High definition tDCS effect on postural control in healthy individuals: Entropy analysis of a crossover clinical trial

Objective: Converging evidence supporting an effect of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on postural control and human verticality perception highlights this strategy as promising for post-stroke rehabilitation. We have previously demonstrated polarity-dependent effects of high-definition tDCS (HD-tDCS) on weight-bearing asymmetry. However, there is no investigation regarding the time-course of effects on postural control induced by HD-tDCS protocols. Thus, we performed a nonlinear time series analysis focusing on the entropy of the ground reaction force as a secondary investigation of our randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover clinical trial. Materials and Methods: Twenty healthy right-handed young adults received the following conditions (random order, separate days); anode center HD-tDCS, cathode center HD-tDCS or sham HD-tDCS at 1, 2, and 3 mA over the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). Using summarized time series of transfer entropy, we evaluated the exchanging information (causal direction) between both force plates and compared the dose-response across the healthy subjects with a Generalized Linear Hierarchical/Mixed Model (GLMM). Results: We found significant variation during the dynamic information flow (p \u3c 0.001) among the dominant bodyside (and across time). A greater force transfer entropy was observed from the right to the left side during the cathode-center HD-tDCS up to 2 mA, with a causal relationship in the information flow (equilibrium force transfer) from right to left that decreased over time. Conclusions: HD-tDCS intervention induced a dynamic influence over time on postural control entropy. Right hemisphere TPJ stimulation using cathode-center HD-tDCS can induce an asymmetry of body weight distribution towards the ipsilateral side of stimulation. These results support the clinical potential of HD-tDCS for post-stroke rehabilitation

Constraining the electric charges of some astronomical bodies in Reissner-Nordstrom spacetimes and generic r^-2-type power-law potentials from orbital motions

We put model-independent, dynamical constraints on the net electric charge Q of some astronomical and astrophysical objects by assuming that their exterior spacetimes are described by the Reissner-Nordstroem metric, which induces an additional potential U_RN \propto Q^2 r^-2. Our results extend to other hypothetical power-law interactions inducing extra-potentials U_pert = r^-2 as well (abridged).Comment: LaTex2e, 16 pages, 3 figures, no tables, 128 references. Version matching the one at press in General Relativity and Gravitation (GRG). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1112.351

Risk profiles and one-year outcomes of patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation in India: Insights from the GARFIELD-AF Registry.

BACKGROUND: The Global Anticoagulant Registry in the FIELD-Atrial Fibrillation (GARFIELD-AF) is an ongoing prospective noninterventional registry, which is providing important information on the baseline characteristics, treatment patterns, and 1-year outcomes in patients with newly diagnosed non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). This report describes data from Indian patients recruited in this registry. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 52,014 patients with newly diagnosed AF were enrolled globally; of these, 1388 patients were recruited from 26 sites within India (2012-2016). In India, the mean age was 65.8 years at diagnosis of NVAF. Hypertension was the most prevalent risk factor for AF, present in 68.5% of patients from India and in 76.3% of patients globally (P < 0.001). Diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD) were prevalent in 36.2% and 28.1% of patients as compared with global prevalence of 22.2% and 21.6%, respectively (P < 0.001 for both). Antiplatelet therapy was the most common antithrombotic treatment in India. With increasing stroke risk, however, patients were more likely to receive oral anticoagulant therapy [mainly vitamin K antagonist (VKA)], but average international normalized ratio (INR) was lower among Indian patients [median INR value 1.6 (interquartile range {IQR}: 1.3-2.3) versus 2.3 (IQR 1.8-2.8) (P < 0.001)]. Compared with other countries, patients from India had markedly higher rates of all-cause mortality [7.68 per 100 person-years (95% confidence interval 6.32-9.35) vs 4.34 (4.16-4.53), P < 0.0001], while rates of stroke/systemic embolism and major bleeding were lower after 1 year of follow-up. CONCLUSION: Compared to previously published registries from India, the GARFIELD-AF registry describes clinical profiles and outcomes in Indian patients with AF of a different etiology. The registry data show that compared to the rest of the world, Indian AF patients are younger in age and have more diabetes and CAD. Patients with a higher stroke risk are more likely to receive anticoagulation therapy with VKA but are underdosed compared with the global average in the GARFIELD-AF. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION-URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01090362

Measurement of prompt D0^{0} and D‾\overline{D}0^{0} meson azimuthal anisotropy and search for strong electric fields in PbPb collisions at root SNN\sqrt{S_{NN}} = 5.02 TeV

The strong Coulomb field created in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions is expected to produce a rapiditydependent difference (Av2) in the second Fourier coefficient of the azimuthal distribution (elliptic flow, v2) between D0 (uc) and D0 (uc) mesons. Motivated by the search for evidence of this field, the CMS detector at the LHC is used to perform the first measurement of Av2. The rapidity-averaged value is found to be (Av2) = 0.001 ? 0.001 (stat)? 0.003 (syst) in PbPb collisions at ?sNN = 5.02 TeV. In addition, the influence of the collision geometry is explored by measuring the D0 and D0mesons v2 and triangular flow coefficient (v3) as functions of rapidity, transverse momentum (pT), and event centrality (a measure of the overlap of the two Pb nuclei). A clear centrality dependence of prompt D0 meson v2 values is observed, while the v3 is largely independent of centrality. These trends are consistent with expectations of flow driven by the initial-state geometry. ? 2021 The Author. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY licens

Performance of the CMS Level-1 trigger in proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV

At the start of Run 2 in 2015, the LHC delivered proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13\TeV. During Run 2 (years 2015–2018) the LHC eventually reached a luminosity of 2.1× 10$^{34}$ cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$, almost three times that reached during Run 1 (2009–2013) and a factor of two larger than the LHC design value, leading to events with up to a mean of about 50 simultaneous inelastic proton-proton collisions per bunch crossing (pileup). The CMS Level-1 trigger was upgraded prior to 2016 to improve the selection of physics events in the challenging conditions posed by the second run of the LHC. This paper describes the performance of the CMS Level-1 trigger upgrade during the data taking period of 2016–2018. The upgraded trigger implements pattern recognition and boosted decision tree regression techniques for muon reconstruction, includes pileup subtraction for jets and energy sums, and incorporates pileup-dependent isolation requirements for electrons and tau leptons. In addition, the new trigger calculates high-level quantities such as the invariant mass of pairs of reconstructed particles. The upgrade reduces the trigger rate from background processes and improves the trigger efficiency for a wide variety of physics signals