Specific features of vowel-like signals of white whales

The set of acoustic signals of White-Sea white whales comprises about 70 types of signals. Six of them occur most often and constitute 75% of the total number of signals produced by these animals. According to behavioral reactions, white whales distinguish each other by acoustic signals, which is also typical of other animal species and humans. To investigate this phenomenon, signals perceived as vowel-like sounds of speech, including sounds perceived as a “bleat,” were chosen A sample of 480 signals recorded in June and July, 2000, in the White Sea within a reproductive assemblage of white whales near the Large Solovetskii Island was studied. Signals were recorded on a digital data carrier (a SONY minidisk) in the frequency range of 0.06–20 kHz. The purpose of the study was to reveal the perceptive and acoustic features specific to individual animals. The study was carried out using the methods of structural analysis of vocal speech that are employed in lingual criminalistics to identify a speaking person. It was demonstrated that this approach allows one to group the signals by coincident perceptive and acoustic parameters with assigning individual attributes to single parameters. This provided an opportunity to separate conditionally about 40 different sources of acoustic signals according to the totality of coincidences, which corresponded to the number of white whales observed visually. Thus, the application of this method proves to be very promising for the acoustic identification of white whales and other marine mammals, this possibility being very important for biology.     

New Interfaces for Coupling TLC with TOF SIMS

JPC – Journal of Planar Chromatography – Modern TLC - Two interfaces have been tested for coupling thin-layer chromatography (TLC) with time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectrometry...     

Local effect of electric and magnetic fields on the position of an attached shock in a supersonic diffuser

Effective ways for controlling shock wave configurations by means of external actions are sought. One such way is a local effect of electric and magnetic fields. In this paper, the local effect of external fields is implemented by current localization in a limited region of a diffuser. The experiment is carried out in a diffuser providing the complete internal compression of the gas with a Mach number at the inlet M=4.3. As a working medium, a xenon plasma is used. The plasma flow is formed in a shock tube equipped with an accelerating nozzle. Two ways of current localization are tested. In the first one, the diffuser inlet is a short channel of Faraday generator type. In this case, the ponderomotive force basically decelerates or accelerates the flow depending on the direction of the electric field. In the second way, the current flows through a narrow near-wall region between adjacent electrodes. In this case, the ponderomotive force compresses or expands the gas. In both cases, it is shown that the angle of an attached shock due to MHD interaction can be both decreased and increased. The central problem with the MHD control of shock waves is near-electrode and near-wall phenomena.     

Phonon scattering from the boundaries of small crystals embedded in a dielectric porous-glass matrix

The thermal conductivity of porous glass with randomly distributed connecting pores ～70 Å in size (glass porosity ～25%), as well as of a porous glass + NaCl composite, was measured in the temperature range 5–300 K. NaCl filled one fourth of the pores in the composite. The experimental results on the composite thermal conductivity can be accounted for only by assuming that phonons scatter from the boundaries of NaCl nanocrystals embedded in channels of the porous glass.     

Two-dimensional gas motion in nuclear-pumped laser cells at low energy deposits into the gas

The distribution of the two-dimensional gas velocity inside ion-irradiated laser cells is considered for low ion energy deposits into the gas. It is shown that, if the energy deposit is smoothly nonuniform, the twodimensional motion has two quasi-one-dimensional components: the longitudinal gas velocity is practically uniform across the cell and depends on the transversely averaged energy deposit, while the transverse velocity component depends on the difference between the local energy deposit and energy deposit averaged over the transverse direction.     

Thermal-performance evaluation of coolant passages with staggered arrays of pin fins

Three-dimensional laminar forced convection including steady-periodic transition is investigated up to periodic-chaotic transition in the fully developed region of coolant passages with staggered arrays of pin fins. Comparative examples concern overall pressure losses and heat transfer characteristics of circular, square and elliptical pins made of nickel and copper. In the numerical model, transient conjugate heat transfer is assumed and space periodicities in pressure, velocity components and temperatures are taken into account. In the range of operative conditions investigated, overall friction factors increase almost linearly with the Reynolds number, while the increase of overall Nusselt numbers with the Reynolds number is characterized by two slope changes connected with the onset of streamwise vortices, and the shedding of transverse vortices, respectively. The use of copper, instead of nickel, increases the overall Nusselt number with all shapes, but is particularly beneficial to the elliptical section. Square pins are characterized by the highest values of friction factors, but are also the best performers as far as convection enhancing is concerned. The reverse is true for the elliptical pins which are characterized by the lowest values of friction factors, but are the worst performers as far as convection enhancing is concerned. On the basis of overall performances, the elliptical pins made of copper are the best choice, at least in the upper range of Reynolds numbers investigated.     

Features of light attenuation in crystals under violation of the Bouguer law

A computer simulation and measurements of the light transmittance of germanium and paratellurite crystals of different thickness were used to show that, at scattering probabilities of photons comparable to their absorption probabilities, the standard methods for calculating light extinction coefficients on the basis of the Bouguer law lead to rough errors in estimation of the optical quality of a material.     

Chlorination and oxidation products formed from 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene in aqueous solution under the action of chlorine dioxide

Products of the reaction of 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene with chlorine dioxide in aqueous solution were studied. A scheme of 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene transformations was suggested. The influence exerted on the number of the reaction products by the ClO₂ dosage and time of its contact with the substrate was examined.