12,150 research outputs found
Employment, Poverty, and Public Assistance in the Rural United States
In this brief, authors Rebecca Glauber and Andrew Schaefer provide a glimpse of the economic and demographic characteristics of life in the rural United States. Using data from the American Community Survey, they compare those living in low- and lower-middle-income counties to those living in upper-middle- and high-income counties. Additionally, they compare counties at the extremes, where median incomes are in the bottom and top 10 percent of the income distribution. They report that nearly 75 percent of low-income rural counties in the United States are in the South. Compared to lower-income rural counties, higher-income rural counties have a larger share of immigrants but a smaller share of non-native speakers. One-fifth of immigrants in low-income rural counties do not speak English, compared to just one-twentieth of immigrants in high-income rural counties. People living in poorer rural counties rely more heavily than those living in more well-off rural counties on public-sector supports, and they are less likely to work. Although policy makers tend to focus on people living in the urban United States, the authorsâ results show that those living in the rural United States, and particularly in low-income counties, may have even more to gain from public health insurance and other social safety-net programs
Fluctuations and the QCD phase diagram
In this contribution the role of quantum fluctuations for the QCD phase
diagram is discussed. This concerns in particular the importance of the matter
back-reaction to the gluonic sector. The impact of these fluctuations on the
location of the confinement/deconfinement and the chiral transition lines as
well as their interrelation are investigated. Consequences of our findings for
the size of a possible quarkyonic phase and location of a critical endpoint in
the phase diagram are drawn.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Physics of Atomic Nucle
Near-infrared studies of the 2010 outburst of the recurrent nova U Scorpii
We present near-infrared (near-IR) observations of the 2010 outburst of U Sco. JHK photometry is presented on 10 consecutive days starting from 0.59 d after outburst. Such photometry can gainfully be integrated into a larger data base of other multiwavelength data which aim to comprehensively study the evolution of U Sco. Early near-IR spectra, starting from 0.56 d after outburst, are presented and their general characteristics discussed. Early in the eruption, we see very broad wings in several spectral lines, with tails extending up to âŒ10 000 km sâ1 along the line of sight; it is unexpected to have a nova with ejection velocities equal to those usually thought to be exclusive to supernovae. From recombination analysis, we estimate an upper limit of [inline image] for the ejected mass
Pursuing Parameters for Critical Density Dark Matter Models
We present an extensive comparison of models of structure formation with
observations, based on linear and quasi-linear theory. We assume a critical
matter density, and study both cold dark matter models and cold plus hot dark
matter models. We explore a wide range of parameters, by varying the fraction
of hot dark matter , the Hubble parameter and the spectral
index of density perturbations , and allowing for the possibility of
gravitational waves from inflation influencing large-angle microwave background
anisotropies. New calculations are made of the transfer functions describing
the linear power spectrum, with special emphasis on improving the accuracy on
short scales where there are strong constraints. For assessing early object
formation, the transfer functions are explicitly evaluated at the appropriate
redshift. The observations considered are the four-year {\it COBE} observations
of microwave background anisotropies, peculiar velocity flows, the galaxy
correlation function, and the abundances of galaxy clusters, quasars and damped
Lyman alpha systems. Each observation is interpreted in terms of the power
spectrum filtered by a top-hat window function. We find that there remains a
viable region of parameter space for critical-density models when all the dark
matter is cold, though must be less than 0.5 before any fit is found and
significantly below unity is preferred. Once a hot dark matter component is
invoked, a wide parameter space is acceptable, including . The
allowed region is characterized by \Omega_\nu \la 0.35 and 0.60 \la n \la
1.25, at 95 per cent confidence on at least one piece of data. There is no
useful lower bound on , and for curious combinations of the other parameters
it is possible to fit the data with as high as 0.65.Comment: 19 pages LaTeX file (uses mn.sty). Figures *not* included due to
length. We strongly recommend obtaining the full paper, either by WWW at
http://star-www.maps.susx.ac.uk/papers/lsstru_papers.html (UK) or
http://www.bartol.udel.edu/~bob/papers (US), or by e-mailing ARL. Final
version, to appear MNRAS. Main revision is update to four-year COBE data.
Miscellaneous other changes and reference updates. No significant changes to
principal conclusion
Field-enhancement calculations for a field-distortion triggered spark gap
We present the results of numerical field calculation which supplement a recent article in which we described a new design concept for field-distortion triggered spark gaps. The calculations verify the shielding and field enhancement assumptions made in the article, and they provide insight into the interaction of the design tradeoffs associated with simultaneously maximizing the holdoff voltage and the triggering capability of the gap
Mapping the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter
We employ a conformal mapping to explore the thermodynamics of strongly
interacting matter at finite values of the baryon chemical potential .
This method allows us to identify the singularity corresponding to the critical
point of a second-order phase transition at finite , given information
only at . The scheme is potentially useful for computing thermodynamic
properties of strongly interacting hot and dense matter in lattice gauge
theory. The technique is illustrated by an application to a chiral effective
model.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; published versio
COBE Observations of the Microwave Counterparts of Gamma Ray Bursts
We have used the data from the COBE satellite to search for delayed microwave
emission (31 - 90 GHz) from Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs). The large beam
of COBE is well matched to the large positional uncertainties in the GRB
locations, although it also means that fluxes from (point source) GRB objects
will be diluted. In view of this we are doing a statistical search of the GRBs
which occurred during the currently released COBE DMR data (years 1990 and
1991), which overlap GRBs recorded by GRO. Here we concentrate on
just the top 10 GRBs (in peak counts/second). We obtain the limits on the
emission by comparing the COBE fluxes before and after the GRB at the GRB
location. Since it is thought that the microwave emission should lag the GRB
event, we have searched the GRB position for emission in the few months
following the GRB occurrence.Comment: 5 pages, LaTE
Response to combination therapy with interferon alfa-2a and ribavirin in chronic hepatitis C according to a TNF-alpha promoter polymorphism
Background. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) is involved in the pathogenesis of chronic active hepatitis C. Polymorphisms in the promoter region of the TNF-alpha gene can alter the TNF-alpha expression and modify the host immune response. The present study aimed at the correlation of the G308A TNF-alpha polymorphism with the response to antiviral combination therapy in chronic hepatitis C. Patients and Methods: 62 patients with HCV and 119 healthy unrelated controls were genotyped for the G308A TNF-alpha promoter polymorphism. The patients received 3 x 3 million units of interferon alfa-2a and 1,0001,200 mg ribavirin daily according to their body weight. A response was defined as absence of HCV-RNA and normalization of S-ALT after 6 months of combination therapy. Results:With respect to the allele and genotype frequency, a significant difference was not observed between controls and patients with chronic hepatitis C. Furthermore, such a difference was also not observed if responders and non-responders to antiviral therapy were compared. Conclusions: The promoter polymorphism of the TNF-alpha gene investigated herein is equally distributed in healthy individuals and patients with hepatitis C and does not seem to predict the response to therapy with interferon alfa-2a and ribavirin. Copyright (C) 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel
On the appearance of hyperons in neutron stars
By employing a recently constructed hyperon-nucleon potential the equation of
state of \beta-equilibrated and charge neutral nucleonic matter is calculated.
The hyperon-nucleon potential is a low-momentum potential which is obtained
within a renormalization group framework. Based on the Hartree-Fock
approximation at zero temperature the densities at which hyperons appear in
neutron stars are estimated. For several different bare hyperon-nucleon
potentials and a wide range of nuclear matter parameters it is found that
hyperons in neutron stars are always present. These findings have profound
consequences for the mass and radius of neutron stars.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, RevTeX4; summary and conclusions are
strengthened, to appear in PR
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