1,149 research outputs found
Toy Model for Pion Production II: The role of three-particle singularities
The influence of three-particle breakup singularities on s-wave meson
production in nucleon-nucleon collisions is studied within the distorted wave
Born approximation. This study is based on a simple scalar model for the
two-nucleon interaction and the production mechanism. An algorithm for the
exact numerical treatment of the inherent three-body cuts, together with its
straightforward implementation is presented. It is also shown that two
often-used approximations to avoid the calculation of the three-body breakup
are not justified. The possible impact on pion production observables is
discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure
The association between calf circumference and appendicular skeletal muscle mass index of black urban women in Tlokwe City
Background: Sarcopenia, the loss of muscle mass and strength, is associated with adverse health outcomes. Calf circumference (CC) has been proposed as a surrogate measure of muscle mass in the elderly; however, ethnic/sex specific cut-off values remain to be established.Objective: A study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between CC and appendicular skeletal muscle mass (ASM), and the ASM index (ASMI), as well as to determine whether CC could be used to diagnose sarcopenia.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 247 older black women living from Tlokwe, South Africa. ASM was measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, and the ASMI was calculated. Receiver operator characteristics curves and maximum Youden index were applied to identify a CC cut-off point for sarcopenia according to low gait speed (< 0.8 m/s), low hand-grip strength (< 16 kg) and low ASMI using a South African cut-off point for sarcopenia (ASMI < 4.94 kg/m2).Results: A strong positive correlation between CC and ASMI (r = 0.84, p < 0.001) was observed. The CC to predict low hand-grip strength was 34.3 cm and 37.8 cm for low gait speed. A CC of 29.9 cm was indicative of sarcopenia. The area under the curve for all outcomes was > 0.60.Conclusion: A CC of 30 cm is proposed as a simple and inexpensive way to predict, screen or diagnose sarcopenia in black women in low-resource health settings. An accessible, inexpensive screening or diagnostic tool could facilitate timely interventions and prevention.Keywords: gait speed, geriatric, hand-grip strength, muscle strength, sarcopeni
End-to-End Adversarial Retinal Image Synthesis.
In medical image analysis applications, the availability of the large amounts of annotated data is becoming increasingly critical. However, annotated medical data is often scarce and costly to obtain. In this paper, we address the problem of synthesizing retinal color images by applying recent techniques based on adversarial learning. In this setting, a generative model is trained to maximize a loss function provided by a second model attempting to classify its output into real or synthetic. In particular, we propose to implement an adversarial autoencoder for the task of retinal vessel network synthesis. We use the generated vessel trees as an intermediate stage for the generation of color retinal images, which is accomplished with a generative adversarial network. Both models require the optimization of almost everywhere differentiable loss functions, which allows us to train them jointly. The resulting model offers an end-to-end retinal image synthesis system capable of generating as many retinal images as the user requires, with their corresponding vessel networks, by sampling from a simple probability distribution that we impose to the associated latent space. We show that the learned latent space contains a well-defined semantic structure, implying that we can perform calculations in the space of retinal images, e.g., smoothly interpolating new data points between two retinal images. Visual and quantitative results demonstrate that the synthesized images are substantially different from those in the training set, while being also anatomically consistent and displaying a reasonable visual quality
Current-induced highly dissipative domains in high Tc thin films
We have investigated the resistive response of high Tc thin films submitted
to a high density of current. For this purpose, current pulses were applied
into bridges made of Nd(1.15)Ba(1.85)Cu3O7 and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8. By recording the
time dependent voltage, we observe that at a certain critical current j*, a
highly dissipative domain develops somewhere along the bridge. The successive
formation of these domains produces stepped I-V characteristics. We present
evidences that these domains are not regions with a temperature above Tc, as
for hot spots. In fact this phenomenon appears to be analog to the nucleation
of phase-slip centers observed in conventional superconductors near Tc, but
here in contrast they appear in a wide temperature range. Under some
conditions, these domains will propagate and destroy the superconductivity
within the whole sample. We have measured the temperature dependence of j* and
found a similar behavior in the two investigated compounds. This temperature
dependence is just the one expected for the depairing current, but the
amplitude is about 100 times smaller.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, Revtex, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Interatomic potentials for atomistic simulations of the Ti-Al system
Semi-empirical interatomic potentials have been developed for Al, alpha-Ti,
and gamma-TiAl within the embedded atomic method (EAM) by fitting to a large
database of experimental as well as ab-initio data. The ab-initio calculations
were performed by the linear augmented plane wave (LAPW) method within the
density functional theory to obtain the equations of state for a number of
crystal structures of the Ti-Al system. Some of the calculated LAPW energies
were used for fitting the potentials while others for examining their quality.
