501 research outputs found
Cooling Strategies for Greenhouses in Summer: Control of Fogging by Pulse Width Modulation
The possibilities for improving the control of greenhouse fogging systems, were studied by comparing several combinations of ventilation cooling techniques, shade screening and low-pressure fogging. The study was divided into three parts: experiments, modelling and simulations. In the first part of the paper, ten combinations of five cooling techniques were tested during the summers of 2002 and 2003 in a 132m2 greenhouse with a steel structure and a single-layer methacrylate cover located in Madrid, Spain. An analysis of variance of the climatic parameters was carried out to determine which combinations produced significant differences in inside temperature or relative humidity. Comparing the values for the inside to outside temperature difference, the combination of a shade screen and above-screen fogging achieved a difference in temperature almost the same as that for under-screen fogging, but the relative humidity was significantly lower. In the second part of the study a dynamic model was developed (2002) and validated (2003). The mean absolute error obtained for inside temperature was similar in the fit and the validation and it was less than 1.5 1C in both cases. The model was used to simulate the inside air temperature for a fog system working without shading, and above and under a shade screen. Control algorithms were developed for reducing system water consumption. In the three cases a simple on/off control with a fixed fogging cycle was compared with a pulse width modulation (PWM) strategy, in which the duration of the fogging pulse was increased as a function of inside temperature. The strategies with PWM applied to the fog system were able to reduce water consumption by 8–15% with respect to the strategies with a fixed fogging cycle
A Pyramid Scheme for Particle Physics
We introduce a new model, the Pyramid Scheme, of direct mediation of SUSY
breaking, which is compatible with the idea of Cosmological SUSY Breaking
(CSB). It uses the trinification scheme of grand unification and avoids
problems with Landau poles in standard model gauge couplings. It also avoids
problems, which have recently come to light, associated with rapid stellar
cooling due to emission of the pseudo Nambu-Goldstone Boson (PNGB) of
spontaneously broken hidden sector baryon number. With a certain pattern of
R-symmetry breaking masses, a pattern more or less required by CSB, the Pyramid
Scheme leads to a dark matter candidate that decays predominantly into leptons,
with cross sections compatible with a variety of recent observations. The dark
matter particle is not a thermal WIMP but a particle with new strong
interactions, produced in the late decay of some other scalar, perhaps the
superpartner of the QCD axion, with a reheat temperature in the TeV range. This
is compatible with a variety of scenarios for baryogenesis, including some
novel ones which exploit specific features of the Pyramid Scheme.Comment: JHEP Latex, 32 pages, 1 figur
Mutations in multidomain protein MEGF8 identify a Carpenter syndrome subtype associated with defective lateralization
Carpenter syndrome is an autosomal-recessive multiple-congenital-malformation disorder characterized by multisuture craniosynostosis and polysyndactyly of the hands and feet; many other clinical features occur, and the most frequent include obesity, umbilical hernia, cryptorchidism, and congenital heart disease. Mutations of RAB23, encoding a small GTPase that regulates vesicular transport, are present in the majority of cases. Here, we describe a disorder caused by mutations in multiple epidermal-growth-factor-like-domains 8 (MEGF8), which exhibits substantial clinical overlap with Carpenter syndrome but is frequently associated with abnormal left-right patterning. We describe five affected individuals with similar dysmorphic facies, and three of them had either complete situs inversus, dextrocardia, or transposition of the great arteries; similar cardiac abnormalities were previously identified in a mouse mutant for the orthologous Megf8. The mutant alleles comprise one nonsense, three missense, and two splice-site mutations; we demonstrate in zebrafish that, in contrast to the wild-type protein, the proteins containing all three missense alterations provide only weak rescue of an early gastrulation phenotype induced by Megf8 knockdown. We conclude that mutations in MEGF8 cause a Carpenter syndrome subtype frequently associated with defective left-right patterning, probably through perturbation of signaling by hedgehog and nodal family members. We did not observe any subject with biallelic loss-of function mutations, suggesting that some residual MEGF8 function might be necessary for survival and might influence the phenotypes observed
Reheating Temperature and Gauge Mediation Models of Supersymmetry Breaking
For supersymmetric theories with gravitino dark matter, the maximal reheating
temperature consistent with big bang nucleosynthesis bounds arises when the
physical gaugino masses are degenerate. We consider the cases of a stau or
sneutrino next-to-lightest superpartner, which have relatively less constraint
from big bang nucleosynthesis. The resulting parameter space is consistent with
leptogenesis requirements, and can be reached in generalized gauge mediation
models. Such models illustrate a class of theories that overcome the well-known
tension between big bang nucleosynthesis and leptogenesis.Comment: 30 pages, 4 figures; v2: refs adde
Decay of the key 92-keV resonance in the 25Mg(p,γ) reaction to the ground and isomeric states of the cosmic γ-ray emitter 26Al
The 92-keV resonance in the 25Mg(p,γ)26Al reaction plays a key role in the production of 26Al at astrophysical burning temperatures of ≈100 MK in the Mg-Al cycle. However, the state can decay to feed either the ground, 26gAl, or isomeric state, 26mAl. It is the ground state that is critical as the source of cosmic γ rays. It is therefore important to precisely determine the ground-state branching fraction f0 of this resonance. Here we report on the identification of four γ-ray transitions from the 92-keV resonance, and determine the spin of the state and its ground-state branching fraction f0=0.52(2)stat(6)syst. The f0 value is the most precise reported to date, and at the lower end of the range of previously adopted values, implying a lower production rate of 26gAl and its cosmic 1809-keV γ rays.peerReviewe
Shape Coexistence in the Relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov approach
The phenomenon of shape coexistence is studied in the Relativistic
Hartree-Bogoliubov framework. Standard relativistic mean-field effective
interactions do not reproduce the ground state properties of neutron-deficient
Pt-Hg-Pb isotopes. It is shown that, in order to consistently describe binding
energies, radii and ground state deformations of these nuclei, effective
interactions have to be constructed which take into account the sizes of
spherical shell gaps.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, accepted in Phys. Rev.
