Interchain coherence of coupled Luttinger liquids at all orders in perturbation theory

We analyze the problem of Luttinger liquids coupled via a single-particle hopping \tp and introduce a systematic diagrammatic expansion in powers of \tp. An analysis of the scaling of the diagrams at each order allows us to determine the power-law behavior versus \tp of the interchain hopping and of the Fermi surface warp. In particular, for strong interactions, we find that the exponents are dominated by higher-order diagrams producing an enhanced coherence and a failure of linear-response theory. Our results are valid at any finite order in \tp for the self-energy.Comment: 4 pages, 3 ps figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Fractionated stereotactic conformal radiotherapy for large benign skull base meningiomas

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Purpose</p> <p>to assess the safety and efficacy of fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy (FSRT) for large skull base meningiomas.</p> <p>Methods and Materials</p> <p>Fifty-two patients with large skull base meningiomas aged 34-74 years (median age 56 years) were treated with FSRT between June 2004 and August 2009. All patients received FSRT for residual or progressive meningiomas more than 4 centimeters in greatest dimension. The median GTV was 35.4 cm³(range 24.1-94.9 cm³), and the median PTV was 47.6 cm³(range 33.5-142.7 cm³). Treatment volumes were achieved with 5-8 noncoplanar beams shaped using a micromultileaf collimator (MLC). Treatment was delivered in 30 daily fractions over 6 weeks to a total dose of 50 Gy using 6 MV photons. Outcome was assessed prospectively.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>At a median follow-up of 42 months (range 9-72 months) the 3-year and 5-year progression-free survival (PFS) rates were 96% and 93%, respectively, and survival was 100%. Three patients required further debulking surgery for progressive disease. Hypopituitarism was the most commonly reported late complication, with a new hormone pituitary deficit occurring in 10 (19%) of patients. Clinically significant late neurological toxicity was observed in 3 (5.5%) patients consisting of worsening of pre-existing cranial deficits.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>FSRT as a high-precision technique of localized RT is suitable for the treatment of large skull base meningiomas. The local control is comparable to that reported following conventional external beam RT. Longer follow-up is required to assess long term efficacy and toxicity, particularly in terms of potential reduction of treatment-related late toxicity.</p

Crossover from Luttinger- to Fermi-liquid behavior in strongly anisotropic systems in large dimensions

We consider the low-energy region of an array of Luttinger liquids coupled by a weak interchain hopping. The leading logarithmic divergences can be re-summed to all orders within a self-consistent perturbative expansion in the hopping, in the large-dimension limit. The anomalous exponent scales to zero below the one-particle crossover temperature. As a consequence, coherent quasiparticles with finite weight appear along the whole Fermi surface. Extending the expansion self-consistently to all orders turns out to be crucial in order to restore the correct Fermi-liquid behavior.Comment: Shortened version to appear in Physical Review Letter

Sparse Positional Strategies for Safety Games

We consider the problem of obtaining sparse positional strategies for safety games. Such games are a commonly used model in many formal methods, as they make the interaction of a system with its environment explicit. Often, a winning strategy for one of the players is used as a certificate or as an artefact for further processing in the application. Small such certificates, i.e., strategies that can be written down very compactly, are typically preferred. For safety games, we only need to consider positional strategies. These map game positions of a player onto a move that is to be taken by the player whenever the play enters that position. For representing positional strategies compactly, a common goal is to minimize the number of positions for which a winning player's move needs to be defined such that the game is still won by the same player, without visiting a position with an undefined next move. We call winning strategies in which the next move is defined for few of the player's positions sparse. Unfortunately, even roughly approximating the density of the sparsest strategy for a safety game has been shown to be NP-hard. Thus, to obtain sparse strategies in practice, one either has to apply some heuristics, or use some exhaustive search technique, like ILP (integer linear programming) solving. In this paper, we perform a comparative study of currently available methods to obtain sparse winning strategies for the safety player in safety games. We consider techniques from common knowledge, such as using ILP or SAT (satisfiability) solving, and a novel technique based on iterative linear programming. The results of this paper tell us if current techniques are already scalable enough for practical use.Comment: In Proceedings SYNT 2012, arXiv:1207.055

Stereotactic radiotherapy and radiosurgery for non-functioning and secreting pituitary adenomas

Radiotherapy (RT) is frequently employed in patients with residual or recurrent pituitary adenoma with excellent rates of tumor control and remission of hormonal hypersecretion. Advances in RT have improved with the use of stereotactic techniques either as fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy (FSRT) or stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), all aiming to improve the dose distribution to the tumor while reducing the amount of normal brain receiving significant doses of radiation. We provide an overview of the recent published literature on the long-term efficacy and adverse effects of stereotactic irradiation in nonfunctioning and secreting pituitary adenomas. Both techniques are associated with excellent clinical outcomes; however, advantages and drawbacks of each of these techniques in terms of local control, hormonal excess normalization, and radiation-induced toxicity remain a matter of debate. In clinical practice, single-fraction SRS may represent a convenient approach to patients with small and medium-sized pituitary adenoma away at least 2[[ce:hsp sp="0.25"/]]mm from the optic chiasm, whereas FSRT is preferred over SRS for lesions >2.5–3[[ce:hsp sp="0.25"/]]cm in size and/or involving the anterior optic pathway

A Review of Digital Data Resources on Innovation and Impact

The CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers, and Bananas (RTB) has commissioned a study to develop an innovation catalog to present its innovation portfolio to the international scientific and development community and to support ongoing efforts to establish an innovation management architecture in CGIAR. The study team has been tasked with designing an application model that can inform the innovation and impact management architecture of CGIAR and test it within the RTB innovation portfolio leading to an RTB Innovation Catalog that can be used as an example for future work. Guided by the recently finalized work methodology, the interdisciplinary research and technical team members have reviewed existing digital resources, i.e. web portals and databases that present the social innovations across multiple sectors such as agriculture, food, environment, health, and energy to the international research-for-development and impact investment communities. This document describes the methods and the findings of this review. It shows the profiles, features, and data provided by the digital resources; compares and contrasts them by assessing their relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, functionality, and formats. It shows that, although there are a few features that most existing digital resourcesshare, i.e. being hosted by international organizations, having easy to-navigate interfaces, and providing limited filtering and search options, there are significant differences between them. The digital resources focus on different subsets of innovation-related information and provide different levels of granularity. The review concludes that to present its innovations across the broad spectrum of digital resources, the RTB Program and CGIAR need to use rich metadata sets with a few different interface and export options to be customized based on the profile of individual, essential digital resources of interest

Descriptors for Documenting Innovations and their Contributions to Impact

The CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers, and Bananas (RTB) has been one of the leading CGIAR research programs in designing, developing, and using complexity-sensitive tools and practices that inform innovation management decisions in CGIAR. In addition to Scaling Readiness1 , which has been adopted by One CGIAR2 , several CGIAR centers3 , and CGIAR research programs4 , RTB has developed Scaling Fund5 as an instrument to nurture the innovations that have a significant potential for Scaling. RTB has also developed many other innovations that address innovation portfolio management, such as research impact forecasts6 and gender7 . Building on its experience in developing innovation management tools and practices, RTB has recently commissioned an interdisciplinary team, the RTB Catalog Team, to develop prototypes of a novel, systematic, innovation documentation framework and an online portal featuring key innovations generated by the program since 2015. The prototypes will be essential tools for establishing a new innovation management architecture that better serves the needs of One CGIAR by systematizing the existing CGIAR digital resources such as CLARISA, MEL, MARLO, and complementing them with an application tested using the diverse innovations in the RTB portfolio. In June 2021, two milestones were completed for developing the prototypes: the Methodology that describes the conceptual model and design principles and the Review of Digital Data Resources on Innovation and Impact. This document presents the third major milestone for developing the prototypes: Descriptors for Documenting Innovations and their Contributions to Impact. Following an introduction and description of the method, this paper presents the profiles and descriptions of each of the shortlisted innovation and impact-related descriptors, selected from a longer list of 255 identified by the RTB Innovation Catalog Team from 19 global digital resources

Mutation update and genotype-phenotype correlations of novel and previously described mutations in TPM2 and TPM3 causing congenital myopathies

Mutations affecting skeletal muscle isoforms of the tropomyosin genes may cause nemaline myopathy, cap myopathy, core-rod myopathy, congenital fiber-type disproportion, distal arthrogryposes, and Escobar syndrome. We correlate the clinical picture of these diseases with novel (19) and previously reported (31) mutations of the TPM2 and TPM3 genes. Included are altogether 93 families: 53 with TPM2 mutations and 40 with TPM3 mutations. Thirty distinct pathogenic variants of TPM2 and 20 of TPM3 have been published or listed in the Leiden Open Variant Database (http://www.dmd.nl/). Most are heterozygous changes associated with autosomal-dominant disease. Patients with TPM2 mutations tended to present with milder symptoms than those with TPM3 mutations, DA being present only in the TPM2 group. Previous studies have shown that five of the mutations in TPM2 and one in TPM3 cause increased Ca2+ sensitivity resulting in a hypercontractile molecular phenotype. Patients with hypercontractile phenotype more often had contractures of the limb joints (18/19) and jaw (6/19) than those with nonhypercontractile ones (2/22 and 1/22), whereas patients with the non-hypercontractile molecular phenotype more often (19/22) had axial contractures than the hypercontractile group (7/19). Our in silico predictions show that most mutations affect tropomyosin–actin association or tropomyosin head-to-tail binding