1,128 research outputs found
Behavioural and physiological responses of laying hens to automated monitoring equipment
Automated monitoring of behaviour can offer a wealth of information in circumstances where observing behaviour is difficult or time consuming. However, this often requires attaching monitoring devices to the animal which can alter behaviour, potentially invalidating any data collected. Birds often show increased preening and energy expenditure when wearing devices and, especially in laying hens, there is a risk that individuals wearing devices will attract aggression from conspecifics. We studied the behavioural and physiological response of 20 laying hens to backpacks containing monitoring devices fastened with elastic loops around the wing base. We hypothesised that backpacks would lead to a stress-induced decrease in peripheral temperature, increased preening, more aggression from conspecifics, and reduced bodyweights. This was evaluated by thermography of the eye and comb (when isolated after fitting backpacks), direct observations of behaviour (when isolated, when placed back into the group, and on later days), and weighing (before and after each 7-day experimental period). Each hen wore a backpack during one of the two experimental periods only and was used as her own control. Contrary to our hypothesis, eye temperature was higher when hens wore a backpack (No backpack: 30.2 °C (IQR: 29.0–30.6) vs. Backpack: 30.9 °C (IQR: 30.0–32.0), P < 0.001). Eye temperature of hens wearing a backpack was strongly correlated to the time spent preening (rs = 0.8, P < 0.001), suggesting that the higher temperatures may have been due to preening itself, or to a low head position or decreased heat dissipation when preening under the wings. Aggressive behaviour was very rare and no effect of the backpacks was found. In line with our hypothesis, backpacks increased preening on the day of fitting, both when isolated (No backpack: 0% (IQR: 0–1) vs. Backpack: 22% (IQR: 1–43), P < 0.01) and when back in the group (No backpack: 0% (IQR: 0–27) vs. Backpack: 43% (IQR: 5–77), P < 0.001). However, no effect on preening was observed 2–7 days afterwards. Other behavioural changes suggested that on the day of fitting hens prioritized attempts to (re)move the backpack and were less attentive to their surroundings. However, only equipment pecking (i.e., pecking the backpack or leg rings) was still affected 2–7 days after fitting (No backpack: 0 pecks/hen/minute (IQR: 0–0), vs. Backpack: 0 (IQR: 0–0.07), P < 0.05). We found no effect of our backpacks on bodyweight. In conclusion, our backpacks seem suitable to attach monitoring equipment to hens with only a very minor effect on their behaviour after a short acclimation period (≤2 days)
Parton model versus color dipole formulation of the Drell-Yan process
In the kinematical region where the center of mass energy is much larger than
all other scales, the Drell-Yan process can be formulated in the target rest
frame in terms of the same color dipole cross section as low Bjorken-x deep
inelastic scattering. Since the mechanisms for heavy dilepton production appear
very different in the dipole approach and in the conventional parton model, one
may wonder whether these two formulations really represent the same physics. We
perform a comparison of numerical calculations in the color dipole approach
with calculations in the next-to-leading order parton model. For proton-proton
scattering, the results are very similar at low x_2 from fixed target to RHIC
energies, confirming the close connection between these two very different
approaches. We also compare the transverse momentum distributions of Drell-Yan
dileptons predicted in both formulations. The range of applicability of the
dipole formulation and the impact of future Drell-Yan data from RHIC for
determining the color dipole cross section are discussed. A detailed derivation
of the dipole formulation of the Drell-Yan process is also included.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure
Thermal conductivity of one-dimensional lattices with self-consistent heat baths: a heuristic derivation
We derive the thermal conductivities of one-dimensional harmonic and
anharmonic lattices with self-consistent heat baths (BRV lattice) from the
Single-Mode Relaxation Time (SMRT) approximation. For harmonic lattice, we
obtain the same result as previous works. However, our approach is heuristic
and reveals phonon picture explicitly within the heat transport process. The
results for harmonic and anharmonic lattices are compared with numerical
calculations from Green-Kubo formula. The consistency between derivation and
simulation strongly supports that effective (renormalized) phonons are energy
carriers in anharmonic lattices although there exist some other excitations
