Assessing framing of uncertainties in water management practice

Dealing with uncertainties in water management is an important issue and is one which will only increase in light of global changes, particularly climate change. So far, uncertainties in water management have mostly been assessed from a scientific point of view, and in quantitative terms. In this paper, we focus on the perspectives from water management practice, adopting a qualitative approach. We consider it important to know how uncertainties are framed in water management practice in order to develop practice relevant strategies for dealing with uncertainties. Framing refers to how people make sense of the world. With the aim of identifying what are important parameters for the framing of uncertainties in water management practice, in this paper we analyze uncertainty situations described by decision-makers in water management. The analysis builds on a series of ¿Uncertainty Dialogues¿ carried out within the NeWater project with water managers in the Rhine, Elbe and Guadiana basins in 2006. During these dialogues, representatives of these river basins were asked what uncertainties they encountered in their professional work life and how they confronted them. Analysing these dialogues we identified several important parameters of how uncertainties get framed. Our assumption is that making framing of uncertainty explicit for water managers will allow for better dealing with the respective uncertainty situations. Keywords Framing - Uncertainty - Water management practic

Moduli Stabilization and Cosmology of Type IIB on SU(2)-Structure Orientifolds

We consider type IIB flux compactifications on six-dimensional SU(2)-structure manifolds with O5- and O7-planes. These six-dimensional spaces allow not only for F_3 and H_3 fluxes but also for F_1 and F_5 fluxes. We derive the four-dimensional N=1 scalar potential for such compactifications and present one explicit example of a fully stabilized AdS vacuum with large volume and small string coupling. We then discuss cosmological aspects of these compactifications and derive several no-go theorems that forbid dS vacua and slow-roll inflation under certain conditions. We also study concrete examples of cosets and twisted tori and find that our no-go theorems forbid dS vacua and slow-roll inflation in all but one of them. For the latter we find a dS critical point with \epsilon numerically zero. However, the point has two tachyons and eta-parameter \eta \approx -3.1.Comment: 35 pages + appendices, LaTeX2e; v2: numerical dS extremum added, typos corrected, references adde

Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1. The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG + Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version published in European Physical Journal

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

L14. Immunomodulatory properties of apoptotic cells.

International audienc

Observation of the Ωc0\Omega_{c}^{0} Charmed Baryon at CLEO

The CLEO experiment at the CESR collider has used 13.7 fb$^{-1}$ of data to search for the production of the $\Omega_c^0$ (css-ground state) in $e^{+}e^{-}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} \simeq 10.6$ {\rm GeV}. The modes used to study the $\Omega_c^0$ are $\Omega^- \pi^+$, $\Omega^- \pi^+ \pi^0$, $\Xi^- K^- pi^+ \pi^+$, $\Xi^0 K^- pi^+$, and $\Omega^- \pi^+ \pi^- \pi^+$. We observe a signal of 40.4$\pm$9.0(stat) events at a mass of 2694.6$\pm$2.6(stat)$\pm$1.9(syst) {\rm MeV/$c^2$}, for all modes combined.Comment: 10 pages postscript, also available through http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN

Measurement of the Relative Branching Fraction of Υ(4S)\Upsilon(4S) to Charged and Neutral B-Meson Pairs

We analyze 9.7 x 10^6 B\bar{B}$ pairs recorded with the CLEO detector to determine the production ratio of charged to neutral B-meson pairs produced at the Y(4S) resonance. We measure the rates for B^0 -> J/psi K^{(*)0} and B^+ -> J/psi K^{(*)+} decays and use the world-average B-meson lifetime ratio to extract the relative widths f+-/f00 = Gamma(Y(4S) -> B+B-)/Gamma(Y(4S) -> B0\bar{B0}) = = 1.04 +/- 0.07(stat) +/- 0.04(syst). With the assumption that f+- + f00 = 1, we obtain f00 = 0.49 +/- 0.02(stat) +/- 0.01(syst) and f+- = 0.51 +/- 0.02(stat) +/- 0.01(syst). This production ratio and its uncertainty apply to all exclusive B-meson branching fractions measured at the Y(4S) resonance.Comment: 11 pages postscript, also available through http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN

Conspicuous Female Ornamentation and Tests of Male Mate Preference in Threespine Sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus)

Sexual selection drives the evolution of exaggerated male ornaments in many animal species. Female ornamentation is now acknowledged also to be common but is generally less well understood. One example is the recently documented red female throat coloration in some threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) populations. Although female sticklebacks often exhibit a preference for red male throat coloration, the possibility of sexual selection on female coloration has been little studied. Using sequential and simultaneous mate choice trials, we examined male mate preferences for female throat color, as well as pelvic spine color and standard length, using wild-captured threespine sticklebacks from the Little Campbell River, British Columbia. In a multivariate analysis, we found no evidence for a population-level mate preference in males, suggesting the absence of directional sexual selection on these traits arising from male mate choice. Significant variation was detected among males in their preference functions, but this appeared to arise from differences in their mean responsiveness across mating trials and not from variation in the strength (i.e., slope) of their preference, suggesting the absence of individual-level preferences as well. When presented with conspecific intruder males, male response decreased as intruder red throat coloration increased, suggesting that males can discriminate color and other aspects of phenotype in our experiment and that males may use these traits in intrasexual interactions. The results presented here are the first to explicitly address male preference for female throat color in threespine sticklebacks.Open Access Publishing Fun

Brane-World Gravity

The observable universe could be a 1+3-surface (the "brane") embedded in a 1+3+\textit{d}-dimensional spacetime (the "bulk"), with Standard Model particles and fields trapped on the brane while gravity is free to access the bulk. At least one of the \textit{d} extra spatial dimensions could be very large relative to the Planck scale, which lowers the fundamental gravity scale, possibly even down to the electroweak ($\sim$ TeV) level. This revolutionary picture arises in the framework of recent developments in M theory. The 1+10-dimensional M theory encompasses the known 1+9-dimensional superstring theories, and is widely considered to be a promising potential route to quantum gravity. At low energies, gravity is localized at the brane and general relativity is recovered, but at high energies gravity "leaks" into the bulk, behaving in a truly higher-dimensional way. This introduces significant changes to gravitational dynamics and perturbations, with interesting and potentially testable implications for high-energy astrophysics, black holes, and cosmology. Brane-world models offer a phenomenological way to test some of the novel predictions and corrections to general relativity that are implied by M theory. This review analyzes the geometry, dynamics and perturbations of simple brane-world models for cosmology and astrophysics, mainly focusing on warped 5-dimensional brane-worlds based on the Randall--Sundrum models. We also cover the simplest brane-world models in which 4-dimensional gravity on the brane is modified at \emph{low} energies -- the 5-dimensional Dvali--Gabadadze--Porrati models. Then we discuss co-dimension two branes in 6-dimensional models.Comment: A major update of Living Reviews in Relativity 7:7 (2004) "Brane-World Gravity", 119 pages, 28 figures, the update contains new material on RS perturbations, including full numerical solutions of gravitational waves and scalar perturbations, on DGP models, and also on 6D models. A published version in Living Reviews in Relativit

Search for R-parity-violating supersymmetry in events with four or more leptons in sqrt(s) =7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for new phenomena in final states with four or more leptons (electrons or muons) is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of $\sqrt{s}=7\;\mathrm{TeV}$ proton-proton collisions delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in two signal regions: one that requires moderate values of missing transverse momentum and another that requires large effective mass. The results are interpreted in a simplified model of R-parity-violating supersymmetry in which a 95% CL exclusion region is set for charged wino masses up to 540 GeV. In an R-parity-violating MSUGRA/CMSSM model, values of m 1/2 up to 820 GeV are excluded for 10 < tan β < 40