5,351 research outputs found
Validation of the German Revised Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination for Detecting Mild Cognitive Impairment, Mild Dementia in Alzheimer's Disease and Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration
Background/Aims: The diagnostic accuracy of the German version of the revised Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination (ACE-R) in identifying mild cognitive impairment (MCI), mild dementia in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild dementia in frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) in comparison with the conventional Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) was assessed. Methods: The study encompasses 76 cognitively healthy elderly individuals, 75 patients with MCI, 56 with AD and 22 with FTLD. ACE-R and MMSE were validated against an expert diagnosis based on a comprehensive diagnostic procedure. Statistical analysis was performed using the receiver operating characteristic method and regression analyses. Results: The optimal cut-off score for the ACE-R for detecting MCI, AD, and FTLD was 86/87, 82/83 and 83/84, respectively. ACE-R was superior to MMSE only in the detection of patients with FTLD {[}area under the curve (AUC): 0.97 vs. 0.92], whilst the accuracy of the two instruments did not differ in identifying MCI and AD. The ratio of the scores of the memory ACE-R subtest to verbal fluency subtest contributed significantly to the discrimination between AD and FTLD (optimal cut-off score: 2.30/2.31, AUC: 0.77), whereas the MMSE and ACE-R total scores did not. Conclusion: The German ACE-R is superior to the most commonly employed MMSE in detecting mild dementia in FTLD and in the differential diagnosis between AD and FTLD. Thus it might serve as a valuable instrument as part of a comprehensive diagnostic workup in specialist centres/clinics contributing to the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of the cause of dementia. Copyright (C) 2010 S. Karger AG, Base
Anti-Hyperon Enhancement through Baryon Junction Loops
The baryon junction exchange mechanism recently proposed to explain valence
baryon number transport in nuclear collisions is extended to study midrapidity
anti-hyperon production. Baryon junction-anti-junction (J anti-J) loops are
shown to enhance anti-Lambda, anti-Xi, anti-Omega yields as well as lead to
long range rapidity correlations. Results are compared to recent WA97 Pb + Pb
-> Y + anti-Y + X data.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
A Gas Leak Rate Measurement System for the ATLAS MUON BIS-Monitored Drift Tubes
A low-cost, reliable and precise system developed for the gas leak rate measurement of the BIS-Monitored Drift Tubes (MDTs) for the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer is presented. In order to meet the BIS-MDT mass production rate, a total number of 100 tubes are tested simultaneously in this setup. The pressure drop of each one of the MDT is measured, within a typical time interval of 48 hours, via a differential manometer comparing with the pressure of a gas tight reference tube. The precision of the method implemented is based on the system temperature homogeneity, with accuracy of ÄT = 0.3 oC. For this reason, two thermally isolated boxes are used testing 50 tubes each of them, to achieve high degree of temperature uniformity and stability. After measuring several thousands of the MDTs, the developed system is confirmed to be appropriate within the specifications for testing the MDTs during the mass production
The K/pi ratio from condensed Polyakov loops
We perform a field-theoretical computation of hadron production in large
systems at the QCD confinement phase transition associated with restoration of
the Z(3) global symmetry. This occurs from the decay of a condensate for the
Polyakov loop. From the effective potential for the Polyakov loop, its mass
just below the confinement temperature T_c is in between the vacuum masses of
the pion and that of the kaon. Therefore, due to phase-space restrictions the
number of produced kaons is roughly an order of magnitude smaller than that of
produced pions, in agreement with recent results from collisions of gold ions
at the BNL-RHIC. From its mass, we estimate that the Polyakov loop condensate
is characterized by a (spatial) correlation scale of 1/m_\ell ~ 1/2 fm. For
systems of deconfined matter of about that size, the free energy may not be
dominated by a condensate for the Polyakov loop, and so the process of
hadronization may be qualitatively different as compared to large systems. In
that vein, experimental data on hadron abundance ratios, for example K/pi, in
high-multiplicity pp events at high energies should be very interesting.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; discussion of the two-point function of Polyakov
Loops in small versus large systems adde
Baryon stopping and hyperon enhancement in the improved dual parton model
We present an improved version of the dual parton model which contains a new
realization of the diquark breaking mechanism of baryon stopping. We reproduce
in this way the net baryon yield in nuclear collisions. The model, which also
considers strings originating from diquark-antidiquark pairs in the nucleon
sea, reproduces the observed yields of p and Lambda and their antiparticles and
underestimates cascades by less than 50 %. However, Omega's are underestimated
by a factor five. Agreement with data is restored by final state interaction,
with an averaged cross-section as small as 0.14 mb. Hyperon yields increase
significantly faster than antihyperons, in agreement with experiment.Comment: 40 pages, 18 postscript figure
Scenarios for multiplicity distributions in pp collisions in the TeV energy region
Possible scenarios based on available experimental data and phenomenological
knowledge of the GeV energy region are extended to the TeV energy region in the
framework of the weighted superposition mechanism of soft and semi-hard events.
KNO scaling violations, forward-backward multiplicity correlations, Hq vs. q
oscillations and shoulder structures are discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, talk given at "Focus on Multiplicity" (Bari,
Italy, June 2004
Cascade and anti-Cascade Polarization Measurements at 800 GeV/c
The polarization of neutral Cascade and anti-Cascade hyperons produced by 800
GeV/c protons on a BeO target at a fixed targeting angle of 4.8 mrad is
measured by the KTeV experiment at Fermilab. Our result of 9.7% for the neutral
Cascade polarization shows no significant energy dependence when compared to a
result obtained at 400 GeV/c production energy and at twice our targeting
angle. The polarization of the neutral anti-Cascade is measured for the first
time and found to be consistent with zero. We also examine the dependence of
polarization on transverse production momentum.Comment: 4 page PR
Measurements of KL Branching Fractions and the CP Violation Parameter |eta+-|
We present new measurements of the six largest branching fractions of the KL
using data collected in 1997 by the KTeV experiment (E832) at Fermilab. The
results are B(KL -> pi e nu) = 0.4067 +- 0.0011 B(KL -> pi mu nu) = 0.2701 +-
0.0009 B(KL -> pi+ pi- pi0) = 0.1252 +- 0.0007 B(KL -> pi0 pi0 pi0) = 0.1945 +-
0.0018 B(KL -> pi+ pi-) = (1.975 +- 0.012)E-3, and B(KL -> pi0 pi0) = (0.865 +-
0.010)E-3, where statistical and systematic errors have been summed in
quadrature. We also determine the CP violation parameter |eta+-| to be (2.228
+- 0.010)E-3. Several of these results are not in good agreement with averages
of previous measurements.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. D; 20 pages, 22 figure
Strangeness and Quark Gluon Plasma
A brief summary of strangeness mile stones is followed by a chemical
non-equilibrium statistical hadronization analysis of strangeness results at
SPS and RHIC. Strange particle production in AA interactions at
\sqrt{s_{NN}}\ge 8.6 GeV can be understood consistently as originating from the
deconfined quark--gluon plasma in a sudden hadronization process. Onset of QGP
formation as function of energy is placed in the beam energy interval 10--30A
GeV/c. Strangeness anomalies at LHC are described.Comment: 30 pages including numerouse figures, tables. Opening Lecture:
Strangeness and Quark Gluon Plasma -- what has been learned so far and where
do we go at SQM2003, North Carolina, March 2003, submitted to J. Phys.
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