146 research outputs found
Colour reconnection and Bose-Einstein effects
Final-state interactions and interference phenomena that could affect the
value of the W mass reconstructed from hadronic WW decays at LEP2 are reviewed,
and possible areas for future investigation are identified.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, LaTeX, uses epsfig. Talk at Phenomenology
Workshop on LEP2 Physics, Oxford, April 199
The effects of nonextensive statistics on fluctuations investigated in event-by-event analysis of data
We investigate the effect of nonextensive statistics as applied to the
chemical fluctuations in high-energy nuclear collisions discussed recently
using the event-by-event analysis of data. It turns out that very minuite
nonextensitivity changes drastically the expected experimental output for the
fluctuation measure. This results is in agreement with similar studies of
nonextensity performed recently for the transverse momentum fluctuations in the
same reactions.Comment: Revised version, to be published in J. Phys. G (2000
Criticality, Fractality and Intermittency in Strong Interactions
Assuming a second-order phase transition for the hadronization process, we
attempt to associate intermittency patterns in high-energy hadronic collisions
to fractal structures in configuration space and corresponding intermittency
indices to the isothermal critical exponent at the transition temperature. In
this approach, the most general multidimensional intermittency pattern,
associated to a second-order phase transition of the strongly interacting
system, is determined, and its relevance to present and future experiments is
discussed.Comment: 15 pages + 2 figures (available on request), CERN-TH.6990/93,
UA/NPPS-5-9
Multi-boson effects and the normalization of the two-pion correlation function
The two-pion correlation function can be defined as a ratio of either the
measured momentum distributions or the normalized momentum space probabilities.
We show that the first alternative avoids certain ambiguities since then the
normalization of the two-pion correlator contains important information on the
multiplicity distribution of the event ensemble which is lost in the second
alternative. We illustrate this explicitly for specific classes of event
ensembles.Comment: 6 pages, three figures,submit to PR
Swarming in shallow waters
A swarm is a collection of separate objects that move autonomously in the same direction in a concerted fashion. This type of behavior is observed in ensembles of various organisms but has proven inherently difficult to realize in artificial chemical systems, where the components have to self-assemble dynamically and, at the same time, propel themselves. This paper describes a class of systems in which millimeter-sized components interact hydrodynamically and organize into dissipative structures that swarm in thin fluid layers. Depending on the geometry of the particles, various types of swarms can be engineered, including ensembles that rotate, follow a "leader", or are pushed in front of a larger particle
Net Charge Fluctuations in Au + Au Interactions at sqrt(s_NN) = 130 GeV
Data from Au + Au interactions at sqrt(s_NN) = 130 GeV, obtained with the
PHENIX detector at RHIC, are used to investigate local net charge fluctuations
among particles produced near mid-rapidity. According to recent suggestions,
such fluctuations may carry information from the Quark Gluon Plasma. This
analysis shows that the fluctuations are dominated by a stochastic distribution
of particles, but are also sensitive to other effects, like global charge
conservation and resonance decays.Comment: 6 pages, RevTeX 3, 3 figures, 307 authors, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Lett. on 21 March, 2002. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in
figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (will be made) publicly
available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/phenix/WWW/run/phenix/papers.htm
Optimization of percutaneous biopsy for diagnosis and pretreatment risk assessment of neuroblastoma
BackgroundImage- guided percutaneous core needle biopsy (PCNB) is increasingly utilized to diagnose solid tumors. The objective of this study is to determine whether PCNB is adequate for modern biologic characterization of neuroblastoma.ProcedureA multi- institutional retrospective study was performed by the Pediatric Surgical Oncology Research Collaborative on children with neuroblastoma at 12 institutions over a 3- year period. Data collected included demographics, clinical details, biopsy technique, complications, and adequacy of biopsies for cytogenetic markers utilized by the Childrenâs Oncology Group for risk stratification.ResultsA total of 243 children were identified with a diagnosis of neuroblastoma: 79 (32.5%) tumor excision at diagnosis, 94 (38.7%) open incisional biopsy (IB), and 70 (28.8%) PCNB. Compared to IB, there was no significant difference in ability to accurately obtain a primary diagnosis by PCNB (95.7%ĂÂ vs 98.9%, PĂÂ =ĂÂ .314) or determine