32,144 research outputs found
Combined high-pressure and multiquantum NMR and molecular simulation propose a role for N-terminal salt bridges in amyloid-beta
Salts, Aggregation, Molecular structure, Cell and molecular biology, Post-translational modificatio
Acupuncture randomized trials (ART) in patients with chronic low back pain and osteoarthritis of the knee - Design and protocols
Background: We report on the study design and protocols of two randomized controlled trials (Acupuncture Randomized Trials = ART) that investigate the efficacy of acupuncture in the treatment of chronic low back pain and osteoarthritis of the knee, respectively. Objective: To investigate whether acupuncture is more efficacious than (a) no treatment or (b) minimal acupuncture in the treatment of low back pain and osteoarthritis. Design: Two randomized, controlled, multicenter trials with three treatment arms and a total follow-up time of 52 weeks. Setting: 30 practitioners and outpatient units in Germany specialized in acupuncture treatment. Patients: 300 patients will be included in each study. In the low back pain trial, patients will be included according to clinical diagnosis. In the osteoarthritis pain trial, patients will be included according to the American College of Rheumatology criteria. Interventions: Patients are randomly assigned to receive either (1) semi-standardized acupuncture (150 patients), (2) minimal acupuncture at non-acupuncture points (75 patients), or (3) no treatment for two months followed by semi-standardized acupuncture (75 patients, waiting list control). Acupuncture treatment consists of 12 sessions per patient over a period of 8 weeks. Main Outcome Measure: The main outcome measure is the difference between baseline and the end of the 8-week treatment period in the following parameters: pain intensity as measured by a visual analogue scale (VAS; 0-100 mm) in the low back pain trial and by the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Score (WOMAC) in the osteoarthritis trial. Outlook: The results of these two studies (available in 2004) will provide health care providers and policy makers with the information needed to make scientifically sound assessments of acupuncture therapy
Synaptic partner prediction from point annotations in insect brains
High-throughput electron microscopy allows recording of lar- ge stacks of
neural tissue with sufficient resolution to extract the wiring diagram of the
underlying neural network. Current efforts to automate this process focus
mainly on the segmentation of neurons. However, in order to recover a wiring
diagram, synaptic partners need to be identi- fied as well. This is especially
challenging in insect brains like Drosophila melanogaster, where one
presynaptic site is associated with multiple post- synaptic elements. Here we
propose a 3D U-Net architecture to directly identify pairs of voxels that are
pre- and postsynaptic to each other. To that end, we formulate the problem of
synaptic partner identification as a classification problem on long-range edges
between voxels to encode both the presence of a synaptic pair and its
direction. This formulation allows us to directly learn from synaptic point
annotations instead of more ex- pensive voxel-based synaptic cleft or vesicle
annotations. We evaluate our method on the MICCAI 2016 CREMI challenge and
improve over the current state of the art, producing 3% fewer errors than the
next best method
Stability of spin-0 graviton and strong coupling in Horava-Lifshitz theory of gravity
In this paper, we consider two different issues, stability and strong
coupling, raised lately in the newly-proposed Horava-Lifshitz (HL) theory of
quantum gravity with projectability condition. We find that all the scalar
modes are stable in the de Sitter background, due to two different kinds of
effects, one from high-order derivatives of the spacetime curvature, and the
other from the exponential expansion of the de Sitter space. Combining these
effects properly, one can make the instability found in the Minkowski
background never appear even for small-scale modes, provided that the IR limit
is sufficiently closed to the relativistic fixed point. At the fixed point, all
the modes become stabilized. We also show that the instability of Minkowski
spacetime can be cured by introducing mass to the spin-0 graviton. The strong
coupling problem is investigated following the effective field theory approach,
and found that it cannot be cured by the Blas-Pujolas-Sibiryakov mechanism,
initially designed for the case without projectability condition, but might be
circumvented by the Vainshtein mechanism, due to the non-linear effects. In
fact, we construct a class of exact solutions, and show explicitly that it
reduces smoothly to the de Sitter spacetime in the relativistic limit.Comment: Some points regarding to strong coupling are further clarified, and
typos corrected. revtex4, 9 figures. Version to appear in Physical Reviews
High floc strength with aged polyelectrolytes
The ageing of powdered polyelectrolyte solutions has shown that while the viscosity of these solutions decreases rapidly with time, the flocculation performance and the strength of the flocs produced does not alter over periods >200 days. This was shown for polyacrylamides of cationic, anionic and non-ionic charge. The use of tap or deionized water did not adversely affect the results unless a biocide capable of associating with the polyelectrolyte was added. These results contradict the common belief that solutions made with powdered polyelectrolytes should not be stored for long periods of time as their performance decreases after being stored for several days. The results indicate that powdered polyelectrolyte solutions are suitable for intermittent process operations, such as sewer overflow treatment and that dosing and handling of the solutions can be made easier by ageing of the solutions
Ultrafast Resonant Polarization Interferometry: Towards the First Direct Detection of Vacuum Polarization
Vacuum polarization, an effect predicted nearly 70 years ago, is still yet to
be directly detected despite significant experimental effort. Previous attempts
have made use of large liquid-helium cooled electromagnets which inadvertently
generate spurious signals that mask the desired signal. We present a novel
approach for the ultra-sensitive detection of optical birefringence that can be
usefully applied to a laboratory detection of vacuum polarization. The new
technique has a predicted birefringence measurement sensitivity of in a 1 second measurement. When combined with the extreme
polarizing fields achievable in this design we predict that a vacuum
polarization signal will be seen in a measurement of just a few days in
duration.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. submitted to PR
Are "EIT Waves" Fast-Mode MHD Waves?
We examine the nature of large-scale, coronal, propagating wave fronts (``EIT
waves'') and find they are incongruous with solutions using fast-mode MHD
plane-wave theory. Specifically, we consider the following properties:
non-dispersive single pulse manifestions, observed velocities below the local
Alfven speed, and different pulses which travel at any number of constant
velocities, rather than at the ``predicted'' fast-mode speed. We discuss the
possibility of a soliton-like explanation for these phenomena, and show how it
is consistent with the above-mentioned aspects.Comment: to be published in the Astrophysical Journa
A thorough dynamic interpretation of residual dipolar couplings in ubiquitin.
dipolar couplings (rdcs), ubiquitin The presence of slow motions with large amplitudes, as detected by measurements based on residual dipola
Inferential NMR/X-ray-based structure determination of a dibenzo[a,d]cycloheptenone inhibitor-p38a MAP kinase complex in solution.
Complex problem: The crystal structure of p38α mitogen-activated protein kinase in complex with a dibenzo[a,d]cycloheptenone inhibitor was found to be incompatible with NMR data of the same complex in solution. By using inferential structure determination (ISD) with restraints from X-ray crystallography and NMR spectra, a structure that is compatible with both data sets and very close to the X-ray crystal structure was generated (see picture)
Compactifications of Heterotic Theory on Non-Kahler Complex Manifolds: I
We study new compactifications of the SO(32) heterotic string theory on
compact complex non-Kahler manifolds. These manifolds have many interesting
features like fewer moduli, torsional constraints, vanishing Euler character
and vanishing first Chern class, which make the four-dimensional theory
phenomenologically attractive. We take a particular compact example studied
earlier and determine various geometrical properties of it. In particular we
calculate the warp factor and study the sigma model description of strings
propagating on these backgrounds. The anomaly cancellation condition and
enhanced gauge symmetry are shown to arise naturally in this framework, if one
considers the effect of singularities carefully.
We then give a detailed mathematical analysis of these manifolds and
construct a large class of them. The existence of a holomorphic (3,0) form is
important for the construction. We clarify some of the topological properties
of these manifolds and evaluate the Betti numbers. We also determine the
superpotential and argue that the radial modulus of these manifolds can
actually be stabilized.Comment: 75 pages, Harvmac, no figures; v2: Some new results added, typos
corrected and references updated. Final version to appear in JHE
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