Generalized uncertainty principle and the maximum mass of ideal white dwarfs

The effects of a generalized uncertainty principle on the structure of an ideal white dwarf star is investigated. The equation describing the equilibrium configuration of the star is a generalized form of the Lane–Emden equation. It is proved that the star always has a finite size. It is then argued that the maximum mass of such an ideal white dwarf tends to infinity, as opposed to the conventional case where it has a finite value.     

General relativistic effects in the structure of massive white dwarfs

In this work we investigate the structure of white dwarfs using the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff equations and compare our results with those obtained from Newtonian equations of gravitation in order to put in evidence the importance of general relativity (GR) for the structure of such stars. We consider in this work for the matter inside white dwarfs two equations of state, frequently found in the literature, namely, the Chandrasekhar and Salpeter equations of state. We find that using Newtonian equilibrium equations, the radii of massive white dwarfs (\(M>1.3M_{\odot }\)) are overestimated in comparison with GR outcomes. For a mass of \(1.415M_{\odot }\) the white dwarf radius predicted by GR is about 33% smaller than the Newtonian one. Hence, in this case, for the surface gravity the difference between the general relativistic and Newtonian outcomes is about 65%. We depict the general relativistic mass–radius diagrams as \(M/M_{\odot }=R/(a+bR+cR^2+dR^3+kR^4)\), where a, b, c and d are parameters obtained from a fitting procedure of the numerical results and \(k=(2.08\times 10^{-6}R_{\odot })^{-1}\), being \(R_{\odot }\) the radius of the Sun in km. Lastly, we point out that GR plays an important role to determine any physical quantity that depends, simultaneously, on the mass and radius of massive white dwarfs.     

New insights into the limit of the magnetic monopole flux and the heating source in white dwarfs

Based on the magnetic monopole(MM) catalytic nuclear decay(Rubakov-Callan(RC) effect),we propose five new models to discuss the limit of the MM flux and the heating energy resources of white dwarfs(WDs)based on observations of 13 red giant branch(RGB) stars.We find that the number of MMs captured can reach a maximum value of 9.1223 × 10²⁴ when m=1017 GeV,n_B=5.99×10³¹ cm^-3,φ=7.59×10^-26cm^-2s^-1sr^-1.The good agre...     

Interactions between environmental pollution and cold tolerance of soil invertebrates: a neglected field of research

The adaptations to climatic stress of invertebrates have been extensively studied and the underlying physiology is relatively well understood. It is therefore possible to predict critical lower temperature and moisture limits at which a species will suffer increased mortality. Environmental pollution can reduce the tolerance to climatic stress considerably but it is not known how significant these synergistic effects are in polluted areas. Results are presented showing examples of synergism between toxic and climatic stress. The physiological mechanisms involved in the synergistic effects are discussed.     

Solute accumulation in heat seedlings during cold acclimation: contribution to increased freezing tolerance

Accumulation of sugars, amino acids and glycinebetaine in leaf tissues during cold acclimation was simultaneously monitored and compared in three wheat cultivars that have different freezing tolerance. Freezing tolerance was the decreasing order of cv. Norstar (NO) > cv. Chihokukomugi (CH) > or = cv. Haruyutaka (HA). During cold acclimation, there was a significant increase in osmotic concentration in the three cultivars. The increase was largely due to the increase in soluble sugars and the extent of the increase was the greatest in NO and the least in HA. While there was a considerable increase in glucose, fructose and sucrose during the first week of cold acclimation, the increase in raffinose occurred only after the second week. The total sugar content was the order of NO > CH > HA after 4 weeks of cold acclimation. Proline increased in all cultivars after 1 week of cold acclimation but a prolonged cold acclimation resulted in different profiles: no further increase occurred in HA while an additional increase occurred in other two cultivars. In all three cultivars, a noticeable increase of glycinebetaine occurred only after the second week of cold acclimation with the amount being the order of NO > CH > HA. It is concluded that a substantial part of the increase in osmotic concentration during cold acclimation was due to the increase in sugars, but the extent of the contribution of each compatible solute is cultivar-specific and can be associated with the degree of the maximum freezing tolerance attainable.     

A physical approach to the automated classification of clinical percussion sounds

Chest percussion is a traditional technique used for the physical examination of pulmonary injuries and diseases. It is a method of tapping body parts with fingers or small instruments to evaluate the size, consistency, borders, and presence of fluid/air in the lungs and abdomen. Percussion has been successfully used for the diagnosis of such potentially lethal conditions as traumatic and tension pneumothorax. This technique, however, has certain shortcomings, including limitations of the human ear and the subjectivity of the administrator, that lead to overall low sensitivity. Automation of the method by using a standardized percussion source and computerized classification of digitized signals would remove the subjective factor and other limitations of the technique. It would also enable rapid on-site diagnostics of pulmonary traumas when thorough clinical examination is impossible. This paper lays the groundwork for an objective signal classification approach based on a general physical model of a damped harmonic oscillator. Using this concept, critical parameters that effectively subdivide percussion signals into three main groups, historically known as "tympanic," "resonant," and "dull," are identified, opening the possibility for automated diagnostics of air/liquid inclusions in the thorax and abdomen. The key role of damping in forming the character of the percussion signal is investigated using a 3D thorax phantom. The contribution of the abdominal component into the complex multimode spectrum of chest percussion signals is demonstrated.     

Time-reversal multiple signal classification in case of noise: a phase-coherent approach

The problem of locating point-like targets beyond the classical resolution limit is revisited. Although time-reversal MUltiple SIgnal Classification (MUSIC) is known for its super-resolution ability in localization of point scatterers, in the presence of noise this super-resolution property will easily break down. In this paper a phase-coherent version of time-reversal MUSIC is proposed, which can overcome this fundamental limit. The algorithm has been tested employing synthetic multiple scattering data based on the Foldy-Lax model, as well as experimental ultrasound data acquired in a water tank. Using a limited frequency band, it was demonstrated that the phase-coherent MUSIC algorithm has the potential of giving significantly better resolved scatterer locations than standard time-reversal MUSIC.     

Acoustic classification of multiple simultaneous bird species: a multi-instance multi-label approach

Although field-collected recordings typically contain multiple simultaneously vocalizing birds of different species, acoustic species classification in this setting has received little study so far. This work formulates the problem of classifying the set of species present in an audio recording using the multi-instance multi-label (MIML) framework for machine learning, and proposes a MIML bag generator for audio, i.e., an algorithm which transforms an input audio signal into a bag-of-instances representation suitable for use with MIML classifiers. The proposed representation uses a 2D time-frequency segmentation of the audio signal, which can separate bird sounds that overlap in time. Experiments using audio data containing 13 species collected with unattended omnidirectional microphones in the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest demonstrate that the proposed methods achieve high accuracy (96.1% true positives/negatives). Automated detection of bird species occurrence using MIML has many potential applications, particularly in long-term monitoring of remote sites, species distribution modeling, and conservation planning.     

Raman spectroscopy for identification and quantification analysis of essential oil varieties: a multivariate approach applied to lavender and lavandin essential oils

Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) is used for cosmetics, perfumes and medicine (antimicrobial activity and relaxant properties) while lavandin (sterile hybrid of L. angustifolia P. Mill. × Lavandula latifolia (L.f.) Medikus) is used for air fresheners, deodorants and soaps. These plants are widely cultivated for essential oil production. In this study, 104 samples were analyzed including 62 lavandin and 42 lavender oil samples from several varieties. The Raman spectra are similar but can be differentiated by chemometrics treatment. Data structure may be studied by PCA. A PLS regression model was used for quantitative analysis of the main compounds such as linalyl acetate, linalool and eucalyptol. The reference data were obtained by gas chromatography. The performance of the method was also tested to discriminate between the two species and the seven varieties (Abrial, Fine, Grosso, Maillette, Matherone, Sumian and Super) by PLS‐DA regression. The examination of PLS and PLS‐DA regression coefficients allowed for the identification of species and of the varieties' metabolomic markers. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

White dwarfs with a surface electrical charge distribution: equilibrium and stability

The European Physical Journal C - The Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) has been one of the most attractive candidates for Dark Matter (DM), and the lightest neutralino ( $$widetilde{chi...     

Abnormal hubs of white matter networks in the frontal-parieto circuit contribute to depression discrimination via pattern classification

Previous studies had explored the diagnostic and prognostic value of the structural neuroimaging data of MDD and treated the whole brain voxels, the fractional anisotropy and the structural connectivity as classification features. To our best knowledge, no study examined the potential diagnostic value of the hubs of anatomical brain networks in MDD. The purpose of the current study was to provide an exploratory examination of the potential diagnostic and prognostic values of hubs of white matter brain networks in MDD discrimination and the corresponding impaired hub pattern via a multi-pattern analysis. We constructed white matter brain networks from 29 depressions and 30 healthy controls based on diffusion tensor imaging data, calculated nodal measures and identified hubs. Using these measures as features, two types of feature architectures were established, one only included hubs (HUB) and the other contained both hubs and non hubs. The support vector machine classifiers with Gaussian radial basis kernel were used after the feature selection. Moreover, the relative contribution of the features was estimated by means of the consensus features. Our results presented that the hubs (including the bilateral dorsolateral part of superior frontal gyrus, the left middle frontal gyrus, the bilateral middle temporal gyrus, and the bilateral inferior temporal gyrus) played an important role in distinguishing the depressions from healthy controls with the best accuracy of 83.05%. Moreover, most of the HUB consensus features located in the frontal-parieto circuit. These findings provided evidence that the hubs could be served as valuable potential diagnostic measure for MDD, and the hub-concentrated lesion distribution of MDD was primarily anchored within the frontal-parieto circuit.     

Synthesis of multivariate random vibration systems: A two-stage least squares AR-MA model approach

A parametric time series model procedure for the synthesis of multivariate stationary time series random vibrations is shown. The vibrations are assumed to be the outputs of a regularly sampled, random noise excited, differential equation model of a vivration system. The procedure is a two-stage least squares method for realizing a multivariate disrcrete time mixed autoregressive-moving average (AR-MA) model from a given stationary process matrix covariance function. The synthesis procedure and the problem of the minimal representation of multivariate output systems and the overparameterization of AR-MA models are discussed and illustrated.     

The pump-probe approach to coherent backscattering of intense laser light from cold atoms

We present a new approach to near-resonant coherent backscattering of light from cold two-level atoms. In the dilute regime, where the distance between atoms is much larger than the laser wavelength, this approach is able to account for multi-photon scattering processes between many atoms through solutions of single-atom optical Bloch equations. We elaborate the method for double scattering from two atoms, and discuss the way of its extension for dilute, cold atomic clouds.     

The effect of cold acclimation on the water relations and freezing tolerance of Hordeum vulgare L

During a 5 degree C and a 5/-1 degree C cold acclimation (CA) regime there was a significant decline in the water potential of winter barley, and a concurrent decline in tissue water content of the 5/-1 degree C CA plants. Results of carbohydrate analysis illustrated a significant (P < 0.001) accumulation of sucrose, fructose and glucose in the 5/-1 degree C CA plants, which was inversely correlated to water potential. Using an infrared imaging radiometer during a convection frost test the water release time (WRT) of 5/-1 degree C CA was demonstrated to be significantly (P < 0.001) longer than that observed in non-cold acclimated plants. This observation is consistent with visual analysis of exotherm curves where the rate of cellular water release to extracellular ice is reduced in the 5/-1 degree C CA plants, compared to the non-cold acclimated plants. These biochemical and physiological changes were correlated to increased plant health following a non-lethal freezing test to -5 degree C, where non-cold acclimated plants produced 2.3 +/- 0.3 tillers and 5 degree C and 5/-1 degree C CA plants produced 2.4 +/- 0.3 and 4.7 +/- 0.7 tillers, respectively. Results from this study imply that cold acclimation leads to changes in the physical state of water that result in a less osmotically responsive cellular environment and subsequently significantly less damage to meristematic tissue.     

OFDM tolerance to additive white Gaussian and laser phase noises in optical heterodyning systems accompanied by the feasible pilot-assisted equalization

Optical Review - It is well known that the performance of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is limited by phase noise, which depends on the laser linewidths for coherent-detection...     

Another approach to protons with constricted mobility in white matter: pilot studies using wideline and high-resolution NMR spectroscopy

We report a new approach for the identification of an independent method of studying the semi-solid pool of protons, i.e., protons with constrained motion as a result of being bound to lipid and protein matrices. These protons cannot be observed using conventional imaging techniques since their transverse relaxation times are much shorter than the minimum echo times that are currently available on clinical scanners. In this pilot study, in vitro multicomponent transverse relaxation experiments were made on human white matter slices, fixed in formalin (7 normal and 5 with multiple sclerosis). The transverse relaxation decay curves were multiexponential and were decomposed to yield three primary components. The shortest T(2) component that we obtained (a component too short to be seen by in vivo methods) was of the order of microseconds. We hypothesize that this might correspond to the macromolecular pool of lipid protons trapped within the myelin sheaths. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt at extracting this ultra short T(2) component from human white matter. Subsequently, an attempt was made to directly detect the lipid protons in a proton NMR spectrum and, if possible, measure their concentration in some of the tissues, using the technique of magic angle spinning.     

Application of weigert effect to the pseudocoloration of a black and white signal

We propose here a method to transform the grey levels of a black and white transparency into different colours. The transparency to be processed, illuminated by a beam of linearly polarized white light, is twice recorded on a photograph silver-chloride emulsion. The direction of the light vector is rotated through π/2 between the exposures. The resulting plate is characterized by a spatially varying anisotropy. The main point is that the wavelength λ_B and λ_D, respectively corresponding to the cancellation of birefringence and dichroism, are function of the irradiance of the signal and of the successive exposure times. The plate is then illuminated in white light and observed between two polarizers P and A. It reconstructs an achromatic image of T when the respective axes of P and A are mutually perpendicular. A rotation of A from its setting crossed with P generate a colour distribution on the plate.