MYCN copy number (92.4%ĂÂ vs 97.8%, PĂÂ =ĂÂ .111). The yield for loss of heterozygosity and tumor ploidy was lower with PCNB versus IB (56.1%ĂÂ vs 90.9%, PĂÂ <ĂÂ .05; and 58.0%ĂÂ vs. 88.5%, PĂÂ <ĂÂ .05). Complications did not differ between groups (2.9 % vs 3.3%, PĂÂ =ĂÂ 1.000), though the PCNB group had fewer blood transfusions and lower opioid usage. Efficacy of PCNB was improved for loss of heterozygosity when a pediatric pathologist evaluated the fresh specimen for adequacy.ConclusionsPCNB is a less invasive alternative to open biopsy for primary diagnosis and MYCN oncogene status in patients with neuroblastoma. Our data suggest that PCNB could be optimized for complete genetic analysis by standardized protocols and real- time pathology assessment of specimen quality.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154667/1/pbc28153_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154667/2/pbc28153.pd
Optimization of percutaneous biopsy for diagnosis and pretreatment risk assessment of neuroblastoma
Background: Image-guided percutaneous core needle biopsy (PCNB) is increasingly utilized to diagnose solid tumors. The objective of this study is to determine whether PCNB is adequate for modern biologic characterization of neuroblastoma. Procedure: A multi-institutional retrospective study was performed by the Pediatric Surgical Oncology Research Collaborative on children with neuroblastoma at 12 institutions over a 3-year period. Data collected included demographics, clinical details, biopsy technique, complications, and adequacy of biopsies for cytogenetic markers utilized by the Children\u27s Oncology Group for risk stratification. Results: A total of 243 children were identified with a diagnosis of neuroblastoma: 79 (32.5%) tumor excision at diagnosis, 94 (38.7%) open incisional biopsy (IB), and 70 (28.8%) PCNB. Compared to IB, there was no significant difference in ability to accurately obtain a primary diagnosis by PCNB (95.7% vs 98.9%, P =.314) or determine MYCN copy number (92.4% vs 97.8%, P =.111). The yield for loss of heterozygosity and tumor ploidy was lower with PCNB versus IB (56.1% vs 90.9%, P \u3c.05; and 58.0% vs. 88.5%, P \u3c.05). Complications did not differ between groups (2.9 % vs 3.3%, P = 1.000), though the PCNB group had fewer blood transfusions and lower opioid usage. Efficacy of PCNB was improved for loss of heterozygosity when a pediatric pathologist evaluated the fresh specimen for adequacy. Conclusions: PCNB is a less invasive alternative to open biopsy for primary diagnosis and MYCN oncogene status in patients with neuroblastoma. Our data suggest that PCNB could be optimized for complete genetic analysis by standardized protocols and real-time pathology assessment of specimen quality
Energy consumption in chemical fuel-driven self-assembly
Nature extensively exploits high-energy transient self-assembly structures that are able to perform work through a dissipative process. Often, self-assembly relies on the use of molecules as fuel that is consumed to drive thermodynamically unfavourable reactions away from equilibrium. Implementing this kind of non-equilibrium self-assembly process in synthetic systems is bound to profoundly impact the fields of chemistry, materials science and synthetic biology, leading to innovative dissipative structures able to convert and store chemical energy. Yet, despite increasing efforts, the basic principles underlying chemical fuel-driven dissipative self-assembly are often overlooked, generating confusion around the meaning and definition of scientific terms, which does not favour progress in the field. The scope of this Perspective is to bring closer together current experimental approaches and conceptual frameworks. From our analysis it also emerges that chemically fuelled dissipative processes may have played a crucial role in evolutionary processes
Rare genetic variants explain missing heritability in smoking
Common genetic variants explain less variation in complex phenotypes than inferred from family-based studies, and there is a debate on the source of this âmissing heritabilityâ. We investigated the contribution of rare genetic variants to tobacco use with whole-genome sequences from up to 26,257 unrelated individuals of European ancestries and 11,743 individuals of African ancestries. Across four smoking traits, single-nucleotide-polymorphism-based heritability (hSNP2) was estimated from 0.13 to 0.28 (s.e., 0.10â0.13) in European ancestries, with 35â74% of it attributable to rare variants with minor allele frequencies between 0.01% and 1%. These heritability estimates are 1.5â4 times higher than past estimates based on common variants alone and accounted for 60% to 100% of our pedigree-based estimates of narrow-sense heritability (hped2, 0.18â0.34). In the African ancestry samples, hSNP2 was estimated from 0.03 to 0.33 (s.e., 0.09â0.14) across the four smoking traits. These results suggest that rare variants are important contributors to the heritability of smoking
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