Gravitational collapse of a Hagedorn fluid in Vaidya geometry

The gravitational collapse of a high-density null charged matter fluid, satisfying the Hagedorn equation of state, is considered in the framework of the Vaidya geometry. The general solution of the gravitational field equations can be obtained in an exact parametric form. The conditions for the formation of a naked singularity, as a result of the collapse of the compact object, are also investigated. For an appropriate choice of the arbitrary integration functions the null radial outgoing geodesic, originating from the shell focussing central singularity, admits one or more positive roots. Hence a collapsing Hagedorn fluid could end either as a black hole, or as a naked singularity. A possible astrophysical application of the model, to describe the energy source of gamma-ray bursts, is also considered.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Differences in the pattern and regulation of mineral deposition in human cell lines of osteogenic and non-osteogenic origin

Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are widely used as a cellular model of bone formation, and can mineralize in vitro in response to osteogenic medium (OM). It is unclear, however, whether this property is specific to cells of mesenchymal origin. We analysed the OM response in 3 non-osteogenic lines, HEK293, HeLa and NTera, compared to MSCs. Whereas HEK293 cells failed to respond to OM conditions, the 2 carcinoma-derived lines NTera and HeLa deposited a calcium phosphate mineral comparable to that present in MSC cultures. However, unlike MSCs, HeLa and NTera cultures did so in the absence of dexamethasone. This discrepancy was confirmed, as bone morphogenetic protein inhibition obliterated the OM response in MSCs but not in HeLa or NTera, indicating that these 2 models can deposit mineral through a mechanism independent of established dexamethasone or bone morphogenetic protein signalling

Multidimensional quantum solitons with nondegenerate parametric interactions: Photonic and Bose-Einstein condensate environments

We consider the quantum theory of three fields interacting via parametric and repulsive quartic couplings. This can be applied to treat photonic chi((2)) and chi((3)) interactions, and interactions in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates or quantum Fermi gases, describing coherent molecule formation together with a-wave scattering. The simplest two-particle quantum solitons or bound-state solutions of the idealized Hamiltonian, without a momentum cutoff, are obtained exactly. They have a pointlike structure in two and three dimensions-even though the corresponding classical theory is nonsingular. We show that the solutions can be regularized with a momentum cutoff. The parametric quantum solitons have much more realistic length scales and binding energies than chi((3)) quantum solitons, and the resulting effects could potentially be experimentally tested in highly nonlinear optical parametric media or interacting matter-wave systems. N-particle quantum solitons and the ground state energy are analyzed using a variational approach. Applications to atomic/molecular Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC's) are given, where we predict the possibility of forming coupled BEC solitons in three space dimensions, and analyze superchemistry dynamics

A geochronological review of magmatism along the external margin of Columbia and in the Grenville-age orogens forming the core of Rodinia

A total of 4344 magmatic U-Pb ages in the range 2300 to 800 Ma have been compiled from the Great Proterozoic Accretionary Orogen along the margin of the Columbia / Nuna supercontinent and from the subsequent Grenvillian collisional orogens forming the core of Rodinia. The age data are derived from Laurentia (North America and Greenland, n = 1212), Baltica (NE Europe, n = 1922), Amazonia (central South America, n = 625), Kalahari (southern Africa and Dronning Maud Land in East Antarctica, n = 386), and western Australia (n = 199). Laurentia, Baltica, and Amazonia (and possibly other cratons) most likely formed a ca. 10 000-km-long external active continental margin of Columbia from its assembly at ca. 1800 Ma until its dispersal at ca. 1260 Ma, after which all cratons studied were involved in the Rodinia-forming Grenvillian orogeny. However, the magmatic record is not smooth and even but highly irregular, with marked peaks and troughs, both for individual cratons and the combined data set. Magmatic peaks typically range in duration from a few tens of million years up to around hundred million years, with intervening troughs of comparable length. Some magmatic peaks are observed on multiple cratons, either by coincidence or because of paleogeographic proximity and common tectonic setting, while others are not. The best overall correlation, 0.617, is observed between Baltica and Amazonia, consistent with (but not definitive proof of) their being close neighbours in a SAMBA-like configuration at least in Columbia, and perhaps having shared the same peri-Columbian subduction system for a considerable time. Correlation factors between Laurentia and Baltica, or Laurentia and Amazonia, are below 0.14. Comparison between the Grenville Province in northeastern Laurentia and the Sveconorwegian Province in southwestern Fennoscandia (Baltica) shows some striking similarities, especially in the Mesoproterozoic, but also exhibits differences in the timing of events, especially during the final Grenville-Sveconorwegian collision, when the Sveconorwegian evolution seems to lag behind by some tens of million years. Between the other cratons, the evolution before and during the final Grenvillian collision is also largely diachronous. After 900 Ma, magmatic activity had ceased in all areas investigated, attesting to the position of most of them within the stable interior of Rodinia.publishedVersio

