Antiflow of kaons in relativistic heavy ion collisions

We compare relativistic transport model calculations to recent data on the sideward flow of neutral strange K^0_s mesons for Au+Au collisions at 6 AGeV. A soft nuclear equation of state is found to describe very well the positive proton flow data measured in the same experiment. In the absence of kaon potential, the K^0 flow pattern is similar to that of protons. The kaon flow becomes negative if a repulsive kaon potential determined from the impulse approximation is introduced. However, this potential underestimates the data which exhibits larger antiflow. An excellent agreement with the data is obtained when a relativistic scalar-vector kaon potential, that has stronger density dependence, is used. We further find that the transverse momentum dependence of directed and elliptic flow is quite sensitive to the kaon potential in dense matter.Comment: 5 pages, Revtex, 4 figure

Variation Tendency of TC Activity in the NWP

AbstractBased on the tropical cyclone dataset during 1945∼2013 by Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), this study has systematically analyzed the long-term variation of tropical cyclone (TC) in the Northwest Pacific (NWP). People recorded annual variations of Typhoon's maximal wind speed, power dissipation index (PDI) and frequency in this period. The results showed that these meteorology parameters display a rising trend, implying that the TC activity presents a feature of non-stationary stochastic processes. Geographically, we give spatial distribution of their historical maximal wind speed by combining database with parametric TC model. The results indicate that spatial distribution of TC intensity in the NWP is uneven and the sea area east to the Philippines is the most severely affected region by typhoon

A Novel Methodology for Identifying Associations and Correlations Between Household Appliance Behaviour in Residential Buildings

AbstractThis paper reports the development of a new methodology for examining all associations and correlations between various household appliance behaviour, thereby discovering hidden patterns of occupant behaviour in residential buildings. The method is based on a basic data mining technique (association rule mining). Its strength lies in its ability to analyse both continuous and nominal data, and examine all associations and correlations automatically. To demonstrate its applicability, it was applied to the measured end-use electricity data in a selected residential building with comprehensive household appliances in Japan. The results show that both direct and indirect associations between occupant behaviour were discovered. The results obtained could provide a deep insight into the interaction between different behaviour, offer detailed recommendations for reducing building energy consumption, and enable the best input parameters of occupant behaviour prediction models to be identified

Organic petrology and geochemistry of mudstones from the lower Shahejie Formation in the Tanggu area of eastern China: evidence for the presence of an ancient saline lake

Mudstones in the Sha-3 member of the Shahejie Formation, in the Tanggu area of the Huanghua Depression, have been found to contain analcime and ankerite. Hydrothermal sedimentation has been invoked to explain the origin of these two minerals, raising the question of whether hydrothermal activity occurred at a sufficient scale to significantly raise the salinity of the depositional environment. We applied a suite of organic petrological and geochemical methods to directly address this question. Maceral composition, kerogen type, and the distribution of n-alkanes, hopanes, and steranes indicate that the organic matter contained in these mudstones and dolomitic mudstones is mainly derived from algae and bacteria. The dominant acritarch genera, C31R/C30 hopane ratio, gammacerane index, Pr/Ph ratio, and the relationship between Pr/n-C17 and Ph/n-C18 suggest that the mudstones and dolomitic mudstones were deposited in an anoxic, saline lacustrine environment. Tmax, biomarker maturity indices, the Thermal Alteration Index (TAI) and Acritarch Alteration Index (AAI), and vitrinite reflectance all indicate that the organic matter is at an immature to early mature stage. The estimated maximum paleotemperature is close to the present-day burial temperature, and much lower than the homogenization temperature of the analcime veins in dolostones. Combined with the absence of unresolved complex mixtures on the n-alkane pattern, this suggests that hydrothermal activity had a negligible impact on the salinity and alkalinity of the depositional lake

Assessment of β-D-Glucosidase Activity from Two Typical Strains of the Lactic Acid Bacteria, Oenococcus oeni, in China

β-D-glucosidase (βG) is one of the most interesting glycosidases for the hydrolysis of glycoconjugatedprecursors to release active aromatic compounds in musts and wines. Oenococcus oeni strains SD-2a and31MBR are widely used in Chinese wines to reduce the acidity. In the present study, the βG activity of thetwo strains was localised and partially characterised using synthetic substrate. The activity occurred inwhole cells, sonication supernatants and debris, but not in the culture supernatants for both strains. Wholecells of strain SD-2a possessed greater βG activity, while strain 31MBR showed higher enzyme activity inthe sonication supernatants. Strain 31MBR exhibited higher total enzyme activity than strain SD-2a. Theoptimum temperatures for βG from the two strains were 40ºС at pH 3.5 and 50ºС at pH 5.0, respectively.Ethanol at low concentrations had a positive effect on βG activity in both strains, while a wine-like pH (3.5)decreased the enzyme activity to a great extent. Whole cells of strain SD-2a showed the highest activityamong all samples tested under wine-like conditions. Thus, strain SD-2a proved to have potential foraroma improvement in winemaking

The current status of process planning for multi-material rapid prototyping fabrication

doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.118-120.625 The current status of process planning for multi-material rapid prototyping fabricatio

Enhancement of low-mt{m_t} kaons in AGS heavy-ion collisions

In the relativistic transport model, we show that the recently observed enhancement of low-$m_t$ kaons ($K^+$ and $K^-$) in Si+Pb collisions at AGS can be explained if a density isomer is introduced in the nuclear equation-of-state.Comment: 12 pages, RevTex, 6 figs on request to [email protected]

Phases of QCD, Thermal Quasiparticles and Dilepton Radiation from a Fireball

We calculate dilepton production rates from a fireball adapted to the kinematical conditions realized in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions over a broad range of beam energies. The freeze-out state of the fireball is fixed by hadronic observables. We use this information combined with the initial geometry of the collision region to follow the space-time evolution of the fireball. Assuming entropy conservation, its bulk thermodynamic properties can then be uniquely obtained once the equation of state (EoS) is specified. The high-temperature (QGP) phase is modelled by a non-perturbative quasiparticle model that incorporates a phenomenological confinement description, adapted to lattice QCD results. For the hadronic phase, we interpolate the EoS into the region where a resonance gas approach seems applicable, keeping track of a possible overpopulation of the pion phase space. In this way, the fireball evolution is specified without reference to dilepton data, thus eliminating it as an adjustable parameter in the rate calculations. Dilepton emission in the QGP phase is then calculated within the quasiparticle model. In the hadronic phase, both temperature and finite baryon density effects on the photon spectral function are incorporated. Existing dilepton data from CERES at 158 and 40 AGeV Pb-Au collisions are well described, and a prediction for the PHENIX setup at RHIC for sqrt(s) = 200 AGeV is given.Comment: 31 pages, 15 figures, final versio

How to guide a sustainable industrial economy: Emergy account for resources input of Chinese industry

AbstractEmergy analysis provides a feasible approach to evaluate the status and position of different energy carriers in the universal energy hierarchy. In this paper, an emergy-based method is conducted to measure the resources input of Chinese industry from 1997 to 2006. Resources inflows including fossil fuels, mineral resources, agricultural products, and other imported materials are accounted, based on which related indicators including resources intensity, industrial output, and environmental emissions are investigated. Results show a steady upward trend for the total resources input of Chinese industry during the past decade. The total resources input amounted to 1.53×1025 sej in 2006, of which non-renewable one accounted for 70.65% owing to the dominating input of fossil fuels and nonmetal minerals. Resources intensity measured by the ratio of resources input to industrial value added declined gradually during 1997–2002, but the rapid expansion of resource–intensive sub–sectors resulted in a reverse trend since 2003. The current resources use pattern of Chinese industry is characterized by increasing input of non-renewable resources, excessive expansion of resource–intensive production, and tremendous challenge from environmental pressure

Electromagnetic probes of dense matter in heavy-ion collisions

Dilepton and photon production in heavy-ion collisions at SPS energies are studied in the relativistic transport model that incorporates self-consistently the change of hadron masses in dense matter. It is found that the dilepton spectra in proton-nucleus reactions can be well described by the conventional mechanism of Dalitz decay and direct vector meson decay. However, to provide a quantitative explanation of the observed dilepton spectra in central heavy-ion collisions requires contributions other than these direct decays and also various medium effects. Introducing a decrease of vector meson masses in hot dense medium, we find that these heavy-ion data can be satisfactorily explained. Furthermore, the single photon spectra in our calculations with either free or in-medium meson masses do not exceed the upper bound deduced from the experiments by the WA80 Collaboration.Comment: 8 pages, including 4 postscript figures. Talk presented at Sixth International Conference on Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (NN97), Gatlinburg, June, 1997, to appear in the proceeding