273 research outputs found
The early iron metallurgy of Bassar, Togo : furnaces, metallurgical remains and iron objects
An extensive iron production industry flourished in the Bassar region of northern Togo from as early as the Early Iron Age. However, it was during the Later Iron Age that this witnessed a period of rapid growth, with locally produced iron increasingly feeding into regional trade networks. This paper discusses the archaeology, archaeometallurgy and metallography of the earliest iron production in Bassar through the examination of two sites. The first, BAS-252 (Dekpassanware), is a large ironworking village (in operation throughout the Early and Later Iron Ages) with six zones devoted primarily to smithing. The second, the nearby site of BAS-273, was found to be a smaller smelting site and operated in the Early Iron Age. The paper presents a metallographic analysis of the EIA iron artefacts excavated at BAS-252, in conjunction with an archaeometallurgical analysis of EIA smelting remains from BAS-273. The close association of smithing and smelting sites has provided an unparalleled opportunity to consider the chaîne opératoire of iron production in EIA Bassar, with insights into the production of iron alloyed with carbon and phosphorus and the possible symbolic behaviours of past smelters at a time when the foundations were being laid for Bassar to develop subsequently into a regional hub of iron production
Genotipagem de Toxoplasma gondii em galinhas domésticas em uma área rural do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil
Free-range chickens may ingest oocysts of T. gondii present in the environment and consequently harbor virulent strains of this parasite in different tissues, without any clinical signs. Isolation of T. gondii through bioassays on mice and cats from naturally infected chicken tissues has been described in several countries, demonstrating the importance of free-range chickens in the transmission of this parasite. The aim of this study was the genotypic characterization of T. gondii isolates obtained from naturally infected free-range chickens in a rural area of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Brain and heart tissue from 12 chickens seropositive for T. gondii were processed using peptic digestion technique for parasite isolation. From 12 samples subjected to mouse bioassay, nine isolates were obtained. RFLP-PCR genotypic characterization was performed using 11 genetic markers: SAG1, 5'-3'SAG2, alt.SAG2, SAG3, BTUB, GRA6, c22-8, c29- 2, L358, PK1 and Apico. Genetic characterization of the isolates revealed the presence of five atypical genotypes according to ToxoDB (# 11, # 55, # 64, # 140 and # 163). Our results showed a wide genetic diversity of T. gondii in free-range chickens in this region.Galinhas criadas ao ar livre podem ingerir oocistos de T. gondii presentes no ambiente e, com isso, albergar cepas virulentas desse parasita em diferentes tecidos, sem sinais clínicos. O isolamento de T. gondii por meio de bioensaios em camundongos e gatos, a partir de tecidos de galinhas naturalmente infectadas, tem sido descrito em vários países. Isso demonstra a importância das galinhas caipiras na epidemiologia desse parasita. O objetivo deste trabalho foi caracterizar genotipicamente isolados de T. gondii obtidos de galinhas caipiras naturalmente infectadas em uma área rural do município de Santa Maria, estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Fragmentos de cérebro e de coração, de 12 galinhas soropositivas para T. gondii, foram processados pela técnica de digestão péptica para isolamento do parasita. Das 12 amostras submetidas a bioensaio com camundongos, nove isolados foram obtidos. A caracterização genotípica por RFLP-PCR foi realizada utilizando-se 11 marcadores genéticos: SAG1, 5'- 3'SAG2, alt.SAG2, SAG3, BTUB, GRA6, c22-8, c29-2, L358, PK1 e Apico e revelou a presença de cinco genótipos atípicos de acordo com o ToxoDB (# 11, # 55, # 64, # 140 e # 163). Os resultados mostraram uma ampla diversidade genética de T. gondii em galinhas caipiras nessa região.Fil: Camillo, G.. Universidade Federal de Santa Maria; BrasilFil: Machado, M. E. A.. Universidade Federal de Santa Maria; BrasilFil: Cadore, G.C.. Universidade Federal de Santa Maria; BrasilFil: Bräunig, P.. Universidade Federal de Santa Maria; BrasilFil: Venturini, María Cecilia. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias. Departamento de Epizootiología y Salud Pública. Laboratorio de Inmunoparasitología; ArgentinaFil: Pardini, Lais Luján. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias. Departamento de Epizootiología y Salud Pública. Laboratorio de Inmunoparasitología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Barros, L.D.. Universidade Estadual de Londrina; BrasilFil: Garcia, J.L.. Universidade Estadual de Londrina; BrasilFil: Sangioni, L.A.. Universidade Federal de Santa Maria; BrasilFil: Vogel, F.S.F.. Universidade Federal de Santa Maria; Brasi
Wave function of the Universe in the early stage of its evolution
In quantum cosmological models, constructed in the framework of
Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metrics, a nucleation of the Universe with its
further expansion is described as a tunneling transition through an effective
barrier between regions with small and large values of the scale factor at
non-zero (or zero) energy. The approach for describing this tunneling consists
of constructing a wave function satisfying an appropriate boundary condition.
There are various ways for defining the boundary condition that lead to
different estimates of the barrier penetrability and the tunneling time.
