278 research outputs found
Sociology Back to the Publics
This article is a reading of the `new sociology' that is mainly identified with the works of C. Wright Mills and Alvin Gouldner. Its main argument is that during the past 40 years the new sociology gave back a public face to sociology. This distinguishes it from the `old sociology' that had not been able to free itself from `private' social values. It is argued that Mills' power elite and Gouldner's coming crisis theses provided the foundation for a common enterprise among many `new sociologists' to develop a critical and public sociology that would seek to shape what Mills called the `democratic society of publics'.`New sociologists' share a critique of modern societies, namely, that though most modern societies have formal democracies, a substantial democratic social structure of publics is often lacking, due to the erosion of the public sphere by private values
Active Brownian Particles. From Individual to Collective Stochastic Dynamics
We review theoretical models of individual motility as well as collective
dynamics and pattern formation of active particles. We focus on simple models
of active dynamics with a particular emphasis on nonlinear and stochastic
dynamics of such self-propelled entities in the framework of statistical
mechanics. Examples of such active units in complex physico-chemical and
biological systems are chemically powered nano-rods, localized patterns in
reaction-diffusion system, motile cells or macroscopic animals. Based on the
description of individual motion of point-like active particles by stochastic
differential equations, we discuss different velocity-dependent friction
functions, the impact of various types of fluctuations and calculate
characteristic observables such as stationary velocity distributions or
diffusion coefficients. Finally, we consider not only the free and confined
individual active dynamics but also different types of interaction between
active particles. The resulting collective dynamical behavior of large
assemblies and aggregates of active units is discussed and an overview over
some recent results on spatiotemporal pattern formation in such systems is
given.Comment: 161 pages, Review, Eur Phys J Special-Topics, accepte
Epstein-Barr virus and childhood Hodgkin's disease in Honduras and the United States
In industrialized populations, Hodgkin's disease (HD) has an initial peak in young adulthood, whereas in economically developing populations the initial peak occurs in childhood. This pattern resembles that of infection with poliovirus and suggests an infectious cofactor in the etiology. Serologic studies have linked Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) to young adult and adult HD, and viral nucleic acids and antigens have been detected in a subset of Hodgkin's tumor specimens. To investigate the association of childhood HD with EBV we studied tumor specimens from 11 children treated in Honduras and 25 children treated in the United States using in situ hybridization and antigen detection techniques. Among the patients from Honduras, tumor specimens from all cases were EBV positive. Among the patients from the United States, tumor specimens from six of seven patients with mixed cellularity histology, 2 of 15 with nodular sclerosis histology, and neither of two patients with lymphocyte-predominant histologies were EBV positive. These findings support the hypothesis that EBV contributes to the pathogenesis of HD in children, particularly in mixed cellularity HD, and raises the possibility that there are important geographic, racial, or ethnic factors in the EBV association with HD
Origins of the Ambient Solar Wind: Implications for Space Weather
The Sun's outer atmosphere is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees,
and solar plasma flows out into interplanetary space at supersonic speeds. This
paper reviews our current understanding of these interrelated problems: coronal
heating and the acceleration of the ambient solar wind. We also discuss where
the community stands in its ability to forecast how variations in the solar
wind (i.e., fast and slow wind streams) impact the Earth. Although the last few
decades have seen significant progress in observations and modeling, we still
do not have a complete understanding of the relevant physical processes, nor do
we have a quantitatively precise census of which coronal structures contribute
to specific types of solar wind. Fast streams are known to be connected to the
central regions of large coronal holes. Slow streams, however, appear to come
from a wide range of sources, including streamers, pseudostreamers, coronal
loops, active regions, and coronal hole boundaries. Complicating our
understanding even more is the fact that processes such as turbulence,
stream-stream interactions, and Coulomb collisions can make it difficult to
unambiguously map a parcel measured at 1 AU back down to its coronal source. We
also review recent progress -- in theoretical modeling, observational data
analysis, and forecasting techniques that sit at the interface between data and
theory -- that gives us hope that the above problems are indeed solvable.Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Special issue
connected with a 2016 ISSI workshop on "The Scientific Foundations of Space
Weather." 44 pages, 9 figure
Longitudinal double-spin asymmetry and cross section for inclusive neutral pion production at midrapidity in polarized proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV
We report a measurement of the longitudinal double-spin asymmetry A_LL and
the differential cross section for inclusive Pi0 production at midrapidity in
polarized proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV. The cross section was
measured over a transverse momentum range of 1 < p_T < 17 GeV/c and found to be
in good agreement with a next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculation.
The longitudinal double-spin asymmetry was measured in the range of 3.7 < p_T <
11 GeV/c and excludes a maximal positive gluon polarization in the proton. The
mean transverse momentum fraction of Pi0's in their parent jets was found to be
around 0.7 for electromagnetically triggered events.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D (RC
Longitudinal scaling property of the charge balance function in Au + Au collisions at 200 GeV
We present measurements of the charge balance function, from the charged
particles, for diverse pseudorapidity and transverse momentum ranges in Au + Au
collisions at 200 GeV using the STAR detector at RHIC. We observe that the
balance function is boost-invariant within the pseudorapidity coverage [-1.3,
1.3]. The balance function properly scaled by the width of the observed
pseudorapidity window does not depend on the position or size of the
pseudorapidity window. This scaling property also holds for particles in
different transverse momentum ranges. In addition, we find that the width of
the balance function decreases monotonically with increasing transverse
momentum for all centrality classes.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Energy and system size dependence of \phi meson production in Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions
We study the beam-energy and system-size dependence of \phi meson production
(using the hadronic decay mode \phi -- K+K-) by comparing the new results from
Cu+Cu collisions and previously reported Au+Au collisions at \sqrt{s_NN} = 62.4
and 200 GeV measured in the STAR experiment at RHIC. Data presented are from
mid-rapidity (|y|<0.5) for 0.4 < pT < 5 GeV/c. At a given beam energy, the
transverse momentum distributions for \phi mesons are observed to be similar in
yield and shape for Cu+Cu and Au+Au colliding systems with similar average
numbers of participating nucleons. The \phi meson yields in nucleus-nucleus
collisions, normalised by the average number of participating nucleons, are
found to be enhanced relative to those from p+p collisions with a different
trend compared to strange baryons. The enhancement for \phi mesons is observed
to be higher at \sqrt{s_NN} = 200 GeV compared to 62.4 GeV. These observations
for the produced \phi(s\bar{s}) mesons clearly suggest that, at these collision
energies, the source of enhancement of strange hadrons is related to the
formation of a dense partonic medium in high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions
and cannot be alone due to canonical suppression of their production in smaller
systems.Comment: 20 pages and 5 figure
Measurement of the Bottom contribution to non-photonic electron production in collisions at =200 GeV
The contribution of meson decays to non-photonic electrons, which are
mainly produced by the semi-leptonic decays of heavy flavor mesons, in
collisions at 200 GeV has been measured using azimuthal
correlations between non-photonic electrons and hadrons. The extracted
decay contribution is approximately 50% at a transverse momentum of GeV/. These measurements constrain the nuclear modification factor for
electrons from and meson decays. The result indicates that meson
production in heavy ion collisions is also suppressed at high .Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted by PR
Olfactory Jump Reflex Habituation in Drosophila and Effects of Classical Conditioning Mutations
Habituation is a nonassociative learning mechanism, in which an initial response toward repeated stimuli gradually wanes. This is amongst the simplest and most widespread forms of behavioral plasticity. So far, neither the underlying molecular mechanisms nor the precise neural networks of habituation are well understood. We have developed a novel paradigm to quantify habituation of the olfactory jump reflex in Drosophila. We present data demonstrating several behavioral properties of this phenomenon, generally observed in other species. We also show that the dunce and rutabaga memory mutants behave abnormally in this assay, suggesting that this assay might be used in behavioral screens for new mutants with defects in this simpler form of behavioral plasticity
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