888 research outputs found
The role of heavy quarks in light hadron fragmentation
We investigate the role of heavy quarks in the production of light flavored
hadrons and in the determination of the corresponding non perturbative
hadronization probabilities. We define a general mass variable flavor number
scheme for fragmentation functions that accounts for heavy quark mass effects,
and perform a global QCD analysis to an up-to-date data set including very
precise Belle and BaBar results. We show that the mass dependent picture
provides a much more accurate and consistent description of data.Comment: 5 pages, 3 eps figure
The Landau Distribution for Charged Particles Traversing Thin Films
The Landau distribution as well as its first and second momenta are well
suited for describing the energy loss of charged particles traversing a thin
layer of matter. At present, just rational approximations and asymptotic
expressions for these functions were obtained. In this paper we present a
direct calculation of the integral representation of these functions obtaining
perturbative and nonperturvative solutions expressed in terms of fast
convergent series. We also provide a simple numerical algorithm which allows to
control speed and precision of the results. The testing runs have provided, in
reasonable computing times, correct results up to 13-14 significant digits on
the density and distribution functions and 9-10 on the first and second
momenta. If necessary, this accuracy could be improved by adding more
coefficients to the algorithm.Comment: 29 pages, 4 Table
Production and propagation of heavy hadrons in air-shower simulators
Very energetic charm and bottom hadrons may be produced in the upper
atmosphere when a primary cosmic ray or the leading hadron in an extensive air
shower collide with a nucleon. At GeV their decay length
becomes of the order of 10 km, implying that they tend to interact in the air
instead of decaying. Since the inelasticity in these collisions is much smaller
than the one in proton and pion collisions, there could be rare events where a
heavy-hadron component transports a significant amount of energy deep into the
atmosphere. We have developed a module for the detailed simulation of these
processes and have included it in a new version of the air shower simulator
AIRES. We study the frequency, the energy distribution and the depth of charm
and bottom production, as well as the depth and the energy distribution of
these quarks when they decay. As an illustration, we consider the production
and decay of tau leptons (from decays) and the lepton flux at PeV
energies from a 30 EeV proton primary. The proper inclusion of charm and bottom
hadrons in AIRES opens the possibility to search for air-shower observables
that are sensitive to heavy quark effects.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physic
The Possible White Dwarf-Neutron Star Connection
The current status of the problem of whether neutron stars can form, in close
binary systems, by accretion-induced collapse (AIC) of white dwarfs is
examined. We find that, in principle, both initially cold C+O white dwarfs in
the high-mass tail of their mass distribution in binaries and O+Ne+Mg white
dwarfs can produce neutron stars. Which fractions of neutron stars in different
types of binaries (or descendants from binaries) might originate from this
process remains uncertain.Comment: 6 pages. To appear in "White Dwarfs", ed. J. Isern, M. Hernanz, and
E. Garcia-Berro (Dordrecht: Kluwer
Lecciana, a new low-vigour olive cultivar suitable for super high density orchards and for nutraceutical evoo production
Cultivar is the key factor for sustainability of the olive super high density planting system (SHD). ‘Lecciana’ is a new olive cultivar for oil production obtained in 1998 by a controlled cross between cv. Arbosana (♀) and cv. Leccino (♂) in a breeding program as part of an international research agreement between Agromillora Iberia S.L.U. and University of Bari. ‘Lecciana’ is the first olive cultivar of Italian descent suitable for SHD, featuring all the vegetative and productive traits required for efficient, sustainable olive growing intensification. Thanks to low vigor, early bearing (3rd year after planting), high yield efficiency (about 0.5 kg of fruits cm−2 of trunk section area) and good fruit size (3.5 g), ‘Lecciana’ could be planted with tree densities over 1,200 trees per hectare for an efficient continuous mechanical harvesting. High frost resistance, very low pistil abortion (3%), high fruit set (3%), oil content (over 19% fw) and, above all, good unsaturated fatty acids profile, polyphenols content (over 450 mg kg−1 ) and fruitiness median are the main distinctive characters of this new cultivar. The oils of ‘Lecciana’ fall into the category ‘nutraceutical EVOOs’ which can benefit from the specific functional health claim
Blue carbon stocks in Baltic Sea eelgrass (Zostera marina) meadows
Although seagrasses cover only a minor fraction of the ocean seafloor, their
carbon sink capacity accounts for nearly one-fifth of the total oceanic
carbon burial and thus play a critical structural and functional role in
many coastal ecosystems. We sampled 10 eelgrass (<i>Zostera marina</i>) meadows in Finland and 10
in Denmark to explore seagrass carbon stocks (C<sub>org</sub> stock) and carbon
accumulation rates (C<sub>org</sub> accumulation) in the Baltic Sea area. The study
sites represent a gradient from sheltered to exposed locations in both
regions to reflect expected minimum and maximum stocks and accumulation. The
C<sub>org</sub> stock integrated over the top 25 cm of the sediment averaged 627 g C m<sup>−2</sup> in Finland, while in Denmark the average C<sub>org</sub> stock was over
6 times higher (4324 g C m<sup>−2</sup>). A conservative estimate of the total
organic carbon pool in the regions ranged between 6.98 and 44.9 t C ha<sup>−1</sup>.
