Aggregation and chimney formation during the solidification of ammonium chloride

Experiments study large-scale pattern formation during the growth of ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) from solution in a thin (Hele-Shaw) geometry. In particular a solid-liquid mixture ("mushy layer") forms in which growing solid NH4Cl crystals form a solid network interspersed with liquid. There are different ways that the mushy layer can be formed, however. If the cell is heated from below and cooled from above, thermal convection generates large-scale recirculating flows that carry seed crystals from the upper (cold) boundary to the (warmer) side and bottom boundaries. Ballistic deposition of these seed crystals leads to aggregation patterns with significant voids (filled with liquid) with a wide range of length scales. If the cell is cooled from below with a warm environment, the solid NH4Cl grows dendritically without deposition, resulting in a compact mushy layer. Plume convection within this mushy layer produces one or two well-defined "chimneys." If the environment is cool (comparable to the liquidus temperature of the solution), the mushy layer forms by a combination of dendritic growth and ballistic deposition, resulting in a more permeable mushy layer and enhanced chimney formation. The effects of ballistic deposition are enhanced if the cell is tipped, in which case the voids reappear. Plume convection and chimney formation are dramatically enhanced in this case. Additional experiments are done in which fluid flows in the system are enhanced artificially to verify that enhancements in chimney formation are due primarily to the aggregation process, and not to the increases in fluid flows due to thermal and compositional convection.     

Regular 4-polytopes from the Livingstone graph of Janko’s first group

The Janko group J ₁ has, up to duality, exactly two regular rank four polytopes, of respective Schl?fli types {5,3,5} and {5,6,5}. The aim of this paper is to give geometric constructions of these two polytopes, starting from the Livingstone graph.     

A Frequency-Domain Approach to Optimal Fractional-Order Damping

In this paper, we will consider the single term optimal fractional-order damper for an otherwise undamped oscillator. First, we will find the single term damper that minimizes the time domain integral of the squared step error (2-norm) and the integral of the time-weighted squared error (Hilbert–Schmidt–Hankel norm). Next we will consider a more intuitive frequency domain approach that insures the maximally flat magnitude response. Time and frequency domain plots are given for comparison with the integer-order solutions. Further improvements in performance are shown to be possible using multiple active fractional-order dampers.     

On the design of lottery games

We describe a model of participation in lottery games designed to address the optimisation of tax revenue in state-sponsored lotteries. The model treats participants dynamically and examines a long-run equilibrium. A novel high frequency approximation is used to turn the problem into a static, state-contingent deterministic programming problem. We demonstrate that the solution of this problem has qualitatively plausible properties and then calibrate the model against the United Kingdom National Lottery (UKNL). The results suggest that the current design of the UKNL may not be maximising tax revenue.     

A systems approach to the calibration of deterministic dynamic nonlinear simultaneous equation models with incomplete data

This paper develops an interactive three–stage systems approach for the calibration of the structural parameters and missing data within a deterministic, dynamic non–linear simultaneous equations model under arbitrary configurations of incomplete data. In Stage One, we minimize a quadratic loss function in the differences between the actual endogenous variables and the predicted solution values, relative to any feasible choice of the structural parameters. Missing exogenous variables and initial endogenous variables are treated as additional parameters to be calibrated; whereas missing current endogenous variables are treated by the missing data updating condition, in which the current solution values iteratively and sequentially replace those absent. Stage One may or may not lead to unique calibrations of the structural parameters—a fact that can be monitored a posteriori using singular value decompositions of the relevant Jacobian matrix. If not, there is an equivalence class of parameter values, all of which result in the same loss function value. If Stage Two is necessary, we attempt to exploit the non–linearity and simultaneity of the structural system to extract further information about the parameters from the same database, by minimizing the distance between the restricted and unrestricted reduced forms, while constraining the parameters also to lie within the Stage One equivalence class. This requires the use of higher–order numerical derivatives, and probably restricts its use in all but the simplest of cases to the next generation of supercomputers with massive numbers of parallel processors and much larger word–sizes. In Stage Three, various methods by which the original structural model can be simplified, given a non–unique Stage One calibration, are entertained.     

Solutions to N-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equations

We extend the Lewis-Riesenfeld technique of solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation to N-dimensional Ermakov systems.     

An exploration of locally projective polytopes

This article completes the classification of finite universal locally projective regular abstract polytopes, by summarising (with careful references) previously published results on the topic, and resolving the few cases that do not appear in the literature. In rank 4, all quotients of the locally projective polytopes are also noted. In addition, the article almost completes the classification of the infinite universal locally projective polytopes, except for the {{5,3,3,},{3,3,5}₁₅} and its dual. It is shown that this polytope cannot be finite, but its existence is not established. The most remarkable feature of the classification is that a nondegenerate universal locally projective polytope is infinite if and only if the rank of is 5 and the facets of or its dual are the hemi-120-cell {5,3,3}₁₅.     

Imaging c-PAM-induced flocculation of paper fibers

The flocculation of paper fibers by cationic polyacrylamides (c-PAM) was studied by imaging the fibers that remain free during flocculation. Studies with fibers of different lengths showed that the degree of flocculation increases with fiber length, with the best flocs being formed with mixtures of short and long fibers. Short fibers did not flocculate by themselves but were captured by flocs formed with longer fibers. The short fibers strengthen the floc and give it shear resistance. Shear had the expected effect of promoting flocculation at low Reynolds number but disrupting it at higher values. For a given polymer the maximum floc size for a mixture of fibers is dictated by the length distribution of the fibers. The polymer dose governs the rate of flocculation. The technique is especially useful in following the tail end of the flocculation process. At this stage a floc is almost fully grown and a small increase in its size would be very difficult to measure by conventional techniques. In contrast, the number of free fibers measured by single fiber imaging decreases rapidly at this point.