Red Optical Planet Survey : A radial velocity search for low mass M dwarf planets

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly citedWe present radial velocity results from our Red Optical Planet Survey (ROPS), aimed at detecting low-mass planets orbiting mid-late M dwarfs. The similar to 10 ms(-1) precision achieved over 2 consecutive nights with the MIKE spectrograph at Magellan Clay is also found on week long timescales with UVES at VLT. Since we find that UVES is expected to attain photon limited precision of order 2 ms-1 using our novel deconvolution technique, we are limited only by the

The Inverse Amplitude Method and Heavy Baryon Chiral Perturbation Theory applied to pion-nucleon scattering

We report on our present work, where by means of the Inverse Amplitude Method we unitarize the elastic pion nucleon scattering amplitudes of Heavy Barion Chiral Perturbation Theory at O(q^3). We reproduce the scattering up to the inelastic thresholds including the Delta(1232) resonance. The fitted chiral constants are rather different from those obtained by fitting the extrapolated threshold parameters for the non-unitarized theory.Comment: Talk given at the 8th International Conference on Hadron Spectroscopy, HADRON99, August 24-28, 1999, Beijing, China. 4 pages LaTex, uses espcrc1.sty (included

Bound States and Power Counting in Effective Field Theories

The problem of bound states in effective field theories is studied. A rescaled version of nonrelativistic effective field theory is formulated which makes the velocity power counting of operators manifest. Results obtained using the rescaled theory are compared with known results from NRQCD. The same ideas are then applied to study Yukawa bound states in 1+1 and 3+1 dimensions, and to analyze when the Yukawa potential can be replaced by a delta-function potential. The implications of these results for the study of nucleon-nucleon scattering in chiral perturbation theory is discussed.Comment: 23 pages, eps figures, uses revte

The Predictive Validity of the Early Warning System Tool

The Early Warning System (EWS) is a tool developed by the National High School Center to collect data on indicators including attendance, GPA, course failures and credits earned. These indicators have been found to be highly predictive of a student’s likelihood of dropping out of high school in large, urban areas. The EWS tool was studied in two suburban schools. With the exception of attendance data, findings suggest that the indicators and suggested threshold for risk determination are predictive in suburban contexts

Appearance of choline metabolites in plasma and milk when choline is infused into the abomasum with or without methionine

Four lactating, ruminally cannulated Jersey cows, (mean ± standard deviation) 264 ± 54.2 d in milk and 484 ± 24.1 kg of body weight, were arranged in a 4 × 4 Latin square design to measure the effects of abomasal infusion of choline chloride with or without dl-Met on milk and plasma choline metabolites and plasma AA in cows fed a Met-deficient diet. Cows were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 experimental treatments: (1) control; no supplemental Met or choline (CON), (2) 13 g/d of choline ion delivered via abomasal infusion (CHO), (3) 13 g/d of Met delivered via abomasal infusion (MET), and (4) 13 g/d of choline and 13 g/d of Met delivered via abomasal infusion (CHO + MET). Cows received the same basal diet throughout the experiment, which was formulated to be deficient in Met (−5.0 g of Met using the NASEM, 2021, model). Periods were 7 d in length with d 1 to 2 serving as a wash-out period and cows being infused on d 3 to 7. Milk samples were collected twice daily on d 5 to 7 and were analyzed for fat, true protein, lactose, and choline metabolites including betaine, phosphocholine, and free choline using hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Blood samples were collected via venipuncture of the coccygeal vein at 1100, 1300, and 1500 h on d 7 of each period and were analyzed for free AA as well as choline metabolites. Plasma Met increased in response to Met infusion and an interaction with choline and Met infusion was observed in the plasma concentration of branched-chain AA. Cows receiving choline exhibited the greatest Cho yield in milk. Milk phosphocholine yield tended to be highest when both choline and Met were infused

Re-establishing recreational prawning in the Swan-Canning Estuary

This project builds on the work of a previous Recreational Fishing Initiatives Fund Project to pilot the culture and of the Western School Prawn (Metapenaeus dalli) in to the Swan-Canning Estuary and increase interest in prawning via a citizen science/community engagement project. Having developed, for the first time, successful aquaculture techniques for this species in the former project, the current project utilised these techniques to release ~2 million hatchery-reared post-larval M. dalli in to the Swan-Canning Estuary. It also produced good-quality data to inform the management of this iconic species, re-engaged community with the prawns and stewardship of the estuary through a citizen science program (Prawn Watch) and developed a refined citizen science monitoring program for M. dalli that could be used in the future

