6,612 research outputs found
Effect of short-term probiotic Enterococcus faecium SF68 dietary supplementation in overweight and obese cats without comorbidities
Obesity in cats is associated with metabolic abnormalities and increased susceptibility to diseases such as diabetes mellitus. Studies in mouse models and human beings have shown that probiotics can reduce food intake, promote weight loss and improve metabolic profile. Studies assessing the effects of probiotics on these same parameters are absent in cats. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine if probiotic Enterococcus faecium strain SF68 dietary supplementation reduces food intake, promotes weight loss and improves metabolic profile in overweight and obese cats without comorbidities. Twenty overweight and obese specific pathogen-free cats without comorbidities were acclimatised to a dry diet for four weeks. After exclusion of four cats for unrelated reasons, eight cats received a daily oral probiotic for eight weeks and eight control cats received no probiotic. All cats were fed ad libitum with food intake measured daily and bodyweight weekly. Blood was collected at three time points: after four weeks of acclimatisation to the diet, after eight weeks of intervention and after six weeks of washout for measurement of glucose, triglyceride, cholesterol, fructosamine, insulin, leptin, total adiponectin and deuterium oxide for body composition. There were no differences in food intake, metabolic parameters and body composition between the probiotic and control groups after eight weeks of intervention and six weeks of washout (P≥0.050). Short-term use of E faecium SF68 dietary supplementation had no significant effect on food intake, bodyweight, body composition or metabolic parameters in overweight and obese specific pathogen-free cats without comorbidities
The new radiation-hard optical links for the ATLAS pixel detector
The ATLAS detector is currently being upgraded with a new layer of pixel
based charged particle tracking and a new arrangement of the services for the
pixel detector. These upgrades require the replacement of the opto-boards
previously used by the pixel detector. In this report we give details on the
design and production of the new opto-boards.Comment: Presentation at the DPF 2013 Meeting of the American Physical Society
Division of Particles and Fields, Santa Cruz, California, August 13-17, 201
Optical Link of the Atlas Pixel Detector
The on-detector optical link of the ATLAS pixel detector contains
radiation-hard receiver chips to decode bi-phase marked signals received on PIN
arrays and data transmitter chips to drive VCSEL arrays. The components are
mounted on hybrid boards (opto-boards). We present results from the irradiation
studies with 24 GeV protons up to 32 Mrad (1.2 x 10^15 p/cm^2) and the
experience from the production.Comment: 9th ICATPP Conference, Como, Ital
Direct CP violation in two-body hadronic charmed meson decays
Motivated by the recent observation of CP violation in the charm sector by
LHCb, we study direct CP asymmetries in the standard model (SM) for the singly
Cabibbo-suppressed two-body hadronic decays of charmed mesons using the
topological-diagram approach. In this approach, the magnitude and the phase of
topological weak annihilation amplitudes which arise mainly from final-state
rescattering can be extracted from the data. Consequently, direct CP asymmetry
at tree level can be reliably estimated. In general, it
lies in the range . Short-distance QCD
penguins and penguin annihilation are calculated using QCD factorization. Their
effects are generally small, especially for modes. Since weak penguin
annihilation receives long-distance contributions from the color-allowed tree
amplitude followed by final-state rescattering, it is expected to give the
dominant contribution to the direct CP violation in the decays
and in which is absent. The maximal
, the direct CP asymmetry difference between the
above-mentioned two modes, allowed in the SM is around -0.25%, more than
away from the current world average of .Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures; typos correcte
DoctorEye: A clinically driven multifunctional platform, for accurate processing of tumors in medical images
Copyright @ Skounakis et al.This paper presents a novel, open access interactive platform for 3D medical image analysis, simulation and visualization, focusing in oncology images. The platform was developed through constant interaction and feedback from expert clinicians integrating a thorough analysis of their requirements while having an ultimate goal of assisting in accurately delineating tumors. It allows clinicians not only to work with a large number of 3D tomographic datasets but also to efficiently annotate multiple regions of interest in the same session. Manual and semi-automatic segmentation techniques combined with integrated correction tools assist in the quick and refined delineation of tumors while different users can add different components related to oncology such as tumor growth and simulation algorithms for improving therapy planning. The platform has been tested by different users and over large number of heterogeneous tomographic datasets to ensure stability, usability, extensibility and robustness with promising results. AVAILABILITY: THE PLATFORM, A MANUAL AND TUTORIAL VIDEOS ARE AVAILABLE AT: http://biomodeling.ics.forth.gr. It is free to use under the GNU General Public License
Spatially-Variant Directional Mathematical Morphology Operators Based on a Diffused Average Squared Gradient Field
International audienceThis paper proposes an approach for mathematical morphology operators whose structuring element can locally adapt its orientation across the pixels of the image. The orientation at each pixel is extracted by means of a diffusion process of the average squared gradient field. The resulting vector field, the average squared gradient vector flow, extends the orientation information from the edges of the objects to the homogeneous areas of the image. The provided orientation field is then used to perform a spatially variant filtering with a linear structuring element. Results of erosion, dilation, opening and closing spatially-variant on binary images prove the validity of this theoretical sound and novel approach
Affine extension of noncrystallographic Coxeter groups and quasicrystals
Unique affine extensions H^{\aff}_2, H^{\aff}_3 and H^{\aff}_4 are
determined for the noncrystallographic Coxeter groups , and .
They are used for the construction of new mathematical models for quasicrystal
fragments with 10-fold symmetry. The case of H^{\aff}_2 corresponding to
planar point sets is discussed in detail. In contrast to the cut-and-project
scheme we obtain by construction finite point sets, which grow with a model
specific growth parameter.Comment: (27 pages, to appear in J. Phys. A
Covariance and Fisher information in quantum mechanics
Variance and Fisher information are ingredients of the Cramer-Rao inequality.
We regard Fisher information as a Riemannian metric on a quantum statistical
manifold and choose monotonicity under coarse graining as the fundamental
property of variance and Fisher information. In this approach we show that
there is a kind of dual one-to-one correspondence between the candidates of the
two concepts. We emphasis that Fisher informations are obtained from relative
entropies as contrast functions on the state space and argue that the scalar
curvature might be interpreted as an uncertainty density on a statistical
manifold.Comment: LATE
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