2,721 research outputs found
Clinical signs, imaging findings, and outcome in twelve cats with internal ophthalmoparesis/ophthalmoplegia
Objective To retrospectively evaluate the clinical signs, imaging ?ndings, and outcomeof feline internal opht halmoparesis/ophthalmoplegia.Procedure Medical records were reviewed from 2008 to 2015. Inclusion criteriaincluded cats that presented with internal ophthalmoparesis/o phthalmoplegia, under-went diagnostic imaging, and had follow-up information available.Results Twelvecases of felineinternal ophthalmoparesis/ophthalmoplegia wereidenti?ed.Nine cats were unilaterally affected, and three cats were bilaterally affected. Affectedcats had a median age of 10.54 years (range 5.75 to 13.17), and both sexes of var yingbreeds were affected (nine males; three females). Clinical signs including abnormalmental status (n = 9; 75%) and additional neurologic abnor malities ( n = 10; 83%)were observed. Magnetic resonance imaging and/or compute d tomography (MRI/CT)of the head were performed in ten cats, revealing a mass lesion in all cases with vary-ing locations. Multicentric lymphoma was diagnosed in two cats via abdominal ultra-sound and cytology. All twelve cats were euthanized due to deterioration of clinicalsigns and/or quality-of-life concern s. Median time from diagnosis to euthana sia was3.5 days (range 0 to 80 days).Conclusions Feline internal ophthalmoparesis/ophthalmoplegia rarely presents as thesole clinical sign in a referral hospital. Advanced imaging (MRI/CT) may be necessaryto reach a de?nitive diagnosis in these cases. However, abdominal ultr asound wouldbe advocated in cats with systemic clinical signs as a less expensive and less invasivediagnostic test to further investigate the possible etiology of internal ophthalmopare-sis/ophthalmoplegia prior to advanced imaging. Feline cases with internal ophthalmo-paresis/ophthalmoplegia associated with other intracranial signs and/or systemicclinical signs have a poor prognosis
Experimental philosophy leading to a small scale digital data base of the conterminous United States for designing experiments with remotely sensed data
Research using satellite remotely sensed data, even within any single scientific discipline, often lacked a unifying principle or strategy with which to plan or integrate studies conducted over an area so large that exhaustive examination is infeasible, e.g., the U.S.A. However, such a series of studies would seem to be at the heart of what makes satellite remote sensing unique, that is the ability to select for study from among remotely sensed data sets distributed widely over the U.S., over time, where the resources do not exist to examine all of them. Using this philosophical underpinning and the concept of a unifying principle, an operational procedure for developing a sampling strategy and formal testable hypotheses was constructed. The procedure is applicable across disciplines, when the investigator restates the research question in symbolic form, i.e., quantifies it. The procedure is set within the statistical framework of general linear models. The dependent variable is any arbitrary function of remotely sensed data and the independent variables are values or levels of factors which represent regional climatic conditions and/or properties of the Earth's surface. These factors are operationally defined as maps from the U.S. National Atlas (U.S.G.S., 1970). Eighty-five maps from the National Atlas, representing climatic and surface attributes, were automated by point counting at an effective resolution of one observation every 17.6 km (11 miles) yielding 22,505 observations per map. The maps were registered to one another in a two step procedure producing a coarse, then fine scale registration. After registration, the maps were iteratively checked for errors using manual and automated procedures. The error free maps were annotated with identification and legend information and then stored as card images, one map to a file. A sampling design will be accomplished through a regionalization analysis of the National Atlas data base (presently being conducted). From this analysis a map of homogeneous regions of the U.S.A. will be created and samples (LANDSAT scenes) assigned by region
Phase preserving amplification near the quantum limit with a Josephson Ring Modulator
Recent progress in solid state quantum information processing has stimulated
the search for ultra-low-noise amplifiers and frequency converters in the
microwave frequency range, which could attain the ultimate limit imposed by
quantum mechanics. In this article, we report the first realization of an
intrinsically phase-preserving, non-degenerate superconducting parametric
amplifier, a so far missing component. It is based on the Josephson ring
modulator, which consists of four junctions in a Wheatstone bridge
configuration. The device symmetry greatly enhances the purity of the
amplification process and simplifies both its operation and analysis. The
measured characteristics of the amplifier in terms of gain and bandwidth are in
good agreement with analytical predictions. Using a newly developed noise
source, we also show that our device operates within a factor of three of the
quantum limit. This development opens new applications in the area of quantum
analog signal processing
When Is a Bulge Not a Bulge? Inner Disks Masquerading as Bulges in NGC 2787 and NGC 3945
We present a detailed morphological, photometric, and kinematic analysis of
two barred S0 galaxies with large, luminous inner disks inside their bars. We
show that these structures, in addition to being geometrically disk-like, have
exponential profiles (scale lengths 300--500 pc) distinct from the
central, non-exponential bulges. We also find them to be kinematically
disk-like. The inner disk in NGC 2787 has a luminosity roughly twice that of
the bulge; but in NGC 3945, the inner disk is almost ten times more luminous
than the bulge, which itself is extremely small (half-light radius
100 pc, in a galaxy with an outer ring of radius 14 kpc) and only
5% of the total luminosity -- a bulge/total ratio much more typical of
an Sc galaxy. We estimate that at least 20% of (barred) S0 galaxies may have
similar structures, which means that their bulge/disk ratios may be
significantly overestimated. These inner disks dominate the central light of
their galaxies; they are at least an order of magnitude larger than typical
``nuclear disks'' found in ellipticals and early-type spirals. Consequently,
they must affect the dynamics of the bars in which they reside.Comment: LaTeX, 37 pages, 14 EPS figures. To appear in The Astrophysical
Journal (November 10, 2003 issue). Version with full-resolution figures
available at http://www.iac.es/galeria/erwin/research
Cosmologies with a time dependent vacuum
The idea that the cosmological term, Lambda, should be a time dependent
quantity in cosmology is a most natural one. It is difficult to conceive an
expanding universe with a strictly constant vacuum energy density, namely one
that has remained immutable since the origin of time. A smoothly evolving
vacuum energy density that inherits its time-dependence from cosmological
functions, such as the Hubble rate or the scale factor, is not only a
qualitatively more plausible and intuitive idea, but is also suggested by
fundamental physics, in particular by quantum field theory (QFT) in curved
space-time. To implement this notion, is not strictly necessary to resort to ad
hoc scalar fields, as usually done in the literature (e.g. in quintessence
formulations and the like). A "running" Lambda term can be expected on very
similar grounds as one expects (and observes) the running of couplings and
masses with a physical energy scale in QFT. Furthermore, the experimental
evidence that the equation of state of the dark energy could be evolving with
time/redshift (including the possibility that it might currently behave
phantom-like) suggests that a time-variable Lambda term (possibly accompanied
by a variable Newton's gravitational coupling G=G(t)) could account in a
natural way for all these features. Remarkably enough, a class of these models
(the "new cosmon") could even be the clue for solving the old cosmological
constant problem, including the coincidence problem.Comment: LaTeX, 15 pages, 4 figure
Experimental violation of a Bell's inequality in time with weak measurement
The violation of J. Bell's inequality with two entangled and spatially
separated quantum two- level systems (TLS) is often considered as the most
prominent demonstration that nature does not obey ?local realism?. Under
different but related assumptions of "macrorealism", plausible for macroscopic
systems, Leggett and Garg derived a similar inequality for a single degree of
freedom undergoing coherent oscillations and being measured at successive
times. Such a "Bell's inequality in time", which should be violated by a
quantum TLS, is tested here. In this work, the TLS is a superconducting quantum
circuit whose Rabi oscillations are continuously driven while it is
continuously and weakly measured. The time correlations present at the detector
output agree with quantum-mechanical predictions and violate the inequality by
5 standard deviations.Comment: 26 pages including 10 figures, preprint forma
Community standards for open cell migration data
Cell migration research has become a high-content field. However, the quantitative information encapsulated in these complex and high-dimensional datasets is not fully exploited owing to the diversity of experimental protocols and non-standardized output formats. In addition, typically the datasets are not open for reuse. Making the data open and Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) will enable meta-analysis, data integration, and data mining. Standardized data formats and controlled vocabularies are essential for building a suitable infrastructure for that purpose but are not available in the cell migration domain. We here present standardization efforts by the Cell Migration Standardisation Organisation (CMSO), an open community-driven organization to facilitate the development of standards for cell migration data. This work will foster the development of improved algorithms and tools and enable secondary analysis of public datasets, ultimately unlocking new knowledge of the complex biological process of cell migration
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