2,008 research outputs found
Accessing the Microscopic World
The Exploratorium in San Francisco offers museum visitors the opportunity to use and manipulate state-of-the-art microscopes to visualize an array of living specimen
A Computer Model of the Tidal Phenomena in Cook Inlet, Alaska
The work upon which this report is based was supported by funds (Project
A-028-ALAS) provided by the United States Department of the Interior,
Office of Water Resources Research, as authorized under the Water Resources
Act of 1964, as amended
Water Balance of a Small Lake in a Permafrost Region
The work upon which this report is based was supported in part by
funds (Project A-031-ALAS) provided by the United States Department of
the Interior, Office of Water Resources Research, as authorized under
the Water Resources Act of 1964, as amended
Improving the smoothed complexity of FLIP for max cut problems
Finding locally optimal solutions for max-cut and max--cut are well-known
PLS-complete problems. An instinctive approach to finding such a locally
optimum solution is the FLIP method. Even though FLIP requires exponential time
in worst-case instances, it tends to terminate quickly in practical instances.
To explain this discrepancy, the run-time of FLIP has been studied in the
smoothed complexity framework. Etscheid and R\"{o}glin showed that the smoothed
complexity of FLIP for max-cut in arbitrary graphs is quasi-polynomial. Angel,
Bubeck, Peres, and Wei showed that the smoothed complexity of FLIP for max-cut
in complete graphs is , where is an upper bound on
the random edge-weight density and is the number of vertices in the input
graph.
While Angel et al.'s result showed the first polynomial smoothed complexity,
they also conjectured that their run-time bound is far from optimal. In this
work, we make substantial progress towards improving the run-time bound. We
prove that the smoothed complexity of FLIP in complete graphs is . Our results are based on a carefully chosen matrix whose rank
captures the run-time of the method along with improved rank bounds for this
matrix and an improved union bound based on this matrix. In addition, our
techniques provide a general framework for analyzing FLIP in the smoothed
framework. We illustrate this general framework by showing that the smoothed
complexity of FLIP for max--cut in complete graphs is polynomial and for
max--cut in arbitrary graphs is quasi-polynomial. We believe that our
techniques should also be of interest towards addressing the smoothed
complexity of FLIP for max--cut in complete graphs for larger constants .Comment: 36 page
Upgrading of NASA-Ames high-energy hypersonic facilities: A Study
This study reviews facility capabilities of NASA, Ames Research Center to simulate hypersonic flight with particular emphasis on arc heaters. Scaling laws are developed and compared with ARCFLO II calculations and with existing data. The calculations indicate that a 300 MW, 100 atmosphere arc heater is feasible. Recommendations for the arc heater, which will operate at voltages up to 50 kilovolts, and the associated elements needed for a test facility are included
Submarine Groundwater Discharge in the Southern Chesapeake Bay: Constraints From Numerical Models
Terrestrial and oceanic forces drive fluid flow within the coastal zone to produce submarine groundwater discharge (SGD). Groundwater flowing from the seabed serves as a significant pathway for contaminants and nutrients, producing an active biogeochemical reaction zone. In order to quantify the importance of SGD in geochemical and hydrologic budgets for the lower Chesapeake Bay, three coastal Virginia transects (southern Eastern Shore, Lafayette River, and Ocean View beach) with different topographic gradients were modeled using similar boundary conditions and consistent treatment of hydrogeologic layers. A sensitivity study was performed on the variables of recharge rate, seawater density, and hydraulic permeability. Each two-dimensional transect is approximately 5 km in the shore-perpendicular direction with vertical elevations ranging from 10 m above sea level to 50 m below sea level. A pre-processing suite of code displays NOAA topography and bathymetry data, allows the user to identify a desired transect, and outputs a cross-sectional numerical domain for a series of steady-state calculations solved by a USGS program called SUTRA. SUTRA’s hybrid finite element and finite difference method computes buoyancy-driven flow of variable-density groundwater, solves the coupled solute transport equation, and predicts areas of discharge and recharge across the nearshore coastal zone. Model results suggested SGD in all transects, with common flow pattern characteristics including freshwater discharging below the elevation of sea level, seawater recirculating in steep bathymetry, and intervening zones of relatively low flow. Although fluid velocity at the low tide mark was significantly dependent upon the slope of the transect, response to recharge rate was small over the range of modeled values. Permeability had the greatest effect on SGD; varying hydraulic conductivity by over an order of magnitude produced similar magnitude changes in discharge. Overall, this series of models provides a framework for identifying zones of high groundwater flow, reveals the variability of SGD rates between locations, and suggests which field measurements would be most valuable to better constrain the geochemical groundwater contribution to the coastal zone
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