2,583 research outputs found
Discrimination of the Healthy and Sick Cardiac Autonomic Nervous System by a New Wavelet Analysis of Heartbeat Intervals
We demonstrate that it is possible to distinguish with a complete certainty
between healthy subjects and patients with various dysfunctions of the cardiac
nervous system by way of multiresolutional wavelet transform of RR intervals.
We repeated the study of Thurner et al on different ensemble of subjects. We
show that reconstructed series using a filter which discards wavelet
coefficients related with higher scales enables one to classify individuals for
which the method otherwise is inconclusive. We suggest a delimiting diagnostic
value of the standard deviation of the filtered, reconstructed RR interval time
series in the range of (for the above mentioned filter), below
which individuals are at risk.Comment: 5 latex pages (including 6 figures). Accepted in Fractal
The clinical effect of arrhythmia monitoring after myocardial infarction (BIO-GUARD|MI):study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
Non-destructive, dynamic detectors for Bose-Einstein condensates
We propose and analyze a series of non-destructive, dynamic detectors for
Bose-Einstein condensates based on photo-detectors operating at the shot noise
limit. These detectors are compatible with real time feedback to the
condensate. The signal to noise ratio of different detection schemes are
compared subject to the constraint of minimal heating due to photon absorption
and spontaneous emission. This constraint leads to different optimal operating
points for interference-based schemes. We find the somewhat counter-intuitive
result that without the presence of a cavity, interferometry causes as much
destruction as absorption for optically thin clouds. For optically thick
clouds, cavity-free interferometry is superior to absorption, but it still
cannot be made arbitrarily non-destructive . We propose a cavity-based
measurement of atomic density which can in principle be made arbitrarily
non-destructive for a given signal to noise ratio
Atom laser coherence and its control via feedback
We present a quantum-mechanical treatment of the coherence properties of a
single-mode atom laser. Specifically, we focus on the quantum phase noise of
the atomic field as expressed by the first-order coherence function, for which
we derive analytical expressions in various regimes. The decay of this function
is characterized by the coherence time, or its reciprocal, the linewidth. A
crucial contributor to the linewidth is the collisional interaction of the
atoms. We find four distinct regimes for the linewidth with increasing
interaction strength. These range from the standard laser linewidth, through
quadratic and linear regimes, to another constant regime due to quantum
revivals of the coherence function. The laser output is only coherent (Bose
degenerate) up to the linear regime. However, we show that application of a
quantum nondemolition measurement and feedback scheme will increase, by many
orders of magnitude, the range of interaction strengths for which it remains
coherent.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, revtex
Microtubule-Dependent Mitochondria Alignment Regulates Calcium Release in Response to Nanomechanical Stimulus in Heart Myocytes
This study was supported by Wellcome Trust (WT090594 to J.G. and WT092852 to M.S.), British Heart Foundation (12/18/30088 to J.G.), Italian Ministry of Health (GR-2009-1530528 to M.M.), BHF Intermediate Research Fellowship (FS/11/67/28954 to A.R.L.), and Graham Dixon Charitable Trust (registered charity number: 277057)
Stationary quantum statistics of a non-Markovian atom laser
We present a steady state analysis of a quantum-mechanical model of an atom
laser. A single-mode atomic trap coupled to a continuum of external modes is
driven by a saturable pumping mechanism. In the dilute flux regime, where
atom-atom interactions are negligible in the output, we have been able to solve
this model without making the Born-Markov approximation. The more exact
treatment has a different effective damping rate and occupation of the lasing
mode, as well as a shifted frequency and linewidth of the output. We examine
gravitational damping numerically, finding linewidths and frequency shifts for
a range of pumping rates. We treat mean field damping analytically, finding a
memory function for the Thomas-Fermi regime. The occupation and linewidth are
found to have a nonlinear scaling behavior which has implications for the
stability of atom lasers.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PR
Prediction of fatal or near-fatal cardiac arrhythmia events in patients with depressed left ventricular function after an acute myocardial infarction†
To determine whether risk stratification tests can predict serious arrhythmic events after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in patients with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF <= 0.40). A total of 5869 consecutive patients were screened in 10 European centres, and 312 patients (age 65 +/- 11 years) with a mean LVEF of 31 +/- 6% were included in the study. Heart rate variability/turbulence, ambient arrhythmias, signal-averaged electrocardiogram (SAECG), T-wave alternans, and programmed electrical stimulation (PES) were performed 6 weeks after AMI. The primary endpoint was ECG-documented ventricular fibrillation or symptomatic sustained ventricular tachycardia (VT). To document these arrhythmic events, the patients received an implantable ECG loop-recorder. There were 25 primary endpoints (8.0%) during the follow-up of 2 years. The strongest predictors of primary endpoint were measures of heart rate variability, e.g. hazard ratio (HR) for reduced very-low frequency component ( <5.7 ln ms(2)) adjusted for clinical variables was 7.0 (95% CI: 2.4-20.3, P <0.001). Induction of sustained monomorphic VT during PES (adjusted HR = 4.8, 95% CI, 1.7-13.4, P = 0.003) also predicted the primary endpoint. Fatal or near-fatal arrhythmias can be predicted by many risk stratification methods, especially by heart rate variability, in patients with reduced LVEF after AM
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