980 research outputs found

    Regulation of peripheral vascular tone in patients with heart failure:Contribution of angiotensin II

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    Objective—To determine directly the contribution of angiotensin II to basal and sympathetically stimulated peripheral arteriolar tone in patients with heart failure.
Design—Parallel group comparison.
Subjects—Nine patients with New York Heart Association grade II-IV chronic heart failure, and age and sex matched controls.
Interventions—Forearm plethysmography, lower body negative pressure, local intra-arterial administration of losartan, angiotensin II, and noradrenaline, and estimation of plasma hormone concentrations.
Main outcome measures—Forearm blood flow responses, plasma hormone concentrations.
Results—Baseline blood pressure, heart rate, and forearm blood flow did not differ between patients and controls. In comparison with the non-infused forearm, losartan did not affect basal forearm blood flow (95% confidence interval −5.5% to +7.3%) or sympathetically stimulated vasoconstriction in controls. However, the mean (SEM) blood flow in patients increased by 13(5)% and 26(7)% in response to 30 and 90 µg/min of losartan respectively (p < 0.001). Lower body negative pressure caused a reduction in forearm blood flow of 20(5)% in controls (p = 0.008) and 13(5)% (p = 0.08) in patients (p = 0.007, controls v patients). Blood flow at 90 µg/min of losartan correlated with plasma angiotensin II concentration (r = 0.77; p = 0.03). Responses to angiotensin II and noradrenaline did not differ between patients and controls.
Conclusions—Losartan causes acute local peripheral arteriolar vasodilatation in patients with heart failure but not in healthy control subjects. Endogenous angiotensin II directly contributes to basal peripheral arteriolar tone in patients with heart failure but does not augment sympathetically stimulated peripheral vascular tone.

 Keywords: angiotensin II;  heart failure;  peripheral vascular tone;  sympathetic nervous syste

    Recent changes in the abundance of Common Pochard Aythya ferina breeding in Europe

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    National accounts suggest that the Common Pochard Aythya ferina was an uncommon breeding bird throughout western Europe before 1850. Extensions to the breeding range in the late 19th century were potentially aided by the rapid development of managed fish-ponds in eastern Europe, which provided suitable novel habitat at that time. Expansion into western Europe followed in subsequent decades. Wetland and waterbody eutrophication throughout Europe, which likely provided food and cover for the birds, may have accelerated the rapid expansion from the 1950s until the early 1980s. Widespread declines in the last 30 years, especially in eastern Europe, where breeding numbers are highest, are possibly linked to intensification and/or abandonment of freshwater fish farming and changes in water quality. Studies show that Pochard gain fitness benefits from nesting in Black-headed Gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus colonies and hence has been affected by major losses of European gull colonies in the last 30 years. The spread of alien fish species such as the Carp Cyprinus carpio, which compete with Pochard for food resources, is a problem in the Mediterranean region. Changing predation pressures (in some cases linked to invasive alien mammals) are also implicated in some areas. Relatively modest numbers breeding in the UK, France and the Netherlands have remained stable or increased over the same recent span of years, confirming that different factors currently affect Pochard breeding abundance throughout its range. We urgently need better information relating to key factors affecting Pochard breeding success and abundance, which is currently showing an unfavourable conservation status throughout much of EuropePeer reviewe

    Declines amongst breeding Eider Somateria mollissima numbers in the Baltic/Wadden Sea flyway

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    We report on the status of theBaltic/Wadden Sea flyway Eider population based on trends in breeding and wintering numbers throughout the region, supplemented by changes in the sex ratio and proportion of young Eiders as monitored in the Danish hunting bag. At the flyway scale, total numbers of breeding pairs decreased by 48% during 2000–2009, after relatively stable breeding numbers in 1991–2000. The majority of the population nest in Finland and Sweden,where the number of breeding pairs has halved over the same period. After initial declines in winter numbers between 1991 and 2000, during 2000–2009, national wintering numbers increased in the Baltic Sea, but decreased in the Wadden Sea. The annual proportion of adult females in the Danish hunting bag data de creased from ca.45%(1982) to ca.25%(2009) and simultaneously the proportion of firstwinter birds fell from ca. 70% to ca. 30%, indicating dramatic structural changes in the Danish wintering numbers. These results suggest that the total flyway populationwill experience further declines, unless productivity increases and the factors responsible for decreasing adult female survival are identified and ameliorated.We discuss potential population drivers and present some recommendations for improved flyway-levelmonitoring and management of Eiders

    Analytic solution of the Schrodinger equation for an electron in the field of a molecule with an electric dipole moment

