6,135 research outputs found
SUSY QCD one-loop effects in (un)polarized top-pair production at hadron colliders
We study the effects of O(alpha_s) supersymmetric QCD (SQCD) corrections on
the total production rate and kinematic distributions of polarized and
unpolarized top-pair production in pp and p anti-p collisions. At the Fermilab
Tevatron p anti-p collider, top-quark pairs are mainly produced via
quark-antiquark annihilation, q anti-q -> t anti-t, while at the CERN LHC pp
collider gluon-gluon scattering, g g -> t anti-t, dominates. We compute the
complete set of O(alpha_s) SQCD corrections to both production channels and
study their dependence on the parameters of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard
Model. In particular, we discuss the prospects for observing strong,
loop-induced SUSY effects in top-pair production at the Tevatron Run II and the
LHC.Comment: 56 pages, 29 figures, RevTeX
Ultrafast spatio-temporal dynamics of terahertz generation by ionizing two-color femtosecond pulses in gases
We present a combined theoretical and experimental study of spatio-temporal
propagation effects in terahertz (THz) generation in gases using two-color
ionizing laser pulses. The observed strong broadening of the THz spectra with
increasing gas pressure reveals the prominent role of spatio-temporal reshaping
and of a plasma-induced blue-shift of the pump pulses in the generation
process. Results obtained from (3+1)-dimensional simulations are in good
agreement with experimental findings and clarify the mechanisms responsible for
THz emission
Electrowetting of liquid marbles
Electrowetting of water drops on structured superhydrophobic surfaces are known to cause an irreversible change from a slippy (Cassie-Baxter) to a sticky (Wenzel) regime. An alternative approach to using a water drop on a superhydrophobic surface to obtain a non-wetting system is to use a liquid marble on a smooth solid substrate. A liquid marble is a droplet coated in hydrophobic grains, which therefore carries its own solid surface structure as a conformal coating. Such droplets can be considered as perfect non-wetting systems having contact angles to smooth solid substrates of close to 180 degrees. In this work we report the electrowetting of liquid marbles made of water coated with hydrophobic lycopodium grains and show that the electrowetting is completely reversible. Marbles are shown to return to their initial contact angle for both ac and dc electrowetting and without requiring a threshold voltage to be exceeded. Furthermore, we provide a proof-of-principle demonstration that controlled motion of marbles on a finger electrode structure is possible
Stable two-dimensional dispersion-managed soliton
The existence of a dispersion-managed soliton in two-dimensional nonlinear
Schr\"odinger equation with periodically varying dispersion has been explored.
The averaged equations for the soliton width and chirp are obtained which
successfully describe the long time evolution of the soliton. The slow dynamics
of the soliton around the fixed points for the width and chirp are investigated
and the corresponding frequencies are calculated. Analytical predictions are
confirmed by direct PDE and ODE simulations. Application to a Bose-Einstein
condensate in optical lattice is discussed. The existence of a
dispersion-managed matter-wave soliton in such system is shown.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Cardiac impact of inhaled therapy in the largest randomised placebo-controlled trial in COPD history
SUMMIT supports the efficiency and cardiovascular safety of LABA and ICS in COPD patients at cardiovascular risk http://ow.ly/p6Is300ffoc
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FdR – Publicaties zonder aanstelling Universiteit Leide
Responsivity and Reproducibility of Sputum Inflammatory Biomarkers During COPD Exacerbation and Stable Phases - A Pilot Study
Introduction: There is a great interest to identify airway biomarkers to evaluate the potential and efficacy of anti-inflammatory therapeutic interventions. In this pilot study, we compared cytokine mRNA and protein levels of IL-6, IL-8, CCL2, CCL4, and TNF-α, as well as LTB-4 expression regarding their reproducibility and responsivity in induced sputum in COPD patients. Methods: We recruited a cohort of 17 patients with a moderate COPD exacerbation, necessitating antibiotics and/or oral corticosteroids. Patients were followed for two consecutive stable phase visits. Cytokine mRNA and protein levels were measured in induced sputum samples. Results: IL-6 and CCL4 protein levels decreased from exacerbation to stable phase, whereas their mRNA expression showed the same trend (not statistically significant). Coefficients of variation were overall lower (ie, more favorable for responsiveness) at protein levels compared to mRNA levels. No significant differences were observed in the reproducibility between cytokine mRNA expression and protein measurements. IL-6, IL-8, CCL2, and TNF-α gene expression levels yielded moderate to high intraclass correlation coefficients and/or Spearman correlation coefficients between both stable phase samples in contrast to their protein levels. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that several protein levels yield better responsivity with lower noise-to-signal ratios compared to their respective mRNA levels. In contrast, cytokine mRNA expression was more reproducible as it varied less in a stable state than proteins. Future studies are needed with a larger sample size to further evaluate the differences of responsivity and reproducibility between cytokine mRNA and protein measurements, not only during exacerbations
On virialization with dark energy
We review the inclusion of dark energy into the formalism of spherical
collapse, and the virialization of a two-component system, made of matter and
dark energy. We compare two approaches in previous studies. The first assumes
that only the matter component virializes, e.g. as in the case of a classic
cosmological constant. The second approach allows the full system to virialize
as a whole. We show that the two approaches give fundamentally different
results for the final state of the system. This might be a signature
discriminating between the classic cosmological constant which cannot virialize
and a dynamical dark energy mimicking a cosmological constant. This signature
is independent of the measured value of the equation of state. An additional
issue which we address is energy non-conservation of the system, which
originates from the homogeneity assumption for the dark energy. We propose a
way to take this energy loss into account.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in JCA
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