31,596 research outputs found

    Pear-shaped lesion of the fossa of Rosenmüller

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    Retention cyst of the pharyngeal mucosal space is an accumulation of trapped mucous in the mucosa or adenoids of the pharynx. It is a benign lesion, often seen on routine imaging of the head and spine. It is typically a simple cyst originating from the pharyngeal mucosa, without invasion of the surrounding structures. It is important not to misinterpret a retention cyst as a malignant tumor. Patients are usually asymptomatic and do not need treatment

    Computing Functions of Random Variables via Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space Representations

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    We describe a method to perform functional operations on probability distributions of random variables. The method uses reproducing kernel Hilbert space representations of probability distributions, and it is applicable to all operations which can be applied to points drawn from the respective distributions. We refer to our approach as {\em kernel probabilistic programming}. We illustrate it on synthetic data, and show how it can be used for nonparametric structural equation models, with an application to causal inference

    The ozone oxidation of ethylene as it pertains to air pollution

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    Reaction kinetics of ozone oxidation of ethylene pertinent to air pollutio

    Lifetime Adherence to Physical Activity Recommendations and Fall Occurrence in Community-dwelling Older Adults: a Retrospective Cohort Study

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    Falling is a major health concern for community-dwelling older adults. Regular physical activity has been proposed to prevent falls. The aim of this study was to assess whether the achievement of the 2004 UK Department of Health physical activity recommendations over a lifetime had a protective effect against falling in older people. 313 community-dwelling older adults completed a questionnaire about lifetime physical activity and fall occurrence. There were significantly fewer falls in those who had led an active lifestyle compared to those who had not (χ2Yates=4.568, p=0.033), with a lower relative risk of fall occurrence for the active respondents (RR=0.671) compared to the inactive (RR=1.210). Of those who were sufficiently active in their early adulthood, the decade where there was the biggest decrease in remaining active enough was in the 60s. It is concluded that an active lifestyle may have decreased the likelihood of having a fall in older ag

    Generalized (m,k)-Zipf law for fractional Brownian motion-like time series with or without effect of an additional linear trend

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    We have translated fractional Brownian motion (FBM) signals into a text based on two ''letters'', as if the signal fluctuations correspond to a constant stepsize random walk. We have applied the Zipf method to extract the ζ\zeta ' exponent relating the word frequency and its rank on a log-log plot. We have studied the variation of the Zipf exponent(s) giving the relationship between the frequency of occurrence of words of length m<8m<8 made of such two letters: ζ\zeta ' is varying as a power law in terms of mm. We have also searched how the ζ\zeta ' exponent of the Zipf law is influenced by a linear trend and the resulting effect of its slope. We can distinguish finite size effects, and results depending whether the starting FBM is persistent or not, i.e. depending on the FBM Hurst exponent HH. It seems then numerically proven that the Zipf exponent of a persistent signal is more influenced by the trend than that of an antipersistent signal. It appears that the conjectured law ζ=2H1\zeta ' = |2H-1| only holds near H=0.5H=0.5. We have also introduced considerations based on the notion of a {\it time dependent Zipf law} along the signal.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figures; to appear in Int. J. Modern Phys

    Unconventional carrier-mediated ferromagnetism above room temperature in ion-implanted (Ga, Mn)P:C

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    Ion implantation of Mn ions into hole-doped GaP has been used to induce ferromagnetic behavior above room temperature for optimized Mn concentrations near 3 at.%. The magnetism is suppressed when the Mn dose is increased or decreased away from the 3 at.% value, or when n-type GaP substrates are used. At low temperatures the saturated moment is on the order of one Bohr magneton, and the spin wave stiffness inferred from the Bloch-law T^3/2 dependence of the magnetization provides an estimate Tc = 385K of the Curie temperature that exceeds the experimental value, Tc = 270K. The presence of ferromagnetic clusters and hysteresis to temperatures of at least 330K is attributed to disorder and proximity to a metal-insulating transition.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures (RevTex4

    Improved MJO-simulation in ECHAM6.3 by coupling a stochastic multicloud model to the convection scheme

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    We implement a Stochastic Multicloud Model (SMCM) in an observation-informed configuration into the convection scheme of the state-of-the-art GCM ECHAM6.3. The SMCM configuration we use here has been tuned to represent observed tropical convection by associating the occurrence and strength of deep convection to mid-tropospheric vertical velocity and relative humidity. We show that compared to the ECHAM6.3 standard model, the SMCM-modified version shows improved capacity to simulate features of tropical intraseasonal variability, including MJO-like disturbances, without significantly distorting the mean model climate. This improvement goes in hand with ameliorated coupling of atmospheric convection to tropospheric moisture and spatiotemporal coherence of tropical convection compared to reanalysis and observations. We attribute these effects to (i) improved coupling of triggering and suppression of deep convective events to the model's large-scale environment and (ii) the observations-informed closure formulation which leads to an overall reduction of deep convective mass fluxes. Sensitivity tests show that while (ii) improves the convection-moisture relationship, it is (i) which improves the spatiotemporal coherence of tropical rainfall and is important for MJO simulation. Further, the simulated spatiotemporal coherence of tropical rainfall is an intrinsic property of the convection schemes themselves and not of their parameters. We stress that this study serves as a proof-of-concept and motivates further efforts towards building a novel convection parameterization with the SMCM as a central element. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

    Scaling in the Bombay Stock Exchange Index

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    In this paper we study BSE Index financial time series for fractal and multifractal behaviour. We show that Bombay stock Exchange (BSE)Index time series is mono-fractal and can be represented by a fractional Brownian motion.Comment: 11 pages,3 figure

    Rain: Relaxations in the sky

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    We demonstrate how, from the point of view of energy flow through an open system, rain is analogous to many other relaxational processes in Nature such as earthquakes. By identifying rain events as the basic entities of the phenomenon, we show that the number density of rain events per year is inversely proportional to the released water column raised to the power 1.4. This is the rain-equivalent of the Gutenberg-Richter law for earthquakes. The event durations and the waiting times between events are also characterised by scaling regions, where no typical time scale exists. The Hurst exponent of the rain intensity signal H=0.76>0.5H = 0.76 > 0.5. It is valid in the temporal range from minutes up to the full duration of the signal of half a year. All of our findings are consistent with the concept of self-organised criticality, which refers to the tendency of slowly driven non-equilibrium systems towards a state of scale free behaviour.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, submitted to PR

    Phenotypic heterogeneity of peripheral monocytes in healthy dogs

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    Monocytes are key cells of the innate immune system. Their phenotypic and functional roles have been investigated in humans, mice and other animals, such as the rat, pig and cow. To date, detailed phenotypic analysis of monocytes has not been undertaken in dogs. Two important surface markers in human monocytes are CD14 and MHC class II (MHC II). By flow cytometry, we demonstrated that canine monocytes can be subdivided into three separate populations: CD14posMHC IIneg, CD14posMHC IIpos and CD14negMHC IIpos. Both light and transmission electron microscopy confirmed the monocytic identity of all three populations. The CD14posMHC IIneg population could be distinguished on an ultrastructural level by their smaller size, the presence of more numerous, larger granules, and more pseudopodia than both of the other populations
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