Basketball game-related statistics that discriminate between teams season-long success

The aim of the present study was to identify the game-related statistics that discriminate between season-long successful and unsuccessful basketball teams participating in the Spanish Basketball League (LEB1). The sample included all 145 average records per season from the 870 games played between the 2000-2001 and the 2005-2006 regular seasons. The following game-related statistics were gathered from the official box scores of the Spanish Basketball Federation: 2- and 3-point field-goal attempts (both successful and unsuccessful), free-throws (both successful and unsuccessful), defensive and offensive rebounds, assists, steals, turnovers, blocks (both made and received), and fouls (both committed and received). To control for season variability, all results were normalized to minutes played each season and then converted to z-scores. The results allowed discrimination between best and worst teams' performances through the following game-related statistics: assists (SC=0.47), steals (SC=0.34), and blocks (SC=0.30). The function obtained correctly classified 82.4% of the cases. In conclusion, season-long performance may be supported by players' and teams' passing skills and defensive preparation

Evolution of the eyes of vipers with and without infrared-sensing pit organs

We examined lens and brille transmittance, photoreceptors, visual pigments, and visual opsin gene sequences of viperid snakes with and without infrared-sensing pit organs. Ocular media transmittance is high in both groups. Contrary to previous reports, small as well as large single cones occur in pit vipers. Non-pit vipers differ from pit vipers in having a twotiered retina, but few taxa have been examined for this poorly understood feature. All vipers sampled express rh1, sws1 and lws visual opsin genes. Opsin spectral tuning varies but not in accordance with the presence/absence of pit organs, and not always as predicted from gene sequences. The visual opsin genes were generally under purifying selection, with positive selection at spectral tuning amino acids in RH1 and SWS1 opsins, and at retinal pocket stabilization sites in RH1 or LWS (and without substantial differences between pit and nonpit vipers). Lack of evidence for sensory trade-off between viperid eyes (in the aspects examined) and pit organs might be explained by the high degree of neural integration of vision and infrared detection; the latter representing an elaboration of an existing sense with addition of a novel sense organ, rather than involving the evolution of a wholly novel sensory system

Synthetic route to low damping in ferromagnetic thin-films

Previous theory indicated that the individual monolayers within transition metal ferromagnet thin-films contribute different magnitudes to the total ferromagnetic damping. Here, the aim was to investigate if the thin-film damping could be reduced by electronic engineering of the higher damping regions via localized doping. We present new theoretical analysis and experimental results for sputtered Co thin-films in which the upper and lower surface regions were locally doped with Cr. Theory indicates that local doping does reduce the damping and the experiments show a comparable reduction of the damping with increasing local doping up to 30% Cr, while the measured damping falls further with higher local doping, which may be attributed to changes in the film structure. This work opens a route to create low-damping magnetic thin-films

Zoneamento de riscos climáticos para a cultura do dendezeiro no Estado do Pará.

Este trabalho mostra os resultados preliminares do zoneamento de riscos climáticos para a cultura do dendezeiro no estado do Pará, maior produtor de óleo de palma do Brasil, onde se concentra mais de 80% da área plantada com dendezeiros no país. O estudo utilizou dois enfoques de zoneamento: o zoneamento agroclimático e o zoneamento de riscos climáticos. O zoneamento agroclimático constou de um refinamento de estudos anteriores para a definição das áreas com boa, moderada e restrita potencialidades para a cultura, utilizando informações de exigências de clima e de solo da cultura, e de dados climatológicos do estado. O zoneamento de riscos climáticos envolveu a identificação de zonas de riscos para as áreas, previamente, identificadas no zoneamento agroclimático. Essas áreas apresentam potencialidades boa e moderada para a cultura, e se concentram no pólo de produção de dendê no Pará. Usou-se modelo de balanço hídrico para período mensal e freqüência de 80% para efetuar simulações de balanço hídrico. Determinou-se níveis de riscos climáticos a partir de análise de déficits hídricos para a fase crítica da cultura com relação a deficiência de água, considerada como o período em que ocorre a diferenciação sexual do botão floral que influencia na quantidade de cachos. Os resultados obtidos foram espacializados utilizando-se o Sistema de Informações Geográficas. Os principais resultados obtidos foram: mapa de aptidão agroclimática do dendê para o estado do Pará, indicando as áreas classificadas como boa, moderada e restrita para a cultura, e a definição de quatro níveis de riscos climáticos no pólo dendezeiro: a) com leve ou nenhum risco climático; b) com pequeno risco climático; c) com moderado risco climático e d) com grande risco climático

Systematic Implementation of Implicit Regularization for Multi-Loop Feynman Diagrams

Implicit Regularization (IReg) is a candidate to become an invariant framework in momentum space to perform Feynman diagram calculations to arbitrary loop order. In this work we present a systematic implementation of our method that automatically displays the terms to be subtracted by Bogoliubov's recursion formula. Therefore, we achieve a twofold objective: we show that the IReg program respects unitarity, locality and Lorentz invariance and we show that our method is consistent since we are able to display the divergent content of a multi-loop amplitude in a well defined set of basic divergent integrals in one loop momentum only which is the essence of IReg. Moreover, we conjecture that momentum routing invariance in the loops, which has been shown to be connected with gauge symmetry, is a fundamental symmetry of any Feynman diagram in a renormalizable quantum field theory

Formation of babassu in degraded areas by human action in Southeast Pará, Brazil: its importance for recovery of legal reserve areas.

ISEE 2012

Scalar Casimir Effect on a D-dimensional Einstein Static Universe

We compute the renormalised energy momentum tensor of a free scalar field coupled to gravity on an (n+1)-dimensional Einstein Static Universe (ESU), RxS^n, with arbitrary low energy effective operators (up to mass dimension n+1). A generic class of regulators is used, together with the Abel-Plana formula, leading to a manifestly regulator independent result. The general structure of the divergences is analysed to show that all the gravitational couplings (not just the cosmological constant) are renormalised for an arbitrary regulator. Various commonly used methods (damping function, point-splitting, momentum cut-off and zeta function) are shown to, effectively, belong to the given class. The final results depend strongly on the parity of n. A detailed analytical and numerical analysis is performed for the behaviours of the renormalised energy density and a quantity `sigma' which determines if the strong energy condition holds for the `quantum fluid'. We briefly discuss the quantum fluid back-reaction problem, via the higher dimensional Friedmann and Raychaudhuri equations, observe that equilibrium radii exist and unveil the possibility of a `Casimir stabilisation of Einstein Static Universes'.Comment: 37 pages, 15 figures, v2: minor changes in sections 1, 2.5, 3 and 4; version published in CQ

Casimir energy and a cosmological bounce

We review different computation methods for the renormalised energy momentum tensor of a quantised scalar field in an Einstein Static Universe. For the extensively studied conformally coupled case we check their equivalence; for different couplings we discuss violation of different energy conditions. In particular, there is a family of masses and couplings which violate the weak and strong energy conditions but do not lead to spacelike propagation. Amongst these cases is that of a minimally coupled massless scalar field with no potential. We also point out a particular coupling for which a massless scalar field has vanishing renormalised energy momentum tensor. We discuss the backreaction problem and in particular the possibility that this Casimir energy could both source a short inflationary epoch and avoid the big bang singularity through a bounce.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX, 8 figure