749 research outputs found
Some Aspects of Rotational and Magnetic Energies for a Hierarchy of Celestial Objects
Celestial objects, from earth like planets to clusters of galaxies, possess
angular momentum and magnetic fields. Here we compare the rotational and
magnetic energies of a whole range of these celestial objects together with
their gravitational self energies and find a number of interesting
relationships. The celestial objects, due to their magnetic fields, also posses
magnetic moments. The ratio of magnetic moments of these objects with the
nuclear magnetic moments also exhibits interesting trends. We also compare
their gyromagnetic ratio which appears to fall in a very narrow range for the
entire hierarchy of objects. Here we try to understand the physical aspects
implied by these observations and the origin of these properties in such a wide
range of celestial objects, spanning some twenty orders in mass, magnetic field
and other parameters.Comment: 12 pages, 37 equation
Detection of Solar Rotational Variability in the LYRA 190 - 222 nm Spectral Band
We analyze the variability of the spectral solar irradiance during the period
from 7 January, 2010 until 20 January, 2010 as measured by the Herzberg channel
(190-222 nm) of the Large Yield RAdiometer (LYRA) onboard PROBA2. In this
period of time observations by the LYRA nominal unit experienced degradation
and the signal produced by the Herzberg channel frequently jumped from one
level to another. Both these factors significantly complicates the analysis. We
present the algorithm which allowed us to extract the solar variability from
the LYRA data and compare the results with SORCE/SOLSTICE measurements and with
modeling based on the Code for the Solar Irradiance (COSI)
Eclipses observed by LYRA - a sensitive tool to test the models for the solar irradiance
We analyze the light curves of the recent solar eclipses measured by the
Herzberg channel (200-220 nm) of the Large Yield RAdiometer (LYRA) onboard
PROBA-2. The measurements allow us to accurately retrieve the center- to-limb
variations (CLV) of the solar brightness. The formation height of the radiation
depends on the observing angle so the examination of the CLV provide
information about a broad range of heights in the solar atmosphere. We employ
the 1D NLTE radiative transfer COde for Solar Irradiance (COSI) to model the
measured light curves and corresponding CLV dependencies. The modeling is used
to test and constrain the existing 1D models of the solar atmosphere, e.g. the
temperature structure of the photosphere and the treatment of the pseudo-
continuum opacities in the Herzberg continuum range. We show that COSI can
accurately reproduce not only the irradiance from the entire solar disk, but
also the measured CLV. It hence can be used as a reliable tool for modeling the
variability of the spectral solar irradiance.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, Solar Physic
Origin of Life
The evolution of life has been a big enigma despite rapid advancements in the
fields of biochemistry, astrobiology, and astrophysics in recent years. The
answer to this puzzle has been as mind-boggling as the riddle relating to
evolution of Universe itself. Despite the fact that panspermia has gained
considerable support as a viable explanation for origin of life on the Earth
and elsewhere in the Universe, the issue remains far from a tangible solution.
This paper examines the various prevailing hypotheses regarding origin of life
like abiogenesis, RNA World, Iron-sulphur World, and panspermia; and concludes
that delivery of life-bearing organic molecules by the comets in the early
epoch of the Earth alone possibly was not responsible for kick-starting the
process of evolution of life on our planet.Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures,invited review article, minor additio
Non-Invasive Mouse Models of Post-Traumatic Osteoarthritis
SummaryAnimal models of osteoarthritis (OA) are essential tools for investigating the development of the disease on a more rapid timeline than human OA. Mice are particularly useful due to the plethora of genetically modified or inbred mouse strains available. The majority of available mouse models of OA use a joint injury or other acute insult to initiate joint degeneration, representing post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA). However, no consensus exists on which injury methods are most translatable to human OA. Currently, surgical injury methods are most commonly used for studies of OA in mice; however, these methods may have confounding effects due to the surgical/invasive injury procedure itself, rather than the targeted joint injury. Non-invasive injury methods avoid this complication by mechanically inducing a joint injury externally, without breaking the skin or disrupting the joint. In this regard, non-invasive injury models may be crucial for investigating early adaptive processes initiated at the time of injury, and may be more representative of human OA in which injury is induced mechanically. A small number of non-invasive mouse models of PTOA have been described within the last few years, including intra-articular fracture of tibial subchondral bone, cyclic tibial compression loading of articular cartilage, and anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture via tibial compression overload. This review describes the methods used to induce joint injury in each of these non-invasive models, and presents the findings of studies utilizing these models. Altogether, these non-invasive mouse models represent a unique and important spectrum of animal models for studying different aspects of PTOA
Dark Energy and Gravity
I review the problem of dark energy focusing on the cosmological constant as
the candidate and discuss its implications for the nature of gravity. Part 1
briefly overviews the currently popular `concordance cosmology' and summarises
the evidence for dark energy. It also provides the observational and
