1,612 research outputs found
Total energy expenditure in infancy
This thesis is concerned primarily with the measurement of total energy
expenditure in infancy. Until the advent and subsequent development of
the doubly labelled water technique for the assessment of carbon dioxide
production rate in "free-living" individuals measurements of total energy
expenditure in infants and children were virtually impossible. Thus
measurements of total energy expenditure using this relatively new
technique are of burgeoning interest to nutritionists, clinicians and
human biologists. [Continues.
The distribution of body fat in man
This thesis is concerned with the calculation of the proportion
of fat situated subcutaneously (PFSS) in man. [Continues.
Cognition, ocular accommodation, and cardiovascular function in emmetropes and late-onset myopes
PURPOSE. To investigate objectively and noninvasively the role of cognitive demand on autonomic control of systemic cardiovascular and ocular accommodative responses in emmetropes and myopes of late-onset. METHODS. Sixteen subjects (10 men, 6 women) aged between 18 and 34 years (mean ± SD: 22.6 ± 4.4 years), eight emmetropes (EMMs; mean spherical equivalent [MSE] refractive error ± SD: 0.05 ± 0.24 D) and eight with late-onset myopia (LOMs; MSE ± SD: -3.66 ± 2.31 D) participated in the study. Subjects viewed stationary numerical digits monocularly within a Badal optical system (at both 0.0 and -3.0 D) while performing a two-alternative, forced-choice paradigm that matched cognitive loading across subjects. Five individually matched cognitive levels of increasing difficulty were used in random order for each subject. Five 20-second, continuous-objective recordings of the accommodative response measured with an open-view infrared autorefractor were obtained for each cognitive level, whereas simultaneous measurement of heart rate was continuously recorded with a finger-mounted piezoelectric pulse transducer for 5 minutes. Fast Fourier transformation of cardiovascular function allowed the relative power of the autonomic components to be assessed in the frequency domain, whereas heart period gave an indication of the time-domain response. RESULTS. Increasing the cognitive demand led to a significant reduction in the accommodative response in all subjects (0.0 D: by -0.35 ± 0.33 D; -3.0 D: by -0.31 ± 0.40 D, P 0.05). CONCLUSIONS. In an equivalent workload paradigm, increasing cognitive demand caused a reduction in accommodative response that was attributable principally to a concurrent reduction in the relative power of the parasympathetic component of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The disparity in accommodative response between EMMs and LOMs, however, appears to be augmented by changes in the sympathetic nervous component of the systemic ANS. Copyright © Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
Black Hole Thermodynamics in Horava Lifshitz Gravity and the Related Geometry
Recently, Hoava proposed a non-relativistic renormalizable theory
of gravity which is essentially a field theoretic model for a UV complete
theory of gravity and reduces to Einstein gravity with a non-vanishing
cosmological constant in IR. Also the theory admits a Lifshitz scale-invariance
in time and space with broken Lorentz symmetry at short scale. On the other
hand, at large distances higher derivative terms do not contribute and the
theory coincides with general relativity. Subsequently, Cai and his
collaborators and then Catiuo et al have obtained black hole solutions in this
gravity theory and studied the thermodynamic properties of the black hole
solution. In the present paper, we have investigated the black hole
thermodynamic for two choices of the entropy function - a classical and a
topological in nature. Finally, it is examined whether a phase transition is
possible or not.Comment: 8 figure
Accuracy of cornea and lens biometry using anterior segment optical coherence tomography
We assess the accuracy of the Visante anterior segment optical coherence tomographer (AS-OCT) and present improved formulas for measurement of surface curvature and axial separation. Measurements are made in physical model eyes. Accuracy is compared for measurements of corneal thickness (d1) and anterior chamber depth (d2) using-built-in AS-OCT software versus the improved scheme. The improved scheme enables measurements of lens thickness (d 3) and surface curvature, in the form of conic sections specified by vertex radii and conic constants. These parameters are converted to surface coordinates for error analysis. The built-in AS-OCT software typically overestimates (mean±standard deviation(SD)]d1 by +62±4 μm and d2 by +4±88μm. The improved scheme reduces d1 (-0.4±4 μm) and d2 (0±49 μm) errors while also reducing d3 errors from +218±90 (uncorrected) to +14±123 μm (corrected). Surface x coordinate errors gradually increase toward the periphery. Considering the central 6-mm zone of each surface, the x coordinate errors for anterior and posterior corneal surfaces reached +3±10 and 0±23 μm, respectively, with the improved scheme. Those of the anterior and posterior lens surfaces reached +2±22 and +11±71 μm, respectively. Our improved scheme reduced AS-OCT errors and could, therefore, enhance pre- and postoperative assessments of keratorefractive or cataract surgery, including measurement of accommodating intraocular lenses. © 2007 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
Averaged Energy Conditions and Quantum Inequalities
Connections are uncovered between the averaged weak (AWEC) and averaged null
(ANEC) energy conditions, and quantum inequality restrictions on negative
energy for free massless scalar fields. In a two-dimensional compactified
Minkowski universe, we derive a covariant quantum inequality-type bound on the
difference of the expectation values of the energy density in an arbitrary
quantum state and in the Casimir vacuum state. From this bound, it is shown
that the difference of expectation values also obeys AWEC and ANEC-type
integral conditions. In contrast, it is well-known that the stress tensor in
the Casimir vacuum state alone satisfies neither quantum inequalities nor
averaged energy conditions. Such difference inequalities represent limits on
the degree of energy condition violation that is allowed over and above any
violation due to negative energy densities in a background vacuum state. In our
simple two-dimensional model, they provide physically interesting examples of
new constraints on negative energy which hold even when the usual AWEC, ANEC,
and quantum inequality restrictions fail. In the limit when the size of the
space is allowed to go to infinity, we derive quantum inequalities for timelike
and null geodesics which, in appropriate limits, reduce to AWEC and ANEC in
ordinary two-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. We also derive a quantum
inequality bound on the energy density seen by an inertial observer in
four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. The bound implies that any inertial
observer in flat spacetime cannot see an arbitrarily large negative energy
density which lasts for an arbitrarily long period of time.Comment: 20pp, plain LATEX, TUTP-94-1
Structural investigations of phosphorus-nitrogen compounds. 7. Relationships between physical properties, electron densities, reaction mechanisms and hydrogen-bonding motifs of N3P3Cl(6-n)(NHBut)(n) derivatives
A series of compounds of the N3P3Cl(6-n)(NHBut)n family (where n = 0, 1, 2, 4 and 6) are presented and their molecular parameters are related to trends in physical properties, which provides insight into a potential reaction mechanism for nucleophilic substitution. The crystal structures of N3P3Cl5(NHBut) and N3P3Cl2(NHBut)4 have been determined at 120K and those of N3P3Cl6 and N3P3Cl4(NHBut)2 have been re-determined at 120K. These are compared with the known structure of N3P3(NHBut)6 studied at 150K. Trends in molecular parameters (phosphazene ring, P-Cl & P-N(HBut) distances, PCl2 angles and endo- and exo-cyclic phosphazene ring parameters) across the series are observed. Hydrogen-bonding motifs are identified, characterised and compared. Both the molecular and hydrogen bonding parameters are related to the electron distribution in bonds and the derived basicities of the cyclophosphazene series of compounds. These findings provide evidence for a proposed mechanism for nucleophilic substitution at a phosphorus site bearing a PCl(NHBut) moiety
Quantum Stability of Accelerated Black Holes
We study quantum aspects of the accelerated black holes in some detail.
Explicitly shown is the fact that a uniform acceleration stabilizes certain
charged black holes against the well-known thermal evaporation. Furthermore, a
close inspection of the geometry reveals that this is possible only for
near-extremal black holes and that most nonextremal varieties continue to
evaporate with a modified spectrum under the acceleration. We also introduce a
two-dimensional toy model where the energy-momentum flow is easily obtained for
general accelerations, and find the behavior to be in accordance with the
four-dimensional results. After a brief comparison to the classical system of a
uniformly accelerated charge, we close by pointing out the importance of this
result in the WKB expansion of the black hole pair-creation rate.Comment: LaTeX, 22 pages, 5 uuencoded figures (minor errors corrected, more
discussions on the case with black holes formed by gravitational collapse.
A Study of Phase Transition in Black Hole Thermodynamics
This paper deals with five-dimensional black hole solutions in (a)
Einstein-Maxwell-Gauss-Bonnet theory with a cosmological constant and
(b)Einstein-Yang-Mills-Gauss-Bonnet theory for spherically symmetric space
time. In both the cases the possibility of phase transition is examined and it
is analyzed whether the phase transition is a Hawking-Page type phase
transition or not.Comment: 16 figure
Focusing Vacuum Fluctuations
The focusing of the vacuum modes of a quantized field by a parabolic mirror
is investigated. We use a geometric optics approximation to calculate the
energy density and mean squared field averages for scalar and electromagnetic
fields near the focus. We find that these quantities grow as an inverse power
of the distance to the focus. There is an attractive Casimir-Polder force on an
atom which will draw it into the focus. Some estimates of the magnitude of the
effects of this focusing indicate that it may be observable.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures; typos corrected, two refs and some comments
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