Multiphonon and ``hot''-phonon Isovector Electric-Dipole Excitations

We argue that a substantial increase in the cross section for Coulomb excitation in the region of the Double Giant Dipole Resonance should be expected from Coulomb excitation of excited states involved in the spreading of the one-phonon resonance, in a manifestation of the Brink-Axel phenomenon. This generates an additional fluctuating amplitude and a corresponding new term to be added incoherently to the usual cross-section. The appropriate extension of an applicable reaction calculation is considered in order to estimate this effect.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, 1 figure available on reques

Correction: Martínez-González, M.A. et al. Transferability of the Mediterranean Diet to Non-Mediterranean Countries. What Is and What Is Not the Mediterranean Diet. Nutrients 2017, 9, 1226

The authors have requested that the following changes be made to their paper [1]

On the exact gravitational lens equation in spherically symmetric and static spacetimes

Lensing in a spherically symmetric and static spacetime is considered, based on the lightlike geodesic equation without approximations. After fixing two radius values r_O and r_S, lensing for an observation event somewhere at r_O and static light sources distributed at r_S is coded in a lens equation that is explicitly given in terms of integrals over the metric coefficients. The lens equation relates two angle variables and can be easily plotted if the metric coefficients have been specified; this allows to visualize in a convenient way all relevant lensing properties, giving image positions, apparent brightnesses, image distortions, etc. Two examples are treated: Lensing by a Barriola-Vilenkin monopole and lensing by an Ellis wormhole.Comment: REVTEX, 11 pages, 12 eps-figures, figures partly improved, minor revision

Quark-Squark Alignment Revisited

We re-examine the possibility that the solution to the supersymmetric flavor problem is related to small mixing angles in gaugino couplings induced by approximate horizontal Abelian symmetries. We prove that, for a large class of models, there is a single viable structure for the down quark mass matrix with four holomorphic zeros. Consequently, we are able to obtain both lower and upper bounds on the supersymmetric mixing angles and predict the contributions to various flavor changing neutral current processes. We find that the most likely signals for alignment are $\Delta m_D$ close to the present bound, significant CP violation in $D^0-\bar{D^0}$ mixing, and shifts of order a few percent in various CP asymmetries in $B^0$ and $B_s$ decays. In contrast, the modifications to radiative B decays, to $\epsilon^\prime/\epsilon$ and to $K\to\pi\nu\bar\nu$ decays are small. We further investigate a new class of alignment models, where supersymmetric contributions to flavor changing processes are suppressed by both alignment and RGE-induced degeneracy.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figure

Striatal expression of GDNF and differential vulnerability of midbrain dopaminergic cells

Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is a member of the transforming growth factor-beta superfamily that when exogenously administrated exerts a potent trophic action on dopaminergic (DA) cells. Although we know a lot about its signalling mechanisms and pharmacological effects, physiological actions of GDNF on the adult brain remain unclear. Here, we have used morphological and molecular techniques, and an experimental model of Parkinson's disease in rats, to investigate whether GDNF constitutively expressed in the adult mesostriatal system plays a neuroprotective role on midbrain DA cells. We found that although all midbrain DA cells express both receptor components of GDNF (GFRalpha1 and Ret), those in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and rostromedial substantia nigra (SNrm) also contain GDNF but not GDNFmRNA. The levels of GDNFmRNA are significantly higher in the ventral striatum (vSt), the target region of VTA and SNrm cells, than in the dorsal striatum (dSt), the target region of DA cells in the caudoventral substantia nigra (SNcv). After fluoro-gold injection in striatum, VTA and SNrm DA cells show triple labelling for tyrosine hydroxylase, GDNF and fluoro-gold, and after colchicine injection in the lateral ventricle, they become GDNF-immunonegative, suggesting that GDNF in DA somata comes from their striatal target. As DA cells in VTA and SNrm are more resistant than those in SNcv to intracerebroventricular injection of 6-OHDA, as occurs in Parkinson's disease, we can suggest that the fact that they project to vSt, where GDNF expression is significantly higher than in the dSt, is a neuroprotective factor involved in the differential vulnerability of midbrain DA neurons

