The evolution of Giant Molecular Filaments

In recent years there has been a growing interest in studying giant molecular filaments (GMFs), which are extremely elongated (> 100pc in length) giant molecular clouds (GMCs). They are often seen as inter-arm features in external spiral galaxies, but have been tentatively associated with spiral arms when viewed in the Milky Way. In this paper, we study the time evolution of GMFs in a high-resolution section of a spiral galaxy simulation, and their link with spiral arm GMCs and star formation, over a period of 11Myrs. The GMFs generally survive the inter-arm passage, although they are subject to a number of processes (e.g. star formation, stellar feedback and differential rotation) which can break the giant filamentary structure into smaller sections. The GMFs are not gravitationally bound clouds as a whole, but are, to some extent, confined by external pressure. Once they reach the spiral arms, the GMFs tend to evolve into more substructured spiral arm GMCs, suggesting that GMFs may be precursors to arm GMCs. Here, they become incorporated into the more complex and almost continuum molecular medium that makes up the gaseous spiral arm. Instead of retaining a clear filamentary shape, their shapes are distorted both by their climb up the spiral potential and their interaction with the gas within the spiral arm. The GMFs do tend to become aligned with the spiral arms just before they enter them (when they reach the minimum of the spiral potential), which could account for the observations of GMFs in the Milky Way.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, MNRAS accepte

Conductivity of Coulomb interacting massless Dirac particles in graphene: Regularization-dependent parameters and symmetry constraints

We compute the Coulomb correction $\mathcal{C}$ to the a. c. conductivity of interacting massless Dirac particles in graphene in the collisionless limit using the polarization tensor approach in a regularization independent framework. Arbitrary parameters stemming from differences between logarithmically divergent integrals are fixed on physical grounds exploiting only spatial $O(2)$ rotational invariance of the model which amounts to transversality of the polarization tensor. Consequently $\mathcal{C}$ is unequivocally determined to be $(19- 6\pi)/12$ within this effective model. We compare our result with explicit regularizations and discuss the origin of others results for $\mathcal{C}$ found in the literature

Microfluidic-SANS: flow processing of complex fluids

Understanding and engineering the flow-response of complex and non-Newtonian fluids at a molecular level is a key challenge for their practical utilisation. Here we demonstrate the coupling of microfluidics with small angle neutron scattering (SANS). Microdevices with high neutron transmission (up to 98%), low scattering background ([Image: see text]), broad solvent compatibility and high pressure tolerance (≈3–15 bar) are rapidly prototyped via frontal photo polymerisation. Scattering from single microchannels of widths down to 60 μm, with beam footprint of 500 μm diameter, was successfully obtained in the scattering vector range 0.01–0.3 Å(−1), corresponding to real space dimensions of [Image: see text]. We demonstrate our approach by investigating the molecular re-orientation and alignment underpinning the flow response of two model complex fluids, namely cetyl trimethylammonium chloride/pentanol/D(2)O and sodium lauryl sulfate/octanol/brine lamellar systems. Finally, we assess the applicability and outlook of microfluidic-SANS for high-throughput and flow processing studies, with emphasis of soft matter

Charge and Magnetic Moment of the Neutrino in the Background Field Method and in the Linear R_xi^L Gauge

We present a computation of the charge and the magnetic moment of the neutrino in the recently developed electro-weak Background Field Method and in the linear $R_{\xi}^L$ gauge. First, we deduce a formal Ward-Takahashi identity which implies the immediate cancellation of the neutrino electric charge. This Ward-Takahashi identity is as simple as that for QED. The computation of the (proper and improper) one loop vertex diagrams contributing to the neutrino electric charge is also presented in an arbitrary gauge, checking in this way the Ward-Takahashi identity previously obtained. Finally, the calculation of the magnetic moment of the neutrino, in the minimal extension of the Standard Model with massive Dirac neutrinos, is presented, showing its gauge parameter and gauge structure independence explicitly.Comment: Latex, 19 pages, 9 PS and 10 EPS figures. One reference added. Appendix B modified and Appendices C-E eliminated. To be published in Eur. Phys. J.

Structural Changes in Data Communication in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are an important technology for making distributed autonomous measures in hostile or inaccessible environments. Among the challenges they pose, the way data travel among them is a relevant issue since their structure is quite dynamic. The operational topology of such devices can often be described by complex networks. In this work, we assess the variation of measures commonly employed in the complex networks literature applied to wireless sensor networks. Four data communication strategies were considered: geometric, random, small-world, and scale-free models, along with the shortest path length measure. The sensitivity of this measure was analyzed with respect to the following perturbations: insertion and removal of nodes in the geometric strategy; and insertion, removal and rewiring of links in the other models. The assessment was performed using the normalized Kullback-Leibler divergence and Hellinger distance quantifiers, both deriving from the Information Theory framework. The results reveal that the shortest path length is sensitive to perturbations.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, Central European Journal of Physic

A semantic web service-based architecture for the interoperability of e-government services

We propose a semantically-enhanced architecture to address the issues of interoperability and service integration in e-government web information systems. An architecture for a life event portal based on Semantic Web Services (SWS) is described. The architecture includes loosely-coupled modules organized in three distinct layers: User Interaction, Middleware and Web Services. The Middleware provides the semantic infrastructure for ontologies and SWS. In particular a conceptual model for integrating domain knowledge (Life Event Ontology), application knowledge (E-government Ontology) and service description (Service Ontology) is defined. The model has been applied to a use case scenario in e-government and the results of a system prototype have been reported to demonstrate some relevant features of the proposed approach