1,121 research outputs found
Constitutive behavior of reconsolidating crushed salt
The constitutive model used to describe deformation of crushed salt is presented in this paper. Two mechanisms--dislocation creep and grain boundary diffusional pressure solutioning--are combined to form the basis for the constitutive model governing deformation of crushed salt. The constitutive model is generalized to represent three-dimensional states of stress. Recently completed creep consolidation tests are combined with an existing database that includes hydrostatic consolidation and shear consolidation tests conducted on Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and southeastern New Mexico salt to determine material parameters for the constitutive model. Nonlinear least-squares model fitting to data from shear consolidation tests and a combination of shear and hydrostatic tests produces two sets of material parameter values for the model. Changes in material parameter values from test group to test group indicate the empirical nature of the model but show significant improvement over earlier work. To demonstrate the predictive capability of the model, each parameter value set was used to predict each of the tests in the database. Based on fitting statistics and ability of the model to predict test data, the model appears to capture the creep consolidation behavior of crushed salt quite well
Nuclear halo and its scaling laws
We have proposed a procedure to extract the probability for valence particle
being out of the binding potential from the measured nuclear asymptotic
normalization coefficients. With this procedure, available data regarding the
nuclear halo candidates are systematically analyzed and a number of halo nuclei
are confirmed. Based on these results we have got a much relaxed condition for
nuclear halo occurrence. Furthermore, we have presented the scaling laws for
the dimensionless quantity of nuclear halo in terms of the
analytical expressions of the expectation value for the operator in a
finite square-well potential.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure
On the Representation Theory of an Algebra of Braids and Ties
We consider the algebra introduced by F. Aicardi and J.
Juyumaya as an abstraction of the Yokonuma-Hecke algebra. We construct a tensor
space representation for and show that this is faithful. We use
it to give a basis for and to classify its irreducible
representations.Comment: 24 pages. Final version. To appear in Journal of Algebraic
Combinatorics
CMB photons shedding light on dark matter
The annihilation or decay of Dark Matter (DM) particles could affect the
thermal history of the universe and leave an observable signature in Cosmic
Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies. We update constraints on the
annihilation rate of DM particles in the smooth cosmological background, using
WMAP7 and recent small-scale CMB data. With a systematic analysis based on the
Press-Schechter formalism, we also show that DM annihilation in halos at small
redshift may explain entirely the reionization patterns observed in the CMB,
under reasonable assumptions concerning the concentration and formation
redshift of halos. We find that a mixed reionization model based on DM
annihilation in halos as well as star formation at a redshift z~6.5 could
simultaneously account for CMB observations and satisfy constraints inferred
from the Gunn-Peterson effect. However, these models tend to reheat the
inter-galactic medium (IGM) well above observational bounds: by including a
realistic prior on the IGM temperature at low redshift, we find stronger
cosmological bounds on the annihilation cross-section than with the CMB alone.Comment: 35 pages, 14 figures; version accepted in JCAP after minor revision
Gastric cancer and Helicobacter pylori: a combined analysis of 12 case control studies nested within prospective cohorts
BACKGROUND: The magnitude of the association
between Helicobacter pylori and
incidence of gastric cancer is unclear. H
pylori infection and the circulating antibody
response can be lost with development
of cancer; thus retrospective studies
are subject to bias resulting from classifi-
cation of cases as H pylori negative when
they were infected in the past.
AIMS: To combine data from all case control
studies nested within prospective
cohorts to assess more reliably the relative
risk of gastric cancer associated with H
pylori infection.To investigate variation in
relative risk by age, sex, cancer type and
subsite, and interval between blood sampling
and cancer diagnosis.
METHODS: Studies were eligible if blood
samples for H pylori serology were collected
before diagnosis of gastric cancer in
cases. Identified published studies and two
unpublished studies were included. Individual
subject data were obtained for
each. Matched odds ratios (ORs) and 95%
confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated
for the association between H pylori
and gastric cancer.
RESULTS: Twelve studies with 1228 gastric
cancer cases were considered. The association
with H pylori was restricted to noncardia
cancers (OR 3.0; 95% CI 2.3–3.8)
and was stronger when blood samples for
H pylori serology were collected 10+ years
before cancer diagnosis (5.9; 3.4–10.3). H
pylori infection was not associated with an
altered overall risk of cardia cancer (1.0;
0.7–1.4).
CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that
5.9 is the best estimate of the relative risk
of non-cardia cancer associated with H
pylori infection and that H pylori does not
increase the risk of cardia cancer. They
also support the idea that when H pylori
status is assessed close to cancer diagnosis,
the magnitude of the non-cardia
association may be underestimated
Can forest management based on natural disturbances maintain ecological resilience?
