Descripción: Plasma temperature and radial density profiles of the plasma species in a high energy density cutting arc have been obtained by using a quantitative schlieren technique. A Z-type two-mirror schlieren system was used in this research. Due to its great sensibility such technique allows measuring plasma composition and temperature from the arc axis to the surrounding medium by processing the gray-level contrast values of digital schlieren images recorded at the observation plane for a given position of a transverse knife located at the exit focal plane of the system. The technique has provided a good visualization of the plasma flow emerging from the nozzle and its interactions with the surrounding medium and the anode. The obtained temperature values are in good agreement with those values previously obtained by the authors on the same torch using Langmuir probes. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: The use of neutron inelastic scattering measurements to determine the nature of the solid-state transitions in globular compounds is proposed and exemplified. Patterns were taken of the high- and low-temperature phases of solid cyclohexane, 2-2-dimethylbutane, and 1-4-diazo-bicyclo-(2.2.2)-octane. The first two have broad inelastic scattering peaks in the low-temperature phase. In the high-temperature phase these peaks disappear and the elastic peak broadens markedly. These changes are attributed to "quasi-free- rotation" of the molecules. Inelastic peaks do not appear in 1-4-diazo-bicyclo-(2.2.2)-octane, and the elastic peak does not broaden appreciably in the high-temperature phase. Self-diffusion coefficients D 3=4.5×10-5 cm2/sec for cyclohexane and D3=8.6×10-5 cm2/sec for 2-2-dimethylbutane were determined from the patterns of the liquids at 300°K using the "small motions" approximation. These values are larger than those obtained from NMR measurements, presumably as a result of irreversible rotation of the molecules.

Descripción: In this work we studied the effect of NaCl on the thermodynamic and dynamic properties of supercooled water, for salt concentrations between 0.19 and 1.33mol kg-1, using molecular dynamic simulations for TIP5PE water model and ion parameters specially designed to be used in combination with this potential. We studied the isobaric heat capacity (Cp) temperature dependence and observed a maximum in Cp, occurring at Tm, that moves to lower temperature values with increasing salt concentration. Many characteristic changes were observed at scaled temperature TTm ∼ 0.96, namely a minimum in the density of the system, a reduction of the slope of the number of hydrogen bonds vs. temperature, and a crossover from Vogel-Tamman-Fulcher to Arrhenius dynamics. Finally, at low temperatures we observed that water dynamics become heterogeneous with an apparently common relationship between the fraction of immobile molecules and T/Tm for all studied systems. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: A simple model, previously used to explore wetting transitions, is evaluated for the case of a slab geometry in which adsorption occurs between two semi-infinite solids, with parallel faces separated by a distance L. The model yields a universal description of possible wetting and capillary condensation (CC) transitions. The system’s thermodynamic behavior is predicted from the values of two dimensionless parameters: [Formula Presented] (the reduced gas-surface interaction strength, a function of temperature) and [Formula Presented] (the reduced separation). If [Formula Presented] negligible adsorption occurs at all pressures below saturated vapor pressure (SVP). For somewhat larger values of [Formula Presented] CC occurs for sufficiently small [Formula Presented] close to SVP. For very large values of [Formula Presented] an additional prewetting transition (formation of a film) is predicted for large [Formula Presented] this is accompanied by a CC transition close to SVP. The model is generally consistent with limited results of density-functional calculations for the He liquids at zero temperature. © 1999 The American Physical Society.

