2,014 research outputs found
Influence of Lorentz-violating terms on a two-level system
The influence of Lorentz- and CPT-violating terms of the extended Standard
Model on a semi-classical two-level system is analyzed. It is shown that the
Lorentz-violating background (when coupled with the fermion sector in a vector
way) is able to induce modifications on the Rabi oscillation pattern, promoting
sensitive modulations on the usual oscillations. As for the term involving the
coefficient coupled in an axial vector way, it brings about oscillations both
on energy states and on the spin states (implied by the background). It is also
seen that such backgrounds are able to yield state oscillations even in the
absence of the electromagnetic field. The foreseen effects are used to
establish upper bounds on the Lorentz-violating coefficients.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, revtex style
EmergencyGrid:Planning in Convergence Environments
Government agencies are often responsible for event handling, planning, coordination, and status reporting during emergency response in natural disaster events such as floods, tsunamis and earthquakes. Across such a range of emergency response scenarios, there is a common set of requirements that distributed intelligent computer systems generally address. To support the implementation of these requirements, some researchers are proposing the creation of grids, where final interface and processing nodes perform joint work supported by a network infrastructure. The aim of this project is to extend the concepts of emergency response grids, using a convergence scenario between web and other computational platforms. Our initial work focuses on the Interactive Digital TV platform, where we intend to transform individual TV devices into active final nodes, using a hierarchical planning structure. We describe the architecture of this approach and an initial prototype specification that is being developed to validate some concepts and illustrate the advantages of this convergence planning environment
Ionic Capillary Evaporation in Weakly Charged Nanopores
Using a variational field theory, we show that an electrolyte confined to a
neutral cylindrical nanopore traversing a low dielectric membrane exhibits a
first-order ionic liquid-vapor pseudo-phase-transition from an
ionic-penetration "liquid" phase to an ionic-exclusion "vapor" phase,
controlled by nanopore-modified ionic correlations and dielectric repulsion.
For weakly charged nanopores, this pseudotransition survives and may shed light
on the mechanism behind the rapid switching of nanopore conductivity observed
in experiments.Comment: This version is accepted for publication in PR
Portinari: A Data Exploration Tool to Personalize Cervical Cancer Screening
Socio-technical systems play an important role in public health screening
programs to prevent cancer. Cervical cancer incidence has significantly
decreased in countries that developed systems for organized screening engaging
medical practitioners, laboratories and patients. The system automatically
identifies individuals at risk of developing the disease and invites them for a
screening exam or a follow-up exam conducted by medical professionals. A triage
algorithm in the system aims to reduce unnecessary screening exams for
individuals at low-risk while detecting and treating individuals at high-risk.
Despite the general success of screening, the triage algorithm is a
one-size-fits all approach that is not personalized to a patient. This can
easily be observed in historical data from screening exams. Often patients rely
on personal factors to determine that they are either at high risk or not at
risk at all and take action at their own discretion. Can exploring patient
trajectories help hypothesize personal factors leading to their decisions? We
present Portinari, a data exploration tool to query and visualize future
trajectories of patients who have undergone a specific sequence of screening
exams. The web-based tool contains (a) a visual query interface (b) a backend
graph database of events in patients' lives (c) trajectory visualization using
sankey diagrams. We use Portinari to explore diverse trajectories of patients
following the Norwegian triage algorithm. The trajectories demonstrated
variable degrees of adherence to the triage algorithm and allowed
epidemiologists to hypothesize about the possible causes.Comment: Conference paper published at ICSE 2017 Buenos Aires, at the Software
Engineering in Society Track. 10 pages, 5 figure
Lorentz-violating contributions of the Carroll-Field-Jackiw model to the CMB anisotropy
We study the finite temperature properties of the
Maxwell-Carroll-Field-Jackiw (MCFJ) electrodynamics for a purely spacelike
background. Starting from the associated finite temperature partition function,
a modified black body spectral distribution is obtained. We thus show that, if
the CMB radiation is described by this model, the spectrum presents an
anisotropic angular energy density distribution. We show, at leading order,
that the Lorentz-breaking contributions for the Planck's radiation law and for
the Stefan-Boltzmann's law are nonlinear in frequency and quadratic in
temperature, respectively. Using our results, we set up bounds for the
Lorentz-breaking parameter, and show that Lorentz violation in the context of
the MCFJ model is unable to yield the known CMB anisotropy (of 1 part in
Analysis of individual flows performance for delay sensitive applications
SLA management approaches typically adopt provisioning strategies based on aggregate traffic in order to support endtoend delay requirements of applications. They do not take into account individual flows needs in terms of delay. However, this delay can be very higher than the one observed by aggregate traffic, causing an important impact in network application performance. This paper presents a study based on simulations that makes an analysis of the endtoend delay observed by individual flows. Several scenarios are used to evaluate this performance and some metrics are proposed to investigate empirical relations that show the endtoend delay behavior when are analyzed individual flows, the aggregate traffic and the network load.5th IFIP International Conference on Network Control & Engineering for QoS, Security and MobilityRed de Universidades con Carreras en InformĂĄtica (RedUNCI
Research Notes: Resistance of soybean lines and cultivars to the root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne javanica
In a clayed soil heavy infested with Meloidogyne javanica at Guatapara farm , state of Sao Paulo , 36 soybean cultivars and breeding lines were tested for resistance to this nematode. Plots were constituted of three rows, 3 m long and 0.60 m apart and each plot was bordered on both sides with a row of \u27Davis \u27 cv, the susceptible check. Soybeans were seeded in November, 1979, in a randomized complete block design with eight replications
Thermal denaturation of fluctuating finite DNA chains: the role of bending rigidity in bubble nucleation
Statistical DNA models available in the literature are often effective models
where the base-pair state only (unbroken or broken) is considered. Because of a
decrease by a factor of 30 of the effective bending rigidity of a sequence of
broken bonds, or bubble, compared to the double stranded state, the inclusion
of the molecular conformational degrees of freedom in a more general mesoscopic
model is needed. In this paper we do so by presenting a 1D Ising model, which
describes the internal base pair states, coupled to a discrete worm like chain
model describing the chain configurations [J. Palmeri, M. Manghi, and N.
Destainville, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 088103 (2007)]. This coupled model is
exactly solved using a transfer matrix technique that presents an analogy with
the path integral treatment of a quantum two-state diatomic molecule. When the
chain fluctuations are integrated out, the denaturation transition temperature
and width emerge naturally as an explicit function of the model parameters of a
well defined Hamiltonian, revealing that the transition is driven by the
difference in bending (entropy dominated) free energy between bubble and
double-stranded segments. The calculated melting curve (fraction of open base
pairs) is in good agreement with the experimental melting profile of
polydA-polydT. The predicted variation of the mean-square-radius as a function
of temperature leads to a coherent novel explanation for the experimentally
observed thermal viscosity transition. Finally, the influence of the DNA strand
length is studied in detail, underlining the importance of finite size effects,
even for DNA made of several thousand base pairs.Comment: Latex, 28 pages pdf, 9 figure
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