Weak Basis Research Articles

More about unphysical zeroes in quark mass matrices

We look for all weak bases that lead to texture zeroes in the quark mass matrices and contain a minimal number of parameters in the framework of the standard model. Since there are ten physical observables, namely, six nonvanishing quark masses, three mixing angles and one CP phase, the maximum number of texture zeroes in both quark sectors is altogether nine. The nine zero entries can only be distributed between the up- and down-quark sectors in matrix pairs with six and three texture zeroes or five and four texture zeroes. In the weak basis where a quark mass matrix is nonsingular and has six zeroes in one sector, we find that there are 54 matrices with three zeroes in the other sector, obtainable through right-handed weak basis transformations. It is also found that all pairs composed of a nonsingular matrix with five zeroes and a nonsingular and nondecoupled matrix with four zeroes simply correspond to a weak basis choice. Without any further assumptions, none of these pairs of up- and down-quark mass matrices has physical content. It is shown that all non-weak-basis pairs of quark mass matrices that contain nine zeroes are not compatible with current experimental data. The particular case of the so-called nearest-neighbour-interaction pattern is also discussed.

Is Anything Left of Children’s Rights?

In this article it is argued that parental responsibility offers a weak basis for the protection of children’s rights due to its emphasis on (1) responsible parents’ determinations of welfare and (2) the concomitant nature of rights to duties. Based on these two premises, courts have often either neglected children’s rights, or have subordinated them to the rights of duty-holders (parents) when deciding on matters falling within the scope of parental responsibility. Recently, a third limitation on children’s rights has been added: theapplicationof a (non-derogable) right held by the child can now be prevented following an exercise of parental responsibility in circumstances where the child’s right would otherwise apply. The argument is therefore made that parental responsibility as applied under English law erodes children’s rights, leaving little left but the rhetoric surrounding them.

MOBILITY OF IMAZETHAPYR DEPENDING ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SOIL

UDK 631.41:632.954(497.6)
 The aim of the study was to research the mobility of imazethapyr in three types of soil in the disturbed conditions (laboratory labels KDIL, PILKD and PILKE), whose pH in H2O varied from 4.55 to 7.01 using the methods of biological testing. In the study it was used PIVOT-M which contains 100 gl-1 of imazethapyr as ammonium salt and is formulated as the concentrated solution (SL).
 Imazethapyr was washed out through the PVC columns, with the inner diameter of 45 mm and 20 cm long (4x5 cm). The amount of water used for eluting of the deposit amount of the herbicide suited the amount of 50, 100 and 200 l of water/m2 and deposite amount of herbicide was 1.0 lha-1. After the washout and draining of the column, the soil column was extruded and divided into the segments of 5cm. On the soil extract of 5 cm, 10 g of dry and noncontaminated soil of the same type was added to drain the extract and prepare for planting. Soil sample of 110 g of soil (110 g of the soil from the column + 10 g of the “pure“ soil) is placed into the pot with the diameter of 5 cm and 8 seeds of oats were planted. Such formed pots are placed into the greenhouse in order to measure biometric indicators after 21 day (fresh mass of the shoot and root, dry mass of the shoot and root).
 The mobility of imazethapyr depends on the chemical characteristics and mechanical content of the soil. In this study, placing in the regressive dependence of the soil characteristics [humus content (%), clay (%) and sand (%)], as an independent variable, with the amount of water required for elution, as dependent size, they could not demonstrate dependency relationships observed through a linear regression. However, when you observe pH dependence of soil and water volume (CV) required for elution of imazethapyr from the first 5 cm through the exponential regression of the first line, so that inhibition of oats growth, which is grown in the soil from that part of the column, was 10%, and which corresponds values of NOEL, it can be drawn a conclusion thatfunctional dependency is established statistically significant, with a coefficient of determination 0.987. It tells us that the mobility of imazethapyr in the soil is greater as the pH of the soil is greater, which means that imazethapyr is very mobile in the neutral or soils with the weak basis.

State borders as defining lines of justice: why the right to exclude cannot be justified

This paper seeks to answer the question of what we, according to justice, owe to immigrants. The answer to this normative question is extracted by providing an analysis of Michael Blake’s jurisdictional theory presented in Immigration, Jurisdiction, and Exclusion and elaborated upon in other articles in which he argues for states’ right to exclude immigrants based on states’ jurisdictional nature. I regard this theory as unjustified since it rests on a weak basis, which is further problematised by weighing the moral claims of residents above those of immigrants. In this way, my criticism serves to provide argumentative support in a negative manner for weighing the moral claims of immigrants on an equal footing with those of residents.

ESTIMATION OF SUBGRADE STRENGTHENING INFLUENCE USING SOILCEMENT ELEMENTS

Purpose. The aim of this work is to identify dependencies and options to strengthen the roadbed and a weak base by grouting piles. Analysis of software package SCAD to assess the effect of the selected option of strengthening the construction of spatial subgrade models. Methodology. In this paper the method of calculation of the soil mass in the software package SCAD is considered, which is a universal accounting system of finite-element analysis of structures and is focused on solving problems of designing buildings and structures rather complex structure. The finite element method is among the most modern and effective methods for the calculation of structures for various purposes. In the simulation, we get a complete picture of the stress-strain state of the study area, as well as the value of the limit load, rainfall, and so on. The spatial model based on the finite element volume, to better address the real characteristics of the soil mass, meets all the geometric characteristics of size and natural subgrade and the top structure the path that has been adopted in Ukraine. Findings. It was found that the most effective option to strengthen the roadbed, when applying grouting piles at the base of the subgrade and body, is to strengthen the five piles. At the same time there is even strengthen the soil mass at the level of 25 … 30% of the entire depth. However, even with the strengthening of the only two piles at the base of the effect of the strengthening of 14.1%. Established equation is linear and describes the decrease in strain. Taking into account the results of the research can be concluded that the consolidation is proportional to the depth with any number of piles. The dependence of the strain on the number of piles adheres to a polynomial function. Strengthening the bases of the subgrade and body depth also occurs in proportion with any number of piles. Originality. Design scheme generation algorithm for the calculation of the subgrade on a weak basis by finite element method was determined. The selection of strength characteristics of soils and the design parameters for use during the numerical simulation was completed. Load process simulation of the system by rolling stock was grounded. Practical value. Analysis of stress-strain state of «weak base-subgrade» allows you to see the basic laws work the soil and take the necessary measures to enhance the cross-section profile of jet-grouting elements.

Challenges in developing regionalized characterization factors in land use impact assessment: impacts on ecosystem services in case studies of animal protein production in Sweden

PurposeThe UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative has recently developed a guideline framework for land use impact assessment. This article evaluates the feasibility and highlights the challenges of applying a set of methods that adhere to this framework, and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the indicators used in these methods, for the purpose of supporting further methodological development.MethodsThe methods were tested in two case studies of animal protein production in Sweden: dairy milk and pork. The reference situations were defined as the potential natural vegetation. County-level characterization factors (CFs) were calculated and occupation impacts were assessed for five ecosystem services, using six ecosystem service indicators: carbon flow change, groundwater recharge, mechanical filtration capacity, physicochemical filtration capacity, soil loss, and soil organic carbon, at two geographic scales: county and biome. Strengths and weaknesses of the ecosystem service indicators were identified using an evaluation framework for selected quality characteristics: representativeness, reliability, feasibility, and transparency.Results and discussionOccupation impacts at the two geographic scales, and for the two production cases, differ both in absolute numbers, and—for mechanical and physicochemical filtration capacity—in the ranking of cases. Results at both geographic scales indicate positive effects—or lower negative impacts—in protein production from dairy milk compared to pork, due to grass production on dairy farms, and lower use of land per unit protein. However, some of the observed benefits may be exaggerated due to challenges in adequately representing the reference situations. Most indicators were assigned medium or high degrees of representativeness, feasibility, and transparency, but several were assigned low degrees of reliability, due to the weak scientific basis upon which they were selected, low degrees of accuracy, and insufficient information on how they should be assessed.ConclusionsOccupation impact results should be interpreted with caution due to challenges in applying the methods and use of indicators with identified weaknesses. The most challenging part of developing regionalized CFs was finding suitable land areas from which to derive representative data to parameterize the reference situations. More research is needed to provide adequate support to life cycle assessment practitioners who wish to calculate regionalized CFs and to address the identified weaknesses.

Constraining the texture mass matrices

The present work attempts to provide an overview of texture specific mass matrices, which, along with Weak Basis (WB) transformations, emerge as a viable framework for explaining the fermion masses and mixing data in the quark as well as lepton sector.

Misleading interpretation of shifting baseline syndrome in the conservation of European mink

The European mink is a critically endangered mustelid with only three declining and isolated populations. Based on particular interpretation of genetic studies, the origin of SW population (France and Spain) and its conservation measures were recently questioned, and considered an example of managed relocation. The four published genetic studies show similar results, revealing a bottleneck structure. The SW population was probably established by very few individuals, which can be explained by dispersal of some-long distance migrants or by human introduction. The historical records evidence a long-distance dispersal capacity of the species and the temporal trend expansion in SW Europe is spatially collated with the idea of an expanding population. On contrast, most support for the introduction hypothesis comes from critics to other hypotheses, while it lacks of structure to stand on its own as hypothesis: no ecological barrier preventing natural expansion identified, no reports or reasons for captivity breeding or translocation programs, and lacks of supporting documents among others. Arguing shifting baseline syndrome in European mink conservation has weak basis and can result perilously misleading for a species in the brink of extinction.

A relational approach to the implementation of the European Landscape Convention in Sweden

The European Landscape Convention (ELC) aims to promote landscape protection, management and planning and to organise European cooperation on landscape issues. The introduction of the ELC in 2000 created a need for further theoretical work within the field of landscape research, which has historically provided a weak theoretical basis for policy implementation. In this study, a relational approach was used to investigate the ongoing ELC implementation process in Sweden, illustrating government dynamics and highlighting efforts to transform discourses and practices. The conceptual framework used comprised three analytical components (policy community, policy meaning and strategy-making practice) and the relational approach was applied at national, regional and local policy levels. The results revealed both progress and obstacles to ELC implementation in Sweden and confirmed the usefulness of the relational approach.

Turkish history thesis as a legitimizing instrument in music debates of early republican turkey

The goal of the early republican elite was to form a new national identity supporting westernization and the consciousness of secular Turkishness while excluding the Ottoman- Islamic legacy as much as possible. Turkish History Thesis was, above all, an ideological instrument for supporting and legitimizing these objectives. The influence of the Turkish History Thesis on music debates of the early republican period is reflected by the arguments on the Central Asian and archaic Anatolian origins of Turkish music, the alleged impact of this archaic Turkish music on the other great music traditions of the world such as Western music and the famous pentatonism thesis. In these debates, the Turkish History Thesis has been employed as an ideological instrument rather than a scientific explanation. The ideological background underlying the Turkish History Thesis and its various extensions in the field of music has dominated not only the official view but also the oppositional discourse, despite its weak scientific basis. This fact points to the extent of ideological hegemony exercised by the dominant cultural discourse on the oppositional one and also presents a good case of how the survival strategies of the oppositional culture against the attacks of an official discourse pave the way for the internalization of this dominant discourse by it.

What if we lose a hub? Experimental testing of pollination network resilience to removal of keystone floral resources

On the basis of theoretical predictions, pollination networks seem to be resilient to random node elimination but sensitive to targeted exclusion. However, such predictions have a very weak empirical basis. In order to test the robustness of the pollination network to short-term disturbances, we removed inflorescences of the most connected species occurring in a lowland meadow network using the before–after approach and compared the result with that obtained by network modelling. The manipulated network showed no significant differences for the most commonly used metrics, but was more generalized than control networks, owing to a change in the preferences of pollinators. Furthermore, no secondary extinctions (emigrations) were found, owing to the considerable natural variation found among insect species assemblages. Following elimination of the most linked plant species, a new hub was detected in the experimental meadow, the hub node being a plant species with a similar inflorescence to that removed, and formerly playing the role of a peripheral node. We conclude that exclusion of the main food source forced insects to change their specialized preferences to other plant species that were available. Mostly, these had inflorescences similar to those that were removed.

Application of activity theory to analysis of human-related accidents: Method and case studies

This study proposes a new approach to human-related accident analysis based on activity theory. Most of the existing methods seem to be insufficient for comprehensive analysis of human activity-related contextual aspects of accidents when investigating the causes of human errors. Additionally, they identify causal factors and their interrelationships with a weak theoretical basis. We argue that activity theory offers useful concepts and insights to supplement existing methods. The proposed approach gives holistic contextual backgrounds for understanding and diagnosing human-related accidents. It also helps identify and organise causal factors in a consistent, systematic way. Two case studies in Korean nuclear power plants are presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method. Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) was also applied to the case studies. The results of using HFACS were then compared with those of using the proposed method. These case studies showed that the proposed approach could produce a meaningful set of human activity-related contextual factors, which cannot easily be obtained by using existing methods. It can be especially effective when analysts think it is important to diagnose accident situations with human activity-related contextual factors derived from a theoretically sound model and to identify accident-related contextual factors systematically.

TypeI+IIIseesaw mechanism andCPviolation for leptogenesis

A seesaw mechanism is presented in the neutrino sector and a new phase of CP violation ($\alpha$) emerges in the interplay between the type-I and type-III seesaw schemes. This phase is inside the mixing term, and thus it cannot be rotated away in the Yukawa Lagrangian and, therefore, the heavy symmetry states cannot be in a diagonal weak basis in the broken phase. Some particular descriptions are analyzed suggesting that if the usual Yukawa couplings are suppressed, leptogenesis still occurs due to a new interacting vertex with fermion triplet $T$, fermion singlets $N$, and an ad-hoc scalar triplet, $\Sigma$, which now is included to mediate the interactions. The evaluated CP violation is enough to generate the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry even in the minimal $1N+1T$ case (independently of $\alpha$) or in the $2N+1T$ approach (controlled by $\alpha$). The latter introduces more CP contributions to leptogenesis due to new diagrams which are now possible even with the suppressed imaginary part of the standard Yukawa couplings and can induce the observed baryon-to-photon ratio.

The Social Construction of Retirement and Evolving Policy Discourse of Working Longer

AbstractThis article is concerned with the evolving social construction of older workers and retirement. Evolving and competing ‘world-views’ from public policy, and social advocacy of productive and vulnerable older workers, are described and critiqued. Contradictions and disjunctions, in terms of public policies aimed at changing employer behaviour towards older workers, are identified. It is argued that present representations of older workers have serious flaws that provide a weak basis for policy development and may not only undermine the prospects for overcoming prejudicial societal attitudes but may in fact strengthen them. It is further argued that sheltering older workers in employment placements will inevitably limit the extent and nature of their participation. Instead, the mainstreaming of their employment is justified, bearing in mind negative attitudes towards ageing.

Numerical solutions of 3D Cauchy problems of elliptic operators in cylindrical domain using local weak equations and radial basis functions

ABSTRACTThis paper is concerned with the numerical solutions of 3D Cauchy problems of elliptic differential operators in the cylindrical domain. We assume that the measurements are only available on the outer boundary while the interior boundary is inaccessible and the solution should be obtained from the measurements from the outer layer. The proposed discretization approach uses the local weak equations and radial basis functions. Since the Cauchy problem is known to be ill-posed, the Thikhonov regularization strategy is employed to solve effectively the discrete ill-posed resultant linear system of equations. Numerical results of a different kind of test problems reveal that the method is very effective.

Fermion mass matrices, textures and beyond

The issue of texture specific fermion mass matrices have been examined briefly from the “bottom-up” perspective. In case no conditions are imposed, the texture ansatze leads to a large number of viable possibilities. However, besides textures, if in case one incorporates the ideas of “natural mass matrices” and uses the facility of Weak Basis Transformations, then one is able to arrive at a minimal finite set of viable mass matrices in the case of quarks.

Seeking Texture Zeros in the Quark Mass Matrix Sector of the Standard Model

Here we show that the Weak Basis Transformation is an appropriate mathematical tool that can be used to find texture zeros in the quark mass matrix sector of the Standard Model. So, starting with the most general quark mass matrices and taking physical data into consideration, it is possible to obtain more than three texture zeros by any Weak Basis transformation. The general quark mass matrices considered, were obtained through a special weak basis transformation wherein the up-quark mass matrix (down-quark mass matrix ) has been taken to be diagonal and the down-quark mass matrix (up-quark mass matrix), in general form, includes the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix.

Invariant approach to [formula omitted] in unbroken Δ(27)

The invariant approach is a powerful method for studying CP violation for specific Lagrangians. The method is particularly useful for dealing with discrete family symmetries. We focus on the CP properties of unbroken Δ(27) invariant Lagrangians with Yukawa-like terms, which proves to be a rich framework, with distinct aspects of CP, making it an ideal group to investigate with the invariant approach. We classify Lagrangians depending on the number of fields transforming as irreducible triplet representations of Δ(27). For each case, we construct CP-odd weak basis invariants and use them to discuss the respective CP properties. We find that CP violation is sensitive to the number and type of Δ(27) representations.

Twin reversed arterial perfusion sequence is more common than generally accepted.

Approximately 75% of monozygotic twin pregnancies share one monochorionic placenta where placental anastomoses are virtually always present to connect the two fetoplacental circulations. These anastomoses cause several serious complications such as acardiac twinning. Acardiac twins lack a functional heart but nevertheless show fetal growth because the normal pump twin perfuses the acardiac body through arterioarterial (AA) and venovenous (VV) anastomoses. The widely accepted 1% monochorionic acardiac incidence dates back to 1944 and the associated 1:35,000 pregnancies to 1953. Our aim was to update this analysis. We accepted the 1% (actually 1.1%) monochorionic acardiac incidence due to lack of more precise data, included the recently observed 58% early cessation of acardiac development as well as consequences of assisted reproductive technology, and assessed the incidence of acardiac twinning under conditions of AA-VV anastomoses. Early acardiac monochorionic twinning increased from 1.1% to 1.1/(1-0.58) = 2.6%, from 1:35,000 to 1:9,500 to 11,000 pregnancies, depending on number and method of assisted reproductive technology, and occurs in approximately 1:8 AA-VV anastomoses-containing monochorionic placentas. Early acardiac twinning is not a rare event. The 1944-based 1% acardiac monochorionic incidence has a weak basis and could therefore be (much) larger. Knowing this incidence more precisely may contribute to our knowledge of embryonic splitting in unequal cell masses.

Confronting four zero neutrino Yukawa textures with N2 -dominated leptogenesis

We consider a restricted Type-I seesaw scenario with four texture zeros in the neutrino Yukawa matrix, in the weak basis where both the charged-lepton Yukawa matrix and the Majorana mass matrix for right-handed neutrinos are diagonal and real. Inspired by grand unified theories, we further require the neutrino Yukawa matrix to exhibit a similar hierarchical pattern to that in the up-type quark Yukawa matrix. With such a hierarchy requirement, we find that leptogenesis, which would operate in a $N_2^{}$-dominated scenario with the asymmetry generated by the next-to-lightest right-handed neutrino $N_2^{}$, can greatly reduce the number of allowed textures, and disfavors the scenario that three light neutrinos are quasi-degenerate. Such a quasi-degenerate scenario of light neutrinos may soon be tested in upcoming neutrino experiments.