502 research outputs found
Unconventional cosmology on the (thick) brane
We consider the cosmology of a thick codimension 1 brane. We obtain the
matching conditions leading to the cosmological evolution equations and show
that when one includes matter with a pressure component along the extra
dimension in the brane energy-momentum tensor, the cosmology is of non-standard
type. In particular one can get acceleration when a dust of non-relativistic
matter particles is the only source for the (modified) Friedman equation. Our
equations would seem to violate the conservation of energy-momentum from a 4D
perspective, but in 5D the energy-momentum is conserved. One could write down
an effective conserved 4D energy-momentum tensor attaching a ``dark energy''
component to the energy-momentum tensor of matter that has pressure along the
extra dimension. This extra component could, on a cosmological scale, be
interpreted as matter-coupled quintessence. We comment on the effective 4D
description of this effect in terms of the time evolution of a scalar field
(the 5D radion) coupled to this kind of matter.Comment: 9 pages, v2. eq.(17) corrected, comments on effective theory change
Higher codimension braneworlds from intersecting branes
We study the matching conditions of intersecting brane worlds in Lovelock
gravity in arbitrary dimension. We show that intersecting various codimension 1
and/or codimension 2 branes one can find solutions that represent
energy-momentum densities localized in the intersection, providing thus the
first examples of infinitesimally thin higher codimension braneworlds that are
free of singularities and where the backreaction of the brane in the background
is fully taken into account.Comment: 20 pages; v2. references and comments added to match the published
versio
Gravity on codimension 2 brane worlds
We compute the matching conditions for a general thick codimension 2 brane, a
necessary previous step towards the investigation of gravitational phenomena in
codimension 2 braneworlds. We show that, provided the brane is weakly curved,
they are specified by the integral in the extra dimensions of the brane
energy-momentum, independently of its detailed internal structure. These
general matching conditions can then be used as boundary conditions for the
bulk solution. By evaluating Einstein equations at the brane boundary we are
able to write an evolution equation for the induced metric on the brane
depending only on physical brane parameters and the bulk energy-momentum
tensor. We particularise to a cosmological metric and show that a realistic
cosmology can be obtained in the simplest case of having just a non-zero
cosmological constant in the bulk. We point out several parallelisms between
this case and the codimension 1 brane worlds in an AdS space.Comment: 24 page
Brane-bulk matter relation for a purely conical codimension-2 brane world
We study gravity on an infinitely thin codimension-2 brane world, with purely
conical singularities and in the presence of an induced gravity term on the
brane. We show that in this approximation, the energy momentum tensor of the
bulk is strongly related to the energy momentum tensor of the brane and thus
the gravity dynamics on the brane are induced by the bulk content. This is in
contrast with the gravity dynamics on a codimension-1 brane. We show how this
strong result is relaxed after including a Gauss-Bonnet term in the bulk.Comment: 12 pages, mistake corrected, references adde
Evolution of Thick Walls in Curved Spacetimes
We generalize our previous thick shell formalism to incorporate any
codimension-1 thick wall with a peculiar velocity and proper thickness bounded
by arbitrary spacetimes. Within this new formulation we obtain the equation of
motion of a spherically symmetric dust thick shell immersed in vacuum as well
as in Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetimes.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur
Prognostic Factors for Postoperative Chronic Pain after Knee or Hip Replacement in Patients with Knee or Hip Osteoarthritis: An Umbrella Review
Knee and hip osteoarthritis are highly prevalent in the older population. Management of osteoarthritis-related pain includes conservative or surgical treatment. Although knee or hip joint replacement is associated with positive outcomes, up to 30% of patients report postoperative pain in the first two years. This study aimed to synthesize current evidence on prognostic factors for predicting postoperative pain after knee or hip replacement. An umbrella review of systematic reviews was conducted to summarize the magnitude and quality of the evidence for prognostic preoperative factors predictive of postoperative chronic pain (>6 months after surgery) in patients who had received knee or hip replacement. Searches were conducted in MEDLINE, CINAHL, PubMed, PEDro, SCOPUS, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science databases from inception up to 5 August 2022 for reviews published in the English language. A narrative synthesis, a risk of bias assessment, and an evaluation of the evidence confidence were performed. Eighteen reviews (nine on knee surgery, four on hip replacement, and seven on both hip/knee replacement) were included. From 44 potential preoperative prognostic factors, just 20 were judged as having high or moderate confidence for robust findings. Race, opioid use, preoperative function, neuropathic pain symptoms, pain catastrophizing, anxiety, other pain sites, fear of movement, social support, preoperative pain, mental health, coping strategies, central sensitization-associated symptoms, and depression had high/moderate confidence for an association with postoperative chronic pain. Some comorbidities such as heart disease, stroke, lung disease, nervous system disorders, and poor circulation had high/moderate confidence for no association with postoperative chronic pain. This review has identified multiple preoperative factors (i.e., sociodemographic, clinical, psychological, cognitive) associated with postoperative chronic pain after knee or hip replacement. These factors may be used for identifying individuals at a risk of developing postoperative chronic pain. Further research can investigate the impact of using such prognostic data on treatment decisions and patient outcomes.</p
Flux Compactifications: Stability and Implications for Cosmology
We study the dynamics of the size of an extra-dimensional manifold stabilised
by fluxes. Inspecting the potential for the 4D field associated with this size
(the radion), we obtain the conditions under which it can be stabilised and
show that stable compactifications on hyperbolic manifolds necessarily have a
negative four-dimensional cosmological constant, in contradiction with
experimental observations. Assuming compactification on a positively curved
(spherical) manifold we find that the radion has a mass of the order of the
compactification scale, M_c, and Planck suppressed couplings. We also show that
the model becomes unstable and the extra dimensions decompactify when the
four-dimensional curvature is higher than a maximum value. This in particular
sets an upper bound on the scale of inflation in these models: V_max \sim M_c^2
M_P^2, independently of whether the radion or other field is responsible for
inflation. We comment on other possible contributions to the radion potential
as well as finite temperature effects and their impact on the bounds obtained.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure, LaTeX; v2: typos fixed and references adde
Modified-Source Gravity and Cosmological Structure Formation
One way to account for the acceleration of the universe is to modify general
relativity, rather than introducing dark energy. Typically, such modifications
introduce new degrees of freedom. It is interesting to consider models with no
new degrees of freedom, but with a modified dependence on the conventional
energy-momentum tensor; the Palatini formulation of theories is one
example. Such theories offer an interesting testing ground for investigations
of cosmological modified gravity. In this paper we study the evolution of
structure in these ``modified-source gravity'' theories. In the linear regime,
density perturbations exhibit scale dependent runaway growth at late times and,
in particular, a mode of a given wavenumber goes nonlinear at a higher redshift
than in the standard CDM model. We discuss the implications of this
behavior and why there are reasons to expect that the growth will be cut off in
the nonlinear regime. Assuming that this holds in a full nonlinear analysis, we
briefly describe how upcoming measurements may probe the differences between
the modified theory and the standard CDM model.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, uses iopart styl
Adrenergic Modulation With Photochromic Ligands
© 2020 Wiley-VCH GmbH Adrenoceptors are ubiquitous and mediate important autonomic functions as well as modulating arousal, cognition, and pain on a central level. Understanding these physiological processes and their underlying neural circuits requires manipulating adrenergic neurotransmission with high spatio-temporal precision. Here we present a first generation of photochromic ligands (adrenoswitches) obtained via azologization of a class of cyclic amidines related to the known ligand clonidine. Their pharmacology, photochromism, bioavailability, and lack of toxicity allow for broad biological applications, as demonstrated by controlling locomotion in zebrafish and pupillary responses in mice
The emotional movie database (EMDB): a self-report and psychophysiological study
Film clips are an important tool for evoking
emotional responses in the laboratory. When compared
with other emotionally potent visual stimuli (e.g., pictures),
film clips seem to be more effective in eliciting emotions
for longer periods of time at both the subjective and
physiological levels. The main objective of the present
study was to develop a new database of affective film clips
without auditory content, based on a dimensional approach
to emotional stimuli (valence, arousal and dominance). The
study had three different phases: (1) the pre-selection and
editing of 52 film clips (2) the self-report rating of these
film clips by a sample of 113 participants and (3) psychophysiological
assessment [skin conductance level
(SCL) and the heart rate (HR)] on 32 volunteers. Film clips
from different categories were selected to elicit emotional
states from different quadrants of affective space. The
results also showed that sustained exposure to the affective
film clips resulted in a pattern of a SCL increase and HR
deceleration in high arousal conditions (i.e., horror and
erotic conditions). The resulting emotional movie database
can reliably be used in research requiring the presentation
of non-auditory film clips with different ratings of valence,
arousal and dominance.Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology with individual grants
(SFRH/BD/41484/2007 and SFRH/BD/64355/2009
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