Application of a Parametric Level-Set Approach to Topology Optimization of Fluids with the Navier–Stokes and Lattice Boltzmann Equations

Traditional material distribution based methods applied to the topology optimization of fluidic systems often suffer from rather slow convergence. The local influence of the design variables in the traditional material distribution based approaches is seen as the primary cause, leading to small gradients which cannot drive the optimization process sufficiently. The present work is an attempt to improve the rate of convergence of topology optimization methods of fluidic systems by employing a parametric level-set function coupled with a topology description approach. Using level-set methods, a global impact of design variables is achieved and the material description is decoupled from the flow field discretization. This promises to improve the gradients with respect to the design variables and can be applied to rather different types of fluid formulations and discretization methods. In the present work, a finite element method for solving the Navier-Stokes equations and a hydrodynamic finite difference lattice Boltzmann method are considered. Using a 2D example the parametric level-set approach is validated through comparison with traditional material distribution based methods. While the parametric level-set approach leads to the desired optimal designs and has advantages such as improved modularity and smoothness of design boundaries when compared to material distribution based methods, the present study does not reveal improvements for the convergence of the optimization problem

Chiral tunneling in single and bilayer graphene

We review chiral (Klein) tunneling in single-layer and bilayer graphene and present its semiclassical theory, including the Berry phase and the Maslov index. Peculiarities of the chiral tunneling are naturally explained in terms of classical phase space. In a one-dimensional geometry we reduced the original Dirac equation, describing the dynamics of charge carriers in the single layer graphene, to an effective Schr\"odinger equation with a complex potential. This allowed us to study tunneling in details and obtain analytic formulas. Our predictions are compared with numerical results. We have also demonstrated that, for the case of asymmetric n-p-n junction in single layer graphene, there is total transmission for normal incidence only, side resonances are suppressed.Comment: submitted to Proceedings of Nobel Symposium on graphene, May 201

Casimir effect in deformed field

The Casimir energy is calculated in one-, two-, and three-dimensional spaces for the field with generalized coordinates and momenta satisfying the deformed Poisson brackets leading to the minimal length.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur

Renormalons and Analytic Properties of the \beta function

The presence or absense of renormalon singularities in the Borel plane is shown to be determined by the analytic properties of the Gell-Mann - Low function \beta(g) and some other functions. A constructive criterion for the absense of singularities consists in the proper behavior of the \beta function and its Borel image B(z) at infinity, \beta(g)\sim g^\alpha and B(z)\sim z^\alpha with \alpha\le 1. This criterion is probably fulfilled for the \phi^4 theory, QED and QCD, but is violated in the O(n)-symmetric sigma model with n\to\infty.Comment: 6 pages, PD

Serum Heat Shock Protein 27 and Diabetes Complications in the EURODIAB Prospective Complications Study : A Novel Circulating Marker for Diabetic Neuropathy

OBJECTIVE—Heat shock protein 27 (HSP27) is a member of the small heat shock protein family of proteins. HSP27 expression is enhanced in target tissues of diabetic microvascular complications, and changes in circulating serum HSP27 levels (sHSP27) have been reported in patients with macrovascular disease. We investigated whether sHSP27 levels were associated with micro- and macrovascular complications in type 1 diabetic patients

The Outer Tracker Detector of the HERA-B Experiment Part I: Detector

The HERA-B Outer Tracker is a large system of planar drift chambers with about 113000 read-out channels. Its inner part has been designed to be exposed to a particle flux of up to 2.10^5 cm^-2 s^-1, thus coping with conditions similar to those expected for future hadron collider experiments. 13 superlayers, each consisting of two individual chambers, have been assembled and installed in the experiment. The stereo layers inside each chamber are composed of honeycomb drift tube modules with 5 and 10 mm diameter cells. Chamber aging is prevented by coating the cathode foils with thin layers of copper and gold, together with a proper drift gas choice. Longitudinal wire segmentation is used to limit the occupancy in the most irradiated detector regions to about 20 %. The production of 978 modules was distributed among six different laboratories and took 15 months. For all materials in the fiducial region of the detector good compromises of stability versus thickness were found. A closed-loop gas system supplies the Ar/CF4/CO2 gas mixture to all chambers. The successful operation of the HERA-B Outer Tracker shows that a large tracker can be efficiently built and safely operated under huge radiation load at a hadron collider.Comment: 28 pages, 14 figure

