2,256 research outputs found
Rotational Symmetry of Classical Orbits, Arbitrary Quantization of Angular Momentum and the Role of Gauge Field in Two-Dimensional Space
We study the quantum-classical correspondence in terms of coherent wave
functions of a charged particle in two-dimensional central-scalar-potentials as
well as the gauge field of a magnetic flux in the sense that the probability
clouds of wave functions are well localized on classical orbits. For both
closed and open classical orbits, the non-integer angular-momentum quantization
with the level-space of angular momentum being greater or less than is
determined uniquely by the same rotational symmetry of classical orbits and
probability clouds of coherent wave functions, which is not necessarily
-periodic. The gauge potential of a magnetic flux impenetrable to the
particle cannot change the quantization rule but is able to shift the spectrum
of canonical angular momentum by a flux-dependent value, which results in a
common topological phase for all wave functions in the given model. The quantum
mechanical model of anyon proposed by Wilczek (Phys. Rev. Lette. 48, 1144)
becomes a special case of the arbitrary-quantization.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Nuclear Antishadowing in Neutrino Deep Inelastic Scattering
The shadowing and antishadowing of nuclear structure functions in the
Gribov-Glauber picture is due respectively to the destructive and constructive
interference of amplitudes arising from the multiple-scattering of quarks in
the nucleus. The effective quark-nucleon scattering amplitude includes Pomeron
and Odderon contributions from multi-gluon exchange as well as Reggeon
quark-exchange contributions. We show that the coherence of these
multiscattering nuclear processes leads to shadowing and antishadowing of the
electromagnetic nuclear structure functions in agreement with measurements.
This picture leads to substantially different antishadowing for charged and
neutral current reactions, thus affecting the extraction of the weak-mixing
angle . We find that part of the anomalous NuTeV result for
could be due to the nonuniversality of nuclear antishadowing for
charged and neutral currents. Detailed measurements of the nuclear dependence
of individual quark structure functions are thus needed to establish the
distinctive phenomenology of shadowing and antishadowing and to make the NuTeV
results definitive.Comment: 38 pages, 15 figure
Uncovering Symptom Progression History from Disease Registry Data with Application to Young Cystic Fibrosis Patients
The growing availability of various disease registry data has brought precious opportunities to epidemiologists to understand the natural history of the registered diseases. It also presents challenges to the traditional data analysis techniques due to complicated censoring/truncation schemes and temporal dynamics of covariate influences. In a case study of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Patient Registry data, we propose analyses of progressive symptoms using temporal process regressions, as an alternative to the commonly employed proportional hazards models. Two end points are considered, the prevalence of ever positive and currently positive for Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) infection in the lungs, which capture different aspect of the disease process. The analysis of ever PA positive via a time-varying coefficient model demonstrates the lack of fit, as well as the potential loss of information, in the standard proportional hazards analysis. The analysis of currently PA positive yields results which are clinically meaningful and have not previously been reported in the cystic fibrosis literature. Our analyses demonstrate that prenatal/neonatal screening results in lower prevalence of PA infection compared to traditional diagnosis via signs and symptoms, but this benefit attenuates with age. Calendar years of diagnosis also affect the risk of PA infection; patients diagnosed in more recent cohort show higher prevalence of ever PA positive but lower prevalence of currently PA positive
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A diuranium carbide cluster stabilized inside a C80 fullerene cage.
Unsupported non-bridged uranium-carbon double bonds have long been sought after in actinide chemistry as fundamental synthetic targets in the study of actinide-ligand multiple bonding. Here we report that, utilizing Ih(7)-C80 fullerenes as nanocontainers, a diuranium carbide cluster, U=C=U, has been encapsulated and stabilized in the form of UCU@Ih(7)-C80. This endohedral fullerene was prepared utilizing the Krätschmer-Huffman arc discharge method, and was then co-crystallized with nickel(II) octaethylporphyrin (NiII-OEP) to produce UCU@Ih(7)-C80·[NiII-OEP] as single crystals. X-ray diffraction analysis reveals a cage-stabilized, carbide-bridged, bent UCU cluster with unexpectedly short uranium-carbon distances (2.03 Å) indicative of covalent U=C double-bond character. The quantum-chemical results suggest that both U atoms in the UCU unit have formal oxidation state of +5. The structural features of UCU@Ih(7)-C80 and the covalent nature of the U(f1)=C double bonds were further affirmed through various spectroscopic and theoretical analyses
Evidence of potential bias in a comparison of beta blockers and calcium channel blockers in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and acute coronary syndrome: results of a multinational study
OBJECTIVES: A number of observational studies have reported that, in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), beta blockers (BBs) decrease risk of mortality and COPD exacerbations. To address important methodological concerns of these studies, we compared the effectiveness and safety of cardioselective BBs versus non-dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers (non-DHP CCBs) in patients with COPD and acute coronary syndromes (ACS) using a propensity score (PS)-matched, active comparator, new user design. We also assessed for potential unmeasured confounding by examining a short-term COPD hospitalisation outcome.
SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: We identified 22 985 patients with COPD and ACS starting cardioselective BBs or non-DHP CCBs across 5 claims databases from the USA, Italy and Taiwan.
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Stratified Cox regression models were used to estimate HRs for mortality, cardiovascular (CV) hospitalisations and COPD hospitalisations in each database after variable-ratio PS matching. Results were combined with random-effects meta-analyses.
RESULTS: Cardioselective BBs were not associated with reduced risk of mortality (HR, 0.90; 95% CI 0.78 to 1.02) or CV hospitalisations (HR, 1.06; 95% CI 0.91 to 1.23), although statistical heterogeneity was observed across databases. In contrast, a consistent, inverse association for COPD hospitalisations was identified across databases (HR, 0.54; 95% CI 0.47 to 0.61), which persisted even within the first 30 days of follow-up (HR, 0.55; 95% CI 0.37 to 0.82). Results were similar across a variety of sensitivity analyses, including PS trimming, high dimensional-PS matching and restricting to high-risk patients.
CONCLUSIONS: This multinational study found a large inverse association between cardioselective BBs and short-term COPD hospitalisations. The persistence of this bias despite state-of-the-art pharmacoepidemiologic methods calls into question the ability of claims data to address confounding in studies of BBs in patients with COPD
Magnetic fields of the starless core L 1512
We present JCMT POL-2 850 um dust polarization observations and Mimir H band
stellar polarization observations toward the starless core L1512. We detect the
highly-ordered core-scale magnetic field traced by the POL-2 data, of which the
field orientation is consistent with the parsec-scale magnetic fields traced by
Planck data, suggesting the large-scale fields thread from the low-density
region to the dense core region in this cloud. The surrounding magnetic field
traced by the Mimir data shows a wider variation in the field orientation,
suggesting there could be a transition of magnetic field morphology at the
envelope scale. L1512 was suggested to be presumably older than 1.4 Myr in a
previous study via time-dependent chemical analysis, hinting that the magnetic
field could be strong enough to slow the collapse of L1512. In this study, we
use the Davis-Chandrasekhar-Fermi method to derive a plane-of-sky magnetic
field strength () of 187 uG and an observed mass-to-flux ratio
() of 3.52.4, suggesting that L1512 is magnetically
supercritical. However, the absence of significant infall motion and the
presence of an oscillating envelope are inconsistent with the magnetically
supercritical condition. Using a Virial analysis, we suggest the presence of a
hitherto hidden line-of-sight magnetic field strength of ~27 uG with a
mass-to-flux ratio () of ~1.6, in which case both magnetic and
