Evaluation of Materials and Concepts for Aircraft Fire Protection

Woven fiberglass fluted-core simulated aircraft interior panels were flame tested and structurally evaluated against the Boeing 747 present baseline interior panels. The NASA-defined panels, though inferior on a strength-to-weight basis, showed better structural integrity after flame testing, due to the woven fiberglass structure

Nonexistence of conformally flat slices of the Kerr spacetime

Initial data for black hole collisions are commonly generated using the Bowen-York approach based on conformally flat 3-geometries. The standard (constant Boyer-Lindquist time) spatial slices of the Kerr spacetime are not conformally flat, so that use of the Bowen-York approach is limited in dealing with rotating holes. We investigate here whether there exist foliations of the Kerr spacetime that are conformally flat. We limit our considerations to foliations that are axisymmetric and that smoothly reduce in the Schwarzschild limit to slices of constant Schwarzschild time. With these restrictions, we show that no conformally flat slices can exist.Comment: 5 LaTeX pages; no figures; to be submitted to Phys. Rev.

On the detection of nearly optimal solutions in the context of single-objective space mission design problems

When making decisions, having multiple options available for a possible realization of the same project can be advantageous. One way to increase the number of interesting choices is to consider, in addition to the optimal solution x*, also nearly optimal or approximate solutions; these alternative solutions differ from x* and can be in different regions – in the design space – but fulfil certain proximity to its function value f(x*). The scope of this article is the efficient computation and discretization of the set E of e–approximate solutions for scalar optimization problems. To accomplish this task, two strategies to archive and update the data of the search procedure will be suggested and investigated. To make emphasis on data storage efficiency, a way to manage significant and insignificant parameters is also presented. Further on, differential evolution will be used together with the new archivers for the computation of E. Finally, the behaviour of the archiver, as well as the efficiency of the resulting search procedure, will be demonstrated on some academic functions as well as on three models related to space mission design

Continuous-flow laboratory simulation of stream water quality changes downstream of an untreated wastewater discharge.

In regions of the world with poor provision of wastewater treatment, raw sewage is often discharged directly into surface waters. This paper describes an experimental evaluation of the fate of two organic chemicals under these conditions using an artificial channel cascade fed with a mix of settled sewage and river water at its upstream end and operated under continuous steady-state conditions. The experiments underpin an environmental risk assessment methodology based on the idea of an “impact zone” (IZ) – the zone downstream of wastewater emission in which water quality is severely impaired by high concentrations of unionised ammonia, nitrite and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). Radiolabelled dodecane-6-benzene sulphonate (DOBS) and aniline hydrochloride were used as the model chemical and reference compound respectively. Rapid changes in 14C counts were observed with flow-time for both these materials. These changes were most likely to be due to complete mineralisation. A dissipation half-life of approximately 7.1 h was observed for the 14C label with DOBS. The end of the IZ was defined as the point at which the concentration of both unionised ammonia and nitrite fell below their respective predicted no-effect concentrations for salmonids. At these points in the cascade, approximately 83 and 90% of the initial concentration of 14C had been removed from the water column, respectively. A simple model of mineral nitrogen transformations based on Michaelis–Menten kinetics was fitted to observed concentrations of NH4, NO2 and NO3. The cascade is intended to provide a confirmatory methodology for assessing the ecological risks of chemicals under direct discharge co

Experimental investigation of shock-cell noise reduction for dual-stream nozzles in simulated flight comprehensive data report. Volume 1: Test nozzles and acoustic data

Parameters which contribute to supersonic jet shock noise were investigated for the purpose of determining means to reduce such noise generation to acceptable levels. Six dual-stream test nozzles with varying flow passage and plug closure designs were evaluated under simulated flight conditions in an anechoic chamber. All nozzles had combined convergent-divergent or convergent flow passages. Acoustic behavior as a function of nozzle flow passage geometry was measured. The acoustic data consist primarily of 1/3 octave band sound pressure levels and overall sound pressure levels. Detailed schematics and geometric characteristics of the six scale model nozzle configurations and acoustic test point definitions are presented. Tabulation of aerodynamic test conditions and a computer listing of the measured acoustic data are displayed

Distinctive and pervasive alterations in aqueous humor protein composition following different types of glaucoma surgery

