Observation of coasting beam at the HERA Proton--Ring

We present data collected with the HERA-B wire target which prove the existence of coasting beam at the HERA proton storage ring. The coasting beam is inherently produced by the proton machine operation and is not dominated by target effects.Comment: 17 pages (Latex), 12 figures (Enc. Postscript

Predominance of exotic and introduced species among sturgeons captured from the Baltic and North Seas and their watersheds, 1981-1999

Sturgeon catches (n = 256) from 1981-1999 reported mainly by commercial fishermen and anglers in German, Polish, and Dutch coastal waters and tributaries were analysed. During the study period, 20 % of catches were reported from coastal waters and 65 % from rivers and estuaries of large river systems, including the Odra, Elbe, Rhine and Weser. The data indicate that, from 1981- 1993, there was a major decline in the Atlantic sturgeon Acipenser sturio L., 1758, and an increase in the total catches of non-indigenous sturgeon species. The Siberian sturgeon Acipenser baerii Brandt, 1869, the Russian sturgeon Acipenser gueldenstaedtii Brandt & Ratzeberg, 1833, and various hybrids dominated. Occasional catches of the white sturgeon Acipenser transmontanus Richardson, 1836 and the sterlet Acipenser ruthenus L., 1758 were also reported. During the study period, significant changes in species composition and distribution of catches were observed. The predominance of non-indigenous sturgeon species is a result of the increasingly intensive sturgeon aquaculture activities in Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands. The most frequently reared species now dominate the catches. In addition to these escapees from fish farms, several intentional releases of sturgeons were reported. The results show that introduced exotic sturgeon species may thrive under certain natural conditions. Therefore, they may interfere with restoration efforts for the native A. sturio, competing for habitat and introducing diseases and hybridization.Se analizaron las capturas de esturiones (n = 256) entre 1981 y 1999 proporcionadas principalmente por pescadores profesionales y deportivos en las costas alemanas, polacas y holandesas, y en los sistemas fluviales que desembocan en ellas. En el periodo de estudio, el 20 % de las capturas correspondió a aguas litorales y el 65 % a ríos y estuarios de los grandes sistemas fluviales, incluidos los ríos Oder, Elba, Rin y Weser. Los datos indican que entre 1981 y 1993 tuvo lugar el mayor declive del esturión atlántico Acipenser sturio L., 1758 y un incremento en las capturas totales de las especies alóctonas de esturiones. Predominaron las capturas de esturión siberiano Acipenser baerii Brandt, 1869, esturión ruso Acipenser gueldenstaedtii Brandt & Ratzeberg, 1833 y varios híbridos. También se registraron capturas ocasionales de esturión blanco Acipenser transmontanus Richardson, 1836 y esterlete Acipenser ruthenus L., 1758. En el periodo de estudio se observaron cambios significativos en la composición de especies y en la distribución de las capturas. El predominio de las especies alóctonas de esturiones es el resultado de las crecientes actividades en la acuicultura intensiva de esturión en Alemania, Polonia y Países Bajos. Las especies cultivadas más frecuentemente dominan ahora las capturas. Además de estas fugas de las piscifactorías, se han registrado varias sueltas intencionadas. Los resultados muestran que las especies de esturiones exóticas introducidas pueden prosperar en ciertas condiciones naturales. Por esta razón, pueden interferir en los esfuerzos de restauración de la especie autóctona A. sturio, compitiendo por el hábitat e introduciendo enfermedades e hibridación.Instituto Español de Oceanografí

Thin film dynamics with surfactant phase transition

A thin liquid film covered with an insoluble surfactant in the vicinity of a first-order phase transition is discussed. Within the lubrication approximation we derive two coupled equations to describe the height profile of the film and the surfactant density. Thermodynamics of the surfactant is incorporated via a Cahn-Hilliard type free-energy functional which can be chosen to describe a transition between two stable phases of different surfactant density. Within this model, a linear stability analysis of stationary homogeneous solutions is performed, and drop formation in a film covered with surfactant in the lower density phase is investigated numerically in one and two spatial dimensions

Patient Reported vs Claims Based Measures of Health for Modeling Life Expectancy in Men with Prostate Cancer

PURPOSE: Life expectancy has become a core consideration in prostate cancer care. While multiple prediction tools exist to support decision making, their discriminative ability remains modest, which hampers usage and utility. We examined whether combining patient reported and claims based health measures into prediction models improves performance. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results)-CAHPS (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) we identified men 65 years old or older diagnosed with prostate cancer from 2004 to 2013 and extracted 4 types of data, including demographics, cancer information, claims based health measures and patient reported health measures. Next, we compared the performance of 5 nested competing risk regression models for other cause mortality. Additionally, we assessed whether adding new health measures to established prediction models improved discriminative ability. RESULTS: Among 3,240 cases 246 (7.6%) died of prostate cancer while 631 (19.5%) died of other causes. The National Cancer Institute Comorbidity Index score was associated but weakly correlated with patient reported overall health (p <0.001, r=0.21). For predicting other cause mortality the 10-year area under the receiver operating characteristic curve improved from 0.721 (demographics only) to 0.755 with cancer information and to 0.777 and 0.812 when adding claims based and patient reported health measures, respectively. The full model generated the highest value of 0.820. Models based on existing tools also improved in their performance with the incorporation of new data types as predictor variables (p <0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Prediction models for life expectancy that combine patient reported and claims based health measures outperform models that incorporate these measures separately. However, given the modest degree of improvement, the implementation of life expectancy tools should balance model performance with data availability and fidelity

Continuation for thin film hydrodynamics and related scalar problems

This chapter illustrates how to apply continuation techniques in the analysis of a particular class of nonlinear kinetic equations that describe the time evolution through transport equations for a single scalar field like a densities or interface profiles of various types. We first systematically introduce these equations as gradient dynamics combining mass-conserving and nonmass-conserving fluxes followed by a discussion of nonvariational amendmends and a brief introduction to their analysis by numerical continuation. The approach is first applied to a number of common examples of variational equations, namely, Allen-Cahn- and Cahn-Hilliard-type equations including certain thin-film equations for partially wetting liquids on homogeneous and heterogeneous substrates as well as Swift-Hohenberg and Phase-Field-Crystal equations. Second we consider nonvariational examples as the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, convective Allen-Cahn and Cahn-Hilliard equations and thin-film equations describing stationary sliding drops and a transversal front instability in a dip-coating. Through the different examples we illustrate how to employ the numerical tools provided by the packages auto07p and pde2path to determine steady, stationary and time-periodic solutions in one and two dimensions and the resulting bifurcation diagrams. The incorporation of boundary conditions and integral side conditions is also discussed as well as problem-specific implementation issues

Inclusive V0V^0 Production Cross Sections from 920 GeV Fixed Target Proton-Nucleus Collisions

Inclusive differential cross sections $d\sigma_{pA}/dx_F$ and $d\sigma_{pA}/dp_t^2$ for the production of \kzeros, \lambdazero, and \antilambda particles are measured at HERA in proton-induced reactions on C, Al, Ti, and W targets. The incident beam energy is 920 GeV, corresponding to $\sqrt {s} = 41.6$ GeV in the proton-nucleon system. The ratios of differential cross sections \rklpa and \rllpa are measured to be $6.2\pm 0.5$ and $0.66\pm 0.07$, respectively, for \xf $\approx-0.06$. No significant dependence upon the target material is observed. Within errors, the slopes of the transverse momentum distributions $d\sigma_{pA}/dp_t^2$ also show no significant dependence upon the target material. The dependence of the extrapolated total cross sections $\sigma_{pA}$ on the atomic mass $A$ of the target material is discussed, and the deduced cross sections per nucleon $\sigma_{pN}$ are compared with results obtained at other energies.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, 5 table

The QCD transition temperature: results with physical masses in the continuum limit II.

We extend our previous study [Phys. Lett. B643 (2006) 46] of the cross-over temperatures (T_c) of QCD. We improve our zero temperature analysis by using physical quark masses and finer lattices. In addition to the kaon decay constant used for scale setting we determine four quantities (masses of the \Omega baryon, K^*(892) and \phi(1020) mesons and the pion decay constant) which are found to agree with experiment. This implies that --independently of which of these quantities is used to set the overall scale-- the same results are obtained within a few percent. At finite temperature we use finer lattices down to a <= 0.1 fm (N_t=12 and N_t=16 at one point). Our new results confirm completely our previous findings. We compare the results with those of the 'hotQCD' collaboration.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, 3 table

Bestimmung der Wechselwirkungsrate des HERA-B Targets und Untersuchung des Coasting Beam am HERA Protonen-Ring

To reach a first significant measurement of CP-violation in the B-meson system, the internal HERA-B target has to produce an interaction rate up to 40 MHz. Besides the requirements to the target itself, this leads also to requirements to the quality of a proton fill inside the HERA proton ring. To realize wether the internal HERA-B target is able to produce the required interaction rate, the precise measurement of the interaction rate is of basic interest. This thesis will focus on a method that is used since the running period in 1996 to determine the interaction rate of the wire targets by the use of counting rates of a system of scintillator counters. The efficiency of the HERA-B experiment is restricted by interactions of protons with the wire targets that are not correlated with the timed filled proton bunches. The source is a direct current component inside the HERA proton ring that is observed within every proton fill. This thesis will also focus on the determination of the time structure of the target interactions on the temporal level of the individual bunches. Therewith the characteristics of the protons generating the direct current are determined and quantified on the basis of different measurements. The purpose is to deepen the understanding for the basic physic processes of longitudinal beam dynamics that form the direct current called 'coasting beam'. (orig.)Available from TIB Hannover: RR 8919(2000-036) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman