Corrections to Finite Size Scaling in Percolation

A 1/L-expansion for percolation problems is proposed, where L is the lattice finite length. The square lattice with 27 different sizes L = 18, 22 ... 1594 is considered. Certain spanning probabilities were determined by Monte Carlo simulations, as continuous functions of the site occupation probability p. We estimate the critical threshold pc by applying the quoted expansion to these data. Also, the universal spanning probability at pc for an annulus with aspect ratio r=1/2 is estimated as C = 0.876657(45)

Melhorias de processos, fluxos e canais para comunicação interna: uma análise de caso da Embrapa Caprinos e Ovinos.

Resumo: O artigo traz resultados premilinares da implantação do projeto ?Comunicação Interna na Embrapa Caprinos e Ovinos - melhorias de processo, fluxos e canais?, implementado naquela unidade da empresa, situada em Sobral (CE). Na abordagem, estão presentes a caracterização de problemas de comunicação interna que originaram o projeto e a fundamentação teórica de suas ações, em alinhamento com ideias de orientação estratégica para comunicação interna e com valores e diretrizes para uma comunicação interna que se pretende eficiente, democrática e plural

Análise de canais, fluxos e protagonismos: um estudo de caso sobre a comunicação interna na Embrapa caprinos e ovinos.

Resumo: O artigo traça uma avaliação de projeto de Comunicação Interna na Embrapa Caprinos e Ovinos, observando o impacto das mudanças em canais, veículos e processos de comunicação, por meio da pesquisa junto ao público interno da entidade. Como destaque, os resultados de satisfação e sugestões dos colaboradores, analisados sob a ótica de correntes teóricas da Comunicação Organizacional, para verificar o cumprimento de premissas de uma comunicação interna participativa e de diálogo, prevista como objetivo do projeto

A new method based on noise counting to monitor the frontend electronics of the LHCb muon detector

A new method has been developed to check the correct behaviour of the frontend electronics of the LHCb muon detector. This method is based on the measurement of the electronic noise rate at different thresholds of the frontend discriminator. The method was used to choose the optimal discriminator thresholds. A procedure based on this method was implemented in the detector control system and allowed the detection of a small percentage of frontend channels which had deteriorated. A Monte Carlo simulation has been performed to check the validity of the method

Suppression of two-bounce windows in kink-antikink collisions

We consider a class of topological defects in $(1,1)$-dimensions with a deformed $\phi^4$ kink structure whose stability analysis leads to a Schr\"odinger-like equation with a zero-mode and at least one vibrational (shape) mode. We are interested in the dynamics of kink-antikink collisions, focusing on the structure of two-bounce windows. For small deformation and for one or two vibrational modes, the observed two-bounce windows are explained by the standard mechanism of a resonant effect between the first vibrational and the translational modes. With the increasing of the deformation, the effect of the appearance of more than one vibrational mode is the gradual disappearance of the initial two-bounce windows. The total suppression of two-bounce windows even with the presence of a vibrational mode offers a counterexample from what expected from the standard mechanism. For even larger deformation, some two-bounce windows reappear, but with a non-standard structure.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Pdxdc1 modulates prepulse inhibition of acoustic startle in the mouse.

Current antipsychotic medications used to treat schizophrenia all target the dopamine D2 receptor. Although these drugs have serious side effects and limited efficacy, no novel molecular targets for schizophrenia treatment have been successfully translated into new medications. To identify novel potential treatment targets for schizophrenia, we searched for previously unknown molecular modulators of acoustic prepulse inhibition (PPI), a schizophrenia endophenotype, in the mouse. We examined six inbred mouse strains that have a range of PPI, and used microarrays to determine which mRNA levels correlated with PPI across these mouse strains. We examined several brain regions involved in PPI and schizophrenia: hippocampus, striatum, and brainstem, found a number of transcripts that showed good correlation with PPI level, and confirmed this with real-time quantitative PCR. We then selected one candidate gene for further study, Pdxdc1 (pyridoxal-dependent decarboxylase domain containing 1), because it is a putative enzyme that could metabolize catecholamine neurotransmitters, and thus might be a feasible target for new medications. We determined that Pdxdc1 mRNA and protein are both strongly expressed in the hippocampus and levels of Pdxdc1 are inversely correlated with PPI across the six mouse strains. Using shRNA packaged in a lentiviral vector, we suppressed Pdxdc1 protein levels in the hippocampus and increased PPI by 70%. Our results suggest that Pdxdc1 may regulate PPI and could be a good target for further investigation as a potential treatment for schizophrenia

Measurement system for evaluation of the muon chambers for the LHCb experiment

Abstract In a detector with the complexity of the LHCb, where only for the muon system more than 1300 chambers, divided into 20 different types, will be used, resulting on more than 120 k channels to be readout, it is of crucial importance to study the many types of chambers to create a complete knowledge of the detector operation and to guarantee a high-quality performance during the experiment. To make it possible, a complete setup was built and a C++ based software was developed to carry out a set of measurements on the full-equipped chambers of the LHCb muon detector. The setup is made of front-end control electronics, high-voltage supply and acquisition circuitry while the software, running on a PC, remotely controls each element of the system and implements a number of automatized procedures to assess the main characteristics of the chambers. The main advantages of this system are its versatility and speed of measurement which are crucial to the experiment since there is the need to characterize every single chamber before final installation. Moreover, in this work it was proposed to measure the starting knee of the high-voltage operational plateau without the use of an external trigger by making use of the internal structure of the chambers. Two laboratories were prepared at CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) to receive this system; one used to test chambers arrived from the CERN itself and the PNPI (Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute) production sites, and one to test the chambers arrived from the INFN (National Institute of Nuclear Physics) production sites. In this document, the hardware and software setup will be presented together with the measurement-oriented implementations