Air quality monitoring and modelling techniques for street canyons : the Paris experience

A better understanding of the dispersion and transformation of atmospheric pollutants in urban micro-environments is required to address the increasing public concern about human exposure in such areas. A joint research program has been established between INERIS (France) and University of Greenwich (UK) with the aim of developing efficient air quality monitoring and modelling methodologies to cover the needs of public health and road traffic managers in Europe. An intensive monitoring campaign was conducted at a representative canyon street in Paris in winter 1998. This experiment was designed to establish the spatial and temporal variation of pollution within the canyon, and test readily available dispersion models. Active and passive techniques were used to sample a wide range of traffic generated pollutants (VOC and inorganic gases) at different heights and distances from the kerb. Local meteorological and traffic information was also obtained. The observed CO and NO concentrations were compared with predicted values, calculated using AEOLIUS, the street canyon model developed by the UK Meteorological Office. The results demonstrate strong spatial pollution gradients within the canyon, large differences between roadside and background pollution levels, and pronounced temporal variability

Complete N=4 Structure of Low-Energy Effective Action in N=4 Super Yang-Mills Theories

Using the ${\cal N}=2$ superfield approach, we construct full ${\cal N}=4$ supersymmetric low-energy effective actions for ${\cal N}=4$ SYM models, with both ${\cal N}=2$ gauge superfield strengths and hypermultiplet superfields included. The basic idea is to complete the known non-holomorphic effective potentials which depend only on ${\cal N}=2$ superfield strengths $W$ and ${\bar W}$ to the full on-shell ${\cal N}=4$ invariants by adding the appropriate superfield hypermultiplet terms. We prove that the effective potentials of the form ${ln} W {ln} \bar W$ can be ${\cal N} = 4$ completed in this way and present the precise structure of the corresponding completions. However, the effective potentials of the non-logarithmic form suggested in hep-th/9811017 and hep-th/9909020 do not admit the ${\cal N}=4$ completion. Therefore, such potentials cannot come out as (perturbative or non-perturbative) quantum corrections in ${\cal N}=4$ SYM models.Comment: 14 pages, Latex, no figures, slight corrections, refs adde

Influencia de la micronización y el origen de la harina de soja en los redimientos productivos en lechones destetados

La harina de soja (HS) es la fuente de proteína de elección en dietas para cerdos. La HS contiene diversos factores anti nutricionales (FAN), tales como los inhibidores de tripsina (IT; Huisman y Jansman, 1991) y los oligosacáridos (Clarke y Wiseman, 2005) que afectan al crecimiento y limitan los niveles de inclusión en dietas para lechones. El procesado térmico del haba y su composición (De Coca Sinova et al., 2008) afectan al contenido de nutrientes así como la respuesta de los animales a su inclusión en piensos. Morgan et al. (1984) y Dilger et al. (2004) han demostrado que un aumento en el contenido de fibra bruta de la dieta o de la HS utilizada disminuye la digestibilidad de los nutrientes en monogástricos y De Coca et al. (2008) observaron una relación lineal entre el contenido de proteína bruta (PB) y la digestibilidad de los aminoácidos en HS. Por lo tanto, la inclusión de HS de alto contenido en PB (AP-HS) en sustitución de HS de menor contenido proteico (BP-HS) podría mejorar el crecimiento de los lechones. Los concentrados de soja (CPS) tienen un alto contenido en PB y bajo contenido de fibra bruta y en FAN (Shon et al., 1994). Por lo tanto, la sustitución de HS por CPS, podría mejorar el rendimiento de los cerdos al destete. Los efectos del tamaño medio de partícula (GMD) del pienso sobre el crecimiento es un tema de debate (Goodband et al., 1995). La mayoría de estudios llevados a cabo con cereales han encontrado una relación directa positiva entre la GMD y el índice de conversión (IC) en cerdos (Goodband y Hines, 1988; Healy et al., 1994). Sin embargo, los resultados disponibles sobre los efectos de la molturación fina de la HS sobre la productividad en lechones son escasos y no concordantes (Fastinger y Mahan, 2003; Lawrence et al., 2003; Valencia et al., 2008). El objetivo de este experimento fue evaluar los efectos de la inclusión de diferentes tipos de soja en los que variaba el contenido de PB y el tamaño de partícula sobre el crecimiento de los lechones

