656 research outputs found
Quantum tunneling of superconducting string currents
We investigate the decay of current on a superconducting cosmic string
through quantum tunneling. We construct the instanton describing tunneling in a
simple bosonic string model, and estimate the decay rate. The tunneling rate
vanishes in the limit of a chiral current. This conclusion, which is supported
by a symmetry argument, is expected to apply in general. It has important
implications for the stability of chiral vortons.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure
Drum vortons in high density QCD
Recently it was shown that high density QCD supports of number of topological
defects. In particular, there are U(1)_Y strings that arise due to K^0
condensation that occurs when the strange quark mass is relatively large. The
unique feature of these strings is that they possess a nonzero K^+ condensate
that is trapped on the core. In the following we will show that these strings
(with nontrivial core structure) can form closed loops with conserved charge
and currents trapped on the string worldsheet. The presence of conserved
charges allows these topological defects, called vortons, to carry angular
momentum, which makes them classically stable objects. We also give arguments
demonstrating that vortons carry angular momentum very efficiently (in terms of
energy per unit angular momentum) such that they might be the important degrees
of freedom in the cores of neutron stars.Comment: 11 pages, accepted for publication in Physical Review
B_c Meson Production in Nuclear Collisions at RHIC
We study quantitatively the formation and evolution of B_c bound states in a
space-time domain of deconfined quarks and gluons (quark-gluon plasma, QGP). At
the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) one expects for the first time that
typical central collisions will result in multiple pairs of heavy (in this case
charmed) quarks. This provides a new mechanism for the formation of heavy
quarkonia which depends on the properties of the deconfined region. We find
typical enhancements of about 500 fold for the B_c production yields over
expectations from the elementary coherent hadronic B_c-meson production
scenario. The final population of bound states may serve as a probe of the
plasma phase parameters.Comment: 9 Pages, 11 Postscript Figure
EFEITO DO USO DE INOCULANTES SOBRE O pH E A COMPOSIÇÃO BROMATOLÓGICA DA SILAGEM DE SORGO (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench)
The objective of this work was to study the effect of three doses of commercial bacterial inoculant Sil-All (Alltech®), on the pH and the quality of the silage of sorgo, variety AG 2005. Sixteen experimental silos had been used, with capacity for 20kg of silage. The tested treatments had been T1 without the inoculante addition, T2: 2,5g/L of inoculante, T3: 5,0 g/L of inoculante and T4: 7,5 g/L of inoculante. After 60 days, the silos had been opened and samples removed for determination of pH, PB, FDN and FDA. The delineation was completely randomized, with four treatments and four repetitions. The different applied doses had resulted in significant difference (P 0,05) values of pH, PB, FDN and FDA.O objetivo do presente trabalho foi estudar o efeito de três doses do aditivo bacteriano comercial Sil-All (Alltech®), sobre o pH e a composição bromatológica da silagem de sorgo, variedade AG 2005. Foram utilizados 16 silos experimentais, com capacidade para 20kg de silagem. Os tratamentos testados foram T1: sem a adição de inoculante, T2: 2,5g/L de inoculante, T3: 5,0 g/L de inoculante e T4: 7,5 g/L de inoculante. Após 60 dias de ensilado, os silos foram abertos e retiradas amostras para determinação de pH, PB, FDN e FDA. O delineamento foi inteiramente casualizado, com quatro tratamentos e quatro repetições. As diferentes doses aplicadas resultaram em diferença significativa (P 0,05) os teores de pH, PB, FDN e FDA
Cryptosporidium Spp. And Giardia Spp. In Feces And Water And The Associated Exposure Factors On Dairy Farms
The aims of this study were to verify the prevalence of Cryptosporidium spp. and Giardia spp. in animal feces and drinking water on dairy farms and to identify a possible relation between the exposure factors and the presence of these parasites. Fecal samples from cattle and humans and water samples were collected on dairy farms in Paraná, Brazil. Analysis of (oo)cysts in the feces was performed by the modified Ziehl-Neelsen staining and centrifugal flotation in zinc sulfate. Test-positive samples were subjected to nested PCR amplification of the 18SSU ribosomal RNA gene for identification of Cryptosporidium and Giardia and of the gp60 gene for subtyping of Cryptosporidium. Microbiological analysis of water was carried out by the multiple-tube method and by means of a chromogenic substrate, and parasitological analysis was performed on 31 samples by direct immunofluorescence and nested PCR of the genes mentioned above. Identification of the species of Cryptosporidium was performed by sequencing and PCR with analysis of restriction fragment length polymorphisms. The prevalence of Giardia and Cryptosporidium was higher in calves than in adults. Among the samples of cattle feces, Cryptosporidium parvum was identified in 41 (64%), C. ryanae in eight (12.5%), C. bovis in four (6.3%), C. andersoni in five (7.8%), and a mixed infection in 20 samples (31.3%). These parasites were not identified in the samples of human feces. Thermotolerant coliform bacteria were identified in 25 samples of water (45.5%). Giardia duodenalis and C. parvum were identified in three water samples. The gp60 gene analysis of C. parvum isolates revealed the presence of two strains (IIaA20G1R1 and IIaA17G2R2) in the fecal samples and one (IIaA17G2R1) in the water samples. The presence of coliforms was associated with the water source, structure and degradation of springs, rain, and turbidity. The prevalence of protozoa was higher in calves up to six months of age. C. parvum and G. duodenalis were identified in the water of dairy farms, as were thermotolerant coliforms; these findings point to the need for guidance on handling of animals, preservation of water sources, and water treatment. © 2017 Toledo et al.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.12
Progress in the determination of the cross section
Improving previous calculations, we compute the cross section using QCD sum rules. Our sum rules for the , , and hadronic
matrix elements are constructed by using vaccum-pion correlation functions, and
we work up to twist-4 in the soft-pion limit. Our results suggest that, using
meson exchange models is perfectly acceptable, provided that they include form
factors and that they respect chiral symmetry. After doing a thermal average we
get mb at T=150\MeV.Comment: 22 pages, RevTeX4 including 7 figures in ps file
Lagrangian evolution of global strings
We establish a method to trace the Lagrangian evolution of extended objects
consisting of a multicomponent scalar field in terms of a numerical calculation
of field equations in three dimensional Eulerian meshes. We apply our method to
the cosmological evolution of global strings and evaluate the energy density,
peculiar velocity, Lorentz factor, formation rate of loops, and emission rate
of Nambu-Goldstone (NG) bosons. We confirm the scaling behavior with a number
of long strings per horizon volume smaller than the case of local strings by a
factor of 10. The strategy and the method established here are
applicable to a variety of fields in physics.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
Numerical convergence of the block-maxima approach to the Generalized Extreme Value distribution
In this paper we perform an analytical and numerical study of Extreme Value
distributions in discrete dynamical systems. In this setting, recent works have
shown how to get a statistics of extremes in agreement with the classical
Extreme Value Theory. We pursue these investigations by giving analytical
expressions of Extreme Value distribution parameters for maps that have an
absolutely continuous invariant measure. We compare these analytical results
with numerical experiments in which we study the convergence to limiting
distributions using the so called block-maxima approach, pointing out in which
cases we obtain robust estimation of parameters. In regular maps for which
mixing properties do not hold, we show that the fitting procedure to the
classical Extreme Value Distribution fails, as expected. However, we obtain an
empirical distribution that can be explained starting from a different
observable function for which Nicolis et al. [2006] have found analytical
results.Comment: 34 pages, 7 figures; Journal of Statistical Physics 201
Reinforcement of poly-l-lactic acid electrospun membranes with strontium borosilicate bioactive glasses for bone tissue engineering
Herein, for the first time, we combined poly-l-lactic acid (PLLA) with a strontium borosilicate bioactive glass (BBG-Sr) using electrospinning to fabricate a composite bioactive PLLA membrane loaded with 10% (w/w) of BBG-Sr glass particles (PLLA-BBG-Sr). The composites were characterised by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and microcomputer tomography (μ-CT), and the results showed that we successfully fabricated smooth and uniform fibres (1-3μm in width) with a homogeneous distribution of BBG-Sr microparticles (<45μm). Degradation studies (in phosphate buffered saline) demonstrated that the incorporation of BBG-Sr glass particles into the PLLA membranes increased their degradability and water uptake with a continuous release of cations. The addition of BBG-Sr glass particles enhanced the membrane's mechanical properties (69% higher Young modulus and 36% higher tensile strength). Furthermore, cellular in vitro evaluation using bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) demonstrated that PLLA-BBG-Sr membranes promoted the osteogenic differentiation of the cells as demonstrated by increased alkaline phosphatase activity and up-regulated osteogenic gene expression (Alpl, Sp7 and Bglap) in relation to PLLA alone. These results strongly suggest that the composite PLLA membranes reinforced with the BBG-Sr glass particles have potential as an effective biomaterial capable of promoting bone regeneration. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: PLLA membranes were reinforced with 10% (w/w) of strontium-bioactive borosilicate glass microparticles, and their capacity to induce the osteogenic differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) was evaluated. These membranes presented an increased: degradability, water uptake, Young modulus and tensile strength. We also demonstrated that these membranes are non-cytotoxic and promote the attachment of BM-MSCs. The addition of the glass microparticles into the PLLA membranes promoted the increase of ALP activity (under osteogenic conditions), as well as the BM-MSCs osteogenic differentiation as shown by the upregulation of Alpl, Sp7 and Bglap gene expression. Overall, we demonstrated that the reinforcement of PLLA with glass microparticles results in a biomaterial with the appropriate properties for the regeneration of bone tissue
- …