Academic literature on the topic 'Very Small Array'

The VSA is a 14-element aperture-synthesis telescope for mapping structure in the Cosmic Microwave Background which is now being commissioned at the Teide Observatory, Tenerife. It operates at frequencies between 26 and 36 GHz, with a bandwidth of 1.5GHz. Its elements track the sky, providing fringe-rate discrimination of any instrumental effects such as antenna cross-talk or ground radiation. The instrument incorporates a single-baseline interferometer comprising two large (3.7m) dishes, which is used to provide concurrent (and same frequency) pointed flux measurements of point sources in the VSA fields, the positions of these source having been obtained previously from survey observations made with the Cambridge Ryle Telescope at 15 GHz. The VSA is now completing its commissioning programme and it will start routine observations in September 2000.

The Very Small Array (VSA) is a fourteen-element interferometer for sensitive measurement of the CMB anisotropies on scales of three degrees to ten arcminutes. The telescope is now observing on site in Tenerife after a period of commissioning, including the first map of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect in the Coma cluster.A distinguishing feature of the instrument is that each antenna in the array tracks quasi-independently, providing a characteristic fringe rate per baseline which can be used to reject many systematics. This effect has been optimised in the antenna array design.

The Very Small Array (VSA) is a unique interferometric telescope operating at 33 GHz at Tenerife. It has the ability to measure fluctuations in the CMB over a large range of angular scales by means of three main array configurations: compact, extended and super-extended. These angular scales correspond to the multipole range ℓ = 150 —2500. Here we present new results from further observations of the extended array (February 2002 - June 2003). We cover ℓ-values up to ℓ ∼ 1600, thus doubling the ℓ-range of WMAP. The resulting power spectrum in the ℓ-range 800 – 1600 has very low noise coupled with good ℓ-resolution (Δℓ ∼ 80). Furthermore, the use of independently tracking aerials along with the dedicated source subtraction baseline allows unprecedented control of systematics. The latter is essential, since discrete sources are the dominant foreground at these angular scales. These measurements over larger ℓ-ranges are important in confirming the present cosmological paradigm and breaking degeneracies in the extraction of cosmological parameters.

The VSA is an aperture synthesis array dedicated to measuring anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). It has observed in two configurations to measure the CMB power spectrum from ℓ=150–1600, detecting the first three acoustic peaks at good signal-to-noise. We now plan to enhance the telescope to allow observation at higher ℓ. This will allow measurement of the fourth and subsequent peaks and will allow us to break degeneracies that exist at present between cosmological parameters. In addition we will investigate the excess power detected by CBI at ℓ > 2000 and will conduct high-sensitivity searches for topological defects.

Radio astronomical synthesis imaging arrays can create images with resolution much higher than can single dish telescopes. However, one of the biggest problems that imaging arrays face is radio frequency interference (RFI). This interference corrupts signals and prevents accurate image creation. Therefore, it is necessary to remove this interference. This thesis discusses the synthesis imaging procedure and array spatial filter­ing methods to remove interference, including Multiple Sidelobe Canceller (MSC), Subspace Projection (SP), and Cross­-Subspace Projection (CSP). The CLEAN algorithm, an image restoration technique, is also discussed. Various improvements to the VSA are discussed, including upgrades to the hardware and software and addition of a fifth antenna to the array. Calibration techniques for the VSA are presented. Successful image synthesis for deep-­space sources of Cassiopeia A and Cygnus A are shown and phase errors that have caused difficulties with imaging are considered. The previously mentioned algorithms are successfully applied to data gathered by the Very Small Array (VSA), allowing images to be created in environments with interference. An improved method for bias correction for both SP and CSP is demonstrated. The CLEAN algorithm is demonstrated on two different images.

This thesis describes the characterisation of non-Gaussianity in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) from observations made with the Very Small Array (VSA) and the Cosmic Background ~mager (CBI). The VSA and the CBI are interferometric instruments designed to image the CMB at angular scales correspondIng to mUltipoles up to .e = 3500. An overview of radio interferometry is given. The experimental challenges related to the obse~vation of the CMB are discussed, and how interferometry is particularly well suited to deal with them. The VSA and the CBI are described. The data reduction processes in both instruments are outlined, as well as the measures adopted to control systematic effects and remove contamination of instrumental and astrophysical origin. The characterisation of non-Gaussianity for this thesis was based on the bispectrum, for which a weighted variance estimator and two normalised estimators were implemented. Null hypothesis tests show that, overall, the VSA data set and the CBI field deep20hr are consistent with Gaussianity. A theoretical bispectrum was used, together with the normalised bispectra estimates from the data to place limits on the non-linear coupling parameter fNL. We combined fNL limits from 32 VSA fields to find a combined limit of IfNLI < 2732. A subset of the VSA data was used to explore the possibility of detecting a bispectrum signal from bright point sources. There is not evidence to suggest that the estimators used in this thesis can be used to detect such signal in the VSA data in a consistent maner. Additions and improvements to the non-Gaussianity tests applied in this work are discussed.

Freezing is a widespread ecological challenge, affecting organisms in over half the terrestrial environment as well as both polar seas. With very few exceptions, if a cell freezes internally, it dies. Polar teleost fish in shallow waters avoid freezing by synthesising a range of protein or glycoprotein antifreezes. Terrestrial organisms are faced with a far greater thermal challenge, and exhibit a more complex array of responses. Unicellular organisms survive freezing temperatures by preventing ice nucleating within the cytosol, and tolerating the cellular dehydration and membrane disruption that follows from ice forming in the external environment. Multicellular organisms survive freezing temperatures by manipulating the composition of the extracellular body fluids. Terrestrial organisms may freeze at high subzero temperatures, often promoted by ice nucleating proteins, and small molecular mass cryoprotectants (often sugars and polyols) moderate the osmotic stress on cells. A range of chaperone proteins (dehydrins, LEA proteins) help maintain the integrity of membranes and macromolecules. Thermal hysteresis (antifreeze) proteins prevent damaging recrystallisation of ice. In some cases arthropods and higher plants prevent freezing in their extracellular fluids and survive by supercooling. Vitrification of extracellular water, or of the cell cytosol, may be a more widespread response to very cold temperatures than recognised to date.

Any visitor to Belgium or the Netherlands is immediately struck by the number of convents and beguinages (begijnhoven) in both major cities and small towns. Their number and location in urban centres suggest that the women who inhabited them once held a prominent role. Despite leaving a visible mark on cities, much of the story of these women—known variously as beguines, tertiaries, klopjes, recluses, and anchoresses—remains to be told. Instead of aspiring to live as traditional religious, they transcended normative assumptions about religion and gender and had a very real impact on their religious and secular worlds. The sources for their tale are often fragmentary and difficult to interpret. However, careful scrutiny allows their voices to be heard. Drawing on an array of sources including religious rules, sermons, hagiographic vitae, and rapiaria, this work traces the story of pious laywomen between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. It both emphasizes the innovative roles of women who transcended established forms of institutional religious life and reveals the ways in which historiographical habits have obscured the dynamic and fluid nature of their histories. By highlighting the development of irregular and extra-regular communities and tracing the threads of regularization and monasticization that wove their way around pious laywomen, this book draws attention to the vibrant and dynamic culture of feminine lay piety that persisted from the later middle ages onwards.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

In this chapter, several planar array designs based on the use of a small number of the active elements located at the center of the planar array surrounded by another number of the uniformly distributed parasitic elements are investigated. The parasitic elements are used to modify the radiation pattern of the central active elements. The overall radiation pattern of the resulting planar array with a small number of active elements is found to be comparable to that of the fully active array elements with a smaller sidelobe level (SLL) at the cost of a relatively wider beamwidth and lower directivity. Nevertheless, the uses of only a small number of the active elements provide a very simple feeding network that reduces the cost and the complexity of the array. Simulation results which have been computed using computer simulation technology-microwave studio (CST-MWS) show that the sidelobe level of the designed array pattern with parasitic elements is considerably better than that of the similar fully active array elements. The proposed array can be effectively and efficiently used in the applications that require wider antenna beams.

In this study, a semi cylindrical capacitive array type liquid interface level measuring sensor is described. The sensor consists of a continuous large semi cylindrical thin metallic plate acting as a common plate of the capacitor and an array of small semi cylindrical thin metallic plates, separated by very small gap distance. All plates are mounted along the outer wall of a cylindrical non conducting vertical storage tank. The detection of liquid interface is based on the measurement of capacitance of the array of plates which varies with the dielectric constant of the liquid within the tank. The measured capacitance has been obtained in nano farad range. Since the sensor is non contact type, it can be used for both conducting and non conducting type of liquid contained within a non conducting tank. Experimental results confirm the satisfactory performance of the sensor for liquid interface level measurement.

Chapter 4 takes long-standing debates over the “population–seats” relationship in a new direction by focusing on how the preponderance of white-majority districts and very small number of majority-minority districts limit the realistic array of electoral opportunities for Asian American women and men and Latina/os. The chapter also shows that the utility of majority-minority districts in advancing descriptive representation has been mischaracterized. Using the GRACE dataset, Chapter 4’s analysis shows that the relationship between a racial group’s population size in a district, and its likelihood of having a descriptive representative on the ballot or in office, is much more robust for men than women. To explain why, Chapter 4 uses interview data to demonstrate that within these rare districts that are widely perceived as nonwhite candidates’ primary opportunity for representation, the politics of recognition among political elites often disadvantage Asian American women and Latinas, relative to co-racial men.

A polymer is a very-long-chain macromolecule in which hundreds or thousands of atoms are linked together to form a one-dimensional array. The skeletal atoms usually bear side groups, often two in number, which can be as small as hydrogen, chlorine, or fluorine atoms or as large as aryl or long-chain alkyl units. Polymers are different from other molecules because the long-chain character allows the chains to become entangled in solution or in the solid state or, for specific macromolecular structures, to become lined up in regular arrays in the solid state. These molecular characteristics give rise to solid-state materials properties, such as strength, elasticity, fiber-forming qualities, or film-forming properties, that are not found for small molecule systems. The molecular weights of polymers are normally so high that, for all practical purposes, they are nonvolatile. These characteristics underlie the widespread use of polymers in all aspects of modern technology. Attempts to understand the relationship between the macromolecular structure and the unusual properties characterize much of the fundamental science in this field. Polymers are among the most complicated molecules known. They may contain thousands of atoms in the main chain, plus complex clusters of atoms that form the side groups attached to the skeletal units. How, then, can we depict such molecules in a manner that is easy to comprehend? First, an enormous simplification can be achieved if we remember that most synthetic polymers contain a fairly simple structure that repeats over and over down the chain. This simplest repetitive structure is known as the repeating unit, and it provides the basis for an uncomplicated representation of the structure of the whole polymer. For example, suppose that a polymer consists of a long chain of atoms of type A, to which are attached side groups, R. The polymer chain can be represented by the formula shown in 1.1. The two horizontal lines represent the bonds of the main chain. The brackets (or parentheses) indicate that the structure repeats many times. The actual number of repeating units present is normally not specified, but is represented by the subscript, n.

‘Wind power’ focuses on wind-based power and its potential as a renewable energy source. Single wind turbines, both large and small, can be used to provide power to homes or a community. Wind turbines for large power generation are usually deployed in wind farms, which are arrays of turbines. These are located in regions where the wind conditions are good, such as exposed ridges, high-altitude plains, mountain passes, coastal areas, and out at sea. Wind power produces essentially no global warming nor any pollution; only a small amount of associated carbon dioxide emissions from the fossil fuels used in the construction and operation of the wind farms. And it takes less than a year for a wind farm to generate the same amount of energy used in its manufacture. The sharp fall in the cost of electricity from wind farms, corresponding to a 20 per cent learning rate over the last decade, is such that onshore wind farms have now achieved cost competitiveness (grid-parity) with fossil-fuel-fired generators. By 2050, it is estimated that about a seventh of the world’s energy demand could be met by wind power.

An inventor—any creative person—knows to look under the surface of what things seem to be, to learn what they are. I have been able to find only one constant in the creative mind. It is that surprise is the hidden face of the coin of invention. In their operetta Pinafore, Gilbert and Sullivan warn us: . . . Things are seldom what they seem, Skim milk masquerades as cream; Highlows pass as patent leathers; Jackdaws strut in peacock’s feathers. . . . For example, an engineer designing a highway system wants to include crossroads between the major arteries. Common sense says that crossroads will increase driver options and speed traffic. Only very keen insight, or a complex computer analysis, reveals that crossroads tend to make matters worse. They often create localized traffic jams where none would otherwise occur. We are caught off guard when common sense fails us. Yet it is clear we would live in a deadly dull world if common sense alone were sufficient to lead us through all the mazes around us. If what we learn is no more than what we expect to learn, then we have learned nothing at all. Sooner or later, every student of heat flow is startled to find out that insulation on a small pipe can sometimes increase heat loss. Common sense is the center of gravity we return to after our flights of fancy. But it is the delicious surprise—the idea that precedes expectation—that makes science, technology, and invention such a delight. A wonderful old expression calls creativity “a fine madness,” and it is. Invention lies outside the common ways and means. If it is sane to respond predictably to reality, then invention surely is madness. A well-known riddle shows us something of the way that madness works. You are asked to connect nine dots, in a square array, with four straight lines. Each line has to continue from the end of the last line. The problem seems to have no solution.

At the present time, the most commonly accepted definition of a complex system is that of a system containing many interdependent constituents which interact nonlinearly. Therefore, when we want to model a complex system, the first issue has to do with the connectivity properties of its network, the architecture of the wirings between the constituents. In fact, we have recently learned that the network structure can be as important as the nonlinear interactions between elements, and an accurate description of the coupling architecture and a characterization of the structural properties of the network can be of fundamental importance also in understanding the dynamics of the system. In the last few years the research on networks has taken different directions producing rather unexpected and important results. Researchers have: (1) proposed various global variables to describe and characterize the properties of realworld networks and (2) developed different models to simulate the formation and the growth of networks such as the ones found in the real world. The results obtained can be summed up by saying that statistical physics has been able to capture the structure of many diverse systems within a few common frameworks, though these common frameworks are very different from the regular array, or capture the random connectivity, previously used to model the network of a complex system. Here we present a list of some of the global quantities introduced to characterize a network: the characteristic path length L, the clustering coefficient C, the global efficiency E_glob, the local efficiency E_loc, the cost Cost, and the degree distribution P(k). We also review two classes of networks proposed: smallworld and scale-free networks. We conclude with a possible application of the nonextensive thermodynamics formalism to describe scale-free networks. Watts and Strogatz [17] have shown that the connection topology of some biological, social, and technological networks is neither completely regular nor completely random. These networks, that are somehow in between regular and random networks, have been named small worlds in analogy with the smallworld phenomenon empirically observed in social systems more than 30 years ago [11, 12].

The main object of this work is to develop accurate solutions for hydrodynamics coefficients of arrays of simple-geometry wave-energy devices. Use is made of a computationally very efficient method, to model the wave energy absorption by a rigid sphere moving in heave and sway in water of constant (finite) depth, that employs a series of pulsating multipoles located at the centre of the sphere; a monopole or source can be added to simulate the effect of pulsating volume. In the present work, this is extended to model the interaction between spheres in a finite array, by locating series of multipoles at the centre of each sphere and computing the multipoles intensities from the boundary conditions at the spheres’ surfaces in order to find the matrices of damping and added-mass coefficients in several oscillating modes. Numerical results are obtained for small arrays. This may be used to validate results from boundary-element methods.

The shut-down of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) has been attributed to damaging streamwise Fluidelastic Instability (FEI) of the steam generator tubes, a phenomenon which has traditionally been assumed not to occur. This has generated a significant research effort to better understand this phenomenon and to develop appropriate design criteria for its prevention. Most current design codes are based on Connors criterion for FEI which neglects both streamwise FEI and the effects of tube array pattern and pitch ratio. It is becoming clear that array geometry and pitch ratio are important determining factors in FEI, especially in the streamwise direction. This paper presents an extension of the theory of Lever and Weaver to consider arrays of flexible fluid-coupled tubes which are free to become unstable in both the transverse and streamwise directions. This simplified modelling approach has the advantages of being very tractable for numerical parametric studies and having no need for experimental data input. Previous research by the authors has shown that the predictions of this model agree very well with the available experiments for parallel triangular arrays for both transverse and streamwise FEI. In this paper, the results of such studies are presented for the both transverse and streamwise FEI for square inline and normal triangular arrays and compared with the authors’ previous results for parallel triangular arrays. It is shown that FEI is strongly influenced by array geometry, especially for small pitch ratio arrays operating at low values of the mass damping parameter. The results show good agreement with the available experimental data.

According to the recent Laboratory News’ Proteomics Special article Mass Spectroscopy (MS) has become the technology of choice to meet today’s unprecedented demand for accurate bioanalytical measurements, including protein identification. Although MS can be used to analyze any biological sample, it must be first converted to gas-phase ions before it can be introduced into a mass spectrometer for analysis. It is transfer of a very small liquid sample (proteins are very expensive and often very difficult to produce in sizable quantities) into a gas-phase ions that is currently considered to be a bottleneck to high throughput proteomics. Electrospray ionization (ESI) is a technique developed in early 1990th to generate a spray gas-phase ions by applying high voltage (from several hundreds volts and up to a few thousands kilovolts relative to the ground electrode of the MS interface) to a small capillary through which the liquid solution is pumped. The high electric field ionizes the fluid forming the converging Taylor cone of the exiting jet which eventually breaks into many small droplets when the repulsive Coulombic forces overcome the surface tension. Because of the focusing effect associated with the spraying the electrically charged fluid, the size of the electrospray cone and thus of the formed droplets is in a few tens of nanometers range although the inner diameter of the capillary is in the micrometer range.

Protein microarrays have been employed to screen tens to thousands of proteins simultaneously for the observation of the biochemical activities in the protein-protein, protein-nucleic acid and small molecule interactions. This technology allows high throughput analysis and holds great potential for basic molecular biology research, disease marker identification, toxicological response profiling and pharmaceutical target screening. However, proteins easily malfunction in harsh environments so that they are hardly preserved before the application because of their complex and fragile structures. On the other hand, identify scarce amount of proteins less than fM range is very important and challenge for disease diagnosis at very early stage. As a result, the procedures for protein micro array formation are very important for preserving protein functionality to ensure useful protein assays, as well as the improvement of the detection sensitivity up to single molecule event but with high dynamic range for disease early detection. Therefore, this paper provides a novel view from the preparation of high efficient protein micro chip toward ultra high sensitive single protein nano array through the technology integration of BioMEMS and Bio-Nanotechnology.

A simplified estimation of the height and period of waves generated by a small boat was proposed in previous papers. The estimated height and period of waves were in good agreement with field results using a small boat. In addition, a new method called MUSIC (Multiple Signal Classification) was proposed to analyze the direction of ship waves. The distribution of the directional spectrum of ship waves as estimated by MUSIC presented a sharp monotone peak, and the estimated results were supported by field results using a small boat. The proposed estimation of ship waves by MUSIC was confirmed to be very effective. In present study, the direction of waves generated by a small boat was determined using MUSIC. In the previous study, the triangular array was fixed to a stand on the quay, and the measurement of the ship waves was limited to the sea area near the pier. In the current study, a triangular array was made by three buoys in order to analyze the waves created by a ship offshore. The analytical results derived by MUSIC were analyzed and were confirmed to be highly effective.

Extensive wake flow field measurements and visualizations are conducted using particle image velocimetry (PIV) inside the wakes of the elliptical and circular pin fin arrays in order to better understand the flow physics and the loss mechanisms of these devices. The true-mean velocity field inside the wake two diameters downstream of the pin fin arrays is obtained by collecting and ensemble averaging a large number of PIV samples in the midplane of the test section. Additional experiments are also conducted inside the very near wake of the pin fins in order to visualize instantaneous flow field features. The results of the study reveal that the circular pin fin array creates a large low momentum wake region when compared to the elliptical pin fin arrays. It is observed from the flow visualization inside the wake that this kind of a very large momentum deficit is created due to the early separation of the flow from the circular fins in the second row. In the case of elliptical fins, however, the flow stays attached to the fin surface and the separation occurs very close to the downstream stagnation point on the surface which in turn results in a very small low momentum wake region behind the elliptical pin fin arrays. The mean turbulent kinetic energy levels from the PIV measurements show very high turbulence levels in the wake of the circular fin arrays compared to the elliptical fins. However, the smaller momentum deficit inside the elliptical pin fin wakes results in higher local Reynolds numbers inside the wake when compared to the circular pin fin wakes. This in turn helps to keep the endwall heat transfer enhancement levels close to the circular fin arrays although the turbulence levels are much lower in this region.

Many of the compounds in drugs cannot be effectively delivered using current drug delivery techniques (e.g., pills and injections). Transdermal delivery is an attractive alternative, but it is limited by the extremely low permeability of the skin. Because the primary barrier to transport is located in the upper tissue, Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) technology provides novel means in terms of both micro needle array and PZT pump, with the former one to increase permeability of human skin with efficiency, safety and painless delivery, and the latter one to decrease the size of the pump. Micro needle array has many advantages, including minimal trauma at penetration site due to the small size in needle, no condition limit, painless drug delivery for penetration depth with few nerves, and precise control of penetration depth for micro needle extension length. The micro needle array drug delivery is precise, painless, effective, clean and neatness, without any inconvenience. This will promote the development of biomedical sciences and technology and makes medical devices more humanized. So far most of the insulin pump has been using mechanical pump. We present the first development of this novel technology which can assemble the PZT pump and the micro needles together for diabetes mellitus. The micro needle array based on a flexible substrate can be mounted on non-planar surface or even on flexible objects such as a human fingers and arms. The PZT pump can pump the much more precision drug accurately than mechanical pump and the overall size is much smaller than those mechanical pumps. The hollow wall straight micro needle array is fabricated on a flexible silicon substrate by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) and anisotropic wet etching techniques. The fabricated hollow micro needles are 200μm in length and 30μm in diameter. The micro needle array, which may be built with on-board fluid pumps, have potential applications in the chemical and biomedical fields for localized chemical analysis, programmable drug-delivery systems, and very small, precise fluids sampling. The micro needle array has been installed in an insulin pump for demonstration and a leak free packaging is introduced.

Thin Small Outline Package (TSOP) are one of the most commonly used surface mount components due to its low overall cost. Traditionally leadframe packages such as TSOP or Quad Flat Package (QFP) are less of a concern (if assembled with SnPb eutectic solder paste) about their long term reliability and often exempted from board level qualification testing as the mechanical compliance of metal leads mitigate the stresses due to the Coefficient of Thermal Expansion (CTE) mismatch between the package and Print Circuit Board (PCB). Therefore more attention has been put on the solder joint reliability of Pb-free Ball Grid Array (BGA) packages over leadframe packages while the industry is moving away from SnPb eutectic solder materials to meet RoHS regulatory requirements. The authors have observed that TSOPs if assembled with Pb-free solder materials could fail at very early stages during qualification testing (in some case as early as 300 cycles under standard 0°C to 100°C thermal cycling). Since most Pb-free solder materials such as SnAgCu are mechanically more rigid than SnPb eutectic solder material, higher stresses are expected be induced in solder joints during temperature excursions. Pb-free solder materials’ wicking behavior may also contribute to the early failures. In this study, long term reliability of a flash memory TSOP has been investigated. These tested TSOPs, assembled on 93mil-thick PCBs with SAC305 paste, are of two configurations: one with single die and the other with stacked quadruple dies. Some test vehicles have been thermally aged under four different thermal aging conditions to study the aging effect on Pb-free solder joint life. Finite element analysis (FEA) modeling has also been employed to further investigate the impact of other parameters such as die size, package size, and the number of dies that being stacked inside one package.