Metered oxygen supply aids treatment of domestic sewage

Microbiological fixed-bed process was developed in which supplementary oxygen required by microbial species is supplied by electrochemical device. Rate of addition of oxygen to waste treatment process is controlled to maintain aerobic metabolism and prevent anaerobic metabolisms which produce odorous or toxic products

Comparison of Material Properties and Microstructure of Specimens Built Using the 3D Systems Vanguard HS and Vanguard HiQ+HSSLS Systems

The HiQ upgrade to the 3D Systems Vanguard selective laser sintering (SLS) machine incorporates a revised thermal calibration system and new control software. The paper compares the tensile modulus, tensile strength, elongation at break, flexural modulus, Izod impact resistance and microstructure of two batteries of standard specimens built from recycled Duraform PA (Nylon 12). The first set is built on a Vanguard HS system and the second on the same system with the HiQ upgrade installed. The upgrade reduces user intervention, decreases total build time and improves surface finish. However, using the default processing parameters, tensile, flexure and impact properties are all found to decline after the upgrade is installed.Mechanical Engineerin

Applicability of 100kWe-class of space reactor power systems to NASA manned space station missions

An assessment is made of a manned space station operating with sufficiently high power demands to require a multihundred kilowatt range electrical power system. The nuclear reactor is a competitor for supplying this power level. Load levels were selected at 150kWe and 300kWe. Interactions among the reactor electrical power system, the manned space station, the space transportation system, and the mission were evaluated. The reactor shield and the conversion equipment were assumed to be in different positions with respect to the station; on board, tethered, and on a free flyer platform. Mission analyses showed that the free flyer concept resulted in unacceptable costs and technical problems. The tethered reactor providing power to an electrolyzer for regenerative fuel cells on the space station, results in a minimum weight shield and can be designed to release the reactor power section so that it moves to a high altitude orbit where the decay period is at least 300 years. Placing the reactor on the station, on a structural boom is an attractive design, but heavier than the long tethered reactor design because of the shield weight for manned activity near the reactor

Ionization Mechanisms in Jet-Dominated Seyferts: A Detailed Case Study

For the past 10 years there has been an active debate over whether fast shocks play an important role in ionizing emission line regions in Seyfert galaxies. To investigate this claim, we have studied the Seyfert 2 galaxy Mkn 78, using HST UV/optical images and spectroscopy. Since Mkn 78 provides the archetypal jet-driven bipolar velocity field, if shocks are important anywhere they should be important in this object. Having mapped the emission line fluxes and velocity field, we first compare the ionization conditions to standard photoionization and shock models. We find coherent variations of ionization consistent with photoionization model sequences which combine optically thick and thin gas, but are inconsistent with either autoionizing shock models or photoionization models of just optically thick gas. Furthermore, we find absolutely no link between the ionization of the gas and its kinematic state, while we do find a simple decline of ionization degree with radius. We feel this object provides the strongest case to date against the importance of shock related ionization in Seyferts.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the proceedings of IAU Symposium 222 "The Interplay among Black Holes, Stars and ISM in Galactic Nuclei", T. Storchi Bergmann, L.C. Ho & H.R. Schmitt, ed

An open systems approach to calculating time dependent spectra

A new method to calculate the spectrum using cascaded open systems and master equations is presented. The method uses two state analyzer atoms which are coupled to the system of interest, whose spectrum of radiation is read from the excitation of these analyzer atoms. The ordinary definitions of a spectrum uses two-time averages and Fourier-transforms. The present method uses only one-time averages. The method can be used to calculate time dependent as well as stationary spectra.Comment: 8 pages, revtex, 18 figures, to be published in J.Mod.Op

Some genus 3 curves with many points

Using an explicit family of plane quartic curves, we prove the existence of a genus 3 curve over any finite field of characteristic 3 whose number of rational points stays within a fixed distance from the Hasse-Weil-Serre upper bound. We also provide an intrinsic characterization of so-called Legendre elliptic curves

Searching for the expelled hydrogen envelope in Type I supernovae via late-time H-alpha emission

We report the first results from our long-term observational survey aimed at discovering late-time interaction between the ejecta of hydrogen-poor Type I supernovae and the hydrogen-rich envelope expelled from the progenitor star several decades/centuries before explosion. The expelled envelope, moving with a velocity of ~10 -- 100 km s$^{-1}$, is expected to be caught up by the fast-moving SN ejecta several years/decades after explosion depending on the history of the mass-loss process acting in the progenitor star prior to explosion. The collision between the SN ejecta and the circumstellar envelope results in net emission in the Balmer-lines, especially in H-alpha. We look for signs of late-time H-alpha emission in older Type Ia/Ibc/IIb SNe having hydrogen-poor ejecta, via narrow-band imaging. Continuum-subtracted H-alpha emission has been detected for 13 point sources: 9 SN Ibc, 1 SN IIb and 3 SN Ia events. Thirty-eight SN sites were observed on at least two epochs, from which three objects (SN 1985F, SN 2005kl, SN 2012fh) showed significant temporal variation in the strength of their H-alpha emission in our DIAFI data. This suggests that the variable emission is probably not due to nearby H II regions unassociated with the SN, and hence is an important additional hint that ejecta-CSM interaction may take place in these systems. Moreover, we successfully detected the late-time H-alpha emission from the Type Ib SN 2014C, which was recently discovered as a strongly interacting SN in various (radio, infrared, optical and X-ray) bands.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, accepted in Ap

Chiral molecules split light: Reflection and refraction in a chiral liquid

A light beam changes direction as it enters a liquid at an angle from another medium, such as air. Should the liquid contain molecules that lack mirror symmetry, then it has been predicted by Fresnel that the light beam will not only change direction, but will actually split into two separate beams with a small difference in the respective angles of refraction. Here we report the observation of this phenomenon. We also demonstrate that the angle of reflection does not equal the angle of incidence in a chiral medium. Unlike conventional optical rotation, which depends on the path-length through the sample, the reported reflection and refraction phenomena arise within a few wavelengths at the interface and thereby suggest a new approach to polarimetry that can be used in microfluidic volumes

Dissipation enhanced vibrational sensing in an olfactory molecular switch

Motivated by a proposed olfactory mechanism based on a vibrationally-activated molecular switch, we study electron transport within a donor-acceptor pair that is coupled to a vibrational mode and embedded in a surrounding environment. We derive a polaron master equation with which we study the dynamics of both the electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom beyond previously employed semiclassical (Marcus-Jortner) rate analyses. We show: (i) that in the absence of explicit dissipation of the vibrational mode, the semiclassical approach is generally unable to capture the dynamics predicted by our master equation due to both its assumption of one-way (exponential) electron transfer from donor to acceptor and its neglect of the spectral details of the environment; (ii) that by additionally allowing strong dissipation to act on the odorant vibrational mode we can recover exponential electron transfer, though typically at a rate that differs from that given by the Marcus-Jortner expression; (iii) that the ability of the molecular switch to discriminate between the presence and absence of the odorant, and its sensitivity to the odorant vibrational frequency, are enhanced significantly in this strong dissipation regime, when compared to the case without mode dissipation; and (iv) that details of the environment absent from previous Marcus-Jortner analyses can also dramatically alter the sensitivity of the molecular switch, in particular allowing its frequency resolution to be improved. Our results thus demonstrate the constructive role dissipation can play in facilitating sensitive and selective operation in molecular switch devices, as well as the inadequacy of semiclassical rate equations in analysing such behaviour over a wide range of parameters.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, close to published version, comments welcom