Ar + Ni and Ni + Ni collisions are investigated between 32 and around 100A MeV incident energy with the 4π multidetector INDRA. Fusion cross-sections are found to decrease from ˜ 180mb at 32A MeV to ...zero above 50A MeV. Other experimental results, for light systems, are compared. Moreover, theoretical works are discussed and fusion cross-sections, calculated from two dynamical simulations based on nuclear Boltzmann equation (Boltzmann-Nordheim-Vlasov and Landau-Vlasov models), are also compared to experimental results.
The PHENIX experiement has measured the electron-positron pair mass spectrum from 0 to 8 GeV/c^2 in p+p collisions at sqrt(s)=200 GeV. The contributions from light meson decays to e^+e^- pairs have ...been determined based on measurements of hadron production cross sections by PHENIX. They account for nearly all e^+e^- pairs in the mass region below 1 GeV/c^2. The e^+e^- pair yield remaining after subtracting these contributions is dominated by semileptonic decays of charmed hadrons correlated through flavor conservation. Using the spectral shape predicted by PYTHIA, we estimate the charm production cross section to be 544 +/- 39(stat) +/- 142(syst) +/- 200(model) \mu b, which is consistent with QCD calculations and measurements of single leptons by PHENIX.
Recent experimental results concerning heavy systems (Pb+Au, Pb+Ag, Pb+Al, Gd+C, Gd+U, Xe+Sn, …) obtained at GANIL with the INDRA and NAUTILUS 4π arrays will be presented. The study of reaction ...mechanisms has shown the dominant binary and highly dissipative character of the process. The two heavy and excited fragments produced after the first stage of the interaction can decay into various decay modes from evaporation to multifragmentation including fission. However, deviations from this simple picture have been found by analyzing angular and velocity distributions of light charged particles, and fragments. Indeed, there is a certain amount of matter in excess emitted between the two primary sources suggesting either the existence of a mid-rapidity source similar to the one observed in the relativistic regime (participants) or a strong deformation induced by the dynamics of the collision (neck instability). This last possibility has been suggested by analyzing in detail the angular distributions of the fragments. More precisely, we observe an isotropic component which is compatible with the prediction of statistical models and a second one corresponding to breakup aligned with the recoil direction of the projectile like source which should be compared with the predictions of dynamical calculations based on microscopic transport models.
A simple formalism describing the light response of CsI(Tl) to heavy ions, which quantifies the luminescence and the quenching in terms of the competition between radiative transitions following the ...carrier trapping at the Tl activator sites and the electron–hole recombination, is proposed. The effect of the δ-rays on the scintillation efficiency is for the first time quantitatively included in a fully consistent way. The light output expression depends on four parameters determined by a procedure of global fit to experimental data.
The scale and drivers of marine biodiversity loss are being revealed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List assessment process. We present the first global reassessment ...of 1,199 species in Class Chondrichthyes—sharks, rays, and chimeras. The first global assessment (in 2014) concluded that one-quarter (24%) of species were threatened. Now, 391 (32.6%) species are threatened with extinction. When this percentage of threat is applied to Data Deficient species, more than one-third (37.5%) of chondrichthyans are estimated to be threatened, with much of this change resulting from new information. Three species are Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct), representing possibly the first global marine fish extinctions due to overfishing. Consequently, the chondrichthyan extinction rate is potentially 25 extinctions per million species years, comparable to that of terrestrial vertebrates. Overfishing is the universal threat affecting all 391 threatened species and is the sole threat for 67.3% of species and interacts with three other threats for the remaining third: loss and degradation of habitat (31.2% of threatened species), climate change (10.2%), and pollution (6.9%). Species are disproportionately threatened in tropical and subtropical coastal waters. Science-based limits on fishing, effective marine protected areas, and approaches that reduce or eliminate fishing mortality are urgently needed to minimize mortality of threatened species and ensure sustainable catch and trade of others. Immediate action is essential to prevent further extinctions and protect the potential for food security and ecosystem functions provided by this iconic lineage of predators.
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•More than one-third of chondrichthyan fish species are threatened by overfishing•Disproportionate threat in tropics risk loss of ecosystem functions and services•Three species not seen in >80 years are Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct)•The depletion of these species has been driven by continuing demand for human food
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is increasingly used to reveal the health of ocean biodiversity. Dulvy et al. assess 1,199 chondrichthyans and demonstrate the need for fishing limits on target and incidental catch and spatial protection to avoid further extinctions and allow for food security and ecosystem functions.
Invariant cross sections of intermediate mass fragments in peripheral collisions of 197Au on 197Au at incident energies between 40 and 150 MeV per nucleon have been measured with the 4π ...multi-detector INDRA. The maximum of the fragment production is located near mid-rapidity at the lower energies and moves gradually towards the projectile and target rapidities as the energy is increased. Schematic calculations within an extended Goldhaber model suggest that the observed cross section distributions and their evolution with energy are predominantly the result of the clustering requirement for the emerging fragments and of their Coulomb repulsion from the projectile and target residues. The quantitative comparison with transverse energy spectra and fragment charge distributions emphasizes the role of hard scattered nucleons in the fragmentation process.