Given the increasingly global stresses on forests, many ecologists argue that managers must maintain ecological resilience: the capacity of ecosystems to absorb disturbances without undergoing fundamental change. In this review we ask: Can the emerging paradigm of natural-disturbance-based management (NDBM) maintain ecological resilience in managed forests? Applying resilience theory requires careful articulation of the ecosystem state under consideration, the disturbances and stresses that affect the persistence of possible alternative states, and the spatial and temporal scales of management relevance. Implementing NDBM while maintaining resilience means recognizing that (i) biodiversity is important for long-term ecosystem persistence, (ii) natural disturbances play a critical role as a generator of structural and compositional heterogeneity at multiple scales, and (iii) traditional management tends to produce forests more homogeneous than those disturbed naturally and increases the likelihood of unexpected catastrophic change by constraining variation of key environmental processes. NDBM may maintain resilience if silvicultural strategies retain the structures and processes that perpetuate desired states while reducing those that enhance resilience of undesirable states. Such strategies require an understanding of harvesting impacts on slow ecosystem processes, such as seed-bank or nutrient dynamics, which in the long term can lead to ecological surprises by altering the forest's capacity to reorganize after disturbance
In-canopy gas-phase chemistry during CABINEX 2009: Sensitivity of a 1-D canopy model to vertical mixing and isoprene chemistry
Vegetation emits large quantities of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC). At remote sites, these compounds are the dominant precursors to ozone and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) production, yet current field studies show that atmospheric models have difficulty in capturing the observed HOx cycle and concentrations of BVOC oxidation products. In this manuscript, we simulate BVOC chemistry within a forest canopy using a one-dimensional canopy-chemistry model (Canopy Atmospheric CHemistry Emission model; CACHE) for a mixed deciduous forest in northern Michigan during the CABINEX 2009 campaign. We find that the base-case model, using fully-parameterized mixing and the simplified biogenic chemistry of the Regional Atmospheric Chemistry Model (RACM), underestimates daytime in-canopy vertical mixing by 50–70% and by an order of magnitude at night, leading to discrepancies in the diurnal evolution of HOx, BVOC, and BVOC oxidation products. Implementing observed micrometeorological data from above and within the canopy substantially improves the diurnal cycle of modeled BVOC, particularly at the end of the day, and also improves the observation-model agreement for some BVOC oxidation products and OH reactivity. We compare the RACM mechanism to a version that includes the Mainz isoprene mechanism (RACM-MIM) to test the model sensitivity to enhanced isoprene degradation. RACM-MIM simulates higher concentrations of both primary BVOC (isoprene and monoterpenes) and oxidation products (HCHO, MACR+MVK) compared with RACM simulations. Additionally, the revised mechanism alters the OH concentrations and increases HO2. These changes generally improve agreement with HOx observations yet overestimate BVOC oxidation products, indicating that this isoprene mechanism does not improve the representation of local chemistry at the site. Overall, the revised mechanism yields smaller changes in BVOC and BVOC oxidation product concentrations and gradients than improving the parameterization of vertical mixing with observations, suggesting that uncertainties in vertical mixing parameterizations are an important component in understanding observed BVOC chemistry
The T2K ND280 Off-Axis Pi-Zero Detector
The Pi-Zero detector (P{\O}D) is one of the subdetectors that makes up the
off-axis near detector for the Tokai-to-Kamioka (T2K) long baseline neutrino
experiment. The primary goal for the P{\O}D is to measure the relevant cross
sections for neutrino interactions that generate pi-zero's, especially the
cross section for neutral current pi-zero interactions, which are one of the
dominant sources of background to the electron neutrino appearance signal in
T2K. The P{\O}D is composed of layers of plastic scintillator alternating with
water bags and brass sheets or lead sheets and is one of the first detectors to
use Multi-Pixel Photon Counters (MPPCs) on a large scale.Comment: 17 pages, submitted to NIM
Search for non-Gaussianity in pixel, harmonic and wavelet space: compared and combined
We present a comparison between three approaches to test non-Gaussianity of
cosmic microwave background data. The Minkowski functionals, the empirical
process method and the skewness of wavelet coefficients are applied to maps
generated from non-standard inflationary models and to Gaussian maps with point
sources included. We discuss the different power of the pixel, harmonic and
wavelet space methods on these simulated almost full-sky data (with Planck like
noise). We also suggest a new procedure consisting of a combination of
statistics in pixel, harmonic and wavelet space.Comment: Accepted for publication in PR
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