2,686 research outputs found
Lifetime Adherence to Physical Activity Recommendations and Fall Occurrence in Community-dwelling Older Adults: a Retrospective Cohort Study
Falling is a major health concern for community-dwelling older adults. Regular physical activity has been proposed to prevent falls. The aim of this study was to assess whether the achievement of the 2004 UK Department of Health physical activity recommendations over a lifetime had a protective effect against falling in older people. 313 community-dwelling older adults completed a questionnaire about lifetime physical activity and fall occurrence. There were significantly fewer falls in those who had led an active lifestyle compared to those who had not (Ï2Yates=4.568, p=0.033), with a lower relative risk of fall occurrence for the active respondents (RR=0.671) compared to the inactive (RR=1.210). Of those who were sufficiently active in their early adulthood, the decade where there was the biggest decrease in remaining active enough was in the 60s. It is concluded that an active lifestyle may have decreased the likelihood of having a fall in older ag
Adequacy of Approximations in GW Theory
We use an all-electron implementation of the GW approximation to analyze
several possible sources of error in the theory and its implementation. Among
these are convergence in the polarization and Green's functions, the dependence
of QP levels on choice of basis sets, and differing approximations for dealing
with core levels. In all GW calculations presented here, G and W are generated
from the local-density approximation (LDA), which we denote as the \GLDA\WLDA
approximation. To test its range of validity, the \GLDA\WLDA approximation is
applied to a variety of materials systems. We show that for simple sp
semiconductors, \GLDA\WLDA always underestimates bandgaps; however, better
agreement with experiment is obtained when the self-energy is not renormalized,
and we propose a justification for it. Some calculations for Si are compared to
pseudopotential-based \GLDA\WLDA calculations, and some aspects of the
suitability of pseudopotentials for GW calculations are discussed.Comment: 38 pages,6 figures. Minor Revision
Impulse balance and framing effects in threshold public good games
In this paper, we revisit the evidence for framing effects in threshold public good games. Our particular focus is on why the probability of providing the public good appears to be higher in positive, give frames compared with negative, take frames. We show that the impulse balance theory can explain this effect. We also report a new experiment designed to test the predictions of the impulse balance theory. The results of the experiment fit well, both in quantitative and qualitative terms, with our predictions.</p
Electronic structure investigation of CeB6 by means of soft X-ray scattering
The electronic structure of the heavy fermion compound CeB6 is probed by
resonant inelastic soft X-ray scattering using photon energies across the Ce 3d
and 4d absorption edges. The hybridization between the localized 4f orbitals
and the delocalized valence-band states is studied by identifying the different
spectral contributions from inelastic Raman scattering and normal fluorescence.
Pronounced energy-loss structures are observed below the elastic peak at both
the 3d and 4d thresholds. The origin and character of the inelastic scattering
structures are discussed in terms of charge-transfer excitations in connection
to the dipole allowed transitions with 4f character. Calculations within the
single impurity Anderson model with full multiplet effects are found to yield
consistent spectral functions to the experimental data.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 1 table,
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.63.07510
Experimental validation of the free-energy principle with in vitro neural networks
Empirical applications of the free-energy principle are not straightforward because they entail a commitment to a particular process theory, especially at the cellular and synaptic levels. Using a recently established reverse engineering technique, we confirm the quantitative predictions of the free-energy principle using in vitro networks of rat cortical neurons that perform causal inference. Upon receiving electrical stimuliâgenerated by mixing two hidden sourcesâneurons self-organised to selectively encode the two sources. Pharmacological up- and downregulation of network excitability disrupted the ensuing inference, consistent with changes in prior beliefs about hidden sources. As predicted, changes in effective synaptic connectivity reduced variational free energy, where the connection strengths encoded parameters of the generative model. In short, we show that variational free energy minimisation can quantitatively predict the self-organisation of neuronal networks, in terms of their responses and plasticity. These results demonstrate the applicability of the free-energy principle to in vitro neural networks and establish its predictive validity in this setting
Exact-exchange density-functional calculations for noble-gas solids
The electronic structure of noble-gas solids is calculated within density
functional theory's exact-exchange method (EXX) and compared with the results
from the local-density approximation (LDA). It is shown that the EXX method
does not reproduce the fundamental energy gaps as well as has been reported for
semiconductors. However, the EXX-Kohn-Sham energy gaps for these materials
reproduce about 80 % of the experimental optical gaps. The structural
properties of noble-gas solids are described by the EXX method as poorly as by
the LDA one. This is due to missing Van der Waals interactions in both, LDA and
EXX functionals.Comment: 4 Fig
A Massive Jet Ejection Event from the Microquasar SS 433 Accompanying Rapid X-Ray Variability
Microquasars occasionally exhibit massive jet ejections which are distinct
from the continuous or quasi-continuous weak jet ejections. Because those
massive jet ejections are rare and short events, they have hardly been observed
in X-ray so far. In this paper, the first X-ray observation of a massive jet
ejection from the microquasar SS 433 with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer
(RXTE) is reported. SS 433 undergoing a massive ejection event shows a variety
of new phenomena including a QPO-like feature near 0.1 Hz, rapid time
variability, and shot-like activities. The shot-like activity may be caused by
the formation of a small plasma bullet. A massive jet may be consist of
thousands of those plasma bullets ejected from the binary system. The size,
mass, internal energy, and kinetic energy of the bullets and the massive jet
are estimated.Comment: 21 pages including 5 figures, submitted to Ap
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