1,201 research outputs found
Neutron electric dipole moment from gauge/string duality
We compute the electric dipole moment of nucleons in the large QCD
model by Witten, Sakai and Sugimoto with degenerate massive flavors.
Baryons in the model are instantonic solitons of an effective five-dimensional
action describing the whole tower of mesonic fields. We find that the dipole
electromagnetic form factor of the nucleons, induced by a finite topological
angle, exhibits complete vector meson dominance. We are able to
evaluate the contribution of each vector meson to the final result - a small
number of modes are relevant to obtain an accurate estimate. Extrapolating the
model parameters to real QCD data, the neutron electric dipole moment is
evaluated to be . The
electric dipole moment of the proton is exactly the opposite.Comment: Latex, 4 pages; v2: minor corrections, few comments adde
Quality of reporting on the vegetative state in Italian newspapers. The case of Eluana Englaro.
Background: Media coverage of the vegetative state (VS) includes refutations of the VS diagnosis and describes behaviors inconsistent with VS. We used a quality score to assess the reporting in articles describing the medical characteristics of VS in Italian newspapers.
Methodology/Principal Findings: Our search covered a 7-month period from July 1, 2008, to February 28, 2009, using the online searchable databases of four major Italian newspapers: Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, La Stampa, and Avvenire. Medical reporting was judged as complete if three core VS characteristics were described: patient unawareness of self and the environment, preserved wakefulness (eyes open), and spontaneous respiration (artificial ventilator not needed). We retrieved 2,099 articles, and 967 were dedicated to VS. Of these, 853 (88.2%) were non-medical and mainly focused on describing the political, legal, and ethical aspects of VS. Of the 114 (11.8%) medical articles, 53 (5.5%) discussed other medical problems such as death by dehydration, artificial nutrition, neuroimaging, brain death, or uterine hemorrhage, and 61 (6.3%) described VS. Of these 61, only 18 (1.9%) reported all three CORE characteristics and were judged complete. We found no differences among the four investigated newspapers (Fisher’s exact = 0.798), and incomplete articles were equally distributed between journalistic pieces and expert opinions (x2 = 1.8854, P = 0.170). Incorrect descriptions of VS were
significantly more common among incomplete articles (13 of 43 vs. 1 of 18; Fisher’s exact P = 0.047).
Conclusions/Significance: Core VS characteristics are rarely reported in Italian newspaper articles, which can alter adequate comprehension of new developments and (mis)inform political, legal, and ethical decisions
Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers for Dark Matter and Neutrino Experiments
This thesis illustrates the contribution of the author to experiments using liquid argon Time Projection Chambers (LAr TPCs), a technology already widely used, that is becoming the dominating detection technique in dark matter (DM) and neutrino searches
Deep inside of gastric signet-ring cell carcinoma
The histology of signet-ring cell carcinoma (SRC) of the stomach has been revisited with the support of current immunohistochemical techniques in order to explain particular features of this tumor; its great capacity of local diffusion and lymph node metastasis, also through a neo-lymphoangiogenesis. An observational retrospective study on 50 cases of SRC in stage II and III has been performed with the addition of histochemical (Alcian Blue, DDD-Fast Blue B, Mercury Orange) and immunohistochemical (cytocheratin, CD3, CD4, CD8, CD10, CD56, CD68, perforin, granzyme B, podoplanin, collagen type IV) investigations for each case. The signet ring cells, typical for this tumor, show abundant content of electro-negative sialomucins and demonstrate a great capacity of diffusion through the gastric wall. They evoke production and deposition of collagen type IV in the sub-mucosa layer through the local action of fibroblasts. The immunological response to this tumor in the gastric wall and in the metastatic lymph nodes is represented by an increase of B and T-helper lymphocytes, but not of T-killers or natural killers. The neoplastic cells are curiously able to avoid these newly formed ‘lymph nodules’. An extended neo-lymphangiogenesis has been observed around the primary tumor and in metastatic lymph nodes. A careful immunohistochemical characterization has allowed a better knowledge of SRC, regarding especially the peculiar behavior of local diffusion of its cells, the associated neo-lymph angiogenesis, and poor immunological reaction
Liver injury by experimental portal bacteremia: histogenetic recovery study in the rat
Abstract - To study the histogenetic recovery of hepatic lesions due to portal bacteremia, a complication of some clinical conditions, an experimental animal model had developed. Portal bacteremia was performed in 8-week rats and the morphological recovery of liver was histologically checked 1 to 6 days after bacteria inoculation. The major injuries, such as acute inflammatory exudate of the portobiliary spaces, piecemeal necrosis of muralium, micro-abscesses and areas of hepatocyte necrosis of the liver parenchyma, and thrombosis in the centrolobular vein were recorded 1 day after inoculation. Minimal signs of vacuolar degeneration, steatosis, necrosis areas, vessel congestion and focal hemosiderosis together with a small hepatocyte proliferative activity was instead appreciable with longer time. The results seem to suggest a role of vascular structures and Kupffer cells in the morphological repair. This experimental model could serve to understand better similar clinical hepatology conditions, such as portal bacteremia.Informazioni util
Novel coal gasification process: Improvement of syngas yield and reduction of emissions
This article is intended to propose and model an innovative process layout for coal gasification that improves the production of syngas and also reduces the sulfur and CO2emissions. The typical coal gasification process uses Sulfur Recovery Units to convert H2S to sulfur, but these have some disadvantage, e.g low sulfur price, coal charge with low sulfur flow rate, use of Tail Gas Treatment unit. Compared to the Claus process, this solution converts H2S and CO2into syngas (economically appealing), reduces emission of H2S and CO2and allows the use of coal charge with high sulfur flow rate, e.g. 9.5% mol/mol. The novel process takes advantage of a double amine wash, a thermal regenerative furnace and considers the recycle of the acid gases coming from the catalytic reactor to further promote the H2S conversion. In particular, the double amine wash is useful to purify the H2S stream to be sent to the thermal furnace from the syngas and CO2, in order to reduce the reactor inlet flow rate. The regenerative furnace is simulated using a large detailed kinetic scheme to appropriately describe the minor species (among them, pollutants like CS2 and COS). As a result, the recycle appears to substantially reduce the pollutant emissions. In addition, the conversion of the Claus process into the novel process doesn't require any change in the main equipment, just needing for a variation in the layout and the operating conditions
Theta dependence in holographic QCD
We study the effects of the CP-breaking topological -term in the
large QCD model by Witten, Sakai and Sugimoto with degenerate light
flavors. We first compute the ground state energy density, the topological
susceptibility and the masses of the lowest lying mesons, finding agreement
with expectations from the QCD chiral effective action. Then, focusing on the
case, we consider the baryonic sector and determine, to leading order
in the small regime, the related holographic instantonic soliton
solutions. We find that while the baryon spectrum does not receive corrections, this is not the case for observables like the
electromagnetic form factor of the nucleons. In particular, it exhibits a
dipole term, which turns out to be vector-meson dominated. The resulting
neutron electric dipole moment, which is exactly the opposite as that of the
proton, is of the same order of magnitude of previous estimates in the
literature. Finally, we compute the CP-violating pion-nucleon coupling constant
, finding that it is zero to leading order in the large
limit.Comment: Latex, 61 pages, 5 figures; v2: Section 8.5 with a novel analysis of
the electric dipole form factor has been added; further comments and
references added; typos correcte
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