Prospects for strangeness measurement in ALICE

The study of strangeness production at LHC will bring significant information on the bulk chemical properties, its dynamics and the hadronisation mechanisms involved at these energies. The ALICE experiment will measure strange particles from topology (secondary vertices) and from resonance decays over a wide range in transverse momentum and shed light on this new QCD regime. These motivations will be presented as well as the identification performance of ALICE for strange hadrons.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures Proceedings of the Workshop on Relativistic Nuclear Physics (WRNP) 2007, Kiev, Ukraine Conference Info: http://wrnp2007.bitp.kiev.ua/ Submitted to "Physics of Atomic Nuclei

Sources of short-lived bromocarbons in the Iberian upwelling system

Seawater concentrations of the four brominated trace gases dibromomethane (CH2Br2), bromodichloromethane (CHBrCl2), dibromochloromethane (CHBr2Cl) and bromoform (CHBr3) were measured at different depths of the water column in the Iberian upwelling off Portugal during summer 2007. Bromocarbon concentrations showed elevated values in recently upwelled and aged upwelled waters (mean values of 30 pmol L−1 for CHBr3), while values in the open ocean were significantly lower (7.4 pmol L−1 for CHBr3). Correlations with biological variables and marker pigments indicated that phytoplankton could be identified as a weak bromocarbon source in the open ocean. In upwelled water masses along the coast, halocarbons were not correlated to Chl-a, indicating an external source, overlapping the possible internal production by phytoplankton. We showed that the tidal frequency had a significant influence on halocarbon concentrations in the upwelling and we linked those findings to a strong intertidal coastal source, as well as to a transport of those halocarbon enriched coastal waters by westward surface upwelling currents. Coastal sources and transport can be accounted for maximum values of up to 185.1 pmol L−1 CHBr3 in the upwelling. Comparison with other productive marine areas revealed that the Iberian upwelling had stronger halocarbon sources than the phytoplankton dominated sources in the Mauritanian upwelling. However, the concentrations off the Iberian Peninsula were still much lower than those of coastal macroalgal influenced waters or those of polar regions dominated by cold water adapted diatom

Intoxicación por paraquat : revisión

En este trabajo se revisan las características de la intoxicación por paraquat, y se presentan 15 casos clínicos altamente sugestivos de dicha intoxicación. El paraquat es un compuesto bipiridilo ampliamente usado en agricultura. Debido a que la intoxicación tiene efectos progresivos e irreversibles, es importante conocer la posibilidad de acceso al tóxico, pero ello muchas veces no es posible. Dado que el diagnóstico muchas veces es difícil para el clínico, la observación de un distress respiratorio severo, que empeora progresivamente en ausencia de signos radiológicos significativos, justifica un diagnóstico presuntivo de intoxicación por paraquat.In this work, we review the characteristics of paraquat poisoning and compare it with 15 clinical cases highly suggestive of this poisoning. Paraquat is a bipyridzlium compound, widely used as a contact herbicide in agriculture. Because the poisoning has progressive and irreversible effects, it's important to know a definitive history of acces to paraquat, but it 's difficult. Because the problem of diagnosis remains difficult for the practitioner; a clinical features of progressively worsening respiratory distress, in absence of radiógraphic demonstration of adequate cause of dyspnoea, justify a pressumptive diagnosis of paraquat poisoning

Cosmological Constraints on Lorentz Violation in Electrodynamics

Infrared, optical, and ultraviolet spectropolarimetry of cosmological sources is used to constrain the pure electromagnetic sector of a general Lorentz-violating standard-model extension. The coefficients for Lorentz violation are bounded to less than 3x10^{-32}.Comment: 4 pages, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Gastropatía hipertrófica de píloro : resolución quirúrgica de tres casos clínicos mediante la técnica de píloroplastia Y-U

Descripción de la técnica de piloroplastia en colgajo antral y-U en la resolución de 3 casos clínicos de gastropatía por hipertrofia crónica del píloro.Description of the y-U antral flap advancement pyloroplasty to the resolution of 3 clinic cases of chronic hypertrophic pyloric gastropathy

Generalised-Lorentzian Thermodynamics

We extend the recently developed non-gaussian thermodynamic formalism \cite{tre98} of a (presumably strongly turbulent) non-Markovian medium to its most general form that allows for the formulation of a consistent thermodynamic theory. All thermodynamic functions, including the definition of the temperature, are shown to be meaningful. The thermodynamic potential from which all relevant physical information in equilibrium can be extracted, is defined consistently. The most important findings are the following two: (1) The temperature is defined exactly in the same way as in classical statistical mechanics as the derivative of the energy with respect to the entropy at constant volume. (2) Observables are defined in the same way as in Boltzmannian statistics as the linear averages of the new equilibrium distribution function. This lets us conclude that the new state is a real thermodynamic equilibrium in systems capable of strong turbulence with the new distribution function replacing the Boltzmann distribution in such systems. We discuss the ideal gas, find the equation of state, and derive the specific heat and adiabatic exponent for such a gas. We also derive the new Gibbsian distribution of states. Finally we discuss the physical reasons for the development of such states and the observable properties of the new distribution function.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur