Use of hydraulic rating to set environmental flows in the Zhangxi River, China

Ningbo city, China, is a rapidly growing residential and industrial centre, with a current population of 4 million. Its development has required a major water supply expansion programme providing 400,000 m3 of water per day from the upper reaches of the Zhangxi River by means of a cascade of reservoirs. Water resources management is achieved through operation of two major reservoirs, Jiaokou (75 million m3) and Zhougongzhai (93 million m3). Water is released from the reservoirs, via turbines (generating hydropower), for local industry, irrigated agriculture and public supply along the lower reaches of the River and to maintain the river ecosystem. Surveys of local residents along the Zhangxi River showed its important role in aspects of life, social activity, culture and leisure. Analysis of ecological monitoring data demonstrated the diverse nature of fish, plants and invertebrates within the river. Some elements of the ecosystem have a high local economic value to local people. This paper reports an assessment of the environmental flow needed to support key species in the river ecosystem. It employs hydraulic ratings to define sections of the river where flow velocity reaches 0.5 ms-1, required to stimulate spawning of the moonlight fish, an economically important and indicator species in the river. In two out of 6 cross-sections studied, flow releases from the reservoirs meet the needs of fish. The reservoirs reduce flood flows, which may lead to a loss of deep pools that are essential for the fish to survive during winter month

Mean flow and spiral defect chaos in Rayleigh-Benard convection

We describe a numerical procedure to construct a modified velocity field that does not have any mean flow. Using this procedure, we present two results. Firstly, we show that, in the absence of mean flow, spiral defect chaos collapses to a stationary pattern comprising textures of stripes with angular bends. The quenched patterns are characterized by mean wavenumbers that approach those uniquely selected by focus-type singularities, which, in the absence of mean flow, lie at the zig-zag instability boundary. The quenched patterns also have larger correlation lengths and are comprised of rolls with less curvature. Secondly, we describe how mean flow can contribute to the commonly observed phenomenon of rolls terminating perpendicularly into lateral walls. We show that, in the absence of mean flow, rolls begin to terminate into lateral walls at an oblique angle. This obliqueness increases with Rayleigh number.Comment: 14 pages, 19 figure

On the Threshold of Intractability

We study the computational complexity of the graph modification problems Threshold Editing and Chain Editing, adding and deleting as few edges as possible to transform the input into a threshold (or chain) graph. In this article, we show that both problems are NP-complete, resolving a conjecture by Natanzon, Shamir, and Sharan (Discrete Applied Mathematics, 113(1):109--128, 2001). On the positive side, we show the problem admits a quadratic vertex kernel. Furthermore, we give a subexponential time parameterized algorithm solving Threshold Editing in $2^{O(\surd k \log k)} + \text{poly}(n)$ time, making it one of relatively few natural problems in this complexity class on general graphs. These results are of broader interest to the field of social network analysis, where recent work of Brandes (ISAAC, 2014) posits that the minimum edit distance to a threshold graph gives a good measure of consistency for node centralities. Finally, we show that all our positive results extend to the related problem of Chain Editing, as well as the completion and deletion variants of both problems

Modified conjugated gradient method for diagonalising large matrices

We present an iterative method to diagonalise large matrices. The basic idea is the same as the conjugated gradient (CG) method, i.e, minimizing the Rayleigh quotient via its gradient and avoiding reintroduce errors to the directions of previous gradients. Each iteration step is to find lowest eigenvector of the matrix in a subspace spanned by the current trial vector and the corresponding gradient of the Rayleigh quotient, as well as some previous trial vectors. The gradient, together with the previous trail vectors, play a similar role of the conjugated gradient of the original CG algorithm. Our numeric tests indicate that this method converges significantly faster than the original CG method. And the computational cost of one iteration step is about the same as the original CG method. It is suitably for first principle calculations.Comment: 6 Pages, 2EPS figures. (To appear in Phys. Rev. E

CP Violation from Scatterings with Gauge Bosons in Leptogenesis

We present an explicit computation of the CP asymmetry in scattering processes involving the heavy right-handed neutrinos of the type I seesaw framework and the Standard Model gauge bosons. Compared to CP violation in two--body decays and in scatterings with top quarks there are new contributions at one loop in the form of new type of vertex corrections as well as of box diagrams. We show that their presence implies that, unlike the CP asymmetry in scatterings with top quarks, the CP asymmetry in scatterings with gauge bosons is different from the two-body decay asymmetry even for hierarchical right-handed neutrinos. This also holds for the L-conserving CP asymmetry in scatterings with U(1)$_Y$ gauge bosons.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

UVA irradiation of human skin vasodilates arterial vasculature and lowers blood pressure independently of nitric oxide synthase

The incidence of hypertension and cardiovascular disease correlates with latitude and rises in winter. The molecular basis for this remains obscure. As nitric oxide (NO) metabolites are abundant in human skin we hypothesised that exposure to UVA may mobilise NO bioactivity into the circulation to exert beneficial cardiovascular effects independently of vitamin D. In 24 healthy volunteers irradiation of the skin with 2 Standard Erythemal Doses of UVA lowered BP, with concomitant decreases in circulating nitrate and rises in nitrite concentrations. Unexpectedly, acute dietary intervention aimed at modulating systemic nitrate availability had no effect on UV-induced hemodynamic changes, indicating that cardiovascular effects were not mediated via direct utilization of circulating nitrate. UVA irradiation of the forearm caused increased blood flow independently of NO-synthase activity, suggesting involvement of pre-formed cutaneous NO stores. Confocal fluorescence microscopy studies of human skin pre-labelled with the NO-imaging probe DAF2-DA revealed that UVA-induced NO release occurs in a NOS-independent, dose-dependent fashion, with the majority of the light-sensitive NO pool in the upper epidermis. Collectively, our data provide mechanistic insights into an important function of the skin in modulating systemic NO bioavailability which may account for the latitudinal and seasonal variations of BP and cardiovascular disease.Journal of Investigative Dermatology accepted article preview online, 20 January 2014

O(αs) O(\alpha_s) corrections to polarized top decay into a charged Higgs t(↑)→H++b t(\uparrow) \to H^+ + b

We calculate the $O(\alpha_s)$ radiative corrections to polarized top quark decay into a charged Higgs boson and a massive bottom quark in two variants of the two-Higgs-doublet model. The radiative corrections to the polarization asymmetry of the decay may become as large as $25$. We provide analytical formulae for the unpolarized and polarized rates for $m_b \neq 0$ and for $m_b = 0$. For $m_b = 0$ our closed-form expressions for the unpolarized and polarized rates become rather compact.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures in the text, content modified, comments added, appendices added, references updated, replaced with published versio

A simple model for magnetism in itinerant electron systems

A new lattice model of interacting electrons is presented. It can be viewed as a classical Hubbard model in which the energy associated to electron itinerance is proportional to the total number of possible electron jumps. Symmetry properties of the Hubbard model are preserved. In the half-filled band with strong interaction the model becomes the Ising model. The main features of the magnetic behavior of the model in the one-dimensional and mean-field cases are studied.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Physica

3-D Electromagnetic Analysis of Armatures and Rails for High Launch Energy Applications

Transient three-dimensional (3-D) electromagnetic analyses have been performed on armatures and rails which are intended to be used for high launch energy applications. Coupled magnetic and thermal diffusions were solved within moving armatures in both square bore and round bore rail launchers. Current, magnetic field, body force and temperature distributions in the armature and rail conductors were predicted and compared. The predicted mechanical and thermal loading outputs can be further used for launcher structural analysis and rail cooling design.Center for Electromechanic

Domain Growth, Wetting and Scaling in Porous Media

The lattice Boltzmann (LB) method is used to study the kinetics of domain growth of a binary fluid in a number of geometries modeling porous media. Unlike the traditional methods which solve the Cahn-Hilliard equation, the LB method correctly simulates fluid properties, phase segregation, interface dynamics and wetting. Our results, based on lattice sizes of up to $4096\times 4096$, do not show evidence to indicate the breakdown of late stage dynamical scaling, and suggest that confinement of the fluid is the key to the slow kinetics observed. Randomness of the pore structure appears unnecessary.Comment: 13 pages, latex, submitted to PR