Resource Type

Interpretation of Recent Temperature Trends in California (open access)

Interpretation of Recent Temperature Trends in California

Regional-scale climate change and associated societal impacts result from large-scale (e.g. well-mixed greenhouse gases) and more local (e.g. land-use change) 'forcing' (perturbing) agents. It is essential to understand these forcings and climate responses to them, in order to predict future climate and societal impacts. California is a fine example of the complex effects of multiple climate forcings. The State's natural climate is diverse, highly variable, and strongly influenced by ENSO. Humans are perturbing this complex system through urbanization, irrigation, and emission of multiple types of aerosols and greenhouse gases. Despite better-than-average observational coverage, we are only beginning to understand the manifestations of these forcings in California's temperature record.
Date: September 21, 2007
Creator: Duffy, P B; Bonfils, C & Lobell, D
System: The UNT Digital Library
Microscopic Approaches to Nuclear Structure: Configuration Interaction (open access)

Microscopic Approaches to Nuclear Structure: Configuration Interaction

The configuration interaction (CI) approach to solving the nuclear many-body problem, also known as the interacting shell model, has proven to be powerful tool in understanding the structure of nuclei. The principal criticism of past applications of the shell model is the reliance on empirical tuning to interaction matrix elements. If an accurate description of nuclei far from the valley of stability, where little or no data is available, a more fundamental approach is needed. This starts with recent ab initio approaches with effective interactions in the no-core shell model (NCSM). Using effective-field theory for guidance, fully ab initio descriptions of nuclei up to {sup 16}O with QCD based NN, NNN, and NNNN interactions will be possible within the next five years. An important task is then to determine how to use these NCSM results to develop effective interactions to describe heavier nuclei without the need to resort to an empirical retuning with every model space. Thus, it is likely that more traditional CI applications utilizing direct diagonalization and more fundamental interactions will be applicable to nuclei with perhaps up to one hundred constituents. But, these direct diagonalization CI applications will always be computationally limited due to the rapid increase …
Date: September 21, 2007
Creator: Ormand, W E
System: The UNT Digital Library
Negative Transconductance in Apertured Electron Guns (open access)

Negative Transconductance in Apertured Electron Guns

Passing an electron beam through an aperture can serve to reduce the beam current or change the transverse beam profile. For a sufficiently intense beam, space charge will drive a radial expansion of the beam, which may cause the current passing through the aperture to increase even though the current arriving at the aperture is decreasing. When a gridded electron gun is used, this may be expressed by stating that the transconductance of the apertured gun is negative. Here we explain this effect, and explore some of the key factors governing when it can occur and influencing its strength.
Date: September 21, 2007
Creator: Harris, J R & O'Shea, P G
System: The UNT Digital Library
Design, Construction, Alignment, and Calibration of a Compact Velocimetry Experiment (open access)

Design, Construction, Alignment, and Calibration of a Compact Velocimetry Experiment

A velocimetry experiment has been designed to measure shock properties for small cylindrical metal targets (8-mm-diameter by 2-mm thick). A target is accelerated by high explosives, caught, and retrieved for later inspection. The target is expected to move at a velocity of 0.1 to 3 km/sec. The complete experiment canister is approximately 105 mm in diameter and 380 mm long. Optical velocimetry diagnostics include the Velocity Interferometer System for Any Reflector (VISAR) and Photon Doppler Velocimetry (PDV). The packaging of the velocity diagnostics is not allowed to interfere with the catchment or an X-ray imaging diagnostic. A single optical relay, using commercial lenses, collects Doppler-shifted light for both VISAR and PDV. The use of fiber optics allows measurement of point velocities on the target surface during accelerations occurring over 15 mm of travel. The VISAR operates at 532 nm and has separate illumination fibers requiring alignment. The PDV diagnostic operates at 1550 nm, but is aligned and focused at 670 nm. The VISAR and PDV diagnostics are complementary measurements and they image spots in close proximity on the target surface. Because the optical relay uses commercial glass, the axial positions of the optical fibers for PDV and VISAR are offset …
Date: September 21, 2007
Creator: Kaufman, Morris I.; Malone, Robert M.; Frogget, Brent C.; Esquibel, David L.; Romero, Vincent T.; Lare, Gregory A. et al.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The IceCube Data Acquisition Software: Lessons Learned during Distributed, Collaborative, Multi-Disciplined Software Development. (open access)

The IceCube Data Acquisition Software: Lessons Learned during Distributed, Collaborative, Multi-Disciplined Software Development.

In this experiential paper we report on lessons learned during the development ofthe data acquisition software for the IceCube project - specifically, how to effectively address the unique challenges presented by a distributed, collaborative, multi-institutional, multi-disciplined project such as this. While development progress in software projects is often described solely in terms of technical issues, our experience indicates that non- and quasi-technical interactions play a substantial role in the effectiveness of large software development efforts. These include: selection and management of multiple software development methodologies, the effective useof various collaborative communication tools, project management structure and roles, and the impact and apparent importance of these elements when viewed through the differing perspectives of hardware, software, scientific and project office roles. Even in areas clearly technical in nature, success is still influenced by non-technical issues that can escape close attention. In particular we describe our experiences on software requirements specification, development methodologies and communication tools. We make observations on what tools and techniques have and have not been effective in this geographically disperse (including the South Pole) collaboration and offer suggestions on how similarly structured future projects may build upon our experiences.
Date: September 21, 2007
Creator: Beattie, Keith S.; Beattie, Keith; Day, Christopher; Glowacki, Dave; Hanson, Kael; Jacobsen, John et al.
System: The UNT Digital Library
e^+e^- Annihilations into Quasi-two-body Final States at 10.58 GeV (open access)

e^+e^- Annihilations into Quasi-two-body Final States at 10.58 GeV

We report the first observation of e{sup +}e{sup -} annihilations into hadronic states of positive C-parity, {rho}{sup 0}{rho}{sup 0} and {phi}{rho}{sup 0}. The angular distributions support two-virtual-photon annihilation production. We also report the observations of e{sup +}e{sup -} {yields} {phi}{eta} and a preliminary result on e{sup +}e{sup -} Z{yields} {rho}{sup +}{rho}{sup -}.
Date: September 21, 2007
Creator: Yi, Kai
System: The UNT Digital Library
AdS/CFT and Exclusive Processes in QCD (open access)

AdS/CFT and Exclusive Processes in QCD

The AdS/CFT correspondence between string theory in AdS space and conformal field theories in physical space-time leads to an analytic, semi-classical model for strongly-coupled QCD which has scale invariance and dimensional counting at short distances and color confinement at large distances. One can use holography to map the amplitude describing the hadronic state in the fifth dimension of Anti-de Sitter space AdS5 to the light-front wavefunctions of hadrons in physical space-time, thus providing a relativistic description of hadrons in QCD at the amplitude level. In particular, we show that there is an exact correspondence between the fifth-dimensional coordinate of AdS space z and a specific impact variable {var_sigma} which measures the separation of the quark and gluonic constituents within the hadron in ordinary space-time. New relativistic light-front equations in ordinary space-time can then be derived which reproduce the results obtained using the 5-dimensional theory. The effective light-front equations possess elegant algebraic structures and integrability properties. This connection between the AdS and the light-front representations allows one to compute the analytic form of the frame-independent light-front wavefunctions, the fundamental entities which encode hadron properties and allow the computation of decay constants, form factors, deeply virtual Compton scattering, exclusive heavy hadron decays …
Date: September 21, 2007
Creator: Brodsky, Stanley J. & de Teramond, Guy F.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Analysis of a Ferric Uptake Regulator (Fur) Mutant ofDesulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough (open access)

Analysis of a Ferric Uptake Regulator (Fur) Mutant ofDesulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough

Previous experiments examining the transcriptional profileof the anaerobe Desulfovibrio vulgaris demonstrated up-regulation of theFur regulon in response to various environmental stressors. To test theinvolvement of Fur in the growth response and transcriptional regulationof D. vulgaris, a targeted mutagenesis procedure was used for deletingthe fur gene. Growth of the resulting ?fur mutant (JW707) was notaffected by iron availability, but the mutant did exhibit increasedsensitivity to nitrite and osmotic stresses compared to the wild type.Transcriptional profiling of JW707 indicated that iron-bound Fur acts asa traditional repressor for ferrous iron uptake genes (feoAB) and othergenes containing a predicted Fur binding site within their promoter.Despite the apparent lack of siderophore biosynthesis genes within the D.vulgaris genome, a large 12-gene operon encoding orthologs to TonB andTolQR also appeared to be repressed by iron-bound Fur. While other genespredicted to be involved in iron homeostasis were unaffected by thepresence or absence of Fur, alternative expression patterns that could beinterpreted as repression or activation by iron-free Fur were observed.Both the physiological and transcriptional data implicate a globalregulatory role for Fur in the sulfate-reducing bacterium D.vulgaris.
Date: September 21, 2007
Creator: Bender, Kelly S.; Yen, Huei-Che Bill; Hemme, Christopher L.; Yang, Zamin K.; He, Zhili; He, Qiang et al.
System: The UNT Digital Library