Combined QCD analysis of e^+ e^- data at sqrt(s) = 14 to 172 GeV

A study of the energy dependence of event shape observables is presented. The strong coupling constant \alpha_s has been determined from the mean values of six event shape observables. Power corrections, employed for the measurement of \alpha_s, have been found to approximately account for hadronisation effects.Comment: 6 pages, uses espcrc2.sty (included) and epsfig.sty, LaTeX, 8 .eps-file

Pt-impregnated catalysts on powdery SiC and other commercial supports for the combustion of hydrogen under oxidant conditions

We report the study of the catalytic hydrogen combustion over Pt-impregnated powdery silicon carbide (SiC) using H2PtCl6 as precursor. The reaction was conducted in excess of oxygen. β-SiC was selected for the study because of its thermal conductivity, mechanical properties, chemical inertness and surface area. The obtained Pt particles over SiC were medium size (average particle diameter of 5 nm for 0.5 wt% Pt). The activity of the Pt-impregnated catalyst over SiC was compared to those obtained in oxidized form over TiO2 and Al2O3 commercial supports (Pt particles very small in size, average particle diameter of 1 nm for 0.5 wt% Pt in both cases). The case of a SiO2 support was also discussed. Those Pt/SiC particles were the most active because of their higher contribution of surface Pt0, indicating that partially oxidized surfaces have better activity than those totally oxidized in these conditions. SiC was modified with an acid treatment and thus bigger (average particle diameter of 7 nm for 0.5 wt% Pt) and more active Pt particles were obtained. Durability of the SiC and TiO2 supported catalysts was tested upon 5 cycles and both have shown to be durable and even more active than initially. Exposure to the oxidative reaction mixture activates the catalysts and the effect is more pronounced for the completely oxidized particles. This is due to the surface oxygen chemisorption which activates catalystś surface.Junta de Andalucía PE2012-TEP862Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CTQ2012-32519, CTQ2015-65918-RConsejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas PIE-201460E01

Tests of Power Corrections to Event Shape Distributions from e+e- Annihilation

A study of differential event shape distributions using e+e- data at centre-of-mass energies of 35 to 183 GeV is presented. We investigated non-perturbative power corrections for the thrust, C-parameter, total and wide jet broadening observables. We observe a good description of the distributions by the combined resummed QCD calculations plus power corrections from the dispersive approach. The single non-perturbative parameter \alpha_0 is measured to be \alpha_0 (2 GeV) = 0.502 +- 0.013 (stat.) ^{+0.046)_{-0.032} (exp. syst.) ^{+0.074}_{-0.053} (theo. syst.) and is found to be universal for the observables studied within the given systematic uncertainties. Using revised calculations of the power corrections for the jet broadening variables, improved consistency of the individual fit results is obtained. Agreement is also found with results extracted from the mean values of event shape distributions.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX2e, 8 .eps-files included, paper contributed to the EPS-HEP99 conference in Tampere, Finlan

Apsidal motion in massive close binary systems. I. HD 165052 an extreme case?

We present a new set of radial-velocity measurements of the spectroscopic binary HD 165052 obtained by disentangling of high-resolution optical spectra. The longitude of the periastron (60 +- 2 degrees) shows a variation with respect to previous studies. We have determined the apsidal motion rate of the system (12.1 +- 0.3 degree/yr), which was used to calculate the absolute masses of the binary components: M_1 = 22.5 +- 1.0 and M_2 = 20.5 +- 0.9 solar masses. Analysing the separated spectra we have re-classified the components as O7Vz and O7.5Vz stars

A Case Study on Artefact-based RE Improvement in Practice

Most requirements engineering (RE) process improvement approaches are solution-driven and activity-based. They focus on the assessment of the RE of a company against an external norm of best practices. A consequence is that practitioners often have to rely on an improvement approach that skips a profound problem analysis and that results in an RE approach that might be alien to the organisational needs. In recent years, we have developed an RE improvement approach (called \emph{ArtREPI}) that guides a holistic RE improvement against individual goals of a company putting primary attention to the quality of the artefacts. In this paper, we aim at exploring ArtREPI's benefits and limitations. We contribute an industrial evaluation of ArtREPI by relying on a case study research. Our results suggest that ArtREPI is well-suited for the establishment of an RE that reflects a specific organisational culture but to some extent at the cost of efficiency resulting from intensive discussions on a terminology that suits all involved stakeholders. Our results reveal first benefits and limitations, but we can also conclude the need of longitudinal and independent investigations for which we herewith lay the foundation

Discovery of a Small Central Disk of CO and HI in the Merger Remnant NGC 34

We present CO(1-0) and HI(21-cm) observations of the central region of the wet merger remnant NGC 34. The Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) observations detect a regularly rotating disk in CO with a diameter of 2.1 kpc and a total molecular hydrogen mass of ($2.1 \pm 0.2) \times10^9~M_\odot$. The rotation curve of this gas disk rises steeply, reaching maximum velocities at 1" (410 pc) from the center. Interestingly, HI observations done with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array show that the absorption against the central continuum has the exact same velocity range as the CO in emission. This strongly suggests that the absorbing HI also lies within 1" from the center, is mixed in and corotates with the molecular gas. A comparison of HI absorption profiles taken at different resolutions (5"-45") shows that the spectra at lower resolutions are less deep at the systemic velocity. This provides evidence for HI emission in the larger beams, covering the region from 1 kpc to 9 kpc from the center. The central rapidly rotating disk was likely formed either during the merger or from fall-back material. Lastly, the radio continuum flux of the central source at mm wavelengths ($5.4\pm1.8$ mJy) is significantly higher than expected from an extrapolation of the synchrotron spectrum, indicating the contribution of thermal free-free emission from the central starburst.Comment: Accepted for publication in A

Quantifying Functional Reuse from Object Oriented Requirements Specifications

Software reuse is essential in improving efficiency and productivity in the software development process. This paper analyses reuse within requirements engineering phase by taking and adapting a standard functional size measurement method, COSMIC FFP. Our proposal attempts to quantify reusability from Object Oriented requirements specifications by identifying potential primitives with a high level of reusability and applying a reuse indicator. These requirements are specified using OO-Method, an automatic software production method based on transformation models. We illustrate the application of our proposal in a Car Rental real system

C-Parameter and Jet Broadening at PETRA Energies

e^+e^- annihilation data recorded by the JADE detector at PETRA were used to measure the C-parameter for the first time at \sqrt{s}= 35 and 44 GeV. The distributions were compared to a resummed QCD calculation. In addition, we applied extended resummed calculations to the total and wide jet broadening variables, B_T and B_W. We combined the results on \alpha_s with those of our previous study of differential 2-jet rate, thrust, and heavy jet mass, obtaining \alpha_s(35 GeV) = 0.1448 +0.0117 -0.0070 and \alpha_s(44 GeV) = 0.1392 +0.0105 -0.0074. Moreover power corrections to the mean values of the observables mentioned above were investigated considering the Milan factor and the improved prediction for the jet broadening observables. Our study, which considered e^+e^- data of five event shape observables between \sqrt{s}= 14 and 183 GeV, yielded \alpha_s(M_{Z^0})=0.1177 +0.0035 -0.0034.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX2e, 9 .eps-files included, abbreviated version of the paper contributed to the ICHEP'98 conference in Vancouver, submitted to Phys. Lett.

Beyond conventional factorization: Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians with radial oscillator spectrum

The eigenvalue problem of the spherically symmetric oscillator Hamiltonian is revisited in the context of canonical raising and lowering operators. The Hamiltonian is then factorized in terms of two not mutually adjoint factorizing operators which, in turn, give rise to a non-Hermitian radial Hamiltonian. The set of eigenvalues of this new Hamiltonian is exactly the same as the energy spectrum of the radial oscillator and the new square-integrable eigenfunctions are complex Darboux-deformations of the associated Laguerre polynomials.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure