1,043 research outputs found
Do stiffness and asymmetries predict change of direction performance?
Change of direction speed (CODS) underpins performance in a wide range of sports but little is known about how stiffness and asymmetries affect CODS. Eighteen healthy males performed unilateral drop jumps to determine vertical, ankle, knee and hip stiffness, and a CODS test to evaluate left and right leg cutting performance during which ground reaction force data were sampled. A step-wise regression analysis was performed to ascertain the determinants of CODS time. A two-variable regression model explained 63% (R-2 = 0.63; P = 0.001) of CODS performance. The model included the mean vertical stiffness and jump height asymmetry determined during the drop jump. Faster athletes (n = 9) exhibited greater vertical stiffness (F = 12.40; P = 0.001) and less asymmetry in drop jump height (F = 6.02; P = 0.026) than slower athletes (n = 9); effect sizes were both "large" in magnitude. Results suggest that overall vertical stiffness and drop jump height asymmetry are the strongest predictors of CODS in a healthy, non-athletic population
Comparison of the HadGEM2 climate-chemistry model against in situ and SCIAMACHY atmospheric methane data
Wetlands are a major emission source of methane (CH4) globally. In this study, we evaluate wetland emission estimates derived using the UK community land surface model (JULES, the Joint UK Land Earth Simulator) against atmospheric observations of methane, including, for the first time, total methane columns derived from the SCIAMACHY instrument on board the ENVISAT satellite.
Two JULES wetland emission estimates are investigated: (a) from an offline run driven with Climatic Research Unit–National Centers for Environmental Prediction (CRU-NCEP) meteorological data and (b) from the same offline run in which the modelled wetland fractions are replaced with those derived from the Global Inundation Extent from Multi-Satellites (GIEMS) remote sensing product. The mean annual emission assumed for each inventory (181 Tg CH4 per annum over the period 1999–2007) is in line with other recently published estimates. There are regional differences as the unconstrained JULES inventory gives significantly higher emissions in the Amazon (by ~36 Tg CH4 yr−1) and lower emissions in other regions (by up to 10 Tg CH4 yr−1) compared to the JULES estimates constrained with the GIEMS product.
Using the UK Hadley Centre's Earth System model with atmospheric chemistry (HadGEM2), we evaluate these JULES wetland emissions against atmospheric observations of methane. We obtain improved agreement with the surface concentration measurements, especially at high northern latitudes, compared to previous HadGEM2 runs using the wetland emission data set of Fung et al. (1991). Although the modelled monthly atmospheric methane columns reproduce the large-scale patterns in the SCIAMACHY observations, they are biased low by 50 part per billion by volume (ppb). Replacing the HadGEM2 modelled concentrations above 300 hPa with HALOE–ACE assimilated TOMCAT output results in a significantly better agreement with the SCIAMACHY observations. The use of the GIEMS product to constrain the JULES-derived wetland fraction improves the representation of the wetland emissions in JULES and gives a good description of the seasonality observed at surface sites influenced by wetlands, especially at high latitudes. We find that the annual cycles observed in the SCIAMACHY measurements and at many of the surface sites influenced by non-wetland sources cannot be reproduced in these HadGEM2 runs. This suggests that the emissions over certain regions (e.g. India and China) are possibly too high and/or the monthly emission patterns for specific sectors are incorrect.
The comparisons presented in this paper show that the performance of the JULES wetland scheme is comparable to that of other process-based land surface models. We identify areas for improvement in this and the atmospheric chemistry components of the HadGEM Earth System model. The Earth Observation data sets used here will be of continued value in future evaluations of JULES and the HadGEM family of models
Physics Opportunities with the 12 GeV Upgrade at Jefferson Lab
This white paper summarizes the scientific opportunities for utilization of
the upgraded 12 GeV Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) and
associated experimental equipment at Jefferson Lab. It is based on the 52
proposals recommended for approval by the Jefferson Lab Program Advisory
Committee.The upgraded facility will enable a new experimental program with
substantial discovery potential to address important topics in nuclear,
hadronic, and electroweak physics.Comment: 64 page
Fitting the integrated Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies
Fitting the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies is an almost
universally used technique that has matured significantly in the last decade.
