12,874 research outputs found

    How does breakup influence the total fusion of 6,7^{6,7}Li at the Coulomb barrier?

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    Total (complete + incomplete) fusion excitation functions of 6,7^{6,7}Li on 59^{59}Co and 209^{209}Bi targets around the Coulomb barrier are obtained using a new continuum discretized coupled channel (CDCC) method of calculating fusion. The relative importance of breakup and bound-state structure effects on total fusion is particularly investigated. The effect of breakup on fusion can be observed in the total fusion excitation function. The breakup enhances the total fusion at energies just around the barrier, whereas it hardly affects the total fusion at energies well above the barrier. The difference between the experimental total fusion cross sections for 6,7^{6,7}Li on 59^{59}Co is notably caused by breakup, but this is not the case for the 209^{209}Bi target.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, Submitted to Phys. Rev.

    Active galactic nuclei synapses: X-ray versus optical classifications using artificial neural networks

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    (Abridged) Many classes of active galactic nuclei (AGN) have been defined entirely throughout optical wavelengths while the X-ray spectra have been very useful to investigate their inner regions. However, optical and X-ray results show many discrepancies that have not been fully understood yet. The aim of this paper is to study the "synapses" between the X-ray and optical classifications. For the first time, the new EFLUXER task allowed us to analyse broad band X-ray spectra of emission line nuclei (ELN) without any prior spectral fitting using artificial neural networks (ANNs). Our sample comprises 162 XMM-Newton/pn spectra of 90 local ELN in the Palomar sample. It includes starbursts (SB), transition objects (T2), LINERs (L1.8 and L2), and Seyferts (S1, S1.8, and S2). The ANNs are 90% efficient at classifying the trained classes S1, S1.8, and SB. The S1 and S1.8 classes show a wide range of S1- and S1.8-like components. We suggest that this is related to a large degree of obscuration at X-rays. The S1, S1.8, S2, L1.8, L2/T2/SB-AGN (SB with indications of AGN), and SB classes have similar average X-ray spectra within each class, but these average spectra can be distinguished from class to class. The S2 (L1.8) class is linked to the S1.8 (S1) class with larger SB-like component than the S1.8 (S1) class. The L2, T2, and SB-AGN classes conform a class in the X-rays similar to the S2 class albeit with larger fractions of SB-like component. This SB-like component is the contribution of the star-formation in the host galaxy, which is large when the AGN is weak. An AGN-like component seems to be present in the vast majority of the ELN, attending to the non-negligible fraction of S1-like or S1.8-like component. This trained ANN could be used to infer optical properties from X-ray spectra in surveys like eRosita.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in A&A. Appendix B only in the full version of the paper here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3484086/AGNSynapsis_OGM_online.pd

    Dark Energy Accretion onto black holes in a cosmic scenario

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    In this paper we study the accretion of dark energy onto a black hole in the cases that dark energy is equipped with a positive cosmological constant and when the space-time is described by a Schwarzschild-de Sitter metric. It is shown that, if confronted with current observational data, the results derived when no cosmological constant is present are once again obtained in both cases.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

    Testing the applicability of ambient noise methods in zones with different degree of anthropogenic sources

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    EGU2020: Sharing Geoscience Online, 4-8 may 2020The general objectives of the ¿Seismic Ambient Noise Imaging and Monitoring of Shallow Structures¿ (SANIMS) project, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Research and Innovation (Ref.: RTI2018-095594-B-I00), are focused into the application and development of methods based on ambient noise seismic data recorded by dense networks to image and monitor natural and human-altered environments. To achieve this objective, temporal seismic networks have been installed since late 2019 in two very different settings; the Cerdanya Basin, a sedimentary basin located in the eastern Pyrenees and the city of Barcelona. Regarding the Cerdanya Basin, a relatively unaltered setting, a network of up to 25 broad-band stations has been installed for a period of one year. Additionally, a high resolution grid of seismic nodes will be deployed for 2 months in the central part of the basin, with interstation distances of 1.5 km. In order to constraint the uppermost crustal structure using ambient noise, vertical component recordings will be processed using the phase cross-correlation and time-frequency domain phase-weighted stacking to extract fundamental mode Rayleigh waves. The surface waves will then be used to measure inter-station group and phase velocity dispersion curves that will be inverted using the Fast Marching Surface Tomography method. Depending on data quality, we will also process the horizontal components to extract Love waves for joint inversions with Rayleigh waves to constrain radial anisotropy and/or the application of new strategies to perform attenuation tomography. Regarding areas strongly altered by human activity, we have deployed a network of 15 short-period stations within the city of Barcelona, in most of the cases installed in the basement of secondary schools, for a duration of 9-12 months. The objective of this deployment is twofold; acquire new valuable scientific data and introduce the students in an Earth Science research project. Although the Barcelona area has been investigated using MHVSR methods by different authors, the new data acquired by the SANIMS project will expand the available data and will allow to analyze the time variability of the measurements. This new dataset will also be used to analyze the applicability of the methods based on Rayleigh wave ellipticity inversion of ambient noise and earthquake data to provide S-velocity depth profiles. Under the assumption of an isotropic horizontally layered medium, the ellipticity inversion is not affected by the directivity of the diffusive noise wave field and seems therefore to be a good option to determine local S-velocity depth profiles in areas with little lateral inhomogeneities and uneven distribution of noise sources. We expect that the use of ambient noise methods will allow to map the basement and to obtain new higher resolution ambient noise tomographic images of the upper crust in the Cerdanya Basin and to better constrain the subsoil properties of Barcelona, hence improving the existing seismic hazard maps. Besides, comparing the results in both areas will allow to compare the performance of the different methods based on ambient noise in quiet and noisy areas

    Histological Risk Classification Predicts Malignancy and Recurrence in Paragangliomas

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    Background: Mid-term outcome information in risk stratified patient cohort is needed to inform prognosis in individual patients with paragangliomas (PGL), adjuvant therapy choice and future research. The objective is to define the outcome relevance of a novel risk stratification scheme for PGLs. Design: A classification scheme for PGLs was devised and specimen were assessed for invasion capacity (infiltrative edges with broad fibrous bands, extra-adrenal extension [recording capsular, microscopic periadrenal and gross periadrenal], capsular and peritumoral vascular invasion [recording thin- and thick-walled blood vessels]), tumorigenic expansion (expansile nodules with diffuse areas, hypercellular homogenous areas, necrosis [recording multifocal and confluent subtypes]) and mitogenic activity (MFC/10HPF, presence of atypical mitotic figures). Patients were prospectively stratified as low risk or high risk (presence of at least one feature of invasive capacity and two features of tumorigenic expansion). Patients underwent systematic treatment and follow up for their PGLs in a tertiary referral center. Results: The multilevel analysis based on 78 patients identified statistically significant differences in clinical and biochemical presentation between low risk and high risk patients for gender (p<0.05), noradrenalin (4.6±8.5 vs 11.6±16.9), dopamine (0.6±0.3 vs 1.7±2.4), size of lesion (49.8±19.5 vs 89.2±45.8) and malignancy, 0% vs 21.6% (p<0.01), treatment modalities for MIBG therapy, 0% vs 40.5% (p<.0001), MVR, 0% vs 23.3% (p<.001) and lymph node dissection, 13.5% vs 40.5% (p<0.01) and distant metastases, 0% vs 21.6% (p<0.01). Disease free survival was significantly lower in HR patients 0% vs 78.4% (p=0.004). Histological risk stratification predicts DFS with AUC of 0.8 (95% CI: 0.69-0.90; p<0.01). 7/37 patients with HR had a synchronous diagnosis of malignancy based on other criteria and 4 patients suffered local recurrence. Conclusions: Stratification as low risk excluded a synchronous diagnosis of malignancy and disease recurrence of a follow-up interval of 1-75 months (median 12 months). A high-risk status is associated with high risk of malignancy and disease recurrence.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

    Discovery of a wide companion near the deuterium burning mass limit in the Upper Scorpius association

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    We present the discovery of a companion near the deuterium burning mass limit located at a very wide distance, at an angular separation of 4.6+/-0.1 arcsec (projected distance of ~ 670 AU) from UScoCTIO108, a brown dwarf of the very young Upper Scorpius association. Optical and near-infrared photometry and spectroscopy confirm the cool nature of both objects, with spectral types of M7 and M9.5, respectively, and that they are bona fide members of the association, showing low gravity and features of youth. Their masses, estimated from the comparison of their bolometric luminosities and theoretical models for the age range of the association, are 60+/-20 and 14^{+2}_{-8} MJup, respectively. The existence of this object around a brown dwarf at this wide orbit suggests that the companion is unlikely to have formed in a disk based on current planet formation models. Because this system is rather weakly bound, they did not probably form through dynamical ejection of stellar embryos.Comment: 10 pages, including 4 figures and 2 table

    Effect of Tuned Parameters on a LSA MCQ Answering Model

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    This paper presents the current state of a work in progress, whose objective is to better understand the effects of factors that significantly influence the performance of Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). A difficult task, which consists in answering (French) biology Multiple Choice Questions, is used to test the semantic properties of the truncated singular space and to study the relative influence of main parameters. A dedicated software has been designed to fine tune the LSA semantic space for the Multiple Choice Questions task. With optimal parameters, the performances of our simple model are quite surprisingly equal or superior to those of 7th and 8th grades students. This indicates that semantic spaces were quite good despite their low dimensions and the small sizes of training data sets. Besides, we present an original entropy global weighting of answers' terms of each question of the Multiple Choice Questions which was necessary to achieve the model's success.Comment: 9 page

    Habitat Selection of Invasive Sika Deer Cervus nippon Living in a UK Lowland Heathland-Woodland-Grassland Mosaic: Implications for Habitat Conservation Management.

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    Understanding the factors determining the choice and use of habitats by invasive species is key to the conservation management of habitats and may also enable species to be harnessed as conservation tools. Here we explore the habitat use of an invasive population of sika deer, Cervus nippon on internationally important heathland in a landscape of heathland, grassland and woodland in southern UK. We used radio telemetry to test two hypotheses 1) grasses form a major part of the diet of non-native UK sika deer throughout the year 2) deer select grassland habitats above other habitats available. Results showed that although grasses form a major part of their diet, the strongest habitat selection was for heathland, the habitat that offered the least nutrient reward but which offered a source of roughage in the diet and some harbourage from human disturbance. This has implications for the conservation management of heathlands used by sika deer as it strongly indicates that heathland is a vulnerable habitat due to being favoured by sika deer but that its vulnerability can be reduced by coupling population control with targeted habitat management action such as increased disturbance or the removal of harbourage
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