2,091 research outputs found
Observation of a nanophase segregation in LiCl aqueous solutions from Transient Grating Experiments
Transient Grating experiments performed on supercooled LiCl, RH2O solutions
with R>6 reveal the existence of a strong, short time, extra signal which
superposes to the normal signal observed for the R=6 solution and other glass
forming systems. This extra signal shows up below 190 K, its shape and the
associated timescale depend only on temperature, while its intensity increases
with R. We show that the origin of this signal is a phase separation between
clusters with a low solute concentration and the remaining, more concentrated,
solution. Our analysis demonstrates that these clusters have a nanometer size
and a composition which are rather temperature independent, while increasing R
simply increases the number of these clusters.Comment: 19 pages+ 8 figures+ 2 table
Unimpaired Neuropsychological Performance and Enhanced Memory Recall in Patients with Sbma: A Large Sample Comparative Study.
Peculiar cognitive profile of patients with SBMA has been described by fragmented literature. Our retrospective study reports the neuropsychological evaluations of a large cohort of patients in order to contribute towards the understanding of this field. We consider 64 neuropsychological evaluations assessing mnesic, linguistic and executive functions collected from 2013 to 2015 in patients attending at Motor Neuron Disease Centre of University of Padova. The battery consisted in: Digit Span forwards and backwards, Prose Memory test, Phonemic Verbal fluency and Trail making tests. ANCOVA statistics were employed to compare tests scores results with those obtained from a sample of healthy control subjects. Multiple linear regressions were used to study the effect on cognitive performance of CAG-repeat expansion, the degree of androgen insensitivity and their interaction to cognitive performance. Statistical analyses did not reveal altered scores in any neuropsychological tests among those adopted. Interestingly, patients performed significantly better in the Prose Memory test's score. No relevant associations were found with genetic, hormonal or clinical patients' profile. Results inconsistent with previous studies have been interpreted according to the phenomenon of somatic mosaicism. We suggest a testosterone-related and the mood state-dependant perspectives as two possible interpretations of the enhanced performances in the Prose Memory test. Further studies employing more datailed tests batteries are encouraged
Normal tau polarisation as a sensitive probe of CP violation in chargino decay
CP violation in the spin-spin correlations in chargino production and
subsequent two-body decay into a tau and a tau-sneutrino is studied at the ILC.
From the normal polarisation of the tau, an asymmetry is defined to test the
CP-violating phase of the higgsino mass parameter \mu. Asymmetries of more than
\pm70% are obtained, also in scenarios with heavy first and second generation
sfermions. Bounds on the statistical significances of the CP asymmetries are
estimated. As a result, the normal tau polarisation in the chargino decay is
one of the most sensitive probes to constrain or measure the phase \phi_\mu at
the ILC, motivating further detailed experimental studies.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, gzipped tar fil
Effect of intragastric acid stability of fat emulsions on gastric emptying, plasma lipid profile and postpradial satiety
Fat is often included in common foods as an emulsion of dispersed oil droplets to enhance the organoleptic quality and stability. The intragastric acid stability of emulsified fat may impact on gastric emptying, satiety and plasma lipid absorption. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether, compared with an acid-unstable emulsion, an acid-stable fat emulsion would empty from the stomach more slowly, cause more rapid plasma lipid absorption and cause greater satiety. Eleven healthy male volunteers received on two separate occasions 500 ml of 15% (w/w) [13C]palmitate-enriched olive oil-in-water emulsion meals which were either stable or unstable in the acid gastric environment. MRI was used to measure gastric emptying and the intragastric oil fraction of the meals. Blood sampling was used to measure plasma lipids and visual analogue scales were used to assess satiety. The acid-unstable fat emulsion broke and rapidly layered in the stomach. Gastric emptying of meal volume was slower for the acid-stable fat emulsion (P,0·0001; two-way ANOVA). The rate of energy delivery of fat from the stomach to the duodenum was not different up to t ¼ 110 min. The acid-stable emulsion induced increased fullness (P,0·05), decreased hunger (P,0·0002), decreased appetite (P,0·0001) and increased the concentration of palmitic acid tracer in the chylomicron fraction (P,0·04). This shows that it is possible to delay gastric emptying and increase satiety by stabilising the intragastric distribution of fat emulsions against the gastric acid environment. This could have implications for the design of novel foods
Quantum geometry from 2+1 AdS quantum gravity on the torus
Wilson observables for 2+1 quantum gravity with negative cosmological
constant, when the spatial manifold is a torus, exhibit several novel features:
signed area phases relate the observables assigned to homotopic loops, and
their commutators describe loop intersections, with properties that are not yet
fully understood. We describe progress in our study of this bracket, which can
be interpreted as a q-deformed Goldman bracket, and provide a geometrical
interpretation in terms of a quantum version of Pick's formula for the area of
a polygon with integer vertices.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, revised with more explanations, improved
figures and extra figures. To appear GER
Ice: a strongly correlated proton system
We discuss the problem of proton motion in Hydrogen bond materials with
special focus on ice. We show that phenomenological models proposed in the past
for the study of ice can be recast in terms of microscopic models in close
relationship to the ones used to study the physics of Mott-Hubbard insulators.