theoretical arguments in favour of the cosmological constant as the candidate
and emphasises why no other approach really solves the conceptual problems
usually attributed to the cosmological constant. Part 2 describes some of the
approaches to understand the nature of the cosmological constant and attempts
to extract the key ingredients which must be present in any viable solution. I
argue that (i)the cosmological constant problem cannot be satisfactorily solved
until gravitational action is made invariant under the shift of the matter
lagrangian by a constant and (ii) this cannot happen if the metric is the
dynamical variable. Hence the cosmological constant problem essentially has to
do with our (mis)understanding of the nature of gravity. Part 3 discusses an
alternative perspective on gravity in which the action is explicitly invariant
under the above transformation. Extremizing this action leads to an equation
determining the background geometry which gives Einstein's theory at the lowest
order with Lanczos-Lovelock type corrections. (Condensed abstract).Comment: Invited Review for a special Gen.Rel.Grav. issue on Dark Energy,
edited by G.F.R.Ellis, R.Maartens and H.Nicolai; revtex; 22 pages; 2 figure
Towards Machine Wald
The past century has seen a steady increase in the need of estimating and
predicting complex systems and making (possibly critical) decisions with
limited information. Although computers have made possible the numerical
evaluation of sophisticated statistical models, these models are still designed
\emph{by humans} because there is currently no known recipe or algorithm for
dividing the design of a statistical model into a sequence of arithmetic
operations. Indeed enabling computers to \emph{think} as \emph{humans} have the
ability to do when faced with uncertainty is challenging in several major ways:
(1) Finding optimal statistical models remains to be formulated as a well posed
problem when information on the system of interest is incomplete and comes in
the form of a complex combination of sample data, partial knowledge of
constitutive relations and a limited description of the distribution of input
random variables. (2) The space of admissible scenarios along with the space of
relevant information, assumptions, and/or beliefs, tend to be infinite
dimensional, whereas calculus on a computer is necessarily discrete and finite.
With this purpose, this paper explores the foundations of a rigorous framework
for the scientific computation of optimal statistical estimators/models and
reviews their connections with Decision Theory, Machine Learning, Bayesian
Inference, Stochastic Optimization, Robust Optimization, Optimal Uncertainty
Quantification and Information Based Complexity.Comment: 37 page
Acute biphenotypic leukaemia: immunophenotypic and cytogenetic analysis
The incidence of acute biphenotypic leukaemia has ranged from less than 1% to almost 50% in various reports in the literature. This wide variability may be attributed to a number of reasons including lack of consistent diagnostic criteria, use of various panels of antibodies, and the failure to recognize the lack of lineage specificity of some of the antibodies used. The morphology, cytochemistry, immunophenotype and cytogenetics of acute biphenotypic leukaemias from our institution were studied. The diagnostic criteria took into consideration the morphology of the analysed cells, light scatter characteristics, and evaluation of antibody fluorescence histograms in determining whether the aberrant marker expression was arising from leukaemic blasts or differentiated bone marrow elements. Fifty-two of 746 cases (7%) fulfilled our criteria for acute biphenotypic leukaemias. These included 30 cases of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) expressing myeloid antigens, 21 cases of acute myelogenous leukaemia (AML) expressing lymphoid markers, and one case of ALL expressing both B- and T-cell associated antigens. The acute biphenotypic leukaemia cases consisted of four major immunophenotypic subgroups: CD2± AML (11), CD19± AML (8), CD13 and/or CD33± ALL (24), CD11b± ALL (5) and others (4). Chromosomal analysis was carried out in 42/52 of the acute biphenotypic leukaemia cases; a clonal abnormality was found in 31 of these 42 cases. This study highlights the problems encountered in the diagnosis of acute biphenotypic leukaemia, some of which may be reponsible for the wide variation in the reported incidence of this leukaemia. We suggest that the use of strict, uniform diagnostic criteria may help in establishing a more consistent approach towards diagnosis of this leukaemic entity. We also suggest that biphenotypic leukaemia is comprised of biologically different groups of leukaemia based on immunophenotypic and cytogenetic findings.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73301/1/j.1365-2141.1993.tb03024.x.pd
Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector
A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results
Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC
provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of
lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with
a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the
transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the
anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the
nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of
the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp.
Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in
the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies
smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating
nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and
transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of
inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous
measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables,
submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are
available at
http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02
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