Generalised discrete torsion and mirror symmetry for G_2 manifolds

A generalisation of discrete torsion is introduced in which different discrete torsion phases are considered for the different fixed points or twist fields of a twisted sector. The constraints that arise from modular invariance are analysed carefully. As an application we show how all the different resolutions of the T^7/Z_2^3 orbifold of Joyce have an interpretation in terms of such generalised discrete torsion orbifolds. Furthermore, we show that these manifolds are pairwise identified under G_2 mirror symmetry. From a conformal field theory point of view, this mirror symmetry arises from an automorphism of the extended chiral algebra of the G_2 compactification.Comment: LaTeX, 25 pages, 1 figure; v2: one reference added and comment about higher loop modular invariance corrected, version to be publishe

Survey on team sports-related injury and management in young Hong Kong athletes

This item was digitized by the Internet Archive. Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston Universit

Test Results for CSTR Test 4

One of the 3 technologies currently being developed for the Savannah River Salt Waste Processing Program is the Small-Tank Tetraphenylborate Process (STTP). This process uses sodium tetraphenylborate to precipitate and remove radioactive Cs from the waste and monosodium titanate to sorb and remove radioactive Sr and actinides. ORNL is demonstrating this process at the 1:4000 scale using a 20-liter continuous-flow stirred tank reactor (CSTR) system. The primary goal of Test 4 was to verify that the STTP process could achieve and maintain the necessary Cs decontamination while TPB was actively decomposing. Even with TPB being decomposed by the off-normal conditions of this test, the decontaimination factor for {sup 137}Cs obtained for the filtrate from the Slurry Concentrating Tank ranged from 47,000 to 646,000, exceeding the WAC standard

Density Changes in the Optimized CSSX Solvent System

Density increases in caustic-side solvent extraction (CSSX) solvent have been observed in separate experimental programs performed by different groups of researchers. Such changes indicate a change in chemical composition. Increased density adversely affects separation of solvent from denser aqueous solutions present in the CSSX process. Identification and control of factors affecting solvent density are essential for design and operation of the centrifugal contactors. The goals of this research were to identify the factors affecting solvent density (composition) and to develop correlations between easily measured solvent properties (density and viscosity) and the chemical composition of the solvent, which will permit real-time determination and adjustment of the solvent composition. In evaporation experiments, virgin solvent was subjected to evaporation under quiescent conditions at 25, 35, and 45 C with continuously flowing dry air passing over the surface of the solvent. Density and viscosity were measured periodically, and chemical analysis was performed on the solvent samples. Chemical interaction tests were completed to determine if any chemical reaction takes place over extended contact time that changes the composition and/or physical properties. Solvent and simulant, solvent and strip solution, and solvent and wash solution were contacted continuously in agitated flasks. They were periodically sampled and the density measured (viscosity was also measured on some samples) and then submitted to the Chemical Sciences Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory for analysis by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometry and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) using the virgin solvent as the baseline. Chemical interaction tests showed that solvent densities and viscosities did not change appreciably during contact with simulant, strip, or wash solution. No effects on density and viscosity and no chemical changes in the solvent were noted within experimental limits. Evaporation test results showed that all solvents were evaporated to densities of greater than 0.90 g/cm{sup 3}. Viscosities increased from 3.5 to >6.5 cP as the densities increased. NMR and HPLC data indicate that diluent loss is the primary reason for density increase and that the ratio of BOBCalixC6 (referred to as calix) to Cs-7SB remained almost constant. Density and viscosity vary linearly with the loss of diluent and the increase in Cs-7SB concentration. Solvent viscosity and density are both sensitive indicators of the loss of diluent, especially when such loss is greater than 10%. However, density is more reliable at low values for diluent loss. The ratio of Cs-7SB to calix appears relatively constant during evaporation to losses of more than 50% of the diluent. A simple density model accurately predicts the composition of the solvent when density is known. Density and viscosity increases can affect the throughput in the centrifugal contactors and, at the extreme, can cause complete loss of flow. The distribution coefficient can also increase, especially in the strip stage, causing the loss of the ability to strip extracted cesium from the solvent. These effects can be addressed by internal changes to the contactor and by adding additional stripping stages in processing. However, these changes are extremely difficult under remote operation and maintenance restrictions

