271 research outputs found
Simulation of the enhanced traffic alert and collision avoidance system (TCAS 2)
The OSU aircraft code is used to analyze and simulate the TCAS 2 circular array which is mounted on the fuselage of a Boeing 737 aircraft. It is shown that the sum and difference patterns radiated by the circular array are distorted by the various structures of the aircraft, i.e., wings, tail, etc. Furthermore, monopulse curves are calculated and plotted for several beam positions and THETA angles. As expected, the worst cases of distortion occur when the beams are pointed toward the tail of the aircraft
A study of the TCAS 2 collision avoidance system mounted on a Boeing 737 aircraft
The purpose of this report is to determine the effects of scattering from major aircraft structures on the TCAS 2 collision avoidance system mounted on a Boeing 737. It is found that the major source of scattering for angles of observation above the horizon is the vertical stabilizer and that its effect may be greatly reduced by mounting the TCAS 2 array close to the nose of the aircraft. In addition, by mounting the array close to the nose, the effects of fuselage blockage on the array patterns at elevation angles below the horizon may be greatly reduced in the forward direction
Plasticity of visual attention in Isha yoga meditation practitioners before and after a 3-month retreat.
Meditation has lately received considerable interest from cognitive neuroscience. Studies suggest that daily meditation leads to long lasting attentional and neuronal plasticity. We present changes related to the attentional systems before and after a 3 month intensive meditation retreat. We used three behavioral psychophysical tests - a Stroop task, an attentional blink task, and a global-local letter task-to assess the effect of Isha yoga meditation on attentional resource allocation. 82 Isha yoga practitioners were tested at the beginning and at the end of the retreat. Our results showed an increase in correct responses specific to incongruent stimuli in the Stroop task. Congruently, a positive correlation between previous meditation experience and accuracy to incongruent Stroop stimuli was also observed at baseline. We also observed a reduction of the attentional blink. Unexpectedly, a negative correlation between previous meditation experience and attentional blink performance at baseline was observed. Regarding spatial attention orientation as assessed using the global-local letter task, participants showed a bias toward local processing. Only slight differences in performance were found pre- vs. post- meditation retreat. Biasing toward the local stimuli in the global-local task and negative correlation of previous meditation experience with attentional blink performance is consistent with Isha practices being focused-attention practices. Given the relatively small effect sizes and the absence of a control group, our results do not allow clear support nor rejection of the hypothesis of meditation-driven neuronal plasticity in the attentional system for Isha yoga practice
Hadron Spectra and QGP Hadronization in Au+Au Collisions at RHIC
The transverse mass spectra of Omega hyperons and phi mesons measured
recently by STAR Collaboration in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 130 GeV are
described within a hydrodynamic model of the quark gluon plasma expansion and
hadronization. The flow parameters at the plasma hadronization extracted by
fitting these data are used to predict the transverse mass spectra of J/psi and
psi' mesons.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Fig. 3 correcte
Heavy flavor kinetics at the hadronization transition
We investigate the in-medium modification of the charmonium breakup processes
due to the Mott effect for light (pi, rho) and open-charm (D, D*)
quark-antiquark bound states at the chiral/deconfinement phase transition. The
Mott effect for the D-mesons effectively reduces the threshold for charmonium
breakup cross sections, which is suggested as an explanation of the anomalous
J/psi suppression phenomenon in the NA50 experiment. Further implications of
finite-temperature mesonic correlations for the hadronization of heavy flavors
in heavy-ion collisions are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Contribution to SQM2001 Conference, submitted to
J. Phys.
Thermal width and gluo-dissociation of quarkonium in pNRQCD
The thermal width of heavy-quarkonium bound states in a quark-gluon plasma
has been recently derived in an effective field theory approach. Two phenomena
contribute to the width: the Landau damping phenomenon and the break-up of a
colour-singlet bound state into a colour-octet heavy quark-antiquark pair by
absorption of a thermal gluon. In the paper, we investigate the relation
between the singlet-to-octet thermal break-up and the so-called
gluo-dissociation, a mechanism for quarkonium dissociation widely used in
phenomenological approaches. The gluo-dissociation thermal width is obtained by
convoluting the gluon thermal distribution with the cross section of a gluon
and a 1S quarkonium state to a colour octet quark-antiquark state in vacuum, a
cross section that at leading order, but neglecting colour-octet effects, was
computed long ago by Bhanot and Peskin. We will, first, show that the effective
field theory framework provides a natural derivation of the gluo-dissociation
factorization formula at leading order, which is, indeed, the singlet-to-octet
thermal break-up expression. Second, the singlet-to-octet thermal break-up
expression will allow us to improve the Bhanot--Peskin cross section by
including the contribution of the octet potential, which amounts to include
final-state interactions between the heavy quark and antiquark. Finally, we
will quantify the effects due to final-state interactions on the
gluo-dissociation cross section and on the quarkonium thermal width.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure
Characterization of a new mutation (R292G) and a deletion at the human uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase locus in two patients with hepatoerythropoietic porphyria
A deficiency in the activity of uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase (UROD), the fifth enzyme of the haem biosynthetic pathway, is found in familial porphyria cutanea tarda (F-PCT) and hepatoerythropoietic porphyria (HEP). A new mutation (R292G) and a deletion have been found in a pedigree with two HEP patients (two sisters). The R292G mutation was not detected in 13 unrelated affected patients with F-PCT, so it appears to be uncommon. The possibility that the arginine 292 may participate at the active site of the enzyme is discussed. A summary of the 7 mutations/deletions found in the UROD gene with their frequency is presented
Progress in the determination of the cross section
Improving previous calculations, we compute the cross section using QCD sum rules. Our sum rules for the , , and hadronic
matrix elements are constructed by using vaccum-pion correlation functions, and
we work up to twist-4 in the soft-pion limit. Our results suggest that, using
meson exchange models is perfectly acceptable, provided that they include form
factors and that they respect chiral symmetry. After doing a thermal average we
get mb at T=150\MeV.Comment: 22 pages, RevTeX4 including 7 figures in ps file
Charmonium from Statistical Hadronization of Heavy Quarks -- a Probe for Deconfinement in the Quark-Gluon Plasma
We review the statistical hadronization picture for charmonium production in
ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions. Our starting point is a brief reminder
of the status of the thermal model description of hadron production at high
energy. Within this framework an excellent account is achieved of all data for
hadrons built of (u,d,s) valence quarks using temperature, baryo-chemical
potential and volume as thermal parameters. The large charm quark mass brings
in a new (non-thermal) scale which is explicitely taken into account by fixing
the total number of charm quarks produced in the collision. Emphasis is placed
on the description of the physical basis for the resulting statistical
hadronization model. We discuss the evidence for statistical hadronization of
charmonia by analysis of recent data from the SPS and RHIC accelerators.
Furthermore we discuss an extension of this model towards lower beam energies
and develop arguments about the prospects to observe medium modifications of
open and hidden charm hadrons. With the imminent start of the LHC accelerator
at CERN, exciting prospects for charmonium production studies at the very high
energy frontier come into reach. We present arguments that, at such energies,
charmonium production becomes a fingerprint of deconfinement: even if no
charmonia survive in the quark-gluon plasma, statistical hadronization at the
QCD phase boundary of the many tens of charm quarks expected in a single
central Pb-Pb collision could lead to an enhanced, rather than suppressed
production probability when compared to results for nucleon-nucleon reactions
scaled by the number of hard collisions in the Pb-Pb system.Comment: review article, 27 pages, Landoldt review volume "Relativistic Heavy
Ion Physics", Reinhard Stock, edito
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