We have been investigating the use of low-cost, commodity components for multi-terabyte SQL Server databases [SQL]. Dubbed storage bricks, these servers are white box PCs containing the largest ATA drives, value-priced AMD or Intel processors, and inexpensive ECC memory. One issue has been the wiring mess, air flow problems, length restrictions, and connector failures created by seven or more p...

In 1965 Tauer produced a countably infinite family of semi-regular masas in the hyperfinite II1 factor, no pair of which are conjugate by an automorphism. This was achieved by iterating the process of passing to the algebra generated by the normalisers and, for each n ∈ N, finding masas for which this procedure terminates at the n-th stage. Such masas are said to have length n. In this paper we...

Abstract. We present efficient algorithms for constructing a shortest path between two configurations in the Tower of Hanoi graph, and for computing the length of the shortest path. The key element is a finite-state machine which decides, after examining on the average only a small number of the largest discs (asymptotically, 63 38 ≈ 1.66), whether the largest disc will be moved once or twice. ...

A heuristic method for optimizing a solar power tower system is proposed, in which both heliostat field (heliostat locations and number) and the tower (tower height and receiver size) are simultaneously considered. Maximizing the thermal energy collected per unit cost leads to a difficult optimization problem due to its characteristics: it has a nonconvex black-box objective function with compu...

In the design of DC system, more than one MVU tower may be used between pole-to-neutral voltages. This is especially common for UHVDC systems. The insulation design of these MVU’s need to be verified by dielectric type tests as specified by international standards. However, the application of several MVU’s in series makes the test set-up complicated. One straightforward solution is to install a...

An updraft tower cooling system is assessed for elimination of water use associated with power plant heat rejection. Heat rejected from the power plant condenser is used to warm the air at the base of an updraft tower; buoyancy-driven air flows through a recuperative turbine inside the tower. The secondary loop, which couples the power plant condenser to a heat exchanger at the tower base, can ...

The measurement of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) is a new tool for estimating gross primary production (GPP). Continuous tower-based spectral observations together with flux measurements are an efficient way of linking the SIF to the GPP. Compared to conical observations, hemispherical observations made with cosine-corrected foreoptic have a much larger field of view and can bett...