5,969 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 Medellín. 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
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
Causality detection and turbulence in fusion plasmas
This work explores the potential of an information-theoretical causality
detection method for unraveling the relation between fluctuating variables in
complex nonlinear systems. The method is tested on some simple though nonlinear
models, and guidelines for the choice of analysis parameters are established.
Then, measurements from magnetically confined fusion plasmas are analyzed. The
selected data bear relevance to the all-important spontaneous confinement
transitions often observed in fusion plasmas, fundamental for the design of an
economically attractive fusion reactor. It is shown how the present method is
capable of clarifying the interaction between fluctuating quantities such as
the turbulence amplitude, turbulent flux, and Zonal Flow amplitude, and
uncovers several interactions that were missed by traditional methods.Comment: 26 pages, 14 figure
Variability in Quasar Broad Absorption Line Outflows I. Trends in the Short-Term versus Long-Term Data
Broad absorption lines (BALs) in quasar spectra identify high velocity
outflows that likely exist in all quasars and could play a major role in
feedback to galaxy evolution. The variability of BALs can help us understand
the structure, evolution, and basic physical properties of the outflows. Here
we report on our first results from an ongoing BAL monitoring campaign of a
sample of 24 luminous quasars at redshifts 1.2<z<2.9, focusing on C IV 1549 BAL
variability in two different time intervals: 4 to 9 months (short-term) and 3.8
to 7.7 years (long-term) in the quasar rest-frame. We find that 39% (7/18) of
the quasars varied in the short-term, whereas 65% (15/23) varied in the
long-term, with a larger typical change in strength in the long-term data. The
variability occurs typically in only portions of the BAL troughs. The
components at higher outflow velocities are more likely to vary than those at
lower velocities, and weaker BALs are more likely to vary than stronger BALs.
The fractional change in BAL strength correlates inversely with the strength of
the BAL feature, but does not correlate with the outflow velocity. Both the
short-term and long-term data indicate the same trends. The observed behavior
is most readily understood as a result of the movement of clouds across the
continuum source. If the crossing speeds do not exceed the local Keplerian
velocity, then the observed short-term variations imply that the absorbers are
<6 pc from the central quasar.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
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