In order to describe the escape from the tunneling region as accurately as
possible and to construct the total wave function on the basis of its two
partial solutions unambiguously, we use the tunneling boundary condition that
the total wave function must represent only the outgoing wave at the point of
escape from the barrier, where the following definition for the wave is
introduced: the wave is represented by the wave function whose modulus changes
minimally under a variation of the scale factor . We construct a new method
for a direct non-semiclassical calculation of the total stationary wave
function of the Universe, analyze the behavior of this wave function in the
tunneling region, near the escape point and in the asymptotic region, and
estimate the barrier penetrability. We observe oscillations of modulus of wave
function in the external region starting from the turning point which decrease
with increasing of and which are not shown in semiclassical calculations.
The period of such an oscillation decreases uniformly with increasing and
can be used as a fully quantum dynamical characteristic of the expansion of the
Universe.Comment: 19 pages, 21 files for 10 EPS figures, LaTeX svjour style. The Sec.2
(formalism of Wheeler-De Witt equation) is reduced. In Sec.3.1 definition of
the outgoing wave from barrier is defined more accurately. In Sec.4.1
semiclassical calculations of wavew function and penetrability are performed
and comparison with results in fully quantum approach is adde
Big bounce from spin and torsion
The Einstein-Cartan-Sciama-Kibble theory of gravity naturally extends general
relativity to account for the intrinsic spin of matter. Spacetime torsion,
generated by spin of Dirac fields, induces gravitational repulsion in fermionic
matter at extremely high densities and prevents the formation of singularities.
Accordingly, the big bang is replaced by a bounce that occurred when the energy
density was on the order of (in
natural units), where is the fermion number density and is
the number of thermal degrees of freedom. If the early Universe contained only
the known standard-model particles (), then the energy density at
the big bounce was about 15 times larger than the Planck energy. The minimum
scale factor of the Universe (at the bounce) was about times smaller
than its present value, giving \approx 50 \mum. If more fermions existed in
the early Universe, then the spin-torsion coupling causes a bounce at a lower
energy and larger scale factor. Recent observations of high-energy photons from
gamma-ray bursts indicate that spacetime may behave classically even at scales
below the Planck length, supporting the classical spin-torsion mechanism of the
big bounce. Such a classical bounce prevents the matter in the contracting
Universe from reaching the conditions at which a quantum bounce could possibly
occur.Comment: 6 pages; published versio
New Physics and CP Violation in Hyperon Nonleptonic Decays
The sum of the CP-violating asymmetries A(Lambda_-^0) and A(Xi_-^-) in
hyperon nonleptonic decays is presently being measured by the E871 experiment.
We evaluate contributions to the asymmetries induced by chromomagnetic-penguin
operators, whose coefficients can be enhanced in certain models of new physics.
Incorporating recent information on the strong phases in Xi->Lambda pi decay,
we show that new-physics contributions to the two asymmetries can be
comparable. We explore how the upcoming results of E871 may constrain the
coefficients of the operators. We find that its preliminary measurement is
already better than the epsilon parameter of K-Kbar mixing in bounding the
parity-conserving contributions.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure
Anisotropic flow of charged hadrons, pions and (anti-)protons measured at high transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
The elliptic, , triangular, , and quadrangular, , azimuthal
anisotropic flow coefficients are measured for unidentified charged particles,
pions and (anti-)protons in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
with the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Results obtained with the
event plane and four-particle cumulant methods are reported for the
pseudo-rapidity range at different collision centralities and as a
function of transverse momentum, , out to GeV/.
The observed non-zero elliptic and triangular flow depends only weakly on
transverse momentum for GeV/. The small dependence
of the difference between elliptic flow results obtained from the event plane
and four-particle cumulant methods suggests a common origin of flow
fluctuations up to GeV/. The magnitude of the (anti-)proton
elliptic and triangular flow is larger than that of pions out to at least
GeV/ indicating that the particle type dependence persists out
to high .Comment: 16 pages, 5 captioned figures, authors from page 11, published
version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/186
Centrality dependence of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
The inclusive transverse momentum () distributions of primary
charged particles are measured in the pseudo-rapidity range as a
function of event centrality in Pb-Pb collisions at
TeV with ALICE at the LHC. The data are presented in the range
GeV/ for nine centrality intervals from 70-80% to 0-5%.
The Pb-Pb spectra are presented in terms of the nuclear modification factor
using a pp reference spectrum measured at the same collision
energy. We observe that the suppression of high- particles strongly
depends on event centrality. In central collisions (0-5%) the yield is most
suppressed with at -7 GeV/. Above
GeV/, there is a significant rise in the nuclear modification
factor, which reaches for GeV/. In
peripheral collisions (70-80%), the suppression is weaker with almost independently of . The measured nuclear
modification factors are compared to other measurements and model calculations.Comment: 17 pages, 4 captioned figures, 2 tables, authors from page 12,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/284
Measurement of charm production at central rapidity in proton-proton collisions at TeV
The -differential production cross sections of the prompt (B
feed-down subtracted) charmed mesons D, D, and D in the rapidity
range , and for transverse momentum GeV/, were
measured in proton-proton collisions at TeV with the ALICE
detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis exploited the hadronic
decays DK, DK, DD, and their charge conjugates, and was performed on a
nb event sample collected in 2011 with a
minimum-bias trigger. The total charm production cross section at TeV and at 7 TeV was evaluated by extrapolating to the full phase space
the -differential production cross sections at TeV
and our previous measurements at TeV. The results were compared
to existing measurements and to perturbative-QCD calculations. The fraction of
cdbar D mesons produced in a vector state was also determined.Comment: 20 pages, 5 captioned figures, 4 tables, authors from page 15,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/307
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