Contributions from SUSY-FCNC couplings to the interpretation of the HyperCP events for the decay \Sigma^+ \to p \mu^+ \mu^-

The observation of three events for the decay $\Sigma^+ \to p \mu^+ \mu^-$ with a dimuon invariant mass of $214.3\pm0.5$MeV by the HyperCP collaboration imply that a new particle X may be needed to explain the observed dimuon invariant mass distribution. We show that there are regions in the SUSY-FCNC parameter space where the $A^0_1$ in the NMSSM can be used to explain the HyperCP events without contradicting all the existing constraints from the measurements of the kaon decays, and the constraints from the $K^0-\bar{K}^0$ mixing are automatically satisfied once the constraints from kaon decays are satisfied.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

Probing Primordial Non-Gaussianity with Large-Scale Structure

We consider primordial non-Gaussianity due to quadratic corrections in the gravitational potential parametrized by a non-linear coupling parameter fnl. We study constraints on fnl from measurements of the galaxy bispectrum in redshift surveys. Using estimates for idealized survey geometries of the 2dF and SDSS surveys and realistic ones from SDSS mock catalogs, we show that it is possible to probe |fnl|~100, after marginalization over bias parameters. We apply our methods to the galaxy bispectrum measured from the PSCz survey, and obtain a 2sigma-constraint |fnl|< 1800. We estimate that an all sky redshift survey up to z~1 can probe |fnl|~1. We also consider the use of cluster abundance to constrain fnl and find that in order to be sensitive to |fnl|~100, cluster masses need to be determined with an accuracy of a few percent, assuming perfect knowledge of the mass function and cosmological parameters.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Proton-proton scattering above 3 GeV/c

A large set of data on proton-proton differential cross sections, analyzing powers and the double polarization parameter A_NN is analyzed employing the Regge formalism. We find that the data available at proton beam momenta from 3 GeV/c to 50 GeV/c exhibit features that are very well in line with the general characteristics of Regge phenomenology and can be described with a model that includes the rho, omega, f_2, and a_2 trajectories and single Pomeron exchange. Additional data, specifically for spin-dependent observables at forward angles, would be very helpful for testing and refining our Regge model.Comment: 16 pages, 19 figures; revised version accepted for publication in EPJ

Soil biochemistry and microbial activity in vineyards under conventional and organic management at Northeast Brazil.

The São Francisco Submedium Valley is located at the Brazilian semiarid region and is an important center for irrigated fruit growing. This region is responsible for 97% of the national exportation of table grapes, including seedless grapes. Based on the fact that orgThe São Francisco Submedium Valley is located at the Brazilian semiarid region and is an important center for irrigated fruit growing. This region is responsible for 97% of the national exportation of table grapes, including seedless grapes. Based on the fact that organic fertilization can improve soil quality, we compared the effects of conventional and organic soil management on microbial activity and mycorrhization of seedless grape crops. We measured glomerospores number, most probable number (MPN) of propagules, richness of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) species, AMF root colonization, EE-BRSP production, carbon microbial biomass (C-MB), microbial respiration, fluorescein diacetate hydrolytic activity (FDA) and metabolic coefficient (qCO2). The organic management led to an increase in all variables with the exception of EE-BRSP and qCO2. Mycorrhizal colonization increased from 4.7% in conventional crops to 15.9% in organic crops. Spore number ranged from 4.1 to 12.4 per 50 g-1 soil in both management systems. The most probable number of AMF propagules increased from 79 cm-3 soil in the conventional system to 110 cm-3 soil in the organic system. Microbial carbon, CO2 emission, and FDA activity were increased by 100 to 200% in the organic crop. Thirteen species of AMF were identified, the majority in the organic cultivation system. Acaulospora excavata, Entrophospora infrequens, Glomus sp.3 and Scutellospora sp. were found only in the organically managed crop. S. gregaria was found only in the conventional crop. Organically managed vineyards increased mycorrhization and general soil microbial activity