186 research outputs found
Short and random: Modelling the effects of (proto-)neural elongations
To understand how neurons and nervous systems first evolved, we need an
account of the origins of neural elongations: Why did neural elongations (axons
and dendrites) first originate, such that they could become the central
component of both neurons and nervous systems? Two contrasting conceptual
accounts provide different answers to this question. Braitenberg's vehicles
provide the iconic illustration of the dominant input-output (IO) view. Here
the basic role of neural elongations is to connect sensors to effectors, both
situated at different positions within the body. For this function, neural
elongations are thought of as comparatively long and specific connections,
which require an articulated body involving substantial developmental processes
to build. Internal coordination (IC) models stress a different function for
early nervous systems. Here the coordination of activity across extended parts
of a multicellular body is held central, in particular for the contractions of
(muscle) tissue. An IC perspective allows the hypothesis that the earliest
proto-neural elongations could have been functional even when they were
initially simple short and random connections, as long as they enhanced the
patterning of contractile activity across a multicellular surface. The present
computational study provides a proof of concept that such short and random
neural elongations can play this role. While an excitable epithelium can
generate basic forms of patterning for small body-configurations, adding
elongations allows such patterning to scale up to larger bodies. This result
supports a new, more gradual evolutionary route towards the origins of the very
first full neurons and nervous systems.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, Keywords: early nervous systems, neural
elongations, nervous system evolution, computational modelling, internal
coordinatio
Modeling spontaneous activity across an excitable epithelium: Support for a coordination scenario of early neural evolution
Internal coordination models hold that early nervous systems evolved in the first place to coordinate internal activity at a multicellular level, most notably the use of multicellular contractility as an effector for motility. A recent example of such a model, the skin brain thesis, suggests that excitable epithelia using chemical signaling are a potential candidate as a nervous system precursor.We developed a computational model and a measure for whole body coordination to investigate the coordinative properties of such excitable epithelia. Using this measure we show that excitable epithelia can spontaneously exhibit body-scale patterns of activation. Relevant factors determining the extent of patterning are the noise level for exocytosis, relative body dimensions, and body size. In smaller bodies whole-body coordination emerges from cellular excitability and bidirectional excitatory transmission alone.Our results show that basic internal coordination as proposed by the skin brain thesis could have arisen in this potential nervous system precursor, supporting that this configuration may have played a role as a proto-neural system and requires further investigation
The Gross--Llewellyn Smith Sum Rule in the Analytic Approach to Perturbative QCD
We apply analytic perturbation theory to the Gross--Llewellyn Smith sum rule.
We study the evolution and the renormalization scheme dependence of the
analytic three-loop QCD correction to this sum rule, and demonstrate that the
results are practically renormalization scheme independent and lead to rather
different evolution than the standard perturbative correction possesses.Comment: 17 pages, 9 eps figures, REVTe
A Precise Measurement of the Weak Mixing Angle in Neutrino-Nucleon Scattering
We report a precise measurement of the weak mixing angle from the ratio of
neutral current to charged current inclusive cross-sections in deep-inelastic
neutrino-nucleon scattering. The data were gathered at the CCFR neutrino
detector in the Fermilab quadrupole-triplet neutrino beam, with neutrino
energies up to 600 GeV. Using the on-shell definition, , we obtain .Comment: 10 pages, Nevis Preprint #1498 (Submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett.
Determination of the Strange Quark Content of the Nucleon from a Next-to-Leading-Order QCD Analysis of Neutrino Charm Production
We present the first next-to-leading-order QCD analysis of neutrino charm
production, using a sample of 6090 - and -induced
opposite-sign dimuon events observed in the CCFR detector at the Fermilab
Tevatron. We find that the nucleon strange quark content is suppressed with
respect to the non-strange sea quarks by a factor \kappa = 0.477 \:
^{+\:0.063}_{-\:0.053}, where the error includes statistical, systematic and
QCD scale uncertainties. In contrast to previous leading order analyses, we
find that the strange sea -dependence is similar to that of the non-strange
sea, and that the measured charm quark mass, , is larger and consistent with that determined in other processes.
Further analysis finds that the difference in -distributions between
and is small. A measurement of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa
matrix element is also presented.
uufile containing compressed postscript files of five Figures is appended at
the end of the LaTeX source.Comment: Nevis R#150
Resolved Photon Processes
We review the present level of knowledge of the hadronic structure of the
photon, as revealed in interactions involving quarks and gluons ``in" the
photon. The concept of photon structure functions is introduced in the
description of deep--inelastic scattering, and existing
parametrizations of the parton densities in the photon are reviewed. We then
turn to hard \gamp\ and \gaga\ collisions, where we treat the production of
jets, heavy quarks, hard (direct) photons, \jpsi\ mesons, and lepton pairs. We
also comment on issues that go beyond perturbation theory, including recent
attempts at a comprehensive description of both hard and soft \gamp\ and \gaga\
interactions. We conclude with a list of open problems.Comment: LaTeX with equation.sty, 85 pages, 29 figures (not included). A
complete PS file of the paper, including figures, can be obtained via
anonymous ftp from
ftp://phenom.physics.wisc.edu/pub/preprints/1995/madph-95-898.ps.
Search for Top Squark Pair Production in the Dielectron Channel
This report describes the first search for top squark pair production in the
channel stop_1 stopbar_1 -> b bbar chargino_1 chargino_1 -> ee+jets+MEt using
74.9 +- 8.9 pb^-1 of data collected using the D0 detector. A 95% confidence
level upper limit on sigma*B is presented. The limit is above the theoretical
expectation for sigma*B for this process, but does show the sensitivity of the
current D0 data set to a particular topology for new physics.Comment: Five pages, including three figures, submitted to PRD Brief Report
Search for a Fourth Generation Charge -1/3 Quark via Flavor Changing Neutral Current Decay
We report on a search for pair production of a fourth generation charge -1/3
quark (b') in pbar p collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.8 TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron
using an integrated luminosity of 93 pb^-1. Both quarks are assumed to decay
via flavor changing neutral currents (FCNC). The search uses the signatures
gamma + 3 jets + mu-tag and 2 gamma + 2 jets. We see no significant excess of
events over the expected background. We place an upper limit on the production
cross section times branching fraction that is well below theoretical
expectations for a b' quark decaying exclusively via FCNC for b' quark masses
up to m(Z) + m(b).Comment: Eleven pages, two postscript figures, submitted to Physical Review
Letter
Search for Production via Trilepton Final States in collisions at TeV
We have searched for associated production of the lightest chargino,
, and next-to-lightest neutralino, , of the
Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model in collisions at
\mbox{ = 1.8 TeV} using the \D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron
collider. Data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 12.5 \ipb
were examined for events containing three isolated leptons. No evidence for
pair production was found. Limits on
BrBr are
presented.Comment: 17 pages (13 + 1 page table + 3 pages figures). 3 PostScript figures
will follow in a UUEncoded, gzip'd, tar file. Text in LaTex format. Submitted
to Physical Review Letters. Replace comments - Had to resumbmit version with
EPSF directive
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