Transport in the random Kronig-Penney model

The Kronig-Penney model with random Dirac potentials on the lattice \ZM has critical energies at which the Lyapunov exponent vanishes and the density of states has a van Hove singularity. This leads to a non-trivial quantum diffusion even though the spectrum is known to be pure-point

Antidepressant drugs and the response in the placebo group: the real problem lies in our understanding of the issue

In a recent paper, Horder and colleagues (Horder et al., 2010, J Psychopharmacol 25: 1277–1288) have suggested that the mainproblem in the Kirsch analysis is methodological. We argue that the results are similar irrespective of the method used. In our opinion the data suggest that placebo and drug effects are non-additive: antidepressants act independently of depression severity, while the placebo effect is present only in milder cases. While the response in the placebo group is due to unstable ‘noise’ and ‘artefacts’, the medication effect is reliable, valid and stable

A rigorous approach to the magnetic response in disordered systems

This paper is a part of an ongoing study on the diamagnetic behavior of a 3-dimensional quantum gas of non-interacting charged particles subjected to an external uniform magnetic field together with a random electric potential. We prove the existence of an almost-sure non-random thermodynamic limit for the grand-canonical pressure, magnetization and zero- field orbital magnetic susceptibility. We also give an explicit formulation of these thermodynamic limits. Our results cover a wide class of physically relevant random potentials which model not only crystalline disordered solids, but also amorphous solids.Comment: 35 pages. Revised version. Accepted for publication in RM

Extended path-indexing

The performance of a theorem prover crucially depends on the speed of the basic retrieval operations, such as finding terms that are unifiable with (instances of, or more general than) some query term. Among the known indexing methods for term retrieval in deduction systems, Path--Indexing exhibits a good performance in general. However, as Path--Indexing is not a perfect filter, the candidates found by this method have still to be subjected to a unification algorithm in order to detect occur--check failures and indirect clashes. As perfect filters, discrimination trees and abstraction trees thus outperform Path--Indexing in some cases. We present an improved version of Path--Indexing that provides both the query trees and the Path--Index with indirect clash an occur--check information. Thus compared to the standard method we dismiss much more terms as possible candidates

Dance training shapes action perception and its neural implementation within the young and older adult brain

How we perceive others in action is shaped by our prior experience. Many factors influence brain responses when observing others in action, including training in a particular physical skill, such as sport or dance, and also general development and aging processes. Here, we investigate how learning a complex motor skill shapes neural and behavioural responses among a dance-naïve sample of 20 young and 19 older adults. Across four days, participants physically rehearsed one set of dance sequences, observed a second set, and a third set remained untrained. Functional MRI was obtained prior to and immediately following training. Participants’ behavioural performance on motor and visual tasks improved across the training period, with younger adults showing steeper performance gains than older adults. At the brain level, both age groups demonstrated decreased sensorimotor cortical engagement after physical training, with younger adults showing more pronounced decreases in inferior parietal activity compared to older adults. Neural decoding results demonstrate that among both age groups, visual and motor regions contain experience-specific representations of new motor learning. By combining behavioural measures of performance with univariate and multivariate measures of brain activity, we can start to build a more complete picture of age-related changes in experience-dependent plasticity

Cardiac Surgery in Advanced Heart Failure.

Mechanical circulatory support and heart transplantation are established surgical options for treatment of advanced heart failure. Since the prevalence of advanced heart failure is progressively increasing, there is a clear need to treat more patients with mechanical circulatory support and to increase the number of heart transplantations. This narrative review summarizes recent progress in surgical treatment options of advanced heart failure and proposes an algorithm for treatment of the advanced heart failure patient at >65 years of age

Implementing Parallel Algorithms based on Prototype Evaluation and Transformation

Combining parallel programming with prototyping is aimed at alleviating parallel programming by enabling the programmer to make practical experiments with ideas for parallel algorithms at a high level, neglecting low-level considerations of specific parallel architectures in the beginning of program development. Therefore, prototyping parallel algorithms is aimed at bridging the gap between conceptual design of parallel algorithms and practical implementation on specific parallel systems. The essential prototyping activities are programming, evaluation and transformation of prototypes. This paper gives a report on some experience with implementing parallel algorithms based on prototype evaluation and transformation employing the ProSet-Linda approach

Positivity of Lyapunov exponents for a continuous matrix-valued Anderson model

We study a continuous matrix-valued Anderson-type model. Both leading Lyapunov exponents of this model are proved to be positive and distinct for all ernergies in $(2,+\infty)$ except those in a discrete set, which leads to absence of absolutely continuous spectrum in $(2,+\infty)$. This result is an improvement of a previous result with Stolz. The methods, based upon a result by Breuillard and Gelander on dense subgroups in semisimple Lie groups, and a criterion by Goldsheid and Margulis, allow for singular Bernoulli distributions

Point configurations that are asymmetric yet balanced

A configuration of particles confined to a sphere is balanced if it is in equilibrium under all force laws (that act between pairs of points with strength given by a fixed function of distance). It is straightforward to show that every sufficiently symmetrical configuration is balanced, but the converse is far from obvious. In 1957 Leech completely classified the balanced configurations in R^3, and his classification is equivalent to the converse for R^3. In this paper we disprove the converse in high dimensions. We construct several counterexamples, including one with trivial symmetry group.Comment: 10 page