1,628 research outputs found
Effect of aggregation on chromophore structure in allophycocyanin studied by resonance CARS-spectroscopy
Interviewing suspects: examining the association between skills, questioning, evidence disclosure, and interview outcomes
The interviewing of suspects is an important element in the investigation of crime. However, studies concerning actual performance of investigators when undertaking such interviews remain sparse. Nevertheless, in England and Wales, since the introduction of a prescribed framework over 20 years ago, field studies have generally shown an improvement in interviewing performance, notwithstanding ongoing concerns largely relating to the more demanding aspects (such as building/maintaining rapport, intermittent summarising and the logical development of topics). Using a sample of 70 real-life interviews, the present study examined questioning and various evidence disclosure strategies (which have also been found demanding), examining their relationships between interview skills and interview outcomes. It was found that when evidence was disclosed gradually (but revealed later), interviews were generally both more skilled and involved the gaining of comprehensive accounts, whereas when evidence was disclosed either early or very late, interviews were found to be both less skilled and less likely to involve this outcome. These findings contribute towards an increased research base for the prescribed framework
Hamiltonian submanifolds of regular polytopes
We investigate polyhedral -manifolds as subcomplexes of the boundary
complex of a regular polytope. We call such a subcomplex {\it -Hamiltonian}
if it contains the full -skeleton of the polytope. Since the case of the
cube is well known and since the case of a simplex was also previously studied
(these are so-called {\it super-neighborly triangulations}) we focus on the
case of the cross polytope and the sporadic regular 4-polytopes. By our results
the existence of 1-Hamiltonian surfaces is now decided for all regular
polytopes.
Furthermore we investigate 2-Hamiltonian 4-manifolds in the -dimensional
cross polytope. These are the "regular cases" satisfying equality in Sparla's
inequality. In particular, we present a new example with 16 vertices which is
highly symmetric with an automorphism group of order 128. Topologically it is
homeomorphic to a connected sum of 7 copies of . By this
example all regular cases of vertices with or, equivalently, all
cases of regular -polytopes with are now decided.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figure
The impact of asking intention or self-prediction questions on subsequent behavior: a meta-analysis
The current meta-analysis estimated the magnitude of the impact of asking intention and self-prediction questions on rates of subsequent behavior, and examined mediators and moderators of this question–behavior effect (QBE). Random-effects meta-analysis on 116 published tests of the effect indicated that intention/prediction questions have a small positive effect on behavior (d+ = 0.24). Little support was observed for attitude accessibility, cognitive dissonance, behavioral simulation, or processing fluency explanations of the QBE. Multivariate analyses indicated significant effects of social desirability of behavior/behavior domain (larger effects for more desirable and less risky behaviors), difficulty of behavior (larger effects for easy-to-perform behaviors), and sample type (larger effects among student samples). Although this review controls for co-occurrence of moderators in multivariate analyses, future primary research should systematically vary moderators in fully factorial designs. Further primary research is also needed to unravel the mechanisms underlying different variants of the QBE
Phase diagram and single-particle spectrum of CuO layers within a variational cluster approach to the 3-band Hubbard model
We carry out a detailed numerical study of the three-band Hubbard model in
the underdoped region both in the hole- as well as in the electron-doped case
by means of the variational cluster approach. Both the phase diagram and the
low-energy single-particle spectrum are very similar to recent results for the
single-band Hubbard model with next-nearest-neighbor hoppings. In particular,
we obtain a mixed antiferromagnetic+superconducting phase at low doping with a
first-order transition to a pure superconducting phase accompanied by phase
separation. In the single-particle spectrum a clear Zhang-Rice singlet band
with an incoherent and a coherent part can be seen, in which holes enter upon
doping around . The latter is very similar to the coherent
quasi-particle band crossing the Fermi surface in the single-band model. Doped
electrons go instead into the upper Hubbard band, first filling the regions of
the Brillouin zone around . This fact can be related to the enhanced
robustness of the antiferromagnetic phase as a function of electron doping
compared to hole doping.Comment: 14 pages, 15 eps figure
The central limit problem for random vectors with symmetries
Motivated by the central limit problem for convex bodies, we study normal
approximation of linear functionals of high-dimensional random vectors with
various types of symmetries. In particular, we obtain results for distributions
which are coordinatewise symmetric, uniform in a regular simplex, or
spherically symmetric. Our proofs are based on Stein's method of exchangeable
pairs; as far as we know, this approach has not previously been used in convex
geometry and we give a brief introduction to the classical method. The
spherically symmetric case is treated by a variation of Stein's method which is
adapted for continuous symmetries.Comment: AMS-LaTeX, uses xy-pic, 23 pages; v3: added new corollary to Theorem
Photophysics of phycoerythrocyanins from the cyanobacterium Westiellopsis prolifica studied by time-resolved fluorescence and coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering spectroscopy
Three building blocks of the antenna complexes of the cyanobacterium Westiellopsis prolifica were studied: PEC(X), which is similar to the α-subunit of phycoerythrocyanin (PEC), trimers of PEC and monomers derived from these by deaggregation with KSCN. The fit of the fluorescence decay curve of PEC(X) requires at least four exponentials, although it supposedly contains only one chromophore. The coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) spectra indicate that the heterogeneity observed is due to geometrical isomers, which are in part generated by photoinduced processes. A similar heterogeneity in chromophore structure and properties is also found in the monomers, where four exponentials are needed to fit the fluorescence decay curve. As in trimers, there is a long-lived, low-amplitude component, which can be assigned to impurities and/or oxidation products. The energy transfer time between the two phyocyanobilin chromophores in the β-subunit is about 500 ps; the lifetime of the fluorescing β-chromophore is 1.5 ns. The phycoviolobilin chromophore in the α-subunit adopts different geometries characterized by fluorescence lifetimes of about 240 and 800 ps. No evidence was found for energy transfer between the α-chromophore and the β-chromophores. This energy transfer occurs in trimers on a time scale of less than 20 ps; the energy transfer time between the two different types of β-chromophore is about 250 ps and the lifetime of the terminal emitter is about 1.5 ns. The excited state kinetics are therefore similar to those of PEC trimers from Mastigocladus laminosus, as are the CARS spectra, indicating a similar chromophore—protein arrangement. In comparison with phycocyanin, the ordering of the excited states of chromophores β84 and β155 may be changed. Although PEC trimers of Westiellopsis prolifica show almost as good a photostability as trimers of Mastigocladus laminosus, monomers are so photolabile that no CARS spectra could be recorded
Effects of mesenchymal stromal cells versus serum on tendon healing in a controlled experimental trial in an equine model
Abstract Background Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) have shown promising results in the treatment of tendinopathy in equine medicine, making this therapeutic approach seem favorable for translation to human medicine. Having demonstrated that MSC engraft within the tendon lesions after local injection in an equine model, we hypothesized that they would improve tendon healing superior to serum injection alone. Methods Quadrilateral tendon lesions were induced in six horses by mechanical tissue disruption combined with collagenase application 3 weeks before treatment. Adipose-derived MSC suspended in serum or serum alone were then injected intralesionally. Clinical examinations, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging were performed over 24 weeks. Tendon biopsies for histological assessment were taken from the hindlimbs 3 weeks after treatment. Horses were sacrificed after 24 weeks and forelimb tendons were subjected to macroscopic and histological examination as well as analysis of musculoskeletal marker expression. Results Tendons injected with MSC showed a transient increase in inflammation and lesion size, as indicated by clinical and imaging parameters between week 3 and 6 (p < 0.05). Thereafter, symptoms decreased in both groups and, except that in MSC-treated tendons, mean lesion signal intensity as seen in T2w magnetic resonance imaging and cellularity as seen in the histology (p < 0.05) were lower, no major differences could be found at week 24. Conclusions These data suggest that MSC have influenced the inflammatory reaction in a way not described in tendinopathy studies before. However, at the endpoint of the current study, 24 weeks after treatment, no distinct improvement was observed in MSC-treated tendons compared to the serum-injected controls. Future studies are necessary to elucidate whether and under which conditions MSC are beneficial for tendon healing before translation into human medicine
Trigonometry of 'complex Hermitian' type homogeneous symmetric spaces
This paper contains a thorough study of the trigonometry of the homogeneous
symmetric spaces in the Cayley-Klein-Dickson family of spaces of 'complex
Hermitian' type and rank-one. The complex Hermitian elliptic CP^N and
hyperbolic CH^N spaces, their analogues with indefinite Hermitian metric and
some non-compact symmetric spaces associated to SL(N+1,R) are the generic
members in this family. The method encapsulates trigonometry for this whole
family of spaces into a single "basic trigonometric group equation", and has
'universality' and '(self)-duality' as its distinctive traits. All previously
known results on the trigonometry of CP^N and CH^N follow as particular cases
of our general equations. The physical Quantum Space of States of any quantum
system belongs, as the complex Hermitian space member, to this parametrised
family; hence its trigonometry appears as a rather particular case of the
equations we obtain.Comment: 46 pages, LaTe
Excretory/Secretory-Products of Echinococcus multilocularis Larvae Induce Apoptosis and Tolerogenic Properties in Dendritic Cells In Vitro
Parasitic helminths are inducers of chronic diseases and have evolved mechanisms to suppress the host immune response. Mostly from studies on roundworms, a picture is currently emerging that helminths secrete factors (E/S-products) that directly act on sentinels of the immune system, dendritic cells, in order to achieve an expansion of immunosuppressive, regulatory T cells (T-reg). Parasitic helminths are currently also intensely studied as therapeutic agents against autoimmune diseases and allergies, which is directly linked to their immunosuppressive activities. The immunomodulatory products of parasitic helminths are therefore of high interest for understanding immunopathology during infections and for the treatment of allergies. The present work was conducted on larvae of the tapeworm E. multilocularis, which grow like a tumor into surrounding host tissue and thus cause the lethal disease alveolar echinococcosis. The authors found that E/S-products from early infective larvae are strong inducers of tolerogenic DC in vitro and show that E/S-products of larvae of the chronic stage lead to an in vitro expansion of Foxp3+ T cells, suggesting that both the expansion of these T cells and poorly responsive DC are important for the establishment and persistence of E. multilocularis larvae within the host
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