Our results suggest that the Finnish eelgrass meadows are minor carbon sinks
compared to the Danish meadows, and that majority of the C<sub>org</sub> produced in
the Finnish meadows is exported. Our analysis further showed that
> 40 % of the variation in the C<sub>org</sub> stocks was explained by
sediment characteristics, i.e. dry density, porosity and silt content. In
addition, our analysis show that the root : shoot ratio of <i>Z. marina</i> explained
> 12 % and the contribution of <i>Z. marina</i> detritus to the sediment surface
C<sub>org</sub> pool explained > 10 % of the variation in the C<sub>org</sub> stocks.
The mean monetary value for the present carbon storage and carbon sink
capacity of eelgrass meadows in Finland and Denmark, were 281 and 1809 EUR ha<sup>−1</sup>, respectively. For a more comprehensive picture of
seagrass carbon storage capacity, we conclude that future blue carbon
studies should, in a more integrative way, investigate the interactions
between sediment biogeochemistry, seascape structure, plant species
architecture and the hydrodynamic regime
Generalized Borel Transform Technique in Quantum Mechanics
We present the Generalized Borel Transform (GBT). This new approach allows
one to obtain approximate solutions of Laplace/Mellin transform valid in both,
perturbative and non perturbative regimes. We compare the results provided by
the GBT for a solvable model of quantum mechanics with those provided by
standard techniques, as the conventional Borel sum, or its modified versions.
We found that our approach is very efficient for obtaining both the low and the
high energy behavior of the model.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure
Tau Be or not Tau Be? - A Perspective on Service Compatibility and Substitutability
One of the main open research issues in Service Oriented Computing is to
propose automated techniques to analyse service interfaces. A first problem,
called compatibility, aims at determining whether a set of services (two in
this paper) can be composed together and interact with each other as expected.
Another related problem is to check the substitutability of one service with
another. These problems are especially difficult when behavioural descriptions
(i.e., message calls and their ordering) are taken into account in service
interfaces. Interfaces should capture as faithfully as possible the service
behaviour to make their automated analysis possible while not exhibiting
implementation details. In this position paper, we choose Labelled Transition
Systems to specify the behavioural part of service interfaces. In particular,
we show that internal behaviours (tau transitions) are necessary in these
transition systems in order to detect subtle errors that may occur when
composing a set of services together. We also show that tau transitions should
be handled differently in the compatibility and substitutability problem: the
former problem requires to check if the compatibility is preserved every time a
tau transition is traversed in one interface, whereas the latter requires a
precise analysis of tau branchings in order to make the substitution preserve
the properties (e.g., a compatibility notion) which were ensured before
replacement.Comment: In Proceedings WCSI 2010, arXiv:1010.233
Tracking the dynamics of skyglow with differential photometry using a digital camera with fisheye lens
Artificial skyglow is dynamic due to changing atmospheric conditions and the
switching on and off of artificial lights throughout the night. Street lights
as well as the ornamental illumination of historical sites and buildings are
sometimes switched off at a certain time to save energy. Ornamental lights in
particular are often directed upwards, and can therefore have a major
contribution towards brightening of the night sky. Here we use differential
photometry to investigate the change in night sky brightness and illuminance
during an automated regular switch-off of ornamental light in the town of
Balaguer and an organized switch-off of all public lights in the village of
\`Ager, both near Montsec Astronomical Park in Spain. The sites were observed
during two nights with clear and cloudy conditions using a DSLR camera and a
fisheye lens. A time series of images makes it possible to track changes in
lighting conditions and sky brightness simultaneously. During the clear night,
the ornamental lights in Balaguer contribute over 20% of the skyglow at zenith
at the observational site. Furthermore, we are able to track very small changes
in the ground illuminance on a cloudy night near \`Ager.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, 1 tabl
Coordination of Dynamic Software Components with JavaBIP
JavaBIP allows the coordination of software components by clearly separating
the functional and coordination aspects of the system behavior. JavaBIP
implements the principles of the BIP component framework rooted in rigorous
operational semantics. Recent work both on BIP and JavaBIP allows the
coordination of static components defined prior to system deployment, i.e., the
architecture of the coordinated system is fixed in terms of its component
instances. Nevertheless, modern systems, often make use of components that can
register and deregister dynamically during system execution. In this paper, we
present an extension of JavaBIP that can handle this type of dynamicity. We use
first-order interaction logic to define synchronization constraints based on
component types. Additionally, we use directed graphs with edge coloring to
model dependencies among components that determine the validity of an online
system. We present the software architecture of our implementation, provide and
discuss performance evaluation results.Comment: Technical report that accompanies the paper accepted at the 14th
International Conference on Formal Aspects of Component Softwar
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