such as solitons and breathers.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. accepted for publication in JPS
CTEQ Parton Distributions and Flavor Dependence of Sea Quarks
This paper describes salient features of new sets of parton distributions
obtained by the CTEQ Collaboration based on a comprehensive QCD global analysis
of all available data. The accuracy of the new data on deep inelastic
scattering structure functions obtained by the very high statistics NMC and
CCFR experiments provides unprecedented sensitivity to the flavor dependence of
the sea-quark distributions. In addition to much better determination of the
small x dependence of all parton distributions, we found: (i) the strange quark
distribution is much softer than the non-strange sea quarks and rises above the
latter at small-x; and (ii) the difference changes sign as a
function of x. A few alternative sets of viable distributions with conventional
assumptions are also discussed.Comment: 13 pages with figures, MSUHEP-92-27, Fermilab-Pub-92/371,
FSU-HEP-92-1225, ISU-NP-92-1
"Does anyone even notice us?" COVID-19’s impact on academics’ well-being in a developing country
In March 2020, the President of South African announced that the nation would go into full lockdown in the wake of an increase in COVID-19 infections. Academics had, in some instances, only one day to prepare for “emergency remote teaching”. Few academics had taught online before, as South Africa’s internet connectivity is not guaranteed in underprivileged areas, where 80 per cent of the population reside. The online move thus necessitated an entirely novel pedagogy for most academics, with high potential for an escalation of work-related stress and related illness, outcomes we have related in the wider sphere of workplace readjustment during COVID-19, to a state of “pandemia”. In this article, we report on an institutional case study where we surveyed n=136 academics from a university in the Western Cape, South Africa to learn more about impacts of COVID-19 on their work. The data analysis adopts Ryff’s (1995) theory of well-being. Findings indicate that the enforced lockdown due to COVID-19 and the subsequent move to online teaching has had a negative impact on academics’ sense of well-being. However, the emergence of positive, caring relationships between colleagues is reported as a significant outcome of the COVID-19 enforced move to online teaching
Geometric Parameterization of Absorption in Heavy Ion Collisions
We calculate the survival probability of particles in various
colliding systems using a Glauber model. An analysis of recent data has
reported a -nucleon breakup cross section of 6.20.7 mb derived
from an exponential fit to the ratio of to Drell-Yan yields as a
function of a simple, linearly-averaged mean path length through the nuclear
medium. Our calculations indicate that, due to the nature of the calculation,
this approach yields an apparent breakup cross section which is systematically
lower than the actual value.Comment: LaTex, 7 pages, 2 figure
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
Nuclear dependence coefficient for the Drell-Yan and J/ production
Define the nuclear dependence coefficient in terms of ratio
of transverse momentum spectrum in hadron-nucleus and in hadron-nucleon
collisions: . We argue that in small region, the
for the Drell-Yan and J/ production is given by a universal function:\
, where parameters a and b are completely determined by either
calculable quantities or independently measurable physical observables. We
demonstrate that this universal function is insensitive to the
A for normal nuclear targets. For a color deconfined nuclear medium, the
becomes strongly dependent on the A. We also show that our
for the Drell-Yan process is naturally linked to perturbatively
calculated at large without any free parameters, and the
is consistent with E772 data for all .Comment: latex, 28 pages, 10 figures, updated two figures, and add more
discussion
Resummation of nuclear enhanced higher twist in the Drell Yan process
We investigate higher twist contributions to the transverse momentum
broadening of Drell Yan pairs in proton nucleus collisions. We revisit the
contribution of matrix elements of twist-4 and generalize this to matrix
elements of arbitrary twist. An estimate of the maximal nuclear broadening
effect is derived. A model for nuclear enhanced matrix elements of arbitrary
twist allows us to give the result of a resummation of all twists in closed
form. Subleading corrections to the maximal broadening are discussed
qualitatively.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; v2: minor changes in text, acknowledgement
added; v3: mistake in fig. 1 correcte
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