is the phonon dispersion relationship determined by the 2-D atomic vibrations in the (hkl) plane perpendicular to the incident beam direction B = [hkl] (for orthogonal crystal systems). This is a simplified 2-D vibration model. The directions of TDS streaks can be predicted according to a simple q•(r(ι)-r(ι1)) = 0 rule, where the summation of ι1 is restricted to the first nearest neighbors of the ιth atom that are located in the same atomic plane as the ιth atom perpendicular to the incident beam direction

T-DominO: Exploring Multiple Criteria with Quality-Diversity and the Tournament Dominance Objective

Real-world design problems are a messy combination of constraints, objectives, and features. Exploring these problem spaces can be defined as a Multi-Criteria Exploration (MCX) problem, whose goals are to produce a set of diverse solutions with high performance across many objectives, while avoiding low performance across any objectives. Quality-Diversity algorithms produce the needed design variation, but typically consider only a single objective. We present a new ranking, T-DominO, specifically designed to handle multiple objectives in MCX problems. T-DominO ranks individuals relative to other solutions in the archive, favoring individuals with balanced performance over those which excel at a few objectives at the cost of the others. Keeping only a single balanced solution in each MAP-Elites bin maintains the visual accessibility of the archive – a strong asset for design exploration. We illustrate our approach on a set of easily understood benchmarks, and showcase its potential in a many-objective real-world architecture case study

A new method for the spectroscopic identification of stellar non-radial pulsation modes. II. Mode identification of the Delta Scuti star FG Virginis

We present a mode identification based on new high-resolution time-series spectra of the non-radially pulsating Delta Scuti star FG~Vir (HD 106384, V = 6.57, A5V). From 2002 February to June a global Delta Scuti Network (DSN) campaign, utilizing high-resolution spectroscopy and simultaneous photometry has been conducted for FG~Vir in order to provide a theoretical pulsation model. In this campaign we have acquired 969 Echelle spectra covering 147 hours at six observatories. The mode identification was carried out by analyzing line profile variations by means of the Fourier parameter fit method, where the observational Fourier parameters across the line are fitted with theoretical values. This method is especially well suited for determining the azimuthal order m of non-radial pulsation modes and thus complementary with the method of Daszynska-Daszkiewicz (2002) which does best at identifying the degree l. 15 frequencies between 9.2 and 33.5 c/d were detected spectroscopically. We determined the azimuthal order m of 12 modes and constrained their harmonic degree l. Only modes of low degree (l <= 4) were detected, most of them having axisymmetric character mainly due to the relatively low projected rotational velocity of FG Vir. The detected non-axisymmetric modes have azimuthal orders between -2 and 1. We derived an inclination of 19 degrees, which implies an equatorial rotational rate of 66 km/s.Comment: 14 pages, 26 figure

Peripheral and central mechanisms involved in hormonal control of male and female reproduction

Reproduction involves the integration of hormonal signals acting across multiple systems togenerate a synchronized physiological output. A critical component of reproduction is the luteinizinghormone (LH) surge, which is mediated by estradiol (E2) and neuroprogesterone interacting tostimulate kisspeptin release in the rostral periventricular nucleus of the third ventricle in rats. Recentevidence has shown that both classical and membrane E2 and progesterone signaling is involved inthis pathway. A metabolite of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), GnRH-(1-5), has been shownto stimulate GnRH expression, secretion, and has a role in the regulation of lordosis. Additionally,gonadotropin-inhibitory hormone (GnIH) projects to and influences the activity of GnRH neurons inbirds. Stress-induced changes in GnIH have been shown to alter breeding behaviors in birds,demonstrating another molecular control of reproduction. Peripherally, paracrine and autocrineactions within the gonad have been suggested as therapeutic targets for infertility in both males andfemales. Dysfunction of testicular prostaglandin synthesis is a possible cause of idiopathic maleinfertility. Indeed, local production of melatonin and corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) couldinfluence spermatogenesis via immune pathways in the gonad. In females, vascular endothelialgrowth factor A (VEGF-A) has been implicated in an angiogenic process that mediates developmentof the corpus luteum and thus fertility via the Notch signaling pathway. Age-induced decreases infertility involve ovarian kisspeptin and its regulation of ovarian sympathetic innervation. Finally,morphological changes in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus influence female sexualreceptivity in rats. The processes mediating these morphological changes have been shown toinvolve rapid effects of E2 controlling synaptogenesis in this hypothalamic nucleus. Together, thisreview highlights new research in these areas, focusing on recent findings in the molecularmechanisms of central and peripheral hormonal control of reproduction.Fil: Rudolph, L. M.. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Bentley, G. E.. University of California Berkeley; Estados UnidosFil: Calandra, Ricardo Saul. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Fundación de Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental; ArgentinaFil: Paredes, A. H.. Universidad de Chile; ChileFil: Tesone, Marta. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Fundación de Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental; ArgentinaFil: Wu, T. J.. Uniformed Services University; Estados UnidosFil: Micevych, P. E.. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados Unido

Feasibility trial evaluation of a physical activity and screen-viewing course for parents of 6 to 8 year-old children : Teamplay

Background: Many children spend too much time screen-viewing (watching TV, surfing the internet and playing video games) and do not meet physical activity (PA) guidelines. Parents are important influences on children’s PA and screen-viewing (SV). There is a shortage of parent-focused interventions to change children’s PA and SV. Methods: Teamplay was a two arm individualized randomized controlled feasibility trial. Participants were parents of 6–8 year old children. Intervention participants were invited to attend an eight week parenting program with each session lasting 2 hours. Children and parents wore an accelerometer for seven days and minutes of moderate-to-vigorous intensity PA (MVPA) were derived. Parents were also asked to report the average number of hours per day that both they and the target child spent watching TV. Measures were assessed at baseline (time 0) at the end of the intervention (week 8) and 2 months after the intervention had ended (week 16). Results: There were 75 participants who provided consent and were randomized but 27 participants withdrew post-randomization. Children in the intervention group engaged in 2.6 fewer minutes of weekday MVPA at Time 1 but engaged in 11 more minutes of weekend MVPA. At Time 1 the intervention parents engaged in 9 more minutes of weekday MVPA and 13 more minutes of weekend MVPA. The proportion of children in the intervention group watching ≥ 2 hours per day of TV on weekend days decreased after the intervention (time 0 = 76%, time 1 = 39%, time 2 = 50%), while the control group proportion increased slightly (79%, 86% and 87%). Parental weekday TV watching decreased in both groups. In post-study interviews many mothers reported problems associated with wearing the accelerometers. In terms of a future full-scale trial, a sample of between 80 and 340 families would be needed to detect a mean difference of 10-minutes of weekend MVPA. Conclusions: Teamplay is a promising parenting program in an under-researched area. The intervention was acceptable to parents, and all elements of the study protocol were successfully completed. Simple changes to the trial protocol could result in more complete data collection and study engagement

A Comparison of the Use of Binary Decision Trees and Neural Networks in Top Quark Detection

The use of neural networks for signal vs.~background discrimination in high-energy physics experiment has been investigated and has compared favorably with the efficiency of traditional kinematic cuts. Recent work in top quark identification produced a neural network that, for a given top quark mass, yielded a higher signal to background ratio in Monte Carlo simulation than a corresponding set of conventional cuts. In this article we discuss another pattern-recognition algorithm, the binary decision tree. We have applied a binary decision tree to top quark identification at the Tevatron and found it to be comparable in performance to the neural network. Furthermore, reservations about the "black box" nature of neural network discriminators do not apply to binary decision trees; a binary decision tree may be reduced to a set of kinematic cuts subject to conventional error analysis.Comment: 14pp. Plain TeX + mtexsis.tex (latter available through 'get mtexsis.tex'.) Two postscript files avail. by emai

The influence of maternal psychosocial characteristics on infant feeding styles

Maternal feeding styles in infancy and early childhood are associated with children’s later risk for overweight and obesity. Maternal psychosocial factors that influence feeding styles during the complementary feeding period, the time during which infants transition from a milk-based diet to one that includes solid foods and other non-milk products, have received less attention. The present study explores how maternal psychosocial factors—specifically self-esteem, parenting self-efficacy, parenting satisfaction, and depression symptoms—influence mothers’ infant feeding styles at nine months of age, a time during which solid foods eating habits are being established. Participants included 160 low-income, African-American mother-infant pairs in central North Carolina who were enrolled in the Infant Care and Risk of Obesity Study. Regression models tested for associations between maternal psychosocial characteristics and pressuring and restrictive feeding styles. Models were first adjusted for maternal age, education, marital status and obesity status. To account for infant characteristics, models were then adjusted for infant weight-for-length, distress to limitations and activity level scores. Maternal self-esteem was negatively associated with pressuring to soothe. Maternal parenting self-efficacy was positively associated with restriction-diet quality. Maternal parenting satisfaction and depression symptoms were not associated with feeding styles in the final models. Focusing on strengthening maternal self-esteem and parenting self-efficacy may help to prevent the development of less desirable infant feeding styles