Shock creation and particle acceleration driven by plasma expansion into a rarefied medium

The expansion of a dense plasma through a more rarefied ionised medium is a phenomenon of interest in various physics environments ranging from astrophysics to high energy density laser- matter laboratory experiments. Here this situation is modeled via a 1D Particle-In-Cell simulation; a jump in the plasma density of a factor of 100 is introduced in the middle of an otherwise equally dense electron-proton plasma with an uniform proton and electron temperature of 10eV and 1keV respectively. The diffusion of the dense plasma, through the rarified one, triggers the onset of different nonlinear phenomena such as a strong ion-acoustic shock wave and a rarefaction wave. Secondary structures are detected, some of which are driven by a drift instability of the rarefaction wave. Efficient proton acceleration occurs ahead of the shock, bringing the maximum proton velocity up to 60 times the initial ion thermal speed

Election turnout statistics in many countries: similarities, differences, and a diffusive field model for decision-making

We study in details the turnout rate statistics for 77 elections in 11 different countries. We show that the empirical results established in a previous paper for French elections appear to hold much more generally. We find in particular that the spatial correlation of turnout rates decay logarithmically with distance in all cases. This result is quantitatively reproduced by a decision model that assumes that each voter makes his mind as a result of three influence terms: one totally idiosyncratic component, one city-specific term with short-ranged fluctuations in space, and one long-ranged correlated field which propagates diffusively in space. A detailed analysis reveals several interesting features: for example, different countries have different degrees of local heterogeneities and seem to be characterized by a different propensity for individuals to conform to the cultural norm. We furthermore find clear signs of herding (i.e. strongly correlated decisions at the individual level) in some countries, but not in others.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, 7 table

Tunable high-energy ion source via oblique laser pulse incidence on a double-layer target

The laser-driven acceleration of high quality proton beams from a double-layer target, comprised of a high-Z ion layer and a thin disk of hydrogen, is investigated with three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations in the case of oblique incidence of a laser pulse. It is shown that the proton beam energy reaches its maximum at a certain incidence angle of the laser pulse, where it can be much greater than the energy at normal incidence. The proton beam propagates at some angle with respect to the target surface normal, as determined by the proton energy and the incidence angle

European green policy announcements and sectoral stock returns

To fulfill the Paris Agreement commitments and stimulated by an unprecedented amount of public resources put in place to recover from the COVID-induced recession, European governments have recently announced sizable green policy plans. In this paper, we examine the behavior of green and brown portfolios around green policy-related announcements (GPAs) made by major European governments in 2020 via a standard event study analysis and the use of returns of stocks listed in the “STOXX 100 All Europe”. Our main empirical findings indicate the presence of positive cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) both in the green and brown sectors following GPAs. However, the estimated positive sentiment effect is stronger in the former sector. A size effect in terms of the amount of resources announced to be allocated for a specific category of policy is also observed. We find that the observed positive sentiment is mainly driven by announcements on climate change mitigation-related policies, which account for 70% of the total allocated funds. At the sector level, positive and significant CARs due to GPAs are found in the (i) energy, (ii) financial and (iii) industrial sectors. At the country level, GPAs are found to drive a significant positive sentiment effect in the following European countries: Switzerland, Spain, UK, Ireland and Italy. Sector- and country-level analyses confirm the presence of larger benefits from GPAs among more sustainable portfolios

Assessing The Global Environment

Includes methods and perspectives on global logistics and supply chain management that have emerged from logistics, marketing, management, economics, sociology, personnel, information systems, and international relation. Provides a comprehensive understanding and assessment of the field of global logistics and supply chain management. Describes and critically examines the key perspectives guiding global logistics and supply chain management, taking stock of what we know (and don't know) about them. Identifies emerging developments and delineate their significance to the practice of global logistics and supply chain management. Employs top flight international researchers from both academia and practice to provide a broad range of ideas and applications

Establishing a Community of Conversation: Creating a Context for Self-Reflection Among Teacher Scholars

This paper will discuss how the Teacher Scholars Project was created to encourage thoughtful conversations about teaching at the university, how portfolio activities such as videotape sessions and the sharing of narratives about teaching were integrated into project activities, and how faculty were encouraged to seriously look at their own practice and to reflect on it in conversations with a group of peers over the course of an entire academic year. It concludes by considering the importance of the creation of a community of conversation across disciplines in establishing conditions for more meaningful discussion and self-reflection on campus

Radiation Pressure Dominate Regime of Relativistic Ion Acceleration

The electromagnetic radiation pressure becomes dominant in the interaction of the ultra-intense electromagnetic wave with a solid material, thus the wave energy can be transformed efficiently into the energy of ions representing the material and the high density ultra-short relativistic ion beam is generated. This regime can be seen even with present-day technology, when an exawatt laser will be built. As an application, we suggest the laser-driven heavy ion collider.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Effects of Selenium Enrichment of Tomato Plants on Ripe Fruit Metabolism and Composition

The effects of selenium (Se) addition on production and quality traits of Solanum lycopersicon ‘Red Bunch’ were investigated. Se was added as sodium selenate at the rate of 0, 0.5 and 1 mg Se L-1 to the nutrient solution. Se was absorbed by roots and accumulated in leaves and fruits, and at the tested concentrations, it did not affect yield. Se concentration followed a gradient, decreasing from the basal to the apical part of the plant. At red ripe stage, the fruits on the lower trusses accumulated higher amount of Se than the fruits of the higher trusses. ß-carotene and lutein significantly decreased only at 1.0 mg Se L-1. Lycopene increased either in 0.5 and, less markedly, 1.0 mg Se L-1-treated fruits where a pronounced increase in quercetin was also observed

Universality in movie rating distributions

In this paper histograms of user ratings for movies (1,...,10) are analysed. The evolving stabilised shapes of histograms follow the rule that all are either double- or triple-peaked. Moreover, at most one peak can be on the central bins 2,...,9 and the distribution in these bins looks smooth `Gaussian-like' while changes at the extremes (1 and 10) often look abrupt. It is shown that this is well approximated under the assumption that histograms are confined and discretised probability density functions of L\'evy skew alpha-stable distributions. These distributions are the only stable distributions which could emerge due to a generalized central limit theorem from averaging of various independent random avriables as which one can see the initial opinions of users. Averaging is also an appropriate assumption about the social process which underlies the process of continuous opinion formation. Surprisingly, not the normal distribution achieves the best fit over histograms obseved on the web, but distributions with fat tails which decay as power-laws with exponent -(1+alpha) (alpha=4/3). The scale and skewness parameters of the Levy skew alpha-stable distributions seem to depend on the deviation from an average movie (with mean about 7.6). The histogram of such an average movie has no skewness and is the most narrow one. If a movie deviates from average the distribution gets broader and skew. The skewness pronounces the deviation. This is used to construct a one parameter fit which gives some evidence of universality in processes of continuous opinion dynamics about taste.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publicatio