Speech Denoising Using Non-Negative Matrix Factorization with Kullback-Leibler Divergence and Sparseness Constraints

Proceedings of: IberSPEECH 2012 Conference, Madrid, Spain, November 21-23, 2012.A speech denoising method based on Non-Negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) is presented in this paper. With respect to previous related works, this paper makes two contributions. First, our method does not assume a priori knowledge about the nature of the noise. Second, it combines the use of the Kullback-Leibler divergence with sparseness constraints on the activation matrix, improving the performance of similar techniques that minimize the Euclidean distance and/or do not consider any sparsification. We evaluate the proposed method for both, speech enhancement and automatic speech recognitions tasks, and compare it to conventional spectral subtraction, showing improvements in speech quality and recognition accuracy, respectively, for different noisy conditions.This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Government grants TSI-020110-2009-103 and TEC2011-26807.Publicad

Water vapour corrosion of rare earth monosilicates for environmental barrier coatings application

Water vapour corrosion resistance of five rare earth monosilicates Y2SiO5, Gd2SiO5, Er2SiO5, Yb2SiO5, and Lu2SiO5 was investigated during testing at 1350 ˚C for up to 166 h in static air with 90% water vapour. Four of the RE-silicates showed little weight gain (0.859 mg cm-2) after 166 h of exposure. Prior to testing the microstrucre consists of equiaxed grains of 4- 7 ± 0.4 µm. XRD analysis showed that after 50 h exposure to water vapour corrosion Y, Er, Yb and Lu-silicates had both mono and disilicates present on their surfaces as a result of the reaction between monosilicate and water vapour to form disilicate, while Gd-silicate has converted completely to G4.67Si3O13 making it less stable for environmental barrier coatings application. The microstructures of corroded Y, Er, Yb and Lu-silicates contain ridges and cracks, while that of Gd-silicate contains rounded grains suggesting melting along with striped contract grains

Anaerobic digestion of cellulosic wastes

Anaerobic digestion is a potentially attractive technology for volume reduction of low-level radioactive cellulosic wastes. A substantial fraction of the waste is converted to off-gas and a relatively small volume of biologically stabilized sludge is produced. Process development work has been completed using a 75-L digester to verify rates and conversions obtained at the bench scale. Start-up and operating procedures have been developed, and effluent was generated for characterization and disposal studies. Three runs using batch and fed-batch conditions were made lasting 36, 90, and 423 d. Solids solubilization rates and gas production rates averaged approximately 1.8 g cellulose per L of reactor per d and 1.2 L of off-gas per L reactor per d. Greater than 80% destruction of the volatile suspended solids was obtained. A simple dynamic process model was constructed to aid in process design and for use in process monitoring and control of a large-scale digester

Oscillation of the tunnel splitting in nanospin systems within the particle mapping formalism

The oscillation of tunnel splitting in the biaxial spin system within magnetic field along the anisotropy axis is analyzed within the particle mapping approach, rather than in the (\theta-\phi) spin coherent-state representation. In our mapping procedure, the spin system is transformed into a particle moving in the restricted $S^1$ geometry whose wave function subjects to the boundary condition involving additional phase shift. We obtain the new topological phase that plays the same role as the Wess-Zumino action in spin coherent-state representation. Considering the interference of two possible trajectories, instanton and anti-instanton, we get the identical condition for the field at which tunneling is quenched, with the previous result within spin coherent-state representation.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure; Some typographical errors have been correcte

A Semantic Grid Oriented to E-Tourism

With increasing complexity of tourism business models and tasks, there is a clear need of the next generation e-Tourism infrastructure to support flexible automation, integration, computation, storage, and collaboration. Currently several enabling technologies such as semantic Web, Web service, agent and grid computing have been applied in the different e-Tourism applications, however there is no a unified framework to be able to integrate all of them. So this paper presents a promising e-Tourism framework based on emerging semantic grid, in which a number of key design issues are discussed including architecture, ontologies structure, semantic reconciliation, service and resource discovery, role based authorization and intelligent agent. The paper finally provides the implementation of the framework.Comment: 12 PAGES, 7 Figure