The potentials correctly predict the equilibrium crystal structures of the
phases and accurately reproduce their basic lattice properties. The potentials
are applied to calculate the energies of point defects, surfaces, planar faults
in the equilibrium structures. Unlike earlier EAM potentials for the Ti-Al
system, the proposed potentials provide reasonable description of the lattice
thermal expansion, demonstrating their usefulness in the molecular dynamics or
Monte Carlo studies at high temperatures. The energy along the tetragonal
deformation path (Bain transformation) in gamma-TiAl calculated with the EAM
potential is in a fairly good agreement with LAPW calculations. Equilibrium
point defect concentrations in gamma-TiAl are studied using the EAM potential.
It is found that antisite defects strongly dominate over vacancies at all
compositions around stoichiometry, indicating that gamm-TiAl is an antisite
disorder compound in agreement with experimental data.Comment: 46 pages, 6 figures (Physical Review B, in press
Towards Adversarial Retinal Image Synthesis
Synthesizing images of the eye fundus is a challenging task that has been previously approached by formulating complex models of the anatomy of the eye. New images can then be generated by sampling a suitable parameter space. In this work, we propose a method that learns to synthesize eye fundus images directly from data. For that, we pair true eye fundus images with their respective vessel trees, by means of a vessel segmentation technique. These pairs are then used to learn a mapping from a binary vessel tree to a new retinal image. For this purpose, we use a recent image-to-image translation technique, based on the idea of adversarial learning. Experimental results show that the original and the generated images are visually different in terms of their global appearance, in spite of sharing the same vessel tree. Additionally, a quantitative quality analysis of the synthetic retinal images confirms that the produced images retain a high proportion of the true image set quality
Graphene: new bridge between condensed matter physics and quantum electrodynamics
Graphene is the first example of truly two-dimensional crystals - it's just
one layer of carbon atoms. It turns out to be a gapless semiconductor with
unique electronic properties resulting from the fact that charge carriers in
graphene demonstrate charge-conjugation symmetry between electrons and holes
and possess an internal degree of freedom similar to ``chirality'' for
ultrarelativistic elementary particles. It provides unexpected bridge between
condensed matter physics and quantum electrodynamics (QED). In particular, the
relativistic Zitterbewegung leads to the minimum conductivity of order of
conductance quantum in the limit of zero doping; the concept of Klein
paradox (tunneling of relativistic particles) provides an essential insight
into electron propagation through potential barriers; vacuum polarization
around charge impurities is essential for understanding of high electron
mobility in graphene; index theorem explains anomalous quantum Hall effect.Comment: misprints are fixed; to appear in special issue of Solid State
Communication
Nucleon Polarizabilities from Deuteron Compton Scattering within a Green's-Function Hybrid Approach
We examine elastic Compton scattering from the deuteron for photon energies
ranging from zero to 100 MeV, using state-of-the-art deuteron wave functions
and NN-potentials. Nucleon-nucleon rescattering between emission and absorption
of the two photons is treated by Green's functions in order to ensure gauge
invariance and the correct Thomson limit. With this Green's-function hybrid
approach, we fulfill the low-energy theorem of deuteron Compton scattering and
there is no significant dependence on the deuteron wave function used.
Concerning the nucleon structure, we use Chiral Effective Field Theory with
explicit \Delta(1232) degrees of freedom within the Small Scale Expansion up to
leading-one-loop order. Agreement with available data is good at all energies.
Our 2-parameter fit to all elastic data leads to values for the
static isoscalar dipole polarizabilities which are in excellent agreement with
the isoscalar Baldin sum rule. Taking this value as additional input, we find
\alpha_E^s= (11.3+-0.7(stat)+-0.6(Baldin)) x 10^{-4} fm^3 and \beta_M^s =
(3.2-+0.7(stat)+-0.6(Baldin)) x 10^{-4} fm^3 and conclude by comparison to the
proton numbers that neutron and proton polarizabilities are essentially the
same.Comment: 47 pages LaTeX2e with 20 figures in 59 .eps files, using graphicx.
Minor modifications; extended discussion of theoretical uncertainties of
polarisabilities extraction. Version accepted for publication in EPJ
Statistical Theory of Spin Relaxation and Diffusion in Solids
A comprehensive theoretical description is given for the spin relaxation and
diffusion in solids. The formulation is made in a general
statistical-mechanical way. The method of the nonequilibrium statistical
operator (NSO) developed by D. N. Zubarev is employed to analyze a relaxation
dynamics of a spin subsystem. Perturbation of this subsystem in solids may
produce a nonequilibrium state which is then relaxed to an equilibrium state
due to the interaction between the particles or with a thermal bath (lattice).
The generalized kinetic equations were derived previously for a system weakly
coupled to a thermal bath to elucidate the nature of transport and relaxation
processes. In this paper, these results are used to describe the relaxation and
diffusion of nuclear spins in solids. The aim is to formulate a successive and
coherent microscopic description of the nuclear magnetic relaxation and
diffusion in solids. The nuclear spin-lattice relaxation is considered and the
Gorter relation is derived. As an example, a theory of spin diffusion of the
nuclear magnetic moment in dilute alloys (like Cu-Mn) is developed. It is shown
that due to the dipolar interaction between host nuclear spins and impurity
spins, a nonuniform distribution in the host nuclear spin system will occur and
consequently the macroscopic relaxation time will be strongly determined by the
spin diffusion. The explicit expressions for the relaxation time in certain
physically relevant cases are given.Comment: 41 pages, 119 Refs. Corrected typos, added reference
EUPRON: nurses’ practice in interprofessional pharmaceutical care in Europe. A cross-sectional survey in 17 countries
Abstract Objectives Safe pharmaceutical care (PC) requires an interprofessional team approach, involving physicians, nurses and pharmacists. Nurses’ roles however, are not always explicit and clear, complicating interprofessional collaboration. The aim of this study is to describe nurses’ practice and interprofessional collaboration in PC, from the viewpoint of nurses, physicians and pharmacists. Design A cross-sectional survey. Setting The study was conducted in 17 European countries, each with their own health systems. Participants Pharmacists, physicians and nurses with an active role in PC were surveyed. Main outcome measures Nurses’ involvement in PC, experiences of interprofessional collaboration and communication and views on nurses’ competences. Results A total of 4888 nurses, 974 physicians and 857 pharmacists from 17 European countries responded. Providing patient education and information (PEI), monitoring medicines adherence (MMA), monitoring adverse/therapeutic effects (ME) and prescribing medicines were considered integral to nursing practice by 78%, 73%, 69% and 15% of nurses, respectively. Most respondents were convinced that quality of PC would be improved by increasing nurses’ involvement in ME (95%), MMA (95%), PEI (91%) and prescribing (53%). Mean scores for the reported quality of collaboration between nurses and physicians, collaboration between nurses and pharmacists and interprofessional communication were respectively <7/10, ≤4/10, <6/10 for all four aspects of PC. Conclusions ME, MMA, PEI and prescribing are part of nurses’ activities, and most healthcare professionals felt their involvement should be extended. Collaboration between nurses and physicians on PC is limited and between nurses and pharmacists even more
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