Entropy production and Onsager symmetry in neoclassical transport processes of toroidal plasmas

Entropy production and Onsager symmetry in neoclassical transport processes of magnetically confined plasmas are studied in detail for general toroidal systems, including nonaxisymmetric configurations. It is found that the flux surface average of the entropy production defined from the linearized collision operator and the gyroangle-averaged distribution function coincides with the sum of the inner products of the thermodynamic forces and the conjugate fluxes consisting of the Pfirsch?Schl?ter, banana-plateau, nonaxisymmetric parts of the neoclassical radial fluxes and the parallel current. It is proved from the self-adjointness of the linearized collision operator that the Onsager symmetry is robustly valid for the neoclassical transport equations in the cases of general toroidal plasmas consisting of electrons and multi-species ions with arbitrary collision frequencies. It is shown that the Onsager symmetry holds whether or not the ambipolarity condition is used to reduce the number of the conjugate pairs of the transport fluxes and the thermodynamic forces. The full transport coefficients for the banana-plateau and nonaxisymmetric parts are separately derived, and their symmetry properties are investigated. The nonaxisymmetric transport equations are obtained for arbitrary collision frequencies in the Pfirsch?Schl?ter and plateau regimes, and it is directly confirmed that the total banana-plateau and nonaxisymmetric transport equations satisfy the Onsager symmetry. ?1996 American Institute of Physics

Singularity theory study of overdetermination in models for L-H transitions

Two dynamical models that have been proposed to describe transitions between low and high confinement states (L-H transitions) in confined plasmas are analysed using singularity theory and stability theory. It is shown that the stationary-state bifurcation sets have qualitative properties identical to standard normal forms for the pitchfork and transcritical bifurcations. The analysis yields the codimension of the highest-order singularities, from which we find that the unperturbed systems are overdetermined bifurcation problems and derive appropriate universal unfoldings. Questions of mutual equivalence and the character of the state transitions are addressed.Comment: Latex (Revtex) source + 13 small postscript figures. Revised versio

Transport processes and entropy production in toroidal plasmas with gyrokinetic electromagnetic turbulence

Transport processes and resultant entropy production in magnetically confined plasmas are studied in detail for toroidal systems with gyrokinetic electromagnetic turbulence. The kinetic equation including the turbulent fluctuations are double averaged over the ensemble and the gyrophase. The entropy balance equation is derived from the double-averaged kinetic equation with the nonlinear gyrokinetic equation for the fluctuating distribution function. The result clarifies the spatial transport and local production of the entropy due to the classical, neoclassical and anomalous transport processes, respectively. For the anomalous transport process due to the electromagnetic turbulence as well as the classical and neoclassical processes, the kinetic form of the entropy production is rewritten as the thermodynamic form, from which the conjugate pairs of the thermodynamic forces and the transport fluxes are identified. The Onsager symmetry for the anomalous transport equations is shown to be valid within the quasilinear framework. The complete energy balance equation, which takes account of the anomalous transport and exchange of energy due to the fluctuations, is derived from the ensemble-averaged kinetic equation. The intrinsic ambipolarity of the anomalous particle fluxes is shown to hold for the self-consistent turbulent electromagnetic fields satisfying Poisson\u27s equation and Amp?re\u27s law

A preliminary Rorschach investigation of psychological conflict and interpersonal experience in felons committing crimes against people and against property

The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in measures of psychological conflict and interpersonal experience between felons committing crimes against people and against property. The instrument used was Rorschach\u27s test. The variables compared were psychosexual drive expressions and motivational valuation as measured by the Burstein-Loucks comprehensive Rorschach scoring system (1989). Results demonstrated a significant difference in psychosexual drive conflict and benevolent interpersonal expectations between the groups. There was no significant difference between the groups with respect to malevolent expectations. The results demonstrating felons committing crimes against people display a higher amount of psychological conflict and benevolent interpersonal experiences suggest a lack of psychological development. The results are discussed in terms of the fixation/regression model of mental development (Fenichel, 1945) and the concept of splitting (Kernberg, 1975)

Effect of Electron Energy Distribution Function on Power Deposition and Plasma Density in an Inductively Coupled Discharge at Very Low Pressures

A self-consistent 1-D model was developed to study the effect of the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) on power deposition and plasma density profiles in a planar inductively coupled plasma (ICP) in the non-local regime (pressure < 10 mTorr). The model consisted of three modules: (1) an electron energy distribution function (EEDF) module to compute the non-Maxwellian EEDF, (2) a non-local electron kinetics module to predict the non-local electron conductivity, RF current, electric field and power deposition profiles in the non-uniform plasma, and (3) a heavy species transport module to solve for the ion density and velocity profiles as well as the metastable density. Results using the non-Maxwellian EEDF model were compared with predictions using a Maxwellian EEDF, under otherwise identical conditions. The RF electric field, current, and power deposition profiles were different, especially at 1mTorr, for which the electron effective mean free path was larger than the skin depth. The plasma density predicted by the Maxwellian EEDF was up to 93% larger for the conditions examined. Thus, the non-Maxwellian EEDF must be accounted for in modeling ICPs at very low pressures.Comment: 19 pages submitted to Plasma Sources Sci. Techno

Cooperation between NRF-2 and YY-1 transcription factors is essential for triggering the expression of the PREPL-C2ORF34 bidirectional gene pair

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many mammalian genes are organized as bidirectional (head-to-head) gene pairs with the two genes separated only by less than 1 kb. The transcriptional regulation of these bidirectional gene pairs remains largely unclear, but a few studies have suggested that the two closely adjacent genes in divergent orientation can be co-regulated by a single transcription factor binding to a specific regulatory fragment. Here we report an evolutionarily conserved bidirectional gene pair, known as the <it>PREPL-C2ORF34 </it>gene pair, whose transcription relies on the synergic cooperation of two transcription factors binding to an intergenic bidirectional minimal promoter.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>While <it>PREPL </it>is present primarily in brain and heart, <it>C2ORF34 </it>is ubiquitously and abundantly expressed in almost all tissues. Genomic analyses revealed that these two non-homologous genes are adjacent in a head-to-head configuration on human chromosome 2p21 and separated by only 405 bp. Within this short intergenic region, a 243-bp GC-rich segment was demonstrated to function as a bidirectional minimal promoter to initiate the transcription of both flanking genes. Two key transcription factors, NRF-2 and YY-1, were further identified to coordinately participate in driving both gene expressions in an additive manner. The functional cooperation between these two transcription factors, along with their genomic binding sites and some cis-acting repressive elements, are essential for the transcriptional activation and tissue distribution of the <it>PREPL-C2ORF34 </it>bidirectional gene pair.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study provides new insights into the complex transcriptional mechanism of a mammalian head-to-head gene pair which requires cooperative binding of multiple transcription factors to a bidirectional minimal promoter of the shared intergenic region.</p

Final Technical Report on DOE Grant for Modeling of Plasma Rotation in the National Spherical Torus Experiment

This is the final technical report on the Modeling of Plasma Rotation in National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-02ER54679. The research subjects, technical abstracts, and publications where details of the research results can be found are reported here