Simultaneous measurement of temperature, density and velocity in gas-flows by modulated photoluminescence

A novel possibility to determine the temperature, density and velocity simultaneously in gas flows by measuring the average value, amplitude of modulation and phase shift of the photoluminescence excited by a temporally or spatially modulated light source is investigated. Time-dependent equations taking the flow, diffusion, excitation and decay into account are solved analytically. Different experimental arrangements are proposed. Measurements of velocity with two components, and temporal and spatial resolutions in the measurements are investigated. Numerical examples are given for N z with biacetyl as the seed gas. Practical considerations for the measurements and the relation between this method and some existing methods of lifetime measurement are discussed.

Floating zone convection

The microgravity research, as a branch of the advanced sciences and a spe- cialized field of high technology, has been made in China since the late 1980's. The research group investigating microgravity fluid physics consisted of our col- leagues and the authors in the Institute of Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and we pay special attention to the floating zone convection as our first research priority. Now, the research group has expanded and is a part of the National Microgravity Laboratory of the CAS, and the research fields have been extended to include more subjects related to microgravity science. Howev- er, the floating zone convection is still an important topic that greatly holds our research interests.

Critical current anisotropy in high temperature superconductors

After nearly 15 years of research effort, High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) are finding a wide range of practical applications. A clear understanding of the factors controlling the current carrying capacity of these materials is a prerequisite to their successful technological development. The critical current density (Jc) in HTS is directly dependent on the structure and pinning of the Flux Line Lattice (FLL) in these materials. This thesis presents an investigation of the Jc anisotropy in HTS. The use of thin films grown on off c-axis (vicinal) substrates allowed the effect of current directions outside the cuprate planes to be studied. With this experimental geometry Berghuis, et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 12, pg. 2332) observed a striking flux channelling effect in vicinal YBa2Cu3O7-δ (YBCO) films. By confirming, and extending, this observation, it is demonstrated that this is an intrinsic effect. The results obtained, appear to fit well with the predictions of a field angle dependent cross-over from a three dimensional rectilinear FLL to a kinked lattice of strings and pancakes. The pinning force density for movement of strings inside the cuprate planes is considerably less than that on vortex pancake elements. When the FLL is entirely string-like this reduced pinning leads to the observed channelling minima. It is observed that anti-phase boundaries enhance the Jc in vicinal YBCO films by strongly pinning vortex strings. The effect on the FLL structure cross-over of increasing anisotropy has been elucidated using de-oxygenated vicinal YBCO films. Intriguingly, the counter intuitive prediction that the range of applied field angle for which the kinked lattice is fully developed reduces with increasing anisotropy, appears to be confirmed. Although vortex channelling cannot be observed in c-axis YBCO films, the pinning force density for vortex string channelling has been extracted by observing string dragging. By studying the effect of rotating the applied field at a constant angle to the cuprate planes, it is possible to observe the cross-over into the string pancake regime in c-axis films. In the 3D region, the observed behaviour is well explained by the anisotropic Ginzburg-Landau model. Measurements were also made on thin films of the much more anisotropic Bi 2Sr2CaCu2O8+x material, grown on vicinal substrates. The absence of any flux channelling effect and clear adherence to the expected Kes-Law behaviour in the observed Jc characteristics does not provide evidence for the existence of the predicted ‘crossing lattice’ in Bi 2Sr2CaCu2O8+x .

Nonlinear oscillations in discrete and continuous systems

The first thesis topic is a perturbation method for resonantly coupled nonlinear oscillators. By successive near-identity transformations of the original equations, one obtains new equations with simple structure that describe the long time evolution of the motion. This technique is related to two-timing in that secular terms are suppressed in the transformation equations. The method has some important advantages. Appropriate time scalings are generated naturally by the method, and don't need to be guessed as in two-timing. Furthermore, by continuing the procedure to higher order, one extends (formally) the time scale of valid approximation. Examples illustrate these claims. Using this method, we investigate resonance in conservative, non-conservative and time dependent problems. Each example is chosen to highlight a certain aspect of the method.

The second thesis topic concerns the coupling of nonlinear chemical oscillators. The first problem is the propagation of chemical waves of an oscillating reaction in a diffusive medium. Using two-timing, we derive a nonlinear equation that determines how spatial variations in the phase of the oscillations evolves in time. This result is the key to understanding the propagation of chemical waves. In particular, we use it to account for certain experimental observations on the Belusov-Zhabotinskii reaction.

