Properties of excited BcB_c states in QCD

The mass and leptonic decay constants of recently observed two new excited $B_c$ states at LHC are studied within the QCD sum rules. Considering the contributions of the ground and radially excited states, the mass and residues of the excited states of pseudoscalar and vector mesons are calculated in the framework of two different approaches of the QCD sum rules, namely, linear combinations of the corresponding sum rules and its derivatives as well as QCD sum rules with the incorporation of the least square fitting method. The obtained results on mass $m_{B_c^+}(2S) = 6.88 \pm 0.03~\rm{GeV}$ and $m_{B_c^{*+}}(2S) = 6.94 \pm 0.03~\rm{GeV}$ are in good agreement with the experimental data. Our predictions for the decay constants of these states are: $f_{B_c^+}(2S) = 0.42 \pm 0.02~\rm{GeV}$ and $f_{B_c^{*+}}(2S) = 0.46 \pm 0.01~\rm{GeV}$, which can be checked at future experiments to be conducted at the LHC. Comparison of our results with the predictions of the other approaches on mass and residues is also presented.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures Misprints are corrected and reference list has been update

Mathematical tools for identifying the fetal response to physical exercise during pregnancy

In the applied mathematics literature there exist a significant number of tools that can reveal the interaction between mother and fetus during rest and also during and after exercise. These tools are based on techniques from a number of areas such as signal processing, time series analysis, neural networks, heart rate variability as well as dynamical systems and chaos. We will briefly review here some of these methods, concentrating on a method of extracting the fetal heart rate from the mixed maternal-fetal heart rate signal, that is based on phase space reconstructio

Acute maternal exercise during the third trimester of pregnancy, influence on foetal heart rate = Ejercicio físico durante el tercer trimestre de embarazo, influencia en la frecuencia cardiaca fetal

A substantial amount of research has investigated the influence of physical exercise during pregnancy on certain maternal and foetal parameters. Regarding the behaviour of the foetal heart rate (FHR) during the maternal exercise certain controversy exists; as several investigations have studied this parameter obtaining varied results. To test the hypotheses that the foetal heart rate (FHR) increases during maternal exercise, performed on a static bicycle during the third trimester. To know if the magnitude of the increase is related to gestational age or parity. This research involved a collaboration with the Gynaecology and Obstetrics Service of “Severo Ochoa” Hospital (Madrid) and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). The approval of the Committee of Investigation as well as of the Ethical Commission of the Hospital was obtained. Twenty healthy pregnant women have been studied, in the last trimester. No women showed any medical complications in their pregnancy or contraindications for the practice of physical exercise. Informed consent was obtained. The exercise protocol consisted in the first part (rest), followed by a session of 20 minutes of moderate work (static bicycle exercise) and then rest until the FHR returned to the pre-exercise levels. Data for the evaluation of the FHR was obtained using an Electronic Foetal Monitor, Philips FM 20; and an Accurex Plus, Polar Electro OY was used for the control of the maternal heart rate. The clinical history of the pregnant women provided data about medical and personal factors. For the statistical analysis, Pearson correlation and Student’s t test for unpaired data were used. Our results show increases (11 - 36 beats/min, mean= 24 beats/min) of the FHR in all the studied cases. The gestational age shows no correlation with increments of FHR (Pearson 0.06) and there are larger increments of FHR in secundigravid (mean=152 ± 6.0 beats/min) than in primigravid (mean=147 ± 4.6 beats/min). Maternal aerobic and moderate exercise developing during last trimester increments FHR without harmful effects. These increments do not depend on the maternal age. Parity has influence on the level of increments of the FHR. Una cantidad importante de investigaciones han valorado la influencia del ejercicio físico durante el embarazo en ciertos parámetros fetales. En relación al comportamiento de la frecuencia cardiaca fetal (FCF) durante la realización del ejercicio existe cierta controversia, muchas investigaciones han estudiado este parámetro con resultados variados. El objetivo de este estudio fue comprobar la hipótesis de un aumento de la FCF durante la realización de ejercicio en bicicleta estática en el tercer trimestre de embarazo. También conocer si esos aumentos se relacionan con la edad gestacional o la paridad de la gestante. Este estudio se ha desarrollado mediante una colaboración entre el Servicio de Ginecología y Obstetricia del Hospital Severo Ochoa de Leganés y la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Se obtuvo la aprobación del Comité de Investigación así como de la Comisión Ética. Fueron estudiadas 20 gestantes en el último trimestre, sin complicaciones ni contraindicaciones médicas para el ejercicio, cada mujer firmó un consentimiento informado. El protocolo de ejercicio consistió en una primera parte de reposo, una sesión de 20 minutos de trabajo moderado en bicicleta estática y el reposo final con retorno a los niveles normales de FCF. Los datos correspondientes a la FCF se obtuvieron por medio de un Monitor Fetal Electrónico Philips FM 20, y un pulsómetro Accurex Plus, Polar Electro OY, fue usado para el control de la frecuencia cardiaca materna. La historia clínica de cada gestante aportó datos relativos a características médicas y personales. Para el análisis estadístico se utilizaron mecanismos descriptivos, el índice de correlación de Pearson y la t de Student para comparación de medias. Nuestros resultados muestran aumentos de la FCF de 11-36 lat/min (media de 24 lat/min). Los días de gestación no presentaron una correlación positiva con el nivel de los incrementos (Pearson 0.06). Hubo mayores aumentos en gestantes secundigrávidas (media=152 ± 6.0 lat/min) que en primigrávidas (media=147 ± 4.6 lat/min). El ejercicio aeróbico y moderado materno desarrollado durante el tercer trimestre de embarazo incrementa la FCF sin efectos perjudiciales. Los aumentos no dependen de la edad gestacional de la madre. La paridad de la gestante tiene influencia en el nivel de los incrementos

What do we mean by school entry age? Conceptual ambiguity and its implications: the example of Indonesia

The age pattern of school entry reflects a complex social and empirical reality that is inadequately captured by a single number. Recognising these complexities in national and international research and policy discourse raises important but neglected questions around the identification of vulnerable groups, the relative value of pre-primary and primary education, as well as the normative powers and responsibilities of governments vis-à-vis parents, and the international educational community vis-à-vis both. This is illustrated by the example of Indonesia, where the official age norm for primary school entry is widely disregarded in practice, with a majority of children starting school one or even two years earlier. Crucially, it is the compliant children entering at the statutory age who tend to be from more disadvantaged households, and enjoy no benefit in educational outcomes from their greater maturity

An image-based approach to interactive crease extraction and rendering

AbstractRidge and valley manifolds are receiving a growing attention in visualization research due to their ability to reveal the shapes of salient structures in numerical datasets across scientific, engineering, and medical applications. However, the methods proposed to date for their extraction in the visualization and image analysis literature are computationally expensive and typically applied in an offline setting. This setup does not properly support a userdriven exploration, which often requires control over various parameters tuned to filter false positives and spurious artifacts and highlight the most significant structures. This paper presents a GPU-based adaptive technique for crease extraction and visualization across scales. Our method combines a scale-space analysis of the data in pre-processing with a ray casting approach supporting a robust and efficient one-dimensional numerical search, and an image-based rendering strategy. This general framework achieves high-quality crease surface representations at interactive frame rates. Results are proposed for analytical, medical, and computational datasets

Exact solutions for vibrational levels of the Morse potential via the asymptotic iteration method

Exact solutions for vibrational levels of diatomic molecules via the Morse potential are obtained by means of the asymptotic iteration method. It is shown that, the numerical results for the energy eigenvalues of $^{7}Li_{2}$ are all in excellent agreement with the ones obtained before. Without any loss of generality, other states and molecules could be treated in a similar way

The challenge of balance (1996)

"3/96/3M.""Stress management. ""Information from Human Environmental Sciences Extension.

Women and Entrepreneurship in the Contemporary Middle East

The purpose of this paper is to assess the nature of relative female entrepreneurship in the contemporary Middle East, using data from the seven Middle Eastern countries that participated in the GEM Consortium in 2016 (GEM Global Report, 2016). This data will show that while some of these countries are approaching parity in terms of gender shares in new business start-up’s, in others the rate of female early stage entrepreneurship is a half or even less of the rate for males. Interestingly it is the richer Middle Eastern countries that are closest to parity, even though this includes some of the traditionally more conservative and patriarchal Gulf countries. There are important lessons for the development of policy here – some countries are foregoing substantial opportunities to increase the pool of new female-owned businesses and their subsequent economic development impacts. The data analysis will include statistical tests for significant differences between countries, and will introduce a new methodology for comparing the ratios of sample proportions. The literature on entrepreneurship evidences a continuing debate on the nature of female early-stage entrepreneurial activity, and whether female owned and run businesses grow more slowly and are less profitable than male owned businesses, (see for example Minniti and Naude 2010 & 2011). While GEM data says little about the actual performance of new businesses, that performance may be closely related to the plans and expectations of the entrepreneur, an area that is specifically addressed by GEM. Hence this paper will assess differences in attitudes and expectations by gender, including job creation and international orientation, as well as differences in opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship. The paper will conclude with some lessons for policy development

Changing Patterns of Entrepreneurship in Lebanon

Despite some significant enterprise initiatives, relatively little is known about the level, pattern and distribution of entrepreneurship in Lebanon. Whilst Lebanon is typically regarded as entrepreneurial, and there is no shortage of Lebanese role models, there is a shortage of hard evidence about who are the entrepreneurs, and how the level of entrepreneurship varies by gender, across age groups, by level of educational attainment and by location. This paper will address these issues head-on, providing comprehensive survey data on the pattern of entrepreneurship across Lebanon and how that pattern is changing over time. However the paper will go beyond simply describing the level of entrepreneurship – it will also offer some evidence-based conjecture as to why that pattern is changing, and how policies may be adapted to encourage further growth. The research instrument for this evidence is the annual GEM survey of 2000+ adults in Lebanon, asking about their entrepreneurial activities, as well as their perceptions and demographics. In the past decade, Lebanon has participated in GEM in three years, (2009, 2015 & 2016), allowing patterns and trends to be established. The level of total early stage entrepreneurial activity, (TEA, or those actively starting or running a new business), increased from 15% in 2009 to 30% in 2015, before falling to 21% in 2016. However these averages are very blunt measures, which the detail of GEM allows to be unpicked. There are reasons to expect the level of TEA to have increased fastest in young people, given the emphasis on enterprise education and growth in entrepreneurial finance for hi-technology start-ups. There is some evidence for this – between 2009 and 2015, TEA for 18-24 year olds increased from 10% to 27%, before falling to 19% in 2016 – still almost twice the level of 2009. However, TEA for 45-54 year olds almost trebled between 2009 and 2015, (from 11% to 31%), before falling to 15% in 2016. In 2009, 45-54 year olds had been more entrepreneurial than 18-24 year olds. By 2016 this had reversed, with the younger age group being almost a third more likely to be starting or running a new business than the older age group. This paper will explore a number of key relationships with entrepreneurship, testing changes for their statistical significance and using results to develop evidence-based recommendations for the development of early-stage entrepreneurship in Lebanon