8,534 research outputs found
Analysis of cross-correlations in electroencephalogram signals as an approach to proactive diagnosis of schizophrenia
We apply flicker-noise spectroscopy (FNS), a time series analysis method
operating on structure functions and power spectrum estimates, to study the
clinical electroencephalogram (EEG) signals recorded in children/adolescents
(11 to 14 years of age) with diagnosed schizophrenia-spectrum symptoms at the
National Center for Psychiatric Health (NCPH) of the Russian Academy of Medical
Sciences. The EEG signals for these subjects were compared with the signals for
a control sample of chronically depressed children/adolescents. The purpose of
the study is to look for diagnostic signs of subjects' susceptibility to
schizophrenia in the FNS parameters for specific electrodes and
cross-correlations between the signals simultaneously measured at different
points on the scalp. Our analysis of EEG signals from scalp-mounted electrodes
at locations F3 and F4, which are symmetrically positioned in the left and
right frontal areas of cerebral cortex, respectively, demonstrates an essential
role of frequency-phase synchronization, a phenomenon representing specific
correlations between the characteristic frequencies and phases of excitations
in the brain. We introduce quantitative measures of frequency-phase
synchronization and systematize the values of FNS parameters for the EEG data.
The comparison of our results with the medical diagnoses for 84 subjects
performed at NCPH makes it possible to group the EEG signals into 4 categories
corresponding to different risk levels of subjects' susceptibility to
schizophrenia. We suggest that the introduced quantitative characteristics and
classification of cross-correlations may be used for the diagnosis of
schizophrenia at the early stages of its development.Comment: 36 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables; to be published in "Physica A
Chasing 'Slow Light'
A critical review of experimental studies of the so-called 'slow light'
arising due to anomalously high steepness of the refractive index dispersion
under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency or coherent
population oscillations is presented. It is shown that a considerable amount of
experimental evidence for observation of the 'slow light' is not related to the
low group velocity of light and can be easily interpreted in terms of a
standard model of interaction of light with a saturable absorber.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, to be published in June issue of Phisics:
Uspekhi under the title "Notes on Slow Light
Unraveling the dynamics of growth, aging and inflation for citations to scientific articles from specific research fields
We analyze the time evolution of citations acquired by articles from journals
of the American Physical Society (PRA, PRB, PRC, PRD, PRE and PRL). The
observed change over time in the number of papers published in each journal is
considered an exogenously caused variation in citability that is accounted for
by a normalization. The appropriately inflation-adjusted citation rates are
found to be separable into a preferential-attachment-type growth kernel and a
purely obsolescence-related (i.e., monotonously decreasing as a function of
time since publication) aging function. Variations in the empirically extracted
parameters of the growth kernels and aging functions associated with different
journals point to research-field-specific characteristics of citation intensity
and knowledge flow. Comparison with analogous results for the citation dynamics
of technology-disaggregated cohorts of patents provides deeper insight into the
basic principles of information propagation as indicated by citing behavior.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, Elsevier style, v2: revised version to appear in
J. Informetric
The comparison of characteristics of pi^{-} mesons produced in central Mg-Mg interactions with the quark gluon string model predictions
A detailed study of pion production in central Mg-Mg collisions at a momentum
of 4.3 GeV/c per incident nucleon was carried out with use of the setup GIBS.
The average kinematical characteristics of pions (multiplicity n_, momentum P,
transverse momentum P_{T}, emission angle Q, rapidity Y) and corresponding
distributions have been obtained. The experimental results have been compared
with the predictions of the Quark Gluon String Model (QGSM) and satisfactory
agreement between the experimental data and the model has been found. The QGSM
reproduces also the dependence of average P_{T} on n_{-}.
The temperatures of pi^{-} mesons have been estimated in the rapidity
interval of 0.5<=Y<=2.1. A satisfactory fit for pi^{-} mesons has been achieved
by using a form involving two temperatures T_{1} and T_{2}. It was found that
the QGSM underestimates T_{2} by (10-15)%.