Next, we analyse the interaction between a pair of coupled chemical oscillators. This time, we derive an equation for the phase shift, which measures how much the oscillators are out of phase. This result is the key to understanding M. Marek's and I. Stuchl's results on coupled reactor systems. In particular, our model accounts for synchronization and its bifurcation into rhythm splitting.

Finally, we analyse large systems of coupled chemical oscillators. Using a continuum approximation, we demonstrate mechanisms that cause auto-synchronization in such systems.

Single attosecond pulse generation using two-color polarized time-gating technique

It is proposed that single attosecond pulses be generated via high-order harmonic generation by using a two-color pump pulse with time dependent ellipticity. The two-color pump pulse is created by the fundamental field and its second harmonic: the fundamental field is left-circularly polarized and the second harmonic is right-circularly polarized. Numerical simulations show that single attosecond pulses can be produced in the cut-off region by using the synthesis of 20 fs left-hand and right-hand circularly polarized pulses with a pulse delay of 20 fs. The attosecond pulses produced this way are much stronger than that produced by a few-cycle linear polarized pulse of comparable intensity. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America

A new high-order Fourier continuation-based elasticity solver for complex three-dimensional geometries

This thesis presents a new approach for the numerical solution of three-dimensional problems in elastodynamics. The new methodology, which is based on a recently introduced Fourier continuation (FC) algorithm for the solution of Partial Differential Equations on the basis of accurate Fourier expansions of possibly non-periodic functions, enables fast, high-order solutions of the time-dependent elastic wave equation in a nearly dispersionless manner, and it requires use of CFL constraints that scale only linearly with spatial discretizations. A new FC operator is introduced to treat Neumann and traction boundary conditions, and a block-decomposed (sub-patch) overset strategy is presented for implementation of general, complex geometries in distributed-memory parallel computing environments. Our treatment of the elastic wave equation, which is formulated as a complex system of variable-coefficient PDEs that includes possibly heterogeneous and spatially varying material constants, represents the first fully-realized three-dimensional extension of FC-based solvers to date. Challenges for three-dimensional elastodynamics simulations such as treatment of corners and edges in three-dimensional geometries, the existence of variable coefficients arising from physical configurations and/or use of curvilinear coordinate systems and treatment of boundary conditions, are all addressed. The broad applicability of our new FC elasticity solver is demonstrated through application to realistic problems concerning seismic wave motion on three-dimensional topographies as well as applications to non-destructive evaluation where, for the first time, we present three-dimensional simulations for comparison to experimental studies of guided-wave scattering by through-thickness holes in thin plates.

Neutron slowing down with inelastic scattering

The emphasis in reactor physics research has shifted toward investigations of fast reactors. The effects of high energy neutron processes have thus become fundamental to our understanding, and one of the most important of these processes is nuclear inelastic scattering. In this research we include inelastic scattering as a primary energy transfer mechanism, and study the resultant neutron energy spectrum in an infinite medium. We assume that the moderator material has a high mass number, so that in a laboratory coordinate system the energy loss of an inelastically scattered neutron may be taken as discrete. It is then consistent to treat elastic scattering with an age theory expansion. Mathematically these assumptions lead to balance equations of the differential-difference type.

The steady state problem is explored first by way of Laplace transformation of the energy variable. We then develop another steady state technique, valid for multiple inelastic level excitations, which depends on the level structure satisfying a physically reasonable constraint. In all cases the solutions we generate are compared with results obtained by modeling inelastic scattering with a separable, evaporative kernel.

The time dependent problem presents some new difficulties. By modeling the elastic scattering cross section in a particular way, we generate solutions to this more interesting problem. We conjecture the method of characteristics may be useful in analyzing time dependent problems with general cross sections. These ideas are briefly explored.

Radio frequency studies of surface resistance and critical magnetic field of type I and type II superconductors

The surface resistance and the critical magnetic field of lead electroplated on copper were studied at 205 MHz in a half-wave coaxial resonator. The observed surface resistance at a low field level below 4.2°K could be well described by the BCS surface resistance with the addition of a temperature independent residual resistance. The available experimental data suggest that the major fraction of the residual resistance in the present experiment was due to the presence of an oxide layer on the surface. At higher magnetic field levels the surface resistance was found to be enhanced due to surface imperfections.

The attainable rf critical magnetic field between 2.2°K and T_c of lead was found to be limited not by the thermodynamic critical field but rather by the superheating field predicted by the one-dimensional Ginzburg-Landau theory. The observed rf critical field was very close to the expected superheating field, particularly in the higher reduced temperature range, but showed somewhat stronger temperature dependence than the expected superheating field in the lower reduced temperature range.