Complete Low-Energy Effective action in N=4 SYM: a Direct N=2 Supergraph Calculation

Using the covariant N=2 harmonic supergraph techniques we calculate the one-loop low-energy effective action of N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory in Coulomb branch with gauge group SU(2) spontaneously broken down to U(1). The full dependence of the low-energy effective action on both the hypermultiplet and gauge fields is determined. The direct quantum calculation confirms the correctness of the exact N=4 SYM low-energy effective action derived in hep-th/0111062 on the purely algebraic ground by invoking a hidden N=2 supersymmetry which completes the manifest N=2 one to N=4. Our results provide an exhaustive solution to the problem of finding out the exact completely N=4 supersymmetric low-energy effective action for the theory under consideration.Comment: LaTeX, 21 pages; minor correction

Scale Invariant Low-Energy Effective Action in N=3 SYM Theory

Using the harmonic superspace approach we study the problem of low-energy effective action in N=3 SYM theory. The candidate effective action is a scale and \gamma_5-invariant functional in full N=3 superspace built out of N=3 off-shell superfield strengths. This action is constructed as N=3 superfield generalization of F^4/\phi^4 component term which is leading in the low-energy effective action and is simultaneously the first nontrivial term in scale invariant Born-Infeld action. All higher-order terms in the scale invariant Born-Infeld action are also shown to admit an off-shell superfield completion in N=3 harmonic superspace.Comment: 17 pages; v2: typos correcte

Nonlinear Realization of N=2 Superconformal Symmetry and Brane Effective Actions

Due to the incompatibility of the nonlinear realization of superconformal symmetry and dilatation symmetry with the dilaton as the compensator field, in the present paper it shows an alternative mechanism of spontaneous breaking the N=2 superconformal symmetry to the N=0 case. By using the approach of nonlinear transformations it is found that it leads to a space-filling brane theory with Weyl scale W(1,3) symmetry. The dynamics of the resulting Weyl scale invariant brane, along with that of other Nambu-Goldstone fields, is derived in terms of the building blocks of the vierbein and the covariant derivative from the Maurer-Cartan oneforms. A general coupling of the matter fields localized on the brane world volume to these NG fields is also constructed.Comment: 22 pages, more references and comments are adde

Congenital Zika Virus Infection in Immunocompetent Mice Causes Postnatal Growth Impediment and Neurobehavioral Deficits

A small percentage of babies born to Zika virus (ZIKV)-infected mothers manifest severe defects at birth, including microcephaly. Among those who appeared healthy at birth, there are increasing reports of postnatal growth or developmental defects. However, the impact of congenital ZIKV infection in postnatal development is poorly understood. Here, we report that a mild congenital ZIKV-infection in pups born to immunocompetent pregnant mice did not display apparent defects at birth, but manifested postnatal growth impediments and neurobehavioral deficits, which include reduced locomotor and cognitive deficits that persisted into adulthood. We found that the brains of these pups were smaller, had a thinner cortical layer 1, displayed increased astrogliosis, decreased expression of microcephaly- and neuron development- related genes, and increased pathology as compared to mock-infected controls. In summary, our results showed that even a mild congenital ZIKV infection in immunocompetent mice could lead to postnatal deficits, providing definitive experimental evidence for a necessity to closely monitor postnatal growth and development of presumably healthy human infants, whose mothers were exposed to ZIKV infection during pregnancy

Neutrino Phenomenology, Dark Energy and Leptogenesis from pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone Bosons

We consider a model of dynamical neutrino masses via the see-saw mechanism. Nambu-Goldstone bosons (majorons) arise associated with the formation of the heavy right-handed majorana masses. These bosons then acquire naturally soft masses (become pNGB's) at loop level via the Higgs-Yukawa mass terms. These models, like the original neutrino pNGB quintessence schemes of the 1980's that proceed through the Dirac masses, are natural, have cosmological implications through mass varying neutrinos, long range forces, and provide a soft potential for dark energy. We further argue that these models can explain leptogenesis naturally through the decays of the right-handed neutrinos.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure