Evidence for the two pole structure of the Lambda(1405) resonance

The K^- p --> pi^0 pi^0 Sigma^0 reaction is studied within a chiral unitary model. The distribution of pi^0 Sigma^0 states forming the Lambda(1405) shows, in agreement with a recent experiment, a peak at 1420 MeV and a relatively narrow width of Gamma = 38 MeV. The mechanism for the reaction is largely dominated by the emission of a pi^0 prior to the K^- p interaction leading to the Lambda(1405). This ensures the coupling of the Lambda(1405) to the K^- p channel, thus maximizing the contribution of the second state found in chiral unitary theories, which is narrow and of higher energy than the nominal Lambda(1405). This is unlike the pi^- p --> K^0 \pi Sigma reaction, which gives more weight to the pole at lower energy and with a larger width. The data of these two experiments, together with the present theoretical analysis, provides a firm evidence of the two pole structure of the Lambda(1405).Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

The role of the N∗(2080)N^*(2080) resonance in the γ⃗p→K+Λ(1520)\vec{\gamma} p \to K^+ \Lambda(1520) reaction

We investigate the $\Lambda(1520)$ photo-production in the $\vec{\gamma} p \to K^+ \Lambda(1520)$ reaction within the effective Lagrangian method near threshold. In addition to the "background" contributions from the contact, $t-$channel $K$ exchange, and $s-$channel nucleon pole terms, which were already considered in previous works, the contribution from the nucleon resonance $N^*(2080)$ (spin-parity $J^P = 3/2^-$) is also considered. We show that the inclusion of the nucleon resonance $N^*(2080)$ leads to a fairly good description of the new LEPS differential cross section data, and that these measurements can be used to determine some of the properties of this latter resonance. However, serious discrepancies appear when the predictions of the model are compared to the photon-beam asymmetry also measured by the LEPS Collaboration.Comment: 9 pages,6 figures, 1 tabl

Differences in hearing acuity among “normal-hearing” young adults modulate the neural basis for speech comprehension

AbstractIn this paper, we investigate how subtle differences in hearing acuity affect the neural systems supporting speech processing in young adults. Auditory sentence comprehension requires perceiving a complex acoustic signal and performing linguistic operations to extract the correct meaning. We used functional MRI to monitor human brain activity while adults aged 18–41 years listened to spoken sentences. The sentences varied in their level of syntactic processing demands, containing either a subject-relative or object-relative center-embedded clause. All participants self-reported normal hearing, confirmed by audiometric testing, with some variation within a clinically normal range. We found that participants showed activity related to sentence processing in a left-lateralized frontotemporal network. Although accuracy was generally high, participants still made some errors, which were associated with increased activity in bilateral cingulo-opercular and frontoparietal attention networks. A whole-brain regression analysis revealed that activity in a right anterior middle frontal gyrus (aMFG) component of the frontoparietal attention network was related to individual differences in hearing acuity, such that listeners with poorer hearing showed greater recruitment of this region when successfully understanding a sentence. The activity in right aMFGs for listeners with poor hearing did not differ as a function of sentence type, suggesting a general mechanism that is independent of linguistic processing demands. Our results suggest that even modest variations in hearing ability impact the systems supporting auditory speech comprehension, and that auditory sentence comprehension entails the coordination of a left perisylvian network that is sensitive to linguistic variation with an executive attention network that responds to acoustic challenge.</jats:p

Getting Jobs, Keeping Jobs, and Earning a Living Wage: Can Welfare Reform Work?

Most discussions of welfare and work have focused on how demographic characteristics, schooling, training, and work experience limit welfare mothers’ employment and wages, but they have largely ignored factors such as inappropriate workplace behaviors, expectations of discrimination and harassment, depression, alcoholism, and domestic violence, all of which may affect welfare mothers and make employment difficult. In this paper we review the prevalence of these individual-level barriers and argue that they, in combination with an economy which does not pay low-skill workers well, are likely to impede employment and self-sufficiency for a large proportion of welfare mothers. At the end of the review, we summarize the current state of knowledge about barriers to the employment of welfare recipients and suggest several ways in which welfare-to-work programs might address these barriers.

Solid-Liquid Phase Diagrams for Binary Metallic Alloys: Adjustable Interatomic Potentials

We develop a new approach to determining LJ-EAM potentials for alloys and use these to determine the solid-liquid phase diagrams for binary metallic alloys using Kofke's Gibbs-Duhem integration technique combined with semigrand canonical Monte Carlo simulations. We demonstrate that it is possible to produce a wide-range of experimentally observed binary phase diagrams (with no intermetallic phases) by reference to the atomic sizes and cohesive energies of the two elemental materials. In some cases, it is useful to employ a single adjustable parameter to adjust the phase diagram (we provided a good choice for this free parameter). Next, we perform a systematic investigation of the effect of relative atomic sizes and cohesive energies of the elements on the binary phase diagrams. We then show that this approach leads to good agreement with several experimental binary phase diagrams. The main benefit of this approach is not the accurately reproduction of experimental phase diagrams, but rather to provide a method by which material properties can be continuously changed in simulations studies. This is one of the keys to the use of atomistic simulations to understand mechanisms and properties in a manner not available to experiment