Hybrid Correlation and Causal Feature Selection for Ensemble Classifiers

PC and TPDA algorithms are robust and well known prototype algorithms, incorporating constraint-based approaches for causal discovery. However, both algorithms cannot scale up to deal with high dimensional data, that is more than few hundred features. This chapter presents hybrid correlation and causal feature selection for ensemble classifiers to deal with this problem. Redundant features are removed by correlation-based feature selection and then irrelevant features are eliminated by causal feature selection. The number of eliminated features, accuracy, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and false negative rate (FNR) of proposed algorithms are compared with correlation-based feature selection (FCBF and CFS) and causal based feature selection algorithms (PC, TPDA, GS, IAMB)

Reproducibility in the absence of selective reporting : An illustration from large-scale brain asymmetry research

Altres ajuts: Max Planck Society (Germany).The problem of poor reproducibility of scientific findings has received much attention over recent years, in a variety of fields including psychology and neuroscience. The problem has been partly attributed to publication bias and unwanted practices such as p-hacking. Low statistical power in individual studies is also understood to be an important factor. In a recent multisite collaborative study, we mapped brain anatomical left-right asymmetries for regional measures of surface area and cortical thickness, in 99 MRI datasets from around the world, for a total of over 17,000 participants. In the present study, we revisited these hemispheric effects from the perspective of reproducibility. Within each dataset, we considered that an effect had been reproduced when it matched the meta-analytic effect from the 98 other datasets, in terms of effect direction and significance threshold. In this sense, the results within each dataset were viewed as coming from separate studies in an "ideal publishing environment," that is, free from selective reporting and p hacking. We found an average reproducibility rate of 63.2% (SD = 22.9%, min = 22.2%, max = 97.0%). As expected, reproducibility was higher for larger effects and in larger datasets. Reproducibility was not obviously related to the age of participants, scanner field strength, FreeSurfer software version, cortical regional measurement reliability, or regional size. These findings constitute an empirical illustration of reproducibility in the absence of publication bias or p hacking, when assessing realistic biological effects in heterogeneous neuroscience data, and given typically-used sample sizes

Search for the associated production of the Higgs boson with a top-quark pair

A search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a top-quark pair t t ¯ H (tt¯H) is presented, using data samples corresponding to integrated luminosities of up to 5.1 fb −1 and 19.7 fb −1 collected in pp collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7 TeV and 8 TeV respectively. The search is based on the following signatures of the Higgs boson decay: H → hadrons, H → photons, and H → leptons. The results are characterized by an observed t t ¯ H tt¯H signal strength relative to the standard model cross section, μ = σ/σ SM ,under the assumption that the Higgs boson decays as expected in the standard model. The best fit value is μ = 2.8 ± 1.0 for a Higgs boson mass of 125.6 GeV

Measurement of prompt Jψ\psi pair production in pp collisions at \sqrt s = 7 Tev

Production of prompt J/ ψ meson pairs in proton-proton collisions at s s√ = 7 TeV is measured with the CMS experiment at the LHC in a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 4.7 fb −1 . The two J/ ψ mesons are fully reconstructed via their decays into μ + μ − pairs. This observation provides for the first time access to the high-transverse-momentum region of J/ ψ pair production where model predictions are not yet established. The total and differential cross sections are measured in a phase space defined by the individual J/ ψ transverse momentum ( p T J/ ψ ) and rapidity (| y J/ ψ |): | y J/ ψ | 6.5 GeV/ c ; 1.2 4.5 GeV/ c . The total cross section, assuming unpolarized prompt J/ ψ pair production is 1.49 ± 0.07 (stat) ±0.13 (syst) nb. Different assumptions about the J/ ψ polarization imply modifications to the cross section ranging from −31% to +27%