372 research outputs found
Phenomenological discussion of decays in QCD improved factorization approach
Trying a global fit of the experimental branching ratios and CP-asymmetries
of the charmless decays according to QCD factorization, we find it
impossible to reach a satisfactory agreement, the confidence level (CL) of the
best fit is smaller than .1 %. This failure reflects the difficulty to
accommodate several large experimental branching ratios of the strange
channels. Furthermore, experiment was not able to exclude a large direct CP
asymmetry in , which is predicted very small by QCD
factorization. Proposing a fit with QCD factorization complemented by a
charming-penguin inspired model we reach a best fit which is not excluded by
experiment (CL of about 8 %) but is not fully convincing.
These negative results must be tempered by the remark that some of the
experimental data used are recent and might still evolve significantly.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures (requires epsfig, psfrag),talk presented at the
XXXVIIIth Rencontres de Moriond: Electroweak Interactions and Unified
Theories,Les Arcs, France, March 15-22, 2003. To be published in the
Proceeding
A new specimen-based checklist of ferns and lycophytes from Rotuma (Fiji)
ABSTRACT The island of Rotuma lies about 580 km north of the main archipelago of Fiji, and while politically part of that country, it differs culturally and floristically. It has not typically been included in botanical treatments for Fiji as a whole despite visits from several botanists. Pteridophytes of Rotuma were described by St. John in 1954 based on a visit there in 1938, but little additional information is available since then. Much of the original Rotuman forest has been altered by human activity, but pockets of original vegetation persist and substantial areas of secondary forest currently occur there. In June 2019, the first two authors of this report visited Rotuma to study ferns and lycophytes. We added six native species to the total of 31 found by St. John, and we found three species that have become naturalised since St. John was there. We revise the identification of several of those that he found, based on studying his specimens as well as our own, and we update nomenclature for many others to reflect current taxonomy. We conclude that 37 native and three naturalised pteridophyte species are confirmed for Rotuma, and two others may be present as natives based on unconfirmed reports. We discuss geographic relationships of the pteridophyte flora and note that at least four native species on Rotuma are not known from elsewhere in Fiji, but almost all Rotuman pteridophytes are known from Samoa. We speculate that additional pteridophytes remain to be found on Rotuma, and we note that declining coconut cultivation is leading to increased recovery of secondary forest on the island. Additionally, we confirm that the endemic angiosperm Cyrtandra rotumaensis H. St.John Gesneriaceae persists on Rotuma
apeNEXT: A multi-TFlops Computer for Simulations in Lattice Gauge Theory
We present the APE (Array Processor Experiment) project for the development
of dedicated parallel computers for numerical simulations in lattice gauge
theories. While APEmille is a production machine in today's physics simulations
at various sites in Europe, a new machine, apeNEXT, is currently being
developed to provide multi-Tflops computing performance. Like previous APE
machines, the new supercomputer is largely custom designed and specifically
optimized for simulations of Lattice QCD.Comment: Poster at the XXIII Physics in Collisions Conference (PIC03),
Zeuthen, Germany, June 2003, 3 pages, Latex. PSN FRAP15. Replaced for adding
forgotten autho
Formalism for dilepton production via virtual photon bremsstrahlung in hadronic reactions
We derive a set of new formulas for various distributions in dilepton
production via virtual photon bremsstrahlung from pseudoscalar mesons and
unpolarized spin-one-half fermions. These formulas correspond to the leading
and sub-leading terms in the Low-Burnett-Kroll expansion for real photon
bremsstrahlung. The relation of our leading-term formulas to previous works is
also shown. Existing formulas are examined in the light of Lorentz covariance
and gauge invariance. Numerical comparison is made in a simple example, where
an "exact" formula and real photon data exist. The results reveal large
discrepancies among different bremsstrahlung formulas. Of all the leading-term
bremsstrahlung formulas, the one derived in this work agrees best with the
exact formula. The issues of M_T-scaling and event generators are also
addressed.Comment: 37 pages, RevTeX, epsf.sty, 10 embedded figure
Identification of a cytokine network sustaining neutrophil and Th17 activation in untreated early rheumatoid arthritis
© 2010 Cascão et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Introduction: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease characterized by sustained
synovitis. Recently, several studies have proposed neutrophils and Th17 cells as key players in the onset and
perpetuation of this disease. The main goal of this work was to determine whether cytokines driving neutrophil
and Th17 activation are dysregulated in very early rheumatoid arthritis patients with less than 6 weeks of disease
duration and before treatment (VERA).
Methods: Cytokines related to neutrophil and Th17 activation were quantified in the serum of VERA and
established RA patients and compared with other very early arthritis (VEA) and healthy controls. Synovial fluid (SF)
from RA and osteoarthritis (OA) patients was also analyzed.
Results: VERA patients had increased serum levels of cytokines promoting Th17 polarization (IL-1b and IL-6), as
well as IL-8 and Th17-derived cytokines (IL-17A and IL-22) known to induce neutrophil-mediated inflammation. In
established RA this pattern is more evident within the SF. Early treatment with methotrexate or corticosteroids led
to clinical improvement but without an impact on the cytokine pattern.
Conclusions: VERA patients already display increased levels of cytokines related with Th17 polarization and
neutrophil recruitment and activation, a dysregulation also found in SF of established RA. 0 Thus, our data suggest
that a cytokine-milieu favoring Th17 and neutrophil activity is an early event in RA pathogenesis.This work was supported by a grant from Sociedade Portuguesa de Reumatologia/Schering-Plough 2005. RAM and RC were funded by Fundação para a CiĂȘncia e a Tecnologia (FCT) SFRH/BD/30247/2006 and
SFRH/BD/40513/2007, respectively. MMS-C was funded by Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship PERG-2008-239422 and a EULAR Young Investigator Award
Infrared Properties of QCD from Dyson-Schwinger equations
I review recent results on the infrared properties of QCD from
Dyson-Schwinger equations. The topics include infrared exponents of
one-particle irreducible Green's functions, the fixed point behaviour of the
running coupling at zero momentum, the pattern of dynamical quark mass
generation and properties of light mesons.Comment: 47 pages, 19 figures, Topical Review to be published in J.Phys.G, v2:
typos corrected and some references adde
The apeNEXT project (Status report)
We present the current status of the apeNEXT project. Aim of this project is
the development of the next generation of APE machines which will provide
multi-teraflop computing power. Like previous machines, apeNEXT is based on a
custom designed processor, which is specifically optimized for simulating QCD.
We discuss the machine design, report on benchmarks, and give an overview on
the status of the software development.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics
(CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 8 pages, LaTeX, 12 eps figures. PSN
THIT00
Renormalisation constants of quark bilinears in lattice QCD with four dynamical Wilson quarks
We present preliminary results of the non-perturbative computation of the
RI-MOM renormalisation constants in a mass-independent scheme for the action
with Iwasaki glue and four dynamical Wilson quarks employed by ETMC. Our
project requires dedicated gauge ensembles with four degenerate sea quark
flavours at three lattice spacings and at several values of the standard and
twisted quark mass parameters. The RI-MOM renormalisation constants are
obtained from appropriate O(a) improved estimators extrapolated to the chiral
limit.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, Talk presented at the XXIX International
Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2011), July 10-16, 2011, Squaw
Valley, Lake Tahoe, California, US
Status of the apeNEXT project
We present the current status of the apeNEXT project. Aim of this project is the development of the next generation of APE machines which will provide multi-teraflop computing power. Like previous machines, apeNEXT is based on a custom designed processor, which is specifically optimized for simulating QCD. We discuss the machine design, report on benchmarks, and give an overview on the status of the software development
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