Kinematic analysis of handwriting movements in patients with Alzheimer's disease, mild cognitive impairment, depression and healthy subjects

A variety of studies have demonstrated that motor disorders, parkinsonism and extrapyramidal motor symptoms (EPMS) are common in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Several studies have reported an association of EPMS with severity, progression and poor prognosis of AD. The majority of these studies used clinical assessments for the rating of EPMS. In this study, kinematic handwriting analysis was used to quantify differences in fine hand motor function in patients with probable AD and mild cognitive impairment (MCl, as an assumed initial stage of AD) compared to depressed patients and healthy controls. Both patients with MCl and patients with probable AD exhibited loss of fine motor performance. Movements of AD patients were significantly less regular than those of healthy controls. Copyright (C) 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel

Megatrends 2022: Implikationen für den Einkauf

Welchen Einflussfaktoren sieht sich der Einkauf die nächsten Jahre ausgesetzt und was sind die zentralen Herausforderungen, denen er sich bis zum Jahr 2022 stellen muss?\ud Da der Einkauf die zentrale Schnittstelle zwischen Unternehmen und der Angebotsseite des Marktes darstellt, ist die Identifikation von langfristigen externen Veränderungen, sogenannten Megatrends, hilfreich. Aufgrund ihres lang andauernden und globalen Einflusses wird angenommen, dass die Auswirkungen von Megatrends das Handeln von Gesellschaften, Unternehmen und Regierungen für lange Zeit beeinflussen werden.\ud In der vorliegenden Studie werden fünf Megatrends vorgestellt sowie Maßnahmen, mittels derer sich Unternehmen auf dieseMegatrendsvorbereiten. Aus den Ergebnissen geht hervor, dass sich führende Unternehmen oftmals besser auf die Auswirkungen von Megatrends einstellen, während weniger erfolgreiche Unternehmen\ud Trends offenbar eher reaktiv abwarten. Relativierend lässt sich feststellen, dass die Megatrends immer wieder neu bewertet und kritisch hinterfragt werden sollten, um Fehleinschätzungen durch Trendabweichungen zu verhindern

Dependence of direct neutron capture on nuclear-structure models

The prediction of cross sections for nuclei far off stability is crucial in the field of nuclear astrophysics. We calculate direct neutron capture on the even-even isotopes $^{124-145}$Sn and $^{208-238}$Pb with energy levels, masses, and nuclear density distributions taken from different nuclear-structure models. The utilized structure models are a Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov model, a relativistic mean field theory, and a macroscopic-microscopic model based on the finite-range droplet model and a folded-Yukawa single-particle potential. Due to the differences in the resulting neutron separation and level energies, the investigated models yield capture cross sections sometimes differing by orders of magnitude. This may also lead to differences in the predicted astrophysical r-process paths. Astrophysical implications are discussed.Comment: 25 pages including 12 figures, RevTeX, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Uncertainties In Direct Neutron Capture Calculations Due To Nuclear Structure Models

The prediction of cross sections for nuclei far off stability is crucial in the field of nuclear astrophysics. For spherical nuclei close to the dripline the statistical model (Hauser-Feshbach) approach is not applicable and direct contributions may dominate the cross sections. For neutron-rich, even-even Sn targets, we compare the resulting neutron capture cross sections when consistently taking the input for the direct capture calculations from three different microscopic models. The results underline the sensitivity of cross sections calculated in the direct model to nuclear structure models which can lead to high uncertainties when lacking experimental information.Comment: 4 pages, using espcrc1.sty, Proc. Intl. Conf. "Nuclei in the Cosmos IV", Univ. Notre Dame 1996, Nucl. Phys. A, in press. A postscript version can also be obtained from http://quasar.physik.unibas.ch/research.htm

The transformation of 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene A probe reaction to monitor external surface modifications of HZSM-5?

The transformation of 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene is proposed as a new probe reaction to monitor the catalytic effects of inertisation of the external surface of HZSM-5. The external surface has been modified by coating ZSM-5 crystallites with an inert silicalite shell. At 723 K and a WHSV of 0.6 h−1 it has been shown that the isomerisation products 1,2,3-trimethylbenzene and 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene reflect changes in external activity. The disproportionation products, 1,2,4,5-tetramethylbenzene and 1,2,3,5-tetramethylbenzene together are shown to indicate changes in overall activity and shape selective properties of the catalyst sample. The results correlate with those observed for the reaction of 1,3,5-triisopropylbenzene and n-hexane cracking

Composite Fermions in Negative Effective Magnetic Field: A Monte-Carlo Study

The method of Jain and Kamilla [PRB {\bf 55}, R4895 (1997)] allows numerical generation of composite fermion trial wavefunctions for large numbers of electrons in high magnetic fields at filling fractions of the form nu=p/(2mp+1) with m and p positive integers. In the current paper we generalize this method to the case where the composite fermions are in an effective (mean) field with opposite sign from the actual physical field, i.e. when p is negative. We examine both the ground state energies and the low energy neutral excitation spectra of these states. Using particle-hole symmetry we can confirm the correctness of our method by comparing results for the series m=1 with p>0 (previously calculated by others) to our results for the conjugate series m=1 with p <0. Finally, we present similar results for ground state energies and low energy neutral excitations for the states with m=2 and p <0 which were not previously addressable, comparing our results to the m=1 case and the p > 0, m=2 cases.Comment: 11 page