236 research outputs found
A new special class of Petrov type D vacuum space-times in dimension five
Using extensions of the Newman-Penrose and Geroch-Held-Penrose formalisms to
five dimensions, we invariantly classify all Petrov type vacuum solutions
for which the Riemann tensor is isotropic in a plane orthogonal to a pair of
Weyl alligned null directionsComment: 4 pages, 1 table, no figures. Contribution to the proceedings of the
Spanish Relativity Meeting 2010 held in Granada (Spain
Type III and N Einstein spacetimes in higher dimensions: general properties
The Sachs equations governing the evolution of the optical matrix of geodetic
WANDs (Weyl aligned null directions) are explicitly solved in n-dimensions in
several cases which are of interest in potential applications. This is then
used to study Einstein spacetimes of type III and N in the higher dimensional
Newman-Penrose formalism, considering both Kundt and expanding (possibly
twisting) solutions. In particular, the general dependence of the metric and of
the Weyl tensor on an affine parameter r is obtained in a closed form. This
allows us to characterize the peeling behaviour of the Weyl "physical"
components for large values of r, and thus to discuss, e.g., how the presence
of twist affects polarization modes, and qualitative differences between four
and higher dimensions. Further, the r-dependence of certain non-zero scalar
curvature invariants of expanding spacetimes is used to demonstrate that
curvature singularities may generically be present. As an illustration, several
explicit type N/III spacetimes that solve Einstein's vacuum equations (with a
possible cosmological constant) in higher dimensions are finally presented.Comment: 19 page
Semi-automatic segmentation of subcutaneous tumours from micro-computed tomography images
Cataloged from PDF version of article.This paper outlines the first attempt to segment the boundary of preclinical subcutaneous tumours, which are frequently used in cancer research, from micro-computed tomography (microCT) image data. MicroCT images provide low tissue contrast, and the tumour-to-muscle interface is hard to determine, however faint features exist which enable the boundary to be located. These are used as the basis of our semi-automatic segmentation algorithm. Local phase feature detection is used to highlight the faint boundary features, and a level set-based active contour is used to generate smooth contours that fit the sparse boundary features. The algorithm is validated against manually drawn contours and micro-positron emission tomography (microPET) images. When compared against manual expert segmentations, it was consistently able to segment at least 70% of the tumour region (n = 39) in both easy and difficult cases, and over a broad range of tumour volumes. When compared against tumour microPET data, it was able to capture over 80% of the functional microPET volume. Based on these results, we demonstrate the feasibility of subcutaneous tumour segmentation from microCT image data without the assistance of exogenous contrast agents. Our approach is a proof-of-concept that can be used as the foundation for further research, and to facilitate this, the code is open-source and available from www.setuvo.com. © 2013 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine
Kerr-Schild spacetimes with (A)dS background
General properties of Kerr-Schild spacetimes with (A)dS background in
arbitrary dimension are studied. It is shown that the geodetic Kerr-Schild
vector k is a multiple WAND of the spacetime. Einstein Kerr-Schild spacetimes
with non-expanding k are shown to be of Weyl type N, while the expanding
spacetimes are of type II or D. It is shown that this class of spacetimes obeys
the optical constraint. This allows us to solve Sachs equation, determine
r-dependence of boost weight zero components of the Weyl tensor and discuss
curvature singularities.Comment: 17 pages, minor change
An anisotropic distribution of spin vectors in asteroid families
Current amount of ~500 asteroid models derived from the disk-integrated
photometry by the lightcurve inversion method allows us to study not only the
spin-vector properties of the whole population of MBAs, but also of several
individual collisional families. We create a data set of 152 asteroids that
were identified by the HCM method as members of ten collisional families, among
them are 31 newly derived unique models and 24 new models with well-constrained
pole-ecliptic latitudes of the spin axes. The remaining models are adopted from
the DAMIT database or the literature. We revise the preliminary family
membership identification by the HCM method according to several additional
criteria - taxonomic type, color, albedo, maximum Yarkovsky semi-major axis
drift and the consistency with the size-frequency distribution of each family,
and consequently we remove interlopers. We then present the spin-vector
distributions for eight asteroidal families. We use a combined orbital- and
spin-evolution model to explain the observed spin-vector properties of objects
among collisional families. In general, we observe for studied families similar
trends in the (a_p, \beta) space: (i) larger asteroids are situated in the
proximity of the center of the family; (ii) asteroids with \beta>0{\deg} are
usually found to the right from the family center; (iii) on the other hand,
asteroids with \beta<0{\deg} to the left from the center; (iv) majority of
asteroids have large pole-ecliptic latitudes (|\beta|\gtrsim 30{\deg}); and
finally (v) some families have a statistically significant excess of asteroids
with \beta>0{\deg} or \beta<0{\deg}. Our numerical simulation of the long-term
evolution of a collisional family is capable of reproducing well the observed
spin-vector properties. Using this simulation, we also independently constrain
the age of families Flora (1.0\pm0.5 Gyr) and Koronis (2.5-4 Gyr).Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A (September 16, 2013
Changes in monkey crystalline lens spherical aberration during simulated accommodation in a lens stretcher
8 págs.; 7 figs.; 2 apps.© 2015 The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Inc. PURPOSE. The purpose of this study was to quantify accommodation-induced changes in the spherical aberration of cynomolgus monkey lenses. METHODS. Twenty-four lenses from 20 cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis; 4.4-16.0 years of age; postmortem time 13.5±13.0 hours) were mounted in a lens stretcher. Lens spherical aberration was measured in the unstretched (accommodated) and stretched (relaxed) states with a laser ray tracing system that delivered 51 equally spaced parallel rays along 1 meridian of the lens over the central 6-mm optical zone. A camera mounted below the lens was used to measure the ray height at multiple positions along the optical axis. For each entrance ray, the change in ray height with axial position was fitted with a third-order polynomial. The effective paraxial focal length and Zernike spherical aberration coefficients corresponding to a 6-mm pupil diameter were extracted from the fitted values. RESULTS. The unstretched lens power decreased with age from 59.3±6 4.0 diopters (D) for young lenses to 45.7±6 3.1 D for older lenses. The unstretched lens shifted toward less negative spherical aberration with age, from -6.3±0.7 lm for young lenses to-5.0±0.5 lm for older lenses. The power and spherical aberration of lenses in the stretched state were independent of age, with values of 33.5±6 3.4 D and-2.6±0.5 lm, respectively. CONCLUSIONS. Spherical aberration is negative in cynomolgus monkey lenses and becomes more negative with accommodation. These results are in good agreement with the predicted values using computational ray tracing in a lens model with a reconstructed gradient refractive index. The spherical aberration of the unstretched lens becomes less negative with age.Supported by National Institutes of Health Grants R01EY14225,
R01EY021834, and F31EY021444 Ruth L. Kirschstein National
Research Service Award individual predoctoral fellowship [BM]),
and center Grant P30EY14801; Australian government Cooperative
Research Centre Scheme (Vision CRC); Florida Lions Eye Bank;
Karl R. Olsen and Martha E. Hildebrandt; an unrestricted grant
from Research to Prevent Blindness; Henri and Flore Lesieur
Foundation (JMP); Spanish government Grant FIS2011-25637; and
European Research Council Grants ERC-2011-AdG-294099 and
CSIC i-LINKþ0609Peer Reviewe
Antibiotic Prophylaxis with Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole versus No Treatment after Mid-to-Distal Hypospadias Repair: A Prospective, Randomized Study
Purpose. To evaluate the impact of prophylactic antibiotics after distal hypospadias repair on postoperative bacteriuria, symptomatic urinary tract infection, and postoperative complications in a prospective, randomized trial. Materials and Methods. Consecutive patients aged 6 months to 2 years were enrolled at our institution between June 2013 and May 2017. Consenting patients were randomized to antibiotic prophylaxis with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole versus no antibiotic. Patients had catheterized urine samples obtained at surgery and 6–10 days postoperatively. The primary outcome was bacteriuria and pyuria at postoperative urine collection. Secondary outcomes included symptomatic urinary tract infection and postoperative complications. Results. 70 patients consented to the study, of which 35 were randomized to receive antibiotics compared to 32 who did not. Demographics, severity of hypospadias, and type of repair were similar between the groups. Patients in the treatment group had significantly less pyuria (18%) and bacteriuria (11%) present at stent removal compared to the nontreatment group (55% and 63%; p=0.01 and p<0.001, resp.). No patient had a symptomatic urinary tract infection. There were 11 postoperative complications. Conclusions. Routine antibiotic prophylaxis appears to significantly decrease bacteriuria and pyuria in the immediate postoperative period; however, no difference was observed in symptomatic urinary tract infection or postoperative complications. Clinical Trial Registration Number NCT02593903
Minimal tensors and purely electric or magnetic spacetimes of arbitrary dimension
We consider time reversal transformations to obtain twofold orthogonal
splittings of any tensor on a Lorentzian space of arbitrary dimension n.
Applied to the Weyl tensor of a spacetime, this leads to a definition of its
electric and magnetic parts relative to an observer (i.e., a unit timelike
vector field u), in any n. We study the cases where one of these parts vanishes
in particular, i.e., purely electric (PE) or magnetic (PM) spacetimes. We
generalize several results from four to higher dimensions and discuss new
features of higher dimensions. We prove that the only permitted Weyl types are
G, I_i and D, and discuss the possible relation of u with the WANDs; we provide
invariant conditions that characterize PE/PM spacetimes, such as Bel-Debever
criteria, or constraints on scalar invariants, and connect the PE/PM parts to
the kinematic quantities of u; we present conditions under which direct product
spacetimes (and certain warps) are PE/PM, which enables us to construct
explicit examples. In particular, it is also shown that all static spacetimes
are necessarily PE, while stationary spacetimes (e.g., spinning black holes)
are in general neither PE nor PM. Ample classes of PE spacetimes exist, but PM
solutions are elusive, and we prove that PM Einstein spacetimes of type D do
not exist, for any n. Finally, we derive corresponding results for the
electric/magnetic parts of the Riemann tensor. This also leads to first
examples of PM spacetimes in higher dimensions. We also note in passing that
PE/PM Weyl tensors provide examples of minimal tensors, and we make the
connection hereof with the recently proved alignment theorem. This in turn
sheds new light on classification of the Weyl tensors based on null alignment,
providing a further invariant characterization that distinguishes the types
G/I/D from the types II/III/N.Comment: 43 pages. v2: new proposition 4.10; some text reshuffled (former sec.
2 is now an appendix); references added; some footnotes cancelled, others
incorporated into the main text; some typos fixed and a few more minor
changes mad
Kerr-AdS and its Near-horizon Geometry: Perturbations and the Kerr/CFT Correspondence
We investigate linear perturbations of spin-s fields in the Kerr-AdS black
hole and in its near-horizon geometry (NHEK-AdS), using the Teukolsky master
equation and the Hertz potential. In the NHEK-AdS geometry we solve the
associated angular equation numerically and the radial equation exactly. Having
these explicit solutions at hand, we search for linear mode instabilities. We
do not find any (non-)axisymmetric instabilities with outgoing boundary
conditions. This is in agreement with a recent conjecture relating the
linearized stability properties of the full geometry with those of its
near-horizon geometry. Moreover, we find that the asymptotic behaviour of the
metric perturbations in NHEK-AdS violates the fall-off conditions imposed in
the formulation of the Kerr/CFT correspondence (the only exception being the
axisymmetric sector of perturbations).Comment: 26 pages. 4 figures. v2: references added. matches published versio
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