Descripción: Measurements of plasma velocities in a 30 A high energy density cutting torch are reported. The velocity diagnostic is based on the analysis of the light fluctuations emitted by the arc which are assumed to propagate with the flow velocity. These light fluctuations originate from plasma temperature and plasma density fluctuations mainly due to hydrodynamic instabilities. Fast photodiodes are employed as the light sensors. The arc core velocity was obtained from spectrally filtered light fluctuations measurements using a band-pass filter to detect light emission fluctuations emitted only from the arc axis. Maximum plasma jet velocities of 5000 m s -1 close to the nozzle exit and about 2000 m s -1 close to the anode were found. The obtained velocity values are in good agreement with those values predicted by a numerical code for a similar torch to that employed in this work. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: This paper evaluates a present climate simulation over southern South America performed with the Meteorological Research Institute/Japanese Meteorological Agency (MRI/JMA) high resolution global model. Main patterns of low and upper-level atmospheric circulation were analysed in a 25-year simulation as well as climate means, interannual variability, trends and bias of temperature and precipitation. The model is able to reproduce the main atmospheric circulation patterns and mean surface variables, although some deficiencies were found such as an overestimation of temperature over central Argentina in most of seasons, an overestimation of austral winter precipitation over northeastern and central Argentina, an underestimation of precipitation in all the seasons over southeast of Brazil, an underestimation of the amplitude of the annual cycle temperature in some regions and an overestimation of the amplitude of the annual cycle of precipitation over mountainous areas. Model interannual variability was also assessed. In general, temperature variability is overestimated, whereas precipitation is underestimated. The spatial structure of the year-to-year variability of precipitation is correctly simulated by the model, although some patterns were misplaced. Most of regions present a cold seasonal bias reaching values of - 2 °C in some regions. It was found that precipitation biases are between 3 and - 1 mm day-1. In some regions and seasons observed and simulated temperature trends coincide, as in austral summer or spring, where the model and the observations show positive trends in most of regions. However, there is no agreement between observed and simulated precipitation trends in almost all the regions and seasons. © 2012 Royal Meteorological Society.

Descripción: Ciliates from sub-surface waters of the Argentine shelf and the Drake Passage under austral summer and autumn conditions were examined and compared for the first time. In both environments, the taxonomic structure of ciliates was related to temperature and salinity, and aloricate oligotrichs dominated in density (80%) over loricate oligotrichs, litostomatids and prostomatids, while the microplanktonic fraction prevailed in terms of biomass (90%) over the nanociliates. Myrionecta rubra was found all along the Argentine shelf only in autumn, but showed isolated peaks of abundance (103 ind. L -1) during summer. Mean values of density and biomass of total ciliates decreased ca. 2-fold from the shelf-slope to oceanic waters, while potential maximum production of aloricate oligotrichs decreased 9-fold, in relation with the drop in chlorophyll a concentration and the latitudinal decline of temperature, also reflected in maximum growth rates. Fifty percent of total ciliate abundance was represented by local increases (maximum: 20 000 ind. L-1 and 25 μg C L-1), which were spatially superimposed with ranges of seawater temperature and chlorophyll a concentrations of 10-15°C and 0.6-6 μg L-1, respectively, and were found in the nearby of fronts located on the shelf and the slope.

Descripción: The effects of rapid rotation and bi-stability upon the density contrast between the equatorial and polar directions of a B[e] supergiant are re-investigated. Based on a new slow solution for different high rotational radiation-driven winds and the fact that bi-stability allows a change in the line-force parameters (α, k, and δ), the equatorial densities are about 102-104 times higher than the polar ones. These values are in qualitative agreement with the observations. © ESO 2005.

Descripción: The combination of differential emission measure tomography with extrapolation of the photospheric magnetic field allows determination of the electron density and electron temperature along individual magnetic field lines. This is especially useful in quiet-Sun (QS) plasmas where individual loops cannot otherwise be identified. In Paper I, this approach was applied to study QS plasmas during Carrington rotation (CR) 2077 at the minimum between solar cycles (SCs) 23 and 24. In that work, two types of QS coronal loops were identified: "up" loops in which the temperature increases with height, and "down" loops in which the temperature decreases with height. While the first ones were expected, the latter ones were a surprise and, furthermore, were found to be ubiquitous in the low-latitude corona. In the present work, we extend the analysis to 11 CRs around the last solar minimum. We found that the "down" population, always located at low latitudes, was maximum at the time when the sunspot number was minimum, and the number of down loops systematically increased during the declining phase of SC-23 and diminished during the rising phase of SC-24. "Down" loops are found to have systematically larger values of β than do "up" loops. These discoveries are interpreted in terms of excitation of Alfvén waves in the photosphere, and mode conversion and damping in the low corona. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..

Descripción: We obtain a black hole solution in the Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory for the string cloud model in a five-dimensional spacetime. We analyze the event horizons and naked singularities. Later, we compute the Hawking temperature TH, the specific heat C, the entropy S, and the Helmholtz free energy F of the black hole. The entropy was computed using the Wald formulation. In addition, the quantum correction to the Wald's entropy is considered for the string cloud source. We mainly explore the thermodynamical global and local stability of the system with vanishing or non-vanishing cosmological constant. The global thermodynamic phase structure indicates that the Hawking-Page transition is achieved for this model. Further, we observe that there exist stable black holes with small radii and that these regions are enlarged when choosing small values of the string cloud density and of the Gauss-Bonnet parameter. Besides, the rate of evaporation for these black holes are studied, determining whether the evaporation time is finite or not. Then, we concentrate on the dynamical stability of the system, studying the effective potential for s-waves propagating on the string cloud background. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Descripción: A simple model based on an approximation of the dropletlike model is formulated for studying adsorption of fluids into cylindrical pores. This model yields a nearly universal description of capillary condensation transitions for noble gases confined by alkali metals. The system’s thermodynamical behavior is predicted from the values of two dimensionless parameters: [formula presented] (the reduced asymptotic strength of the fluid-adsorber interaction, a function of temperature) and [formula presented] (the reduced radius of the pore). The phenomenon of hysteresis inherently related to capillary condensation is discussed. The connection to a previously proposed universality for cylindrical pores is also established. © 2002 The American Physical Society.

Descripción: We explore different resistance states of La 0.325Pr 0.300 Ca 0.375 MnO 3- Ti interfaces as prototypes of non-volatile memory devices at room temperature. In addition to high and low resistance states accessible through bipolar pulsing with one pulse, higher resistance states can be obtained by repeatedly pulsing with a single polarity. The accumulative action of successive pulsing drives the resistance towards saturation, the time constant being a strong function of the pulsing amplitude. The experiments reveal that the pulsing amplitude and the number of applied pulses necessary to reach a target high resistance value appear to be in an exponential relationship, with a rate that results independent of the resistance value. Model simulations confirm these results and provide the oxygen vacancy profiles associated to the high resistance states obtained in the experiments. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: 1. 1.|Porphobilinogenase has been isolated and purified from cow liver and its components, porphobilinogen deaminase and uroporphyrinogen isomerase, have been separated from each other and purified. 2. 2.|The effect of NH4+ was studied. The deaminase exhibited classical Michaelis-Menten kinetics in the absence or presence of NH4+, which at high concentrations behaved as a noncompetitive inhibitor of the deaminase. As expected from Hill plots, n = 1 both in the absence or presence of NH4+. Instead, when activity of porpho bilinogenase is plotted versus porphobilinogen concentration, sigmoid curves are obtained; but the presence of NH4+ at different concentrations altered the kinetic parameters of this enzymic system, again showing normal kinetics. In addition, n values were found to be 2 for porphobilinogen per porphobilinogenase molecule and 1 in the presence of NH4+ which behaves as a competitive inhibitor of the isomerase. Results are discussed in relation to the allosteric theories of monod et al.1,2 and liver porphobilinogenase is proposed to be an allosteric protein. 3. 3.|The presence of an ultrafiltrable factor which stimulates uroporphyrinogen formation from porphobilinogen has been revealed. © 1969.

Descripción: The aim of this study was to compare some of the properties of native and extruded amaranth flour obtained under mild and severe extrusion conditions. The chemical composition of the flours was similar. Flours obtained by both extrusion processes presented high solubility in water, low values of L* (luminosity) and an absence of endothermic peak on the DSC method. Water absorption, retrogradation tendency, final viscosity and the viscous behavior by rheology analysis were also studied. The results indicate that extruded flours have a good potential as an ingredient for food exposed to heat treatment at a high temperature and mechanical shear, for use in instant meal products. On the other hand, original flour properties are comparable to those of amaranth starch, which exhibits similarly high quality paste stability, low solubility in water, and elastic behavior, and could be used as a substitute for raw flour in a range of food formulas. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.

Descripción: A numerical study of the space-charge sheath adjacent to the nozzle wall of a cutting torch is presented. The hydrodynamic model corresponds to a collision-dominated sheath and does not assume cold ions, so drift-diffusion-type equations are used. Also an improved expression for the ion-neutral momentum transfer is employed rather than the usual constant ion-mean-free-path or constant ion collision frequency approximations. Assuming a constant electron temperature in the sheath and neglecting the electron inertial term, the continuity and momentum equations for ions and electrons, together with Poisson's equation, were solved for the electric potential, ion velocities (both normal and tangential components), and for the ion and electron densities. It was found that both the ion and electron densities present a sudden drop at the sheath-plasma edge. The ion density continues to decrease slowly inside the sheath, while the electron density presents a virtually zero value everywhere inside the sheath, the electron thermal conduction flux to the nozzle wall being negligible. These wall results thus become thermally isolated in spite of the high electron temperature in its adjacency. For a nozzle biasing voltage close to the gas breakdown, it was found that the electric field value is high, reaching a value of about 9× 106 V m-1 at the exit of the nozzle wall. This value is higher than the average field value across the sheath and is on the order of the breakdown threshold value. This means that an undesired sheath breakdown could occur at the vicinities of the nozzle exit even if the average electric field across the sheath is not strong enough. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.

Descripción: Interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) often possess a negative proton thermal anisotropy, Ap = T⊥,p/T ∥.p - 1 < 0 (T∥, T⊥: parallel and perpendicular temperatures, respectively) so that right-hand polarized electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves (EICWs) may be amplified by a kinetic instability [Famigia et ai, 1998a]. However, in view of the low proton beta of ICMEs, several physical parameters, besides Ap, need to be in the right range to excite this instability with significant growth rates. In this paper we present a parametric study of EICWs aimed at identifying those parameters which are most influential in fostering the emission of these waves in ICME scenarios. We analyze here the influence of: (1) thermal and suprathermal protons, (2) thermal alpha particles (αs), and (3) thermal electrons. We solve the dispersion relation of EICWs including protons, αs and electrons, all modeled with bi-Maxwellian distribution functions, and a minority population of suprathermal protons using a kappa function for the velocity component along the field. For physical regimes of ICMEs we find that the instability depends critically on the values of the following parameters: proton beta, proton thermal anisotropy, relative abundance of the suprathermal protons, α-to-proton relative abundance, α-to-proton temperature ratio, α particle thermal anisotropy, electron-to-proton temperature ratio, and thermal anisotropy of electrons. The effect of these parameters on the instability is either direct (when they increase the number of resonant particles) or indirect (when they decrease the phase speed of the wave so that more particles can resonate). Data surveys òn EICWs should take into account the whole set of parameters indicated here, since the expected level of wave excitation results from their combined action. The study may be useful in understanding the considerable level of magnetic fluctuations observed in interplanetary CMEs by the Wind spacecraft. Copyright 2003 by the American Geophysical Union.

