813 research outputs found
Chronic kidney disease:Insights from social and genetic epidemiology
Chronic kidney disease is a major global health burden, caused by the complex interplay between environmental and genetic factors. The results in this thesis provide valuable insights into these causes. First, I corroborate the existence of socioeconomic disparities in kidney disease, as those with lower education seem to have higher rates of chronic kidney disease and faster rates of kidney function decline. Second, those with a positive family history have a threefold higher risk of having chronic kidney disease, and there is strong evidence for a genetic component to kidney function and kidney damage. Third, genetic risk of chronic kidney disease may be offset by higher socioeconomic status. Finally, educational level may not be the main driver of socioeconomic disparities in chronic kidney disease, as the genetic evidence for a causal effect of educational level is inconclusive
Bi-quadratic magnetoelectric coupling in underdoped La_2CuO_{4+x}
The recent discovery of relaxor ferroelectricity and magnetoelectric effect
in lightly doped cuprate material La_2CuO_{4+x} has provided a number of
questions concerning its theoretical description. It has been argued using a
Ginzburg-Landau free energy approach that the magnetoelectric effect can be
explained by the presence of bi-quadratic interaction terms in the free energy.
Here, by using the same free energy functional, we study the variety of
behavior which can emerge in the electric polarization under an external
magnetic field. Subsequently, we discuss the role of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya
interaction in generating this magnetoelectric response. This work is
particularly relevant for such relaxor systems where the material-dependent
parameters would be affected by changes in e.g. chemical doping or cooling
rate.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1112.152
Bounce-free spherical hydrodynamic implosion
In a bounce-free spherical hydrodynamic implosion, the post-stagnation hot
core plasma does not expand against the imploding flow. Such an implosion
scheme has the advantage of improving the dwell time of the burning fuel,
resulting in a higher fusion burn-up fraction. The existence of bounce-free
spherical implosions is demonstrated by explicitly constructing a family of
self-similar solutions to the spherically symmetric ideal hydrodynamic
equations. When applied to a specific example of plasma liner driven
magneto-inertial fusion, the bounce-free solution is found to produce at least
a factor of four improvement in dwell time and fusion energy gain.Comment: accepted by Phys. Plasmas (Nov. 7, 2011); for Ref. 11, please see
ftp://ftp.lanl.gov/public/kagan/liner_evolution.gi
Surface-wave-enabled darkfield aperture for background suppression during weak signal detection
Sensitive optical signal detection can often be confounded by the presence of a significant background, and, as such, predetection background suppression is substantively important for weak signal detection. In this paper, we present a novel optical structure design, termed surface-wave-enabled darkfield aperture (SWEDA), which can be directly incorporated onto optical sensors to accomplish predetection background suppression. This SWEDA structure consists of a central hole and a set of groove pattern that channels incident light to the central hole via surface plasmon wave and surface-scattered wave coupling. We show that the surface wave component can mutually cancel the direct transmission component, resulting in near-zero net transmission under uniform normal incidence illumination. Here, we report the implementation of two SWEDA structures. The first structure, circular-groove-based SWEDA, is able to provide polarization-independent suppression of uniform illumination with a suppression factor of 1230. The second structure, linear-groove-based SWEDA, is able to provide a suppression factor of 5080 for transverse-magnetic wave and can serve as a highly compact (5.5 micrometer length) polarization sensor (the measured transmission ratio of two orthogonal polarizations is 6100). Because the exact destructive interference balance is highly delicate and can be easily disrupted by the nonuniformity of the localized light field or light field deviation from normal incidence, the SWEDA can therefore be used to suppress a bright background and allow for sensitive darkfield sensing and imaging (observed image contrast enhancement of 27 dB for the first SWEDA)
Magnetic susceptibility anisotropies in a two-dimensional quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnet with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions
The magnetic and thermodynamic properties of the two-dimensional quantum
Heisenberg antiferromagnet that incorporates both a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya and
pseudo-dipolar interactions are studied within the framework of a generalized
nonlinear sigma model (NLSM). We calculate the static uniform susceptibility
and sublattice magnetization as a function of temperature and we show that: i)
the magnetic-response is anisotropic and differs qualitatively from the
expected behavior of a conventional easy-axis QHAF; ii) the Neel second-order
phase transition becomes a crossover, for a magnetic field B perpendicular to
the CuO(2) layers. We provide a simple and clear explanation for all the
recently reported unusual magnetic anisotropies in the low-field susceptibility
of La(2)CuO(4), L. N. Lavrov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 017007 (2001), and we
demonstrate explicitly why La(2)CuO(4) can not be classified as an ordinary
easy-axis antiferromagnet.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Revtex4, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Local spin spirals in the Neel phase of La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4
Experimental observations of lightly doped La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4, x < 0.02,
revealed remarkable magnetic properties such as the incommensurate noncollinear
ordering (additional to the Neel ordering) and a tremendous doping dependence
of the uniform longitudinal susceptibility. We show that the spiral solution of
the t-t'-t''-J model obtained by taking into account the Coulomb trapping of
holes by Sr ions describes these puzzling data perfectly well. Our solution
firstly explains why the incommensurate structure is directed along the
orthorhombic b-axis, and secondly allows a numerical calculation of the
positions and shapes of the incommensurate neutron scattering peaks. Thirdly,
we calculate the doping dependence of the spin-wave gap, and lastly, we study
the longitudinal magnetic susceptibility and show that its doping dependence is
due to the noncollinearity of the spin spiral.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure
Unusual magnetic susceptibility anisotropy in untwinned La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4 single crystals in the lightly-doped region
We present a study of the magnetic susceptibility in carefully detwinned
La_{2-x}Sr_{x}CuO_4 single crystals in the lightly-doped region (x=0-0.03),
which demonstrates a remarkable in-plane anisotropy of the spin system. This
anisotropy is found to persist after the long-range antiferromagnetic (AF)
order is destroyed by hole doping, suggesting that doped holes break the AF
order into domains in which the spin alignment is kept essentially intact. It
turns out that the freezing of the spins taking place at low temperatures is
also notably anisotropic, implying that the "spin-glass" feature is governed by
the domain structure as well.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.Let
Strong Discontinuities in the Complex Photonic Band Structure of Transmission Metallic Gratings
Complex photonic band structures (CPBS) of transmission metallic gratings
with rectangular slits are shown to exhibit strong discontinuities that are not
evidenced in the usual energetic band structures. These discontinuities are
located on Wood's anomalies and reveal unambiguously two different types of
resonances, which are identified as horizontal and vertical surface-plasmon
resonances. Spectral position and width of peaks in the transmission spectrum
can be directly extracted from CPBS for both kinds of resonances.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, REVTeX version
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