Resilient bearing supports are gas controlled

Self-acting, partial-arc, pivoted-pad bearings in which the bearing-to-journal applied load is pneumatically controlled are used in the operation of a radial flow gas generator where shaft speeds are on the order of 38,500 rpm

Panako: a scalable acoustic fingerprinting system handling time-scale and pitch modification

In this paper a scalable granular acoustic fingerprinting system robust against time and pitch scale modification is presented. The aim of acoustic fingerprinting is to identify identical, or recognize similar, audio fragments in a large set using condensed representations of audio signals, i.e. fingerprints. A robust fingerprinting system generates similar fingerprints for perceptually similar audio signals. The new system, presented here, handles a variety of distortions well. It is designed to be robust against pitch shifting, time stretching and tempo changes, while remaining scalable. After a query, the system returns the start time in the reference audio, and the amount of pitch shift and tempo change that has been applied. The design of the system that offers this unique combination of features is the main contribution of this research. The fingerprint itself consists of a combination of key points in a Constant-Q spectrogram. The system is evaluated on commodity hardware using a freely available reference database with fingerprints of over 30.000 songs. The results show that the system responds quickly and reliably on queries, while handling time and pitch scale modifications of up to ten percent

Platelet Biochemistry and Morphology after Cryopreservation

Platelet cryopreservation has been investigated for several decades as an alternative to room temperature storage of platelet concentrates. The use of dimethylsulfoxide as a cryoprotectant has improved platelet storage and cryopreserved concentrates can be kept at −80 °C for two years. Cryopreserved platelets can serve as emergency backup to support stock crises or to disburden difficult logistic areas like rural or military regions. Cryopreservation significantly influences platelet morphology, decreases platelet activation and severely abrogates platelet aggregation. Recent data indicate that cryopreserved platelets have a procoagulant phenotype because thrombin and fibrin formation kicks in earlier compared to room temperature stored platelets. This happens both in static and hydrodynamic conditions. In a clinical setting, low 1-h post transfusion recoveries of cryopreserved platelets represent fast clearance from circulation which may be explained by changes to the platelet GPIbα receptor. Cryopreservation splits the concentrate in two platelet subpopulations depending on GPIbα expression levels. Further research is needed to unravel its physiological importance. Proving clinical efficacy of cryopreserved platelets is difficult because of the heterogeneity of indications and the ambiguity of outcome measures. The procoagulant character of cryopreserved platelets has increased interest for use in trauma stressing the need for double-blinded randomized clinical trials in actively bleeding patients

Ray tracing of Jovian low frequency radiation

The radio emission from Jupiter in the decametric range (2 to 40 MHz) has been studied for three decades. It is known that this emission is correlated with particular longitude regions on the planet and with the position of the satellite Io. The Planetary Radio Astronomy experiment on the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft observed this emission, obtaining valuable new information. The objectives of this study are as follows: (1) calculate raypaths for decametric wavelength radiation in Jupiter's magnetosphere; (2) compare the model-dependent raypaths with the Voyager observations; and (3) deduce characteristics of the source regions and the influence of propagation effects

Asymptotic expansions of Laplace integrals for quantum state tomography

Bayesian estimation of a mixed quantum state can be approximated via maximum likelihood (MaxLike) estimation when the likelihood function is sharp around its maximum. Such approximations rely on asymptotic expansions of multi-dimensional Laplace integrals. When this maximum is on the boundary of the integration domain, as it is the case when the MaxLike quantum state is not full rank, such expansions are not standard. We provide here such expansions, even when this maximum does not belong to the smooth part of the boundary, as it is the case when the rank deficiency exceeds two. These expansions provide, aside the MaxLike estimate of the quantum state, confidence intervals for any observable. They confirm the formula proposed and used without precise mathematical justifications by the authors in an article recently published in Physical Review A.Comment: 17 pages, submitte

Solar Brayton engine/alternator set

Work on the Mod O solar Brayton engine/alternator set is redirected to utilize solarized components of the automotive advanced gas turbine (AGT). The new configuration is referred to as the Mod I. Commercialization of solar Brayton engines thus should be enhanced not only by relating the design to an engine expected to reach the high quantity, low cost production rates associated with the automotive market, but also by the potential the AGT components provide for growth of efficiency and power rating. This growth would be achieved through use of ceramics in later versions making operation possible at temperatures up to 2500 F. The longer program duration and higher cost of the Mod I is considered

Towards the tangible: microtonal scale exploration in Central-African music

This proposal presents TARSOS, an easy-to-use platform for automated pitch analysis especially designed to explore non-Western music. Two considerations were the starting point of this research: i) thnomusicology is mainly performed from an anthropological and ethnographical approach, and ii) current Music Information Retrieval (MIR) applications are biased towards Western music and are thus not suitable to the particularities of other musical cultures. This research tries to develop an unbiased approach by a flexible interface for detection and representation of tone scales. No predispositions towards a certain music theory or pitch organization are made. Our goal is to document an aspect of the endangered musical heritage of African oral cultures, namely tone scale diversity

Der Architekt Leonhard Romeis (1854-1904)

Leonhard Romeis (1854-1904) was an architect of historism and professor at the school of applied arts in Munich. He designed arts-and-crafts objects, sacral and profane buildings in various styles, as well as a group of mansions and villas in Munich which can almost all be catagorized under the "German-Renaissance" style. In this thesis this nearly forgotten architect's life and works will be reconstructed and presented. Two of his houses commissioned by the artists Eduard von Grützner and Ernst Ludwig Plaß will be analysed. The characteristics of his design are illustrated by comparing these two buildings with his other houses. Moreover the buildings will be classified in the context of Munich artists’ houses at the end of the 19th century. As the villa for Ernst Ludwig Plaß is part of a twin house it basically does not differ from its counterpart, the villa for municipal schools inspector Georg Kerschensteiner. However when designing houses for Eduard von Grützner and Anton Hess, Romeis had to integrate a collection of work of arts and furnishing in the houses and therefore had to adapt the houses to the collected objects. Romeis' buildings were modelled on timber framing from Franconia (Bavaria) and Architecture from South Tyrol. Basic structures of front plan and elevation have been adopted from the South Tyrolian Renaisance-Style. After the evaluation and classification of Romeis' buildings the appreciation of his producing by his coevals will be discussed. At the end of the text a catalogue of the one-family-houses and villas in Munich and the sourrounding area designed by Leonhard Romeis can be found.Leonhard Romeis (1854 – 1904), dem Historismus verpflichteter Architekt und Professor an der Kunstgewerbeschule in München, schuf neben kunstgewerblichen Entwürfen, Sakral- und Profanbauten verschiedenster Stilarten in München eine Werkgruppe von Wohnhäusern und Villen, die fast alle dem Stil der sog. "Deutschen Renaissance" zuzuordnen sind. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden Leben und Werk des heute fast vergessenen Baumeisters rekonstruiert und vorgestellt. Aus Romeis' Oeuvre werden exemplarisch zwei von Künstlern in Auftrag gegebene Gebäude, das Grützner-Haus und die Plaß-Villa, analysiert. Die Charakteristika seiner Formensprache werden anhand von Vergleichen mit seinen anderen Wohnhausbauten herausgearbeitet und die Gebäude in den Kontext der Münchner Künstlervillen Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts eingeordnet. Während die Villa für Ernst Ludwig Plaß als Teil eines Doppelhauses sich nicht grundsätzlich von seinem für den Stadtschulrat Kerschensteiner geplanten Pendant unterscheidet, hatte Romeis bei den Häusern für Eduard von Grützner und Anton Hess eine Sammlung von Kunst und Einrichtungsgegenständen in den Bau zu integrieren bzw. vielmehr die Gebäude den Sammlungsgegenständen anzupassen. Fränkisches Fachwerk und Südtiroler Ansitz-Architektur dienten als Vorbilder für Romeis' Bauten, der Südtiroler Renaissancestil ist darin zum Teil in Grund- und Aufriß wiederzufinden. Nach der Bewertung und Einordnung von Romeis' Bauten wird die Würdigung seines Schaffens durch die Zeitgenossen thematisiert. Der Textband enthält zudem einen Katalog der von Leonhard Romeis geplanten freistehenden Einfamilienhäuser in München und Umgebung

Fungal phoenix rising from the ashes?

During May 2010, sporocarps of what appeared to be an Armillaria sp. were found in large clumps in historic Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens on the foot of Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa. These sporocarps could be physically linked to the roots of unidentified dead trees and Protea spp. The aim of this study was to identify the Armillaria sp. found fruiting in Kirstenbosch. To achieve this goal isolates were made from the mycelium under the bark of dead roots linked to sporocarps. The ITS and IGS-1 regions were sequenced and compared to sequences of Armillaria spp. available on GenBank. Cladograms were generated using ITS sequences to determine the phylogenetic relationship of the isolates with other Armillaria spp. Sequence comparisons and phylogenetic analyses showed that the isolates represented A. mellea. They were also identical to isolates of this species previously discovered in the Company Gardens in South Africa and introduced from Europe apparently by the early Dutch Settlers. Armillaria mellea is alien and apparently invasive in Cape Town, fruits profusely and has the potential to spread to sensitive native forests on the foothills of the City