Thermodynamics of an ideal generalized gas:II Means of order α\alpha

The property that power means are monotonically increasing functions of their order is shown to be the basis of the second laws not only for processes involving heat conduction but also for processes involving deformations. In an $L$-potentail equilibration the final state will be one of maximum entropy, while in an entropy equilibrium the final state will be one of minimum $L$. A metric space is connected with the power means, and the distance between means of different order is related to the Carnot efficiency. In the ideal classical gas limit, the average change in the entropy is shown to be proportional to the difference between the Shannon and R\'enyi entropies for nonextensive systems that are multifractal in nature. The $L$-potential, like the internal energy, is a Schur convex function of the empirical temperature, which satisfies Jensen's inequality, and serves as a measure of the tendency to uniformity in processes involving pure thermal conduction.Comment: 8 page

Does a competitive voucher program for adolescents improve the quality of reproductive health care? A simulated patient study in Nicaragua

BACKGROUND: Little is known about how sexual and reproductive (SRH) health can be made accessible and appropriate to adolescents. This study evaluates the impact and sustainability of a competitive voucher program on the quality of SRH care for poor and underserved female adolescents and the usefulness of the simulated patient (SP) method for such evaluation. METHODS: 28,711 vouchers were distributed to adolescents in disadvantaged areas of Managua that gave free-of-charge access to SRH care in 4 public, 10 non-governmental and 5 private clinics. Providers received training and guidelines, treatment protocols, and financial incentives for each adolescent attended. All clinics were visited by female adolescent SPs requesting contraception. SPs were sent one week before, during (with voucher) and one month after the intervention. After each consultation they were interviewed with a standardized questionnaire. Twenty-one criteria were scored and grouped into four categories. Clinics' scores were compared using non-parametric statistical methods (paired design: before-during and before-after). Also the influence of doctors' characteristics was tested using non-parametric statistical methods. RESULTS: Some aspects of service quality improved during the voucher program. Before the program started 8 of the 16 SPs returned 'empty handed', although all were eligible contraceptive users. During the program 16/17 left with a contraceptive method (p = 0.01). Furthermore, more SPs were involved in the contraceptive method choice (13/17 vs.5/16, p = 0.02). Shared decision-making on contraceptive method as well as condom promotion had significantly increased after the program ended. Female doctors had best scores before- during and after the intervention. The improvements were more pronounced among male doctors and doctors older than 40, though these improvements did not sustain after the program ended. CONCLUSION: This study illustrates provider-related obstacles adolescents often face when requesting contraception. The care provided during the voucher program improved for some important outcomes. The improvements were more pronounced among providers with the weakest initial performance. Shared decision-making and condom promotion were improvements that sustained after the program ended. The SP method is suitable and relatively easy to apply in monitoring clinics' performance, yielding important and relevant information. Objective assessment of change through the SP method is much more complex and expensive

Adatom Fe(III) on the hematite surface: Observation of a key reactive surface species

The reactivity of a mineral surface is determined by the variety and population of different types of surface sites (e.g., step, kink, adatom, and defect sites). The concept of "adsorbed nutrient" has been built into crystal growth theories, and many other studies of mineral surface reactivity appeal to ill-defined "active sites." Despite their theoretical importance, there has been little direct experimental or analytical investigation of the structure and properties of such species. Here, we use ex-situ and in-situ scanning tunneling microcopy (STM) combined with calculated images based on a resonant tunneling model to show that observed nonperiodic protrusions and depressions on the hematite (001) surface can be explained as Fe in an adsorbed or adatom state occupying sites different from those that result from simple termination of the bulk mineral. The number of such sites varies with sample preparation history, consistent with their removal from the surface in low pH solutions

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Rad51 Polymerization Reveals a New Chromatin Remodeling Mechanism

Rad51 protein is a well known protagonist of homologous recombination in eukaryotic cells. Rad51 polymerization on single-stranded DNA and its role in presynaptic filament formation have been extensively documented. Rad51 polymerizes also on double-stranded DNA but the significance of this filament formation remains unclear. We explored the behavior of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Rad51 on dsDNA and the influence of nucleosomes on Rad51 polymerization mechanism to investigate its putative role in chromatin accessibility to recombination machinery. We combined biochemical approaches, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) for analysis of the effects of the Rad51 filament on chromatinized templates. Quantitative analyses clearly demonstrated the occurrence of chromatin remodeling during nucleoprotein filament formation. During Rad51 polymerization, recombinase proteins moved all the nucleosomal arrays in front of the progressing filament. This polymerization process had a powerful remodeling effect, as Rad51 destabilized the nucleosomes along considerable stretches of DNA. Similar behavior was observed with RecA. Thus, recombinase polymerization is a powerful mechanism of chromatin remodeling. These remarkable features open up new possibilities for understanding DNA recombination and reveal new types of ATP-dependent chromatin dynamics

Simulation of Intermetallic Solidification using Phase-Field Techniques

We present current ideas towards developing a phase-field model appropriate to the solidification of intermetallic phases. Such simulation presents two main challenges (i) dealing with faceted interfaces and (ii) the complex sub-lattice models used to describe the thermodynamics of such phases. Although models are already existent for the simulation of faceted crystals, some of these can be shown to produce highly unrealistic Wulff shapes. The model present here uses a parameterization of the Wulff shape as a direct input to the model, allowing the simulation of arbitrary crystal shapes. In addition, an anti-trapping current that can be used with arbitrary (including sub-lattice) thermodynamics is presented. Such antitrapping currents are vital in the simulation of intermetallic phases where the steep liquidus slope means small deviations in solute partitioning behaviour can translate to a significant change in tip undercooling

Two-particle azimuthal correlations in photonuclear ultraperipheral Pb plus Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV with ATLAS

Two-particle long-range azimuthal correlations are measured in photonuclear collisions using 1.7 nb − 1 of 5.02 TeV Pb + Pb collision data collected by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Candidate events are selected using a dedicated high-multiplicity photonuclear event trigger, a combination of information from the zero-degree calorimeters and forward calorimeters, and from pseudorapidity gaps constructed using calorimeter energy clusters and charged-particle tracks. Distributions of event properties are compared between data and Monte Carlo simulations of photonuclear processes. Two-particle correlation functions are formed using charged-particle tracks in the selected events, and a template-fitting method is employed to subtract the nonflow contribution to the correlation. Significant nonzero values of the second- and third-order flow coefficients are observed and presented as a function of charged-particle multiplicity and transverse momentum. The results are compared with flow coefficients obtained in proton-proton and proton-lead collisions in similar multiplicity ranges, and with theoretical expectations. The unique initial conditions present in this measurement provide a new way to probe the origin of the collective signatures previously observed only in hadronic collision

Dijet Resonance Search with Weak Supervision Using root S=13 TeV pp Collisions in the ATLAS Detector

This Letter describes a search for narrowly resonant new physics using a machine-learning anomaly detection procedure that does not rely on signal simulations for developing the analysis selection. Weakly supervised learning is used to train classifiers directly on data to enhance potential signals. The targeted topology is dijet events and the features used for machine learning are the masses of the two jets. The resulting analysis is essentially a three-dimensional search A → BC, for mA ∼ OðTeVÞ, mB; mC ∼ Oð100 GeVÞ and B, C are reconstructed as large-radius jets, without paying a penalty associated with a large trials factor in the scan of the masses of the two jets. The full run 2 ffiffi s p ¼ 13 TeV pp collision dataset of 139 fb−1 recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is used for the search. There is no significant evidence of a localized excess in the dijet invariant mass spectrum between 1.8 and 8.2 TeV. Cross-section limits for narrow-width A, B, and C particles vary with mA, mB, and mC. For example, when mA ¼ 3 TeV and mB ≳ 200 GeV, a production cross section between 1 and 5 fb is excluded at 95% confidence level, depending on mC. For certain masses, these limits are up to 10 times more sensitive than those obtained by the inclusive dijet search. These results are complementary to the dedicated searches for the case that B and C are standard model boson

Measurements of W+W−+ ≥ 1 jet production cross-sections in pp collisions at s \sqrt{s} = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Fiducial and differential cross-section measurements of W+W− production in association with at least one hadronic jet are presented. These measurements are sensitive to the properties of electroweak-boson self-interactions and provide a test of perturbative quantum chromodynamics and the electroweak theory. The analysis is performed using proton-proton collision data collected at p s = 13TeV with the ATLAS experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1. Events are selected with exactly one oppositely charged electron-muon pair and at least one hadronic jet with a transverse momentum of pT > 30 GeV and a pseudorapidity of |�| < 4.5. After subtracting the background contributions and correcting for detector effects, the jet-inclusive W+W−+ � 1 jet fiducial cross-section and W+W−+ jets differential cross-sections with respect to several kinematic variables are measured. These measurements include leptonic quantities, such as the lepton transverse momenta and the transverse mass of the W+W− system, as well as jet-related observables such as the leading jet transverse momentum and the jet multiplicity. Limits on anomalous triple-gauge-boson couplings are obtained in a phase space where interference between the Standard Model amplitude and the anomalous amplitude is enhanced