METHOD OF MONITORING CHARGE CONDITION OF HEAT PUMP SYSTEM

A heat-pump circuit may include an indoor heat exchanger, an outdoor heat exchanger, a compressor adapted to circulate a working fluid between the indoor and outdoor heat exchangers, and an expansion device disposed between the indoor and outdoor heat exchangers. A monitor for the heat-pump system may include a return-air temperature sensor, a supply-air temperature sensor, and a processor. The return-air temperature sensor may be adapted to measure a first air temperature of air upstream of the indoor heat exchanger. The supply-air temperature sensor may be adapted to measure a second air temperature of air down stream of the indoor heat exchanger. The processor may be in communication with the return-air temperature sensor and the supply-air temperature sensor. The processor may be programmed to determine a working-fluid-charge condition of the heat-pump system based on the first and second air temperatures

Collaborative Pacific Halibut, Hippoglossus stenolepis, Bycatch Control by Canada and the United States

ABSTRACT—Bycatch mortality of Pacific halibut, Hippoglossus stenolepis, in nontarget fisheries is composed primarily of immature fish, and substantial reductions in yield to directed halibut fisheries result from this bycatch. Distant-water bottomtrawl fleets operating off the North American coast, beginning in the mid 1960’s, experienced bycatch mortality of over 12,000 t annually. Substantial progress on reducing this bycatch was not achieved until the of extension fisheries jurisdictions by the United States and Canada in 1977. Bycatch began to increase again during the expansion of domestic catching capacity for groundfish, and by the early 1990’s it had returned to levels seen during the period of foreign fishing. Collaborative action by Canada and the United States through the International Pacific Halibut Commission has resulted in substantial reductions in bycatch mortality in some areas. Methods of control have operated at global, fleet, and individual vessel levels. We evaluate the hierarchy of effectiveness for these control measures and identify regulatory needs for optimum effects. New monitoring technologies offer the promise of more cost-effective approaches to bycatch reduction

An Engineering Approach to the Variable Fluid Property Problem in Free Convection

An analysis is made for the variable fluid property problem for laminar free convection on an isothermal vertical flat plate. For a number of specific cases, solutions of the boundary layer equations appropriate to the variable property situation were carried out for gases and liquid mercury. Utilizing these findings, a simple and accurate shorthand procedure is presented for calculating free convection heat transfer under variable property conditions. This calculation method is well established in the heat transfer field. It involves the use of results which have been derived for constant property fluids, and of a set of rules (called reference temperatures) for extending these constant property results to variable property situations. For gases, the constant property heat transfer results are generalized to the variable property situation by replacing beta (expansion coefficient) by one over T sub infinity and evaluating the other properties at T sub r equals T sub w minus zero point thirty-eight (T sub w minus T sub infinity). For liquid mercury, the generalization may be accomplished by evaluating all the properties (including beta) at this same T sub r. It is worthwhile noting that for these fluids, the film temperature (with beta equals one over T sub infinity for gases) appears to serve as an adequate reference temperature for most applications. Results are also presented for boundary layer thickness and velocity parameters

Local-dephasing-induced entanglement sudden death in two-component finite-dimensional systems

Entanglement sudden death (ESD), the complete loss of entanglement in finite time, is demonstrated to occur in a class of bipartite states of qu-d-it pairs of any finite dimension d > 2, when prepared in so-called `isotropic states' and subject to multi-local dephasing noise alone. This extends previous results for qubit pairs [T. Yu, J. H. Eberly, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 140403 (2006)] to all qu-d-it pairs with d > 2.Comment: 8 pages, to appear in Phys. Rev.

A Panchromatic View of Brown Dwarf Aurorae

Stellar coronal activity has been shown to persist into the low-mass star regime, down to late M-dwarf spectral types. However, there is now an accumulation of evidence suggesting that at the end of the main sequence there is a transition in the nature of the magnetic activity from chromospheric and coronal to planet-like and auroral, from local impulsive heating via flares and MHD wave dissipation to energy dissipation from strong large-scale magnetospheric current systems. We examine this transition and the prevalence of auroral activity in brown dwarfs through a compilation of multi-wavelength surveys of magnetic activity, including radio, X-ray, and optical. We compile the results of those surveys and place their conclusions in the context of auroral emission as the consequence of large-scale magnetospheric current systems that accelerate energetic electron beams and drive the particles to impact the cool atmospheric gas. We explore the different manifestation of auroral phenomena in brown dwarf atmospheres, like H$\alpha$, and define their distinguishing characteristics. We conclude that large amplitude photometric variability in the near infrared is most likely a consequence of clouds in brown dwarf atmospheres, but that auroral activity may be responsible for long-lived stable surface features. We report a connection between auroral H$\alpha$ emission and quiescent radio emission in ECMI pulsing brown dwarfs, suggesting a potential underlying physical connection between the quiescent and auroral emissions. We also discuss the electrodynamic engines powering brown dwarf aurorae and the possible role of satellites around these systems to both power the aurorae and seed the magnetosphere with plasma.Comment: 26 pages, 17 figures, and 2 tables; accepted to Ap