Book Reviews

Book Review 1Book Title: Mammoths, Mastodonts & Elephants; Biology, Behaviour, and the Fossil RecordBook Author: Gary HaynesCambridge University Press 1991. 413 pp.Book Review 2Book Title: A Fieldguide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of Madagascar (Second Edition)Book Authors: Frank Glaw & Miguel VeneesM, Venees & F. Glaw Verlags GbR,  Köln, December 1994. 48O pagesBook Review 3Book Title: The Physiology of Reproduction; Second edition 1993Book Authors: Editors in Chief: E, Knobil & J.D. Neill Associate Editors: G.S. Greenwald, C.L. Markert & D.W. PfaffA two volume set, 3302 pages. Raven Press, New YorkBook Review 4Book Title: The Economics of Non-Human SocietiesBook Author: Gordon TullockPallas Press, March 1994 Tuscon, Arizona. 87 pages.Book Review 5Book Title: Bird Atlas of BotswanaBook Author: Huw PenryUniversity of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg. 319 pages.Book Review 6Book Title: Colobine Monkeys: their Ecology, Behaviour and EvolutionBook Authors: A. Glyn Davies & John F. OatesCambridge University Press, Cambridge UK (1994). Pages xiii + 415.Book Review 7Book Title: Water Relations of Terrestrial ArthropodsBook Author: N.F. HadleyAcademic Press. 1994. 356 page

Flow-duration curve integration into digital filtering algorithms for simulating climate variability based on river baseflow

A baseflow separation methodology combining the outcomes of the flow–duration curve and the digital filtering algorithms to cope with the restrictions of the traditional procedures has been assessed. Using this methodology as well as the monitored and simulated hydro-climatologic data, the baseflow annual variations due to climate change and human-induced activities were determined. The outcomes show that the long-term baseflow index at the upstream sub-basin is nearly half of that at the downstream from October to April, whereas, they are close to each other for the remaining months. Some of the groundwater reacts to precipitation and an evident rise in the groundwater contribution has been detected for the hydrological years 1998–2001 and 2006–2008. The contrary has been recorded for 1987. The water released from the reservoir in the dry periods lead to distinctions in the detected baseflow index between the pre-damming and post-damming periods of the river

Spin glass behavior of frustrated 2-D Penrose lattice in the classical planar model

Via extensive Monte Carlo studies we show that the frustrated XY Hamiltonian on a 2-D Penrose lattice admits of a spin glass phase at low temperature. Studies of the Edwards-Anderson order parameter, spin glass susceptibility, and local (linear) susceptibility point unequivocally to a paramagnetic to spin glass transition as the temperature is lowered. Specific heat shows a rounded peak at a temperature above the spin glass transition temperature, as is commonly observed in spin glasses. Our results strongly suggest that the critical point exponents are the same as obtained by Bhatt and Young in the ${\pm}J$ Ising model on a square lattice. However, unlike in the latter case, the critical temperature is clearly finite (nonzero). The results imply that a quasiperiodic 2-D array of superconducting grains in a suitably chosen transverse magnetic field should behave as a superconducting glass at low temperature.Comment: RevTex, 4 pages Including 4 figures. To appear in the June 1 1996 issue of Phys. Rev. B (Rapid Communications). Revised/replaced edition contains an erratum at the end of the paper, also to appear in Phys. Rev.

The extent, nature and distribution of child poverty in India

Despite a long history, research on poverty has only relatively recently examined the issue of child poverty as a distinct topic of concern. This article examines how child poverty and well-being are now conceptualized, defined and measured, and presents a portrait of child poverty in India by social and cultural groups, and by geographic area. In December 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted a definition of child poverty which noted that children living in poverty were deprived of (among other things) nutrition, water and sanitation facilities, access to basic health care services, shelter and education. The definition noted that while poverty hurts every human being ‘it is most threatening and harmful to children, leaving them unable to enjoy their rights, to reach their full potential and to participate as full members of the society’. Researchers have developed age-specific and gender-sensitive indicators of deprivation which conform to the UN definition of child poverty and which can be used to examine the extent and nature of child poverty in low and middle-income countries. These new methods have ‘transformed the way UNICEF and many of its partners both understood and measured the poverty suffered by children’ (UNICEF, 2009). This article uses these methods and presents results of child poverty in India based on nationally representative household survey data for India

Thermoelectric effects of an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer with an embedded quantum dot in the Kondo regime

Thermoelectric effects are studied in an Aharonov-Bohm (AB) interferometer with an embedded quantum dot in the Kondo regime. The AB flux-dependent transmission probability has an asymmetrical shape arising from the Fano interference between the direct tunneling path and the Kondo-resonant tunneling path through a quantum dot. The sign and magnitude of thermopower can be modulated by the AB flux and the direct tunneling amplitude. In addition, the thermopower is anomalously enhanced by the Kondo correlation in the quantum dot near the Kondo temperature ($T_K$). The Kondo correlation in the quantum dot also leads to crossover behavior in diagonal transport coefficients as a function of temperature. The amplitude of an AB oscillation in electric and thermal conductances is small at temperatures far above $T_K$, but becomes enhanced as the system is cooled below $T_K$. The AB oscillation is strong in the thermopower and Lorenz number within the crossover region near the Kondo temperature.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

A Solvable Regime of Disorder and Interactions in Ballistic Nanostructures, Part I: Consequences for Coulomb Blockade

We provide a framework for analyzing the problem of interacting electrons in a ballistic quantum dot with chaotic boundary conditions within an energy $E_T$ (the Thouless energy) of the Fermi energy. Within this window we show that the interactions can be characterized by Landau Fermi liquid parameters. When $g$, the dimensionless conductance of the dot, is large, we find that the disordered interacting problem can be solved in a saddle-point approximation which becomes exact as $g\to\infty$ (as in a large-N theory). The infinite $g$ theory shows a transition to a strong-coupling phase characterized by the same order parameter as in the Pomeranchuk transition in clean systems (a spontaneous interaction-induced Fermi surface distortion), but smeared and pinned by disorder. At finite $g$, the two phases and critical point evolve into three regimes in the $u_m-1/g$ plane -- weak- and strong-coupling regimes separated by crossover lines from a quantum-critical regime controlled by the quantum critical point. In the strong-coupling and quantum-critical regions, the quasiparticle acquires a width of the same order as the level spacing $\Delta$ within a few $\Delta$'s of the Fermi energy due to coupling to collective excitations. In the strong coupling regime if $m$ is odd, the dot will (if isolated) cross over from the orthogonal to unitary ensemble for an exponentially small external flux, or will (if strongly coupled to leads) break time-reversal symmetry spontaneously.Comment: 33 pages, 14 figures. Very minor changes. We have clarified that we are treating charge-channel instabilities in spinful systems, leaving spin-channel instabilities for future work. No substantive results are change

Measurement of the Branching Fraction for B->eta' K and Search for B->eta'pi+

We report measurements for two-body charmless B decays with an eta' meson in the final state. Using 11.1X10^6 BBbar pairs collected with the Belle detector, we find BF(B^+ ->eta'K^+)=(79^+12_-11 +-9)x10^-6 and BF(B^0 -> eta'K^0)=(55^+19_-16 +-8)x10^-6, where the first and second errors are statistical and systematic, respectively. No signal is observed in the mode B^+ -> eta' pi^+, and we set a 90% confidence level upper limit of BF(B^+-> eta'pi^+) eta'K^+- decays is investigated and a limit at 90% confidence level of -0.20<Acp<0.32 is obtained.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters

Observation of Cabibbo-suppressed and W-exchange Lambda_c^+ baryon decays

We present measurements of the Cabibbo-suppressed decays Lambda_c^+ --> Lambda0 K+ and Lambda_c^+ --> Sigma0 K+ (both first observations), Lambda_c^+ --> Sigma+ K+ pi- (seen with large statistics for the first time), Lambda_c^+ --> p K+ K- and Lambda_c^+ --> p phi (measured with improved accuracy). Improved branching ratio measurements for the decays Lambda_c^+ --> Sigma+ K+ K- and Lambda_c^+ --> Sigma+ phi, which are attributed to W-exchange diagrams, are shown. We also present the first evidence for Lambda_c^+ --> Xi(1690)^0 K+ and set an upper limit on the non-resonant decay Lambda_c^+ --> Sigma+ K+ K-. This analysis was performed using 32.6 fb^{-1} of data collected by the Belle detector at the asymmetric e+ e- collider KEKB.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Lett. B. v2: A small correction to the Authorlist was made. An earlier version of this analysis was released as BELLE-CONF-0130, hep-ex/010800

Determination of |Vcb| using the semileptonic decay \bar{B}^0 --> D^{*+}e^-\bar{\nu}

We present a measurement of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix element |Vcb| using a 10.2 fb^{-1} data sample recorded at the \Upsilon(4S) resonance with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric e^+e^- storage ring. By extrapolating the differential decay width of the \bar{B}^0 --> D^{*+}e^-\bar{\nu} decay to the kinematic limit at which the D^{*+} is at rest with respect to the \bar{B}^0, we extract the product of |Vcb| with the normalization of the decay form factor F(1), |Vcb |F(1)= (3.54+/-0.19+/-0.18)x10^{-2}, where the first error is statistical and the second is systematic. A value of |Vcb| = (3.88+/-0.21+/-0.20+/-0.19)x10^{-2} is obtained using a theoretical calculation of F(1), where the third error is due to the theoretical uncertainty in the value of F(1). The branching fraction B(\bar{B}^0 --> D^{*+}e^-\bar{\nu}) is measured to be (4.59+/-0.23+/-0.40)x10^{-2}.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, elsart.cls, submitted to PL

A Measurement of the Branching Fraction for the Inclusive B --> X(s) gamma Decays with the Belle Detector

We have measured the branching fraction of the inclusive radiative B meson decay B --> X(s) gamma to be Br(B->X(s)gamma)=(3.36 +/- 0.53(stat) +/- 0.42(sys) +0.50-0.54(th)) x 10^{-4}. The result is based on a sample of 6.07 x 10^6 BBbar events collected at the Upsilon(4S) resonance with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric e^+e^- storage ring.Comment: 14 pages, 6 Postsript figures, uses elsart.cl