944 research outputs found
Singlet and triplet bipolarons on the triangular lattice
We study the Coulomb-Fr\"ohlich model on a triangular lattice, looking in
particular at states with angular momentum. We examine a simplified model of
crab bipolarons with angular momentum by projecting onto the low energy
subspace of the Coulomb-Fr\"ohlich model with large phonon frequency. Such a
projection is consistent with large long-range electron-phonon coupling and
large repulsive Hubbard . Significant differences are found between the band
structure of singlet and triplet states: The triplet state (which has a flat
band) is found to be significantly heavier than the singlet state (which has
mass similar to the polaron). We test whether the heavier triplet states
persist to lower electron-phonon coupling using continuous time quantum Monte
Carlo (QMC) simulation. The triplet state is both heavier and larger,
demonstrating that the heavier mass is due to quantum interference effects on
the motion. We also find that retardation effects reduce the differences
between singlet and triplet states, since they reintroduce second order terms
in the hopping into the inverse effective mass.Comment: Proceedings of SNS 200
Magnetic circular dichroism in X-ray fluorescence of Heusler alloys at threshold excitation
The results of fluorescence measurements of magnetic circular dichroism (MCD)
in Mn L_2,L_3 X-ray emission and absorption for Heusler alloys NiMnSb and
Co2MnSb are presented. Very intense resonance Mn L_3 emission is found at the
Mn 2p_3/2 threshold and is attributed to a peculiarity of the threshold
excitation in materials with the half-metallic character of the electronic
structure. A theoretical model for the description of resonance scattering of
polarized x-rays is suggested.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures. Discussed at conferences, submitting process in
progres
Superlight small bipolarons
Recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) has identified that
a finite-range Fr\"ohlich electron-phonon interaction (EPI) with c-axis
polarized optical phonons is important in cuprate superconductors, in agreement
with an earlier proposal by Alexandrov and Kornilovitch. The estimated
unscreened EPI is so strong that it could easily transform doped holes into
mobile lattice bipolarons in narrow-band Mott insulators such as cuprates.
Applying a continuous-time quantum Monte-Carlo algorithm (CTQMC) we compute the
total energy, effective mass, pair radius, number of phonons and isotope
exponent of lattice bipolarons in the region of parameters where any
approximation might fail taking into account the Coulomb repulsion and the
finite-range EPI. The effects of modifying the interaction range and different
lattice geometries are discussed with regards to analytical
strong-coupling/non-adiabatic results. We demonstrate that bipolarons can be
simultaneously small and light, provided suitable conditions on the
electron-phonon and electron-electron interaction are satisfied. Such light
small bipolarons are a necessary precursor to high-temperature Bose-Einstein
condensation in solids. The light bipolaron mass is shown to be universal in
systems made of triangular plaquettes, due to a novel crab-like motion. Another
surprising result is that the triplet-singlet exchange energy is of the first
order in the hopping integral and triplet bipolarons are heavier than singlets
in certain lattice structures at variance with intuitive expectations. Finally,
we identify a range of lattices where superlight small bipolarons may be
formed, and give estimates for their masses in the anti-adiabatic
approximation.Comment: 31 pages. To appear in J. Phys.: Condens. Matter, Special Issue
'Mott's Physics
Using computers to identify non-compliant people at increased risk of osteoporotic fractures in general practice: a cross-sectional study.
National guidelines recommend bisphosphonates for secondary prevention of osteoporotic fractures; however, poor compliance may result in sub-optimal prevention
Anisotropy studies with multiscale autocorrelation function
We present a novel method, based on a multiscale approach, for detecting
anisotropy signatures in the arrival direction distribution of the highest
energy cosmic rays. This method is catalog independent, i.e. it does not depend
on the choice of a particular catalog of candidate sources, and it provides a
good discrimination power even in presence of contaminating isotropic
background. We present applications to simulated data sets of events
corresponding to plausible scenarios for events detected, in the last decades,
by world-wide surface detector-based observatories for charged particles.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, proceed. of conferenc
Homogeneous Fermion Superfluid with Unequal Spin Populations
For decades, the conventional view is that an s-wave BCS superfluid can not
support uniform spin polarization due to a gap in the quasiparticle
excitation spectrum. We show that this is an artifact of the dismissal of
quasiparticle interactions in the conventional approach at the
outset. Such interactions can cause triplet fluctuations in the ground state
and hence non-zero spin polarization at "magnetic field" . The
resulting ground state is a pairing state of quasiparticles on the ``BCS
vacuum". For sufficiently large , the spin polarization of at unitarity
has the simple form . Our study is motivated by the recent
experiments at Rice which found evidence of a homogenous superfluid state with
uniform spin polarization.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
On Active Galactic Nuclei as Sources of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays
We measure the correlation between sky coordinates of the Swift BAT catalogue
of active galactic nuclei with the arrival directions of the highest energy
cosmic rays detected by the Auger Observatory. The statistically complete, hard
X-ray catalogue helps to distinguish between AGN and other source candidates
that follow the distribution of local large-scale structure. The positions of
the full catalogue are marginally uncorrelated with the cosmic ray arrival
directions, but when weighted by their hard X-ray flux, AGN within 100 Mpc are
correlated at a significance level of 98 per cent. This correlation sharply
