358 research outputs found
Laser scanning methods and a phase comparison, modulated laser range finder for terrain sensing on a Mars roving vehicle
Two areas of a laser range finder for a Mars roving vehicle are investigated: (1) laser scanning systems, and (2) range finder methods and implementation. Several ways of rapidly scanning a laser are studied. Two digital deflectors and a matrix of laser diodes, are found to be acceptable. A complete range finder scanning system of high accuracy is proposed. The problem of incident laser spot distortion on the terrain is discussed. The instrumentation for a phase comparison, modulated laser range finder is developed and sections of it are tested
The Amateur Sky Survey Mark III Project
The Amateur Sky Survey (TASS) is a loose confederation of amateur and
professional astronomers. We describe the design and construction of our Mark
III system, a set of wide-field drift-scan CCD cameras which monitor the
celestial equator down to thirteenth magnitude in several passbands. We explain
the methods by which images are gathered, processed, and reduced into lists of
stellar positions and magnitudes. Over the period October, 1996, to November,
1998, we compiled a large database of photometric measurements. One of our
results is the "tenxcat" catalog, which contains measurements on the standard
Johnson-Cousins system for 367,241 stars; it contains links to the light curves
of these stars as well.Comment: 20 pages, including 4 figures; additional JPEG files for Figures 1,
2. Submitted to PAS
Kinematic Effects in Radiative Quarkonia Decays
Non-relativistic QCD (NRQCD) predicts colour octet contributions to be
significant not only in many production processes of heavy quarkonia but also
in their radiative decays. We investigate the photon energy distributions in
these processes in the endpoint region. There the velocity expansion of NRQCD
breaks down which requires a resummation of an infinite class of colour octet
operators to so-called shape functions. We model these non-perturbative
functions by the emission of a soft gluon cluster in the initial state. We
found that the spectrum in the endpoint region is poorly understood if the
values for the colour octet matrix elements are taken as large as indicated
from NRQCD scaling rules. Therefore the endpoint region should not be taken
into account for a fit of the strong coupling constant at the scale of the
heavy quark mass.Comment: LaTeX, 17 pages, 5 figures. The complete paper is also available via
the www at http://www-ttp.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de/Preprints
FADO - Funktionale Konsolidierung des Fachdokumentenmanagements im Umweltinformationssystem Baden-Württemberg und Erschließung neuer Themenbereiche
Leptonic and Semileptonic Decays of Charm and Bottom Hadrons
We review the experimental measurements and theoretical descriptions of
leptonic and semileptonic decays of particles containing a single heavy quark,
either charm or bottom. Measurements of bottom semileptonic decays are used to
determine the magnitudes of two fundamental parameters of the standard model,
the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements and . These
parameters are connected with the physics of quark flavor and mass, and they
have important implications for the breakdown of CP symmetry. To extract
precise values of and from measurements, however,
requires a good understanding of the decay dynamics. Measurements of both charm
and bottom decay distributions provide information on the interactions
governing these processes. The underlying weak transition in each case is
relatively simple, but the strong interactions that bind the quarks into
hadrons introduce complications. We also discuss new theoretical approaches,
especially heavy-quark effective theory and lattice QCD, which are providing
insights and predictions now being tested by experiment. An international
effort at many laboratories will rapidly advance knowledge of this physics
during the next decade.Comment: This review article will be published in Reviews of Modern Physics in
the fall, 1995. This file contains only the abstract and the table of
contents. The full 168-page document including 47 figures is available at
http://charm.physics.ucsb.edu/papers/slrevtex.p
Measurement of the Top Quark Pair Production Cross Section in pbarp Collisions
We present a measurement of the ttbar production cross section in ppbar
collisions at root(s) = 1.8TeV by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron.