The rf critical magnetic field was also studied at 90 MHz for pure tin and indium, and for a series of SnIn and InBi alloys spanning both type I and type II superconductivity. The samples were spherical with typical diameters of 1-2 mm and a helical resonator was used to generate the rf magnetic field in the measurement. The results of pure samples of tin and indium showed that a vortex-like nucleation of the normal phase was responsible for the superconducting-to-normal phase transition in the rf field at temperatures up to about 0.98-0.99 T_c' where the ideal superheating limit was being reached. The results of the alloy samples showed that the attainable rf critical fields near T_c were well described by the superheating field predicted by the one-dimensional GL theory in both the type I and type II regimes. The measurement was also made at 300 MHz resulting in no significant change in the rf critical field. Thus it was inferred that the nucleation time of the normal phase, once the critical field was reached, was small compared with the rf period in this frequency range.

Quantitative, Time-Resolved Proteomic Analysis Using Bio-Orthogonal Non-Canonical Amino Acid Tagging

Bio-orthogonal non-canonical amino acid tagging (BONCAT) is an analytical method that allows the selective analysis of the subset of newly synthesized cellular proteins produced in response to a biological stimulus. In BONCAT, cells are treated with the non-canonical amino acid L-azidohomoalanine (Aha), which is utilized in protein synthesis in place of methionine by wild-type translational machinery. Nascent, Aha-labeled proteins are selectively ligated to affinity tags for enrichment and subsequently identified via mass spectrometry. The work presented in this thesis exhibits advancements in and applications of the BONCAT technology that establishes it as an effective tool for analyzing proteome dynamics with time-resolved precision.

Chapter 1 introduces the BONCAT method and serves as an outline for the thesis as a whole. I discuss motivations behind the methodological advancements in Chapter 2 and the biological applications in Chapters 2 and 3.

Chapter 2 presents methodological developments that make BONCAT a proteomic tool capable of, in addition to identifying newly synthesized proteins, accurately quantifying rates of protein synthesis. I demonstrate that this quantitative BONCAT approach can measure proteome-wide patterns of protein synthesis at time scales inaccessible to alternative techniques.

In Chapter 3, I use BONCAT to study the biological function of the small RNA regulator CyaR in Escherichia coli. I correctly identify previously known CyaR targets, and validate several new CyaR targets, expanding the functional roles of the sRNA regulator.

In Chapter 4, I use BONCAT to measure the proteomic profile of the quorum sensing bacterium Vibrio harveyi during the time-dependent transition from individual- to group-behaviors. My analysis reveals new quorum-sensing-regulated proteins with diverse functions, including transcription factors, chemotaxis proteins, transport proteins, and proteins involved in iron homeostasis.

Overall, this work describes how to use BONCAT to perform quantitative, time-resolved proteomic analysis and demonstrates that these measurements can be used to study a broad range of biological processes.

A theory of strong and weak scintillations with applications to astrophysics

The propagation of waves in an extended, irregular medium is studied under the "quasi-optics" and the "Markov random process" approximations. Under these assumptions, a Fokker-Planck equation satisfied by the characteristic functional of the random wave field is derived. A complete set of the moment equations with different transverse coordinates and different wavenumbers is then obtained from the characteristic functional. The derivation does not require Gaussian statistics of the random medium and the result can be applied to the time-dependent problem. We then solve the moment equations for the phase correlation function, angular broadening, temporal pulse smearing, intensity correlation function, and the probability distribution of the random waves. The necessary and sufficient conditions for strong scintillation are also given.

We also consider the problem of diffraction of waves by a random, phase-changing screen. The intensity correlation function is solved in the whole Fresnel diffraction region and the temporal pulse broadening function is derived rigorously from the wave equation.

The method of smooth perturbations is applied to interplanetary scintillations. We formulate and calculate the effects of the solar-wind velocity fluctuations on the observed intensity power spectrum and on the ratio of the observed "pattern" velocity and the true velocity of the solar wind in the three-dimensional spherical model. The r.m.s. solar-wind velocity fluctuations are found to be ~200 km/sec in the region about 20 solar radii from the Sun.

We then interpret the observed interstellar scintillation data using the theories derived under the Markov approximation, which are also valid for the strong scintillation. We find that the Kolmogorov power-law spectrum with an outer scale of 10 to 100 pc fits the scintillation data and that the ambient averaged electron density in the interstellar medium is about 0.025 cm^-3. It is also found that there exists a region of strong electron density fluctuation with thickness ~10 pc and mean electron density ~7 cm^-3 between the PSR 0833-45 pulsar and the earth.

掺镱双包层光纤放大器高功率脉冲放大特性

从放大器速率方程出发，分析了掺镱双包层光纤放大器的放大特性。模拟计算了无信号输入时放大器上能级粒子数、泵浦功率和放大自发辐射（ASE）在放大器中的稳态分布。分析了前向和后向泵浦时，高功率高斯脉冲放大时的脉冲波形畸变、上能级粒子数的时间特性、放大器存储能量和脉冲能量演化等动态特性。讨论了掺镱双包层光纤放大器输出脉冲能量随不同输入脉冲峰值功率和泵浦功率的关系。该模型和结论对高功率脉冲放大器的设计和优化具有一定的理论指导意义。

Convergence Properties and Fixed Points of Two General Iterative Schemes with Composed Maps in Banach Spaces with Applications to Guaranteed Global Stability

This paper investigates the boundedness and convergence properties of two general iterative processes which involve sequences of self-mappings on either complete metric or Banach spaces. The sequences of self-mappings considered in the first iterative scheme are constructed by linear combinations of a set of self-mappings, each of them being a weighted version of a certain primary self-mapping on the same space. The sequences of self-mappings of the second iterative scheme are powers of an iteration-dependent scaled version of the primary self-mapping. Some applications are also given to the important problem of global stability of a class of extended nonlinear polytopic-type parameterizations of certain dynamic systems.

A robust Bayesian two-sample test for detecting intervals of differential gene expression in microarray time series.

Understanding the regulatory mechanisms that are responsible for an organism's response to environmental change is an important issue in molecular biology. A first and important step towards this goal is to detect genes whose expression levels are affected by altered external conditions. A range of methods to test for differential gene expression, both in static as well as in time-course experiments, have been proposed. While these tests answer the question whether a gene is differentially expressed, they do not explicitly address the question when a gene is differentially expressed, although this information may provide insights into the course and causal structure of regulatory programs. In this article, we propose a two-sample test for identifying intervals of differential gene expression in microarray time series. Our approach is based on Gaussian process regression, can deal with arbitrary numbers of replicates, and is robust with respect to outliers. We apply our algorithm to study the response of Arabidopsis thaliana genes to an infection by a fungal pathogen using a microarray time series dataset covering 30,336 gene probes at 24 observed time points. In classification experiments, our test compares favorably with existing methods and provides additional insights into time-dependent differential expression.

Stress within the postseizure time window inhibits seizure recurrence

Recurrence is a key characteristic in the development of epilepsy. It remains unclear whether seizure recurrence is sensitive to postseizure stress. Here, tonic-clonic seizures were induced with a convulsive dose of pentylenetetrazole (PTZ), and acute seizure recurrence was evoked with a subconvulsive dose of the drug. We found that stress inhibited seizure recurrence when applied 30 minutes or 2 hours, but not 4 hours, after the tonic-clonic seizure. The time-dependent anti-recurrence effect of stress was mimicked by the stress hormone corticosterone and blocked by co-administration of mineralocorticoid and glucocorticoid receptor antagonists. Furthermore, in a PTZ-induced epileptic kindling model, corticosterone administered 30 minutes after each seizure decreased the extent of seizures both during the kindling establishment and in the following challenge test. These results provide novel insights into both the mechanisms of and therapeutic strategies for epilepsy. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Improved jet noise modeling using a new time-scale.

To calculate the noise emanating from a turbulent flow using an acoustic analogy knowledge concerning the unsteady characteristics of the turbulence is required. Specifically, the form of the turbulent correlation tensor together with various time and length-scales are needed. However, if a Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stores calculation is used as the starting point then one can only obtain steady characteristics of the flow and it is necessary to model the unsteady behavior in some way. While there has been considerable attention given to the correct way to model the form of the correlation tensor less attention has been given to the underlying physics that dictate the proper choice of time-scale. In this paper the authors recognize that there are several time dependent processes occurring within a turbulent flow and propose a new way of obtaining the time-scale. Isothermal single-stream flow jets with Mach numbers 0.75 and 0.90 have been chosen for the present study. The Mani-Gliebe-Balsa-Khavaran method has been used for prediction of noise at different angles, and there is good agreement between the noise predictions and observations. Furthermore, the new time-scale has an inherent frequency dependency that arises naturally from the underlying physics, thus avoiding supplementary mathematical enhancements needed in previous modeling.