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    We relax the usual diagonal constraint on the matrix representation of the eigenvalue wave equation by allowing it to be tridiagonal. This results in a larger solution space that incorporates an exact analytic solution for the non-central electric dipole potential cos(theta)/r^2, which was known not to belong to the class of exactly solvable potentials. As a result, we were able to obtain an exact analytic solution of the three-dimensional time-independent Schrodinger equation for a charged particle in the field of a point electric dipole that could carry a nonzero net charge. This problem models the interaction of an electron with a molecule (neutral or ionized) that has a permanent electric dipole moment. The solution is written as a series of square integrable functions that support a tridiagonal matrix representation for the angular and radial components of the wave operator. Moreover, this solution is for all energies, the discrete (for bound states) as well as the continuous (for scattering states). The expansion coefficients of the radial and angular components of the wavefunction are written in terms of orthogonal polynomials satisfying three-term recursion relations. For the Coulomb-free case, where the molecule is neutral, we calculate critical values for its dipole moment below which no electron capture is allowed. These critical values are obtained not only for the ground state, where it agrees with already known results, but also for excited states as well.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure, 4 table

    Universality near zero virtuality

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    In this paper we study a random matrix model with the chiral and flavor structure of the QCD Dirac operator and a temperature dependence given by the lowest Matsubara frequency. Using the supersymmetric method for random matrix theory, we obtain an exact, analytic expression for the average spectral density. In the large-n limit, the spectral density can be obtained from the solution to a cubic equation. This spectral density is non-zero in the vicinity of eigenvalue zero only for temperatures below the critical temperature of this model. Our main result is the demonstration that the microscopic limit of the spectral density is independent of temperature up to the critical temperature. This is due to a number of `miraculous' cancellations. This result provides strong support for the conjecture that the microscopic spectral density is universal. In our derivation, we emphasize the symmetries of the partition function and show that this universal behavior is closely related to the existence of an invariant saddle-point manifold.Comment: 23 pages, Late

    Universality of Correlation Functions in Random Matrix Models of QCD

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    We demonstrate the universality of the spectral correlation functions of a QCD inspired random matrix model that consists of a random part having the chiral structure of the QCD Dirac operator and a deterministic part which describes a schematic temperature dependence. We calculate the correlation functions analytically using the technique of Itzykson-Zuber integrals for arbitrary complex super-matrices. An alternative exact calculation for arbitrary matrix size is given for the special case of zero temperature, and we reproduce the well-known Laguerre kernel. At finite temperature, the microscopic limit of the correlation functions are calculated in the saddle point approximation. The main result of this paper is that the microscopic universality of correlation functions is maintained even though unitary invariance is broken by the addition of a deterministic matrix to the ensemble.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figure, Late

    Dynamical approach to spectator fragmentation in Au+Au reactions at 35 MeV/A

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    The characteristics of fragment emission in peripheral 197^{197}Au+197^{197}Au collisions 35 MeV/A are studied using the two clusterization approaches within framework of \emph{quantum molecular dynamics} model. Our model calculations using \emph{minimum spanning tree} (MST) algorithm and advanced clusterization method namely \emph{simulated annealing clusterization algorithm} (SACA) showed that fragment structure can be realized at an earlier time when spectators contribute significantly toward the fragment production even at such a low incident energy. Comparison of model predictions with experimental data reveals that SACA method can nicely reproduce the fragment charge yields and mean charge of the heaviest fragment. This reflects suitability of SACA method over conventional clusterization techniques to investigate spectator matter fragmentation in low energy domain.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, accepte

    A high stability semiconductor laser system for a 88^{88}Sr-based optical lattice clock

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    We describe a frequency stabilized diode laser at 698 nm used for high resolution spectroscopy of the 1S0-3P0 strontium clock transition. For the laser stabilization we use state-of-the-art symmetrically suspended optical cavities optimized for very low thermal noise at room temperature. Two-stage frequency stabilization to high finesse optical cavities results in measured laser frequency noise about a factor of three above the cavity thermal noise between 2 Hz and 11 Hz. With this system, we demonstrate high resolution remote spectroscopy on the 88Sr clock transition by transferring the laser output over a phase-noise-compensated 200 m-long fiber link between two separated laboratories. Our dedicated fiber link ensures a transfer of the optical carrier with frequency stability of 7 \cdot 10^{-18} after 100 s integration time, which could enable the observation of the strontium clock transition with an atomic Q of 10^{14}. Furthermore, with an eye towards the development of transportable optical clocks, we investigate how the complete laser system (laser+optics+cavity) can be influenced by environmental disturbances in terms of both short- and long-term frequency stability.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Appl. Phys.
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