Jet color chemistry and anomalous baryon production in AAAA-collisions

We study anomalous high-$p_T$ baryon production in $AA$-collisions due to formation of the two parton collinear $gq$ system in the anti-sextet color state for quark jets and $gg$ system in the decuplet/anti-decuplet color states for gluon jets. Fragmentation of these states, which are absent for $NN$-collisions, after escaping from the quark-gluon plasma leads to baryon production. Our qualitative estimates show that this mechanism can be potentially important at RHIC and LHC energies.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, Eur.Phys.J. versio

Wound dressings for a proteolytic-rich environment

Wound dressings have experienced continuous and significant changes over the years based on the knowledge of the biochemical events associated with chronic wounds. The development goes from natural materials used to just cover and conceal the wound to interactive materials that can facilitate the healing process, addressing specific issues in non-healing wounds. These new types of dressings often relate with the proteolytic wound environment and the bacteria load to enhance the healing. Recently, the wound dressing research is focusing on the replacement of synthetic polymers by natural protein materials to delivery bioactive agents to the wounds. This article provides an overview on the novel protein-based wound dressings such as silk fibroin keratin and elastin. The improved properties of these dressings, like the release of antibiotics and growth factors, are discussed. The different types of wounds and the effective parameters of healing process will be reviewed

Factors confounding the assessment of reflection: a critical review

BACKGROUND: Reflection on experience is an increasingly critical part of professional development and lifelong learning. There is, however, continuing uncertainty about how best to put principle into practice, particularly as regards assessment. This article explores those uncertainties in order to find practical ways of assessing reflection. DISCUSSION: We critically review four problems: 1. Inconsistent definitions of reflection; 2. Lack of standards to determine (in)adequate reflection; 3. Factors that complicate assessment; 4. Internal and external contextual factors affecting the assessment of reflection. SUMMARY: To address the problem of inconsistency, we identified processes that were common to a number of widely quoted theories and synthesised a model, which yielded six indicators that could be used in assessment instruments. We arrived at the conclusion that, until further progress has been made in defining standards, assessment must depend on developing and communicating local consensus between stakeholders (students, practitioners, teachers, supervisors, curriculum developers) about what is expected in exercises and formal tests. Major factors that complicate assessment are the subjective nature of reflection's content and the dependency on descriptions by persons being assessed about their reflection process, without any objective means of verification. To counter these validity threats, we suggest that assessment should focus on generic process skills rather than the subjective content of reflection and where possible to consider objective information about the triggering situation to verify described reflections. Finally, internal and external contextual factors such as motivation, instruction, character of assessment (formative or summative) and the ability of individual learning environments to stimulate reflection should be considered

The calculation of Binding Energy and Incompressibility, Pressure, and Velocity of Sound of Infinite Nuclear matter Using New One Boson Interaction.

The use of effective nucleon – nucleon (N N) interactions for the determination of nuclear matter properties such as, binding energy per nucleon, incompressibility,K of infinite nuclear matter, pressure 0 and velocity of sound of nuclear matter has been a subject of great interest to nuclear physicists for many decades. The effective interaction usually involved in these calculations has been the Michigan three Yukawa (M3Y) effective interactions whose origin is from G- matrix approach. In this research work however, we have used a newly developed interaction known as new one boson (NOB) effective interaction to carry out similar calculations. This new interaction is based on the Lowest Order Constrained Variational (LOCV) technique. The interaction reproduces the saturation energy of spin and isospin infinite nuclear matter of approximately -16MeV at the normal nuclear matter saturation density consistent with the best available density-dependent interaction derived from the G-matrix approach. The results of the incompressibility obtained using the NOB interaction ranges from 304 to 309 MeV. These values are in good agreement with the values of incompressibility obtained for similar calculations using the M3Y – Reid effective interaction, in which values for K range from 304 to 310 MeV. The results of 0 pressure and velocity of sound of infinite nuclear matter obtained in the present calculations are also in excellent agreement with results of other workers. The results of our present calculations indicate that, the NOB interaction has passed the basic test for an effective interaction. The NOB may therefore be applied to other nuclear matter and optical model calculations to ascertain its reliability.</jats:p