1,330 research outputs found
Towards reliable diagnostics of prostate cancer via breath
Early detection of cancer is a key ingredient for saving many lives. Unfortunately, cancers of the urogenital system are difficult to detect at early stage. The existing noninvasive diagnostics of prostate cancer (PCa) suffer from low accuracy (< 70%) even at advanced stages. In an attempt to improve the accuracy, a small breath study of 63 volunteers representing three groups: (1) of 19 healthy, (2) 28 with PCa, (3) with 8 kidney cancer (KC) and 8 bladder cancer (BC) was performed. Ultrabroadband mid-infrared Fourier absorption spectroscopy revealed eight spectral ranges (SRs) that differentiate the groups. The resulting accuracies of supervised analyses exceeded 95% for four SRs in distinguishing (1) vs (2), three for (1) vs (3) and four SRs for (1) vs (2) + (3). The SRs were then attributed to volatile metabolites. Their origin and involvement in urogenital carcinogenesis are discussed
Edge-Based Compartmental Modeling for Infectious Disease Spread Part III: Disease and Population Structure
We consider the edge-based compartmental models for infectious disease spread
introduced in Part I. These models allow us to consider standard SIR diseases
spreading in random populations. In this paper we show how to handle deviations
of the disease or population from the simplistic assumptions of Part I. We
allow the population to have structure due to effects such as demographic
detail or multiple types of risk behavior the disease to have more complicated
natural history. We introduce these modifications in the static network
context, though it is straightforward to incorporate them into dynamic
networks. We also consider serosorting, which requires using the dynamic
network models. The basic methods we use to derive these generalizations are
widely applicable, and so it is straightforward to introduce many other
generalizations not considered here
Why you think Milan is larger than Modena: Neural correlates of the recognition heuristic
When ranking two alternatives by some criteria and only one of the alternatives is recognized, participants overwhelmingly adopt the strategy, termed the recognition heuristic (RH), of choosing the recognized alternative. Understanding the neural correlates underlying decisions that follow the RH could help determine whether people make judgments about the RH's applicability or simply choose the recognized alternative. We measured brain activity by using functional magnetic resonance imaging while participants indicated which of two cities they thought was larger (Experiment 1) or which city they recognized (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, increased activation was observed within the anterior frontomedian cortex (aFMC), precuneus, and retrosplenial cortex when participants followed the RH compared to when they did not. Experiment 2 revealed that RH decisional processes cannot be reduced to recognition memory processes. As the aFMC has previously been associated with self-referential judgments, we conclude that RH decisional processes involve an assessment about the applicability of the RH
Share2Quit: Web-Based Peer-Driven Referrals for Smoking Cessation
BACKGROUND: Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death in the United States. Effective Web-assisted tobacco interventions are often underutilized and require new and innovative engagement approaches. Web-based peer-driven chain referrals successfully used outside health care have the potential for increasing the reach of Internet interventions.
OBJECTIVE: The objective of our study was to describe the protocol for the development and testing of proactive Web-based chain-referral tools for increasing the access to Decide2Quit.org, a Web-assisted tobacco intervention system.
METHODS: We will build and refine proactive chain-referral tools, including email and Facebook referrals. In addition, we will implement respondent-driven sampling (RDS), a controlled chain-referral sampling technique designed to remove inherent biases in chain referrals and obtain a representative sample. We will begin our chain referrals with an initial recruitment of former and current smokers as seeds (initial participants) who will be trained to refer current smokers from their social network using the developed tools. In turn, these newly referred smokers will also be provided the tools to refer other smokers from their social networks. We will model predictors of referral success using sample weights from the RDS to estimate the success of the system in the targeted population.
RESULTS: This protocol describes the evaluation of proactive Web-based chain-referral tools, which can be used in tobacco interventions to increase the access to hard-to-reach populations, for promoting smoking cessation.
CONCLUSIONS: Share2Quit represents an innovative advancement by capitalizing on naturally occurring technology trends to recruit smokers to Web-assisted tobacco interventions
Angle-resolved photoemission and first-principles electronic structure of single-crystalline -uranium (001)
Continuing the photoemission study begun with the work of Opeil et al. [Phys.
Rev. B \textbf{73}, 165109 (2006)], in this paper we report results of an
angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) study performed on a
high-quality single-crystal -uranium at 173 K. The absence of
surface-reconstruction effects is verified using X-ray Laue and low-energy
electron diffraction (LEED) patterns. We compare the ARPES intensity map with
first-principles band structure calculations using a generalized gradient
approximation (GGA) and we find good correlations with the calculated
dispersion of the electronic bands
Collisional relaxation of Feshbach molecules and three-body recombination in 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensates
We predict the resonance enhanced magnetic field dependence of atom-dimer
relaxation and three-body recombination rates in a Rb Bose-Einstein
condensate (BEC) close to 1007 G. Our exact treatments of three-particle
scattering explicitly include the dependence of the interactions on the atomic
Zeeman levels. The Feshbach resonance distorts the entire diatomic energy
spectrum causing interferences in both loss phenomena. Our two independent
experiments confirm the predicted recombination loss over a range of rate
constants that spans four orders of magnitude.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figures (updated references
One-way quantum computing in a decoherence-free subspace
We introduce a novel scheme for one-way quantum computing (QC) based on the
use of information encoded qubits in an effective cluster state resource. With
the correct encoding structure, we show that it is possible to protect the
entangled resource from phase damping decoherence, where the effective cluster
state can be described as residing in a Decoherence-Free Subspace (DFS) of its
supporting quantum system. One-way QC then requires either single or two-qubit
adaptive measurements. As an example where this proposal can be realized, we
describe an optical lattice setup where the scheme provides robust quantum
information processing. We also outline how one can adapt the model to provide
protection from other types of decoherence.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, RevTeX
Structural investigation of MOVPE-Grown GaAs on Ge by X-ray techniques
The selection of appropriate characterisation methodologies is vital for analysing and comprehending the sources of defects and their influence on the properties of heteroepitaxially grown III-V layers. In this work we investigate the structural properties of GaAs layers grown by Metal-Organic Vapour Phase Epitaxy (MOVPE) on Ge substrates – (100) with 6⁰ offset towards – under various growth conditions. Synchrotron X-ray topography (SXRT) is employed to investigate the nature of extended linear defects formed in GaAs epilayers. Other X-ray techniques, such as reciprocal space mapping (RSM) and triple axis ω-scans of (00l)-reflections (l = 2, 4, 6) are used to quantify the degree of relaxation and presence of antiphase domains (APDs) in the GaAs crystals. The surface roughness is found to be closely related to the size of APDs formed at the GaAs/Ge heterointerface, as confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), as well as atomic force microscopy (AFM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
Structural investigation of MOVPE-Grown GaAs on Ge by X-ray techniques
The selection of appropriate characterisation methodologies is vital for analysing and comprehending the sources of defects and their influence on the properties of heteroepitaxially grown III-V layers. In this work we investigate the structural properties of GaAs layers grown by Metal-Organic Vapour Phase Epitaxy (MOVPE) on Ge substrates – (100) with 6⁰ offset towards – under various growth conditions. Synchrotron X-ray topography (SXRT) is employed to investigate the nature of extended linear defects formed in GaAs epilayers. Other X-ray techniques, such as reciprocal space mapping (RSM) and triple axis ω-scans of (00l)-reflections (l = 2, 4, 6) are used to quantify the degree of relaxation and presence of antiphase domains (APDs) in the GaAs crystals. The surface roughness is found to be closely related to the size of APDs formed at the GaAs/Ge heterointerface, as confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), as well as atomic force microscopy (AFM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
Optical Trapping of an Ion
For several decades, ions have been trapped by radio frequency (RF) and
neutral particles by optical fields. We implement the experimental
proof-of-principle for trapping an ion in an optical dipole trap. While
loading, initialization and final detection are performed in a RF trap, in
between, this RF trap is completely disabled and substituted by the optical
trap. The measured lifetime of milliseconds allows for hundreds of oscillations
within the optical potential. It is mainly limited by heating due to photon
scattering. In future experiments the lifetime may be increased by further
detuning the laser and cooling the ion. We demonstrate the prerequisite to
merge both trapping techniques in hybrid setups to the point of trapping ions
and atoms in the same optical potential.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
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