11,034 research outputs found
The Semileptonic Decay Fraction of B Mesons in the Light of Interfering Amplitudes
Consequences of the interference between spectator amplitudes for the
lifetimes and semileptonic decay fractions of B^0 and B^+ mesons are discussed.
Assuming duality and constructive interference between spectator amplitudes we
are able to explain the low experimental value for the semileptonic decay
fraction of mesons. Extracting these amplitudes from a fit to 11 exclusive
hadronic B decay fractions we find
a_1 = 1.05 +/- 0.03 +/- 0.10,
a_2 =+0.227 +/ 0.012 +/- 0.022,
an inclusive semileptonic decay fraction of
(11.2 +/- 0.5 +/- 1.7),
and a lifetime ratio
tau(B^+) / tau(B^0) = 0.83 +/- 0.01 +/- 0.01.Comment: 9 page
Evaluation of a spacecraft nitrogen generator
A research and development program was successfully completed towards the development of a method of generating nitrogen for cabin leakage makeup aboard space vehicles. The nitrogen generation concept used liquid hydrazine as the stored form of nitrogen. This reduced tankage and expendables weight associated with high pressure gaseous and cryogenic liquid nitrogen storage. The hydrazine was catalytically dissociated to yield a mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen. The latter was separated to provide the makeup nitrogen. The hydrogen will be used in the reduction of metabolic carbon dioxide
Hybrid-parallel sparse matrix-vector multiplication with explicit communication overlap on current multicore-based systems
We evaluate optimized parallel sparse matrix-vector operations for several
representative application areas on widespread multicore-based cluster
configurations. First the single-socket baseline performance is analyzed and
modeled with respect to basic architectural properties of standard multicore
chips. Beyond the single node, the performance of parallel sparse matrix-vector
operations is often limited by communication overhead. Starting from the
observation that nonblocking MPI is not able to hide communication cost using
standard MPI implementations, we demonstrate that explicit overlap of
communication and computation can be achieved by using a dedicated
communication thread, which may run on a virtual core. Moreover we identify
performance benefits of hybrid MPI/OpenMP programming due to improved load
balancing even without explicit communication overlap. We compare performance
results for pure MPI, the widely used "vector-like" hybrid programming
strategies, and explicit overlap on a modern multicore-based cluster and a Cray
XE6 system.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure
Prognostic factors in seminomas with special respect to HCG: Results of a prospective multicenter study
Objective: In a prospective multicenter trial, it was our intention to elucidate clinical prognostic factors of seminomas with special reference to the importance of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) elevations in histologically pure seminomas. Methods: Together with 96 participating urological departments in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, we recruited 803 seminoma patients between 1986 and 1991. Out of 726 evaluable cases, 378 had elevated, while 348 had normal HCG values in the cubital vein. Histology was reviewed by two reference pathologists. HCG levels were determined in local laboratories and in a study laboratory. Standard therapy was defined as radiotherapy in stages I (30 Gy) and IIA/B (36 Gy) to the paraaortal and the ispilateral (stage I) and bilateral (stage IIA/B) iliac lymph nodes; higher stages received polychemotherapy and surgery in case of residual tumor masses. Statistics included chi-square tests, linear Cox regression, and log-rank test. Results: The HCG elevation is associated with a larger tumor mass (primary tumor and/or metastases). HCG-positive and HCG-negative seminomas had no different prognostic outcome after standard therapy. The overall relapse rate of 6% and the survival rate of 98% after 36 months (median) indicate an excellent prognosis. The calculation of the relative risk of developing a relapse discovered only stage of the disease and elevation of the lactate dehydrogenase concentration and its prolonged marker decay as independent prognostic factors for seminomas. A more detailed analysis of the prognostic significance of the stage revealed that the high relapse rate in stage IIB seminomas after radiotherapy (24%) is responsible for this result. Conclusions: We conclude that HCG-positive seminomas do not represent a special entity. Provided standard therapy is applied, HCG has no influence on the prognosis. Patients with stage IIB disease should be treated with chemotherapy because of the demonstrated higher relapse rate outside the retroperitoneum. Copyright (C) 1999 S. Karger AG. Basel
Structural properties and anisotropic electronic transport in SrIrO3 films
Perovskite SrIrO3 (SIO) films epitaxially deposited with a thickness of about
60 nm on various substrate materials display nearly strain-relieved state.
Films grown on orthorhombic (110) DyScO3 (DSO) are found to display untwinned
bulk-like orthorhombic structure. However, film deposition on cubic (001)
SrTiO3 induces a twinned growth of SIO. Resistance measurements on the SIO
films reveal only weak temperature dependence, where the resistance R increases
with decreasing temperature T. Hall measurements show dominant electron-like
transport throughout the temperature range from 2 K to 300 K. At 2 K, the
electron concentration and resistivity for SIO on STO amount to ne = 1.4*10^20
cm-3 and 1 mohmcm. Interestingly, the film resistance of untwinned SIO on DSO
along the [1-10] and the [001] direction differs by up to 25% indicating
pronounced anisotropic electronic transport. The anisotropy of the resistance
increases with decreasing T and displays a distinct maximum around 86 K. The
specific T-dependence is similar to that of the structural anisotropy
sqrt(a2+b2)/c of bulk SIO. Therefore, anisotropic electronic transport in SIO
is very likely induced by the orthorhombic distortion. Consequently, for
twinned SIO films on STO anisotropy vanishes nearly completely. The
experimental results show that structural changes are very likely responsible
for the observed anisotropic electronic transport. The strong sensitivity of
the electronic transport in SIO films may be explained in terms of the narrow
electron-like bands in SIO caused by spin-orbit-coupling and orthorhombic
distortion
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