Results from NA61/SHINE

In this paper we summarize recent results from NA61/SHINE relevant for heavy ion physics, neutrino oscillations and the interpretation of air showers induced by ultra-high energy cosmic rays.Comment: 7 pages, Talk given at the International Symposium on Very High Energy Cosmic Ray Interactions (ISVHECRI 2012), Berlin, Germany, to appear in EPJ web of Con

Set-up and characterization of a humidity sensor realized in LTCC-technology

A new type of integrated temperature and humidity sensor applying LTCC-technology has been developed and characterized. In this approach, sensing elements are implemented using heated metal resistors (Pt-elements), where one is exposed to the humid environment that causes the sensor element to cool down with increased humidity, while the other one is sealed from the environment. Sensor design is based on FEA (Finite Element Analyses) where the critical design parameters have been analyzed with regard to the performance characteristic of the device. The set-up of sensor element will be shown and the functional capability will be demonstrated by experimental results.Comment: Submitted on behalf of EDA Publishing Association (http://irevues.inist.fr/EDA-Publishing

Human capital and entrepreneurial success : a meta-analytical review

The study meta-analytically integrates results from three decades of human capital research in entrepreneurship. Based on 70 independent samples (N = 24,733), we found a significant but small relationship between human capital and success (r(c) = .098). We examined theoretically derived moderators of this relationship referring to conceptualizations of human capital, to context, and to measurement of success. The relationship was higher for outcomes of human capital investments (knowledge/skills) than for human capital investments (education/experience), for human capital with high task-relatedness compared to low task-relatedness, for young businesses compared to old businesses, and for the dependent variable size compared to growth or profitability. Findings are relevant for practitioners (lenders, policy makers, educators) and for future research. Our findings show that future research should pursue moderator approaches to study the effects of human capital on success. Further, human capital is most important if it is task-related and if it consists of outcomes of human capital investments rather than human capital investments; this suggests that research should overcome a static view of human capital and should rather investigate the processes of learning, knowledge acquisition, and the transfer of knowledge to entrepreneurial tasks

Legitimating inaction : differing identity constructions of the Scots language.

The Scots language plays a key role in the political and cultural landscape of contemporary Scotland. From a discourse-historical perspective, this article explores how language ideologies about the Scots language are realized linguistically in a so-called ‘languages strategy’ drafted by the Scottish Executive, and in focus groups consisting of Scottish people. This article shows that although the decline of Scots is said to be a ‘tragedy’, focus group participants seem to reject the notion of Scots as a viable, contemporary language that can be used across a wide range of registers. The policy document also seems to construct Scots in very positive terms, but is shown to be unhelpful or potentially even damaging in the process of changing public attitudes to Scots

Unjamming of Granular Packings due to Local Perturbations: Stability and Decay of Displacements

We study the mechanical response generated by local deformations in jammed packings of rigid disks. Based on discrete element simulations we determine the critical force of the local perturbation that is needed to break the mechanical equilibrium and examine the generated displacement field. Displacements decay as a power law of the distance from the perturbation point. The decay exponent and the critical force exhibit nontrivial dependence on the friction: Both quantities are nonmonotonic and have a sharp maximum at the friction coefficient 0.1. We find that the mechanical response properties are closely related to the problem of force-indeterminacy where similar nonmonotonic behavior was observed previously. We establish direct connection between the critical force and the ensemble of static force networks.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

SPATIALLY EXPLICIT MODEL OF AREAS BETWEEN SUITABLE BLACK BEAR HABITAT IN EAST TEXAS AND BLACK BEAR POPULATIONS IN LOUISIANA, ARKANSAS, AND OKLAHOMA

Although black bears (Ursus americanus, Ursus americanus luteolus) were once found throughout the south-central United States, unregulated harvest and habitat loss resulted in severe range retractions and by the beginning of the twentieth century populations in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas were nearing extirpation. In response to these losses, translocation programs were initiated in Arkansas (1958-1968 & 2000-2006) and Louisiana (1964-1967 & 2001-2009). These programs successfully restored bears to portions of Louisiana and Arkansas, and, as populations in Arkansas began dispersing, to Oklahoma. In contrast, east Texas remains unoccupied despite the existence of suitable habitat in the region. To facilitate the establishment of a breeding population in east Texas, I sought to identify suitable habitat which bears could use for dispersal between known bear locations in Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma and the east Texas recovery units. I utilized Maxent, a machine learning software, to model habitat suitability in this region. I collected known black bear presence locations (n=18,241) from state agencies in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and east Texas and filtered them to reduce spatial autocorrelation (n=664). I also collected spatial data sets based on known black bear ecology to serve as environmental predictor variables. The model was developed at 30-m resolution and encompassed 417,076 km 2. The final model was selected to minimize model over-fitting while maintaining a high test Area Under the Receiver Operating Curve (AUC TEST)score. For final model interpretation and analysis, I used the 10th percentile training threshold available in Maxent which excludes the lowest 10% of predicted presence suitability scores from the binary predictive map, thus resulting in a more conservative predictive map. The final 10th percentile model predicted 43.7% of the pixels in the study area as suitable and 53.7 % percent of the pixels identified as potential recovery units by Kaminski et al. (2013, 2014) as suitable. To focus management efforts, I identified three movement zones with a high proportion of suitable habitat within which connectivity analyses were performed. Suitable patches greater than or equal to 12 km2 were classified within ArcGIS as stepping stone patches. Buffers of 3,500 m were generated around these patches to determine the level of functional connectivity in each zone. The final Maxent model confirmed that suitable bear habitat exists between source populations and the east Texas recovery units. The importance of percent of mast producing forest, percentage of cultivated crops and percentage of protected lands reflect what is known about basic bear biology and ecology. Furthermore, 153 stepping stone patches were identified within the movement zones, demonstrating that there is a reasonable chance of bears naturally dispersing to east Texas using the habitat identified in this study. Thus, protection of existing bear habitat and the stepping stone patches identified in this study should be a priority for managers seeking to facilitate natural bear recolonization of east Texas