Consistent analysis of neutral- and charged-current neutrino scattering off carbon

Background: Good understanding of the cross sections for (anti)neutrino scattering off nuclear targets in the few-GeV energy region is a prerequisite for correct interpretation of results of ongoing and planned oscillation experiments. Purpose: Clarify possible source of disagreement between recent measurements of the cross sections on carbon. Method: Nuclear effects in (anti)neutrino scattering off carbon nucleus are described using the spectral function approach. The effect of two- and multi-nucleon final states is accounted for by applying an effective value of the axial mass, fixed to 1.23 GeV. Neutral-current elastic (NCE) and charged-current quasielastic (CCQE) processes are treated on equal footing. Results: The differential and total cross sections for the energy ranging from a few hundreds of MeV to 100 GeV are obtained and compared to the available data from the BNL E734, MiniBooNE, and NOMAD experiments. Conclusions: Nuclear effects in NCE and CCQE scattering seem to be very similar. Within the spectral function approach, the axial mass from the shape analysis of the MiniBooNE data is in good agreement with the results reported by the BNL E734 and NOMAD Collaborations. However, the combined analysis of NCE and CCQE data does not seem to support the contribution of multi-nucleon final states being large enough to explain the normalization of the MiniBooNE-reported cross sections.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, detailed discussion of the role of FSI is adde

Fast Determination of Lycopene Content and Soluble Solid Content of Cherry Tomatoes Using Metal Oxide Sensors Based Electronic Nose

Lycopene content (LC) and soluble solid content (SSC) are important quality indicators for cherry tomatoes. This study attempted simultaneous analysis of inner quality of cherry tomato by Electronic nose (E-nose) using multivariate analysis. E-nose was used for data acquisition, the response signals were regressed by multiple linear regression (MLR) and partial least square regression (PLS) to build predictive models. The performances of the predictive models were tested according to root mean square and correlation coefficient (R2) in the training set and prediction set. The results showed that MLR models were superior to PLS model, with higher value of R2 and lower values of for RMSE firmness, pH, SSC, and LC. Together with MLR, E-nose could be used to obtain firmness, pH, soluble solid and lycopene contents in cherry tomatoes

Integer quantum Hall effect and topological phase transitions in silicene

We numerically investigate the effects of disorder on the quantum Hall effect (QHE) and the quantum phase transitions in silicene based on a lattice model. It is shown that for a clean sample, silicene exhibits an unconventional QHE near the band center, with plateaus developing at $\nu=0,\pm2,\pm6,\ldots,$ and a conventional QHE near the band edges. In the presence of disorder, the Hall plateaus can be destroyed through the float-up of extended levels toward the band center, in which higher plateaus disappear first. However, the center $\nu=0$ Hall plateau is more sensitive to disorder and disappears at a relatively weak disorder strength. Moreover, the combination of an electric field and the intrinsic spin-orbit interaction (SOI) can lead to quantum phase transitions from a topological insulator to a band insulator at the charge neutrality point (CNP), accompanied by additional quantum Hall conductivity plateaus.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Adaptive obstacle detection for mobile robots in urban environments using downward-looking 2D LiDAR

Environment perception is important for collision-free motion planning of outdoor mobile robots. This paper presents an adaptive obstacle detection method for outdoor mobile robots using a single downward-looking LiDAR sensor. The method begins by extracting line segments from the raw sensor data, and then estimates the height and the vector of the scanned road surface at each moment. Subsequently, the segments are divided into either road ground or obstacles based on the average height of each line segment and the deviation between the line segment and the road vector estimated from the previous measurements. A series of experiments have been conducted in several scenarios, including normal scenes and complex scenes. The experimental results show that the proposed approach can accurately detect obstacles on roads and could effectively deal with the different heights of obstacles in urban road environments

Expression, purification and kinase activity analysis of maize ZmSPK1, a member of plant SnRK2 subfamily

Kinase activity is essential for a protein kinase to perform its biological function. In previous study we have cloned a novel plant SnRK2 subfamily gene from maize and named it as ZmSPK1. In this study thecDNA of ZmSPK1 with dHA-His6 tag was amplified by PCR and was subcloned into the yeast expression vector p426GAL1. The constructed plasmid named as p426GAL1-SPK1-dHA-His6 was transformed into Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Under the induction of galactose the recombinant protein was expressed. The purified recombinant protein showed a single specific band by the analysis of the western-blot. In an in vitro kinase assay, the purified recombinant protein showed phosphorylation and autophosphorylation activity. This showed that ZmSPK1 encodes a functional protein kinase

Understanding the effect of elastic wheels on an urban railway system using a new wheel–rail coupling vibration model

In order to control the wheel–rail coupling vibration of an urban railway system, a combined elastic wheel damping structure is proposed where the key parameters that determine the structural damping and thereby control the vibration of the railway system are explored. The vertical acceleration of the elastic wheels is obtained for a range of stiffness coefficients as the wheel moves on an irregular track, which is calculated by the (Formula presented.) method in the time domain. The results show that the vertical acceleration changes with a V-shaped trend, with an increase of wheel stiffness coefficient, which allows the optimum stiffness coefficient for minimum vertical acceleration of the elastic wheel to be obtained. It is observed that when attempting to suppress wheel vibration, an elastic wheel with a larger stiffness coefficient is needed as the degree of track irregularity reduces. This paper provides new insights into the effect of wheel elasticity on vibration characteristics, and thereby provides directions to improve ride quality and passenger comfort.</p