1,948 research outputs found
Deep convective clouds at the tropopause
Data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on the EOS Aqua spacecraft each day show tens of thousands of Cold Clouds (CC) in the tropical oceans with 10 μm window channel brightness temperatures colder than 225 K. These clouds represent a mix of cold anvil clouds and Deep Convective Clouds (DCC). This mix can be separated by computing the difference between two channels, a window channel and a channel with strong CO<sub>2</sub> absorption: for some cold clouds this difference is negative, i.e. the spectra for some cold clouds are inverted. We refer to cold clouds with spectra which are more than 2 K inverted as DCCi2. Associated with DCCi2 is a very high rain rate and a local upward displacement of the tropopause, a cold "bulge", which can be seen directly in the brightness temperatures of AIRS and Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) temperature sounding channels in the lower stratosphere. The very high rain rate and the local distortion of the tropopause indicate that DCCi2 objects are associated with severe storms. Significant long-term trends in the statistical properties of DCCi2 could be interesting indicators of climate change. While the analysis of the nature and physical conditions related to DCCi2 requires hyperspectral infrared and microwave data, the identification of DCCi2 requires only one good window channel and one strong CO<sub>2</sub> sounding channel. This suggests that improved identification of severe storms with future advanced geostationary satellites could be accomplished with the addition of one or two narrow band channels
Efficient Equilibria in Polymatrix Coordination Games
We consider polymatrix coordination games with individual preferences where
every player corresponds to a node in a graph who plays with each neighbor a
separate bimatrix game with non-negative symmetric payoffs. In this paper, we
study -approximate -equilibria of these games, i.e., outcomes where
no group of at most players can deviate such that each member increases his
payoff by at least a factor . We prove that for these
games have the finite coalitional improvement property (and thus
-approximate -equilibria exist), while for this
property does not hold. Further, we derive an almost tight bound of
on the price of anarchy, where is the number of
players; in particular, it scales from unbounded for pure Nash equilibria ( to for strong equilibria (). We also settle the complexity
of several problems related to the verification and existence of these
equilibria. Finally, we investigate natural means to reduce the inefficiency of
Nash equilibria. Most promisingly, we show that by fixing the strategies of
players the price of anarchy can be reduced to (and this bound is tight)
How harmonic is dipole resonance of metal clusters?
We discuss the degree of anharmonicity of dipole plasmon resonances in metal
clusters. We employ the time-dependent variational principle and show that the
relative shift of the second phonon scales as in energy, being
the number of particles. This scaling property coincides with that for nuclear
giant resonances. Contrary to the previous study based on the boson-expansion
method, the deviation from the harmonic limit is found to be almost negligible
for Na clusters, the result being consistent with the recent experimental
observation.Comment: RevTex, 8 page
An unusual cause of difficult weaning in a patient with newly diagnosed small cell lung cancer
AbstractWe describe a patient with acute respiratory insufficiency and difficult ventilator weaning in the ICU ward, leading to diagnosis of small cell lung cancer with superior vena cava superior syndrome. Bilateral vocal cord paralysis caused his respiratory distress and weaning difficulties. Thyroidectomy and neurological problems (such as Parkinson disease and Guillain Barré syndrome) are more common causes of bilateral vocal cord paralysis. Lung cancer patients are also at risk due to mediastinal invasion. The left recurrent laryngeal nerve is more prone to paralysis because of the typical anatomy. In contrary, bilateral vocal cord paralysis is rare and doesn't result in speech problems but rather breathing difficulties. Tracheostomy is the classic therapy, but laser cordectomy and Botulinum toxin injection in the laryngeal muscles are alternatives
Soft Dipole Modes in Neutron-rich Ni-isotopes in QRRPA
The soft dipole modes in neutron rich even-even Ni-isotopes are investigated
in the quasiparticle relativistic random phase approximation. We study the
evolution of strengths distribution, centroid energies of dipole excitation in
low-lying and normal GDR regions with the increase of the neutron excess. It is
found in the present study that the centroid energies of the soft dipole
strengths strongly depend on the thickness of neutron skin along with the
neutron rich even-even Ni-isotopes.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure
The Mythology of Game Theory
Non-cooperative game theory is at its heart a theory of cognition, specifically a theory of how decisions are made. Game theory\u27s leverage is that we can design different payoffs, settings, player arrays, action possibilities, and information structures, and that these differences lead to different strategies, outcomes, and equilibria. It is well-known that, in experimental settings, people do not adopt the predicted strategies, outcomes, and equilibria. The standard response to this mismatch of prediction and observation is to add various psychological axioms to the game-theoretic framework. Regardless of the differing specific proposals and results, game theory uniformly makes certain cognitive assumptions that seem rarely to be acknowledged, much less interrogated. Indeed, it is not widely understood that game theory is essentially a cognitive theory. Here, we interrogate those cognitive assumptions. We do more than reject specific predictions from specific games. More broadly, we reject the underlying cognitive model implicitly assumed by game theory
Microscopic description of Coulomb and nuclear excitation of multiphonon states in Ca + Ca collisions
We calculate the inelastic scattering cross sections to populate one- and
two-phonon states in heavy ion collisions with both Coulomb and nuclear
excitations. Starting from a microscopic approach based on RPA, we go beyond it
in order to treat anharmonicities and non-linear terms in the exciting field.
These anharmonicities and non-linearities are shown to have important effects
on the cross sections both in the low energy part of the spectrum and in the
energy region of the Double Giant Quadrupole Resonance. By properly introducing
an optical potential the inelastic cross section is calculated semiclassically
by integrating the excitation probability over all impact parameters. A
satisfactory agreement with the experimental results is obtained.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, revtex, to be published in Phys. Rev.
QRPA plus Phonon Coupling Model and the Photoabsorbtion Cross Section for O
We have calculated the electric dipole strength distributions in the unstable
neutron rich oxygen isotopes O, in a model which include up to
four quasi-particle-type configurations. The model is the extension, to include
the effect of the pairing correlations, of a previous model very successful
around closed shell nuclei, and it is based on the quasi-particle-phonon
coupling. Low-lying dipole strength is found, which exhausts between 5 and 10%
of the Thomas-Reiche-Kuhn (TRK) energy-weighted-sum-rule (EWSR) below 15 MeV
excitation energy, in rather good agreement with recent experimental data. The
role of the phonon coupling is shown to be crucial in order to obtain this
result.Comment: 16 pages + 6 figure
Performance of upstream interaction region detectors for the FIRST experiment at GSI
The FIRST (Fragmentation of Ions Relevant for Space and Therapy) experiment at GSI has been designed to study carbon fragmentation, measuring 12C double differential cross sections (∂2σ/ ∂θ∂E) for different beam energies between 100 and 1000 MeV/u. The experimental setup integrates newly designed detectors in the, so called, Interaction Region around the graphite target. The Interaction Region upstream detectors are a 250 μm thick scintillator and a drift chamber optimized for a precise measurement of the ions interaction time and position on the target. In this article we review the design of the upstream detectors along with the preliminary results of the data taking performed on August 2011 with 400 MeV/u fully stripped carbon ion beam at GSI. Detectors performances will be reviewed and compared to those obtained during preliminary tests, performed with 500 MeV electrons (at the BTF facility in the INFN Frascati Laboratories) and 80 MeV/u protons and carbon ions (at the INFN LNS Laboratories in Catania)
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