994 research outputs found
Relaxation increases monetary valuations
postprintThe Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP) 2010 Winter Conference, St. Pete Beach, FL., 25-27 February 2010. In Proceedings of the Society for Consumer Psychology 2010 Winter Conference, 2010, p. 173-17
Single-Atom Resolved Fluorescence Imaging of an Atomic Mott Insulator
The reliable detection of single quantum particles has revolutionized the
field of quantum optics and quantum information processing. For several years,
researchers have aspired to extend such detection possibilities to larger scale
strongly correlated quantum systems, in order to record in-situ images of a
quantum fluid in which each underlying quantum particle is detected. Here we
report on fluorescence imaging of strongly interacting bosonic Mott insulators
in an optical lattice with single-atom and single-site resolution. From our
images, we fully reconstruct the atom distribution on the lattice and identify
individual excitations with high fidelity. A comparison of the radial density
and variance distributions with theory provides a precise in-situ temperature
and entropy measurement from single images. We observe Mott-insulating plateaus
with near zero entropy and clearly resolve the high entropy rings separating
them although their width is of the order of only a single lattice site.
Furthermore, we show how a Mott insulator melts for increasing temperatures due
to a proliferation of local defects. Our experiments open a new avenue for the
manipulation and analysis of strongly interacting quantum gases on a lattice,
as well as for quantum information processing with ultracold atoms. Using the
high spatial resolution, it is now possible to directly address individual
lattice sites. One could, e.g., introduce local perturbations or access regions
of high entropy, a crucial requirement for the implementation of novel cooling
schemes for atoms on a lattice
Long Lived Fourth Generation and the Higgs
A chiral fourth generation is a simple and well motivated extension of the
standard model, and has important consequences for Higgs phenomenology. Here we
consider a scenario where the fourth generation neutrinos are long lived and
have both a Dirac and Majorana mass term. Such neutrinos can be as light as 40
GeV and can be the dominant decay mode of the Higgs boson for Higgs masses
below the W-boson threshold. We study the effect of the Majorana mass term on
the Higgs branching fractions and reevaluate the Tevatron constraints on the
Higgs mass. We discuss the prospects for the LHC to detect the semi-invisible
Higgs decays into fourth generation neutrino pairs. Under the assumption that
the lightest fourth generation neutrino is stable, it's thermal relic density
can be up to 20% of the observed dark matter density in the universe. This is
in agreement with current constraints on the spin dependent neutrino-neutron
cross section, but can be probed by the next generation of dark matter direct
detection experiments.Comment: v1: 19 pages, 5 figures; v2: References added; v3: version to appear
in JHE
Modulated Instability in Five-Dimensional U(1) Charged AdS Black Hole with R**2-term
We study the effect of R**2 term to the modulated instability in the U(1)
charged black hole in five-dimensional Anti-de Sitter space-time. We consider
the first-order corrections of R**2 term to the background and the linear order
perturbations in the equations of motion. From the analysis, we clarify the
effect of R**2 term in the modulated instability, and conclude that
fluctuations are stable in the whole bulk in the range of values the
coefficient of R**2 term can take.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figures; (v4) Published version in JHE
Searching for Exoplanets Using a Microresonator Astrocomb
Detection of weak radial velocity shifts of host stars induced by orbiting
planets is an important technique for discovering and characterizing planets
beyond our solar system. Optical frequency combs enable calibration of stellar
radial velocity shifts at levels required for detection of Earth analogs. A new
chip-based device, the Kerr soliton microcomb, has properties ideal for
ubiquitous application outside the lab and even in future space-borne
instruments. Moreover, microcomb spectra are ideally suited for astronomical
spectrograph calibration and eliminate filtering steps required by conventional
mode-locked-laser frequency combs. Here, for the calibration of astronomical
spectrographs, we demonstrate an atomic/molecular line-referenced,
near-infrared soliton microcomb. Efforts to search for the known exoplanet HD
187123b were conducted at the Keck-II telescope as a first in-the-field
demonstration of microcombs
The Prognostic Value of Non-Linear Analysis of Heart Rate Variability in Patients with Congestive Heart FailureâA Pilot Study of Multiscale Entropy
AIMS: The influences of nonstationarity and nonlinearity on heart rate time series can be mathematically qualified or quantified by multiscale entropy (MSE). The aim of this study is to investigate the prognostic value of parameters derived from MSE in the patients with systolic heart failure. METHODS AND RESULTS: Patients with systolic heart failure were enrolled in this study. One month after clinical condition being stable, 24-hour Holter electrocardiogram was recording. MSE as well as other standard parameters of heart rate variability (HRV) and detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) were assessed. A total of 40 heart failure patients with a mea age of 56±16 years were enrolled and followed-up for 684±441 days. There were 25 patients receiving ÎČ-blockers treatment. During follow-up period, 6 patients died or received urgent heart transplantation. The short-term exponent of DFA and the slope of MSE between scale 1 to 5 were significantly different between patients with or without ÎČ-blockers (pâ=â0.014 and pâ=â0.028). Only the area under the MSE curve for scale 6 to 20 (Area(6-20)) showed the strongest predictive power between survival (nâ=â34) and mortality (nâ=â6) groups among all the parameters. The value of Area(6-20)21.2 served as a significant predictor of mortality or heart transplant (pâ=â0.0014). CONCLUSION: The area under the MSE curve for scale 6 to 20 is not relevant to ÎČ-blockers and could further warrant independent risk stratification for the prognosis of CHF patients
