725 research outputs found
Spectral boundary conditions and solitonic solutions in a classical Sellmeier dielectric
Electromagnetic field interactions in a dielectric medium represent a
longstanding field of investigation, both at the classical level and at the
quantum one. We propose a 1+1 dimensional toy-model which consists of an
half-line filling dielectric medium, with the aim to set up a simplified
situation where technicalities related to gauge invariance and, as a
consequence, physics of constrained systems are avoided, and still interesting
features appear. In particular, we simulate the electromagnetic field and the
polarization field by means of two coupled scalar fields ,
respectively, in a Hopfield-like model. We find that, in order to obtain a
physically meaningful behaviour for the model, one has to introduce spectral
boundary conditions depending on the particle spectrum one is dealing with.
This is the first interesting achievement of our analysis. The second relevant
achievement is that, by introducing a nonlinear contribution in the
polarization field , with the aim of mimicking a third order nonlinearity
in a nonlinear dielectric, we obtain solitonic solutions in the Hopfield model
framework, whose classical behaviour is analyzed too.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur
Positive and Negative Regulation of Cellular Immune Responses in Physiologic Conditions and Diseases
The immune system has evolved to allow robust responses against pathogens while avoiding autoimmunity. This is notably enabled by stimulatory and inhibitory signals which contribute to the regulation of immune responses. In the presence of a pathogen, a specific and effective immune response must be induced and this leads to antigen-specific T-cell proliferation, cytokines production, and induction of T-cell differentiation toward an effector phenotype. After clearance or control of the pathogen, the effector immune response must be terminated in order to avoid tissue damage and chronic inflammation and this process involves coinhibitory molecules. When the immune system fails to eliminate or control the pathogen, continuous stimulation of T cells prevents the full contraction and leads to the functional exhaustion of effector T cells. Several evidences both in vitro and in vivo suggest that this anergic state can be reverted by blocking the interactions between coinhibitory molecules and their ligands. The potential to revert exhausted or inactivated T-cell responses following selective blocking of their function made these markers interesting targets for therapeutic interventions in patients with persistent viral infections or cancer
Non-collaborative Attackers and How and Where to Defend Flawed Security Protocols (Extended Version)
Security protocols are often found to be flawed after their deployment. We
present an approach that aims at the neutralization or mitigation of the
attacks to flawed protocols: it avoids the complete dismissal of the interested
protocol and allows honest agents to continue to use it until a corrected
version is released. Our approach is based on the knowledge of the network
topology, which we model as a graph, and on the consequent possibility of
creating an interference to an ongoing attack of a Dolev-Yao attacker, by means
of non-collaboration actuated by ad-hoc benign attackers that play the role of
network guardians. Such guardians, positioned in strategical points of the
network, have the task of monitoring the messages in transit and discovering at
runtime, through particular types of inference, whether an attack is ongoing,
interrupting the run of the protocol in the positive case. We study not only
how but also where we can attempt to defend flawed security protocols: we
investigate the different network topologies that make security protocol
defense feasible and illustrate our approach by means of concrete examples.Comment: 29 page
Assessing the potential of molten carbonate fuel cell-based schemes for carbon capture in natural gas-fired combined cycle power plants
Abstract This work explores two configurations of natural gas-fired combined cycles (NGCC) with molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFC) for CO2 capture. Special attention is devoted to the selection of MCFC operating conditions (trade-off between CO2 capture and voltage losses), heat integration scheme, fuel use and CO2 purification. Two schemes are considered: (i) in the first "integrated" scheme, MCFC modules are installed between the gas turbine and the heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) to maximize the efficiency of the integrated power plant; (ii) in the second "non-integrated" layout, the MCFC is located downstream of the HRSG and a regenerative heat exchanger is designed to preheat cathode reactants up to the MCFC working temperature. This study includes a full techno-economic analysis of the two layouts based on a preliminary sizing of the key-components, and a sensitivity analysis on the CO2 utilization factor. Compared to a benchmark amine scrubbing process, the "integrated" configuration shows considerably better performance (Specific Primary Energy Consumption for CO2 Avoided - SPECCA = 0.31 MJ kgCO2-1; Cost of CO2 avoided - CCA = 50 tCO2−1)
From Display to Labelled Proofs for Tense Logics
We introduce an effective translation from proofs in the display calculus to proofs in the labelled calculus in the context of tense logics. We identify the labelled calculus proofs in the image of this translation as those built from labelled sequents whose underlying directed graph possesses certain properties. For the basic normal tense logic Kt, the image is shown to be the set of all proofs in the labelled calculus G3Kt
The influence of magnetic field geometry on magnetars X-ray spectra
Nowadays, the analysis of the X-ray spectra of magnetically powered neutron
stars or magnetars is one of the most valuable tools to gain insight into the
physical processes occurring in their interiors and magnetospheres. In
particular, the magnetospheric plasma leaves a strong imprint on the observed
X-ray spectrum by means of Compton up-scattering of the thermal radiation
coming from the star surface. Motivated by the increased quality of the
observational data, much theoretical work has been devoted to develop Monte
Carlo (MC) codes that incorporate the effects of resonant Compton scattering in
the modeling of radiative transfer of photons through the magnetosphere. The
two key ingredients in this simulations are the kinetic plasma properties and
the magnetic field (MF) configuration. The MF geometry is expected to be
complex, but up to now only mathematically simple solutions (self-similar
solutions) have been employed. In this work, we discuss the effects of new,
more realistic, MF geometries on synthetic spectra. We use new force-free
solutions in a previously developed MC code to assess the influence of MF
geometry on the emerging spectra. Our main result is that the shape of the
final spectrum is mostly sensitive to uncertain parameters of the
magnetospheric plasma, but the MF geometry plays an important role on the
angle-dependence of the spectra.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures To appear in Proceedings of II Iberian Nuclear
Astrophysics Meeting held in Salamanca, September 22-23, 201
Automating Agential Reasoning: Proof-Calculi and Syntactic Decidability for STIT Logics
This work provides proof-search algorithms and automated counter-model extraction for a class of STIT logics. With this, we answer an open problem concerning syntactic decision procedures and cut-free calculi for STIT logics. A new class of cut-free complete labelled sequent calculi G3LdmL^m_n, for multi-agent STIT with at most n-many choices, is introduced. We refine the calculi G3LdmL^m_n through the use of propagation rules and demonstrate the admissibility of their structural rules, resulting in auxiliary calculi Ldm^m_nL. In the single-agent case, we show that the refined calculi Ldm^m_nL derive theorems within a restricted class of (forestlike) sequents, allowing us to provide proof-search algorithms that decide single-agent STIT logics. We prove that the proof-search algorithms are correct and terminate
Seroprevalence and incidence of Toxoplasma gondii infection in the Legnano area of Italy
ABSTRACTThe decreasing prevalence of anti-Toxoplasma antibodies in Europe has re-opened the question of the appropriateness of serological screening during pregnancy. A study of 3426 pregnant women, resident in the Legnano area of Italy, revealed that the IgG seroprevalence according to ELISA was 21.5%, and that of IgM according to ELISA and enzyme-linked fluorescent assay was 1.2% and 0.9%, respectively. The incidence of infection, estimated on the basis of IgG avidity, was 0.9%. These results confirm a decrease in the prevalence of IgG, but indicate a high incidence of infection, thus suggesting that screening for anti-Toxoplasma antibodies during pregnancy should be maintained
The X-ray outburst of the Galactic Centre magnetar SGR J1745-2900 during the first 1.5 year
In 2013 April a new magnetar, SGR 1745-2900, was discovered as it entered an
outburst, at only 2.4 arcsec angular distance from the supermassive black hole
at the Centre of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*. SGR 1745-2900 has a surface
dipolar magnetic field of ~ 2x10^{14} G, and it is the neutron star closest to
a black hole ever observed. The new source was detected both in the radio and
X-ray bands, with a peak X-ray luminosity L_X ~ 5x10^{35} erg s^{-1}. Here we
report on the long-term Chandra (25 observations) and XMM-Newton (8
observations) X-ray monitoring campaign of SGR 1745-2900, from the onset of the
outburst in April 2013 until September 2014. This unprecedented dataset allows
us to refine the timing properties of the source, as well as to study the
outburst spectral evolution as a function of time and rotational phase. Our
timing analysis confirms the increase in the spin period derivative by a factor
of ~2 around June 2013, and reveals that a further increase occurred between
2013 Oct 30 and 2014 Feb 21. We find that the period derivative changed from
6.6x10^{-12} s s^{-1} to 3.3x10^{-11} s s^{-1} in 1.5 yr. On the other hand,
this magnetar shows a slow flux decay compared to other magnetars and a rather
inefficient surface cooling. In particular, starquake-induced crustal cooling
models alone have difficulty in explaining the high luminosity of the source
for the first ~200 days of its outburst, and additional heating of the star
surface from currents flowing in a twisted magnetic bundle is probably playing
an important role in the outburst evolution.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures; accepted for publication on MNRA
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