Vatican Psalter Vat. slav. 8: Paleographic, linguistic, and textual features of the manuscript

The article describes the graphic and orthographic features of the unique Old Russian Psalter stored in the Vatican Apostolic Library (under the code Vat. slav. 8). This codex has practically not attracted the attention of researchers because it was difficult to access. It is now available on the Internet and can be fully studied. The Psalter was written by a highly qualified scribe who developed a special font for his manuscript — a half-letter, built following certain principles as the study showed. The orthography of the manuscript is focused on the ancient Russian norms of the 16th century. However, it has very important innovations: superscripts appear that imitate a slight Greek aspiration, as well as the writing of omega and “uk” in the South Slavic manner. The localization and dating of the manuscript have been clarified. It was written no earlier than the 1420s as evidenced by the special “bead” initials, as well as the spelling of omega with a high center. Some features of the Central Russian dialect can be traced in the scribe’s writing. The codex was brought to Italy by Metropolitan Isidore who fled from Moscow (from the Chudov Monastery) in September 1441 with many other Greek and Slavonic manuscripts. As a result, this Manuscript can be associated with the scribes of this monastery. A small format of the Vat. slav. 8 suggests that this was a travel book. Apparently, the scribe created this manuscript for personal needs. He included a number of rare church services in the codex, in particular, the unique Tuesday church service of the akathist of the Blessed Virgin Mary according to the charter of Mount Athos.

Experimental Methods for Road Tankers: A Critical Review

The transportation of liquids involves several situations derived from the curved shape of the cargo containers, including a comparatively high center of gravity, which negatively shifts when the container is partially loaded, and the vehicle is subjected to steering or braking accelerations. Aiming at reducing these effects several experimental approaches have been applied, involving different tank shapes and the use of baffles, tested under laboratory or field conditions, at full scale or at a down-scale. However, the scope of such approaches has been limited, mainly because the potential effect of other components of the vehicle on the road tanker behavior, has been neglected. In this paper, a critical review is presented of the experimental approaches considered so far, identifying specific experimental needs to improve the performance of the vehicles, from both the road safety and the environmental perspective.

Stop search in SUSY SO(10) GUTs with nonuniversal Gaugino masses

We explore the stop mass and its possible probe through a set of three different signal processes within a class of SUSY GUTs with non-universal gaugino masses. The stop mass can be realized in a wide range (0.4–8 TeV) consistent with the current experimental constraints. We consider the decay processes; $$\tilde{t}_{1}\rightarrow t\tilde{\chi }_{1}^{0}$$ t ~ 1 → t χ ~ 1 0 , $$\tilde{t}_{1}\rightarrow b W^{\pm }\tilde{\chi }_{1}^{0}$$ t ~ 1 → b W ± χ ~ 1 0 and $$\tilde{t}_{1}\rightarrow b q{\bar{q}}^{\prime }\tilde{\chi }_{1}^{0}$$ t ~ 1 → b q q ¯ ′ χ ~ 1 0 to be possible signals, and explore the impact of the current experimental results as well as the possible mass scales of stop, which can be probed in the future collider experiments. We find that the first and third signal processes can be tested in the current experiments, and significantly probed in future, while the second signal process is not available for the current experiments in this class of SUSY GUTs. We also comment that the second signal process can be available to be tested when the collider experiments are conducted at high center of mass energies and luminosity.

A Preliminary Study of Active Stabilization for Agricultural Machines Using a Movable Mass

Side overturning is a potentially dangerous phenomenon that can easily happen to agricultural machines because they typically have a high center-of-gravity (CoG) and a very narrow track-width (e.g., tractors operating in orchards). Overturning occurs when the direction of the resultant of the forces acting on the vehicle CoG intercepts the support plane outside of the “support polygon”, defined by taking the footprints of the vehicle wheels as its vertices. Here, we propose the use of a stabilization system that shifts the CoG position to ensure that the resultant force stays within the support polygon. This active stabilization is accomplished by equipping the vehicle with an additional mass that can be moved using an actuator. Using numerical simulations of a four-wheeled narrow-track tractor moving along a trajectory at constant speed, we characterize how the position of the movable mass affects vehicle stability under a quasi-static assumption. The path is a horizontal Euler spiral, having a continuously varying turning radius. The simulations are used to: (i) analyze the sensitivity of four metrics related to the vehicle stability with respect to the additional weight of the moveable mass and the position of the stabilization system, and (ii) find an optimal configuration of the stabilization system that will improve the operational limits of the vehicle.

Improvement of both handling stability and ride comfort of a vehicle via coupled hydraulically interconnected suspension and electronic controlled air spring

The trade-off between handling stability and ride comfort is a disadvantage for the bus fitted with passive suspension due to its high center of gravity and heavy load. A novel suspension configuration with both hydraulically interconnected suspension and electronic controlled air spring is created to handle this conflicting requirement. The proposed whole vehicle system model has three subsystems: a 9-degree-of-freedom vehicle multi-body model, hydraulically interconnected suspension model, and electronic controlled air spring. The electronic controlled air spring comprises an air spring and an auxiliary air chamber, and its height can be adjusted by a fuzzy controller. Then, analytical work is performed to evaluate the handling stability and ride comfort of the vehicle with different suspension configurations under various maneuvers and suspension height modes. Finally, the vehicle on-road test is conducted to experimentally validate the proposed models. Both analytical and experimental results indicate that the vehicle fitted with hydraulically interconnected suspension and electronic controlled air spring can obtain high performance for both handling stability and ride comfort.

Collision of particles near charged MSW black hole in 2 + 1 dimensions

Here, we explore the dynamics of particle near the horizon of charged Mandal–Sengupta–Wadia (MSW) black hole in 2 + 1 dimensions. We analyze angular momentum and potential energy for null and time-like geodesics. We also appraise the high center-of-mass energy of coming particles from rest at infinity near the horizon of the charged MSW black hole in 2 + 1 dimension for the extremal case. Finally, we study the ISCO and MBCO radii for this type of black hole.

Implications of Field Loading Patterns on Different Tie Support Conditions using Discrete Element Modeling: Dynamic Responses

With increasing demands for rail passenger and freight operations, sharing a line or track is an economical solution if operational efficiency and track reliability challenges can be accommodated properly. This paper presents findings of ballast layer dynamic responses related to four different freight and passenger car loading patterns studied for four different tie support conditions using the Discrete Element Method (DEM). With the DEM model setup being identical for each support condition, ballast particle contact force networks were visualized first under one dynamic load cycle. Certain load transfer chains were observed associated with all four support conditions. Next, crosstie dynamic velocities were analyzed for all sixteen combinations of the different loading patterns and support conditions. The freight car loads traveling at 50 mph could induce higher crosstie vibration velocities than the lighter passenger car loads traveling at 110 mph and 150 mph in three support conditions: lack of center support, high center binding, and lack of rail seat support. Dynamic movements of ballast particles were visualized in velocity vector plots based on their initial and final centroid coordinates. Results reveal that for the same axle load, higher speeds will cause larger ballast particle movements. However, with higher load magnitudes, larger particle movements can be observed even at lower speeds. Generally, high center binding results in the smallest particle movement while lack of center support presents the largest particle movement. Dynamic load responses of the ballast layer simulations provide insights into evaluating and optimizing tracks to be shared by passenger and freight trains.