872 research outputs found
Outbreak of encephalitic listeriosis in red-legged partridges (Alectoris rufa)
An outbreak of neurological disease was investigated in red-legged partridges between 8 and 28 days of age. Clinical signs included torticollis, head tilt and incoordination and over an initial eight day period approximately 30–40 fatalities occurred per day. No significant gross post mortem findings were detected. Histopathological examination of the brain and bacterial cultures followed by partial sequencing confirmed a diagnosis of encephalitis due to Listeria monocytogenes. Further isolates were obtained from follow-up carcasses, environmental samples and pooled tissue samples of newly imported day-old chicks prior to placement on farm. These isolates had the same antibiotic resistance pattern as the isolate of the initial post mortem submission and belonged to the same fluorescent amplified fragment length polymorphism (fAFLP) subtype. This suggested that the isolates were very closely related or identical and that the pathogen had entered the farm with the imported day-old chicks, resulting in disease manifestation in partridges between 8 and 28 days of age. Reports of outbreaks of encephalitic listeriosis in avian species are rare and this is to the best of our knowledge the first reported outbreak in red-legged partridges
Muon Capture on the Proton and Deuteron
By measuring the lifetime of the negative muon in pure protium (hydrogen-1),
the MuCap experiment determines the rate of muon capture on the proton, from
which the proton's pseudoscalar coupling g_p may be inferred. A precision of
15% for g_p has been published; this is a step along the way to a goal of 7%.
This coupling can be calculated precisely from heavy baryon chiral perturbation
theory and therefore permits a test of QCD's chiral symmetry. Meanwhile, the
MuSun experiment is in its final design stage; it will measure the rate of muon
capture on the deuteron using a similar technique. This process can be related
through pionless effective field theory and chiral perturbation theory to other
two-nucleon reactions of astrophysical interest, including proton-proton fusion
and deuteron breakup.Comment: Submitted to the proceedings of the 2007 Advanced Studies Institute
on Symmetries and Spin (SPIN-Praha-2007
Thixotropy in macroscopic suspensions of spheres
An experimental study of the viscosity of a macroscopic suspension, i.e. a
suspension for which Brownian motion can be neglected, under steady shear is
presented. The suspension is prepared with a high packing fraction and is
density-matched in a Newtonian carrier fluid. The viscosity of the suspension
depends on the shear rate and the time of shearing. It is shown for the first
time that a macroscopic suspension shows thixotropic viscosity, i.e.
shear-thinning with a long relaxation time as a unique function of shear. The
relaxation times show a systematic decrease with increasing shear rate. These
relaxation times are larger when decreasing the shear rates, compared to those
observed after increasing the shear. The time scales involved are about 10000
times larger than the viscous time scale and about 1000 times smaller than the
thermodynamic time scale. The structure of the suspension at the outer cylinder
of a viscometer is monitored with a camera, showing the formation of a
hexagonal structure. The temporal decrease of the viscosity under shear
coincides with the formation of this hexagonal pattern
A Monte Carlo Study of Correlations in Quantum Spin Ladders
We study antiferromagnetic spin--1/2 Heisenberg ladders, comprised of
chains () with ratio of inter-- to
intra--chain couplings. From measurements of the correlation function we deduce
the correlation length . For even , the static structure factor
exhibits a peak at a temperature below the corresponding spin gap. Results for
isotropically coupled ladders () are compared to those for
the single chain and the square lattice. For , the
correlation function of the two--chain ladder is in excellent agreement with
analytic results from conformal field theory, and exhibits simple
scaling behavior.Comment: 4 pages, 5 EPS figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
NN Core Interactions and Differential Cross Sections from One Gluon Exchange
We derive nonstrange baryon-baryon scattering amplitudes in the
nonrelativistic quark model using the ``quark Born diagram" formalism. This
approach describes the scattering as a single interaction, here the
one-gluon-exchange (OGE) spin-spin term followed by constituent interchange,
with external nonrelativistic baryon wavefunctions attached to the scattering
diagrams to incorporate higher-twist wavefunction effects. The short-range
repulsive core in the NN interaction has previously been attributed to this
spin-spin interaction in the literature; we find that these perturbative
constituent-interchange diagrams do indeed predict repulsive interactions in
all I,S channels of the nucleon-nucleon system, and we compare our results for
the equivalent short-range potentials to the core potentials found by other
authors using nonperturbative methods. We also apply our perturbative
techniques to the N and systems: Some
channels are found to have attractive core potentials and may accommodate
``molecular" bound states near threshold. Finally we use our Born formalism to
calculate the NN differential cross section, which we compare with experimental
results for unpolarised proton-proton elastic scattering. We find that several
familiar features of the experimental differential cross section are reproduced
by our Born-order result.Comment: 27 pages, figures available from the authors, revtex, CEBAF-TH-93-04,
MIT-CTP-2187, ORNL-CCIP-93-0
Shear-banding in a lyotropic lamellar phase, Part 1: Time-averaged velocity profiles
Using velocity profile measurements based on dynamic light scattering and
coupled to structural and rheological measurements in a Couette cell, we
present evidences for a shear-banding scenario in the shear flow of the onion
texture of a lyotropic lamellar phase. Time-averaged measurements clearly show
the presence of structural shear-banding in the vicinity of a shear-induced
transition, associated to the nucleation and growth of a highly sheared band in
the flow. Our experiments also reveal the presence of slip at the walls of the
Couette cell. Using a simple mechanical approach, we demonstrate that our data
confirms the classical assumption of the shear-banding picture, in which the
interface between bands lies at a given stress . We also outline
the presence of large temporal fluctuations of the flow field, which are the
subject of the second part of this paper [Salmon {\it et al.}, submitted to
Phys. Rev. E]
HyperCP: A high-rate spectrometer for the study of charged hyperon and kaon decays
The HyperCP experiment (Fermilab E871) was designed to search for rare
phenomena in the decays of charged strange particles, in particular CP
violation in and hyperon decays with a sensitivity of
. Intense charged secondary beams were produced by 800 GeV/c protons
and momentum-selected by a magnetic channel. Decay products were detected in a
large-acceptance, high-rate magnetic spectrometer using multiwire proportional
chambers, trigger hodoscopes, a hadronic calorimeter, and a muon-detection
system. Nearly identical acceptances and efficiencies for hyperons and
antihyperons decaying within an evacuated volume were achieved by reversing the
polarities of the channel and spectrometer magnets. A high-rate
data-acquisition system enabled 231 billion events to be recorded in twelve
months of data-taking.Comment: 107 pages, 45 Postscript figures, 14 tables, Elsevier LaTeX,
submitted to Nucl. Instrum. Meth.
Exact Hypersurface-Homogeneous Solutions in Cosmology and Astrophysics
A framework is introduced which explains the existence and similarities of
most exact solutions of the Einstein equations with a wide range of sources for
the class of hypersurface-homogeneous spacetimes which admit a Hamiltonian
formulation. This class includes the spatially homogeneous cosmological models
and the astrophysically interesting static spherically symmetric models as well
as the stationary cylindrically symmetric models. The framework involves
methods for finding and exploiting hidden symmetries and invariant submanifolds
of the Hamiltonian formulation of the field equations. It unifies, simplifies
and extends most known work on hypersurface-homogeneous exact solutions. It is
shown that the same framework is also relevant to gravitational theories with a
similar structure, like Brans-Dicke or higher-dimensional theories.Comment: 41 pages, REVTEX/LaTeX 2.09 file (don't use LaTeX2e !!!) Accepted for
publication in Phys. Rev.
A Quantitative Model of Energy Release and Heating by Time-dependent, Localized Reconnection in a Flare with a Thermal Loop-top X-ray Source
We present a quantitative model of the magnetic energy stored and then
released through magnetic reconnection for a flare on 26 Feb 2004. This flare,
well observed by RHESSI and TRACE, shows evidence of non-thermal electrons only
for a brief, early phase. Throughout the main period of energy release there is
a super-hot (T>30 MK) plasma emitting thermal bremsstrahlung atop the flare
loops. Our model describes the heating and compression of such a source by
localized, transient magnetic reconnection. It is a three-dimensional
generalization of the Petschek model whereby Alfven-speed retraction following
reconnection drives supersonic inflows parallel to the field lines, which form
shocks heating, compressing, and confining a loop-top plasma plug. The
confining inflows provide longer life than a freely-expanding or
conductively-cooling plasma of similar size and temperature. Superposition of
successive transient episodes of localized reconnection across a current sheet
produces an apparently persistent, localized source of high-temperature
emission. The temperature of the source decreases smoothly on a time scale
consistent with observations, far longer than the cooling time of a single
plug. Built from a disordered collection of small plugs, the source need not
have the coherent jet-like structure predicted by steady-state reconnection
models. This new model predicts temperatures and emission measure consistent
with the observations of 26 Feb 2004. Furthermore, the total energy released by
the flare is found to be roughly consistent with that predicted by the model.
Only a small fraction of the energy released appears in the super-hot source at
any one time, but roughly a quarter of the flare energy is thermalized by the
reconnection shocks over the course of the flare. All energy is presumed to
ultimately appear in the lower-temperature T<20 MK, post-flare loops
Synovial and systemic pharmacokinetics (PK) of triamcinolone acetonide (TA) following intra-articular (IA) injection of an extended-release microsphere-based formulation (FX006) or standard crystalline suspension in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA)
Objective: Intra-articular (IA) corticosteroids relieve osteoarthritis (OA) pain, but rapid absorption into systemic circulation may limit efficacy and produce untoward effects. We compared the pharmacokinetics of IA triamcinolone acetonide (TA) delivered as an extended-release, microsphere-based formulation (FX006) vs a crystalline suspension (TAcs) in knee OA patients. Method: This Phase 2 open-label study sequentially enrolled 81 patients who received a single IA injection of FX006 (5 mL, 32mg delivered dose, N=63) or TAcs (1 mL, 40mg, N=18). Synovial fluid (SF) aspiration was attempted in each patient at baseline and one post-IA-injection visit (FX006: Week1, Week6, Week12, Week16 or Week20; TAcs: Week6). Blood was collected at baseline and multiple post-injection times. TA concentrations (validated LC-MS/MS, geometric means), pharmacokinetics (non-compartmental analysis models), and adverse events (AEs) were assessed. Results: SF TA concentrations following FX006 were quantifiable through Week12 (pg/mL: 231,328.9 at Week1; 3590.0 at Week6; 290.6 at Week12); post-TAcs, only 2 of 8 patients had quantifiable SF TA at Week6 (7.7 pg/mL). Following FX006, plasma TA gradually increased to peak (836.4 pg/mL) over 24 hours and slowly declined to <110 pg/mL over Weeks12-20; following TAcs, plasma TA peaked at 4 hours (9,628.8 pg/mL), decreased to 4,991.1 pg/mL at 24 hours, and was 149.4 pg/mL at Week6, the last post-treatment time point assessed. AEs were similar between groups. Conclusion: In knee OA patients, microsphere-based TA delivery via a single IA injection prolonged SF joint residency, diminished peak plasma levels, and thus reduced systemic TA exposure relative to TAcs
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