137 research outputs found
Recent work on use of lunar materials for SPS construction
The feasibility of mounting a small operation on the Moon to productively use lunar materials in support of programs such as the solar power satellite is addressed. A cost effective scenario of a small chemical process plant on the surface of the Moon and a small machine shop located in orbit is presented. The mass of the space installation is compared to the projected outputs in 90 days. It is indicated that the system would have the capability of replicating about 90% of its own components and would provide the metals, glasses, and silicon needed for the contruction of 90% to 96% of the mass of one solar power satellite per year
A Reformulation of the Hoop Conjecture
A reformulation of the Hoop Conjecture based on the concept of trapped circle
is presented. The problems of severe compactness in every spatial direction,
and of how to superpose the hoops with the surface of the black hole, are
resolved. A new conjecture concerning "peeling" properties of
dynamical/trapping horizons is propounded. A novel geometric Hoop inequality is
put forward. The possibility of carrying over the results to arbitrary
dimension is discussed.Comment: 6 pages, no figures. New references included, typos corrected,
explanatory comments added. Much shorter version, in order to match EPL
length restrictions. To be published in EP
Bulk and element specific magnetism of the medium and high entropy Cantor-Wu alloys
Magnetic Compton scattering, x-ray magnetic circular dichroism spectroscopy
and bulk magnetometry measurements are performed on a set of medium (NiFeCo and
NiFeCoCr) and high (NiFeCoCrPd and NiFeCoCrMn) entropy Cantor-Wu alloys. The
bulk spin momentum densities determined by magnetic Compton scattering are
remarkably isotropic, and this is a consequence of the smearing of the
electronic structure by disorder scattering of the electron quasiparticles.
Non-zero x-ray magnetic circular dichroism signals are observed for every
element in every alloy indicating differences in the populations of the
majority and minority spin states implying finite magnetic moments. When Cr is
included in the solid solution, the Cr spin moment is unambiguously
antiparallel to the total magnetic moment, while a vanishingly small magnetic
moment is observed for Mn, despite calculations indicating a large moment. Some
significant discrepancies are observed between the experimental bulk and
surface magnetic moments. Despite the lack of quantitative agreement, the
element specific surface magnetic moments seem to be qualitatively reasonable
Search for the Decays B^0 -> D^{(*)+} D^{(*)-}
Using the CLEO-II data set we have searched for the Cabibbo-suppressed decays
B^0 -> D^{(*)+} D^{(*)-}. For the decay B^0 -> D^{*+} D^{*-}, we observe one
candidate signal event, with an expected background of 0.022 +/- 0.011 events.
This yield corresponds to a branching fraction of Br(B^0 -> D^{*+} D^{*-}) =
(5.3^{+7.1}_{-3.7}(stat) +/- 1.0(syst)) x 10^{-4} and an upper limit of Br(B^0
-> D^{*+} D^{*-}) D^{*\pm} D^\mp and
B^0 -> D^+ D^-, no significant excess of signal above the expected background
level is seen, and we calculate the 90% CL upper limits on the branching
fractions to be Br(B^0 -> D^{*\pm} D^\mp) D^+
D^-) < 1.2 x 10^{-3}.Comment: 12 page postscript file also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLNS, submitted to Physical Review Letter
Observation of the Decay
Using e+e- annihilation data collected by the CLEO~II detector at CESR, we
have observed the decay Ds+ to omega pi+. This final state may be produced
through the annihilation decay of the Ds+, or through final state interactions.
