779 research outputs found
Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference 2010
Conference revie
Justice Murphy and the Welfare Question
In 1941, an Italian law professor arrived in the United States to make his home here. Born in Russia during Czarist days, he was educated in Austria, England, and Italy, finally settling there and becoming a citizen. A member of the Italian bar and teacher of law at the Universities of Florence and Rome, he found himself in 1939 unwanted in his adopted homeland. He went to France, where he practiced law until coming to this country. In New York City he joined the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, remaining in that post for five years, until he died, at the age of 44, in an airplane accident. His name was Alexander Pekelis.
During his short stay in the United States, Pekelis showed himself to be an acute commentator on the American legal and social scene. His foreign training perhaps helped him to understand our legal system better than many American lawyers who are too deeply immersed in its daily operations. With insights born of a restless and inquiring mind and his experience in analyzing parallel machinery in other countries, Pekelis was able to contribute much of value to our jurisprudence. A slim volume of his essays, put together by his friends after his death, testifies to that
Dynamical Instabilities and Deterministic Chaos in Ballistic Electron Motion in Semiconductor Superlattices
We consider the motion of ballistic electrons within a superlattice miniband
under the influence of an alternating electric field. We show that the
interaction of electrons with the self-consistent electromagnetic field
generated by the electron current may lead to the transition from regular to
chaotic dynamics. We estimate the conditions for the experimental observation
of this deterministic chaos and discuss the similarities of the superlattice
system with the other condensed matter and quantum optical systems.Comment: 6 pages, RevTEX; 4 fig
In vivo cannabidiol treatment improves endothelium-dependent vasorelaxation in mesenteric arteries of Zucker diabetic fatty rats
Background and purpose: We have shown that in vitro treatment with cannabidiol (CBD, 2 h) enhances endothelial function in arteries from Zucker diabetic fatty (ZDF) rats, partly due to a cyclooxygenase (COX)-mediated mechanism. The aim of the present study was to determine whether treatment with CBD in vivo would also enhance endothelial function.
Experimental approach: Male ZDF rats, or ZDF Lean rats, were treated for 7 days (daily i.p. injection) with either 10mg/kg CBD or vehicle (n D 6 per group). Sections of mesenteric resistance arteries, femoral arteries and thoracic aortae were mounted on a wire myograph, and cumulative concentration-response curves to endothelium-dependent (acetylcholine, ACh, 1 nM–100 mM) or endothelium-independent (sodium nitroprusside, SNP, 1 nM–100 mM) agents were constructed. Multiplex analysis was used to measure serum metabolic and cardiovascular biomarkers.
Key results: Vasorelaxation to ACh was significantly enhanced in mesenteric arteries from CBD-treated ZDF rats, but not ZDF Lean rats. The enhanced vasorelaxation in ZDF mesenteric arteries was no longer observed after COX inhibition using indomethacin or nitric oxide (NO) inhibition using L-NAME. Increased levels of serum c-peptide, insulin and intracellular adhesion molecule-1 observed in the ZDF compared to ZDF Lean rats were no longer significant after 7 days CBD treatment.