Descripción: The response of altered sex ratio in southern elephant seals due to environmental stress was analysed. Data were collected at King George Island from 1980 to 1994. Significant retreats in the ice cover during El Niño events strongly suggest environmental stress during this period along the Bellingshausen Sea, a zone where female elephant seals from King George Island feed during their pregnancy. Randomly chosen weaning elephant seal pups (n = 1178) were sexed at Stranger Point (King George Island, 62° 14' S, 58° 30' W) over 5 km of beach from 1985 to 1994. Adult sex ratio was also determined annually from 1980 to 1994 as the ratio between maximum number of bulls and females on land. The theoretical pup sex ratio was assumed as 1:1 according to background information. Adult sex ratio was calculated as 1:6. To define the occurrence of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) during the study period, a sea surface temperature (SST) index called 'Niño 3.4' for the region 5°N to 5° S, 120° E to 170° W was considered. Monthly SST anomalies were obtained from the Climate Prediction Center (CPC, NOAA). To provide an annual index of anomaly strength (IAS), the monthly adjusted oscillation index climatology (AOIC) was averaged. Accumulated values during the whole study period showed that during El Niño years (1987, 1991, 1992) the proportion of pups was significantly biased in favour of females (p < 0.01). During normal years (1986, 1990, 1993, 1994) and La Niña years (1985, 1988, 1989), accumulative values showed a greater proportion of male pups to females (p < 0.05), Using the 1:1 hypothesis, we found during El Niño years a 9% reduction in the male segment, whereas in non-El Niño years a recovery of 7 % was observed (3 % during normal years and 4 % during La Niña years. To see the influence of accumulative values of pup sex ratio in adult sex ratio, a theoretical adult proportion was calculated as 1:6. To test this hypothesis, information on adult sex ratio taken from King George Island between 1980 and 1994 (n = 14 yr) was analysed. The average adult sex ratio for King George Island was 1:7. This value seems to confirm the hypothesis that this population has had a balanced production of male and female pups in the long term. Comparisons with Pacific and Indian declining seal populations were made.

Descripción: In this work, recent advances in numerical studies of local reconnection events in the turbulent plasmas are reviewed. Recently [1], the nonlinear dynamics of magnetic reconnection in turbulence has been investigated through high resolution numerical simulations. Both fluid (MHD and Hall MHD) and kinetic (HybridVlasov) 2D simulations reveal the presence of a large number of X-type neutral points, where magnetic reconnection locally occurs. The associated reconnection rates are distributed over a wide range of values and they depend on the local geometry of the diffusion region. This new approach to the study of magnetic reconnection has broad applications to the turbulent solar wind (SW). Strong magnetic SW discontinuities are in fact strongly related to these intermittent processes of reconnection [2, 3]. Methods employed to identify sets of possible reconnection events along a one-dimensional path through the turbulent field (emulating experimental sampling by a single detector in a highspeed flow) are here reviewed. These local reconnection/discontinuity events may be the main sites of heating and particle acceleration processes [4]. Results from hybrid-Vlasov kinetic simulations support these observations [5, 6]. In the turbulent regime, in fact, kinetic effects manifest through a deformation of the ion distribution function. These patterns of non-Maxwellian features are concentrated in space nearby regions of strong magnetic activity. These results open a new path on the study of kinetic processes such as heating, particle acceleration, and temperature anisotropy, commonly observed in astrophysics. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.

Descripción: This study analyses heating degree-days (HDDs) in Argentina during the period 1900-2008. Gridded temperature data provided by the University of Delaware were analysed to calculate monthly and annual cumulative HDDs. Mean, maximum and minimum values as well as the average duration of the heating season are used to characterize the mean features of the region. Spatial variations are driven by latitude and altitude. The analysis of the temporal distribution of HDDs reveals that the centre of the mean heating season varies from mid-June to mid-July. The length of the cold season grows with increasing latitude and westward with increasing altitude. In the high Andes, the heating season extends all year round. S-mode principal component analysis is used to identify sub-groups of grid points with similar temporal variability. Negative trends in annual cumulative HDDs are detected in most of the country. Linear and nonlinear trends as well as temporal statistics are examined for inter- and intra-annual variability of HDDs to discuss its potential incidence on residential use of natural gas. Seasonal increases in natural gas consumption in the country, including the effect of regional price benefits, could be now better explained not only by population growth but also by the spatial and temporal characterization of the HDD season. © 2012 Royal Meteorological Society.