Can Food-for-Work Programmes Reduce Vulnerability?

Famine, Food aid, Poverty, Public employment programmes, Transfers

The Role of Kinetic Energy Flux in the Convective Urca Process

The previous analysis of the convective Urca neutrino loss process in degenerate, convective, quasi-static, carbon-burning cores by Barkat and Wheeler omitted specific consideration of the role of the kinetic energy flux. The arguments of Barkat and Wheeler that steady-state composition gradients exist are correct, but chemical equilibrium does not result in net cooling. Barkat and Wheeler included a "work" term that effectively removed energy from the total energy budget that could only have come from the kinetic energy, which must remain positive. Consideration of the kinetic energy in the thermodynamics of the convective Urca process shows that the convective Urca neutrinos reduce the rate of increase of entropy that would otherwise be associated with the input of nuclear energy and slow down the convective current, but, unlike the "thermal" Urca process do not reduce the entropy or temperature.Comment: 16 pages, AAS LaTex, in press, Astrophysical Journal, September 20, Vol 52

Coupling of Transport and Chemical Processes in Catalytic Combustion

Catalytic combustors have demonstrated the ability to operate efficiently over a much wider range of fuel air ratios than are imposed by the flammability limits of conventional combustors. Extensive commercial use however needs the following: (1) the design of a catalyst with low ignition temperature and high temperature stability, (2) reducing fatigue due to thermal stresses during transient operation, and (3) the development of mathematical models that can be used as design optimization tools to isolate promising operating ranges for the numerous operating parameters. The current program of research involves the development of a two dimensional transient catalytic combustion model and the development of a new catalyst with low temperature light-off and high temperature stablity characteristics

SBF Distances to Dwarf Elliptical Galaxies in the Sculptor Group

As part of an ongoing search for dwarf elliptical galaxies (dE) in the vicinity of the Local Group, we acquired deep B and R-band images for five dE candidates identified in the Sculptor (Scl) group region. We carried out a surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) analysis on the R-band images to measure the apparent fluctuation magnitude \bar{m}_R for each dE. Using predictions from stellar population synthesis models the galaxy distances were determined. All of these dE candidates turned out to be satellites of Scl group major members. A redshift measurement of the dE candidate ESO294-010 yielded an independent confirmation of its group membership: the [OIII] and H$_\alpha$ emission lines from a small HII region gave a heliocentric velocity of 117(\pm 5) km s-1, in close agreement with the velocity of its parent galaxy NGC 55 (v_\odot=125 km s-1). The precision of the SBF distances (5 to 10%) contributes to delineating the cigar-like distribution of the Scl group members, which extend over distances from 1.7 to 4.4 Mpc and are concentrated in three, possibly four subclumps. The Hubble diagram for nine Scl galaxies, including two of our dEs, exhibits a tight linear velocity--distance relation with a steep slope of 119 km s-1 Mpc-1. The results indicate that gravitational interaction among the Scl group members plays only a minor role in the dynamics of the group. However, the Hubble flow of the entire system appears strongly disturbed by the large masses of our Galaxy and M31 leading to the observed shearing motion. From the distances and velocities of 49 galaxies located in the Local Group and towards the Scl group, we illustrate the continuity of the galaxy distribution which strongly supports the view that the two groups form a single supergalactic structure.Comment: To appear in The Astronomical Journal, December 1998; 28 pages with 22 figure

Methods to elicit probability distributions from experts: a systematic review of reported practice in health technology assessment

The final publication is available at Springer via the DOI in this record.BACKGROUND: Elicitation is a technique that can be used to obtain probability distribution from experts about unknown quantities. We conducted a methodology review of reports where probability distributions had been elicited from experts to be used in model-based health technology assessments. METHODS: Databases including MEDLINE, EMBASE and the CRD database were searched from inception to April 2013. Reference lists were checked and citation mapping was also used. Studies describing their approach to the elicitation of probability distributions were included. Data was abstracted on pre-defined aspects of the elicitation technique. Reports were critically appraised on their consideration of the validity, reliability and feasibility of the elicitation exercise. RESULTS: Fourteen articles were included. Across these studies, the most marked features were heterogeneity in elicitation approach and failure to report key aspects of the elicitation method. The most frequently used approaches to elicitation were the histogram technique and the bisection method. Only three papers explicitly considered the validity, reliability and feasibility of the elicitation exercises. CONCLUSION: Judged by the studies identified in the review, reports of expert elicitation are insufficient in detail and this impacts on the perceived usability of expert-elicited probability distributions. In this context, the wider credibility of elicitation will only be improved by better reporting and greater standardisation of approach. Until then, the advantage of eliciting probability distributions from experts may be lost.NIH

Solar Oscillations and Convection: II. Excitation of Radial Oscillations

Solar p-mode oscillations are excited by the work of stochastic, non-adiabatic, pressure fluctuations on the compressive modes. We evaluate the expression for the radial mode excitation rate derived by Nordlund and Stein (Paper I) using numerical simulations of near surface solar convection. We first apply this expression to the three radial modes of the simulation and obtain good agreement between the predicted excitation rate and the actual mode damping rates as determined from their energies and the widths of their resolved spectral profiles. We then apply this expression for the mode excitation rate to the solar modes and obtain excellent agreement with the low l damping rates determined from GOLF data. Excitation occurs close to the surface, mainly in the intergranular lanes and near the boundaries of granules (where turbulence and radiative cooling are large). The non-adiabatic pressure fluctuations near the surface are produced by small instantaneous local imbalances between the divergence of the radiative and convective fluxes near the solar surface. Below the surface, the non-adiabatic pressure fluctuations are produced primarily by turbulent pressure fluctuations (Reynolds stresses). The frequency dependence of the mode excitation is due to effects of the mode structure and the pressure fluctuation spectrum. Excitation is small at low frequencies due to mode properties -- the mode compression decreases and the mode mass increases at low frequency. Excitation is small at high frequencies due to the pressure fluctuation spectrum -- pressure fluctuations become small at high frequencies because they are due to convection which is a long time scale phenomena compared to the dominant p-mode periods.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ (scheduled for Dec 10, 2000 issue). 17 pages, 27 figures, some with reduced resolution -- high resolution versions available at http://www.astro.ku.dk/~aake/astro-ph/0008048

Visualizing elements of Sha[3] in genus 2 jacobians

Mazur proved that any element xi of order three in the Shafarevich-Tate group of an elliptic curve E over a number field k can be made visible in an abelian surface A in the sense that xi lies in the kernel of the natural homomorphism between the cohomology groups H^1(k,E) -> H^1(k,A). However, the abelian surface in Mazur's construction is almost never a jacobian of a genus 2 curve. In this paper we show that any element of order three in the Shafarevich-Tate group of an elliptic curve over a number field can be visualized in the jacobians of a genus 2 curve. Moreover, we describe how to get explicit models of the genus 2 curves involved.Comment: 12 page

Measurement of band offsets in Si/Si1–xGex and Si/Si1–x–yGexCy heterojunctions

Realization of group IV heterostructure devices requires the accurate measurement of the energy band offsets in Si/Si1–xGex and Si/Si1–x–yGexCy heterojunctions. Using admittance spectroscopy, we have measured valence-band offsets in Si/Si1–xGex heterostructures and conduction-band and valence-band offsets in Si/Si1–x–yGexCy heterostructures grown by solid-source molecular-beam epitaxy. Measured Si/Si1–xGex valence-band offsets were in excellent agreement with previously reported values. For Si/Si1–x–yGexCy our measurements yielded a conduction-band offset of 100 ± 11 meV for a n-type Si/Si0.82Ge0.169C0.011 heterojunction and valence-band offsets of 118 ± 12 meV for a p-type Si/Si0.79Ge0.206C0.004 heterojunction and 223 ± 20 meV for a p-type Si/Si0.595Ge0.394C0.011 heterojunction. Comparison of our measured band offsets with previously reported measurements of energy band gaps in Si1–x–yGexCy and Si1–yCy alloy layers indicates that the band alignment is type I for the compositions we have studied and that our measured band offsets are in quantitative agreement with these previously reported results