2,842 research outputs found
K-T impact(s): Continental, oceanic or both
Although geochemical and mineralogical evidence indicate that a major accretionary event occurred at the K-T boundary, no impact crater of suitable size and age was recognized. The 35 km Manson Structure, Iowa, was suggested recently as a possibility and Ar-40/Ar-39 determinations indicate that its formation age is indistinguishable from that of the K-T boundary. In order to test a possible association between Manson and the K-T boundary clay, the geochemistry and mineralogy of the K-T boundary clays at the Scollard Canyon section, Alberta and the Starkville South section, Colorado are compared with three dominant lithologies affected by the Manson impact: Proterozoic red clastics, underlying late-state granites, and gneisses. The chemical and mineralogical makeup of the Scollard Canyon boundary clay and its clastic constituents are presented, commenting on the implications for impact models. An impact into crystalline material of continental affinity appears to be required to explain the mineralogy and chemistry of the Scollard Canyon (and other Western N. American K-T sections). The low REE abundances of some K-T boundary layers are unusual but perhaps attempts should be made to understand the contributions of individual crustal components (e.g., carbonates, arkoses) as well as the potential for alteration involving these and other elements during and after impact-induced vaporization, before mantle excavation is invoked. If further studies confirm the results of published studies of marine boundary clays that indicate an oceanic target, attention must be paid to the possibility that multiple impacts occurred at the K-T boundary - one or more on the continents and one or more in the ocean
Weak-localization and rectification current in non-diffusive quantum wires
We show that electron transport in disordered quantum wires can be described
by a modified Cooperon equation, which coincides in form with the Dirac
equation for the massive fermions in a 1+1 dimensional system. In this new
formalism, we calculate the DC electric current induced by electromagnetic
fields in quasi-one-dimensional rings. This current changes sign, from
diamagnetic to paramagnetic, depending on the amplitude and frequency of the
time-dependent external electromagnetic field.Comment: changed title, added more detail, to appear in J. Phys.: Condens.
Matte
Ongoing Gas Stripping in the Virgo Cluster Spiral NGC 4522
The Virgo cluster galaxy NGC 4522 is one of the best spiral candidates for
ICM-ISM stripping in action. Optical broadband and H-alpha images from the WIYN
telescope of the highly inclined galaxy reveal a relatively undisturbed stellar
disk and a peculiar distribution of H-alpha emission. Ten percent of the
H-alpha emission arises from extraplanar HII regions which appear to lie within
filamentary structures >3 kpc long above one side of the disk. The filaments
emerge from the outer edge of a disk of bright H-alpha emission which is
abruptly truncated beyond 0.35R(25). Together the truncated H-alpha disk and
extraplanar H-alpha filaments are reminiscent of a bow shock morphology, which
strongly suggests that the interstellar medium (ISM) of NGC 4522 is being
stripped by the gas pressure of the intracluster medium (ICM). The galaxy has a
line-of-sight velocity of 1300 km/sec with respect to the mean Virgo cluster
velocity, and thus is expected to experience a strong interaction with the
intracluster gas. The existence of HII regions apparently located above the
disk plane suggests that star formation is occuring in the stripped gas, and
that newly formed stars will enter the galaxy halo and/or intracluster space.
The absence of HII regions in the disk beyond 0.35R(25), and the existence of
HII regions in the stripped gas suggest that even molecular gas has been
effectively removed from the disk of the galaxy.Comment: to appear in The Astronomical Journal, 16 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl
Helicity-Rotation-Gravity Coupling for Gravitational Waves
The consequences of spin-rotation-gravity coupling are worked out for linear
gravitational waves. The coupling of helicity of the wave with the rotation of
a gravitational-wave antenna is investigated and the resulting modifications in
the Doppler effect and aberration are pointed out for incident high-frequency
gravitational radiation. Extending these results to the case of a
gravitomagnetic field via the gravitational Larmor theorem, the rotation of
linear polarization of gravitational radiation propagating in the field of a
rotating mass is studied. It is shown that in this case the linear polarization
state rotates by twice the Skrotskii angle as a consequence of the spin-2
character of linear gravitational waves.Comment: 11 pages, no figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D; v2: a
few minor typos correcte
Casimir force in the presence of a magnetodielectric medium
In this article we investigate the Casimir effect in the presence of a medium
by quantizing the Electromagnetic (EM) field in the presence of a
magnetodielectric medium by using the path integral formalism. For a given
medium with definite electric and magnetic susceptibilities, explicit
expressions for the Casimir force are obtained which are in agree with the
original Casimir force between two conducting parallel plates immersed in the
quantum electromagnetic vacuum.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur
UNSWIRF: A Tunable Imaging Spectrometer for the Near-Infrared
We describe the specifications, characteristics, calibration, and analysis of
data from the University of New South Wales Infrared Fabry-Perot (UNSWIRF)
etalon. UNSWIRF is a near-infrared tunable imaging spectrometer, used primarily
in conjunction with IRIS on the AAT, but suitable for use as a visitor
instrument at other telescopes. The etalon delivers a resolving power in excess
of 4000 (corresponding to a velocity resolution ~75 km/s), and allows imaging
of fields up to 100" in diameter on the AAT at any wavelength between 1.5 and