PURPOSE: To investigate whether specific glaucoma surgeries are associated with differences in aqueous humor protein concentrations compared to eyes without filters. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, aqueous humor samples were prospectively collected from control subjects who underwent routine cataract surgery (n=14) and from patients who had different glaucoma filters: Baerveldt aqueous shunt (n=6), Ahmed aqueous shunt (n=6), trabeculectomy (n=5), and Ex-Press trabeculectomy (n=3). Total protein concentrations were determined with Bradford assay. Tryptic digests were analyzed with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Proteins were identified with high confidence using stringent criteria and were quantitatively compared with a label-free platform. Relative protein quantities were compared across groups with ANOVA. Post hoc pair-wise comparisons were adjusted for multiple comparisons. RESULTS: Compared to the control eyes, the aqueous humor protein concentration was increased approximately tenfold in the Ahmed and Baerveldt eyes and fivefold in the trabeculectomy and Ex-Press eyes. Overall, 718 unique proteins, splice variants, or isoforms were identified. No differences in the protein concentrations were detected between the Baerveldt and Ahmed groups. Likewise, the trabeculectomy and Ex-Press groups were remarkably similar. Therefore, the aqueous shunt groups were pooled, and the trabeculectomy groups were pooled for a three-way comparison with the controls. More than 500 proteins differed significantly in relative abundance (ANOVA p<0.01) among the control, aqueous shunt, and trabeculectomy groups. Functional analyses suggested these alterations in relative protein abundance affected dozens of signaling pathways. CONCLUSIONS: Different glaucoma surgical procedures were associated with marked increases in the aqueous humor protein concentration and distinctive changes in the relative abundance of numerous proteins involved in multiple signaling pathways

Thermodynamics of a mixed quantum-classical Heisenberg model in two dimensions

We study the planar antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on a decorated hexagonal lattice, involving both classical spins (occupying the vertices) and quantum spins (occupying the middle of the links). This study is motivated by the description of a recently synthesized molecular magnetic compound. First, we trace out the spin 1/2 degrees of freedom to obtain a fully classical model with an effective ferromagnetic interaction. Then, using high temperature expansions and Monte Carlo simulations, we analyse its thermal and magnetic properties. We show that it provides a good quantitative description of the magnetic susceptibility of the molecular magnet in its paramagnetic phase.Comment: Revtex, 6 pages, 4 included postscript figures, fig.1 upon request to [email protected] . To appear in J. of Physic C (condensed matter

Toward Automated Factchecking

In an effort to assist factcheckers in the process of factchecking, we tackle the claim detection task, one of the necessary stages prior to determining the veracity of a claim. It consists of identifying the set of sentences, out of a long text, deemed capable of being factchecked. This article is a collaborative work between Full Fact, an independent factchecking charity, and academic partners. Leveraging the expertise of professional factcheckers, we develop an annotation schema and a benchmark for automated claim detection that is more consistent across time, topics, and annotators than are previous approaches. Our annotation schema has been used to crowdsource the annotation of a dataset with sentences from UK political TV shows. We introduce an approach based on universal sentence representations to perform the classification, achieving an F1 score of 0.83, with over 5% relative improvement over the state-of-the-art methods ClaimBuster and ClaimRank. The system was deployed in production and received positive user feedback

Understanding initial data for black hole collisions

Numerical relativity, applied to collisions of black holes, starts with initial data for black holes already in each other's strong field. The initial hypersurface data typically used for computation is based on mathematical simplifying prescriptions, such as conformal flatness of the 3-geometry and longitudinality of the extrinsic curvature. In the case of head on collisions of equal mass holes, there is evidence that such prescriptions work reasonably well, but it is not clear why, or whether this success is more generally valid. Here we study these questions by considering the ``particle limit'' for head on collisions of nonspinning holes. Einstein's equations are linearized in the mass of the small hole, and described by a single gauge invariant spacetime function psi, for each multipole. The resulting equations have been solved by numerical evolution for collisions starting from various initial separations, and the evolution is studied on a sequence of hypersurfaces. In particular, we extract hypersurface data, that is psi and its time derivative, on surfaces of constant background Schwarzschild time. These evolved data can then be compared with ``prescribed'' data, evolved data can be replaced by prescribed data on any hypersurface, and evolved further forward in time, a gauge invariant measure of deviation from conformal flatness can be evaluated, etc. The main findings of this study are: (i) For holes of unequal mass the use of prescribed data on late hypersurfaces is not successful. (ii) The failure is likely due to the inability of the prescribed data to represent the near field of the smaller hole. (iii) The discrepancy in the extrinsic curvature is more important than in the 3-geometry. (iv) The use of the more general conformally flat longitudinal data does not notably improve this picture.Comment: 20 pages, REVTEX, 26 PS figures include