Dynamics of thick discs around Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes

We consider the effects of a cosmological constant on the dynamics of constant angular momentum discs orbiting Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes. The motivation behind this study is to investigate whether the presence of a radial force contrasting the black hole's gravitational attraction can influence the occurrence of the runaway instability, a robust feature of the dynamics of constant angular momentum tori in Schwarzschild and Kerr spacetimes. In addition to the inner cusp near the black hole horizon through which matter can accrete onto the black hole, in fact, a positive cosmological constant introduces also an outer cusp through which matter can leave the torus without accreting onto the black hole. To assess the impact of this outflow on the development of the instability we have performed time-dependent and axisymmetric hydrodynamical simulations of equilibrium initial configurations in a sequence of background spacetimes of Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes with increasing masses. The simulations have been performed with an unrealistic value for the cosmological constant which, however, yields sufficiently small discs to be resolved accurately on numerical grids and thus provides a first qualitative picture of the dynamics. The calculations, carried out for a wide range of initial conditions, show that the mass-loss from the outer cusp can have a considerable impact on the instability, with the latter being rapidly suppressed if the outflow is large enough.Comment: 12 pages; A&A, in pres

ECHO: an Eulerian Conservative High Order scheme for general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics and magnetodynamics

We present a new numerical code, ECHO, based on an Eulerian Conservative High Order scheme for time dependent three-dimensional general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD) and magnetodynamics (GRMD). ECHO is aimed at providing a shock-capturing conservative method able to work at an arbitrary level of formal accuracy (for smooth flows), where the other existing GRMHD and GRMD schemes yield an overall second order at most. Moreover, our goal is to present a general framework, based on the 3+1 Eulerian formalism, allowing for different sets of equations, different algorithms, and working in a generic space-time metric, so that ECHO may be easily coupled to any solver for Einstein's equations. Various high order reconstruction methods are implemented and a two-wave approximate Riemann solver is used. The induction equation is treated by adopting the Upwind Constrained Transport (UCT) procedures, appropriate to preserve the divergence-free condition of the magnetic field in shock-capturing methods. The limiting case of magnetodynamics (also known as force-free degenerate electrodynamics) is implemented by simply replacing the fluid velocity with the electromagnetic drift velocity and by neglecting the matter contribution to the stress tensor. ECHO is particularly accurate, efficient, versatile, and robust. It has been tested against several astrophysical applications, including a novel test on the propagation of large amplitude circularly polarized Alfven waves. In particular, we show that reconstruction based on a Monotonicity Preserving filter applied to a fixed 5-point stencil gives highly accurate results for smooth solutions, both in flat and curved metric (up to the nominal fifth order), while at the same time providing sharp profiles in tests involving discontinuities.Comment: 20 pages, revised version submitted to A&

PODA VERDE NA PRODUÇÃO E QUALIDADE DE UVA CV. RUBI (Vitis vinifera L.) NO NORTE DO ESPÍRITO SANTO

A produção de uvas vem ganhando, cada vez mais, destaque na economia do Brasil. O nordeste brasileiro é responsável pela produção das melhores uvas finas de mesa do Brasil, inclusive com qualidade que possibilita a exportação para vários países do mundo. Portanto, não é uma novidade o cultivo da uva em regiões quentes, o que não existia ainda, eram pesquisas com a uva no norte capixaba. A videira Vitis Vinifera L. cv. Rubi é uma das uvas de mesa mais importantes no Brasil. Para o seu cultivo, temos o sistema de poda verde (desponte) que é realizada em videiras com o objetivo de equilibrar o desenvolvimento vegetativo e a produção, visando à alta produtividade e à melhoria da qualidade da uva. Devido à falta de parâmetros científicos em relação à uva cv. Rubi no estado do Espírito Santo, o experimento teve como objetivo avaliar o número ideal de folhas que deve ser deixado nos ramos para se obter melhor produtividade e qualidade de frutos para as condições encontradas na região. O experimento foi conduzido no Sítio São Lázaro, bairro Córrego do Ribeirão, município de São Mateus ES, no período de fevereiro de 2011 a agosto de 2012, com a videira cv. Rubi. O delineamento foi em blocos casualizados, com 5 tratamentos e 4 repetições, e as médias comparadas pelo teste de Tukey ao nível de 5% de probabilidade. Os tratamentos foram compostos de 15,20, 25, 30 folhas seguidas e 22 folhas alternadas, sendo que os ramos foram cortados a partir da última folha contada de cada tratamento. Foram avaliados 5 cachos por repetição, sendo que foi estabelecido um total de 50 bagas por cacho para uniformizá-los. As variáveis avaliadas nos tratamentos foram as características física e química dos cachos e da uva, características fisiológicas da folha e a média de crescimentos dos ramos. Depois de colhidos, os cachos e as folhas foram levados ao laboratório de Fitotecnia do Centro Universitário Norte do Espírito Santo - CEUNES para realização das análises. Após os resultados das análises, verificou-se que o número de folhas deixados através da poda verde (desponte) não influenciou a massa média dos cachos, porém, influenciou no número médio de cachos produzidos por planta, e no comprimento dos cachos, ou seja, influenciando diretamente na produtividade. O diâmetro da baga, o número de sementes por baga e a porcentagem não foram influenciados pelos tratamentos (número de folhas). As características químicas das bagas não foram influenciadas pelos tratamentos. O tratamento com 15 folhas proporcionou aumento na área foliar e também no teor de clorofila a, clorofila b e clorofila total. O crescimento dos ramos não foi influenciado pelos tratamentos, porém, os ramos que apresentavam cachos mostraram maior crescimento e consequentemente maior formação de novas folhas. Com isso, conclui-se que o desponte não influencia na qualidade dos frutos, mas sim na produtividade da videira cv. Rubi, em que 25 folhas obteve a maior produtividade comparado com os demais tratamentos

mesenchymal stem cells myths and reality

The number of studies addressing mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) biology and their capacity to treat a broad range of human diseases at the preclinical and clinical level has grown exponentially in the last two decades, with often confusing and conflicting results

The electric dipole moment of the nucleon from simulations at imaginary vacuum angle theta

We compute the electric dipole moment of proton and neutron from lattice QCD simulations with N_f=2 flavors of dynamical quarks at imaginary vacuum angle theta. The calculation proceeds via the CP odd form factor F_3. A novel feature of our calculation is that we use partially twisted boundary conditions to extract F_3 at zero momentum transfer. As a byproduct, we test the QCD vacuum at nonvanishing theta.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figure

Recursive partitioning and Gaussian Process Regression for the detection and localization of damages in pultruded Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer material

In this paper, a methodology for the detection and localization of damages in composite pultruded members is proposed. This is particularly relevant to thin-walled pultruded members, which are typically characterized by orthotropic behavior, anisotropic along the fibers and isotropic in the cross section. Hence, a method to detect and localize damage, and the influence these might have on the performance of thin-walled Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) members, is proposed and applied to both numerical and experimental data. Specifically, the numerical and experimental modal shapes of a narrow flange pultruded profile are analyzed. The reliability of the proposed semiparametric statistical method, which is based on Gaussian Processes Regression and Bayesian-based Recursive Partitioning, is analyzed on a narrow flange profile, artificially affected by sawed notches with incremental depth. The numerical investigation is carried out via finite element models (FEMs) of the cracked beam, where the dynamic parameters and the modal shapes are computed. In total, three different crack sizes are investigated, to compare the results with the experimental ones. Finally, the proposed approach is further extended and validated on numerically simulated frame structures