Fitting the Quark and Lepton Masses in String Theories

The capability of string theories to reproduce at low energy the observed pattern of quark and lepton masses and mixing angles is examined, focusing the attention on orbifold constructions, where the magnitude of Yukawa couplings depends on the values of the deformation parameters which describe the size and shape of the compactified space. A systematic exploration shows that for $Z_3$, $Z_4$, $Z_6$--I and possibly $Z_7$ orbifolds a correct fit of the physical fermion masses is feasible. In this way the experimental masses, which are low--energy quantities, select a particular size and shape of the compactified space, which turns out to be very reasonable (in particular the modulus $T$ defining the former is $T=O(1)$). The rest of the $Z_N$ orbifolds are rather hopeless and should be discarded on the assumption of a minimal $SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)_Y$ scenario. On the other hand, due to stringy selection rules, there is no possibility of fitting the Kobayashi--Maskawa parameters at the renormalizable level, although it is remarked that this job might well be done by non--renormalizable couplings.Comment: 19 page

Complete structure of Z_n Yukawa couplings

We give the complete twisted Yukawa couplings for all the Z_n orbifold constructions in the most general case, i.e. when orbifold deformations are considered. This includes a certain number of tasks. Namely, determination of the allowed couplings, calculation of the explicit dependence of the Yukawa couplings values on the moduli expectation values (i.e. the parameters determining the size and shape of the compactified space), etc. The final expressions are completely explicit, which allows a counting of the DIFFERENT Yukawa couplings for each orbifold (with and without deformations). This knowledge is crucial to determine the phenomenological viability of the different schemes, since it is directly related to the fermion mass hierarchy. Other facts concerning the phenomenological profile of Z_n orbifolds are also discussed, e.g. the existence of non--diagonal entries in the fermion mass matrices, which is related to a non--trivial structure of the Kobayashi--Maskawa matrix. Finally some theoretical results are given, e.g. the no--participation of (1,2) moduli in twisted Yukawa couplings. Likewise, (1,1) moduli associated with fixed tori which are involved in the Yukawa coupling, do not affect the value of the coupling.Comment: 60 page

Pricing of drugs and donations: options for sustainable equity pricing.

Effective medicines exist to treat or alleviate many diseases which predominate in the developing world and cause high mortality and morbidity rates. Price should not be an obstacle preventing access to these medicines. Increasingly, drug donations have been established by drug companies, but these are often limited in time, place or use. Measures exist which are more sustainable and will have a greater positive impact on people's health. Principally, these are encouraging generic competition; adopting into national legislation and implementing TRIPS safeguards to gain access to cheaper sources of drugs; differential pricing; creating high volume or high demand through global and regional procurement; and supporting the production of quality generic drugs by developing countries through voluntary licenses if needed, and facilitating technology transfer

A modular radiative transfer program for gas filter correlation radiometry

The fundamentals of a computer program, simulated monochromatic atmospheric radiative transfer (SMART), which calculates atmospheric path transmission, solar radiation, and thermal radiation in the 4.6 micrometer spectral region, are described. A brief outline of atmospheric absorption properties and line by line transmission calculations is explained in conjunction with an outline of the SMART computational procedures. Program flexibility is demonstrated by simulating the response of a gas filter correlation radiometer as one example of an atmospheric infrared sensor. Program limitations, input data requirements, program listing, and comparison of SMART transmission calculations are presented

Constraint-preserving boundary conditions in the 3+1 first-order approach

A set of energy-momentum constraint-preserving boundary conditions is proposed for the first-order Z4 case. The stability of a simple numerical implementation is tested in the linear regime (robust stability test), both with the standard corner and vertex treatment and with a modified finite-differences stencil for boundary points which avoids corners and vertices even in cartesian-like grids. Moreover, the proposed boundary conditions are tested in a strong field scenario, the Gowdy waves metric, showing the expected rate of convergence. The accumulated amount of energy-momentum constraint violations is similar or even smaller than the one generated by either periodic or reflection conditions, which are exact in the Gowdy waves case. As a side theoretical result, a new symmetrizer is explicitly given, which extends the parametric domain of symmetric hyperbolicity for the Z4 formalism. The application of these results to first-order BSSN-like formalisms is also considered.Comment: Revised version, with conclusive numerical evidence. 23 pages, 12 figure

Data reduction analysis and application technique development for atmospheric trace gas constituents derived from remote sensors on satellite or airborne platforms

The applicability of the gas filter correlation radiometer (GFCR) to the measurement of tropospheric carbon monoxide gas was investigated. An assessment of the GFRC measurement system to a regional measurement program was conducted through extensive aircraft flight-testing of several versions of the GFRC. Investigative work in the following areas is described: flight test planning and coordination, acquisition of verifying CO measurements, determination and acquisition of supporting meteorological data requirements, and development of supporting computational software

SUSY Soft Breaking Terms from String Scenarios

The general SUSY soft breaking terms for a large class of phenomenologically relevant string scenarios (symmetric orbifolds) are given. They show a certain lack of universality, but not dangerous for flavor changing neutral currents. To get more quantitative results a specific SUSY breaking mechanism has to be considered, namely gaugino condensation in the hidden sector. Then, it turns out that squark and slepton masses tend to be much larger than scalar masses ($m_{\phi} > 10 M_a$), which probably is a quite general fact. Experimental bounds and the requirement of a successful electroweak breaking without fine tuning impose further restrictions on the soft breaking terms. As a consequence the gluino and chargino masses should be quite close to their present experimental limits, whereas squark and slepton masses should be much higher (> 1 TeV).Comment: (Talk presented at the SUSY-93 Conference, Boston, March 29 - April 2, 1993), 11 pages, CERN--TH.6922/9

A new dissipation term for finite-difference simulations in Relativity

We present a new numerical dissipation algorithm, which can be efficiently used in combination with centered finite-difference methods. We start from a formulation of centered finite-volume methods for Numerical Relativity, in which third-order space accuracy can be obtained by employing just piecewise-linear reconstruction. We obtain a simplified version of the algorithm, which can be viewed as a centered finite-difference method plus some 'adaptive dissipation'. The performance of this algorithm is confirmed by numerical results obtained from 3D black hole simulations.Comment: Talk presented at the Spanish Relativity Meeting (Tenerife 2007