Defining the effective temperature of a quantum driven system from current-current correlation functions

We calculate current-current correlation functions and find an expression for the zero-frequency noise of multiterminal systems driven by harmonically time-dependent voltages within the Keldysh non-equilibrium Green's functions formalism. We also propose a fluctuation-dissipation relation for current-current correlation functions to define an effective temperature. We discuss the behavior of this temperature and compare it with the local temperature determined by a thermometer and with the effective temperature defined from a single-particle fluctuation-dissipation relation. We show that for low frequencies all the definitions of the temperature coincide.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Introduction to the Special Issue on Social Darwinism

A brief history is provided of interventions with people with emotional disorders since the 1950s. A shortage of therapists is inescapable and even successful treatment does not change incidence. But the individual defect model supports the conservative view that causes are to be found inside people, rather than in social injustice. People who are defective are to be treated as part of the medical model that is extended to cover social problems. This view is an obvious extension of Social Darwinism that has long attributed success and failure to bad genes and good genes rather than to advantaged and disadvantaged social-economic environments

Some antecedents and outcomes of brand love

Survey research is employed to test hypotheses involving brand love, a new marketing construct that assesses satisfied consumers’ passionate emotional attachment to particular brands. Findings suggest that satisfied consumers’ love is greater for brands in product categories perceived as more hedonic (as compared with utilitarian) and for brands that offer more in terms of symbolic benefits. Brand love, in turn, is linked to higher levels of brand loyalty and positive word-of-mouth. Findings also suggest that satisfied consumers tend to be less loyal to brands in more hedonic product categories and to engage in more positive word-of-mouth about self-expressive brands. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2006Satisfaction, Delight, Love, Loyalty, Word-of-mouth, Consumer-brand relationships,

Multilocus genetic risk score associates with ischemic stroke in case-control and prospective cohort studies

Background and Purpose - Genome-wide association studies have revealed multiple common variants associated with known risk factors for ischemic stroke (IS). However, their aggregate effect on risk is uncertain. We aimed to generate a multilocus genetic risk score (GRS) for IS based on genome-wide association studies data from clinical-based samples and to establish its external validity in prospective population-based cohorts. Methods - Three thousand five hundred forty-eight clinic-based IS cases and 6399 controls from the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium 2 were used for derivation of the GRS. Subjects from the METASTROKE consortium served as a replication sample. The validation sample consisted of 22 751 participants from the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology consortium. We selected variants that had reached genome-wide significance in previous association studies on established risk factors for IS. Results - A combined GRS for atrial fibrillation, coronary artery disease, hypertension, and systolic blood pressure significantly associated with IS both in the case-control samples and in the prospective population-based studies. Subjects in the top quintile of the combined GRS had >2-fold increased risk of IS compared with subjects in the lowest quintile. Addition of the combined GRS to a simple model based on sex significantly improved the prediction of IS in the combined clinic-based samples but not in the population-based studies, and there was no significant improvement in net reclassification. Conclusions - A multilocus GRS based on common variants for established cardiovascular risk factors was significantly associated with IS both in clinic-based samples and in the general population. However, the improvement in clinical risk predic