5,457 research outputs found
The nightlife spaces: the case of bush bars in Abuja
Night time has been constantly neglected in the field of urban studies. Most of the literature in the fields of Urban Geography and Sociology has examined the daytime temporal space, neglecting the nocturnal dynamics. In fact, for only about a decade, geographical works in the sphere of night studies have taken place. This contribution, starting from the reflections of Lefebvre (1991) who claimed that specific activities took place and still take place only at night, examines particular meeting places such as bush bars, which are typical nightclubs developed in Nigeria in recent times. Present in the capital Abuja and not only, closed during the day, they come to life at dusk and are placed in the green areas of urban and peri-urban spaces; finally they enliven the African night and, under the glow of the moon and the stars, they are also the meeting place where meetings take place and important decisions are taken, they are not only a place for fun and entertainment. The aim of the qualitative research, targeted at a sample of convenience, is to inform, to make known how in an urban space referred to a capital of an African country such as Nigeria there can be particular places of aggregation not present in the western cities that they try to imitate, both from design and skyline and in the construction of relational and social dynamics, related to night entertainment
Fructose-1,6-diphosphate reduces acute ECG changes due to doxorubicin in isolated rat heart
Doxorubicin (DXR) (0.17 x 10(-4) M) induces an acute cardiotoxicity in isolated rat heart; there is a progressive widening of the S alpha T segment, with a decrease in force derivatives and in the coronary flow. Concurrent perfusion with fructose-1,6-diphosphate (FDP) (10(-5)-10(-4) M) dose-dependently reduces the S alpha T enlargement but fails to affect the reduction in force derivatives and coronary flow. The target of cardiac protection by FDP might be the ionic mechanisms underlying the action potential configuration
Migrants inside and outside Africa. Motivations, Paths and Routes
The phenomenon of migration has always existed during the history of man since the beginning of time, just think of the history of the diaspora of the Jewish people until the great migrations of the nineteenth century which involved several European peoples, including Italians, Germans, Poles, and non-Europeans, such as the Japanese, heading to North or South America. This article, using official sources provided by IOM, UNHCR and other accredited international statistical sources, aims to offer a critical reflection about the motivations, routes and paths of migrants outside and inside Africa, showing that only a small part of them reach Europe. In fact, the first attractive centre for internal migration is C\uf4te d'Ivoire, one of the countries, together with Nigeria, which is the driving force behind the sparsely populated economy of West Africa, rich in agricultural raw materials (starting with cocoa and coffee). Finally, particular attention is given to the Italian case because is the geographical area most affected by the landings of migrants. In fact, hostility towards migrants in Italy at the end of last year was on the increase: one Italian in two said he considered immigrants a danger and was afraid of it
Equilibrium and stability of neutrino lumps as TOV solutions
We report about stability conditions for static, spherically symmetric
objects that share the essential features of mass varying neutrinos in
cosmological scenarios. Compact structures of particles with variable mass are
held together preponderantly by an attractive force mediated by a background
scalar field. Their corresponding conditions for equilibrium and stability are
given in terms of the ratio between the total mass-energy and the spherical
lump radius, . We show that the mass varying mechanism leading to lump
formation can modify the cosmological predictions for the cosmological neutrino
mass limits. Our study comprises Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff solutions of
relativistic objects with non-uniform energy densities. The results leave open
some questions concerning stable regular solutions that, to an external
observer, very closely reproduce the preliminary conditions to form
Schwarzschild black holes.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure
Swift J0525.6+2416 and IGR J04571+4527: two new hard X-ray selected magnetic cataclysmic variables identified with XMM-Newton
IGR J04571+4527 and Swift J0525.6+2416 are two hard X-ray sources detected in
the Swift/BAT and INTEGRAL/IBIS surveys. They were proposed to be magnetic
cataclysmic variables of the Intermediate Polar (IP) type, based on optical
spectroscopy. IGR J04571+4527 also showed a 1218 s optical periodicity,
suggestive of the rotational period of a white dwarf, further pointing towards
an IP classification. We here present detailed X-ray (0.3-10 keV) timing and
spectral analysis performed with XMM-Newton, complemented with hard X-ray
coverage (15-70 keV) from Swift/BAT. These are the first high signal to noise
observations in the soft X-ray domain for both sources, allowing us to identify
the white dwarf X-ray spin period of Swift J0525.6+2416 (226.28 s), and IGR
J04571+4527 (1222.6 s). A model consisting of multi-temperature optically thin
emission with complex absorption adequately fits the broad-band spectrum of
both sources. We estimate a white dwarf mass of about 1.1 and 1.0 solar masses
for IGR J04571+4527 and Swift J0525.6+2416, respectively. The above
characteristics allow us to unambiguously classify both sources as IPs,
confirming the high incidence of this subclass among hard X-ray emitting
Cataclysmic Variables.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA
Dirac neutrino mass from the beta decay end-point modified by the dynamics of a Lorentz-violating equation of motion
Using a generalized procedure for obtaining the equation of motion of a
propagating fermionic particle, we examine previous claims for a lightlike
preferred axis embedded in the framework of Lorentz-invariance violation with
preserved algebra. In a high energy scale, the corresponding equation of motion
is reduced to a conserving lepton number chiral (VSR) equation, and in a low
energy scale, the Dirac equation for a free is recovered. The new dynamics
introduces some novel ingredients (modified cross section) to the phenomenology
of the tritium beta decay end-point.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure
Broad-band characteristics of seven new hard X-ray selected cataclysmic variables
Indexación: Web of Science; Scopus.We present timing and spectral analysis of a sample of seven hard X-ray selected cataclysmic
variable candidates based on simultaneous X-ray and optical observations collected
with XMM–Newton, complemented with Swift/BAT and INTEGRAL /IBIS hard X-ray data
and ground-based optical photometry. For six sources, X-ray pulsations are detected for the
first time in the range of ∼296–6098 s, identifying them as members of the magnetic class.
Swift J0927.7−6945, Swift J0958.0−4208, Swift J1701.3−4304, Swift J2113.5+5422 and
possibly PBC J0801.2−4625 are intermediate polars (IPs), while Swift J0706.8+0325 is a
short (1.7 h) orbital period polar, the 11th hard X-ray-selected identified so far. X-ray orbital
modulation is also observed in Swift J0927.7−6945 (5.2 h) and Swift J2113.5+5422
(4.1 h). Swift J1701.3−4304 is discovered as the longest orbital period (12.8 h) deep eclipsing
IP. The spectra of the magnetic systems reveal optically thin multitemperature emission
between 0.2 and 60 keV. Energy-dependent spin pulses and the orbital modulation in
Swift J0927.7−6945 and Swift J2113.5+5422 are due to intervening local high-density absorbing
material (NH ∼ 1022 − 23 cm−2). In Swift J0958.0−4208 and Swift J1701.3−4304, a
soft X-ray blackbody (kT ∼ 50 and ∼80 eV) is detected, adding them to the growing group
of ‘soft’ IPs. White dwarf masses are determined in the range of ∼0.58–1.18 M, indicating
massive accreting primaries in five of them. Most sources accrete at rates lower than the
expected secular value for their orbital period. Formerly proposed as a long-period (9.4 h)
nova-like CV, Swift J0746.3−1608 shows peculiar spectrum and light curves suggesting either
an atypical low-luminosity CV or a low-mass X-ray binary.https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/470/4/4815/390658
X-ray and UV correlation in the quiescent emission of Cen X-4, evidence of accretion and reprocessing
We conducted the first long-term (60 days), multiwavelength (optical,
ultraviolet, and X-ray) simultaneous monitoring of Cen X-4 with daily Swift
observations, with the goal of understanding variability in the low mass X-ray
binary Cen X-4 during quiescence. We found Cen X-4 to be highly variable in all
energy bands on timescales from days to months, with the strongest quiescent
variability a factor of 22 drop in the X-ray count rate in only 4 days. The
X-ray, UV and optical (V band) emission are correlated on timescales down to
less than 110 s. The shape of the correlation is a power law with index gamma
about 0.2-0.6. The X-ray spectrum is well fitted by a hydrogen NS atmosphere
(kT=59-80 eV) and a power law (with spectral index Gamma=1.4-2.0), with the
spectral shape remaining constant as the flux varies. Both components vary in
tandem, with each responsible for about 50% of the total X-ray flux, implying
that they are physically linked. We conclude that the X-rays are likely
generated by matter accreting down to the NS surface. Moreover, based on the
short timescale of the correlation, we also unambiguously demonstrate that the
UV emission can not be due to either thermal emission from the stream impact
point, or a standard optically thick, geometrically thin disc. The spectral
energy distribution shows a small UV emitting region, too hot to arise from the
accretion disk, that we identified as a hot spot on the companion star.
Therefore, the UV emission is most likely produced by reprocessing from the
companion star, indeed the vertical size of the disc is small and can only
reprocess a marginal fraction of the X-ray emission. We also found the
accretion disc in quiescence to likely be UV faint, with a minimal contribution
to the whole UV flux.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Proc. Int. Conf. Physics at the
Magnetospheric Boundary, Geneva, Switzerland (25-28 June, 2013
Unconventional Disorder Effects in Correlated Superconductors
We study the effects of disorder on unconventional superconductors in the presence of correlations, and explore a novel correlated disorder paradigm dominated by strong deviations from standard Abrikosov-Gor'kov theory due to generation of local bound states and cooperative impurity behavior driven by Coulomb interactions. Specifically we explain under which circumstances magnetic disorder acts as a strong poison destroying high-Tc superconductivity at the sub-1% level, and when nonmagnetic disorder, counterintuitively, hardly affects the unconventional superconducting state while concomitantly inducing an inhomogeneous full-volume magnetic phase. Recent experimental studies of Fe-based superconductors have discovered that such unusual disorder behavior seems to be indeed present in those systems
Perturbative approach for mass varying neutrinos coupled to the dark sector in the generalized Chaplygin gas scenario
We suggest a perturbative approach for generic choices for the universe
equation of state and introduce a novel framework for studying mass varying
neutrinos (MaVaN's) coupled to the dark sector. For concreteness, we examine
the coupling between neutrinos and the underlying scalar field associated with
the generalized Chaplygin gas (GCG), a unification model for dark energy and
dark matter. It is shown that the application of a perturbative approach to
MaVaN mechanisms translates into a constraint on the coefficient of a linear
perturbation, which depends on the ratio between a neutrino energy dependent
term and scalar field potential terms. We quantify the effects on the MaVaN
sector by considering neutrino masses generated by the seesaw mechanism. After
setting the GCG parameters in agreement with general cosmological constraints,
we find that the squared speed of sound in the neutrino-scalar GCG fluid is
naturally positive. In this scenario, the model stability depends on previously
set up parameters associated with the equation of state of the universe. Our
results suggest that the GCG is a particularly suitable candidate for
constructing a stable MaVaN scenario.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figure
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