The data have been analyzed using the transverse momentum technique. The
observed dependence of the on Y shows the S-shape behaviour. The
slope at midrapidity F had been determined. The QGSM reproduces the
distribution satisfactorily, but underestimates the parameter F.Comment: 21 pages with 9 postscript figure
Flow probe of symmetry energy in relativistic heavy-ion reactions
Flow observables in heavy-ion reactions at incident energies up to about 1
GeV per nucleon have been shown to be very useful for investigating the
reaction dynamics and for determining the parameters of reaction models based
on transport theory. In particular, the elliptic flow in collisions of
neutron-rich heavy-ion systems emerges as an observable sensitive to the
strength of the symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities. The comparison
of ratios or differences of neutron and proton flows or neutron and hydrogen
flows with predictions of transport models favors an approximately linear
density dependence, consistent with ab-initio nuclear-matter theories.
Extensive parameter searches have shown that the model dependence is comparable
to the uncertainties of existing experimental data. Comprehensive new flow data
of high accuracy, partly also through providing stronger constraints on model
parameters, can thus be expected to improve our knowledge of the equation of
state of asymmetric nuclear matter.Comment: 20 pages, 24 figures, review to appear in EPJA special volume on
nuclear symmetry energ
Statistical inference of the mechanisms driving collective cell movement
Numerous biological processes, many impacting on human health, rely on collective cell
movement. We develop nine candidate models, based on advection-diffusion partial differential equations, to describe various alternative mechanisms that may drive cell movement. The parameters of these models were inferred from one-dimensional projections of laboratory observations of Dictyostelium discoideum cells by sampling from the posterior distribution using the delayed rejection adaptive Metropolis algorithm (DRAM). The best model was selected using the Widely Applicable Information Criterion (WAIC). We conclude that cell movement in our study system was driven both by a self-generated gradient in an attractant that the cells could deplete locally, and by chemical interactions between the cells
Recommended isolated-line profile for representing high-resolution spectroscopic transitions (IUPAC Technical Report)
The report of an IUPAC Task Group, formed in 2011 on "Intensities and line
shapes in high-resolution spectra of water isotopologues from experiment and
theory" (Project No. 2011-022-2-100), on line profiles of isolated
high-resolution rotational-vibrational transitions perturbed by neutral
gas-phase molecules is presented. The well-documented inadequacies of the Voigt
profile (VP), used almost universally by databases and radiative-transfer
codes, to represent pressure effects and Doppler broadening in isolated
vibrational-rotational and pure rotational transitions of the water molecule
have resulted in the development of a variety of alternative line-profile
models. These models capture more of the physics of the influence of pressure
on line shapes but, in general, at the price of greater complexity. The Task
Group recommends that the partially Correlated quadratic-Speed-Dependent
Hard-Collision profile should be adopted as the appropriate model for
high-resolution spectroscopy. For simplicity this should be called the
Hartmann--Tran profile (HTP). The HTP is sophisticated enough to capture the
various collisional contributions to the isolated line shape, can be computed
in a straightforward and rapid manner, and reduces to simpler profiles,
including the Voigt profile, under certain simplifying assumptions.Comment: Accepted for publication in Pure and Applied Chemistr
Transformation of amorphous carbon clusters to fullerenes
Transformation of amorphous carbon clusters into fullerenes under high
temperature is studied using molecular dynamics simulations at microsecond
times. Based on the analysis of both structure and energy of the system, it is
found that fullerene formation occurs in two stages. Firstly, fast
transformation of the initial amorphous structure into a hollow sp shell
with a few chains attached occurs with a considerable decrease of the potential
energy and the number of atoms belonging to chains and to the amorphous domain.
Then, insertion of remaining carbon chains into the sp network takes place
at the same time with the fullerene shell formation. Two types of defects
remaining after the formation of the fullerene shell are revealed: 7-membered
rings and single one-coordinated atoms. One of the fullerene structures
obtained contains no defects at all, which demonstrates that defect-free carbon
cages can be occasionally formed from amorphous precursors directly without
defect healing. No structural changes are observed after the fullerene
formation, suggesting that defect healing is a slow process in comparison with
the fullerene shell formation. The schemes of the revealed reactions of chain
atoms insertion into the fullerene shell just before its completion are
presented. The results of the performed simulations are summarized within the
paradigm of fullerene formation due to selforganization of the carbon system.Comment: 35 pages, 9 figure
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