Supramolecular interactions in clusters of polar and polarizable molecules
We present a model for molecular materials made up of polar and polarizable
molecular units. A simple two state model is adopted for each molecular site
and only classical intermolecular interactions are accounted for, neglecting
any intermolecular overlap. The complex and interesting physics driven by
interactions among polar and polarizable molecules becomes fairly transparent
in the adopted model. Collective effects are recognized in the large variation
of the molecular polarity with supramolecular interactions, and cooperative
behavior shows up with the appearance, in attractive lattices, of discontinuous
charge crossovers. The mean-field approximation proves fairly accurate in the
description of the gs properties of MM, including static linear and non-linear
optical susceptibilities, apart from the region in the close proximity of the
discontinuous charge crossover. Sizeable deviations from the excitonic
description are recognized both in the excitation spectrum and in linear and
non-linear optical responses. New and interesting phenomena are recognized near
the discontinuous charge crossover for non-centrosymmetric clusters, where the
primary photoexcitation event corresponds to a multielectron transfer.Comment: 14 pages, including 11 figure
Atmospheric Heating and Wind Acceleration: Results for Cool Evolved Stars based on Proposed Processes
A chromosphere is a universal attribute of stars of spectral type later than
~F5. Evolved (K and M) giants and supergiants (including the zeta Aurigae
binaries) show extended and highly turbulent chromospheres, which develop into
slow massive winds. The associated continuous mass loss has a significant
impact on stellar evolution, and thence on the chemical evolution of galaxies.
Yet despite the fundamental importance of those winds in astrophysics, the
question of their origin(s) remains unsolved. What sources heat a chromosphere?
What is the role of the chromosphere in the formation of stellar winds? This
chapter provides a review of the observational requirements and theoretical
approaches for modeling chromospheric heating and the acceleration of winds in
single cool, evolved stars and in eclipsing binary stars, including physical
models that have recently been proposed. It describes the successes that have
been achieved so far by invoking acoustic and MHD waves to provide a physical
description of plasma heating and wind acceleration, and discusses the
challenges that still remain.Comment: 46 pages, 9 figures, 1 table; modified and unedited manuscript;
accepted version to appear in: Giants of Eclipse, eds. E. Griffin and T. Ake
(Berlin: Springer
Microscopic Structure of High-Spin Vibrational Excitations in Superdeformed 190,192,194Hg
Microscopic RPA calculations based on the cranked shell model are performed
to investigate the quadrupole and octupole correlations for excited
superdeformed bands in 190Hg, 192Hg, and 194Hg. The K=2 octupole vibrations are
predicted to be the lowest excitation modes at zero rotational frequency. At
finite frequency, however, the interplay between rotation and vibrations
produces different effects depending on neutron number: The lowest octupole
phonon is rotationally aligned in 190Hg, is crossed by the aligned
two-quasiparticle bands in 192Hg, and retains the K=2 octupole vibrational
character up to the highest frequency in 194Hg. The gamma vibrations are
predicted to be higher in energy and less collective than the octupole
vibrations. From a comparison with the experimental dynamic moments of inertia,
a new interpretation of the observed excited bands invoking the K=2 octupole
vibrations is proposed, which suggests those octupole vibrations may be
prevalent in SD Hg nuclei.Comment: 22 pages, REVTeX, 12 postscript figures are available on reques
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Early phonological and sociocognitive skills as predictors of later language and social communication outcomes
Background: Previous studies of outcome for children with early language delay have focused on measures of early language as predictors of language outcome. This study investigates whether very early processing skills (VEPS) known to underpin language development will be better predictors of specific language and social communication outcomes than measures of language itself.
Method: Participants were 163 children referred to clinical services with concerns about language at 2;6–3;6 years and followed up at 4–5 years. Novel assessments of phonological and sociocognitive processing were administered at Time 1 (T1), together with a standardised test of receptive and expressive language, and parental report of expressive vocabulary. The language test was re-administered at Time 2 (T2), together with assessments of morphosyntax and parental reports of social communication.
Results: Intercorrelations at and between T1 and T2 were high, and dissociations were rare. Ordinal regressions were run, entering predictors singly and simultaneously. With the exception of the phonological task, every early measure on its own was significantly predictive of most outcomes, and receptive language was the strongest all-round predictor. Results of simultaneous entry, controlling for the effect of other predictors, showed that early language was the strongest predictor of general language outcome, but early phonology was the strongest predictor of a measure of morphosyntax, and early sociocognition the strongest predictor of social communication.
Conclusions: Language measures which draw on a wide range of skills were the strongest overall predictors of general language outcomes. However, our VEPS measures were stronger predictors of specific outcomes. The clinical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed
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