Divergent Perturbation Series

Various perturbation series are factorially divergent. The behavior of their high-order terms can be found by Lipatov's method, according to which they are determined by the saddle-point configurations (instantons) of appropriate functional integrals. When the Lipatov asymptotics is known and several lowest order terms of the perturbation series are found by direct calculation of diagrams, one can gain insight into the behavior of the remaining terms of the series. Summing it, one can solve (in a certain approximation) various strong-coupling problems. This approach is demonstrated by determining the Gell-Mann - Low functions in \phi^4 theory, QED, and QCD for arbitrary coupling constants. An overview of the mathematical theory of divergent series is presented, and interpretation of perturbation series is discussed. Explicit derivations of the Lipatov asymptotic forms are presented for some basic problems in theoretical physics. A solution is proposed to the problem of renormalon contributions, which hampered progress in this field in the late 1970s. Practical schemes for summation of perturbation series are described for a coupling constant of order unity and in the strong-coupling limit. An interpretation of the Borel integral is given for 'non-Borel-summable' series. High-order corrections to the Lipatov asymptotics are discussed.Comment: Review article, 45 pages, PD

The Outer Tracker Detector of the HERA-B Experiment. Part II: Front-End Electronics

The HERA-B Outer Tracker is a large detector with 112674 drift chamber channels. It is exposed to a particle flux of up to 2x10^5/cm^2/s thus coping with conditions similar to those expected for the LHC experiments. The front-end readout system, based on the ASD-8 chip and a customized TDC chip, is designed to fulfil the requirements on low noise, high sensitivity, rate tolerance, and high integration density. The TDC system is based on an ASIC which digitizes the time in bins of about 0.5 ns within a total of 256 bins. The chip also comprises a pipeline to store data from 128 events which is required for a deadtime-free trigger and data acquisition system. We report on the development, installation, and commissioning of the front-end electronics, including the grounding and noise suppression schemes, and discuss its performance in the HERA-B experiment

Genome-Wide Expression Analysis of a Spinal Muscular Atrophy Model: Towards Discovery of New Drug Targets

Spinal Muscular Atrophy is a recessive genetic disease and affects lower motor neurones and muscle tissue. A single gene is disrupted in SMA: SMN1 activity is abolished but a second copy of the gene (SMN2) provides limited activity. While the SMN protein has been shown to function in the assembly of RNA-protein complexes, it is unclear how the overall reduction in SMN activity specifically results in the neuromuscular phenotypes. Similar to humans, reduced smn activity in the fly causes earliest phenotypes in neuromuscular tissues. To uncover the effects of reduced SMN activity, we have studied gene expression in control and diseased fly tissues using whole genome micro-arrays. A number of gene expression changes are recovered and independently validated. Identified genes show trends in their predicted function: several are consistent with the function of SMN, in addition some uncover novel pathways. This and subsequent genetic analysis in the fly indicates some of the identified genes could be taken for further studies as potential drug targets for SMA and other neuromuscular disorders

Shape and topology optimization in Stokes flow with a phase field approach

In this paper we introduce a new formulation for shape optimization problems in fluids in a diffuse interface setting that can in particular handle topological changes. By adding the Ginzburg{Landau energy as a regularization to the objective functional and relaxing the non-permeability outside the fluid region by introducing a porous medium approach we hence obtain a phase field problem where the existence of a minimizer can be guaranteed. This problem is additionally related to a sharp interface problem, where the permeability of the non-fluid region is zero. In both the sharp and the diffuse interface setting we can derive necessary optimality conditions using only the natural regularity of the minimizers. We also pass to the limit in the first order conditions