kinetic pressures are important in supporting the L1512 core. On the other
hand, L1512 may have just reached supercriticality and will collapse at any
time.Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Breast Milk Dioxins in Hong Kong and Pearl River Delta
There are no previous reports from South China on chemically determined polychlorinated dibenzo-para-dioxins (PCDDs), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), and dioxin-like poly-chlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in human breast milk expressed as World Health Organization (WHO) toxic equivalents (TEQs). In a 2002–2003 WHO exposure study, 13 pools of breast milk comprising samples from 316 primiparous women in Hong Kong in 2002 were analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry for 29 PCDD/F and dioxin-like PCB congeners. Total WHO-TEQs ranged from 8.97 to 16.7 pg/g fat (weighted mean, 12.9 pg; weighted median, 13.4 pg). Variations in TEQs included positive associations with age (R(2) = 0.73, p < 0.0005), higher consumption of dairy products and seafood, and lower TEQs in overseas mothers and ever-smokers. Congener profiles indicated geographic specificity of exposure in Hong Kong, mainland China, and overseas Asian countries, including higher proportions of PCB-TEQs (overseas) and PCDF-TEQs (mainland China). The median TEQs of PCDD/Fs (8.69 pg/g fat) and PCBs (4.73 pg/g fat) in Hong Kong were highest among the five Asian Pacific countries but lower than the levels for at least half of the European countries that participated in the WHO study. However, future international studies should incorporate mother’s age in the design of the pooling strategy to allow standardization by other exposure factors and valid comparisons among different countries. The findings allow support for the WHO breast-feeding advisory. Trends in human dioxin levels in the region cannot yet be determined, and rigorous controls are needed to reduce emissions of dioxins and human exposure in mainland China
Rapid Surface Oxidation as a Source of Surface Degradation Factor for Bi2Se3
Bi2Se3 is a topological insulator with metallic surface states residing in a
large bulk bandgap. It is believed that Bi2Se3 gets additional n-type doping
after exposure to atmosphere, thereby reducing the relative contribution of
surface states in total conductivity. In this letter, transport measurements on
Bi2Se3 nanoribbons provide additional evidence of such environmental doping
process. Systematic surface composition analyses by X-ray photoelectron
spectroscopy reveal fast formation and continuous growth of native oxide on
Bi2Se3 under ambient conditions. In addition to n-type doping at the surface,
such surface oxidation is likely the material origin of the degradation of
topological surface states. Appropriate surface passivation or encapsulation
may be required to probe topological surface states of Bi2Se3 by transport
measurements
Neutron star composition in strong magnetic fields
We study the problem of neutron star composition in the presence of a strong
magnetic field. The effects of the anomalous magnetic moments of both nucleons
and electrons are investigated in relativistic mean field calculations for a
-equilibrium system. Since neutrons are fully spin polarized in a large
field, generally speaking, the proton fraction can never exceed the field free
case. An extremely strong magnetic field may lead to a pure neutron matter
instead of a proton-rich matter.Comment: 12 pages, 3 postscript files include
Evidence for SU(3) symmetry breaking from hyperon production
We examine the SU(3) symmetry breaking in hyperon semileptonic decays (HSD)
by considering two typical sets of quark contributions to the spin content of
the octet baryons: Set-1 with SU(3) flavor symmetry and Set-2 with SU(3) flavor
symmetry breaking in HSD. The quark distributions of the octet baryons are
calculated with a successful statistical model. Using an approximate relation
between the quark fragmentation functions and the quark distributions, we
predict polarizations of the octet baryons produced in annihilation
and semi-inclusive deeply lepton-nucleon scattering in order to reveal the
SU(3) symmetry breaking effect on the spin structure of the octet baryons. We
find that the SU(3) symmetry breaking significantly affects the hyperon
polarization. The available experimental data on the polarization
seem to favor the theoretical predictions with SU(3) symmetry breaking. We
conclude that there is a possibility to get a collateral evidence for SU(3)
symmetry breaking from hyperon production. The theoretical errors for our
predictions are discussed.Comment: 3 tables, 14 figure
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