Conclusion and implications: Short-term in vivo treatment with CBD improves ex vivo endothelium-dependent vasorelaxation in mesenteric arteries from ZDF rats due to COX- or NO-mediated mechanisms, and leads to improvements in serum biomarkers
Valley-spin blockade and spin resonance in carbon nanotubes
Manipulation and readout of spin qubits in quantum dots made in III-V
materials successfully rely on Pauli blockade that forbids transitions between
spin-triplet and spin-singlet states. Quantum dots in group IV materials have
the advantage of avoiding decoherence from the hyperfine interaction by
purifying them with only zero-spin nuclei. Complications of group IV materials
arise from the valley degeneracies in the electronic bandstructure. These lead
to complicated multiplet states even for two-electron quantum dots thereby
significantly weakening the selection rules for Pauli blockade. Only recently
have spin qubits been realized in silicon devices where the valley degeneracy
is lifted by strain and spatial confinement. In carbon nanotubes Pauli blockade
can be observed by lifting valley degeneracy through disorder. In clean
nanotubes, quantum dots have to be made ultra-small to obtain a large energy
difference between the relevant multiplet states. Here we report on
low-disorder nanotubes and demonstrate Pauli blockade based on both valley and
spin selection rules. We exploit the bandgap of the nanotube to obtain a large
level spacing and thereby a robust blockade. Single-electron spin resonance is
detected using the blockade.Comment: 31 pages including supplementary informatio
Theory of Electronic Ferroelectricity
We present a theory of the linear and nonlinear optical characteristics of
the insulating phase of the Falicov-Kimball model within the self-consistent
mean-field approximation. The Coulomb attraction between the itinerant
d-electrons and the localized f-holes gives rise to a built-in coherence
between the d and f-states, which breaks the inversion symmetry of the
underlying crystal, leading to: (1) electronic ferroelectricity, (2)
ferroelectric resonance, and (3) a nonvanishing susceptibility for
second-harmonic generation. As experimental tests of such a built-in coherence
in mixed-valent compounds we propose measurements of the static dielectric
constant, the microwave absorption spectrum, and the dynamic second-order
susceptibility.Comment: 15 pages, 5 PostScript figures, submitted to Physical Review
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis–specific quality of life–short form (ALSSQOL‐SF): A brief, reliable, and valid version of the ALSSQOL‐R
Introduction: The Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)‐Specific Quality of Life instrument and its revised version (ALSSQOL and ALSSQOL‐R) have strong psychometric properties, and have demonstrated research and clinical utility. In this study we aimed to develop a short form (ALSSQOL‐SF) suitable for limited clinic time and patient stamina. Methods: The ALSSQOL‐SF was created using Item Response Theory and confirmatory factor analysis on 389 patients. A cross‐validation sample of 162 patients assessed convergent, divergent, and construct validity of the ALSSQOL‐SF compared with psychosocial and physical functioning measures. Results: The ALSSQOL‐SF consisted of 20 items. Compared with the ALSSQOL‐R, optimal precision was retained, and completion time was reduced from 15–25 minutes to 2–4 minutes. Psychometric properties for the ALSSQOL‐SF and its subscales were strong. Discussion: The ALSSQOL‐SF is a disease‐specific global QOL instrument that has a short administration time suitable for clinical use, and can provide clinically useful, valid information about persons with ALS. Muscle Nerve 58: 646–654, 2018Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146574/1/mus26203_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146574/2/mus26203.pd
The T cell receptor/CD3 complex is composed of at least two autonomous transduction modules
Recent studies have demonstrated that the CD3-ζ subunit of the T cell antigen receptor (TCR) complex is involved in signal transduction. However, the function of the remaining invariant subunits, CD3-γ, -δ, and , is still poorly understood. To examine their role in TCR function, we have constructed TCR/CD3 complexes devoid of functional ζ subunit and showed that they are still able to trigger the production of interleukin-2 in response to antigen or superantigen. These data, together with previous results, indicate that the TCR/CD3 complex is composed of at least two parallel transducing units, made of the γδ and ζ chains, respectively, Furthermore, the analysis of partially truncated ζ chains has led us to individualize a functional domain that may have constituted the building block of most of the transducing subunits associated with antigen receptors and some Fc receptors
The University of California San Francisco, Brain Metastases Stereotactic Radiosurgery (UCSF-BMSR) MRI Dataset
The University of California San Francisco Brain Metastases Stereotactic
Radiosurgery (UCSF-BMSR) dataset is a public, clinical, multimodal brain MRI
dataset consisting of 560 brain MRIs from 412 patients with expert annotations
of 5136 brain metastases. Data consists of registered and skull stripped T1
post-contrast, T1 pre-contrast, FLAIR and subtraction (T1 pre-contrast - T1
post-contrast) images and voxelwise segmentations of enhancing brain metastases
in NifTI format. The dataset also includes patient demographics, surgical
status and primary cancer types. The UCSF-BSMR has been made publicly available
in the hopes that researchers will use these data to push the boundaries of AI
applications for brain metastases.Comment: 15 pages, 2 tables, 2 figure
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