471 research outputs found
Holographic Interconnections In Photorefractive Wave-Guides
An architecture for implementing large scale holographic interconnections in photorefractive waveguides is described. Methods for controlling the hologram using unguided light are considered and experimentally demonstrated
Bivariate analysis of basal serum anti-Müllerian hormone measurements and human blastocyst development after IVF
Background
To report on relationships among baseline serum anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) measurements, blastocyst development and other selected embryology parameters observed in non-donor oocyte IVF cycles.
Methods
Pre-treatment AMH was measured in patients undergoing IVF (n = 79) and retrospectively correlated to in vitro embryo development noted during culture.
Results
Mean (+/- SD) age for study patients in this study group was 36.3 ± 4.0 (range = 28-45) yrs, and mean (+/- SD) terminal serum estradiol during IVF was 5929 +/- 4056 pmol/l. A moderate positive correlation (0.49; 95% CI 0.31 to 0.65) was noted between basal serum AMH and number of MII oocytes retrieved. Similarly, a moderate positive correlation (0.44) was observed between serum AMH and number of early cleavage-stage embryos (95% CI 0.24 to 0.61), suggesting a relationship between serum AMH and embryo development in IVF. Of note, serum AMH levels at baseline were significantly different for patients who did and did not undergo blastocyst transfer (15.6 vs. 10.9 pmol/l; p = 0.029).
Conclusions
While serum AMH has found increasing application as a predictor of ovarian reserve for patients prior to IVF, its roles to estimate in vitro embryo morphology and potential to advance to blastocyst stage have not been extensively investigated. These data suggest that baseline serum AMH determinations can help forecast blastocyst developmental during IVF. Serum AMH measured before treatment may assist patients, clinicians and embryologists as scheduling of embryo transfer is outlined. Additional studies are needed to confirm these correlations and to better define the role of baseline serum AMH level in the prediction of blastocyst formation
Heating rate and electrode charging measurements in a scalable, microfabricated, surface-electrode ion trap
We characterise the performance of a surface-electrode ion "chip" trap
fabricated using established semiconductor integrated circuit and
micro-electro-mechanical-system (MEMS) microfabrication processes which are in
principle scalable to much larger ion trap arrays, as proposed for implementing
ion trap quantum information processing. We measure rf ion micromotion parallel
and perpendicular to the plane of the trap electrodes, and find that on-package
capacitors reduce this to <~ 10 nm in amplitude. We also measure ion trapping
lifetime, charging effects due to laser light incident on the trap electrodes,
and the heating rate for a single trapped ion. The performance of this trap is
found to be comparable with others of the same size scale.Comment: 6 pages, 10 figure
Sequential Decay Distortion of Goldhaber Model Widths for Spectator Fragments
Momentum widths of the primary fragments and observed final fragments have
been investigated within the framework of an Antisymmetrized Molecular Dynamics
transport model code (AMD-V) with a sequential decay afterburner (GEMINI). It
is found that the secondary evaporation effects cause the values of a reduced
momentum width, , derived from momentum widths of the final fragments
to be significantly less than those appropriate to the primary fragment but
close to those observed in many experiments. Therefore, a new interpretation
for experiemental momentum widths of projectile-like fragments is presented.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figs. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. C as a Rapid
Communicatio
Sequential Decay Distortion of Goldhaber Model Widths for Spectator Fragments
Momentum widths of the primary fragments and observed final fragments have
been investigated within the framework of an Antisymmetrized Molecular Dynamics
transport model code (AMD-V) with a sequential decay afterburner (GEMINI). It
is found that the secondary evaporation effects cause the values of a reduced
momentum width, , derived from momentum widths of the final fragments
to be significantly less than those appropriate to the primary fragment but
close to those observed in many experiments. Therefore, a new interpretation
for experiemental momentum widths of projectile-like fragments is presented.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figs. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. C as a Rapid
Communicatio
Background-free detection of trapped ions
We demonstrate a Doppler cooling and detection scheme for ions with low-lying
D levels which almost entirely suppresses scattered laser light background,
while retaining a high fluorescence signal and efficient cooling. We cool a
single ion with a laser on the 2S1/2 to 2P1/2 transition as usual, but repump
via the 2P3/2 level. By filtering out light on the cooling transition and
detecting only the fluorescence from the 2P_3/2 to 2S1/2 decays, we suppress
the scattered laser light background count rate to 1 per second while
maintaining a signal of 29000 per second with moderate saturation of the
cooling transition. This scheme will be particularly useful for experiments
where ions are trapped in close proximity to surfaces, such as the trap
electrodes in microfabricated ion traps, which leads to high background scatter
from the cooling beam
Shell-model calculations of neutrino scattering from 12C
Neutrino reaction cross-sections, , ,
-capture and photoabsorption rates on C are computed within a
large-basis shell-model framework, which included excitations up to
. When ground-state correlations are included with an open
-shell the predictions of the calculations are in reasonable agreement with
most of the experimental results for these reactions. Woods-Saxon radial wave
functions are used, with their asymptotic forms matched to the experimental
separation energies for bound states, and matched to a binding energy of 0.01
MeV for unbound states. For comparison purposes, some results are given for
harmonic oscillator radial functions. Closest agreement between theory and
experiment is achieved with unrestricted shell-model configurations and
Woods-Saxon radial functions. We obtain for the neutrino-absorption inclusive
cross sections: cm for the
decay-in-flight flux in agreement with the LSND datum of
cm; and cm for the decay-at-rest flux, less than the
experimental result of cm.Comment: 19 pages. ReVTeX. No figure
Simulating (electro)hydrodynamic effects in colloidal dispersions: smoothed profile method
Previously, we have proposed a direct simulation scheme for colloidal
dispersions in a Newtonian solvent [Phys.Rev.E 71,036707 (2005)]. An improved
formulation called the ``Smoothed Profile (SP) method'' is presented here in
which simultaneous time-marching is used for the host fluid and colloids. The
SP method is a direct numerical simulation of particulate flows and provides a
coupling scheme between the continuum fluid dynamics and rigid-body dynamics
through utilization of a smoothed profile for the colloidal particles.
Moreover, the improved formulation includes an extension to incorporate
multi-component fluids, allowing systems such as charged colloids in
electrolyte solutions to be studied. The dynamics of the colloidal dispersions
are solved with the same computational cost as required for solving
non-particulate flows. Numerical results which assess the hydrodynamic
interactions of colloidal dispersions are presented to validate the SP method.
The SP method is not restricted to particular constitutive models of the host
fluids and can hence be applied to colloidal dispersions in complex fluids
Demultiplexing of fibre Bragg grating temperature and strain sensors
We describe a demultiplexing scheme for fibre optic Brag grating sensors in which signal recovery is achieved by locking each sensor grating to a corresponding receiver grating. As a demonstration, the technique is applied to strain and temperature sensing, achieving a resolution of 3.0 µε and 0.2°C, respectively
- …