172 research outputs found
Single - particle correlations in events with the total disintegration of nuclei
New experimental data on the behaviour of the single-particle two-dimensional
correlation functions R versus Q (Q is the number of nucleons emitted from nuc-
lei) and Ap (Ap is the mass of projectile nuclei) are presented in this paper.
The interactions of protons, d, 4He and 12C nuclei with carbon nuclei (at a
momentum of 4.2 A GeV/c) are considered.The values of R are obtained separately
for pi minus mesons and protons.In so doing,the values of R are normalized so
that -1=<R=<1.The value of R=0 corresponds to the case of the absence of corre-
lations.It has been found that the Q- and Ap-dependence of R takes place only
for weak correlations (R< 0.3).In the main (90 %),these correlations are con-
nected with the variable pt and have a nonlinear character, that is the regi-
ons with different characters of the Q-dependence of R are separated: there is
a change of regimes in the Q-dependences of R.The correlations weaken with
increasing Ap, and the variable R gets the least values of all the considered
ones in 12CC interactions.Simultaneously with weakening the correlations in the
region of large Q, the character of the Q-dependence of R changes.Comment: 17 pages, submitted to Phys. Rew.
The strange-quark chemical potential as an experimentally accessible "order parameter" of the deconfinement phase transition for finite baryon-density
We consider the change of the strange-quark chemical potential in the phase
diagram of nuclear matter, employing the Wilson loop and scalar quark
condensate order parameters, mass-scaled partition functions and enforcing
flavor conservation. Assuming the region beyond the hadronic phase to be
described by massive, correlated and interacting quarks, in the spirit of
lattice and effective QCD calculations, we find the strange-quark chemical
potential to change sign: from positive in the hadronic phase - to zero upon
deconfinement - to negative in the partonic domain. We propose this change in
the sign of the strange-quark chemical potential to be an experimentally
accessible order parameter and a unique, concise and well-defined indication of
the quark-deconfinement phase transition in nuclear matter.Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures within text, 2 figures(6,B3) as separate files.
To be published in J.Phys.G: Nucl.&Part.Phys. G28 (2002
Multiplicity Distributions and Rapidity Gaps
I examine the phenomenology of particle multiplicity distributions, with
special emphasis on the low multiplicities that are a background in the study
of rapidity gaps. In particular, I analyze the multiplicity distribution in a
rapidity interval between two jets, using the HERWIG QCD simulation with some
necessary modifications. The distribution is not of the negative binomial form,
and displays an anomalous enhancement at zero multiplicity. Some useful
mathematical tools for working with multiplicity distributions are presented.
It is demonstrated that ignoring particles with pt<0.2 has theoretical
advantages, in addition to being convenient experimentally.Comment: 24 pages, LaTeX, MSUHEP/94071
Charged Particle Production in Proton-, Deuteron-, Oxygen- and Sulphur-Nucleus Collisions at 200 GeV per Nucleon
The transverse momentum and rapidity distributions of net protons and
negatively charged hadrons have been measured for minimum bias proton-nucleus
and deuteron-gold interactions, as well as central oxygen-gold and
sulphur-nucleus collisions at 200 GeV per nucleon. The rapidity density of net
protons at midrapidity in central nucleus-nucleus collisions increases both
with target mass for sulphur projectiles and with the projectile mass for a
gold target. The shape of the rapidity distributions of net protons forward of
midrapidity for d+Au and central S+Au collisions is similar. The average
rapidity loss is larger than 2 units of rapidity for reactions with the gold
target. The transverse momentum spectra of net protons for all reactions can be
described by a thermal distribution with `temperatures' between 145 +- 11 MeV
(p+S interactions) and 244 +- 43 MeV (central S+Au collisions). The
multiplicity of negatively charged hadrons increases with the mass of the
colliding system. The shape of the transverse momentum spectra of negatively
charged hadrons changes from minimum bias p+p and p+S interactions to p+Au and
central nucleus-nucleus collisions. The mean transverse momentum is almost
constant in the vicinity of midrapidity and shows little variation with the
target and projectile masses. The average number of produced negatively charged
hadrons per participant baryon increases slightly from p+p, p+A to central
S+S,Ag collisions.Comment: 47 pages, submitted to Z. Phys.
Pregnant women with bronchial asthma benefit from progressive muscle relaxation: A randomized, prospective, controlled trial
Background: Asthma is a serious medical problem in pregnancy and is often associated with stress, anger and poor quality of life. The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) on change in blood pressure, lung parameters, heart rate, anger and health-related quality of life in pregnant women with bronchial asthma. Methods: We treated a sample of 64 pregnant women with bronchial asthma from the local population in an 8-week randomized, prospective, controlled trial. Thirty-two were selected for PMR, and 32 received a placebo intervention. The systolic blood pressure, forced expiratory volume in the first second, peak expiratory flow and heart rate were tested, and the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory and Health Survey (SF-36) were employed. Results: According to the intend-to-treat principle, a significant reduction in systolic blood pressure and a significant increase in both forced expiratory volume in the first second and peak expiratory flow were observed after PMR. The heart rate showed a significant increase in the coefficient of variation, root mean square of successive differences and high frequency ranges, in addition to a significant reduction in low and middle frequency ranges. A significant reduction on three of five State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory scales, and a significant increase on seven of eight SF-36 scales were observed. Conclusions: PMR appears to be an effective method to improve blood pressure, lung parameters and heart rate, and to decrease anger levels, thus enhancing health-related quality of life in pregnant women with bronchial asthma. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel
Relativistic Heavy-Ion Physics: Experimental Overview
The field of relativistic heavy-ion physics is reviewed with emphasis on new
results and highlights from the first run of the Relativistic Heavy-Ion
Collider at BNL and the 15 year research programme at the SPS at CERN and the
AGS at BNL.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures. Invited Talk at the Fourth International
Conference on Physics and Astrophysics of Quark Gluon Plasma, (ICPAQGP-2001)
Jaipur, India, November 26-30, 200
Overpopulation of in pp collisions: a way to distinguish statistical hadronization from string dynamics
The ratio originating from string decays is predicted
to be larger than unity in proton proton interactions at SPS energies (=160 GeV). The anti-omega dominance increases with decreasing beam energy.
This surprising behavior is caused by the combinatorics of quark-antiquark
production in small and low-mass strings. Since this behavior is not found in a
statistical description of hadron production in proton proton collisions, it
may serve as a key observable to probe the hadronization mechanism in such
collisions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
A comparison between left ventricular ejection time measurement methods during physiological changes induced by simulated microgravity
New findings: What is the central question of this study? First, we validated easy-to-use oscillometric left ventricular ejection time (LVET) against echocardiographic LVET. Second, we investigated progression of left ventricular ejection time index (LVETI), pre-ejection period index (PEPI), total electromechanical systole index (QS2I) and PEP/LVET ratio during 60 days of head-down tilt (HDT). What is the main finding and its importance? The LVETosci and LVETecho showed good agreement in effect direction. Hence, LVETosci might be useful to evaluate cardiovascular responses during space flight. Moreover, the approach might be useful for individual follow-up of patients with altered ejection times. Furthermore, significant effects of 60 days of HDT were captured by measurements of LVETI, PEPI, QS2I and PEP/LVET ratio.
Abstract: Systolic time intervals that are easy to detect might be used as parameters reflecting cardiovascular deconditioning. We compared left ventricular ejection time (LVET) measured via ultrasound Doppler on the left ventricular outflow tract with oscillometrically measured LVET, measured at the brachialis. Furthermore, we assessed the progression of the left ventricular ejection time index (LVETI), the pre-ejection period index (PEPI), the Weissler index (PEP/LVET) and the total electromechanical systole index (QS2I) during prolonged strict head-down tilt (HDT) bed rest, including 16 male and eight female subjects. Simultaneous oscillometric and echocardiographic LVET measurements showed significant correlation (r = 0.53 with P = 0.0084 before bed rest and r = 0.73 with P < 0.05 on the last day of bed rest). The shortening of LVET during HDT bed rest measured with both approaches was highly concordant in their effect direction, with a concordance rate of 0.96. Our results also demonstrated a significant decrease of LVETI (P < 0.0001) and QS2I (P = 0.0992) and a prolongation of PEPI (P = 0.0049) and PEP/LVET (P = 0.0003) during HDT bed rest over 60 days. Four days after bed rest, LVETI recovered completely to its baseline value. Owing to the relationship between shortening of LVETI and heart failure progression, the easy-to-use oscillometric method might not only be a useful way to evaluate the cardiovascular system during space flights, but could also be of high value in a clinical setting
Experimental Study of the Shortest Reset Word of Random Automata
In this paper we describe an approach to finding the shortest reset word of a
finite synchronizing automaton by using a SAT solver. We use this approach to
perform an experimental study of the length of the shortest reset word of a
finite synchronizing automaton. The largest automata we considered had 100
states. The results of the experiments allow us to formulate a hypothesis that
the length of the shortest reset word of a random finite automaton with
states and 2 input letters with high probability is sublinear with respect to
and can be estimated as $1.95 n^{0.55}.
Conserved functional domains and a novel tertiary interaction near the pseudoknot drive translational activity of hepatitis C virus and hepatitis C virus-like internal ribosome entry sites
The translational activity of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) internal ribosome entry site (IRES) and other HCV-like IRES RNAs depends on structured RNA elements in domains II and III, which serve to recruit the ribosomal 40S subunit, eukaryotic initiation factor (eIF) 3 and the ternary eIF2/Met-tRNAiMet/GTP complex and subsequently domain II assists subunit joining. Porcine teschovirus-1 talfan (PTV-1) is a member of the Picornaviridae family, with a predicted HCV-like secondary structure, but only stem-loops IIId and IIIe in the 40S-binding domain display significant sequence conservation with the HCV IRES. Here, we use chemical probing to show that interaction sites with the 40S subunit and eIF3 are conserved between HCV and HCV-like IRESs. In addition, we reveal the functional role of a strictly conserved co-variation between a purine–purine mismatch near the pseudoknot (A–A/G) and the loop sequence of domain IIIe (GAU/CA). These nucleotides are involved in a tertiary interaction, which serves to stabilize the pseudoknot structure and correlates with translational efficiency in both the PTV-1 and HCV IRES. Our data demonstrate conservation of functional domains in HCV and HCV-like IRESs including a more complex structure surrounding the pseudoknot than previously assumed
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