Thin and thick cloud top height retrieval algorithm with the Infrared Camera and LIDAR of the JEM-EUSO Space Mission

The origin of cosmic rays have remained a mistery for more than a century. JEM-EUSO is a pioneer space-based telescope that will be located at the International Space Station (ISS) and its aim is to detect Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) and Extremely High Energy Cosmic Rays (EHECR) by observing the atmosphere. Unlike ground-based telescopes, JEM-EUSO will observe from upwards, and therefore, for a properly UHECR reconstruction under cloudy conditions, a key element of JEM-EUSO is an Atmospheric Monitoring System (AMS). This AMS consists of a space qualified bi-spectral Infrared Camera, that will provide the cloud coverage and cloud top height in the JEM-EUSO Field of View (FoV) and a LIDAR, that will measure the atmospheric optical depth in the direction it has been shot. In this paper we will explain the effects of clouds for the determination of the UHECR arrival direction. Moreover, since the cloud top height retrieval is crucial to analyze the UHECR and EHECR events under cloudy conditions, the retrieval algorithm that fulfills the technical requierements of the Infrared Camera of JEM-EUSO to reconstruct the cloud top height is presently reported.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, Atmohead Conference 201

Assessment of Free Radical Scavenging Potency and In-vitro Antioxidant Analysis of Ximenia caffra (Sour Plum) Leaf

This study is focused on the determination of the free radical scavenging potency and in-vitro antioxidant analysis of extracts of Ximenia Caffra (sour plum) leaf, (using methanol, chloroform and n-hexane as solvent. About 50.0g of the powdered samples was weighed into a beaker and methanol (300 mL) was added into it. The same process was repeated for chloroform and n-hexane extract. The DPPH free radical scavenging assay were carried out using ascorbic acid as the positive control. The results of the analysis at 50, 100, 200, 400 and 800 μg/mL shows the following % inhibition: (40, 50, 65, 80, and 91), for the methanolic extract, (16, 18, 26, 29, and 33), for the chloroform extract and (13, 17, 21, 32, and 55), for the n-hexane extract. The IC50 (µg/mL) values revealed 71.83 for the methanol extract, 1500 for the chloroform extract, and 715.05 for the n-hexane extract. From the result, it can be concluded that sour plum leaves can be used in the treatment of certain diseases such as diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, insomnia, and liver problems in which the participation of reactive oxygen species have been implicated

Dynamics of Inner Galactic Disks: The Striking Case of M100

We investigate gas dynamics in the presence of a double inner Lindblad resonance within a barred disk galaxy. Using an example of a prominent spiral, M100, we reproduce the basic central morphology, including four dominant regions of star formation corresponding to the compression maxima in the gas. These active star forming sites delineate an inner boundary (so-called nuclear ring) of a rather broad oval detected in the near infrared. We find that inclusion of self-gravitational effects in the gas is necessary in order to understand its behavior in the vicinity of the resonances and its subsequent evolution. The self-gravity of the gas is also crucial to estimate the effect of a massive nuclear ring on periodic orbits in the stellar bar.Comment: 11 pages, postscript, compressed, uuencoded. Paper and 4 figures available at ftp://pa.uky.edu/shlosman/nobel or at http://www.pa.uky.edu/~shlosman/ . Invited talk at the Centennial Nobel Symposium on "Barred Galaxies and Circumnuclear Activity," A.Sandquist et al. (Eds.), Springer-Verlag, in pres

Unitarized Chiral Perturbation Theory in a finite volume: scalar meson sector

We develop a scheme for the extraction of the properties of the scalar mesons f0(600), f0(980), and a0(980) from lattice QCD data. This scheme is based on a two-channel chiral unitary approach with fully relativistic propagators in a finite volume. In order to discuss the feasibility of finding the mass and width of the scalar resonances, we analyze synthetic lattice data with a fixed error assigned, and show that the framework can be indeed used for an accurate determination of resonance pole positions in the multi-channel scattering.Comment: 15 pages, 17 figure