We discuss the physics of the paramagnetic phase of ice at 1/4 filling (neutral
ice) and its mapping to a transverse field Ising model and also to a gauge
theory in two and three dimensions. We show that H3O+ and HO- ions can be
either in a confined or deconfined phase. We obtain the phase diagram of the
problem as a function of temperature T and proton hopping energy t and find
that there are two phases: an ordered insulating phase which results from an
order-by-disorder mechanism induced by quantum fluctuations, and a disordered
incoherent metallic phase (or plasma). We also discuss the problem of
decoherence in the proton motion introduced by the lattice vibrations (phonons)
and its effect on the phase diagram. Finally, we suggest that the transition
from ice-Ih to ice-XI observed experimentally in doped ice is the
confining-deconfining transition of our phase diagram.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure
`In pursuit of the Nazi mind?' the deployment of psychoanalysis in the allied struggle against Germany
This paper discusses how psychoanalytic ideas were brought to bear in the Allied struggle against the Third Reich and explores some of the claims that were made about this endeavour. It shows how a variety of studies of Fascist psychopathology, centred on the concept of superego, were mobilized in military intelligence, post-war planning and policy recommendations for ‘denazification’. Freud's ideas were sometimes championed by particular army doctors and government planners; at other times they were combined with, or displaced by, competing, psychiatric and psychological forms of treatment and diverse studies of the Fascist ‘personality’. This is illustrated through a discussion of the treatment and interpretation of the deputy leader of the Nazi Party, Rudolf Hess, after his arrival in Britain in 1941
IL-1 and its role in rat carrageenan pleurisy
The carrageenan pleurisy model, which is characterized by cellular influx and oedema, has been used to examine the effects of anti-inflammatory compounds such as naproxen. Interleukin-1α and β (IL-1) are known to be pro-inflammatory mediators, and their roles in this model are unknown. Intrapleural injection of 1% viscarin carrageenan or saline was administered to male Lewis rats. Four to 24 h later, cell counts, fluid volumes and IL-1β levels (measured by ELISA) were determined in the pleural cavity. Serum corticosterone levels were measured only at 4 h. Significant increases in IL-1β levels precede cell influx suggesting IL-1β plays a role in the maintenance of cell accumulation in the pleural cavity. None of the drugs tested, including the IL-1 receptor antagonist, maintained pleural cell influx and IL-1β levels at control levels. When human IL-1α or β or rat IL-1β were injected individually into the pleural cavity, none of these cytokines were pro-inflammatory, as measured by increased cell influx and fluid extravasation. These results suggest that although IL-1β levels increase in the pleural cavity in response to carrageenan, IL-1 per se is not the initiator of the pro-inflammatory events of cell influx and oedema in this model
Phase transitions in two dimensions - the case of Sn adsorbed on Ge(111) surfaces
Accurate atomic coordinates of the room-temperature (root3xroot3)R30degree
and low-temperature (3x3) phases of 1/3 ML Sn on Ge(111) have been established
by grazing-incidence x-ray diffraction with synchrotron radiation. The Sn atoms
are located solely at T4-sites in the (root3xroot3)R30degree structure. In the
low temperature phase one of the three Sn atoms per (3x3) unit cell is
displaced outwards by 0.26 +/- 0.04 A relative to the other two. This
displacement is accompanied by an increase in the first to second double-layer
spacing in the Ge substrate.Comment: RevTeX, 5 pages including 2 figure
Theory of structural response to macroscopic electric fields in ferroelectric systems
We have developed and implemented a formalism for computing the structural
response of a periodic insulating system to a homogeneous static electric field
within density-functional perturbation theory (DFPT). We consider the
thermodynamic potentials E(R,eta,e) and F(R,eta,e) whose minimization with
respect to the internal structural parameters R and unit cell strain eta yields
the equilibrium structure at fixed electric field e and polarization P,
respectively. First-order expansion of E(R,eta,e) in e leads to a useful
approximation in which R(P) and eta(P) can be obtained by simply minimizing the
zero-field internal energy with respect to structural coordinates subject to
the constraint of a fixed spontaneous polarization P. To facilitate this
minimization, we formulate a modified DFPT scheme such that the computed
derivatives of the polarization are consistent with the discretized form of the
Berry-phase expression. We then describe the application of this approach to
several problems associated with bulk and short-period superlattice structures
of ferroelectric materials such as BaTiO3 and PbTiO3. These include the effects
of compositionally broken inversion symmetry, the equilibrium structure for
high values of polarization, field-induced structural phase transitions, and
the lattice contributions to the linear and the non-linear dielectric
constants.Comment: 19 pages, with 15 postscript figures embedded. Uses REVTEX4 and epsf
macros. Also available at
http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~dhv/preprints/sai_pol/index.htm
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