Model predictions and fitting procedures have improved significantly over this
time, attempting to keep up with the vastly increased volume and quality of
available data. We review here the field of SED fitting, describing the
modelling of ultraviolet to infrared galaxy SEDs, the creation of
multiwavelength data sets, and the methods used to fit model SEDs to observed
galaxy data sets. We touch upon the achievements and challenges in the major
ingredients of SED fitting, with a special emphasis on describing the interplay
between the quality of the available data, the quality of the available models,
and the best fitting technique to use in order to obtain a realistic
measurement as well as realistic uncertainties. We conclude that SED fitting
can be used effectively to derive a range of physical properties of galaxies,
such as redshift, stellar masses, star formation rates, dust masses, and
metallicities, with care taken not to over-interpret the available data. Yet
there still exist many issues such as estimating the age of the oldest stars in
a galaxy, finer details ofdust properties and dust-star geometry, and the
influences of poorly understood, luminous stellar types and phases. The
challenge for the coming years will be to improve both the models and the
observational data sets to resolve these uncertainties. The present review will
be made available on an interactive, moderated web page (sedfitting.org), where
the community can access and change the text. The intention is to expand the
text and keep it up to date over the coming years.Comment: 54 pages, 26 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics &
Space Scienc
Measurement of the branching fraction
The branching fraction is measured in a data sample
corresponding to 0.41 of integrated luminosity collected with the LHCb
detector at the LHC. This channel is sensitive to the penguin contributions
affecting the sin2 measurement from The
time-integrated branching fraction is measured to be . This is the most precise measurement to
date
Model-independent search for CP violation in D0→K−K+π−π+ and D0→π−π+π+π− decays
A search for CP violation in the phase-space structures of D0 and View the MathML source decays to the final states K−K+π−π+ and π−π+π+π− is presented. The search is carried out with a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1 collected in 2011 by the LHCb experiment in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. For the K−K+π−π+ final state, the four-body phase space is divided into 32 bins, each bin with approximately 1800 decays. The p-value under the hypothesis of no CP violation is 9.1%, and in no bin is a CP asymmetry greater than 6.5% observed. The phase space of the π−π+π+π− final state is partitioned into 128 bins, each bin with approximately 2500 decays. The p-value under the hypothesis of no CP violation is 41%, and in no bin is a CP asymmetry greater than 5.5% observed. All results are consistent with the hypothesis of no CP violation at the current sensitivity
Measurement of the CP-violating phase \phi s in Bs->J/\psi\pi+\pi- decays
Measurement of the mixing-induced CP-violating phase phi_s in Bs decays is of
prime importance in probing new physics. Here 7421 +/- 105 signal events from
the dominantly CP-odd final state J/\psi pi+ pi- are selected in 1/fb of pp
collision data collected at sqrt{s} = 7 TeV with the LHCb detector. A
time-dependent fit to the data yields a value of
phi_s=-0.019^{+0.173+0.004}_{-0.174-0.003} rad, consistent with the Standard
Model expectation. No evidence of direct CP violation is found.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures; minor revisions on May 23, 201
Search for the lepton-flavor-violating decays Bs0→e±μ∓ and B0→e±μ∓
A search for the lepton-flavor-violating decays Bs0→e±μ∓ and B0→e±μ∓ is performed with a data sample, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb-1 of pp collisions at √s=7 TeV, collected by the LHCb experiment. The observed number of Bs0→e±μ∓ and B0→e±μ∓ candidates is consistent with background expectations. Upper limits on the branching fractions of both decays are determined to be B(Bs0→e±μ∓)101 TeV/c2 and MLQ(B0→e±μ∓)>126 TeV/c2 at 95% C.L., and are a factor of 2 higher than the previous bounds
Absolute luminosity measurements with the LHCb detector at the LHC
Absolute luminosity measurements are of general interest for colliding-beam
experiments at storage rings. These measurements are necessary to determine the
absolute cross-sections of reaction processes and are valuable to quantify the
performance of the accelerator. Using data taken in 2010, LHCb has applied two
methods to determine the absolute scale of its luminosity measurements for
proton-proton collisions at the LHC with a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. In
addition to the classic "van der Meer scan" method a novel technique has been
developed which makes use of direct imaging of the individual beams using
beam-gas and beam-beam interactions. This beam imaging method is made possible
by the high resolution of the LHCb vertex detector and the close proximity of
the detector to the beams, and allows beam parameters such as positions, angles
and widths to be determined. The results of the two methods have comparable
precision and are in good agreement. Combining the two methods, an overall
precision of 3.5% in the absolute luminosity determination is reached. The
techniques used to transport the absolute luminosity calibration to the full
2010 data-taking period are presented.Comment: 48 pages, 19 figures. Results unchanged, improved clarity of Table 6,
9 and 10 and corresponding explanation in the tex
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