A Modeling of the Super-Eddington Luminosity in Nova Outbursts: V1974 Cygni

We have modeled nova light curves exceeding the Eddington luminosity. It has been suggested that a porous structure develops in nova envelopes during the super Eddington phase and the effective opacity is much reduced for such a porous atmosphere. Based on this reduced opacity model, we have calculated envelope structures and light curves of novae. The optically thick wind model is used to simulate nova winds. We find that the photospheric luminosity and the wind mass-loss rate increase inversely proportional to the reducing factor of opacities, but the wind velocity hardly changes. We also reproduce the optical light curve of V1974 Cygni (Nova Cygni 1992) in the super-Eddington phase, which lasts 13 days from the optical peak 1.7 mag above the Eddington luminosity.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, to appear in ApJ

The Cone Phase of Liquid Crystals: Triangular Lattice of Double-Tilt Cylinders

We predict the existence of a new defect-lattice phase near the nematic - smectic-C (NC) transition. This tilt- analogue of the blue phase is a lattice of double-tilt cylinders. We discuss the structure and stability of the cone phase. We suggest that many `nematics' exhibiting short range layering and tilt order may in fact be in the molten cone phase, which is a line liquid.Comment: 4 Pages, 3 Figure

Novel structural features of the ripple phase of phospholipids

We have calculated the electron density maps of the ripple phase of dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) and palmitoyl-oleoyl phosphatidylcholine (POPC) multibilayers at different temperatures and fixed relative humidity. Our analysis establishes, for the first time, the existence of an average tilt of the hydrocarbon chains of the lipid molecules along the direction of the ripple wave vector, which we believe is responsible for the occurrence of asymmetric ripples in these systems

Transcriptomic analysis of the poultry red mite, Dermanyssus gallinae, across all stages of the lifecycle

Acknowledgements Thanks go to the Centre for Genomic Research (CGR) at the University of Liverpool performing the TruSeq RNA-seq analysis and to our local layer farmers for their continued support and provision of mite material. Funding The authors gratefully acknowledge funding for this project from BBRSC (grant reference BB/J01513X/1), Zoetis and Akita Co. Ltd. and The British Egg Marketing Board Trust.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Instabilities in free-surface electroosmotic flows

This paper was presented at the 2nd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2009), which was held at Brunel University, West London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, IPEM, the Italian Union of Thermofluid dynamics, the Process Intensification Network, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.With the recent development of novel microfluidic devices electroosmotic flows with fluid/fluid interfaces have emerged as very important subjects of investigation. Two immiscible fluids may need to be transported in a microchannel, or one side of a channel may be open to air for various purposes, including adsorption of airborne molecules to liquid for high-sensitivity substance detection. The liquid/liquid or liquid/gas interface in these cases can deform, resulting in significant corrugations followed sometimes by incipient rupture of liquid layers. For electroosmotic flow the rupture, leading to shortcircuit, can cause overall failure of the device. It is thus imperative to know the conditions for the rupture as well as the initial interfacial instability. Studies based on the Debye-Huckle approximation reveal that all free-surface electroosmotic flows of thickness larger than the Debye screening length are unstable and selectively lead to rupture. Layers of the order of Debye screening length, however, are not properly described by the Debye-Huckle approximation. Even for micro-scale layers, the rupture phenomenon can make local layer thickness to be nanoscale. A fully coupled system of hydrodynamics, electric field, and ionic distribution need to be analyzed. In this paper linear instability and subsequent nonlinear developments of a nanoscale free-surface electroosmotic flow are reported.This study is sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of Korea through the World Class University Grant

Dynamic induced softening in frictional granular material investigated by DEM simulation

A granular system composed of frictional glass beads is simulated using the Discrete Element Method. The inter-grain forces are based on the Hertz contact law in the normal direction with frictional tangential force. The damping due to collision is also accounted for. Systems are loaded at various stresses and their quasi-static elastic moduli are characterized. Each system is subjected to an extensive dynamic testing protocol by measuring the resonant response to a broad range of AC drive amplitudes and frequencies via a set of diagnostic strains. The system, linear at small AC drive amplitudes has resonance frequencies that shift downward (i.e., modulus softening) with increased AC drive amplitude. Detailed testing shows that the slipping contact ratio does not contribute significantly to this dynamic modulus softening, but the coordination number is strongly correlated to this reduction. This suggests that the softening arises from the extended structural change via break and remake of contacts during the rearrangement of bead positions driven by the AC amplitude.Comment: acoustics, nonlinearity, granular medi