decreases for sources beyond ~100 Mpc, suggestive of a GZK suppression. We
discuss the implications for determining the mechanism that accelerates
particles to these extreme energies in excess of 10^19 eV.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA
Regulators of G protein signalling proteins in the human myometrium
The contractile state of the human myometrium is controlled by extracellular signals that promote relaxation or contraction. Many of these signals function through G proteincoupled receptors at the cell surface, stimulating heterotrimeric G proteins and leading to changes in the activity of effector proteins responsible for bringing about the response. G proteins can interact with multiple receptors and many different effectors and are key
players in the response. Regulators of G protein signalling (RGS) proteins are GTPase activating proteins for heterotrimeric G proteins and help terminate the signal. Little is known about the function of RGS proteins in human myometrium and we have therefore analysed transcript levels for RGS proteins at various stages of pregnancy (non-pregnant, preterm, term non-labouring, term labouring). RGS2 and RGS5 were the most abundantly expressed isolates in each of the patient groups. The levels of RGS4 and RGS16 (and to a lesser extent RGS2 and RGS14) increased in term labouring samples relative to the other groups. Yeast two-hybrid analysis and co-immunoprecipitation in myometrial cells revealed that both RGS2 and RGS5 interact directly with the cytoplasmic tail of the oxytocin receptor, suggesting they might help regulate signalling through this receptor.
Key words: G protein-coupled receptors; labour; myometrium; RGS protein
The QICKD study protocol: a cluster randomised trial to compare quality improvement interventions to lower systolic BP in chronic kidney disease (CKD) in primary care.
BACKGROUND: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a relatively newly recognised but common long-term condition affecting 5 to 10% of the population. Effective management of CKD, with emphasis on strict blood pressure (BP) control, reduces cardiovascular risk and slows the progression of CKD. There is currently an unprecedented rise in referral to specialist renal services, which are often located in tertiary centres, inconvenient for patients, and wasteful of resources. National and international CKD guidelines include quality targets for primary care. However, there have been no rigorous evaluations of strategies to implement these guidelines. This study aims to test whether quality improvement interventions improve primary care management of elevated BP in CKD, reduce cardiovascular risk, and slow renal disease progression DESIGN: Cluster randomised controlled trial (CRT) METHODS: This three-armed CRT compares two well-established quality improvement interventions with usual practice. The two interventions comprise: provision of clinical practice guidelines with prompts and audit-based education. The study population will be all individuals with CKD from general practices in eight localities across England. Randomisation will take place at the level of the general practices. The intended sample (three arms of 25 practices) powers the study to detect a 3 mmHg difference in systolic BP between the different quality improvement interventions. An additional 10 practices per arm will receive a questionnaire to measure any change in confidence in managing CKD. Follow up will take place over two years. Outcomes will be measured using anonymised routinely collected data extracted from practice computer systems. Our primary outcome measure will be reduction of systolic BP in people with CKD and hypertension at two years. Secondary outcomes will include biomedical outcomes and markers of quality, including practitioner confidence in managing CKD. A small group of practices (n = 4) will take part in an in-depth process evaluation. We will use time series data to examine the natural history of CKD in the community. Finally, we will conduct an economic evaluation based on a comparison of the cost effectiveness of each intervention. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION: ISRCTN56023731. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier
New values of time and reliability in passenger transport in The Netherlands
We have established new values of time (VOTs) and values of travel time reliability (VORs) for use in cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of transport projects in The Netherlands. This was the first national study in The Netherlands (and one of the first world-wide) to investigate these topics empirically in a joint framework. Stated preference (SP) questionnaires were designed for interviewing travellers, where the hypothetical alternatives were described in terms of travel time, travel costs and travel time reliability, the latter being presented to the respondents in the form of five possible travel times having equal probability. For passenger transport, we first collected interviews using an existing internet panel. Additional data collection recruitment was done by asking travellers at petrol stations/service areas, parking garages, stations, bus stops, airports and ports to participate in the survey. One important conclusion is that the SP survey using members of this internet panel leads to substantially lower VOTs than the SP survey with en-route recruitment, probably because of self-selection bias in the internet panel. We estimated discrete choice models in which the values of time differ between trips with different time and costs levels, different time and costs changes offered in the SP, and different observed characteristics of the respondents (e.g. education, income, age, household composition). By using a panel latent class model, we also account for unobserved differences between respondents in the value of time and for repeated measurements/panel effects. The reference values of time and the reference reliability ratios were estimated on the 2011 sample only, but the effect of time and cost level, time and cost changes offered and socio-economic attributes was estimated on both the 2009 and 2011 samples
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