Thermodynamics of (2+1)-flavor QCD: Confronting Models with Lattice Studies

The Polyakov-quark-meson (PQM) model, which combines chiral as well as deconfinement aspects of strongly interacting matter is introduced for three light quark flavors. An analysis of the chiral and deconfinement phase transition of the model and its thermodynamics at finite temperatures is given. Three different forms of the effective Polyakov loop potential are considered. The findings of the (2+1)-flavor model investigations are confronted to corresponding recent QCD lattice simulations of the RBC-Bielefeld, HotQCD and Wuppertal-Budapest collaborations. The influence of the heavier quark masses, which are used in the lattice calculations, is taken into account. In the transition region the bulk thermodynamics of the PQM model agrees well with the lattice data.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables; minor changes, final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Fluctuations and the QCD phase diagram

In this contribution the role of quantum fluctuations for the QCD phase diagram is discussed. This concerns in particular the importance of the matter back-reaction to the gluonic sector. The impact of these fluctuations on the location of the confinement/deconfinement and the chiral transition lines as well as their interrelation are investigated. Consequences of our findings for the size of a possible quarkyonic phase and location of a critical endpoint in the phase diagram are drawn.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Physics of Atomic Nucle

Health 4.0: How Digitisation Drives Innovation in the Healthcare Sector

Driven by networked Electronic Health Record systems, Artificial Intelligence, real-time data from wearable devices with an overlay of invisible user interfaces and improved analytics, a revolution is afoot in the healthcare industry. Over the next few years, it is likely to fundamentally change how healthcare is delivered and how the outcomes are measured. The focus on collaboration, coherence, and convergence will make healthcare more predictive and personalised. This revolution is called Health 4.0. Data portability allows patients and their physicians to access it anytime anywhere and enhanced analytics allows for differential diagnosis and medical responses that can be predictive, timely, and innovative. Health 4.0 allows the value of data more consistently and effectively. It can pinpoint areas of improvement and enable decisions that are more informed. What it also does is help move the entire healthcare industry from a system that is reactive and focused on fee-for-service to a system that is value-based, which measures outcomes and ensures proactive prevention (Thuemmler, Bai, 2017). In this paper, the authors discuss how digitisation is paving the way for data-driven innovation in the healthcare systems. They elaborate on the opportunities and challenges for all stakeholders involved and discuss how emerging technologies can help overcome the inherent rigidity of today’s healthcare ecosystem. Following on from this, the authors explain the importance of research on the actual design of smart healthcare products and product service systems of the future and the challenges faced from the viewpoint of design practice

Photometric Light Curve for the Kuiper Belt Object 2000 EB173 on 78 Nights

Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) are generally very faint and cannot in practice be monitored with a well-sampled long-term light curve; so our discovery of the bright KBO 2000 EB173 offers an excellent opportunity for synoptic studies. We present a well-sampled photometric time series (77 R magnitudes and 29 V magnitudes on 78 nights) over a 225-day time span centered on the 2001 opposition. The light curve (corrected to the year 2001 opposition distance) varies from 19.11 to 19.39 mag with a single peak that is smooth, time symmetric, and coincident with opposition. All variations in the light curve are consistent with a linear opposition surge (Ropp = 19.083 + 0.125Xalpha, where alpha is the solar phase angle), while any rotational modulation must have a peak-to-peak amplitude of less than 0.097 mag. This is the first measured opposition surge for any KBO (other than Pluto). The V-R color is 0.63+-0.02, with no apparent variation with phase at the few percent level. With R=19.11 at opposition, 2000 EB173 remains the brightest known KBO and a prime target for future photometric and spectroscopic studies

Design for Health 4.0: Exploration of a New Area

Driven by networked Electronic Health Record systems, Artificial Intelligence, real-time data from wearable devices with an overlay of invisible user interfaces and improved analytics, Health 4.0 is changing the healthcare industry. The focus on collaboration, coherence, and convergence that will make healthcare more predictive and personalised. Furthermore, Health 4.0 realises the value of data more consistently and effectively. It can pinpoint areas of improvement and enable more informed decisions. What it also does is help move the entire healthcare industry from a system that is reactive and focused on fee-for-service to a system that is value-based, which measures outcomes and ensures proactive prevention. In this paper, the authors will first explore the realm of the emerging area of Health 4.0 and identify its opportunities and challenges. This includes understanding the relevant base technologies as well as the design principles for the realization of smart healthcare product, systems and product-service-systems of the future. Following on from there, the authors focus on the role of design in the specific context of healthcare

The Computational Complexity of the Game of Set and its Theoretical Applications

The game of SET is a popular card game in which the objective is to form Sets using cards from a special deck. In this paper we study single- and multi-round variations of this game from the computational complexity point of view and establish interesting connections with other classical computational problems. Specifically, we first show that a natural generalization of the problem of finding a single Set, parameterized by the size of the sought Set is W-hard; our reduction applies also to a natural parameterization of Perfect Multi-Dimensional Matching, a result which may be of independent interest. Second, we observe that a version of the game where one seeks to find the largest possible number of disjoint Sets from a given set of cards is a special case of 3-Set Packing; we establish that this restriction remains NP-complete. Similarly, the version where one seeks to find the smallest number of disjoint Sets that overlap all possible Sets is shown to be NP-complete, through a close connection to the Independent Edge Dominating Set problem. Finally, we study a 2-player version of the game, for which we show a close connection to Arc Kayles, as well as fixed-parameter tractability when parameterized by the number of rounds played

A lattice evaluation of four-quark operators in the nucleon

Nucleon matrix elements of various four-quark operators are evaluated in quenched lattice QCD using Wilson fermions. Some of these operators give rise to twist-four contributions to nucleon structure functions. Furthermore, they bear valuable information about the diquark structure of the nucleon. Mixing with lower-dimensional operators is avoided by considering appropriate representations of the flavour group. We find that for a certain flavour combination of baryon structure functions, twist-four contributions are very small. This suggests that twist-four effects for the nucleon might be much smaller than m_p^2/Q^2.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figure

Applied lattice gauge calculations: diquark content of the nucleon

As an example of an application of lattice QCD we describe a computation of four-quark operators in the nucleon. The results are interpreted in a diquark language.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, Invited talk given by M. G\"ockeler at the European Workshop on the QCD Structure of the Nucleon (QCD - N'02), Ferrara, Italy, 3-6 Apr 200

Near-infrared studies of the 2010 outburst of the recurrent nova U Scorpii

We present near-infrared (near-IR) observations of the 2010 outburst of U Sco. JHK photometry is presented on 10 consecutive days starting from 0.59 d after outburst. Such photometry can gainfully be integrated into a larger data base of other multiwavelength data which aim to comprehensively study the evolution of U Sco. Early near-IR spectra, starting from 0.56 d after outburst, are presented and their general characteristics discussed. Early in the eruption, we see very broad wings in several spectral lines, with tails extending up to ∼10 000 km s−1 along the line of sight; it is unexpected to have a nova with ejection velocities equal to those usually thought to be exclusive to supernovae. From recombination analysis, we estimate an upper limit of [inline image] for the ejected mass