Seismogeological Features of the Crust in Romania

The Romanian area consists of old consolidated units of pre-Alpine age (the Moesian, Moldavian and Scythian platforms) and Alpine orogenic units (the Carpathian arc and North-Dobrudjan orogen). General seismogeological peculiarities of the pre-Alpine tectonic units are presented, as well as some structural characteristics of the Transylvanian Basin and the Pannonian Depression. Both shallow and deep seismic reflection/refraction data as well as log information and some potential field data were used for the investigation of the crustal structure. The varibility in the seismogeological pattern and crustal thickness shown by the different tectonic units is due to the differences in structure and lithology as well as to differences in crustal age. Some general characteristics are presented as an overall seismogeological image

The Johnson-Segalman model with a diffusion term in Couette flow

We study the Johnson-Segalman (JS) model as a paradigm for some complex fluids which are observed to phase separate, or ``shear-band'' in flow. We analyze the behavior of this model in cylindrical Couette flow and demonstrate the history dependence inherent in the local JS model. We add a simple gradient term to the stress dynamics and demonstrate how this term breaks the degeneracy of the local model and prescribes a much smaller (discrete, rather than continuous) set of banded steady state solutions. We investigate some of the effects of the curvature of Couette flow on the observable steady state behavior and kinetics, and discuss some of the implications for metastability.Comment: 14 pp, to be published in Journal of Rheolog

A Prospective Observational Study of Antihemophilic Factor (Recombinant) Prophylaxis Related to Physical Activity Levels in Patients with Hemophilia A in the United States (SPACE)

Introduction: High collision-risk physical activity can increase bleeding risk in people with hemophilia A, as can increasing the time between factor VIII (FVIII) administration and physical activity. FVIII prophylaxis may be tailored to planned activities to prevent activity-related bleeding. Aim: To explore the relationship between physical activity levels, FVIII infusion timing, and occurrence of bleeding in patients with severe/moderately severe hemophilia A without FVIII inhibitors receiving antihemophilic factor (recombinant) (rAHF; ADVATE®; Baxalta US Inc., a Takeda company, Lexington, MA, USA). Methods: SPACE was a 6-month, prospective, multicenter, observational outcomes study (NCT02190149). Enrolled patients received an eDiary application and a wearable activity tracker, which recorded physical activity, rAHF infusion, and occurrence of bleeding. Physical activity risks were ranked using National Hemophilia Foundation criteria. Results: Fifty-four patients aged 11– 58 years (n = 47 prophylaxis, n = 7 on-demand) were included in the analysis. Patients had a mean (SD) 8.14 (10.94) annualized bleeding rate, and recorded 4980 intervals between an rAHF infusion and physical activity; 1759 (35.3%) of these intervals were ≤ 24 hours. Analysis of recorded eDiary data showed that the risk of activity-related bleeding did not significantly increase with time between last infusion and activity, but did increase with higher-risk physical activities. Analysis of activity tracker recorded data showed that the risk of bleeding reported by patients as spontaneous increased with prolonging time (≤ 24 to \u3e 24 hours) from last infusion to physical activity start (odds ratio 2.65, p \u3c 0.05). Joint health data collected at baseline were not included in the regression analysis because of small sample size; therefore the study could not assess whether patients with more joint disease at baseline were at higher risk of injury-related and reported spontaneous occurrence of bleeding. Conclusion: These results show that activities with a high risk of collision lead to an increased risk of bleeding. Further investigation is warranted to explore potential benefits of FVIII infusion timing to reduce the risks of activity-related occurrence of bleeding

Room-temperature measurement of electrostatically coupled, dopant-atom double quantum dots in point-contact transistors

The reduction of nanoelectronic devices to sub-10 nm sizes raises the prospect of electronics at the atomic scale, while also facilitating studies on nanoscale device physics. Single-atom transistors, where the current-switching element is formed by one atom and the information packet size is reduced to one electron, can create electronic switches scaled to their ultimate physical limits. Hitherto, single-atom transistor operation has been limited to low temperatures due to shallow quantum wells, which inhibit room-temperature nanoelectronic applications. Furthermore, the interaction between multiple single-atom elements at room temperature has yet to be demonstrated. Here, we show that quantum interactions between P dopants in Si / Si O 2 / Si single-atom transistors lead to room-temperature double quantum dot behavior. Hexagonal regions of charge stability and gate-controlled tunnel coupling between P atoms are observed at room temperature. Image processing is used to help reduce observer bias in data analysis. Single-electron device simulation is used to investigate evolution of the charge-stability region with varying capacitance and resistance. In combination with extracted tunnel capacitances and resistances, this allows experimental trends to be reproduced and provides information on the dopant-atom arrangement

Shear-banding in a lyotropic lamellar phase, Part 1: Time-averaged velocity profiles

Using velocity profile measurements based on dynamic light scattering and coupled to structural and rheological measurements in a Couette cell, we present evidences for a shear-banding scenario in the shear flow of the onion texture of a lyotropic lamellar phase. Time-averaged measurements clearly show the presence of structural shear-banding in the vicinity of a shear-induced transition, associated to the nucleation and growth of a highly sheared band in the flow. Our experiments also reveal the presence of slip at the walls of the Couette cell. Using a simple mechanical approach, we demonstrate that our data confirms the classical assumption of the shear-banding picture, in which the interface between bands lies at a given stress $\sigma^\star$. We also outline the presence of large temporal fluctuations of the flow field, which are the subject of the second part of this paper [Salmon {\it et al.}, submitted to Phys. Rev. E]

Challenges in QCD matter physics - The Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment at FAIR

Substantial experimental and theoretical efforts worldwide are devoted to explore the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter. At LHC and top RHIC energies, QCD matter is studied at very high temperatures and nearly vanishing net-baryon densities. There is evidence that a Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) was created at experiments at RHIC and LHC. The transition from the QGP back to the hadron gas is found to be a smooth cross over. For larger net-baryon densities and lower temperatures, it is expected that the QCD phase diagram exhibits a rich structure, such as a first-order phase transition between hadronic and partonic matter which terminates in a critical point, or exotic phases like quarkyonic matter. The discovery of these landmarks would be a breakthrough in our understanding of the strong interaction and is therefore in the focus of various high-energy heavy-ion research programs. The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at FAIR will play a unique role in the exploration of the QCD phase diagram in the region of high net-baryon densities, because it is designed to run at unprecedented interaction rates. High-rate operation is the key prerequisite for high-precision measurements of multi-differential observables and of rare diagnostic probes which are sensitive to the dense phase of the nuclear fireball. The goal of the CBM experiment at SIS100 (sqrt(s_NN) = 2.7 - 4.9 GeV) is to discover fundamental properties of QCD matter: the phase structure at large baryon-chemical potentials (mu_B > 500 MeV), effects of chiral symmetry, and the equation-of-state at high density as it is expected to occur in the core of neutron stars. In this article, we review the motivation for and the physics programme of CBM, including activities before the start of data taking in 2022, in the context of the worldwide efforts to explore high-density QCD matter.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures. Published in European Physical Journal