351 research outputs found
EFFECT OF THE SPIN STATE OF COBALT IONS ON THE METAL-INSULATOR TRANSITION IN LAYERED COBALTITES
At a temperature of about 360 K, europium layered cobaltite makes a metal-insulator transition due to a change in the spin state of the ion of cobalt. The europium ion also contributes to the change in the spin state of cobalt ions, which must be taken into account
Probing Mechanical Properties of Graphene with Raman Spectroscopy
The use of Raman scattering techniques to study the mechanical properties of
graphene films is reviewed here. The determination of Gruneisen parameters of
suspended graphene sheets under uni- and bi-axial strain is discussed and the
values are compared to theoretical predictions. The effects of the
graphene-substrate interaction on strain and to the temperature evolution of
the graphene Raman spectra are discussed. Finally, the relation between
mechanical and thermal properties is presented along with the characterization
of thermal properties of graphene with Raman spectroscopy.Comment: To appear in the Journal of Materials Scienc
Spintronics: Fundamentals and applications
Spintronics, or spin electronics, involves the study of active control and
manipulation of spin degrees of freedom in solid-state systems. This article
reviews the current status of this subject, including both recent advances and
well-established results. The primary focus is on the basic physical principles
underlying the generation of carrier spin polarization, spin dynamics, and
spin-polarized transport in semiconductors and metals. Spin transport differs
from charge transport in that spin is a nonconserved quantity in solids due to
spin-orbit and hyperfine coupling. The authors discuss in detail spin
decoherence mechanisms in metals and semiconductors. Various theories of spin
injection and spin-polarized transport are applied to hybrid structures
relevant to spin-based devices and fundamental studies of materials properties.
Experimental work is reviewed with the emphasis on projected applications, in
which external electric and magnetic fields and illumination by light will be
used to control spin and charge dynamics to create new functionalities not
feasible or ineffective with conventional electronics.Comment: invited review, 36 figures, 900+ references; minor stylistic changes
from the published versio
The diagnosis and management of pre-invasive breast disease Problems associated with management of pre-invasive lesions
Renormalization-group study of Anderson and Kondo impurities in gapless Fermi systems
Thermodynamic properties are presented for four magnetic impurity models
describing delocalized fermions scattering from a localized orbital at an
energy-dependent rate which vanishes precisely at the Fermi
level, . Specifically, it is assumed that for small ,
with . The cases and
describe dilute magnetic impurities in unconventional superconductors, ``flux
phases'' of the two-dimensional electron gas, and zero-gap semiconductors. For
the nondegenerate Anderson model, the depression of the low-energy scattering
rate suppresses mixed valence in favor of local-moment behavior, and leads to a
marked reduction in the exchange coupling on entry to the local-moment regime,
with a consequent narrowing of the range of parameters within which the
impurity spin becomes Kondo-screened. The relationship between the Anderson
model and the exactly screened Kondo model with power-law exchange is examined.
The intermediate-coupling fixed point identified in the latter model by Withoff
and Fradkin (WF) has clear signatures in the thermodynamic properties and in
the local magnetic response of the impurity. The underscreened,
impurity-spin-one Kondo model and the overscreened, two-channel Kondo model
both exhibit a conditionally stable intermediate-coupling fixed point in
addition to unstable fixed points of the WF type. In all four models, the
presence or absence of particle-hole symmetry plays a crucial role.Comment: 44 two-column REVTex pages, 31 epsf-embedded EPS figures. MINOR
formatting changes. To appear in Phys. Rev.
S-[F-18] THK-5117-PET and [C-11] PIB-PET Imaging in Idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus in Relation to Confirmed Amyloid-beta Plaques and Tau in Brain Biopsies
BACKGROUND:
Detection of pathological tau aggregates could facilitate clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and monitor drug effects in clinical trials. S-[18F]THK-5117 could be a potential tracer to detect pathological tau deposits in brain. However, no previous study have correlated S-[18F]THK-5117 uptake in PET with brain biopsy verified tau pathology in vivo.
OBJECTIVE:
Here we aim to evaluate the association between cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) AD biomarkers, S-[18F]THK-5117, and [11C]PIB PET against tau and amyloid lesions in brain biopsy.
METHODS:
Fourteen patients with idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) with previous shunt surgery including right frontal cortical brain biopsy and CSF Aβ1 - 42, total tau, and P-tau181 measures, underwent brain MRI, [11C]PIB PET, and S-[18F]THK-5117 PET imaging.
RESULTS:
Seven patients had amyloid-β (Aβ, 4G8) plaques, two both Aβ and phosphorylated tau (Pτ, AT8) and one only Pτ in biopsy. As expected, increased brain biopsy Aβ was well associated with higher [11C]PIB uptake in PET. However, S-[18F]THK-5117 uptake did not show any statistically significant correlation with either brain biopsy Pτ or CSF P-tau181 or total tau.
CONCLUSION:
S-[18F]THK-5117 lacked clear association with neuropathologically verified tau pathology in brain biopsy probably, at least partially, due to off-target binding. Further studies with larger samples of patients with different tau tracers are urgently needed. The detection of simultaneous Aβ and tau pathology in iNPH is important since that may indicate poorer and especially shorter response for CSF shunt surgery compared with no pathology
Prognostic significance of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in ductal carcinoma in situ of the breast
Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) provide prognostic value in invasive breast cancer and guidelines for their assessment have been published. This study aims to evaluate: (a) methods of TILs assessment, and (b) their prognostic significance in breast ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Hematoxylin and eosin sections from two clinically annotated DCIS cohorts; a training set (n = 150 pure DCIS) and a validation set (n = 666 comprising 534 pure DCIS and 132 cases wherein DCIS and invasive breast carcinoma were co-existent) were assessed. Seven different scoring methods were applied to the training set to identify the most optimal reproducible method associated with strongest prognostic value. Among different methods, TILs touching ducts' basement membrane or away from it by one lymphocyte cell thickness provided the strongest significant association with outcome and highest concordance rate [inter-cluster correlation coefficient = 0.95]. Assessment of periductal TILs at increasing distances from DCIS (0.2 , 0.5 , and 1 mm) as well as percent of stromal TILs were practically challenging and showed lower concordance rates than touching TILs. TILs hotspots and lymphoid follicles did not show prognostic significance. Within the pure DCIS validation set, dense TILs were associated with younger age, symptomatic presentation, larger size, higher nuclear grade, comedo necrosis and estrogen receptor negativity as well as shorter recurrence-free interval (p = 0.002). In multivariate survival analysis, dense TILs were independent predictor of shorter recurrence-free interval (p = 0.002) in patients treated with breast conservation. DCIS associated with invasive carcinoma showed denser TILs than pure DCIS (p = 9.0 × 10-13). Dense TILs is an independent prognostic variable in DCIS. Touching TILs provides a reproducible method for their assessment that can potentially be used to guide management
Solvent-Induced Reversal of Activities between Two Closely Related Heterogeneous Catalysts in the Aldol Reaction
The relative rates of the aldol reaction catalyzed by supported primary and secondary amines can be inverted by 2 orders of magnitude, depending on the use of hexane or water as a solvent. Our analyses suggest that this dramatic shift in the catalytic behavior of the supported amines does not involve differences in reaction mechanism, but is caused by activation of imine to enamine equilibria and stabilization of iminium species. The effects of solvent polarity and acidity were found to be important to the performance of the catalytic reaction. This study highlights the critical role of solvent in multicomponent heterogeneous catalytic processes
Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays
The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device
in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken
during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the
number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for
all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The
efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments
reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per
layer is approximately 5 ns
Performance and Operation of the CMS Electromagnetic Calorimeter
The operation and general performance of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter
using cosmic-ray muons are described. These muons were recorded after the
closure of the CMS detector in late 2008. The calorimeter is made of lead
tungstate crystals and the overall status of the 75848 channels corresponding
to the barrel and endcap detectors is reported. The stability of crucial
operational parameters, such as high voltage, temperature and electronic noise,
is summarised and the performance of the light monitoring system is presented
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