1,721,009 research outputs found
NHC ligand effects on Ru-catalyzed cross-metathesis of renewable materials
No full textAs petrochemical resources become increasingly scarce and expensive, much attention has been focused on renewable resources from biomass as alternative options for producing basic building blocks for chemical manufacturing. Catalytic olefin metathesis represents a powerful tool to transform biosourced structural motifs in valuable commodity, fine, and specialty chemicals. In that respect, the appropriate choice of the catalyst is the key issue of each metathesis transformation. The current study examines the influence of different N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands containing one or two N-alkyl substituents on the efficiency of Hoveyda–Grubbs-type catalysts in the cross-metathesis reaction of ethyl oleate with cis-1,4-diacetoxy-2-butene and cross-metathesis of eugenol acetate with cis-1,4-dichloro-2-butene. Interestingly, the introduction of alkyl N-substituents in the NHC ligand was revealed as beneficial for catalytic performances in the examined cross-metathesis (CM) reactions, leading to higher activity and/or selectivity than those observed in the presence of the classical, commercially available Hoveyda–Grubbs second generation catalyst (HGII)
Chiral models of composite axions and accidental Peccei-Quinn symmetry
Full text linkWe introduce a class of composite axion models that provide a natural solution to the strong CP problem, and possibly account for the observed dark matter abundance. The QCD axion arises as a composite Nambu-Goldstone boson (NGB) from the dynamics of a chiral gauge theory with a strongly-interacting and confining SU(N) factor and a weakly-interacting U(1), with no fundamental scalar fields. The Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry is accidental and all the mass scales are generated dynamically. We analyze specific models where the PQ symmetry is broken only by operators of dimension 12 or higher. We also classify several other models where the PQ symmetry can be potentially protected up to the dimension 15 or 18 level. Our framework can be easily extended to a scenario where the Standard Model (SM) is unified into a simple gauge group, and we discuss the case of non-supersymmetric SU(5) unification. The GUT models predict the existence of additional pseudo NGBs, parametrically lighter than the GUT and PQ scales, which could have an impact on the cosmological evolution and leave observable signatures. We also clarify the selection rules under which higher-dimensional PQ-violating operators can generate a potential for the axion in the IR, and provide a discussion of the discrete symmetries in composite axion models associated to the number of domain walls. These results can be of general interest for composite axion models based on a QCD-like confining gauge group
Searching for elusive dark sectors with terrestrial and celestial observations
No full textWe consider the possible existence of a SM-neutral and light dark sector coupled to the visible sector through irrelevant portal interactions. Scenarios of this kind are motivated by dark matter and arise in various extensions of the Standard Model. We characterize the dark dynamics in terms of one ultraviolet scale Λuv, at which the exchange of heavy mediator fields generates the portal operators, and by one infrared scale ΛIR, setting the mass gap. At energies ΛIR « E « Λuv the dark sector behaves like a conformal field theory and its phenomenology can be studied model independently. We derive the constraints set on this scenario by high- and low-energy laboratory experiments and by astrophysical observations. Our results are conservative and serve as a minimum requirement that must be fulfilled by the broad class of models satisfying our assumptions, of which we give several examples. The experimental constraints are derived in a manner consistent with the validity of the effective field theory used to define the portal interactions. We find that high-energy colliders give the strongest bounds and exclude UV scales up to a few TeV, but only in specific ranges of the IR scale. The picture emerging from current searches can be taken as a starting point to design a future experimental strategy with broader sensitivity
Heavy-light decay topologies as a new strategy to discover a heavy gluon
No full textWe study the collider phenomenology of the lightest Kaluza-Klein excitation of the gluon, G*, in theories with a warped extra dimension. We do so by means of a two-site effective lagrangian which includes only the lowest-lying spin-1 and spin-1/2 resonances. We point out the importance of the decays of G* to one SM plus one heavy fermion, that were overlooked in the previous literature. It turns out that, when kinematically allowed, such heavy-light decays are powerful channels for discovering the G*. In particular, we present a parton-level Montecarlo analysis of the final state Wtb that follows from the decay of G* to one SM top or bottom quark plus its heavy partner. We find that at √s = 7 TeV and with 10fb -1 of integrated luminosity, the LHC can discover a KK gluon with mass in the range MG* = (1.8 - 2.2) TeV if its coupling to a pair of light quarks is gG*qq - = (0.2 - 0.5)g3. The same process is also competitive for the discovery of the top and bottom partners as well. We find, for example, that the LHC at √s = 7 TeV can discover a 1TeV KK bottom quark with an integrated luminosity of (5.3 - 0.61) fb -1 for gG*qq - = (0.2 - 0.5)53. © SISSA 2012
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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