Erin Duran, LGBTQA Advisor and Residential Life Coordinator

In this new Next Page column, Erin Duran, LGBTQA Advisor and Residential Life Coordinator, shares with us the name of the author he appreciates even more now that he knows said author is from his home state of Texas, which title caught his attention as a sixth grader (and the hit song played on repeat while reading!), and which authors he frequently recommends to students for their challenging (in a good way) discussion of LGBTQA topics

Erin Duran, LGBTQA Advisor and Residential Life Coordinator

In this new Next Page column, Erin Duran, LGBTQA Advisor and Residential Life Coordinator, shares with us the name of the author he appreciates even more now that he knows said author is from his home state of Texas, which title caught his attention as a sixth grader (and the hit song played on repeat while reading!), and which authors he frequently recommends to students for their challenging (in a good way) discussion of LGBTQA topics

7 Things Churches Can Do to Make Queer People Feel Welcome

For as long as I can remember, the church, for me, has been a place characterized by shame and hurt. I remember Christian high school friends telling me that I would go to hell for being Queer. I remember hearing sermons from televangelists about the evils of homosexuality, and church leaders pressuring youth leaders to cast out their Queer members. I\u27ve heard more talk of love the sinner, hate the sin, and God didn\u27t make gay, than anyone should, and I\u27ve even received personalized hate mail declaring that God hates dykes. [excerpt

Test fixture insures high degree of accuracy in flexure tests

Modified die set improves accuracy in load application, minimizes problems of parallelism, and eliminates testing errors normally encountered during flexure tests. Test results are given for a comparison test of the old and new fixtures

Ripples in Tapped or Blown Powder

We observe ripples forming on the surface of a granular powder in a container submitted from below to a series of brief and distinct shocks. After a few taps, the pattern turns out to be stable against any further shock of the same amplitude. We find experimentally that the characteristic wavelength of the pattern is proportional to the amplitude of the shocks. Starting from consideration involving Darcy's law for air flow through the porous granulate and avalanche properties, we build up a semi-quantitative model which fits satisfactorily the set of experimental observations as well as a couple of additional experiments.Comment: 7 pages, four postscript figures, submitted PRL 11/19/9

Simulations of Pattern Formation in Vibrated Granular Media

We present simulations of peak pattern formation in vibrated two-dimensional (2D) granulates and measure the dispersion relation of the pattern for various frequencies, accelerations, cell sizes, and layer heights. We report the first quantitative data from numerical simulations showing an interesting dependence of the pattern wavelength on the acceleration and the system size. Our results are related to recent experimental findings and theoretical predictions for gravity waves.Comment: 6 pages PS-file including figures, (version accepted at Europhys. Lett. 26.10.96

Simulations of dense granular flow: Dynamic Arches and Spin Organization

We present a numerical model for a two dimensional (2D) granular assembly, falling in a rectangular container when the bottom is removed. We observe the occurrence of cracks splitting the initial pile into pieces, like in experiments. We study in detail various mechanisms connected to the `discontinuous decompaction' of this granular material. In particular, we focus on the history of one single long range crack, from its origin at one side wall, until it breaks the assembly into two pieces. This event is correlated to an increase in the number of collisions, i.e. strong pressure, and to a momentum wave originated by one particle. Eventually, strong friction reduces the falling velocity such that the crack may open below the slow, high pressure `dynamic arch'. Furthermore, we report the presence of large, organized structures of the particles' angular velocities in the dense parts of the granulate when the number of collisions is large.Comment: Submitted to J. Phys.

Multiphase Machines and Drives-Revisited

Although the concept of a multiphase drive system dates back to the middle of the 20th century, the initial pace of development was rather slow, as witnessed by the first two surveys of the area published in the beginning of this century. However, considerably new developments have resulted in the last decade of the 20th century and the beginning of this century, leading to an authoritative survey of the asymmetrical six-phase drive control and subsequently of the review of the complete area. This also initiated the organization and subsequent publication of the first IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics "Special Section on Multiphase Machines and Drives" in May 2008, which commenced with another survey paper, and that contained 12 original research papers. Since the publication of this Special Section in May 2008, the level of interest and pace of developments in the area have further accelerated and substantial new knowledge has been generatedwith an ever-increasing number of published research papers and reported new industrial applications. Such a trend has been emphasized in a recent paper. It therefore seemed appropriate to revisit the area and organize this Special Section as a sequel to the first one. The call for the Special Section papers resulted in 51 submissions, almost twice as many as the total back in 2008, thus confirming a substantial growth of the area. Indeed, the amount of new knowledge acquired since the publication of the first Special Section in 2008 has meant that it was not possible to provide a complete and thorough survey of the field in a single review paper