Hypoxia Inhibits Osteogenesis in Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells through Direct Regulation of RUNX2 by TWIST
Bone loss induced by hypoxia is associated with various pathophysiological conditions, however, little is known about the effects of hypoxia and related signaling pathways on osteoblast differentiation and bone formation. Because bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) survive under hypoxic conditions and readily differentiate into osteoblasts by standard induction protocols, they are a good in vitro model to study the effects of hypoxia on osteoblast differentiation.Using human MSCs, we discovered TWIST, a downstream target of HIF-1α, was induced under hypoxia and acted as a transcription repressor of RUNX2 through binding to the E-box located on the promoter of type 1 RUNX2. Suppression of type 1 RUNX2 by TWIST under hypoxia further inhibited the expression of BMP2, type 2 RUNX2 and downstream targets of RUNX2 in MSCs.Our findings point to the important role of hypoxia-mediated signalling in osteogenic differentiation in MSCs through direct regulation of RUNX2 by TWIST, and provide a method for modifying MSC osteogenesis upon application of these cells in fracture healing and bone reconstruction
Micro-manufacturing : research, technology outcomes and development issues
Besides continuing effort in developing MEMS-based manufacturing techniques, latest effort in Micro-manufacturing is also in Non-MEMS-based manufacturing. Research and technological development (RTD) in this field is encouraged by the increased demand on micro-components as well as promised development in the scaling down of the traditional macro-manufacturing processes for micro-length-scale manufacturing. This paper highlights some EU funded research activities in micro/nano-manufacturing, and gives examples of the latest development in micro-manufacturing methods/techniques, process chains, hybrid-processes, manufacturing equipment and supporting technologies/device, etc., which is followed by a summary of the achievements of the EU MASMICRO project. Finally, concluding remarks are given, which raise several issues concerning further development in micro-manufacturing
Hippocampal Desynchronization of Functional Connectivity Prior to the Onset of Status Epilepticus in Pilocarpine-Treated Rats
Status epilepticus (SE), a pro-epileptogenic brain insult in rodent models of temporal lobe epilepsy, is successfully induced by pilocarpine in some, but not all, rats. This study aimed to identify characteristic alterations within the hippocampal neural network prior to the onset of SE. Sixteen microwire electrodes were implanted into the left hippocampus of male Sprague-Dawley rats. After a 7-day recovery period, animal behavior, hippocampal neuronal ensemble activities, and local field potentials (LFP) were recorded before and after an intra-peritoneal injection of pilocarpine (350 mg/kg). The single-neuron firing, population neuronal correlation, and coincident firing between neurons were compared between SE (nâ=â9) and nonSE rats (nâ=â12). A significant decrease in the strength of functional connectivity prior to the onset of SE, as measured by changes in coincident spike timing between pairs of hippocampal neurons, was exclusively found in SE rats. However, single-neuron firing and LFP profiles did not show a significant difference between SE and nonSE rats. These results suggest that desynchronization in the functional circuitry of the hippocampus, likely associated with a change in synaptic strength, may serve as an electrophysiological marker prior to SE in pilocarpine-treated rats
Comparison of Pathway Analysis Approaches Using Lung Cancer GWAS Data Sets
Pathway analysis has been proposed as a complement to single SNP analyses in GWAS. This study compared pathway analysis methods using two lung cancer GWAS data sets based on four studies: one a combined data set from Central Europe and Toronto (CETO); the other a combined data set from Germany and MD Anderson (GRMD). We searched the literature for pathway analysis methods that were widely used, representative of other methods, and had available software for performing analysis. We selected the programs EASE, which uses a modified Fishers Exact calculation to test for pathway associations, GenGen (a version of Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA)), which uses a Kolmogorov-Smirnov-like running sum statistic as the test statistic, and SLAT, which uses a p-value combination approach. We also included a modified version of the SUMSTAT method (mSUMSTAT), which tests for association by averaging Ï2 statistics from genotype association tests. There were nearly 18000 genes available for analysis, following mapping of more than 300,000 SNPs from each data set. These were mapped to 421 GO level 4 gene sets for pathway analysis. Among the methods designed to be robust to biases related to gene size and pathway SNP correlation (GenGen, mSUMSTAT and SLAT), the mSUMSTAT approach identified the most significant pathways (8 in CETO and 1 in GRMD). This included a highly plausible association for the acetylcholine receptor activity pathway in both CETO (FDRâ€0.001) and GRMD (FDRâ=â0.009), although two strong association signals at a single gene cluster (CHRNA3-CHRNA5-CHRNB4) drive this result, complicating its interpretation. Few other replicated associations were found using any of these methods. Difficulty in replicating associations hindered our comparison, but results suggest mSUMSTAT has advantages over the other approaches, and may be a useful pathway analysis tool to use alongside other methods such as the commonly used GSEA (GenGen) approach
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