The Shadow Price of Irrigation Water in Major Groundwater‐Depleting Countries

In many semiarid regions with irrigation, the depletion rate of groundwater resources has increased substantially during the last decades. A possible reason for this is that the price that users pay for their water does not reflect its scarcity and value. An alternative way to assess the perceived value of water is calculating its shadow price, which is defined here as the marginal value produced, and relates to the efficiency gain from current reallocation. Here we determine the shadow price of water used for irrigation for the most important groundwater‐depleting countries and for four staple crops and one cash crop. To quantify the shadow price, the relation between the output and the water input is represented using production functions. We use globally available panel data on country‐specific crop yields and prices together with crop‐specific water consumption, calculated with the global hydrological model PCR‐GLOBWB, to parameterize the production function by country and crop with econometric analyses. Our results show that the variation of shadow prices for staple crops within several countries is high, indicating economically inefficient use of water resources, including nonrenewable groundwater. We also analyze the effects of reallocating irrigation water between crops, showing that changes in water allocation could lead to either an increase in the economic efficiency of water use or large reductions in irrigation water consumption. Our study thus provides a hydroeconomic basis to stimulate sustainable use of finite groundwater resources globally

Virtual versus Real Nuclear Compton Scattering in the Delta(1232) Region

In this paper we calculate the cross section for Virtual Compton Scattering off nuclei in the delta resonance region. We also calculate the background for the process from Coherent Bremsstrahlung in nuclei and explore the regions where the Virtual Compton Scattering cross section dominates. The study also shows that it is possible to extract the cross section for Real Compton Scattering from the Virtual Compton one in a wide range of scattering angles.Comment: latex , 11 pages, ps.gz file, 16 figure

The DNDN, πΣc\pi \Sigma_c interaction in finite volume and the Λc(2595)\Lambda_c(2595) resonance

In this work the interaction of the coupled channels $DN$ and $\pi \Sigma_c$ in an SU(4) extrapolation of the chiral unitary theory, where the $\Lambda_c(2595)$ resonance appears as dynamically generated from that interaction, is extended to produce results in finite volume. Energy levels in the finite box are evaluated and, assuming that they would correspond to lattice results, the inverse problem of determining the phase shifts in the infinite volume from the lattice results is solved. We observe that it is possible to obtain accurate $\pi \Sigma_c$ phase shifts and the position of the $\Lambda_c(2595)$ resonance, but it requires the explicit consideration of the two coupled channels. We also observe that some of the energy levels in the box are attached to the closed $DN$ channel, such that their use to induce the $\pi \Sigma_c$ phase shifts via L\"uscher's formula leads to incorrect results.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J.

Scalar mesons moving in a finite volume and the role of partial wave mixing

Phase shifts and resonance parameters can be obtained from finite-volume lattice spectra for interacting pairs of particles, moving with nonzero total momentum. We present a simple derivation of the method that is subsequently applied to obtain the pi pi and pi K phase shifts in the sectors with total isospin I=0 and I=1/2, respectively. Considering different total momenta, one obtains extra data points for a given volume that allow for a very efficient extraction of the resonance parameters in the infinite-volume limit. Corrections due to the mixing of partial waves are provided. We expect that our results will help to optimize the strategies in lattice simulations, which aim at an accurate determination of the scattering and resonance properties.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figure

Scalar Particles in Lattice QCD

We report a project to study scalar particles by lattice QCD simulations. After a brief introduction of the current situation of lattice study of the sigma meson, we describe our numerical simulations of scalar mesons, $\sigma$ and $\kappa$. We observe a low sigma mass, $m_\pi<m_\sigma\le m_\rho$, for which the disconnected diagram plays an important role. For the kappa meson, we obtain higher mass than the experimental value, i.e., $m_\kappa\sim 2m_{K^*}$.Comment: 4 figures, to be published in Proceedings of `International Symposium on Hadron Spectroscopy, Chiral Symmetry and Relativistic Description of Bound Systems' (in a series of KEK proceedings

Caloric Curves and Nuclear Expansion

Nuclear caloric curves have been analyzed using an expanding Fermi gas hypothesis to extract average nuclear densities. In this approach the observed flattening of the caloric curves reflects progressively increasing expansion with increasing excitation energy. This expansion results in a corresponding decrease in the density and Fermi energy of the excited system. For nuclei of medium to heavy mass apparent densities ~ 0.4 rho_0 are reached at the higher excitation energies.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure