Peculiarities in the behavior of the entropy diameter for molecular liquids as the reflection of molecular rotations and the excluded volume effects

The behavior of the diameter of the coexistence curve in terms of the entropy and the corresponding diameter are investigated. It is shown that the diameter of the coexistence curve in term of the entropy is sensitive to the change in the character of the rotational motion of the molecule in liquid phase which is governed by the short range correlations. The model of the compressible effective volume is proposed to describe the phase coexistence both in terms of the density and the entropy.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, 3 Table

MerTK expressing hepatic macrophages promote the resolution of inflammation in acute liver failure

Objective: Acute liver failure (ALF) is characterised by overwhelming hepatocyte death and liver inflammation with massive infiltration of myeloid cells in necrotic areas. The mechanisms underlying resolution of acute hepatic inflammation are largely unknown. Here, we aimed to investigate the impact of Mer tyrosine kinase (MerTK) during ALF and also examine how the microenvironmental mediator, secretory leucocyte protease inhibitor (SLPI), governs this response. Design: Flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, confocal imaging and gene expression analyses determined the phenotype, functional/transcriptomic profile and tissue topography of MerTK+ monocytes/macrophages in ALF, healthy and disease controls. The temporal evolution of macrophage MerTK expression and its impact on resolution was examined in APAP-induced acute liver injury using wild-type (WT) and Mer-deficient (Mer−/−) mice. SLPI effects on hepatic myeloid cells were determined in vitro and in vivo using APAP-treated WT mice. Results: We demonstrate a significant expansion of resolution-like MerTK+HLA-DRhigh cells in circulatory and tissue compartments of patients with ALF. Compared with WT mice which show an increase of MerTK+MHCIIhigh macrophages during the resolution phase in ALF, APAP-treated Mer−/− mice exhibit persistent liver injury and inflammation, characterised by a decreased proportion of resident Kupffer cells and increased number of neutrophils. Both in vitro and in APAP-treated mice, SLPI reprogrammes myeloid cells towards resolution responses through induction of a MerTK+HLA-DRhigh phenotype which promotes neutrophil apoptosis and their subsequent clearance. Conclusions: We identify a hepatoprotective, MerTK+, macrophage phenotype that evolves during the resolution phase following ALF and represents a novel immunotherapeutic target to promote resolution responses following acute liver injury

Extreme Ultra-Violet Spectroscopy of the Lower Solar Atmosphere During Solar Flares

The extreme ultraviolet portion of the solar spectrum contains a wealth of diagnostic tools for probing the lower solar atmosphere in response to an injection of energy, particularly during the impulsive phase of solar flares. These include temperature and density sensitive line ratios, Doppler shifted emission lines and nonthermal broadening, abundance measurements, differential emission measure profiles, and continuum temperatures and energetics, among others. In this paper I shall review some of the advances made in recent years using these techniques, focusing primarily on studies that have utilized data from Hinode/EIS and SDO/EVE, while also providing some historical background and a summary of future spectroscopic instrumentation.Comment: 34 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to Solar Physics as part of the Topical Issue on Solar and Stellar Flare

Soil mineral nitrogen benefits derived from legumes and comparisons of the apparent recovery of legume or fertiliser nitrogen by wheat

Nitrogen (N) contributed by legumes is an important component of N supply to subsequent cereal crops, yet few Australian grain-growers routinely monitor soil mineral N before applying N fertiliser. Soil and crop N data from 16 dryland experiments conducted in eastern Australia from 1989–2016 were examined to explore the possibility of developing simple predictive relationships to assist farmer decision-making. In each experiment, legume crops were harvested for grain or brown-manured (BM, terminated before maturity with herbicide), and wheat, barley or canola were grown. Soil mineral N measured immediately before sowing wheat in the following year was significantly higher (P < 0.05) after 31 of the 33 legume pre-cropping treatments than adjacent non-legume controls. The average improvements in soil mineral N were greater for legume BM (60 ± 16 kg N/ha; n = 5) than grain crops (35 ± 20 kg N/ha; n = 26), but soil N benefits were similar when expressed on the basis of summer fallow rainfall (0.15 ± 0.09 kg N/ha per mm), residual legume shoot dry matter (9 ± 5 kg N/ha per t/ha), or total legume residue N (28 ± 11%). Legume grain crops increased soil mineral N by 18 ± 9 kg N/ha per t/ha grain harvested. Apparent recovery of legume residue N by wheat averaged 30 ± 10% for 20 legume treatments in a subset of eight experiments. Apparent recovery of fertiliser N in the absence of legumes in two of these experiments was 64 ± 16% of the 51–75 kg fertiliser-N/ha supplied. The 25 year dataset provided new insights into the expected availability of soil mineral N after legumes and the relative value of legume N to a following wheat crop, which can guide farmer decisions regarding N fertiliser use.Mark B. Peoples, Antony D. Swan, Laura Goward, John A. Kirkegaard, James R. Hunt, Guangdi D. Li, Graeme D. Schwenke, David F. Herridge, Michael Moodie, Nigel Wilhelm, Trent Potter, Matthew D. Denton, Claire Browne, Lori A. Phillips, and Dil Fayaz Kha

Horizontal Branch Stars: The Interplay between Observations and Theory, and Insights into the Formation of the Galaxy

We review HB stars in a broad astrophysical context, including both variable and non-variable stars. A reassessment of the Oosterhoff dichotomy is presented, which provides unprecedented detail regarding its origin and systematics. We show that the Oosterhoff dichotomy and the distribution of globular clusters (GCs) in the HB morphology-metallicity plane both exclude, with high statistical significance, the possibility that the Galactic halo may have formed from the accretion of dwarf galaxies resembling present-day Milky Way satellites such as Fornax, Sagittarius, and the LMC. A rediscussion of the second-parameter problem is presented. A technique is proposed to estimate the HB types of extragalactic GCs on the basis of integrated far-UV photometry. The relationship between the absolute V magnitude of the HB at the RR Lyrae level and metallicity, as obtained on the basis of trigonometric parallax measurements for the star RR Lyrae, is also revisited, giving a distance modulus to the LMC of (m-M)_0 = 18.44+/-0.11. RR Lyrae period change rates are studied. Finally, the conductive opacities used in evolutionary calculations of low-mass stars are investigated. [ABRIDGED]Comment: 56 pages, 22 figures. Invited review, to appear in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Water use and grain yield response of rainfed soybean to tillage-mulch practices in southeastern Nigeria

Despite the agronomic, economic and food values of soybean (Glycine max L. Merrill), there is still dearth of information on the tillage need and the implications of surface mulch for the crop in the eastern part of the forest-savanna transition zone of Nigeria. This study was therefore carried out on a sandy loam Ultisol at Nsukka with a sub-humid climate, during 2006 and 2007 cropping seasons. Our objective was to devise an appropriate tillage method for the crop from evaluated effects of no-till (NT), conventional tillage (CT) and mulch on selected key agronomic indices. Each of the NT and the CT was either unmulched (U) or mulched (M) in a split-plot, giving four treatments/tillage methods (NTU, NTM, CTU and CTM) randomized in four blocks. Rainfall was more favorable in the first than in the second season. The mean seasonal soil water storage (range, 99-109 mm) within 0.5-m soil layer differed among the treatments (NTU < CTU < NTM = CTM). However, for the first and second seasons, both water use (582-616 and 667-709 mm respectively) and grain yield (0.71-0.81 and 1.22-1.91 Mg ha-1 respectively) were not different. Mulch lowered the crop water use but had no influence on grain yield. Water use efficiency was enhanced with mulch only in the second season. Although either of the two mulch treatments (NTM/CTM) would be suitable for growing soybean especially in years of unfavorably distributed rainfall, NTM is a more rational choice than CTM. Rainfall adequacy at the critical reproductive stage of the crop showed to be a more important yield factor than the tested tillage methods

Measurement of event-shape observables in Z→ℓ+ℓ− events in pp collisions at √ s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Event-shape observables measured using charged particles in inclusive $Z$-boson events are presented, using the electron and muon decay modes of the $Z$ bosons. The measurements are based on an integrated luminosity of $1.1 {\rm fb}^{-1}$ of proton--proton collisions recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV. Charged-particle distributions, excluding the lepton--antilepton pair from the $Z$-boson decay, are measured in different ranges of transverse momentum of the $Z$ boson. Distributions include multiplicity, scalar sum of transverse momenta, beam thrust, transverse thrust, spherocity, and $\mathcal{F}$-parameter, which are in particular sensitive to properties of the underlying event at small values of the $Z$-boson transverse momentum. The Sherpa event generator shows larger deviations from the measured observables than Pythia8 and Herwig7. Typically, all three Monte Carlo generators provide predictions that are in better agreement with the data at high $Z$-boson transverse momenta than at low $Z$-boson transverse momenta and for the observables that are less sensitive to the number of charged particles in the event.Comment: 36 pages plus author list + cover page (54 pages total), 14 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC, All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2014-0