What to learn from dilepton transverse momentum spectra in heavy-ion collisions?

Recently the NA60 collaboration has presented high precision measurements of dimuon spectra double differential in invariant mass $M$ and transverse pair momentum $p_T$ in In-In collisions at $158 {\rm AGeV}$. While the $M$-dependence is important for an understanding of in-medium changes of light vector mesons and is $p_T$ integrated insensitive to collective expansion, the $p_T$-dependence arises from an interplay between emission temperature and collective transverse flow. This fact can be exploited to derive constraints on the evolution model and in particular on the contributions of different phases of the evolution to dimuon radiation into a given $M$ window. We present arguments that a thermalized evolution phase with $T > 170 {\rm MeV}$ leaves its imprint on the spectra.Comment: Contributed to 19th International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions: Quark Matter 2006 (QM 2006), Shanghai, China, 14- 20 Nov 200

\u3ci\u3eTierra y Libertad\u3c/i\u3e: The Social Function Doctrine and Land Reform in Latin America

Latin America has been caught for centuries in a vicious cycle of land consolidation and land reform; the issue perennially resurfaces since concentration of land and associated resources results in conflict.\u27 Latin American nations are among the world\u27s leaders when it comes to the inequality of land distribution. Land reform, or agrarian reform, as it is more commonly referred to in Latin America, is hardly a new phenomenon. As we will show, the need to develop a policy to redress the consolidation of lands by a powerful few and redistribute it in the name of equity and development has its pedigree in Greco-Roman times. In Latin America land reform began in colonial times and has persisted through the present, resisted by elites who benefited from the largesse of the colonial powers. In the colonial era, the land and its resources was all the crown could offer to the conquistadors, colonial elites, and to the church. As a result, the newly independent states immediately entrenched a resistant, wealthy class of latifundistas, or large landed estate holders, setting the stage for a legacy of revolution and attempts at land reform

\u3ci\u3eTierra y Libertad\u3c/i\u3e: The Social Function Doctrine and Land Reform in Latin America

Latin America has been caught for centuries in a vicious cycle of land consolidation and land reform; the issue perennially resurfaces since concentration of land and associated resources results in conflict.\u27 Latin American nations are among the world\u27s leaders when it comes to the inequality of land distribution. Land reform, or agrarian reform, as it is more commonly referred to in Latin America, is hardly a new phenomenon. As we will show, the need to develop a policy to redress the consolidation of lands by a powerful few and redistribute it in the name of equity and development has its pedigree in Greco-Roman times. In Latin America land reform began in colonial times and has persisted through the present, resisted by elites who benefited from the largesse of the colonial powers. In the colonial era, the land and its resources was all the crown could offer to the conquistadors, colonial elites, and to the church. As a result, the newly independent states immediately entrenched a resistant, wealthy class of latifundistas, or large landed estate holders, setting the stage for a legacy of revolution and attempts at land reform

What does the rho-meson do? In-medium mass shift scenarios versus hadronic model calculations

The NA60 experiment has studied low-mass muon pair production in In-In collisions at $158 {\rm AGeV}$ with unprecedented precision. With these results there is hope that the in-medium modifications of the vector meson spectral function can be constrained more thoroughly than before. We investigate in particular what can be learned about collisional broadening by a hot and dense medium and what constrains the experimental results put on in-medium mass shift scenarios. The data show a clear indication of considerable in-medium broadening effects but disfavor mass shift scenarios where the $\rho$-meson mass scales with the square root of the chiral condensate. Scaling scenarios which predict at finite density a dropping of the $\rho$-meson mass that is stronger than that of the quark condensate are clearly ruled out since they are also accompanied by a sharpening of the spectral function.Comment: Proceeding contribution, Talk given by J. Ruppert at Workshop for Young Scientists on the Physics of Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (Hot Quarks 2006), Villasimius, Sardinia, Italy, 15-20 May 2006. To appear in EPJ

Defending the Polygon: The Emerging Human Right to Communal Property

For many peoples in the developing world, homeland security has a meaning very different from its post-September 11 meaning in the United States. In many cases, peoples who have a shared cultural conception of territory within nation-states have begun to adopt the dominant Western property paradigm of land titling to formalize their rights to that territory. Many view this paradigm and the individualization of property rights it facilitates as an inevitable outcome of the inexorable march of social evolution, evidenced by the end of the twentieth century collapse of communism. The Enlightenment era conception of fungible individual property emerged triumphant. Moreover, it has been enshrined in the fundamental human rights charters and domestic constitutions of the twentieth century.\u27 Yet a closer inspection yields a much more nuanced analysis of the nature and forms of property ownership around the world and its treatment within the rights-based framework of humanitarian law. The literature suggests that communally held lands, often referred to as common property, have remained robust and adaptable in the face of the forces of globalization, and continue to persist in even the most developed nations.\u27 This Article begins with a brief review of the literature of common property - an area of intense and interdisciplinary scholarly interest sparked by Garrett Hardin\u27s famous essay, The Tragedy of the Commons. In Part II we briefly review the modem view of common property and its relationship with international development theory. Part III describes the historical development of the three-generational conceptual framework for international human rights law and the right to property within that framework. Part IV discusses key national jurisprudence that has attempted to reverse the colonial legacy of indigenous homeland alienation and the inter-American human rights system

Protein O-Mannosylation in the Murine Brain: Occurrence of Mono-O-Mannosyl Glycans and Identification of New Substrates

Protein O-mannosylation is a post-translational modification essential for correct development of mammals. In humans, deficient O-mannosylation results in severe congenital muscular dystrophies often associated with impaired brain and eye development. Although various O-mannosylated proteins have been identified in the recent years, the distribution of O-mannosyl glycans in the mammalian brain and target proteins are still not well defined. In the present study, rabbit monoclonal antibodies directed against the O-mannosylated peptide YAT(α1-Man)AV were generated. Detailed characterization of clone RKU-1-3-5 revealed that this monoclonal antibody recognizes O-linked mannose also in different peptide and protein contexts. Using this tool, we observed that mono-O-mannosyl glycans occur ubiquitously throughout the murine brain but are especially enriched at inhibitory GABAergic neurons and at the perineural nets. Using a mass spectrometry-based approach, we further identified glycoproteins from the murine brain that bear single O-mannose residues. Among the candidates identified are members of the cadherin and plexin superfamilies and the perineural net protein neurocan. In addition, we identified neurexin 3, a cell adhesion protein involved in synaptic plasticity, and inter-alpha-trypsin inhibitor 5, a protease inhibitor important in stabilizing the extracellular matrix, as new O-mannosylated glycoproteins

Properties of the phi meson at high temperatures and densities

We calculate the spectral density of the phi meson in a hot bath of nucleons and pions using a general formalism relating self-energy to the forward scattering amplitude (FSA). In order to describe the low energy FSA, we use experimental data along with a background term. For the high energy FSA, a Regge parameterization is employed. We verify the resulting FSA using dispersion techniques. We find that the position of the peak of the spectral density is slightly shifted from its vacuum position and that its width is considerably increased. The width of the spectral density at a temperature of 150 MeV and at normal nuclear density is more than 90 MeV.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, Poster presented at Quark Matter 200

Interpretation of Recent SPS Dilepton Data

We summarize our current theoretical understanding of in-medium properties of the electromagnetic current correlator in view of recent dimuon data from the NA60 experiment in In(158 AGeV)-In collisions at the CERN-SPS. We discuss the sensitivity of the results to space-time evolution models for the hot and dense partonic and hadronic medium created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and the contributions from different sources to the dilepton-excess spectra.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (Quark Matter 2006) v2: references added, minor typos correcte