Suppression of Hydrogen Emission in an X-Class White-Light Solar Flare

We present unique NUV observations of a well-observed X-class flare from NOAA 12087 obtained at Ond\v{r}ejov Observatory. The flare shows a strong white-light continuum but no detectable emission in the higher Balmer and Lyman lines. RHESSI and Fermi observations indicate an extremely hard X-ray spectrum and gamma-ray emission. We use the RADYN radiative hydrodynamic code to perform two type of simulations. One where an energy of 3 x 10^11 erg/cm^2/s is deposited by an electron beam with a spectral index of ~3 and a second where the same energy is applied directly to the photosphere. The combination of observations and simulations allow us to conclude that the white-light emission and the suppression or complete lack of hydrogen emission lines is best explained by a model where the dominant energy deposition layer is located in the lower layers of the solar atmosphere rather than the chromosphere.Comment: 13 page

Forward Physics at the LHC (Elba 2010)

The papers review the main theoretical and experimental aspects of the Forward Physics at the Large Hadron Collider

Evolution of central pattern generators for the control of a five-link bipedal walking mechanism

Central pattern generators (CPGs), with a basis is neurophysiological studies, are a type of neural network for the generation of rhythmic motion. While CPGs are being increasingly used in robot control, most applications are hand-tuned for a specific task and it is acknowledged in the field that generic methods and design principles for creating individual networks for a given task are lacking. This study presents an approach where the connectivity and oscillatory parameters of a CPG network are determined by an evolutionary algorithm with fitness evaluations in a realistic simulation with accurate physics. We apply this technique to a five-link planar walking mechanism to demonstrate its feasibility and performance. In addition, to see whether results from simulation can be acceptably transferred to real robot hardware, the best evolved CPG network is also tested on a real mechanism. Our results also confirm that the biologically inspired CPG model is well suited for legged locomotion, since a diverse manifestation of networks have been observed to succeed in fitness simulations during evolution.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures; substantial revision of content, organization, and quantitative result

Schottky mass measurements of heavy neutron-rich nuclides in the element range 70\leZ \le79 at the ESR

Storage-ring mass spectrometry was applied to neutron-rich $^{197}$Au projectile fragments. Masses of $^{181,183}$Lu, $^{185,186}$Hf, $^{187,188}$Ta, $^{191}$W, and $^{192,193}$Re nuclei were measured for the first time. The uncertainty of previously known masses of $^{189,190}$W and $^{195}$Os nuclei was improved. Observed irregularities on the smooth two-neutron separation energies for Hf and W isotopes are linked to the collectivity phenomena in the corresponding nuclei.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 2 table

First Results from the TOTEM Experiment

The first physics results from the TOTEM experiment are here reported, concerning the measurements of the total, differential elastic, elastic and inelastic pp cross-section at the LHC energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV, obtained using the luminosity measurement from CMS. A preliminary measurement of the forward charged particle $\eta$ distribution is also shown.Comment: Conference Proceeding. MPI@LHC 2010: 2nd International Workshop on Multiple Partonic Interactions at the LHC. Glasgow (UK), 29th of November to the 3rd of December 201

\b{eta}-delayed three-proton decay of 31Ar

The beta decay of 31Ar, produced by fragmentation of a 36Ar beam at 880 MeV/nucleon, was investigated. Identified ions of 31Ar were stopped in a gaseous time projection chamber with optical readout allowing to record decay events with emission of protons. In addition to \b{eta}-delayed emission of one and two protons we have clearly observed the beta-delayed three-proton branch. The branching ratio for this channel in 31Ar is found to be 0.07(2)%.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physical Rev.

Edge-guided image gap interpolation using multi-scale transformation

This paper presents improvements in image gap restoration through the incorporation of edge-based directional interpolation within multi-scale pyramid transforms. Two types of image edges are reconstructed: 1) the local edges or textures, inferred from the gradients of the neighboring pixels and 2) the global edges between image objects or segments, inferred using a Canny detector. Through a process of pyramid transformation and downsampling, the image is progressively transformed into a series of reduced size layers until at the pyramid apex the gap size is one sample. At each layer, an edge skeleton image is extracted for edge-guided interpolation. The process is then reversed; from the apex, at each layer, the missing samples are estimated (an iterative method is used in the last stage of upsampling), up-sampled, and combined with the available samples of the next layer. Discrete cosine transform and a family of discrete wavelet transforms are utilized as alternatives for pyramid construction. Evaluations over a range of images, in regular and random loss pattern, at loss rates of up to 40%, demonstrate that the proposed method improves peak-signal-to-noise-ratio by 1–5 dB compared with a range of best-published works