Sonographic Wrist Measurements and Detection of Anatomical Features in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

INTRODUCTION: This study compares anatomical findings at wrist level in patients with known carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) and controls by ultrasonography (US). MATERIAL AND METHODS: Wrist-US investigations of 28 consecutive patients with 38 diagnosed, idiopathic CTS were compared to 49 healthy volunteers without history of CTS. Internal wrists dimensions, the presence of flexor muscle bellies in the carpal tunnel, and cross-sectional area of the median nerve were analyzed. The findings were correlated to gender, age, and BMI. RESULTS: US demonstrated a square internal carpal tunnel configuration in CTS patients compared to controls (P < 0.001). Patients with CTS showed a trend towards the presence of flexor muscles bellies in the carpal tunnel (odds ratio 1.77, 95% CI 0.337-8.33). CTS was present in women with higher BMI (P = 0.015). CONCLUSION: US allowed detection of specific anatomical features at wrist level in CTS patients. This observation may enable--following confirmation in larger prospective studies--risk evaluation for CTS development

Influence of Ca substitution by Mg on the Ca3Co4O9 performances

Ca3-xMgxCo4O9 polycrystalline thermoelectric ceramics with small amounts of Mg have been synthesized by the classical solid state method. Microstructural characterizations have shown that all the Mg has been incorporated into the Ca3Co4O9 structure and no Mg-based secondary phases have been identified. Apparent density measurements have shown that samples do not modify their density until 0.05 Mg content, decreasing for higher contents. Electrical resistivity decreases and Seebeck coefficient slightly raises when Mg content increases until 0.05 Mg addition. The improvement in both parameters leads to higher power factor values than the usually obtained in samples prepared by the conventional solid state routes and close to those obtained in textured materials.Se han preparado cerámicas termoeléctricas policristalinas de Ca3-xMgxCo4O9, con pequeñas cantidades de Mg, utilizando el método clásico de estado sólido. La caracterización microestructural ha mostrado que el Mg se ha incorporado en la estructura del Ca3Co4O9 y que no se han formado fases secundarias con el Mg. Las medidas de densidad aparente han mostrado que las muestras prácticamente poseen la misma densidad hasta un contenido de 0.05 Mg, disminuyendo para contenidos mayores. La resistividad eléctrica disminuye y el coeficiente Seebeck aumenta cuando el contenido de Mg se incrementa hasta valores de 0.05. La mejora de ambos parámetros conduce a valores del factor de potencia mayores que los obtenidos en muestras preparadas por la vía convencional de estado sólido, alcanzando valores próximos a los que se encuentran en materiales texturados

Thermoelectric doping effect in Ca3Co4-xNixO9 ceramics

Ca3Co4-xNixO9 (x=0.01, 0.03, and 0.05) polycrystalline thermoelectric ceramics have been prepared by the classical solid state method. As a result of the Ni addition an increase in porosity has been detected. Moreover, the presence of Ni has been related with the increase of Ca2Co3O6 secondary phase and the appearance of a new NiO-CoO solid solution. However, for the 0.01-Ni doped samples an improvement in the thermoelectric performances has been measured. This effect has been related with a decrease in the resistivity values and an increase in the Seebeck coefficient. The raise in the power factor for the 0.01-Ni doped samples, compared with the undoped ones, is between 10 and 25% at 50 and 800 °C respectively. Moreover, the maximum power at 800 °C, around 0.25 mW/K2.m, is significantly higher than the best results obtained in Ni doped samples reported previously in the literature

Influence of Ca substitution by Mg on the Ca3Co4O9 performances

Ca3-xMgxCo4O9 polycrystalline thermoelectric ceramics with small amounts of Mg have been synthesized by the classical solid state method. Microstructural characterizations have shown that all the Mg has been incorporated into the Ca3Co4O9 structure and no Mg-based secondary phases have been identified. Apparent density measurements have shown that samples do not modify their density until 0.05 Mg content, decreasing for higher contents. Electrical resistivity decreases and Seebeck coefficient slightly raises when Mg content increases until 0.05 Mg addition. The improvement in both parameters leads to higher power factor values than the usually obtained in samples prepared by the conventional solid state routes and close to those obtained in textured materials.Se han preparado cerámicas termoeléctricas policristalinas de Ca3-xMgxCo4O9, con pequeñas cantidades de Mg, utilizando el método clásico de estado sólido. La caracterización microestructural ha mostrado que el Mg se ha incorporado en la estructura del Ca3Co4O9 y que no se han formado fases secundarias con el Mg. Las medidas de densidad aparente han mostrado que las muestras prácticamente poseen la misma densidad hasta un contenido de 0.05 Mg, disminuyendo para contenidos mayores. La resistividad eléctrica disminuye y el coeficiente Seebeck aumenta cuando el contenido de Mg se incrementa hasta valores de 0.05. La mejora de ambos parámetros conduce a valores del factor de potencia mayores que los obtenidos en muestras preparadas por la vía convencional de estado sólido, alcanzando valores próximos a los que se encuentran en materiales texturados

Exploring the high-temperature electrical performance of Ca3-xLaxCo4O9 thermoelectric ceramics for moderate and low substitution levels

Aliovalent substitutions in Ca3Co4O9 often result in complex effects on the electrical properties and the solubility, and impact of the substituting cation also depends largely on the preparation and processing method. It is also well-known that the monoclinic symmetry of this material’s composite crystal structure allows for a significant hole transfer from the rock salt-type Ca2CoO3 buffer layers to the hexagonal CoO2 ones, increasing the concentration of holes and breaking the electron-hole symmetry from the latter layers. This work explored the relevant effects of relatively low La-for-Ca substitutions, for samples prepared and processed through a conventional ceramic route, chosen for its simplicity. The obtained results show that the actual substitution level does not exceed 0.03 (x < 0.03) in Ca3-xLaxCo4O9 samples with x = 0.01, 0.03, 0.05 and 0.07 and that further introduction of lanthanum results in simultaneous Ca3Co4O9 phase decomposition and secondary Ca3Co2O6 and (La, Ca)CoO3 phase formation. The microstructural effects promoted by this phase evolution have a moderate influence on the electronic transport. The electrical measurements and determined average oxidation state of cobalt at room temperature suggest that the present La substitutions might only have a minor effect on the concentration of charge carriers and/or their mobility. The electrical resistivity values of the Ca3-xLaxCo4O9 samples with x = 0.01, 0.03 and 0.05 were found to be ~1.3 times (or 24%) lower (considering mean values) than those measured for the pristine Ca3Co4O9 samples, while the changes in Seebeck coefficient values were only moderate. The highest power factor value calculated for Ca2.99La0.01Co4O9 (~0.28 mW/K2m at 800 °C) is among the best found in the literature for similar materials. The obtained results suggest that low rare-earth substitutions in the rock salt-type layers can be a promising pathway in designing and improving these p-type thermoelectric oxides, provided by the strong interplay between the mobility of charge carriers and their concentration, capable of breaking the electron-hole symmetry from the conductive layers. © 2021 by the authors

Non-Localizability and Asymptotic Commutativity

The mathematical formalism commonly used in treating nonlocal highly singular interactions is revised. The notion of support cone is introduced which replaces that of support for nonlocalizable distributions. Such support cones are proven to exist for distributions defined on the Gelfand-Shilov spaces $S^\beta$, where $0<\beta <1$ . This result leads to a refinement of previous generalizations of the local commutativity condition to nonlocal quantum fields. For string propagators, a new derivation of a representation similar to that of K\"{a}llen-Lehmann is proposed. It is applicable to any initial and final string configurations and manifests exponential growth of spectral densities intrinsic in nonlocalizable theories.Comment: This version is identical to the initial one whose ps and pdf files were unavailable, with few corrections of misprint

Wave packet revivals and the energy eigenvalue spectrum of the quantum pendulum

The rigid pendulum, both as a classical and as a quantum problem, is an interesting system as it has the exactly soluble harmonic oscillator and the rigid rotor systems as limiting cases in the low- and high-energy limits respectively. The energy variation of the classical periodicity ($\tau$) is also dramatic, having the special limiting case of $\tau \to \infty$ at the 'top' of the classical motion (i.e. the separatrix.) We study the time-dependence of the quantum pendulum problem, focusing on the behavior of both the (approximate) classical periodicity and especially the quantum revival and superrevival times, as encoded in the energy eigenvalue spectrum of the system. We provide approximate expressions for the energy eigenvalues in both the small and large quantum number limits, up to 4th order in perturbation theory, comparing these to existing handbook expansions for the characteristic values of the related Mathieu equation, obtained by other methods. We then use these approximations to probe the classical periodicity, as well as to extract information on the quantum revival and superrevival times. We find that while both the classical and quantum periodicities increase monotonically as one approaches the 'top' in energy, from either above or below, the revival times decrease from their low- and high-energy values until very near the separatrix where they increase to a large, but finite value.Comment: 27 pages, 8 embedded .eps figures; to appear, Annals of Physic

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters