The growth of galaxies in cosmological simulations of structure formation

We use hydrodynamic simulations to examine how the baryonic components of galaxies are assembled, focusing on the relative importance of mergers and smooth accretion in the formation of ~L_* systems. In our primary simulation, which models a (50\hmpc)^3 comoving volume of a Lambda-dominated cold dark matter universe, the space density of objects at our (64-particle) baryon mass resolution threshold, M_c=5.4e10 M_sun, corresponds to that of observed galaxies with L~L_*/4. Galaxies above this threshold gain most of their mass by accretion rather than by mergers. At the redshift of peak mass growth, z~2, accretion dominates over merging by about 4:1. The mean accretion rate per galaxy declines from ~40 M_sun/yr at z=2 to ~10 M_sun/yr at z=0, while the merging rate peaks later (z~1) and declines more slowly, so by z=0 the ratio is about 2:1. We cannot distinguish truly smooth accretion from merging with objects below our mass resolution threshold, but extrapolating our measured mass spectrum of merging objects, dP/dM ~ M^a with a ~ -1, implies that sub-resolution mergers would add relatively little mass. The global star formation history in these simulations tracks the mass accretion rate rather than the merger rate. At low redshift, destruction of galaxies by mergers is approximately balanced by the growth of new systems, so the comoving space density of resolved galaxies stays nearly constant despite significant mass evolution at the galaxy-by-galaxy level. The predicted merger rate at z<~1 agrees with recent estimates from close pairs in the CFRS and CNOC2 redshift surveys.Comment: Submitted to ApJ, 35 pp including 15 fig

Resource allocation in a multicast tree

We consider how to allocate bandwidth in a multicast tree so as to optimize some global measure of performance. In our model each receiver has a budget to be used for bandwidth reservation on links along its path from the source, and each link has a cost function depending on the amount of total bandwidth reserved at the link by all receivers using that link. We formulate and solve a problem of allocating bandwidth in the multicast tree such that the sum of link costs is minimized

Chimeric Yellow Fever/Dengue Virus as a Candidate Dengue Vaccine: Quantitation of the Dengue Virus-Specific CD8 T-Cell Response

We have constructed a chimeric yellow fever/dengue (YF/DEN) virus, which expresses the premembrane (prM) and envelope (E) genes from DEN type 2 (DEN-2) virus in a YF virus (YFV-17D) genetic background. Immunization of BALB/c mice with this chimeric virus induced a CD8 T-cell response specific for the DEN-2 virus prM and E proteins. This response protected YF/DEN virus-immunized mice against lethal dengue encephalitis. Control mice immunized with the parental YFV-17D were not protected against DEN-2 virus challenge, indicating that protection was mediated by the DEN-2 virus prM- and E-specific immune responses. YF/DEN vaccine-primed CD8 T cells expanded and were efficiently recruited into the central nervous systems of DEN-2 virus challenged mice. At 5 days after challenge, 3 to 4% of CD8 T cells in the spleen were specific for the prM and E proteins, and 34% of CD8 T cells in the central nervous system recognized these proteins. Depletion of either CD4 or CD8 T cells, or both, strongly reduced the protective efficacy of the YF/DEN virus, stressing the key role of the antiviral T-cell response

Comparison of Decision Rules for Subsurface Drip Irrigation Practices Using a Nonlinear Mathematical Programming Model

A comparison of decision rules has been made for case studies of corn production using subsurface drip irrigation under three agricultural management practices (no irrigation, uniform irrigation, and variable rate irrigation). The uniform irrigation strategy appeared to perform the best than the other two management practices under different risk scenarios.corn production, mathematical programming, profitability, risk management, subsurface drip irrigation, variable rate irrigation, Farm Management,

Implementation of a Converter in Sequence Domain to Counter Voltage Imbalances

This paper demonstrates the basic problem of the conventional d-axis and q-axis control applied to a voltage source converter (VSC) during a system imbalance. The specific imbalances studied are a balanced fault and an unbalanced fault at the terminals of the converter. The dc link voltage of the VSC is disturbed during the unbalanced fault due to negative sequence components in the system. The sequence characteristics of the system during an imbalance are further analyzed. A novel controller in the sequence domain is proposed. The positive sequence components of the control are implemented in the positive synchronous reference frame and the negative sequence components of the control are implemented in the negative synchronous reference frame. The negative sequence components are commanded to zero in the control. The approach demonstrates the stabilization of the voltage to a greater extent. The control also points out the need for a storage element when the VSC is to be used for application with that of a Doubly-Fed Induction Generators (DFIG) in wind turbines

Alternatively activated macrophages promote pancreatic fibrosis in chronic pancreatitis.

Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is a progressive and irreversible inflammatory and fibrotic disease with no cure. Unlike acute pancreatitis (AP), we find that alternatively activated macrophages (AAMs) are dominant in mouse and human CP. AAMs are dependent on interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-13 signalling, and we show that mice lacking IL-4Rα, myeloid-specific IL-4Rα and IL-4/IL-13 were less susceptible to pancreatic fibrosis. Furthermore, we demonstrate that mouse and human pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) are a source of IL-4/IL-13. Notably, we show that pharmacologic inhibition of IL-4/IL-13 in human ex vivo studies as well as in established mouse CP decreases pancreatic AAMs and fibrosis. We identify a critical role for macrophages in pancreatic fibrosis and in turn PSCs as important inducers of macrophage-alternative activation. Our study challenges and identifies pathways involved in crosstalk between macrophages and PSCs that can be targeted to reverse or halt pancreatic fibrosis progression

Performance of Doubly Fed-Induction Machine Wind-Generators During Grid and Wind Disturbances

A doubly fed induction generator is under study for application with a wind turbine. The operation of the Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) under different disturbances namely, response to gradual increase or decrease in wind speeds, sudden change of wind speeds like wind gust and different fault scenarios near and farther to the wind turbine are demonstrated in this paper using the wind model developed by DIgSILENT® in their PowerFactory software

Modeling the dynamical evolution of the M87 globular cluster system

We study the dynamical evolution of the M87 globular cluster system (GCS) with a number of numerical simulations. We explore a range of different initial conditions for the GCS mass function (GCMF), for the GCS spatial distribution and for the GCS velocity distribution. We confirm that an initial power-law GCMF like that observed in young cluster systems can be readily transformed through dynamical processes into a bell-shaped GCMF. However,only models with initial velocity distributions characterized by a strong radial anisotropy increasing with the galactocentric distance are able to reproduce the observed constancy of the GCMF at all radii.We show that such strongly radial orbital distributions are inconsistent with the observed kinematics of the M87 GCS. The evolution of models with a bell-shaped GCMF with a turnover similar to that currently observed in old GCS is also investigated. We show that models with this initial GCMF can satisfy all the observational constraints currently available on the GCS spatial distribution,the GCS velocity distribution and on the GCMF properties.In particular these models successfully reproduce both the lack of a radial gradient of the GCS mean mass recently found in an analysis of HST images of M87 at multiple locations, and the observed kinematics of the M87 GCS.Our simulations also show that evolutionary processes significantly affect the initial GCS properties by leading to the disruption of many clusters and changing the masses of those which survive.The preferential disruption of inner clusters flattens the initial GCS number density profile and it can explain the rising specific frequency with radius; we show that the inner flattening observed in the M87 GCS spatial distribution can be the result of the effects of dynamical evolution on an initially steep density profile. (abridged)Comment: 15 pages,14 figures;accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Simulation of Flow Field and Particle Trajectories in Hard Disk Drive Enclosures

The airflow field and particle trajectories inside hard disk drive (HDD) are investigated in this study using commercial software Fluent and Gambit. Three-dimensional grids inside the HDD configuration are built using Gambit taking into account all the components and their geometric details. The airflow field inside HDD is simulated using three incompressible Navier-Stokes equations for various disk rotational speeds. The effects of using the various turbulence models inside the Fluent software such as the standard k - ε , RNG k - ε and Reynolds Stress Method on the computed airflow characteristics are also assessed. Steady flow fields and the effects of rotational speeds are assessed. Based on the computed steady airflow patterns, particle trajectories are computed using routines available in Fluent as well as special particle trajectory functions defined by the user via the user-defined functions. Particles of different sizes and materials are injected at various locations in the computed flow field and the corresponding particle trajectories are studied. Based on the investigation, the trajectory tends to be different according to sizes and materials. The present work forms a basis for further investigation of heat transfer processes inside the HDD to address thermal management issues and also the computation of unsteady flow fields in the HDD due to the movement of the actuator arm during data storage and retrievalSingapore-MIT Alliance (SMA