Loose Sphere Research Articles

Big Bang, with Sternutation and Seer Stones

i.In the beginning, Mother worked yleminto a loose sphere. A swirl of stray particles,stirred by the breeze blown through herstudio window, circled her workbench,tickled her nose. She rubbed it, sneezed.Light filled the globe she held in her palm,seared it to a sea of glass and fire. Shepolished it marble-smooth with her apronthen, calling Father to come see, balanced iton the brim of the universe, stepped back,watched it sputter, spin, orbitinto the cosmos’ overturned hat. ii.Faces pressed tight in the hat's mouth,Mother, Father watched the orb whirl, churn,effloresce, breathe. Their eyes burning withfocus, they traced its off-kilter pirouettethrough the darkness, translatingits circuit around their peepinginto prophecy. Its respirations stirredtheir fervor, flooded their knowingwith the promise and uncertainty of lifesprawling across the sphere. Consciousnessflickered in the chaos. Mother exhaled,whispered the spark to smolder, flare, blaze. iii.God-bodies stirred in the burning. Piqued,Mother, Father leaned in, inhaled,ash whirling helical in their huffing,the whorl baring the paired adamah: dyadtangled fetal in red soil. Mother, Fatherpraised the unfolding, prodded the bodiesto sigh, to rise, to shake soot fromsaurian skin, to amble forth—fever-hotand hungry—and plunder the Gods’ orchard. iv.Baskets ripe with their picking, their take,the adamah—weary from reaching—looked God-ward, stretched, sat againsta tree. The orchard's dappled canopy,whispering like scales confessingthe Gods’ oracles, gossipedwith the harvest. Eavesdropping,the adamah—insatiate—palmed a drupe,took a bite, breathed its sweetness whilemulling its flesh, its inebriating grace. v.Fingering the drupe-stone, tracingthe ancient and always unfolding breviaryetched in the seed-face, the adamahbreathed in (two, three, four),breathed out (two, three, four, five),blew open the cosmos. Emergence andmovement murmured in the reverie:Mother, Father chatting in the next room,trilling laughter and “Let there be . . . ,”their gerunds palimpsest and penumbrae,life written on and written over,the groove of ritual and remembering,epiphanies and recurring dreams.Their conversation seared the drupe-stoneseared the open palm of the adamah'speeping. The seed cracked wide, sighedflaming tongues of quanta throughthe holy book of appetence and consciousness.

Nondestructive evaluation of solid cargo inside cylindrical containers with linear and nonlinear resonance spectroscopy

Nondestructive evaluation (NDE) of cylindrical containers is of critical importance because of their ubiquity in industrial applications. However, there is a paucity of research on the NDE of solid cargo inside sealed enclosures with external sensors. This talk covers the application of linear and nonlinear resonance spectroscopy to the NDE of cargo inside cylindrical containers. The first study focused on a Transnuclear-32 (TN-32) cask used for the dry storage of spent nuclear fuel assemblies. The modes of the TN-32 were measured onsite and Finite Element Analysis was used to investigate modal changes due to loadings of fuel assemblies. Because of the difficulties introducing damage to fuel assemblies inside a TN-32, a 1:6 scaled cask containing 32 mock-up fuel assemblies was manufactured for laboratory studies. Using the linear approach, metrics were developed that could detect cargo damage down to the single assembly level. To resolve the signatures of damaged versus missing assemblies, nonlinear ultrasound resonance spectroscopy was utilized to investigate the contact nonlinearity between a smaller scale container and loose spheres which mimicked internal debris. Based on the resulting data, a phenomenological contact-loss model was developed which could estimate the total mass of the spheres regardless of the material and radius.

An average model for disordered sphere packings

In this paper, an assembly of disordered packings is considered as a suitable set of packing cells of ordered spheres. In consequence, any of its parameters can be obtained by averaging the values of the set. Namely, the density of a packing of ordered spheres is described by two variables: the angle of the base, and the angle of the inclined edge of the associated parallelepiped. Then, the density of a packing of disordered spheres is obtained by averaging the angle of the base, and the subsequent averaging of the other angle, according to the kind of strain induced by the experiment. The average packing yields the density limits of loose sphere assemblies achieved by a process of fluidization and sedimentation in air, in water, and in viscous liquid at zero gravitational force. It also models the close sphere assemblies shaped by gentle tapping, vertical shaking, horizontal and multidirectional vibrations. The theory allows to elucidate the mechanism of each of the limits, as, for example, the metastable columns of spheres in the loosest packing, as well as the random close packing, and crystallization. The limits obtained coincide very well with the published experimental, numerical and theoretical data.

PSVII-10 Evaluation of different biochar sources added at two inclusion levels in a grass hay- based diet on dry matter disappearance and ruminal fermentation parameters in vitro

Abstract This study evaluated the impact of adding biochar to a grass hay-based diet on in vitro dry matter disappearance (DMD), total gas production (GP), methane production (CH4), volatile fatty acid (VFA) and ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) concentration. Treatments were arranged in a factorial design with 7 biochar products differing in origin (pine or coconut-based) and physical properties (course, fine or loose spheres) at 2 inclusion levels (2.25% and 4.5% of DM) and a grass hay-only control. On each three successive weeks, rumen fluid was collected from 2 ruminally cannulated beef heifers fed a grass hay-based diet, pooled and mixed with a buffer solution (1:2) and treatments incubated in triplicate for 48 h. Gas pressure was recorded at 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36 and 48 h of incubation, and gas was collected at each time to measure CH4. At 48 h, pH was measured and the supernatant sampled for determination of VFA and NH3-N, while the residue was used to estimate DMD. Dry matter disappearance decreased (P < 0.05) with increasing addition of biochar. Biochar did not affect GP or CH4, but did reduce (P < 0.05) gas production per g of DM incubated (111.7 vs 107.8 ml/g), but not per g DMD. The lower GP per g DM incubated could be related to the increased proportion of the diet as biochar, without it contributing to GP. Biochar, irrespective of level did not affect the total or molar proportions of VFA. There was a biochar x inclusion level interaction (P < 0.04) in NH3-N concentration. Biochar type and inclusion level in the present study had little or no significant effect on in vitro fermentation and did not mitigate CH4 production from a grass hay-based diet.

Civil Society and Civil Justice: Teaching with Technology to Help Close the Justice Gap for Non-Profit Organizations

Technological innovation, climate change, economic inequality, globalization, and the increased migration of individuals and families to urban settings are all changing the way humans work, relate to each other and themselves, engage with the wider world, and form community. These forces are altering the relationship of the individual to the state, and between the individual and civil society: that loose sphere of organizations, associations, and collections of individuals that exist beyond government and the business sector. These groups that make up civil society play a significant role in the lives of individuals and families throughout the world. They mediate religious worship, educate youth and adults alike, heal us when we are sick, channel competition in sports, and help individuals work collectively to topple dictators. Technological innovations are affecting how these organizations function and communicate and often play a role in the social change such organizations and networks pursue. But the organizations themselves must adapt to changing environments, new needs spurred by such change, and the ways in which the legal ecosystem is itself also changing, spurred on by technological innovation as well. This Article explores whether the technological changes afoot in society generally, and the legal services sector in particular, can expand access to justice for non-profit organizations through the delivery of web-based legal guidance. It does so by exploring one effort to help non-profits that wish to form under New York State law obtain information and guidance that helps them generate the critical documents such organizations must prepare to organize themselves under state law. This effort was the product of a class taught at Albany Law School, led by one of the co-authors, and in which the two other co-authors were enrolled as students. In this class, entitled “The Law of Social Entrepreneurship and Exempt Organizations,” the students learned not just the substantive law of non-profit entities, they also learned how to incorporate technology into the provision of legal services to non-profit groups to help address the justice gap such organizations face. This Article explores the work of this class and the ways in which the students were able to incorporate technology to improve access to justice for non-profit entities. It is our hope that this process yielded helpful insights into the ways in which one can use technology to improve access to justice for non-profit groups in particular, but also for individuals and other corporate entities as well. This Article will identify these insights and examine what implications they might have for the use of technology to improve access to justice, for both organizations and individuals. It also shows how law schools can incorporate technology-based projects that help close the justice gap generally.

Optimal control of loose spacecraft formations near libration points with collision avoidance

This paper investigates the optimal control of loose leader-following spacecraft formations near libration points. The formation reconfigurations and keepings can be applied at the same time for the loose formations. A loose sphere leader-following formation, i.e., the leader spacecraft moves along the reference Halo orbits while the motions of all follower spacecrafts are restricted to a sphere formation with its center located at the leader, is explored in this study carefully. Collision avoidances among follower spacecrafts are taken into consideration since there are no constraints between followers and then the formation for all followers is loose. A symplectic penalty iteration algorithm is proposed to obtain the optimal solutions with minimization of energy cost. An effective penalty function to avoid collision is developed, and a high efficiency and structure-preserving symplectic method is introduced in the iteration algorithm. Several optimal control problems including formation reconfigurations and formation keepings are solved to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Numerical results show that errors of formations can be reduced to millimeters or smaller only by few control input and the collision can be avoided successfully by the developed penalty function.

The effect of different random number distributions on the porosity of spherical particles

A geometrical loose sphere packing model is initiated by randomly generating initial (x-y) coordinates of every sphere based on a specific distribution. In general, a normal distribution is applied in such models. However, other distributions, such as exponential, log-normal, and arbitrary distributions, may give better packing of particles, resulting in lower porosity values. In this study, the log-normal distribution provides the lowest porosity (40.72%) for mono-sized sphere packing. The same behavior is also shown in multi-sized sphere packing using a log-normal distribution.

Preparation and microwave absorption properties of loose nanoscale Fe 3O 4 spheres

Magnetite nanoparticles are found to assemble into randomly dispersed loose nanoscale spheres with diameters ∼300 nm in ethylene glycol in the presence of polyethylene and a small quantity of polyethyleneimine. Modern analysis methods are employed to provide structure information of the magnetic loose spheres. The ferromagnetic saturation magnetization is ∼80.0 emu g −1, and the coercive force is 209 Oe. The microwave electromagnetic parameters are measured by a vector network analyzer. The synthesized loose spheres exhibit novel microwave properties compared with the conventional Fe 3O 4 nanoparticles. An additional microwave loss peak appears in the Ku band, which is attributed to the loose structure.

Controlled synthesis and characterization of ZnSe nanostructures via a solvothermal approach in a mixed solution

In the present study, ZnSe nanostructures with complex morphologies and different phase structures were synthesized via a solvothermal approach using a mixed solution of triethylenetetramine (TETA) and de-ionized water (DIW). It was found that the phase and morphology of the as-prepared products could be controlled by changing the volume ratio of TETA to DIW. Metastable ZnSe nanoflowers with layered structure could be obtained from pure TETA, which can be transformed to the wurtzite structure after heat-treating at 500 °C in Ar atmosphere. With the addition of DIW, the morphology changed from flowers to spheres, and when the volume ratio of TETA to DIW was 1:1, loose spheres composed of nanoparticles were obtained. Variation of the TETA content in the mixed solvent also allows controlling of the crystallographic phase of ZnSe (wurtzite or zinc blende). Both the as-prepared products and the annealed powders were systematically characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared absorbance spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectroscopy methods.

Existence and spatial limit theorems for lattice and continuum particle systems

We give a general existence result for interacting particle systems with local interactions and bounded jump rates but noncompact state space at each site. We allow for jump events at a site that affect the state of its neighbours. We give a law of large numbers and functional central limit theorem for additive set functions taken over an increasing family of subcubes of $Z^d$. We discuss application to marked spatial point processes with births, deaths and jumps of particles, in particular examples such as continuum and lattice ballistic deposition and a sequential model for random loose sphere packing.

On the definition of an ideal amorphous solid of uniform hard spheres

Perfection of structure is defined firstly by the definition of imperfections that may occur in that structure, and secondly by the strict requirement of absence of those imperfections. An ideal amorphous solid is a geometrical structure with perfectly random (as distinct from disordered) packing of spheres/atoms. This is achieved by requiring all spheres to be in fixed positions (no rattlers) and the packing to obey certain statistical rules (without exceptions). The random configurations of local clusters are described by the mathematics of self-avoiding random walks, and the distribution of mutual contacts (coordination numbers) is described by combinatorics developed in connection with an earlier work on the structure of liquids. Flaws in the structure are defined. An ideal amorphous solid, based on packing of identical spheres and without any flaws, appears to have packing density close to approximately 0.61. Flaws which form clusters with close packing configurations (fcc and hcp) have the effect of increasing the packing density, whereas other type of flaws, i.e., loose spheres or vacancies will inevitably decrease the packing density. This relationship is revealed by analysis of recently published experimental packings and computer simulations. In that sense, the ideal amorphous solid described here is entirely new and original.

Mass transfer coefficients associated with the mixing of a confined gas volume by the random motion of loose spheres

This investigation quantifies the change in mass transfer within a confined gas volume subjected to mixing by loose spheres. A cylindrical vessel containing between 1 and 50 Teflon spheres in a tracer gas is vigorously shaken. Extractive sampling provides time histories of tracer gas concentrations extracted from the vessel. Fitting the results from a simple 1-D mass transfer model to the experimental data yields an effective mass transfer coefficient k′ for each experimental condition. Compared to diffusive mass transfer where k′ = D ab = 7.58 × 10 −6 m 2/s, k′ exhibits a cubic dependency on the number of spheres with a maximum at 17 spheres where k′ = 3.5 × 10 −3 m 2/s.

Random close packing of spheres in a round cell

The paper describes the method of construction of cells containing large numbers (10 5–10 6) of close packed spheres, ranging in packing fractions from 0.2 to 0.60. The cells are constructed in a round form, utilizing varying surface curvature to prevent ordered packing. The properties of the cells are described by a series of distributions: (i) polar angle of contact points, (ii) maximum displacement of loose spheres, (iii) and Voronoi volumes for individual spheres. The cells of varying density appear to show the liquid-to-solid transition. All cells described here contain loose spheres. It is proposed that cells with zero loose spheres are ideal amorphous solids. Ideal amorphous solids are characterized by a number of elements, described herein.