We find a branching ratio of [Gamma(Ds+ to omega pi+)/Gamma(Ds+ to eta
pi+)]=0.16+-0.04+-0.03, where the first error is statistical and the second is
systematic.Comment: 9 pages, postscript file also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
Successful Completion of the Top-off Upgrade of the Advanced Light Source
An upgrade of the Advanced Light Source to enable top-off operation has been completed during the last four years. The final work centered around radiation safety aspects, culminating in a systematic proof that top-off operation is equally safe as decaying beam operation. Commissioning and transition to full user operations happened in late 2008 and early 2009. Top-off operation at the ALS provides a very large increase in time-averaged brightness (by about a factor of 10) as well as improvements in beam stability. The following sections provide an overview of the radiation safety rationale, commissioning results, as well as experience in user operations
Intrinsic NLRP3 inflammasome activity is critical for normal adaptive immunity via regulation of IFN-γ in CD4+ T cells
The NLRP3 inflammasome controls interleukin-1b maturation in antigen-presenting cells, but
a direct role for NLRP3 in human adaptive immune cells has not been described.We found that
the NLRP3 inflammasome assembles in human CD4+ Tcells and initiates caspase-1–dependent
interleukin-1b secretion, thereby promoting interferon-g production and T helper 1 (TH1)
differentiation in an autocrine fashion. NLRP3 assembly requires intracellular C5 activation and
stimulation of C5a receptor 1 (C5aR1), which is negatively regulated by surface-expressed
C5aR2. Aberrant NLRP3 activity in Tcells affects inflammatory responses in human
autoinflammatory disease and in mouse models of inflammation and infection. Our results
demonstrate that NLRP3 inflammasome activity is not confined to “innate immune cells” but is
an integral component of normal adaptive TH1 responses
Adaptive access and rate control of CSMA for energy, rate and delay optimization
In this article, we present a cross-layer adaptive algorithm that dynamically maximizes the average utility function. A per stage utility function is defined for each link of a carrier sense multiple access-based wireless network as a weighted concave function of energy consumption, smoothed rate, and smoothed queue size. Hence, by selecting weights we can control the trade-off among them. Using dynamic programming, the utility function is maximized by dynamically adapting channel access, modulation, and coding according to the queue size and quality of the time-varying channel. We show that the optimal transmission policy has a threshold structure versus the channel state where the optimal decision is to transmit when the wireless channel state is better than a threshold. We also provide a queue management scheme where arrival rate is controlled based on the link state. Numerical results show characteristics of the proposed adaptation scheme and highlight the trade-off among energy consumption, smoothed data rate, and link delay.This study was supported in part by the Spanish Government, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN), under projects COMONSENS (CSD2008-00010, CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 program) and COSIMA (TEC2010-19545-C04-03), in part by Iran Telecommunication Research Center under contract 6947/500, and in part by Iran National Science Foundation under grant number 87041174. This study was completed while M. Khodaian was at CEIT and TECNUN (University of Navarra)
Broad Surveys of DNA Viral Diversity Obtained through Viral Metagenomics of Mosquitoes
Viruses are the most abundant and diverse genetic entities on Earth; however, broad surveys of viral diversity are hindered by the lack of a universal assay for viruses and the inability to sample a sufficient number of individual hosts. This study utilized vector-enabled metagenomics (VEM) to provide a snapshot of the diversity of DNA viruses present in three mosquito samples from San Diego, California. The majority of the sequences were novel, suggesting that the viral community in mosquitoes, as well as the animal and plant hosts they feed on, is highly diverse and largely uncharacterized. Each mosquito sample contained a distinct viral community. The mosquito viromes contained sequences related to a broad range of animal, plant, insect and bacterial viruses. Animal viruses identified included anelloviruses, circoviruses, herpesviruses, poxviruses, and papillomaviruses, which mosquitoes may have obtained from vertebrate hosts during blood feeding. Notably, sequences related to human papillomaviruses were identified in one of the mosquito samples. Sequences similar to plant viruses were identified in all mosquito viromes, which were potentially acquired through feeding on plant nectar. Numerous bacteriophages and insect viruses were also detected, including a novel densovirus likely infecting Culex erythrothorax. Through sampling insect vectors, VEM enables broad survey of viral diversity and has significantly increased our knowledge of the DNA viruses present in mosquitoes
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