Global properties of the Skyrme-force-induced nuclear symmetry energy

Large scale calculations are performed to establish the global mass dependence of the nuclear symmetry energy, $a_{sym}(A)$, which in turn depends on two basic ingredients: the mean-level spacing, $\epsilon(A)$, and the effective strength of the isovector mean-potential, $\kappa(A)$. Surprisingly, our results reveal that in modern parameterizations including SLy4, SkO, SkXc, and SkP these two basic ingredients of $a_{sym}$ are almost equal after rescaling them linearly by the isoscalar and the isovector effective masses, respectively. This result points toward a new fundamental property of the nuclear interaction that remains to be resolved. In addition, our analysis determines the ratio of the surface-to-volume contributions to $a_{sym}$ to be $\sim$1.6, consistent with hydrodynamical estimates for the static dipole polarizability as well as the neutron-skin.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl

Potential and Limits of Pesticide Free Apple Growing by a Self-Regulating Orchard Set-Up: Project Presentation and First Experiences

Different research groups have already proven that flowering plants in orchards can enhance beneficial arthropods. Even within the tree rows different beneficial can be supported by selected plant species. In most experimental work done to stabilize the apple production system only single interaction effects were tested. However until now, no research group has quantified the additive effects of multiple measures on systembiodiversity and on the production economy. Our experiment combines all known measures of indirect pest and disease control measures in a near-to practical production model orchard without the use of any pesticide (not even organic ones). The orchard is split in 4 blocks: in two of them bio-control measures e.g. application of Granulosis Virus against codling moth (C. Pomonella) are applied; in the other two blocks no bio-control is applied. Standard commercial organic and integrated orchards with the disease-susceptible cultivar Gala in the vicinity of the model orchard are assessed by the same methods and serve as reference. Our intermediate results reveal that the self-regulating orchard developed already in the 2nd and 3rd leaf a clearly higher flora and fauna biodiversity compared to the reference orchards. The same happened in relation to the specific fruit beneficial e.g. the populations of aphid predators. In the self-regulating orchard they were capable to keep the aphid damages – in particular of the powdery apple aphid (D. plantaginea) - on trees and fruits under a commercially relevant level although the initial abundance of aphid colonies in spring was by far over the common threshold value. It is planned to continue the experiment until 2016

Description of rotating N=ZN=Z nuclei in terms of isovector pairing

A systematic investigation of the rotating $N=Z$ even-even nuclei in the mass $A=58-80$ region has been performed within the frameworks of the Cranked Relativistic Mean field, Cranked Relativistic Hartree Bogoliubov theories and cranked Nilsson-Strutinsky approach. Most of the experimental data is well accounted for in the calculations. The present study suggests that there is strong isovector $np$-pair field at low spin, the strength of which is defined by the isospin symmetry. At high spin, the isovector pair field is destroyed and the data are well described by the calculations assuming zero pairing. No clear evidence for the existence of the isoscalar $t=0$ $np$-pairing has been obtained in the present investigation.Comment: 20 pages + 19 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Work time allocation at primary health care level in two regions of Albania

INTRODUCTION: Although well-performing workforce is essential to equitable and efficient health service delivery, few countries have systematically addressed performance improvements. How health workers use their work time and what tasks they accomplish is here an important starting point. Therefore, a time motion study was conducted to assess the work time allocation patterns of primary health care doctors and nurses in two regions of Albania. METHODS: We used observation tool to record the time allocation along eight predefined main categories of activities. Conditional to presence at work, 48 health workers were continuously observed in early 2020 before start of the Covid-19 pandemic over five consecutive working days. RESULTS: The observed health workers spent 40.7% of their overall working time unproductively (36.8% on waiting for patients and 3.9% on breaks), 25.3% on service provision to users, 18.7% on administrative activities, 12.7% on outreach activities, 1.6% on continuous medical education and 1% on meetings. The study found variations in work time allocation patterns across cadres, with nurses spending more time unproductively, on administrative activities and on outreach and less on all other activities than doctors. Further, the work time allocation patterns were similar between urban and rural settings, except for nurses in rural settings spending less time than those in urban settings on administrative work. CONCLUSION: This study found that primary health care workers in Albania devote a substantial amount of work time to unproductive, service provision to users and administrative activities. Consequently, there is possibility for productivity, respectively efficiency gains in how health workers use their time

Nonlinear viscoelasticity of metastable complex fluids

Many metastable complex fluids such as colloidal glasses and gels show distinct nonlinear viscoelasticity with increasing oscillatory-strain amplitude; the storage modulus decreases monotonically as the strain amplitude increases whereas the loss modulus has a distinct peak before it decreases at larger strains. We present a qualitative argument to explain this ubiquitous behavior and use mode coupling theory (MCT) to confirm it. We compare theoretical predictions to the measured nonlinear viscoelasticity in a dense hard sphere colloidal suspensions; reasonable agreement is obtained. The argument given here can be used to obtain new information about linear viscoelasticity of metastable complex fluids from nonlinear strain measurements.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Europhys. Let