Bedload and Suspended Sediment of a Watershed Impacted by Dams

Sediment transport relates to suspended sediment and bedload. The suspended sediment plays the most important role on the land-ocen sediment flux. On the other hand, the bedload should be considered in order to assess the impacts of dams on sediment transport and sediment yield. Recent effects of dam construction have been widely reported. The sediment load has been reduced by more than 75% for major rives, such as Nilo, Orange, Volta, Indus, Ebro, Kizil Irmark, Colorado, and Rio Grande and more than 40% of its lux is trapped within large dams. In addition, the multiple trapping through sequential dams has impacted the sediment transfer from terrestrial to coastal zone, triggering the coastal erosion. In terms of sediment retention and transport, China stands out the most impacted country by dams, followed by United States, and continents such as Europe, Africa, and South America. Based on the foregoing, the impact of dams on sediment transport and yield of an important Brazilian watershed with multiple dams will be the focus of this chapter. Thus, a three years field sampling (2009-2011) was carried out to measure the sediment yield of Capibaribe Watershed, and also its contribution to coastal erosion. The ratio between QB and SSQ ranged from 0.12% to 27.3% with 76% of all values lower than 5%. Usually, the bedload transport rate of a river is about 5–25% of the suspended sediment transport. This ranging sheds light on the lack of bedload reaching the coastal zone and it is likely one of the reasons to yield coastal erosion. The low rates can be attributed to the presence of dams which have been admitted to have a strong effect on sediment transport. The sediment yield was equal to 3.69, 4.36, and 6.7 t km-2 ano-1 in 2009, 2010, and 2011, respectively. In comparison with bedload yield, the suspended sediment yield was higher than 95% for all studied years. Therefore, the limited bedload supply – mainly responsible for construction of coastal landform – is likely contributing to the coastal erosion along part of the northeast region, Brazil. The multiple dams along the Capibaribe River watershed produce a deficit in sediment flux to coastal zone of Pernambuco State, Brazil, which relies on the low ratios between bedload and suspended sediment. As a result, it generates energy to coastal erosion of the Brazilian northeast

Bianchi type II models in the presence of perfect fluid and anisotropic dark energy

Spatially homogeneous but totally anisotropic and non-flat Bianchi type II cosmological model has been studied in general relativity in the presence of two minimally interacting fluids; a perfect fluid as the matter fluid and a hypothetical anisotropic fluid as the dark energy fluid. The Einstein's field equations have been solved by applying two kinematical ans\"{a}tze: we have assumed the variation law for the mean Hubble parameter that yields a constant value of deceleration parameter, and one of the components of the shear tensor has been considered proportional to the mean Hubble parameter. We have particularly dwelled on the accelerating models with non-divergent expansion anisotropy as the Universe evolves. Yielding anisotropic pressure, the fluid we consider in the context of dark energy, can produce results that can be produced in the presence of isotropic fluid in accordance with the \Lambda CDM cosmology. However, the derived model gives additional opportunities by being able to allow kinematics that cannot be produced in the presence of fluids that yield only isotropic pressure. We have obtained well behaving cases where the anisotropy of the expansion and the anisotropy of the fluid converge to finite values (include zero) in the late Universe. We have also showed that although the metric we consider is totally anisotropic, the anisotropy of the dark energy is constrained to be axially symmetric, as long as the overall energy momentum tensor possesses zero shear stress.Comment: 15 pages; 5 figures; matches the version published in The European Physical Journal Plu

Kalb-Ramond excitations in a thick-brane scenario with dilaton

We compute the full spectrum and eigenstates of the Kalb-Ramond field in a warped non-compact Randall-Sundrum -type five-dimensional spacetime in which the ordinary four-dimensional braneworld is represented by a sine-Gordon soliton. This 3-brane solution is fully consistent with both the warped gravitational field and bulk dilaton configurations. In such a background we embed a bulk antisymmetric tensor field and obtain, after reduction, an infinite tower of normalizable Kaluza-Klein massive components along with a zero-mode. The low lying mass eigenstates of the Kalb-Ramond field may be related to the axion pseudoscalar. This yields phenomenological implications on the space of parameters, particularly on the dilaton coupling constant. Both analytical and numerical results are given.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, and 2 tables. Final version to appear in The European Physical Journal