Quality of cut and basecutter blade configuration for the mechanized harvest of green sugarcane

Quality control is used to evaluate processes and products, and is a powerful tool for reducing variability. The objective of this study was to evaluate the quality of green sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) cutting for mechanized harvest, using statistical quality control tools. Cutting height and damage to ratoon stalks caused by different blade and disc combinations of the basecutter mechanism were used as indicators of quality. Cutting height showed high variability with a controlled process for some treatments. However, these treatments were incapable of producing satisfactory results. The damage index was lower in treatments that used tilted blades, but above the target for all treatments, which caused significant damage to the ratoons. In general, the process of mechanized harvest as assessed by these indicators was found incapable of achieving targeted results and staying below specification limits, and thus requires corrective actions to improve quality

Spherically symmetric vacuum solutions of modified gravity theory in higher dimensions

In this paper we investigate spherically symmetric vacuum solutions of $f(R)$ gravity in a higher dimensional spacetime. With this objective we construct a system of non-linear differential equations, whose solutions depend on the explicit form assumed for the function $F(R)=\frac{df(R)}{dR}$. We explicit show that for specific classes of this function exact solutions from the field equations are obtained; also we find approximated results for the metric tensor for more general cases admitting $F(R)$ close to the unity.Comment: 14 pages, no figure. New version accepted for publication in EPJ

The fraction of cancer attributable to ways of life, infections, occupation, and environmental agents in Brazil in 2020

Many human cancers develop as a result of exposure to risk factors related to the environment and ways of life. The aim of this study was to estimate attributable fractions of 25 types of cancers resulting from exposure to modifiable risk factors in Brazil. The prevalence of exposure to selected risk factors among adults was obtained from population-based surveys conducted from 2000 to 2008. Risk estimates were based on data drawn from metaanalyses or large, high quality studies. Population-attributable fractions (PAF) for a combination of risk factors, as well as the number of preventable deaths and cancer cases, were calculated for 2020. The known preventable risk factors studied will account for 34% of cancer cases among men and 35% among women in 2020, and for 46% and 39% deaths, respectively. The highest attributable fractions were estimated for tobacco smoking, infections, low consumption of fruits and vegetables, excess weight, reproductive factors, and physical inactivity. This is the first study to systematically estimate the fraction of cancer attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors in Brazil. Strategies for primary prevention of tobacco smoking and control of infection and the promotion of a healthy diet and physical activity should be the main priorities in policies for cancer prevention in the country. \ua9 2016 Azevedo e Silva 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

Semiclassical Strings, Dipole Deformations of N=1 SYM and Decoupling of KK Modes

In this paper we investigate the recently found $\gamma$-deformed Maldacena-Nunez background by studying the behavior of different semiclassical string configurations. This background is conjectured to be dual to dipole deformations of $\N=1$ SYM. We compare our results to those in the pure Maldacena-Nunez background and show that the energies of our string configurations are higher than in the undeformed background. Thinking in the lines of (hep-th/0505100) we argue that this is an evidence for better decoupling of the Kaluza-Klein modes from the pure SYM theory excitations. Moreover we are able to find a limit of the background in which the string energy is independent of $\gamma$, these strings are interpreted as corresponding to pure gauge theory effects.Comment: 31 pages, references added, new solutions in Section 7 presented, an appendix added, to appear in JHE

Quantum Monte Carlo and variational approaches to the Holstein model

Based on the canonical Lang-Firsov transformation of the Hamiltonian we develop a very efficient quantum Monte Carlo algorithm for the Holstein model with one electron. Separation of the fermionic degrees of freedom by a reweighting of the probability distribution leads to a dramatic reduction in computational effort. A principal component representation of the phonon degrees of freedom allows to sample completely uncorrelated phonon configurations. The combination of these elements enables us to perform efficient simulations for a wide range of temperature, phonon frequency and electron-phonon coupling on clusters large enough to avoid finite-size effects. The algorithm is tested in one dimension and the data are compared with exact-diagonalization results and with existing work. Moreover, the ideas presented here can also be applied to the many-electron case. In the one-electron case considered here, the physics of the Holstein model can be described by a simple variational approach.Comment: 18 pages, 11 Figures, v2: one typo correcte

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio