7,115 research outputs found
Landslide Risk: Economic Valuation in the North-Eastern Zone of Medellin City
Natural disasters of a geodynamic nature can cause enormous economic and human losses. The economic costs of a landslide disaster include relocation of communities and physical repair of urban infrastructure. However, when performing a quantitative risk analysis, generally, the indirect economic consequences of such an event are not taken into account. A probabilistic approach methodology that considers several scenarios of hazard and vulnerability to measure the magnitude of the landslide and to quantify the economic costs is proposed. With this approach, it is possible to carry out a quantitative evaluation of the risk by landslides, allowing the calculation of the economic losses before a potential disaster in an objective, standardized and reproducible way, taking into account the uncertainty of the building costs in the study zone. The possibility of comparing different scenarios facilitates the urban planning process, the optimization of interventions to reduce risk to acceptable levels and an assessment of economic losses according to the magnitude of the damage. For the development and explanation of the proposed methodology, a simple case study is presented, located in north-eastern zone of the city of MedellÃn. This area has particular geomorphological characteristics, and it is also characterized by the presence of several buildings in bad structural conditions. The proposed methodology permits to obtain an estimative of the probable economic losses by earthquake-induced landslides, taking into account the uncertainty of the building costs in the study zone. The obtained estimative shows that the structural intervention of the buildings produces a reduction the order of 21 % in the total landslide risk. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd
Renormalized coordinate approach to the thermalization process
We consider a particle in the harmonic approximation coupled linearly to an
environment. modeled by an infinite set of harmonic oscillators. The system
(particle--environment) is considered in a cavity at thermal equilibrium. We
employ the recently introduced notion of renormalized coordinates to
investigate the time evolution of the particle occupation number. For
comparison we first present this study in bare coordinates. For a long ellapsed
time, in both approaches, the occupation number of the particle becomes
independent of its initial value. The value of ocupation number of the particle
is the physically expected one at the given temperature. So we have a Markovian
process, describing the particle thermalization with the environment. With
renormalized coordinates no renormalization procedure is required, leading
directly to a finite result.Comment: 16 pages, LATEX, 2 figure
X(3872) and its Partners in the Heavy Quark Limit of QCD
In this letter, we propose interpolating currents for the X(3872) resonance,
and show that, in the Heavy Quark limit of QCD, the X(3872) state should have
degenerate partners, independent of its internal structure. Magnitudes of
possible I=0 and I=1 components of the X(3872) are also discussed.Comment: 12 page
Non-relativistic Extended Gravity and its applications across different astrophysical scales
Using dimensional analysis techniques we present an extension of Newton's
gravitational theory built under the assumption that Milgrom's acceleration
constant is a fundamental quantity of nature. The gravitational force converges
to Newton's gravity and to a MOND-like description in two different mass and
length regimes. It is shown that a modification on the force sector (and not in
the dynamical one as MOND does) is more convenient and can reproduce and
predict different phenomena usually ascribed to dark matter at the
non-relativistic level.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. To appear in the proceedings of the 2011 Spanish
Relativity Meeting (ERE2011) held in Madrid, Spai
Long-distance structure of the X(3872)
We investigate heavy quark symmetries for heavy meson hadronic molecules, and
explore the consequences of assuming the X(3872) and as an
isoscalar and an isovector hadronic molecules,
respectively. The symmetry allows to predict new hadronic molecules, in
particular we find an isoscalar bound state with a mass
about 10580 MeV and the isovector charmonium partners of the and
the states. Next, we study the
three body decay. This decay mode is more sensitive to the long-distance
structure of the X(3872) resonance than its and
decays, which are mainly controlled by the short distance part of the X(3872)
molecular wave function. We discuss the final state
interactions, which in some situations become quite important. Indeed in these
cases, a precise measurement of this partial decay width could provide precise
information on the interaction strength between the charm
mesons.Comment: Talk presented at the "XI International Conference on Hyperons, Charm
and Beauty Hadrons (BEACH 2014)", Birmingham (U.K.), July 201
Exogenous schwann cells migrate, remyelinate and promote clinical recovery in experimental auto-immune encephalomyelitis
Schwann cell (SC) transplantation is currently being discussed as a strategy that may promote functional recovery in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and other inflammatory demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system (CNS). However this assumes they will not only survive but also remyelinate demyelinated axons in the chronically inflamed CNS. To address this question we investigated the fate of transplanted SCs in myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG)-induced experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) in the Dark Agouti rat; an animal model that reproduces the complex inflammatory demyelinating immunopathology of MS. We now report that SCs expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP-SCs) allografted after disease onset not only survive but also migrate to remyelinate lesions in the inflamed CNS. GFP-SCs were detected more frequently in the parenchyma after direct injection into the spinal cord, than via intra-thecal delivery into the cerebrospinal fluid. In both cases the transplanted cells intermingled with astrocytes in demyelinated lesions, aligned with axons and by twenty one days post transplantation had formed Pzero protein immunoreactive internodes. Strikingly, GFP-SCs transplantation was associated with marked decrease in clinical disease severity in terms of mortality; all GFP-SCs transplanted animals survived whilst 80% of controls died within 40 days of disease
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