Motivations for the San Fernando Valley Secession Movement: The Political Dynamics of Secession

I argue that the motivation for the San Fernando Valley secession movement can be explained as a desire for local control based on democratic ideals, but I emphasize that the movement is also motivated in part by the tangible benefits that accompany such autonomy. After a brief look at possible economic and racial motivations behind the secession movement, I look for a political divide between the city and the Valley, based on literature that has found political divisions between urban and suburban areas. Evidence of a political divide is mixed, but does indicate that the Valley lacks representation in comparison to the rest of the city. Valley residents may also fear increasing minority political power, which could erode the dominance of Valley whites at the polls. There is also evidence that those who favor secession are most dissatisfied with representation and most concerned with getting their fair share of services from the city, indicating a strong desire for more local control. Images of a smaller, more democratic government, and a more engaged local civic community are prime motivations in the Valley’s quest for autonomy, though the possibility of reduced taxes, land use control, and increased political power do offer secessionists clear substantive benefits in addition to more democratic goals.     

Chemical leaching and magnetic properties of non-equilibrium Al(Co–Cu) powders produced by rod milling

We report upon the chemical leaching and magnetic properties of nanoscale crystalline Al_0.6(Co₂₅Cu₇₅)_0.4 alloy powders produced by rod milling. X-Ray diffractometry (XRD), transmission electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, vibrating sample magnetometry, and superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry were used to characterize the as-milled and leached specimens. After 400 h of milling, only the b.c.c. phase of the intermetallic compound γ-Al_3.892Cu_6.10808 was detected by XRD. After annealing the leached specimen at 600 °C for 1 h, the nanoscale crystalline phase was transformed into the f.c.c. Cu phase, and this was accompanied by a change in the magnetic properties. The peaks of the magnetization shifted towards lower temperature with increasing external field. The temperature behavior at T_f (45 K) for direct current (d.c.) magnetic susceptibility measurements was quite different for field cooling and zero-field cooling. After cooling the leached specimen from 800 °C, magnetization increased gradually.     

An experimental study of heat transfer characteristics of a pair of longitudinal vortices using color capturing technique

The flow and heat transfer characteristics of a pair of embedded counter-rotating vortices are studied experimentally. In order to control the strength of longitudinal vortices, angle of attack of the vortex generators is varied from ±20° to ±45°, and the spacing between the vortex generators is 4 cm apart. The heat transfer measurements using thermo-chromatic liquid crystal are made to provide the local surface distributions of heat transfer coefficients. The following conclusions are obtained from the present experiment. For the common-flow-down cases, two maximum values in the local heat transfer distributions exist for the three angles of attack. With the common-flow-up cases, only one maximum value exists. The common-flow-down cases show better heat transfer characteristics than the common-flow-up cases.     

The effect of doubly tapered strut morphology on the plastic yield surface of cellular materials

Although the literature on the mechanics of cellular materials is vast, there is no theoretical model to account for the effects of axial yielding of struts aligned to the applied loading direction on the plastic yield surface under multiaxial loading conditions. An anisotropic hexagonal model having tapered strut morphology is developed to show these effects on the plastic yield surface under multiaxial tensile loading condition. This model covers several types of cellular structure such as two-dimensional (2D) hexagonal and square cellular materials, and three-dimensional (3D) hexagonal and rhombic cellular materials of rod-like columnar structure. A tetrahedral element with tapered strut morphology is also used for a foam model to illustrate these effects on the yield surface under axisymmetric loading condition. Plastic collapse due to bending moment in the inclined struts is a dominant mode. However, under multiaxial tensile loading, the collapse due to axial yielding of struts parallel to the loading direction is found to be an important mode. The shape of plastic yield surface was found to depend not only on relative density but also on the strut morphology.     

Natural quality two-band LPC coding of speech at 880 bit/s withframe interpolation

A novel frame interpolation technique for two-band linear predictive coding (LPC) vocoders is proposed for maintaining natural speech quality at bit rates below 1 kbit/s. Experimental results show that the speech quality of the proposed vocoder is quite natural at bit rates 880 bit/s and comparable to that of 4.8 kbit/s CELP     

Smart TDI readout circuit for long-wavelength IR detector

A smart time delay and integration (TDI) readout circuit is suggested which performs background suppression, cell-to-cell non-uniformity compensation, and dead pixel correction. Using the smart TDI readout circuit, the integration capacitor area occupying almost the whole area of a unit-cell can be reduced to one-fifth and transimpedance gain can increase by five times. From measurement results, it is found that the skimming current error for a few hundred nA background current is < 1.25 nA corresponding to LSB/2 of ADC and the non-uniformity introduced by cell-to-cell background current variation is reduced to 1.02 nA     

An EM‐based adaptive multiple target tracking filter

Tracking targets of interest is one of the major research areas in radar surveillance systems. We formulate the problem as incomplete data estimation and apply EM to the MAP estimate. The resulting filter has a recursive structure analogous to the Kalman filter. The advantage is that the measurement‐update deals with multiple measurements in parallel and the parameter‐update estimates the system parameters on the fly. Experiments tracking separate targets in parallel show that tracking maintenance ratio of the proposed system is better than that of NNF and RMS position error is smaller than that of PDAF. Also, the system parameters are correctly obtained even from incorrect initial values. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of solidification structure on fatigue crack initiation and fatigue strength in Al−Si−Mg cast alloys

Rotating-bending uniaxial fatigue tests and micro-fatigue crack initiation tests were carried out using a permanent mold cast (PMC) and semi-solid die cast (SDC) with Al−7%Si−0.35%Mg composition in order to examine the relationship between solidification structures and fatigue behaviors. The crack length was measured using a replication method. Fatigue strength was improved in SDC, which was almost consistent with the predicted fatigue strength using the size of Si particle cluster. Resistance to fatigue crack initiation and fatigue strength were improved in SDC owing to the finer Si cluster and to higher ultimate tensile strength. Fatigue crack in PMC was preferentially initiated at pores. For SDC, the fatigue crack was initiated at the Si particle/matrix interface, and then sucessively grew along eutectic cell boundaries.     

A novel cyclic process using CaSO4/CaS pellets for converting sulfur dioxide to elemental sulfur without generating secondary pollutants: Part II. Hydrogen reduction of calcium-sulfate pellets to calcium sulfide

The reduction of calcium sulfate to produce calcium sulfide is a part of the cyclic process for converting sulfur dioxide to elemental sulfur that is described in Part I. The kinetics of the hydrogen reduction of nickel-catalyzed calcium-sulfate pellets were investigated using a thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) technique at reaction temperatures between 1023 and 1088 K and hydrogen partial pressures between 12.9 and 86.1 kPa. The reactivity of nickel-catalyzed calcium-sulfate pellets was demonstrated by the conversion of 70 pct fresh nickel-catalyzed calcium sulfate to calcium sulfide in 20 minutes at 1073 K under a hydrogen partial pressure of 86.1 kPa. Furthermore, the reactivity remained relatively intact after ten cycles of reactions and regenerations. This observed characteristic of the pellets is important because the solids must be reusable for repeated cycles to avoid generating secondary pollutants. The nucleation and growth rate expression was found to be useful in describing the kinetics of the reaction, which had an activation energy of about 167 kJ/mol (∼40 kcal/mol) in all reaction cycles except for the first regenerated samples that were lower at 146 kJ/mol (35 kcal/mol). The reaction order with respect to hydrogen partial pressure was 0.22 in all cycles with the exception of the first regenerated sample for which it was 0.37.     

A continuum-based modeling of MEMS devices for estimating their resonant frequencies

A continuum-based modeling of coupled electrostatics-structure interactions is presented for the frequency computations of MEMS devices. The present general formulation of electrostatics accounting for free space is validated first by specializing it to one-dimensional uniform motion of conducting surfaces and comparing the resulting electrostatics to conventional lumped models. The general coupled electrostatics-structure interactions are then applied for the prediction of resonant frequencies of MEMS devices due to bias-voltage changes and temperature variations. Comparisons of predicted resonant frequencies obtained by the present coupled electrostatics-structure interaction models with experimental results available in the literature demonstrate that the proposed continuum-based interaction modeling yields high-confidence predictions of resonant frequencies of MEMS devices.