112 research outputs found
Sensitivity to the KARMEN Timing Anomaly at MiniBooNE
We present sensitivities for the MiniBooNE experiment to a rare exotic pion
decay producing a massive particle, Q^0. This type of decay represents one
possible explanation for the timing anomaly reported by the KARMEN
collaboration. MiniBooNE will be able to explore an area of the KARMEN signal
that has not yet been investigated
Fully automated segmentation of the cervical cord from T1-weighted MRI using PropSeg: Application to multiple sclerosis.
Spinal cord (SC) atrophy, i.e. a reduction in the SC cross-sectional area (CSA) over time, can be measured by means of image segmentation using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, segmentation methods have been limited by factors relating to reproducibility or sensitivity to change. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a fully automated SC segmentation method (PropSeg), and compare this to a semi-automated active surface (AS) method, in healthy controls (HC) and people with multiple sclerosis (MS). MRI data from 120 people were retrospectively analysed; 26 HC, 21 with clinically isolated syndrome, 26 relapsing remitting MS, 26 primary and 21 secondary progressive MS. MRI data from 40 people returning after one year were also analysed. CSA measurements were obtained within the cervical SC. Reproducibility of the measurements was assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). A comparison between mean CSA changes obtained with the two methods over time was performed using multivariate structural equation regression models. Associations between CSA measures and clinical scores were investigated using linear regression models. Compared to the AS method, the reproducibility of CSA measurements obtained with PropSeg was high, both in patients and in HC, with ICCÂ >Â 0.98 in all cases. There was no significant difference between PropSeg and AS in terms of detecting change over time. Furthermore, PropSeg provided measures that correlated with physical disability, similar to the AS method. PropSeg is a time-efficient and reliable segmentation method, which requires no manual intervention, and may facilitate large multi-centre neuroprotective trials in progressive MS
Constraints on a Massive Dirac Neutrino Model
We examine constraints on a simple neutrino model in which there are three
massless and three massive Dirac neutrinos and in which the left handed
neutrinos are linear combinations of doublet and singlet neutrinos. We examine
constraints from direct decays into heavy neutrinos, indirect effects on
electroweak parameters, and flavor changing processes. We combine these
constraints to examine the allowed mass range for the heavy neutrinos of each
of the three generations.Comment: latex, 29 pages, 7 figures (not included), MIT-CTP-221
Search for a 33.9 MeV/c^2 Neutral Particle in Pion Decay
The E815 (NuTeV) neutrino experiment has performed a search for a 33.9
MeV/c^2 weakly-interacting neutral particle produced in pion decay. Such a
particle may be responsible for an anomaly in the timing distribution of
neutrino interactions in the KARMEN experiment. E815 has searched for this
particle's decays in an instrumented decay region; no evidence for this
particle was found. The search is sensitive to pion branching ratios as low as
10^-13.Comment: 4 pages; 5 figure
A scheme with two large extra dimensions confronted with neutrino physics
We investigate a particle physics model in a six-dimensional spacetime, where
two extra dimensions form a torus. Particles with Standard Model charges are
confined by interactions with a scalar field to four four-dimensional branes,
two vortices accommodating ordinary type fermions and two antivortices
accommodating mirror fermions. We investigate the phenomenological implications
of this multibrane structure by confronting the model with neutrino physics
data.Comment: LATEX, 24 pages, 9 figures, minor changes in the tex
Spinal cord grey matter segmentation challenge
An important image processing step in spinal cord magnetic resonance imaging is the ability to reliably and accurately segment grey and white matter for tissue specific analysis. There are several semi- or fully-automated segmentation methods for cervical cord cross-sectional area measurement with an excellent performance close or equal to the manual segmentation. However, grey matter segmentation is still challenging due to small cross-sectional size and shape, and active research is being conducted by several groups around the world in this field. Therefore a grey matter spinal cord segmentation challenge was organised to test different capabilities of various methods using the same multi-centre and multi-vendor dataset acquired with distinct 3D gradient-echo sequences. This challenge aimed to characterize the state-of-the-art in the field as well as identifying new opportunities for future improvements. Six different spinal cord grey matter segmentation methods developed independently by various research groups across the world and their performance were compared to manual segmentation outcomes, the present gold-standard. All algorithms provided good overall results for detecting the grey matter butterfly, albeit with variable performance in certain quality-of-segmentation metrics. The data have been made publicly available and the challenge web site remains open to new submissions. No modifications were introduced to any of the presented methods as a result of this challenge for the purposes of this publication
On Rigorous Derivation of the Enskog Kinetic Equation
We develop a rigorous formalism for the description of the kinetic evolution
of infinitely many hard spheres. On the basis of the kinetic cluster expansions
of cumulants of groups of operators of finitely many hard spheres the nonlinear
kinetic Enskog equation and its generalizations are justified. It is
established that for initial states which are specified in terms of
one-particle distribution functions the description of the evolution by the
Cauchy problem of the BBGKY hierarchy and by the Cauchy problem of the
generalized Enskog kinetic equation together with a sequence of explicitly
defined functionals of a solution of stated kinetic equation is an equivalent.
For the initial-value problem of the generalized Enskog equation the existence
theorem is proved in the space of integrable functions.Comment: 28 page
Open-access quantitative MRI data of the spinal cord and reproducibility across participants, sites and manufacturers
In a companion paper by Cohen-Adad et al. we introduce the spine generic quantitative MRI protocol that provides valuable metrics for assessing spinal cord macrostructural and microstructural integrity. This protocol was used to acquire a single subject dataset across 19 centers and a multi-subject dataset across 42 centers (for a total of 260 participants), spanning the three main MRI manufacturers: GE, Philips and Siemens. Both datasets are publicly available via git-annex. Data were analysed using the Spinal Cord Toolbox to produce normative values as well as inter/intra-site and inter/intra-manufacturer statistics. Reproducibility for the spine generic protocol was high across sites and manufacturers, with an average inter-site coefficient of variation of less than 5% for all the metrics. Full documentation and results can be found at https://spine-generic.rtfd.io/. The datasets and analysis pipeline will help pave the way towards accessible and reproducible quantitative MRI in the spinal cord
The effect of intramuscular interferon beta-1a on spinal cord volume in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis
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