1,383 research outputs found
Lepton Flavor Violation: Constraints from exotic muon to electron conversion
The exotic neutrinoless nuclear conversion is studied within
the conventional extensions of the standard model as well as in the minimal
supersymmetric (SUSY) models with and without R-parity conservation. The
dependence of the conversion rates on the nucleon and nuclear
structure is consistently taken into account. Using our calculated transition
matrix elements and the available experimental data on the branching ratio
for Ti and Pb as well as the expected experimental
sensitivity for Al employed as a target in the planned at Brookhaven
conversion (MECO) experiment, we extract very severe constraints
for the flavor violation parameters. We especially emphasize on the constraints
resulting for SUSY R-parity violating parameters.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures. Based on the Invited talk given by T.S. Kosmas
at the International Conference on Non-Accelerator New Physics(NANP'99),
Dubna, Russia, 199
The effects of deformation and pairing correlations on nuclear charge form factor
A set of moderately deformed shell nuclei is employed for testing the
reliability of the nuclear ground state wave functions which are obtained in
the context of a BCS approach and offer a simultaneous consideration of
deformation and pairing correlations effects. In this method, the mean field is
assumed to be an axially symmetric Woods-Saxon potential and the effective
two-body interaction is a monopole pairing force. As quantities of main
interest we have chosen the nuclear form factors, the occupancies of the active
(surface) orbits and the Fermi sea depletion, which provide quite good tests
for microscopic descriptions of nuclei within many body theories. For our
comparisons with results emerging from other similar methods, an axially
deformed harmonic oscillator field is also utilized.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, 2 table
Evaluation and selection of indicators for land degradation and desertification monitoring : methodological approach
International audienceAn approach to derive relationships for defining land degradation and desertification risk and developing appropriate tools for assessing the effectiveness of the various land management practices using indicators is presented in the present paper. In order to investigate which indicators are most effective in assessing the level of desertification risk, a total of 70 candidate indicators was selected providing information for the biophysical environment , socioeconomic conditions, and land management characteristics. The indicators were defined in 1,672 field sites located in 17 study areas in the Mediterranean region, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Based on an existing geo-referenced database, classes were designated for each indicator and a sensitivity score todesertification was assigned to each class based on existing research. The obtained data were analyzed for the various processes of land degradation at farm level. The derived methodology was assessed using independent indicators, such as the measured soil erosion rate, and the organic matter content of the soil. Based on regression analyses, the collected indicator set can be reduced to a number of effective indicators ranging from 8 to 17 in the various processes of land degradation. Among the most important indicators identified as affecting land degradation and desertification risk were rain seasonality, slope gradient,plant cover, rate of land abandonment, land-use intensity, and the level of policy implementation
Control and Dynamic Competition of Bright and Dark Lasing States in Active Nanoplasmonic Metamaterials
Active nanoplasmonic metamaterials support bright and dark modes that compete
for gain. Using a Maxwell-Bloch approach incorporating Langevin noise we study
the lasing dynamics in an active nano-fishnet structure. We report that lasing
of the bright negative-index mode is possible if the higher-Q dark mode is
discriminated by gain, spatially or spectrally. The nonlinear competition
during the transient phase is followed by steady-state emission where bright
and dark modes can coexist. We analyze the influence of pump intensity and
polarization and explore methods for mode control.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Paraneoplastic hypoglycaemia secondary to IGF-2 secretion from a metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumour
We report the case of a 79-year-old male with previous history of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in remission, who presented acutely to the Accident and Emergency department with recurrent episodes of hypoglycaemia. At the time of presentation, a random glucose was low at 1.4 mmol/l, which upon correction resolved his symptoms. In hindsight, the patient recalled having had similar episodes periodically over the past 2 months to which he did not give much notice. While hospitalized, he continued having episodes of symptomatic hypoglycaemia, requiring treatment with intravenous dextrose and per os steroids. Once stable, he was discharged on oral prednisolone and dietary advice. A computed tomography scan performed during inpatient stay showed multiple deposits in the abdomen. An ultrasound guided biopsy of one of the liver deposits was performed. Immunohistochemistry supported the diagnosis of a gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST) positive for CD34 and CD117. The diagnosis of non-islet cell tumour hypoglycaemia (NICTH) secondary to an IGF2 secreting GIST was confirmed with further biochemical investigations (IGF2=105.9 nmol/l; IGF2:IGF1 ratio 23, Upper Level of Normal (ULN) <10). Targeted cytoreductive treatment with Imatinib mesylate following assessment of the tumour's mutational status was successful in preventing hypoglycaemia over a 21-month follow-up observation period
Cold Dark Matter in SUSY Theories. The Role of Nuclear Form Factors and the Folding with the LSP Velocity
The momentum transfer dependence of the total cross section for elastic
scattering of cold dark matter candidates, i.e. lightest supersymmetric
particle (LSP), with nuclei is examined. The presented calculations of the
event rates refer to a number of representative nuclear targets throughout the
periodic table and have been obtained in a relatively wide phenomenologically
allowed SUSY parameter space. For the coherent cross sections it is shown that,
since the momentum transfer can be quite big for large mass of the LSP and
heavy nuclei even though the energy transfer is small (), the
total cross section can in such instances be reduced by a factor of about five.
For the spin induced cross section of odd-A nuclear targets, as is the case of
studied in this work, we found that the reduction is less
pronounced, since the high multipoles tend to enhance the cross section as the
momentum transfer increases (for LSP ) and partially cancell
the momentum retardation. The effect of the Earth's revolution around the sun
on these event rates is also studied by folding with a Maxwellian LSP-velocity
distribution which is consistent with its density in the halos. We thus found
that the convoluted event rates do not appreciably change compared to those
obtained with an average velocity. The event rates increase with A and, in the
SUSY parameter space considered, they can reach values up to 140
for Pb. The modulation effect, however, was found to be small
(less than ).Comment: 23 LATEX pages, 4 Tables, 3 PostScript Figures included. Phys. Rev.
D, to be publishe
Effect of Varying Prior Information in Axillary 2D Microwave Tomography
We numerically assess the potential of microwave tomography (MWT) for the detection and dielectric properties estimation of axillary lymph nodes (ALNs), and we study the robustness of our system using prior information with varying levels of accuracy. We adopt a 2-dimensional MWT system with 8 antennas (0.5-2.5 GHz) placed around the axillary region. The reconstruction algorithm implements the distorted Born iterative method. We show that: (i) when accurate prior knowledge of the axillary tissues (fat and muscle) is available, our system successfully detects an ALN; (ii) ±30% error in the prior estimation of fat and muscle dielectric properties does not affect image quality; (iii) ±7mm error in muscle position causes slight artifacts, while ± 14mm error in muscle position affects ALN detection. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper in the literature to study the impact of prior information accuracy on detecting an ALN using MWT.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
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