Experimental Reconstruction of Lomonosov's Discovery of Venus's Atmosphere with Antique Refractors During the 2012 Transit of Venus

In 1761, the Russian polymath Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov (1711-1765) discovered the atmosphere of Venus during its transit over the Sun's disc. In this paper we report on experimental reenactments of Lomonosov's discovery with antique refractors during the transit of Venus June 5-6, 2012. We conclude that Lomonosov's telescope was fully adequate to the task of detecting the arc of light around Venus off the Sun's disc during ingress or egress if proper experimental techniques as described by Lomonosov in his 1761 report are employed.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure

Machine Partitioning and Scheduling under Fault-Tolerance Constraints

We consider the problem of computing fault-tolerant, redundant assignments of jobs to faulty parallel machines with objective to minimize the maximum machine load. In particular, we are given a set M of faulty parallel machines, each having an integer speed v i and failing independently with probability f i . We are also given a set of jobs to be processed on M , and a fault-tolerance constraint (1 \Gamma ffl), and we seek a redundant assignment OE that minimizes maximum machine load L1 (OE), subject to the constraint that, with probability no less than (1 \Gamma ffl), all the jobs have a copy on at least one active machine. We present a polynomial-time 4-approximation algorithm for identical speed machines and arbitrary job sizes, and a 2 l ln(jM j=ffl) ln(1=fmax) m -approximation algorithm for related speed machines and unit size jobs. Both algorithms are based on computing a collection fM 1 ; : : : ; M g of disjoint machine subsets such that, with probability no less than (1 \..

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Changes in culture growth dynamics and cell size in a Scenedesmus quadricauda upon action of potassium dichromate

The effect of potassium dichromate in concentrations of 0.5 to 10 mg/l on a laboratory culture of Sc. quadricauda algae was studied in standard conditions. The total cell numbers decreased at potassium dichromate concentrations over 1 mg/l, and the proportion of living cells decreased at all studied concentrations. A positive correlation was found between changes in cell size and their numbers at toxin concentrations of 1 and 3 mg/l, and a negative correlation was found between the relative size and the cell numbers at 3 and 10 mg/l. This may be due to different intensity of growth inhibition and cell division under the influence of the toxin. The culture sensitivity to the toxin increased in autumn and decreased in the spring

Non-stationary effects in hypersonic nonuniform dusty-gas flow past a blunt body

In the framework of the two-fluid model, a hypersonic flow of a nonuniform dusty gas with low inertial (non-depositing) particles around a blunt body is considered. The particle mass concentration is assumed to be small, so that the effect of particles on the carrier phase is significant only inside the boundary layer where the particles accumulate. Stepshaped and harmonic nonuniformities of the particle concentration ahead of the bow shock wave are considered and the corresponding nonstationary distributions of the particle concentration in the shock layer are studied. On the basis of numerical study gf nonstationary two-phase boundary layer equations derived by the matched asymptotic expansion method, the effects of free-stream particle concentration nonuniformities on the thermal flux and the friction coefficient in the neighborhood of stagnation point are investigated, in particular, the most "dangerous" nonuniformity periods are found

Peculiarity of constant photocurrent method for silicon films with mixed amorphous-nanocrystalline structure

The results of conductivity, photoconductivity and constant photocurrent method absorption measurements by DC and AC methods in hydrogenated silicon films with mixed amorphous-nanocrystalline structure are presented. A series of diphasic silicon films was deposited by very high frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition technique, using different hydrogen dilution ratios of silane. The increase of hydrogen dilution ratio results in five orders of magnitude increase of conductivity and a sharp increase of grain volume fraction. The comparison of the absorption spectra obtained by DC and AC methods showed that they are similar for silicon films with the predominantly amorphous structure and films with high grain volume fraction. However we found a dramatic discrepancy between the absorption spectra obtained by DC and AC constant photocurrent methods in silicon films deposited in the regime of the structure transition from amorphous to nanocrystalline state. AC constant photocurrent method gives higher absorption coefficient than DC constant photocurrent method in the photon energy range of 1.2-1.7 eV. This result indicates the possibility of crystalline grains contribution to absorption spectra measured by AC constant photocurrent method in silicon films with intermediate crystalline grain volume fraction. (c) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V