2.4 microns for which suitable blocking filters are available.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, uses psfig.sty and html.sty (included). To
appear in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australi
Corporal diagnostic work and diagnostic spaces: Clinicians' use of space and bodies during diagnosis
© 2015 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness © 2015 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.An emerging body of literature in sociology has demonstrated that diagnosis is a useful focal point for understanding the social dimensions of health and illness. This article contributes to this work by drawing attention to the relationship between diagnostic spaces and the way in which clinicians use their own bodies during the diagnostic process. As a case study, we draw upon fieldwork conducted with a multidisciplinary clinical team providing deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat children with a movement disorder called dystonia. Interviews were conducted with team members and diagnostic examinations were observed. We illustrate that clinicians use communicative body work and verbal communication to transform a material terrain into diagnostic space, and we illustrate how this diagnostic space configures forms of embodied 'sensing-and-acting' within. We argue that a 'diagnosis' can be conceptualised as emerging from an interaction in which space, the clinician-body, and the patient-body (or body-part) mutually configure one another. By conceptualising diagnosis in this way, this article draws attention to the corporal bases of diagnostic power and counters Cartesian-like accounts of clinical work in which the patient-body is objectified by a disembodied medical discourse.The Wellcome Trust (Wellcome Trust Biomedical Strategic Award 086034
Feather growth rate and mass in nearctic passerines with variablemigratory behavior and molt pattern
Bird species vary greatly in the duration of their annual complete feather molt. However, such variation is not well documented
in birds from many biogeographic areas, which restricts our understanding of the diversification of molt strategies. Recent research has revealed
that molt duration can be estimated in passerines from ptilochronology-based measurements of the growth rate of their tail feathers. We used
this approach to explore how molt duration varied in 98 Nearctic species that have different migratory strategies and molt patterns. As previously
documented for Palearctic species, migration was associated with a shortening of molt duration among species that molted during summer on
their breeding range. However, molts of winter-molting migratory species were as long as those of summer-molting sedentary species, which
suggests that winter molt also allows Nearctic migrants to avoid the temporal constraints experienced during summer. Our results also suggest
that migratory species that undergo a stopover molt within the Mexican monsoon region have the shortest molt duration among all Nearctic
passerines. Interestingly, and contrary to expectations from a potential tradeoff between molt duration and feather quality, observed variation
in feather growth rate was positively correlated with differences in tail feather mass, which may be caused by differences among groups in the
availability of resources for molting. We encourage the use of similar approaches to study the variation in molt duration in other geographic areas
where knowledge of the evolution of molt is limited.
A closed expression for the UV-divergent parts of one-loop tensor integrals in dimensional regularization
Starting from the general definition of a one-loop tensor N-point function,
we use its Feynman parametrization to calculate the UV-divergent part of an
arbitrary tensor coefficient in the framework of dimensional regularization. In
contrast to existing recursion schemes, we are able to present a general
analytic result in closed form that enables direct determination of the
UV-divergent part of any one-loop tensor N-point coefficient independent from
UV-divergent parts of other one-loop tensor N-point coefficients. Simplified
formulas and explicit expressions are presented for A-, B-, C-, D-, E-, and
F-functions.Comment: 19 pages (single column), the result of previous versions is further
evaluated leading to a closed analytic expression for the UV-divergent part
of an arbitrary one-loop tensor coefficient, title is modified accordingly, a
sign error in the appendix (C_{00000000}) has been corrected, a mathematica
notebook containing an implementation of the newly derived formula is
attache
Is Rust Used Safely by Software Developers?
Rust, an emerging programming language with explosive growth, provides a
robust type system that enables programmers to write memory-safe and data-race
free code. To allow access to a machine's hardware and to support low-level
performance optimizations, a second language, Unsafe Rust, is embedded in Rust.
It contains support for operations that are difficult to statically check, such
as C-style pointers for access to arbitrary memory locations and mutable global
variables. When a program uses these features, the compiler is unable to
statically guarantee the safety properties Rust promotes. In this work, we
perform a large-scale empirical study to explore how software developers are
using Unsafe Rust in real-world Rust libraries and applications. Our results
indicate that software engineers use the keyword unsafe in less than 30% of
Rust libraries, but more than half cannot be entirely statically checked by the
Rust compiler because of Unsafe Rust hidden somewhere in a library's call
chain. We conclude that although the use of the keyword unsafe is limited, the
propagation of unsafeness offers a challenge to the claim of Rust as a
memory-safe language. Furthermore, we recommend changes to the Rust compiler
and to the central Rust repository's interface to help Rust software developers
be aware of when their Rust code is unsafe
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