Test of Chemical freeze-out at RHIC

We present the results of a systematic test applying statistical thermal model fits in a consistent way for different particle ratios, and different system sizes using the various particle yields measured in the STAR experiment. Comparison between central and peripheral Au+Au and Cu+Cu collisions with data from p+p collisions provides an interesting tool to verify the dependence with the system size. We also present a study of the rapidity dependence of the thermal fit parameters using available data from RHIC in the forward rapidity regions and also using different parameterization for the rapidity distribution of different particles.Comment: SQM2008 conference proceeding

Tidal effects and the Proximity decay of nuclei

We examine the decay of the 3.03 MeV state of $^8$Be evaporated from an excited projectile-like fragment following a peripheral heavy-ion collision. The relative energy of the daughter $\alpha$ particles exhibits a dependence on the decay angle of the $^8$Be$^*$, indicative of a tidal effect. Comparison of the measured tidal effect with a purely Coulomb model suggests the influence of a measurable nuclear proximity interaction.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

The Overlooked Potential of Generalized Linear Models in Astronomy - I: Binomial Regression

Revealing hidden patterns in astronomical data is often the path to fundamental scientific breakthroughs; meanwhile the complexity of scientific inquiry increases as more subtle relationships are sought. Contemporary data analysis problems often elude the capabilities of classical statistical techniques, suggesting the use of cutting edge statistical methods. In this light, astronomers have overlooked a whole family of statistical techniques for exploratory data analysis and robust regression, the so-called Generalized Linear Models (GLMs). In this paper -- the first in a series aimed at illustrating the power of these methods in astronomical applications -- we elucidate the potential of a particular class of GLMs for handling binary/binomial data, the so-called logit and probit regression techniques, from both a maximum likelihood and a Bayesian perspective. As a case in point, we present the use of these GLMs to explore the conditions of star formation activity and metal enrichment in primordial minihaloes from cosmological hydro-simulations including detailed chemistry, gas physics, and stellar feedback. We predict that for a dark mini-halo with metallicity $\approx 1.3 \times 10^{-4} Z_{\bigodot}$, an increase of $1.2 \times 10^{-2}$ in the gas molecular fraction, increases the probability of star formation occurrence by a factor of 75%. Finally, we highlight the use of receiver operating characteristic curves as a diagnostic for binary classifiers, and ultimately we use these to demonstrate the competitive predictive performance of GLMs against the popular technique of artificial neural networks.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Computin

Trichogramma spp. (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) associados a ovos de Helicoverpa zea (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) em milho no Estado de São Paulo.

Autoria: QUERINO [i.e. SILVA], R. B. Q. da. RANYSE BARBOSA QUERINO DA SILV

Evaluation of Tropical and Subtropical Forage Grasses in the Northwest Region of Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil

A collection of 137 accessions of tropical and subtropical grasses of Pennisetum purpureum (53), Panicum maximum (10), Brachiaria spp. (9), Hemarthria altissima (19), Setaria spp. (11), Digitaria spp. (22), Cynodon spp.(7) and Paspalum spp. (6) was evaluated for frost tolerance (FT), dry matter yield per cut (DMYC), number of cuts (NC) and accumulated dry matter yield per year (ADMY). Crude protein content (CPC), leaf/stem ratio (L/S), pubescence (P) and animal preference under grazing (AP) were also recorded in 20 entries of in P. purpureum. Data exploration involved cluster analysis and ordination, revealing the most promising entries among and within genus. In general ADMY and FT were the most important variables to discriminate entries. Pennisetum, Panicum and Hemarthria were the most productive genus with high FT. Cynodon and Paspalum showed high FT

Polarization and Strong Infra-Red Activity in Compressed Solid Hydrogen

Under a pressure of ~150 GPa solid molecular hydrogen undergoes a phase transition accompanied by a dramatic rise in infra-red absorption in the vibron frequency range. We use the Berry's phase approach to calculate the electric polarization in several candidate structures finding large, anisotropic dynamic charges and strongly IR-active vibron modes. The polarization is shown to be greatly affected by the overlap between the molecules in the crystal, so that the commonly used Clausius-Mossotti description in terms of polarizable, non-overlapping molecular charge densities is inadequate already at low pressures and even more so for the compressed solid.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. Let

EVALUATION OF ACCIDENTS WITH DOMINO EFFECT IN LPG STORAGE AREAS

The term domino effect denotes a chain of accidents, or situations, in which a fire/explosion load generated by an accident in one unit in an industry causes secondary and higher order accidents in other units. Such chains of accidents have a greater propensity to cause damage than stand-alone accidents. Most of the past risk assessment studies deal with accident in a single industry, more so in one of the units of an industry. But, often, accident in one unit causes a secondary accident in a nearby unit, which in turn may trigger a tertiary accident, and so on. The probability of occurrence and adverse impacts of such domino or cascading effects are increasing due to increasing congestion in industrial complexes and increasing density of human population around such complexes. Accidents with domino effect are seldom studied. LPG storage areas could produce the worst possible consequences in the event of an unforeseen incident. This work illustrates the application of models to evaluate the impacts of events with fire and explosion in LPG tanks on other similar units in the park and the possibility of occurrence of a domino effect. The criteria for occurrence of accidents with domino effect adopted in this work were 37.5 kW/m2 in case of fire radiation and an overpressure of 0.7 atm in explosion cases in a receptor body. The spacing between LPG tanks was evaluated. The results show that such spacing is minimal and does not represent, as it should, a parameter indicating a safe distance able to prevent the propagation of an accident with domino effect

Local mapping of dissipative vortex motion

We explore, with unprecedented single vortex resolution, the dissipation and motion of vortices in a superconducting ribbon under the influence of an external alternating magnetic field. This is achieved by combing the phase sensitive character of ac-susceptibility, allowing to distinguish between the inductive-and dissipative response, with the local power of scanning Hall probe microscopy. Whereas the induced reversible screening currents contribute only inductively, the vortices do leave a fingerprint in the out-of-phase component. The observed large phase-lag demonstrates the dissipation of vortices at timescales comparable to the period of the driving force (i.e. 13 ms). These results indicate the presence of slow microscopic loss mechanisms mediated by thermally activated hopping transport of vortices between metastable states.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure