95 research outputs found
A performance evaluation of commercial fibrinogen reference preparations and assays for Clauss and PT-derived fibrinogen
The wide availability of fibrinogen estimations based on the prothrombin time (PT-Fg) has caused concern about the variability and clinical utility of fibrinogen assays. In a multi-centre study, we investigated fibrinogen assays using various reagents and analysers, Clauss assays generally gave good agreement, although one reagent gave 15-30% higher values in DIC and thrombolysis. Two commercial reference preparations had much lower potencies than the manufacturers declared, and plasma turbidity influenced parallelism in some Clauss assays, PT-Fg assays gave higher values than Clauss and showed calibrant dependent effects, the degree of disparity correlating with calibrant and test sample turbidity. Analyser and thromboplastin dependent differences were noted. The relationship between Clauss and PT-Fg assays was sigmoid, and the plateau of maximal PT-Fg differed by about 2 g/l between reagents. ELISA and immunonephelometric assays correlated well, but with a high degree of scatter. Antigen levels were higher than Clauss, but slightly lower than PT-Fg assays, which appeared to be influenced by degraded fibrinogen. Clauss assays are generally reproducible between centres, analysers and reagents, but PT-Fg assays are not reliable in clinical settings
String Form Factors
We compute the cross section for scattering of light string probes by
randomly excited closed strings. For high energy probes, the cross section
factorizes and can be used to define effective form factors for the excited
targets. These form factors are well defined without the need for infinite
subtractions and contain information about the shape and size of typical
strings. For highly excited strings the elastic form factor can be written in
terms of the `plasma dispersion function', which describes charge screening in
high temperature plasmas.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures. Typos corrected, 1 footnote (in Section 4) and 1
reference adde
Approach to equilibrium for a class of random quantum models of infinite range
We consider random generalizations of a quantum model of infinite range
introduced by Emch and Radin. The generalization allows a neat extension from
the class of absolutely summable lattice potentials to the optimal class
of square summable potentials first considered by Khanin and Sinai and
generalised by van Enter and van Hemmen. The approach to equilibrium in the
case of a Gaussian distribution is proved to be faster than for a Bernoulli
distribution for both short-range and long-range lattice potentials. While
exponential decay to equilibrium is excluded in the nonrandom case, it is
proved to occur for both short and long range potentials for Gaussian
distributions, and for potentials of class in the Bernoulli case. Open
problems are discussed.Comment: 10 pages, no figures. This last version, to appear in J. Stat. Phys.,
corrects some minor errors and includes additional references and comments on
the relation to experiment
Environmental associations of abundance-weighted functional traits in Australian plant communities
Predictions of how vegetation responds to spatial and temporal differences in climate rely on established links with plant functional traits and vegetation types that can be encoded into Dynamic Global Vegetation Models. Individual traits have been linked to climate at species level and at community level within regions. However, a recent global assessment of aggregated community level traits found unexpectedly weak links with macroclimate, bringing into question broadscale trait–climate associations and implicating local-scale environmental differences in the filtering of communities. To further evaluate patterns in light of these somewhat contradictory results, we quantified the power of macro-environmental variables to explain aggregated plant community traits, taking advantage of new trait data for leaf area, plant height and seed mass combined with a national survey that records cover-abundance using consistent methods for a large number of plots across Australia. In contrast to the global study, we found that abundance-weighted community mean and variance of leaf area and maximum height were correlated with macroclimate. Height and leaf area were highest in wet (especially warm, wet) environments, with actual evapotranspiration explaining 30% of variation in leaf area and 26% in maximum height. Seed mass was weakly related to environment, with no variable explaining more than 5% of variance. Considering all three traits together in a redundancy analysis, the complete set of environmental variables explained 43% of variation in site-mean traits and 29% of within-site trait variance. While significant trait variation remains unexplained, the trait–environment relationships reported here suggest climatically-driven filtering plays a strong role in assembling these vegetation communities. Regional assessments using standardised species abundances can therefore be used to predict aspects of vegetation function. Our quantification of plant community trait patterns along macroclimatic gradients at continental scale thereby contributes a much-needed functional basis for Australian vegetation.Greg R. Guerin, Rachael V. Gallagher, Ian J. Wright, Samuel C. Andrew, Daniel S. Falster, Elizabeth Wenk, Samantha E.M. Munroe, Andrew J. Lowe, Ben Sparro
Is string theory a theory of quantum gravity?
Some problems in finding a complete quantum theory incorporating gravity are
discussed. One is that of giving a consistent unitary description of
high-energy scattering. Another is that of giving a consistent quantum
description of cosmology, with appropriate observables. While string theory
addresses some problems of quantum gravity, its ability to resolve these
remains unclear. Answers may require new mechanisms and constructs, whether
within string theory, or in another framework.Comment: Invited contribution for "Forty Years of String Theory: Reflecting on
the Foundations," a special issue of Found. Phys., ed. by G 't Hooft, E.
Verlinde, D. Dieks, S. de Haro. 32 pages, 5 figs., harvmac. v2: final version
to appear in journal (small revisions
Dynamic nuclear polarization and spin-diffusion in non-conducting solids
There has been much renewed interest in dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP),
particularly in the context of solid state biomolecular NMR and more recently
dissolution DNP techniques for liquids. This paper reviews the role of spin
diffusion in polarizing nuclear spins and discusses the role of the spin
diffusion barrier, before going on to discuss some recent results.Comment: submitted to Applied Magnetic Resonance. The article should appear in
a special issue that is being published in connection with the DNP Symposium
help in Nottingham in August 200
Grafting of Poly(methyl methacrylate) Brushes from Magnetite Nanoparticles Using a Phosphonic Acid Based Initiator by Ambient Temperature Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization (ATATRP)
Poly(methyl methacrylate) in the brush form is grown from the surface of magnetite nanoparticles by ambient temperature atom transfer radical polymerization (ATATRP) using a phosphonic acid based initiator. The surface initiator was prepared by the reaction of ethylene glycol with 2-bromoisobutyrl bromide, followed by the reaction with phosphorus oxychloride and hydrolysis. This initiator is anchored to magnetite nanoparticles via physisorption. The ATATRP of methyl methacrylate was carried out in the presence of CuBr/PMDETA complex, without a sacrificial initiator, and the grafting density is found to be as high as 0.90 molecules/nm2. The organic–inorganic hybrid material thus prepared shows exceptional stability in organic solvents unlike unfunctionalized magnetite nanoparticles which tend to flocculate. The polymer brushes of various number average molecular weights were prepared and the molecular weight was determined using size exclusion chromatography, after degrafting the polymer from the magnetite core. Thermogravimetric analysis, X-ray photoelectron spectra and diffused reflection FT-IR were used to confirm the grafting reaction
NMR and Mossbauer study of spin dynamics and electronic structure of Fe{2+x}V{1-x}Al and Fe2VGa
In order to assess the magnetic ordering process in Fe2VAl and the related
material Fe2VGa, we have carried out nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and
Mossbauer studies. 27Al NMR relaxation measurements covered the temperature
range 4 -- 500 K in Fe(2+x)V(1-x)Al samples. We found a peak in the NMR
spin-lattice relaxation rate, 27T1^-1, corresponding to the magnetic
transitions in each of these samples. These peaks appear at 125 K, 17 K, and
165 K for x = 0.10, 0, and - 0.05 respectively, and we connect these features
with critical slowing down of the localized antisite defects. Mossbauer
measurements for Fe2VAl and Fe2VGa showed lines with no hyperfine splitting,
and isomer shifts nearly identical to those of the corresponding sites in Fe3Al
and Fe3Ga, respectively. We show that a model in which local band filling leads
to magnetic regions in the samples, in addition to the localized antisite
defects, can account for the observed magnetic ordering behavior.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector
A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results
Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC
provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of
lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with
a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the
transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the
anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the
nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of
the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp.
Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in
the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies
smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating
nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and
transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of
inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous
measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables,
submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are
available at
http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02
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