3,331 research outputs found
Persistence of small-scale anisotropy of magnetic turbulence as observed in the solar wind
The anisotropy of magnetophydrodynamic turbulence is investigated by using
solar wind data from the Helios 2 spacecraft. We investigate the behaviour of
the complete high-order moment tensors of magnetic field increments and we
compare the usual longitudinal structure functions which have both isotropic
and anisotropic contributions, to the fully anisotropic contribution. Scaling
exponents have been extracted by an interpolation scaling function. Unlike the
usual turbulence in fluid flows, small-scale magnetic fluctuations remain
anisotropic. We discuss the radial dependence of both anisotropy and
intermittency and their relationship.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, in press on Europhys. Let
Undamped electrostatic plasma waves
Electrostatic waves in a collision-free unmagnetized plasma of electrons with
fixed ions are investigated for electron equilibrium velocity distribution
functions that deviate slightly from Maxwellian. Of interest are undamped waves
that are the small amplitude limit of nonlinear excitations, such as electron
acoustic waves (EAWs). A deviation consisting of a small plateau, a region with
zero velocity derivative over a width that is a very small fraction of the
electron thermal speed, is shown to give rise to new undamped modes, which here
are named {\it corner modes}. The presence of the plateau turns off Landau
damping and allows oscillations with phase speeds within the plateau. These
undamped waves are obtained in a wide region of the plane
( being the real part of the wave frequency and the
wavenumber), away from the well-known `thumb curve' for Langmuir waves and EAWs
based on the Maxwellian. Results of nonlinear Vlasov-Poisson simulations that
corroborate the existence of these modes are described. It is also shown that
deviations caused by fattening the tail of the distribution shift roots off of
the thumb curve toward lower -values and chopping the tail shifts them
toward higher -values. In addition, a rule of thumb is obtained for
assessing how the existence of a plateau shifts roots off of the thumb curve.
Suggestions are made for interpreting experimental observations of
electrostatic waves, such as recent ones in nonneutral plasmas.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure
Novel Quark Fragmentation Functions and the Nucleon's Transversity Distribution
We define twist-two and twist-three quark fragmentation functions in Quantum
Chromodynamics (QCD) and study their physical implications. Using this
formalism we show how the nucleon's transversity distribution can be measured
in single pion inclusive electroproduction.Comment: 10 pages, uses PHYZZX macro package, 2 PostScript figures (added
using FIGURES). MIT-CTP-215
To what extent can dynamical models describe statistical features of turbulent flows?
Statistical features of "bursty" behaviour in charged and neutral fluid
turbulence, are compared to statistics of intermittent events in a GOY shell
model, and avalanches in different models of Self Organized Criticality (SOC).
It is found that inter-burst times show a power law distribution for turbulent
samples and for the shell model, a property which is shared only in a
particular case of the running sandpile model. The breakdown of self-similarity
generated by isolated events observed in the turbulent samples, is well
reproduced by the shell model, while it is absent in all SOC models considered.
On this base, we conclude that SOC models are not adequate to mimic fluid
turbulence, while the GOY shell model constitutes a better candidate to
describe the gross features of turbulence.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, in press on Europhys. Lett. (may 2002
Analysis of cancellation in two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic turbulence
A signed measure analysis of two-dimensional intermittent magnetohydrodynamic
turbulence is presented. This kind of analysis is performed to characterize the
scaling behavior of the sign-oscillating flow structures, and their geometrical
properties. In particular, it is observed that cancellations between positive
and negative contributions of the field inside structures, are inhibited for
scales smaller than the Taylor microscale, and stop near the dissipative scale.
Moreover, from a simple geometrical argument, the relationship between the
cancellation exponent and the typical fractal dimension of the structures in
the flow is obtained.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures (3 .jpg not included in the latex file
The clustering of polarity reversals of the geomagnetic field
Often in nature the temporal distribution of inhomogeneous stochastic point
processes can be modeled as a realization of renewal Poisson processes with a
variable rate. Here we investigate one of the classical examples, namely the
temporal distribution of polarity reversals of the geomagnetic field. In spite
of the commonly used underlying hypothesis, we show that this process strongly
departs from a Poisson statistics, the origin of this failure stemming from the
presence of temporal clustering. We find that a Levy statistics is able to
reproduce paleomagnetic data, thus suggesting the presence of long-range
correlations in the underlying dynamo process.Comment: 4 pages, in press on PRL (31 march 2006?
Thyroid papillary carcinoma arising in ectopic thyroid tissue within a neck branchial cyst
BACKGROUND: Thyroid gland derives from one median anlage at the base of the tongue, and from the two fourth branchial pouches. A number of anomalies may occur during their migration. These can be in form of ectopic tissues, which are frequently found along the course of thyroglossal duct and rarely in other sites, many of these may develop same diseases as the thyroid gland. CASE PRESENTATION: A 36-years-old female presented with a 3 month history of left side neck mass. The mass disappeared following aspiration of brown colored fluid, which on cytological examination showed cells with nuclear irregularities that warranted the resection of the lesion. The histology demonstrated a thyroid papillary carcinoma arising within the branchial cyst. Thereafter, the patient underwent a total thyroidectomy with central lymph nodes dissection. Histology showed a multifocal papillary carcinoma with central lymph nodes metastases. Only four cases of primary thyroid carcinomas in neck branchial cyst have been described so far. CONCLUSION: In a lateral cystic neck mass, although rare, occurrence of ectopic thyroid tissue and presence of a papillary thyroid carcinoma should be kept in mind
Multimodality Treatment with Conventional Transcatheter Arterial Chemoembolization and Radiofrequency Ablation for Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Background/Aims: To evaluate the efficacy of multimodality treatment consisting of conventional transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) and radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in patients with non-resectable and non-ablatable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods: In this retrospective study, 85 consecutive patients with HCC (59 solitary, 29 multifocal HCC) received TACE followed by RFA between 2001 and 2010. The mean number of tumors per patient was 1.6 +/- 0.7 with a mean size of 3.0 +/- 0.9 cm. Both local efficacy and patient survival were evaluated. Results: Of 120 treated HCCs, 99 (82.5%) showed a complete response (CR), while in 21 HCCs (17.5%) a partial response was depicted. Patients with solitary HCC revealed CR in 91% (51/56); in patients with multifocal HCC (n = 29) CR was achieved in 75% (48 of 64 HCCs). The median survival for all patients was 25.5 months. The 1-, 2-, 3- and 5-year survival rates were 84.6, 58.7, 37.6 and 14.6%, respectively. Statistical analysis revealed a significant difference in survival between Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) A (73.4 months) and B (50.3 months) patients, while analyses failed to show a difference for Child-Pugh score, Cancer of Liver Italian Program (CLIP) score and tumor distribution pattern. Conclusion: TACE combined with RFA provides an effective treatment approach with high local tumor control rates and promising survival data, especially for BCLC A patients. Randomized trials are needed to compare this multimodality approach with a single modality approach for early-stage HCC. Copyright (C) 2011 S. Karger AG, Base
Solar Wind Turbulence and the Role of Ion Instabilities
International audienc
Performance of the LHCb muon system with cosmic rays
The LHCb Muon system performance is presented using cosmic ray events
collected in 2009. These events allowed to test and optimize the detector
configuration before the LHC start. The space and time alignment and the
measurement of chamber efficiency, time resolution and cluster size are
described in detail. The results are in agreement with the expected detector
performance.Comment: Submitted to JINST and accepte
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