Verknüpfung von physikochemischen Analysedaten mit den Klassenzeichen der Bodenschätzung zur Abschätzung des Filter- und Puffervermögens landwirtschaftlich genutzter Böden in Hessen

In Hessen wurden im Rahmen der langjährigen Zusammenarbeit der bodenkundlichen Landesaufnahme des Hessischen Landesamtes für Umwelt und Geologie und der Oberfinanzdirektion ca. 1300 Vergleichs- und Musterstücke gemeinsam aufgenommen. Über eine detaillierte Profilbeschreibung hinaus, wurden bis heute etwa 600 Profile laboranalytisch untersucht. Auf Grundlage der gewonnenen physikochemischen Daten werden Methoden zur Bewertung von Bodenfunktionen erarbeitet. Unter anderem soll künftig auch das Filter- und Puffervermögen auf Basis der potentiellen Kationenaustauschkapazität (KAKpot) des Bodens abgeschätzt werden

Tri-meson-mixing of π\pi-η\eta-η′\eta' and ρ\rho-ω\omega-ϕ\phi in the light-cone quark model

The radiative transition form factors of the pseudoscalar mesons {$\pi$, $\eta$, $\eta'$} and the vector mesons {$\rho$, $\omega$, $\phi$} are restudied with $\pi$-$\eta$-$\eta'$ and $\rho$-$\omega$-$\phi$ in tri-meson-mixing pattern, which is described by tri-mixing matrices in the light-cone constituent quark model. The experimental transition decay widths are better reproduced with tri-meson-mixing than previous results in a two-mixing-angle scenario of only two-meson $\eta$-$\eta'$ mixing and $\omega$-$\phi$ mixing.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, final version to appear in EPJ

Semileptonic width ratios among beauty hadrons

We present predictions based on the heavy quark expansion in QCD. We find SU(3) breaking in B mesons suppressed in the framework of the HQE. B_s is expected to have the semileptonic width about 1% lower and Lambda_b about 3% higher when compared to Gamma_{sl}(B_d). The largest partial-rate preasymptotic effect is Pauli interference in the b-->u ell nu channel in Lambda_b, about +10%. We point out that the Omega_b semileptonic width is expected not to exceed that of B_d and may turn out to be the smallest among stable b hadrons despite the large mass. The underlying differences with phase-space models are briefly addressed through the heavy mass expansion.Comment: 19 page

Identification and Classification of Conserved RNA Secondary Structures in the Human Genome

The discoveries of microRNAs and riboswitches, among others, have shown functional RNAs to be biologically more important and genomically more prevalent than previously anticipated. We have developed a general comparative genomics method based on phylogenetic stochastic context-free grammars for identifying functional RNAs encoded in the human genome and used it to survey an eight-way genome-wide alignment of the human, chimpanzee, mouse, rat, dog, chicken, zebra-fish, and puffer-fish genomes for deeply conserved functional RNAs. At a loose threshold for acceptance, this search resulted in a set of 48,479 candidate RNA structures. This screen finds a large number of known functional RNAs, including 195 miRNAs, 62 histone 3′UTR stem loops, and various types of known genetic recoding elements. Among the highest-scoring new predictions are 169 new miRNA candidates, as well as new candidate selenocysteine insertion sites, RNA editing hairpins, RNAs involved in transcript auto regulation, and many folds that form singletons or small functional RNA families of completely unknown function. While the rate of false positives in the overall set is difficult to estimate and is likely to be substantial, the results nevertheless provide evidence for many new human functional RNAs and present specific predictions to facilitate their further characterization

Varying constants, Gravitation and Cosmology

Fundamental constants are a cornerstone of our physical laws. Any constant varying in space and/or time would reflect the existence of an almost massless field that couples to matter. This will induce a violation of the universality of free fall. It is thus of utmost importance for our understanding of gravity and of the domain of validity of general relativity to test for their constancy. We thus detail the relations between the constants, the tests of the local position invariance and of the universality of free fall. We then review the main experimental and observational constraints that have been obtained from atomic clocks, the Oklo phenomenon, Solar system observations, meteorites dating, quasar absorption spectra, stellar physics, pulsar timing, the cosmic microwave background and big bang nucleosynthesis. At each step we describe the basics of each system, its dependence with respect to the constants, the known systematic effects and the most recent constraints that have been obtained. We then describe the main theoretical frameworks in which the low-energy constants may actually be varying and we focus on the unification mechanisms and the relations between the variation of different constants. To finish, we discuss the more speculative possibility of understanding their numerical values and the apparent fine-tuning that they confront us with.Comment: 145 pages, 10 figures, Review for Living Reviews in Relativit

Search for W W/W Z resonance production in ℓνqq final states in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search is conducted for new resonances decaying into a W W or W Z boson pair, where one W boson decays leptonically and the other W or Z boson decays hadronically. It is based on proton-proton collision data with an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb −1 collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of s=13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. The search is sensitive to diboson resonance production via vector-boson fusion as well as quark-antiquark annihilation and gluon-gluon fusion mechanisms. No significant excess of events is observed with respect to the Standard Model backgrounds. Several benchmark models are used to interpret the results. Limits on the production cross section are set for a new narrow scalar resonance, a new heavy vector-boson and a spin-2 Kaluza-Klein graviton.[Figure not available: see fulltext.]