Description and molecular phylogeny of a new and one known needle nematode of the genus Paralongidorus (Nematoda: Longidoridae) from grapevine in Portugal

A new and a known longidorid nematode, Paralongidorus lusitanicus n. sp. and Paralongidorus plesioepimikis, are described and illustrated from populations extracted from soil associated with grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) from Escaroupim and Pó (central-Western Portugal), respectively. The new needle nematode P. lusitanicus n. sp. is characterised by a very large body size (8072–12,022 μm), an expanded and rounded lip region, ca 30 μm wide, with a clear constriction followed by a depression posterior to the amphidial aperture, amphidial fovea very large (11.0–19.0 μm), stirrup-shaped, with conspicuous slit-like aperture as shown in scanning electron microscopy studies, a very long and flexible odontostyle (180.0–223.0 μm), guiding ring located at 28.0–41.5 μm from anterior end, vulva anterior to the mid-body (34–41%), a dorsally convex-conoid tail with rounded terminus (29–42 μm long), bearing two or three pairs of caudal pores and males common (ratio 1:1.6 females) with spicules ca 80 μm long. Morphological and morphometric traits for P. plesioepimikis fit well with the original description, and is reported for the first time in Portugal. Integrative diagnosis of both species was completed with molecular data obtained using D2-D3 expansion segments of 28S rDNA, ITS1-rDNA and partial 18S–rDNA. The phylogenetic relationships of these species with other Paralongidorus spp. using these three molecular markers indicated that P. lusitanicus n. sp. clustered together with other Paralongidorus spp. forming a sister clade with P. plesioepimikis, both of them sharing a large body, long odontostyle, an anteriorly located vulva and an expanded and rounded lip region with a clear constriction followed by a depression posterior to the amphidial aperture

Primordial black hole evolution in two-fluid cosmology

Several processes in the early universe might lead to the formation of primordial black holes with different masses. These black holes would interact with the cosmic plasma through accretion and emission processes. Such interactions might have affected the dynamics of the universe and generated a considerable amount of entropy. In this paper we investigate the effects of the presence of primordial black holes on the evolution of the early universe. We adopt a two-fluid cosmological model with radiation and a primordial black hole gas. The latter is modelled with different initial mass functions taking into account the available constraints over the initial primordial black hole abundances. We find that certain populations with narrow initial mass functions are capable to produce significant changes in the scale factor and the entropy.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. Modified to match the published versio

Anomalous quartic WWγγWW\gamma\gamma couplings in epep collisions at the LHeC and the FCC-he

We conducted a study on measuring $W^+W^-$ production and on the sensitivity limits at $95\%$ Confidence Level on thirteen anomalous couplings obtained by dimension-8 operators which are related to the anomalous quartic $WW\gamma\gamma$ couplings. We consider the main $e^-p \to e^-\gamma^*\gamma^*p \to e^-W^+W^-p$ reaction with the sub-process $\gamma^*\gamma^* \to W^+W^-$ at the Large Hadron electron Collider (LHeC) and the Future Circular Collider-hadron electron (FCC-he). For the LHeC, energies of the $e^-$ beams are taken to be $E_e =60$ and 140 GeV and the energy of the $p$ beams is taken to be $E_p = 7$ TeV. For the FCC-he, energies of the $e^-$ beams are taken to be $E_e =60$ and 140 GeV and the energy of the $p$ beams is taken to be $E_p = 50$ TeV, respectively. It is interesting to notice that the LHeC and the FCC-he will lead to model-independent limits on the anomalous quartic $WW\gamma\gamma$ couplings which are one order of magnitude stringent than the CMS Collaboration limits, in addition to being competitive with other limits reported in the literature.Comment: 28 pages, 10 Figures and 13 Table

Forecasting high waters at Venice Lagoon using chaotic time series analisys and nonlinear neural netwoks

Time series analysis using nonlinear dynamics systems theory and multilayer neural networks models have been applied to the time sequence of water level data recorded every hour at 'Punta della Salute' from Venice Lagoon during the years 1980-1994. The first method is based on the reconstruction of the state space attractor using time delay embedding vectors and on the characterisation of invariant properties which define its dynamics. The results suggest the existence of a low dimensional chaotic attractor with a Lyapunov dimension, DL, of around 6.6 and a predictability between 8 and 13 hours ahead. Furthermore, once the attractor has been reconstructed it is possible to make predictions by mapping local-neighbourhood to local-neighbourhood in the reconstructed phase space. To compare the prediction results with another nonlinear method, two nonlinear autoregressive models (NAR) based on multilayer feedforward neural networks have been developed. From the study, it can be observed that nonlinear forecasting produces adequate results for the 'normal' dynamic behaviour of the water level of Venice Lagoon, outperforming linear algorithms, however, both methods fail to forecast the 'high water' phenomenon more than 2-3 hours ahead.Publicad

Primitive model electrolytes. A comparison of the HNC approximation for the activity coefficient with Monte Carlo data

Accuracy of the mean activity coefficient expression (Hansen-Vieillefosse-Belloni equation), valid within the hypernetted chain (HNC) approximation, was tested in a wide concentration range against new Monte Carlo (MC) data for +1:-1 and +2:-2 primitive model electrolytes. The expression has an advantage that the excess chemical potential can be obtained directly, without invoking the time consuming Gibbs-Duhem calculation. We found the HNC results for the mean activity coefficient to be in good agreement with the machine calculations performed for the same model. In addition, the thermodynamic consistency of the HNC approximation was tested. The mean activity coefficients, calculated via the Gibbs-Duhem equation, seem to follow the MC data slightly better than the Hansen-Vieillefosse-Belloni expression. For completeness of the calculation, the HNC excess internal energies and osmotic coefficients are also presented. These results are compared with the calculations based on other theories commonly used to describe electrolyte solutions, such as the mean spherical approximation, Pitzer's extension of the Debye-H\"uckel theory, and the Debye-H\"uckel limiting law.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure