20,133 research outputs found
Baryon Resonance Analysis from MAID
The unitary isobar model MAID2007 has been used to analyze the recent data of
pion electroproduction. The model contains all four-star resonances in the
region below W=2 GeV and both single-Q^2 and Q^2 dependent transition form
factors could be obtained for the Delta, Roper, D13(1520), S11(1535),
S31(1620), S11(1650), D15(1675), F15(1680) and P13(1720). From the complete
world data base, including also pi- data on the neutron, also Q^2 dependent
neutron form factors are obtained. For all transition form factors we also give
convenient numerical parameterizations that can be used in other reactions.
Furthermore, we show how the transition form factors can be used to obtain
empirical transverse charge densities and our first results are given for the
Roper, the S11 and D13 resonances.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables, Proc. of NSTAR2009, Beijin
Relationship between antihypertensive medications and cognitive impairment: Part II. Review of Physiology and animal studies
Purpose of Review There is an established association between hypertension and increased risk of poor cognitive performance and dementia including Alzheimer’s disease; however, associations between antihypertensive medications (AHM) and dementia risk are less clear. An increased interest in AHM has resulted in expanding publications; however, none of the recent reviews provide comprehensive review. Our extensive review includes 24 mechanistic animal and human studies published over the last 5 years assessing relationship between AHM and cognitive function. Recent Findings All classes of AHM showed similar result patterns in animal studies. The mechanism by which AHM exert their effect was extensively studied by evaluating well-established pathways of AD disease process, including amyloid beta (Aβ), vascular, oxidative stress and inflammation pathways, but only few studies evaluated the blood pressure lowering effect on the AD disease process. Summary Methodological limitations of the studies prevent comprehensive conclusions prior to further work evaluating AHM in animals and larger human observational studies, and selecting those with promising results for future RCTs
Stick-Slip Motion and Phase Transition in a Block-Spring System
We study numerically stick slip motions in a model of blocks and springs
being pulled slowly. The sliding friction is assumed to change dynamically with
a state variable. The transition from steady sliding to stick-slip is
subcritical in a single block and spring system. However, we find that the
transition is continuous in a long chain of blocks and springs. The size
distribution of stick-slip motions exhibits a power law at the critical point.Comment: 8 figure
Resolving Structure in Human Brain Organization: Identifying Mesoscale Organization in Weighted Network Representations
Human brain anatomy and function display a combination of modular and
hierarchical organization, suggesting the importance of both cohesive
structures and variable resolutions in the facilitation of healthy cognitive
processes. However, tools to simultaneously probe these features of brain
architecture require further development. We propose and apply a set of methods
to extract cohesive structures in network representations of brain connectivity
using multi-resolution techniques. We employ a combination of soft
thresholding, windowed thresholding, and resolution in community detection,
that enable us to identify and isolate structures associated with different
weights. One such mesoscale structure is bipartivity, which quantifies the
extent to which the brain is divided into two partitions with high connectivity
between partitions and low connectivity within partitions. A second,
complementary mesoscale structure is modularity, which quantifies the extent to
which the brain is divided into multiple communities with strong connectivity
within each community and weak connectivity between communities. Our methods
lead to multi-resolution curves of these network diagnostics over a range of
spatial, geometric, and structural scales. For statistical comparison, we
contrast our results with those obtained for several benchmark null models. Our
work demonstrates that multi-resolution diagnostic curves capture complex
organizational profiles in weighted graphs. We apply these methods to the
identification of resolution-specific characteristics of healthy weighted graph
architecture and altered connectivity profiles in psychiatric disease.Comment: Comments welcom
Relationship between antihypertensive medications and cognitive impairment: Part I. review of human studies and clinical trials
Purpose of review: There is an established association between hypertension and increased risk of poor cognitive performance and dementia including Alzheimer’s disease; however, associations between antihypertensive medications (AHMs) and dementia risk are less consistent. An increased interest in AHM has resulted in expanding publications; however, none of the recent reviews are comprehensive. Our extensive review includes 15 observational and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published over the last 5 years, assessing the relationship between AHM and cognitive impairment. Recent findings: All classes of AHM showed similar result patterns in human studies with the majority of study results reporting point estimates below one and only a small number of studies (N = 15) reporting statistically significant results in favor of a specific class. Summary: Only a small number of studies reported statistically significant results in favor of a specific class of AHM. Methodological limitations of the studies prevent definitive conclusions. Further work is now needed to evaluate the class of AHM and cognitive outcomes in future RCTs, with a particular focus on the drugs with the promising results in both animals and human observational studies
Incompatibility of modulated checkerboard patterns with the neutron scattering resonance peak in cuprate superconductors
Checkerboard patterns have been proposed in order to explain STM experiments
on the cuprates BSCCO and Na-CCOC. However the presence of these patterns has
not been confirmed by a bulk probe such as neutron scattering. In particular,
simple checkerboard patterns are inconsistent with neutron scattering data, in
that they have low energy incommsensurate (IC) spin peaks rotated 45 degrees
from the direction of the charge IC peaks. However, it is unclear whether other
checkerboard patterns can solve the problem. In this paper, we have studied
more complicated checkerboard patterns ("modulated checkerboards") by using
spin wave theory and analyzed noncollinear checkerboards as well. We find that
the high energy response of the modulated checkerboards is inconsistent with
neutron scattering results, since they fail to exhibit a resonance peak at
(pi,pi), which has recently been shown to be a universal feature of cuprate
superconductors. We further argue that the newly proposed noncollinear
checkerboard also lacks a resonance peak. We thus conclude that to date no
checkerboard pattern has been proposed which satisfies both the low energy
constraints and the high energy constraints imposed by the current body of
experimental data in cuprate superconductors.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, Fig.2 update
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