2,398 research outputs found
Inference with interference between units in an fMRI experiment of motor inhibition
An experimental unit is an opportunity to randomly apply or withhold a
treatment. There is interference between units if the application of the
treatment to one unit may also affect other units. In cognitive neuroscience, a
common form of experiment presents a sequence of stimuli or requests for
cognitive activity at random to each experimental subject and measures
biological aspects of brain activity that follow these requests. Each subject
is then many experimental units, and interference between units within an
experimental subject is likely, in part because the stimuli follow one another
quickly and in part because human subjects learn or become experienced or
primed or bored as the experiment proceeds. We use a recent fMRI experiment
concerned with the inhibition of motor activity to illustrate and further
develop recently proposed methodology for inference in the presence of
interference. A simulation evaluates the power of competing procedures.Comment: Published by Journal of the American Statistical Association at
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01621459.2012.655954 . R package
cin (Causal Inference for Neuroscience) implementing the proposed method is
freely available on CRAN at https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=ci
Dimension in a Radiative Stellar Atmosphere
Dimensional scales are examined in an extended 3+1 Vaidya atmosphere
surrounding a Schwarzschild source. At one scale, the Vaidya null fluid
vanishes and the spacetime contains only a single spherical 2-surface. Both of
these behaviors can be addressed by including higher dimensions in the
spacetime metric.Comment: to appear in Gen. Rel. Gra
Application to the Analysis of Germinal Center Reactions In Vivo
Simultaneous detection of multiple cellular and molecular players in their
native environment, one of the keys to a full understanding of immune
processes, remains challenging for in vivo microscopy. Here, we present a
synergistic strategy for spectrally multiplexed in vivo imaging composed of
(i) triple two-photon excitation using spatiotemporal synchronization of two
femtosecond lasers, (ii) a broad set of fluorophores with emission ranging
from blue to near infrared, (iii) an effective spectral unmixing algorithm.
Using our approach, we simultaneously excite and detect seven fluorophores
expressed in distinct cellular and tissue compartments, plus second harmonics
generation from collagen fibers in lymph nodes. This enables us to visualize
the dynamic interplay of all the central cellular players during germinal
center reactions. While current in vivo imaging typically enables recording
the dynamics of 4 tissue components at a time, our strategy allows a more
comprehensive analysis of cellular dynamics involving 8 single-labeled
compartments. It enables to investigate the orchestration of multiple cellular
subsets determining tissue function, thus, opening the way for a mechanistic
understanding of complex pathophysiologic processes in vivo. In the future,
the design of transgenic mice combining a larger spectrum of fluorescent
proteins will reveal the full potential of our method
Signatures of Relativistic Neutrinos in CMB Anisotropy and Matter Clustering
We present a detailed analytical study of ultra-relativistic neutrinos in
cosmological perturbation theory and of the observable signatures of
inhomogeneities in the cosmic neutrino background. We note that a modification
of perturbation variables that removes all the time derivatives of scalar
gravitational potentials from the dynamical equations simplifies their solution
notably. The used perturbations of particle number per coordinate, not proper,
volume are generally constant on superhorizon scales. In real space an
analytical analysis can be extended beyond fluids to neutrinos.
The faster cosmological expansion due to the neutrino background changes the
acoustic and damping angular scales of the cosmic microwave background (CMB).
But we find that equivalent changes can be produced by varying other standard
parameters, including the primordial helium abundance. The low-l integrated
Sachs-Wolfe effect is also not sensitive to neutrinos. However, the gravity of
neutrino perturbations suppresses the CMB acoustic peaks for the multipoles
with l>~200 while it enhances the amplitude of matter fluctuations on these
scales. In addition, the perturbations of relativistic neutrinos generate a
*unique phase shift* of the CMB acoustic oscillations that for adiabatic
initial conditions cannot be caused by any other standard physics. The origin
of the shift is traced to neutrino free-streaming velocity exceeding the sound
speed of the photon-baryon plasma. We find that from a high resolution, low
noise instrument such as CMBPOL the effective number of light neutrino species
can be determined with an accuracy of sigma(N_nu) = 0.05 to 0.09, depending on
the constraints on the helium abundance.Comment: 38 pages, 7 figures. Version accepted for publication in PR
Surface characterization and surface electronic structure of organic quasi-one-dimensional charge transfer salts
We have thoroughly characterized the surfaces of the organic charge-transfer
salts TTF-TCNQ and (TMTSF)2PF6 which are generally acknowledged as prototypical
examples of one-dimensional conductors. In particular x-ray induced
photoemission spectroscopy turns out to be a valuable non-destructive
diagnostic tool. We show that the observation of generic one-dimensional
signatures in photoemission spectra of the valence band close to the Fermi
level can be strongly affected by surface effects. Especially, great care must
be exercised taking evidence for an unusual one-dimensional many-body state
exclusively from the observation of a pseudogap.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures, v2: minor changes in text and figure labellin
Hsp70 in mitochondrial biogenesis
The family of hsp70 (70 kilodalton heat shock protein) molecular chaperones plays an essential and diverse role in cellular physiology, Hsp70 proteins appear to elicit their effects by interacting with polypeptides that present domains which exhibit non-native conformations at distinct stages during their life in the cell. In this paper we review work pertaining to the functions of hsp70 proteins in chaperoning mitochondrial protein biogenesis. Hsp70 proteins function in protein synthesis, protein translocation across mitochondrial membranes, protein folding and finally the delivery of misfolded proteins to proteolytic enzymes in the mitochondrial matrix
Gauge-ready formulation of the cosmological kinetic theory in generalized gravity theories
We present cosmological perturbations of kinetic components based on
relativistic Boltzmann equations in the context of generalized gravity
theories. Our general theory considers an arbitrary number of scalar fields
generally coupled with the gravity, an arbitrary number of mutually interacting
hydrodynamic fluids, and components described by the relativistic Boltzmann
equations like massive/massless collisionless particles and the photon with the
accompanying polarizations. We also include direct interactions among fluids
and fields. The background FLRW model includes the general spatial curvature
and the cosmological constant. We consider three different types of
perturbations, and all the scalar-type perturbation equations are arranged in a
gauge-ready form so that one can implement easily the convenient gauge
conditions depending on the situation. In the numerical calculation of the
Boltzmann equations we have implemented four different gauge conditions in a
gauge-ready manner where two of them are new. By comparing solutions solved
separately in different gauge conditions we can naturally check the numerical
accuracy.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, revised thoroughly, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Junction Conditions and Consequences of Quasi-Spherical Space-Time with Electro-Magnetic Field and Vaidya Matric
In this work the junction conditions between the exterior
Reissner-Nordstrom-Vaidya space-time with the interior quasi-spherical Szekeres
space-time have been studied for analyzing gravitational collapse in the
presence of a magneto-hydrodynamic fluid undergoing dissipation in the form of
heat flow. We have discussed about the apparent horizon and have evaluated the
time difference between the formation of apparent horizon and central
singularity.Comment: 8 latex pages, RevTex style, no figure
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