1,323 research outputs found
The Morphology of the Tasmantid Seamounts: Interactions Between Tectonic Inheritance and Magmatic Evolution
No abstract available
The spectroscopic parameters of sodium cyanide, NaCN (X 1A'), revisited
The study of the rotational spectrum of NaCN (X A') has recently been
extended in frequency and in quantum numbers. Difficulties have been
encountered in fitting the transition frequencies within experimental
uncertainties. Various trial fits traced the difficulties to the incomplete
diagonalization of the Hamiltonian. Employing fewer spectroscopic parameters
than before, the transition frequencies could be reproduced within experimental
uncertainties on average. Predictions of -type -branch transitions with
up to 570 GHz should be reliable to better than 1 MHz. In addition,
modified spectroscopic parameters have been derived for the 13C isotopic
species of NaCN.Comment: 5 pages, no figure, J. Mol. Spectrosc., appeared; CDMS links update
The Morphology of the Tasmantid Seamounts: Interactions Between Tectonic Inheritance and Magmatic Evolution
No abstract available
Sub-natural linewidth in room-temperature Rb vapor using a control laser
We demonstrate two ways of obtaining sub-natural linewidth for probe
absorption through room-temperature Rb vapor. Both techniques use a control
laser that drives the transition from a different ground state. The coherent
drive splits the excited state into two dressed states (Autler-Townes doublet),
which have asymmetric linewidths when the control laser is detuned from
resonance. In the first technique, the laser has a large detuning of 1.18 GHz
to reduce the linewidth to 5.1 MHz from the Doppler width of 560 MHz. In the
second technique, we use a counter-propagating pump beam to eliminate the
first-order Doppler effect. The unperturbed probe linewidth is about 13 MHz,
which is reduced below 3 MHz (0.5 \Gamma) at a detuning of 11.5 MHz.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figure
An evaluation of the relative efficacy of an open airway, an oxygen reservoir and continuous positive airway pressure 5 cmH2O on the non-ventilated lung
Publisher's copy made available with the permission of the publisher © Australian Society of AnaesthetistsThe aim of this study, during one-lung ventilation, was to evaluate if oxygenation could be improved by use of a simple oxygen reservoir or application of 5 cmH2O continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) to the non-ventilated lung compared with an open airway. Twenty-three patients with lung malignancy, undergoing thoracotomy requiring at least 60 minutes of one-lung ventilation before lung lobe excision, were studied. After routine induction and establishment of one-lung ventilation, the three treatments were applied in turn to the same patient in a sequence selected randomly. The first treatment was repeated as a fourth treatment and these results of the repeated treatment averaged to minimize the effect of slow changes. Arterial oxygenation was measured by an arterial blood gas 15 minutes after the application of each treatment. Twenty patients completed the study. Mean PaO2 (in mmHg) was 210.3 (SD 105.5) in the 'OPEN' treatment, 186.0 (SD 109.2) in the 'RESERVOIR' treatment, and 240.5 (SD 116.0) in the 'CPAP' treatment. This overall difference was not quite significant (P=0.058, paired ANOVA), but comparison of the pairs showed that there was a significant better oxygenation only with the CPAP compared to the reservoir treatments (t=2.52, P=0.021). While the effect on the surgical field was not apparent in most patients, in one patient surgery was impeded during CPAP. Our results show that the use of a reservoir does not give oxygenation better than an open tube, and is less effective than the use of CPAP 5 cmH2O on the non-ventilated lung during one-lung ventilation.J. Slimani, W. J. Russell, C. Jurisevichttp://www.aaic.net.au/Article.asp?D=200404
Cooperation and Self-Regulation in a Model of Agents Playing Different Games
A simple model for cooperation between "selfish" agents, which play an
extended version of the Prisoner's Dilemma(PD) game, in which they use
arbitrary payoffs, is presented and studied. A continuous variable,
representing the probability of cooperation, [0,1], is assigned to
each agent at time . At each time step a pair of agents, chosen at
random, interact by playing the game. The players update their using a
criteria based on the comparison of their utilities with the simplest estimate
for expected income. The agents have no memory and use strategies not based on
direct reciprocity nor 'tags'. Depending on the payoff matrix, the systems
self-organizes - after a transient - into stationary states characterized by
their average probability of cooperation and average equilibrium
per-capita-income . It turns out that the model
exhibit some results that contradict the intuition. In particular, some games
which - {\it a priory}- seems to favor defection most, may produce a relatively
high degree of cooperation. Conversely, other games, which one would bet that
lead to maximum cooperation, indeed are not the optimal for producing
cooperation.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, keybords: Complex adaptive systems, Agent-based
models, Social system
Renal pericytes: regulators of medullary blood flow
Regulation of medullary blood flow (MBF) is essential in maintaining normal kidney function. Blood flow to the medulla is supplied by the descending vasa recta (DVR), which arise from the efferent arterioles of juxtamedullary glomeruli. DVR are composed of a continuous endothelium, intercalated with smooth muscle-like cells called pericytes. Pericytes have been shown to alter the diameter of isolated and in situ DVR in response to vasoactive stimuli that are transmitted via a network of autocrine and paracrine signalling pathways. Vasoactive stimuli can be released by neighbouring tubular epithelial, endothelial, red blood cells and neuronal cells in response to changes in NaCl transport and oxygen tension. The experimentally described sensitivity of pericytes to these stimuli strongly suggests their leading role in the phenomenon of MBF autoregulation. Because the debate on autoregulation of MBF fervently continues, we discuss the evidence favouring a physiological role for pericytes in the regulation of MBF and describe their potential role in tubulo-vascular cross-talk in this region of the kidney. Our review also considers current methods used to explore pericyte activity and function in the renal medulla
Accelerated Projected Gradient Method for Linear Inverse Problems with Sparsity Constraints
Regularization of ill-posed linear inverse problems via penalization
has been proposed for cases where the solution is known to be (almost) sparse.
One way to obtain the minimizer of such an penalized functional is via
an iterative soft-thresholding algorithm. We propose an alternative
implementation to -constraints, using a gradient method, with
projection on -balls. The corresponding algorithm uses again iterative
soft-thresholding, now with a variable thresholding parameter. We also propose
accelerated versions of this iterative method, using ingredients of the
(linear) steepest descent method. We prove convergence in norm for one of these
projected gradient methods, without and with acceleration.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures. v2: added reference, some amendments, 27 page
Vector-meson contributions do not explain the rate and spectrum in K_L -> pi0 gamma gamma
We analyze the recent NA48 data for the reaction K_L -> pi0 gamma gamma with
and without the assumption of vector meson dominance (VMD). We find that the
data is well described by a three-parameter expression inspired by O(p^6)
chiral perturbation theory. We also find that it is impossible to fit the shape
of the decay distribution and the overall rate simultaneously if one imposes
the VMD constraints on the three parameters. We comment on the different fits
and their implications for the CP-conserving component of the decay K_L -> pi0
e+ e-.Comment: Version accepted for publication on Phys. Rev. D. 19 pages, LaTeX, 8
figures, uses epsf.st
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