The measurement is based on data from an integrated luminosity of approximately
125 pb^-1 accumulated during the 1992-1996 collider run. We observe 39 ttbar
candidate events in the dilepton and lepton+jets decay channels with an
expected background of 13.7+-2.2 events. For a top quark mass of 173.3GeV/c^2,
we measure the ttbar production cross section to be 5.5+-1.8 pb.Comment: 11 pages with 3 encapsulated PostScript figures and 2 PostScript
table included in the body of the articl
The genomes of two key bumblebee species with primitive eusocial organization
Background: The shift from solitary to social behavior is one of the major evolutionary transitions. Primitively eusocial bumblebees are uniquely placed to illuminate the evolution of highly eusocial insect societies. Bumblebees are also invaluable natural and agricultural pollinators, and there is widespread concern over recent population declines in some species. High-quality genomic data will inform key aspects of bumblebee biology, including susceptibility to implicated population viability threats. Results: We report the high quality draft genome sequences of Bombus terrestris and Bombus impatiens, two ecologically dominant bumblebees and widely utilized study species. Comparing these new genomes to those of the highly eusocial honeybee Apis mellifera and other Hymenoptera, we identify deeply conserved similarities, as well as novelties key to the biology of these organisms. Some honeybee genome features thought to underpin advanced eusociality are also present in bumblebees, indicating an earlier evolution in the bee lineage. Xenobiotic detoxification and immune genes are similarly depauperate in bumblebees and honeybees, and multiple categories of genes linked to social organization, including development and behavior, show high conservation. Key differences identified include a bias in bumblebee chemoreception towards gustation from olfaction, and striking differences in microRNAs, potentially responsible for gene regulation underlying social and other traits. Conclusions: These two bumblebee genomes provide a foundation for post-genomic research on these key pollinators and insect societies. Overall, gene repertoires suggest that the route to advanced eusociality in bees was mediated by many small changes in many genes and processes, and not by notable expansion or depauperation
Heavy quarkonium: progress, puzzles, and opportunities
A golden age for heavy quarkonium physics dawned a decade ago, initiated by
the confluence of exciting advances in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and an
explosion of related experimental activity. The early years of this period were
chronicled in the Quarkonium Working Group (QWG) CERN Yellow Report (YR) in
2004, which presented a comprehensive review of the status of the field at that
time and provided specific recommendations for further progress. However, the
broad spectrum of subsequent breakthroughs, surprises, and continuing puzzles
could only be partially anticipated. Since the release of the YR, the BESII
program concluded only to give birth to BESIII; the -factories and CLEO-c
flourished; quarkonium production and polarization measurements at HERA and the
Tevatron matured; and heavy-ion collisions at RHIC have opened a window on the
deconfinement regime. All these experiments leave legacies of quality,
precision, and unsolved mysteries for quarkonium physics, and therefore beg for
continuing investigations. The plethora of newly-found quarkonium-like states
unleashed a flood of theoretical investigations into new forms of matter such
as quark-gluon hybrids, mesonic molecules, and tetraquarks. Measurements of the
spectroscopy, decays, production, and in-medium behavior of c\bar{c}, b\bar{b},
and b\bar{c} bound states have been shown to validate some theoretical
approaches to QCD and highlight lack of quantitative success for others. The
intriguing details of quarkonium suppression in heavy-ion collisions that have
emerged from RHIC have elevated the importance of separating hot- and
cold-nuclear-matter effects in quark-gluon plasma studies. This review
systematically addresses all these matters and concludes by prioritizing
directions for ongoing and future efforts.Comment: 182 pages, 112 figures. Editors: N. Brambilla, S. Eidelman, B. K.
Heltsley, R. Vogt. Section Coordinators: G. T. Bodwin, E. Eichten, A. D.
Frawley, A. B. Meyer, R. E. Mitchell, V. Papadimitriou, P. Petreczky, A. A.
Petrov, P. Robbe, A. Vair
Reforming Fiscal Institutions in Resource-Rich Arab Economies: Policy Proposals
This paper traces the evolution of fiscal institutions of Resource Rich Arab Economies (RRAEs) over time since their pre-oil days, through the discovery of oil to their build-up of oil exports. It then identifies challenges faced by RRAEs and variations in their severity among the different countries over time. Finally, it articulates specific policy reforms, which, if implemented successfully, could help to overcome these challenges. In some cases, however, these policy proposals may give rise to important trade-offs that will have to be evaluated carefully in individual cases
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