A massive increase in the number of neurons in the cerebral cortex, driving its size to increase by five orders of magnitude, is a key feature of mammalian evolution. Not only are there systematic ...variations in cerebral cortical architecture across species, but also across spatial axes within a given cortex. In this article we present a computational model that accounts for both types of variation as arising from the same developmental mechanism. The model employs empirically measured parameters from over a dozen species to demonstrate that changes to the kinetics of neurogenesis (the cell-cycle rate, the progenitor death rate, and the “quit rate,” i.e., the ratio of terminal cell divisions) are sufficient to explain the great diversity in the number of cortical neurons across mammals. Moreover, spatiotemporal gradients in those same parameters in the embryonic cortex can account for cortex-wide, graded variations in the mature neural architecture. Consistent with emerging anatomical data in several species, the model predicts ( i ) a greater complement of neurons per cortical column in the later-developing, posterior regions of intermediate and large cortices, ( ii ) that the extent of variation across a cortex increases with cortex size, reaching fivefold or greater in primates, and ( iii ) that when the number of neurons per cortical column increases, whether across species or within a given cortex, it is the later-developing superficial layers of the cortex which accommodate those additional neurons. We posit that these graded features of the cortex have computational and functional significance, and so must be subject to evolutionary selection.
Significance Despite great diversity across mammals in the number of cortical neurons and the cognitive functions they support, the fundamental process which populates the cerebral cortex with neurons changes only subtly from the smallest rodents to the largest primates. Understanding how the dynamics of neurogenesis can vary will help unravel how the genome molds normal and disrupted cortical development. We gathered data on the growing and mature cortex to build a computational model of neurogenesis. The model recapitulates how dynamics, known to vary across species and across the cortex, sculpt the basic landscape of the embryonic cortex. Features of the cortex long thought to be the result of special selection are revealed as the necessary product of a conserved mechanism.
The PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has performed a systematic study of K-S(0) and K*(0) meson production at midrapidity in p + p, d + Au, and Cu + Cu collisions at root ...s(NN) = 200 GeV. The K-S(0) and K*(0) mesons are reconstructed via their K-S(0) -> pi(0)(-> gamma gamma) pi(0)(-> gamma gamma) and K*(0) -> K-+/-pi(-/+) decay modes, respectively. The measured transverse-momentum spectra are used to determine the nuclear modification factor of K-S(0) and K*(0) mesons in d + Au and Cu + Cu collisions at different centralities. In the d + Au collisions, the nuclear modification factor of K-S(0) and K*(0) mesons is almost constant as a function of transverse momentum and is consistent with unity, showing that cold-nuclear-matter effects do not play a significant role in the measured kinematic range. In Cu + Cu collisions, within the uncertainties no nuclear modification is registered in peripheral collisions. In central collisions, both mesons show suppression relative to the expectations from the p + p yield scaled by the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions in the Cu + Cu system. In the p(T) range 2-5 GeV/c, the strange mesons (K-S(0), K*(0)) similarly to the phi meson with hidden strangeness, showan intermediate suppression between the more suppressed light quark mesons (pi(0)) and the nonsuppressed baryons (p, (p) over bar). At higher transverse momentum, p(T) > 5 GeV/c, production of all particles is similarly suppressed by a factor of approximate to 2.
The double helicity asymmetry in neutral pion production for p(T) = 1 to 12 GeV/c was measured with the PHENIX experiment to access the gluon-spin contribution, Delta G, to the proton spin. Measured ...asymmetries are consistent with zero, and at a theory scale of mu 2 = 4 GeV2 a next to leading order QCD analysis gives Delta G(0.02,0.3) = 0.2, with a constraint of -0.7 < Delta G(0.02,0.3) < 0.5 at Delta chi(2) = 9 (similar to 3 sigma) for the sampled gluon momentum fraction (x) range, 0.02 to 0.3. The results are obtained using predictions for the measured asymmetries generated from four representative fits to polarized deep inelastic scattering data. We also consider the dependence of the Delta G constraint on the choice of the theoretical scale, a dominant uncertainty in these predictions.
Acetylcholine receptors are pentameric ligand-gated channels involved in excitatory neuro-transmission in both vertebrates and invertebrates. In nematodes, they represent major targets for ...cholinergic agonist or antagonist anthelmintic drugs. Despite the large diversity of acetylcholine-receptor subunit genes present in nematodes, only a few receptor subtypes have been characterized so far. Interestingly, parasitic nematodes affecting human or animal health possess two closely related members of this gene family, acr-26 and acr-27 that are essentially absent in free-living or plant parasitic species. Using the pathogenic parasitic nematode of ruminants, Haemonchus contortus, as a model, we found that Hco-ACR-26 and Hco-ACR-27 are co-expressed in body muscle cells. We demonstrated that co-expression of Hco-ACR-26 and Hco-ACR-27 in Xenopus laevis oocytes led to the functional expression of an acetylcholine-receptor highly sensitive to the anthelmintics morantel and pyrantel. Importantly we also reported that ACR-26 and ACR-27, from the distantly related parasitic nematode of horses, Parascaris equorum, also formed a functional acetylcholine-receptor highly sensitive to these two drugs. In Caenorhabditis elegans, a free-living model nematode, we demonstrated that heterologous expression of the H. contortus and P. equorum receptors drastically increased its sensitivity to morantel and pyrantel, mirroring the pharmacological properties observed in Xenopus oocytes. Our results are the first to describe significant molecular determinants of a novel class of nematode body wall muscle AChR.
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