4,967 research outputs found
The Alzheimer variant of Lewy body disease: A pathologically confirmed case-control study
The objective of the study was to identify clinical features that distinguish patients with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), who were classified as Alzheimer's disease ( AD) patients, from patients with AD. We examined a group of 27 patients from our memory clinic, originally diagnosed with AD, of whom 6 were postmortem found to have DLB. For the present study, we compared cognitive, noncognitive and neurological symptoms between the two groups. We found that there were no differences on ratings of dementia and scales for activities of daily living. Patients with DLB performed better on the MMSE and the memory subtest of the CAMCOG, but there was no difference in any other cognitive domain. Furthermore, genetic risk factors, including family history of dementia or allele frequency of the apolipoprotein epsilon 4, did not discriminate between the two groups, and there were no differences on CCT scans. Taken together, our findings suggest that Lewy body pathology may be present in patients who do not show the typical clinical features which distinguish DLB from AD. Copyright (C) 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel
Goethite Dissolution in the Presence of Phytosiderophores: Rates, Mechanisms, and the Synergistic Effect of Oxalate
The purpose of this study was the elucidation of the chemical mechanism of an important process in iron acquisition by graminaceous plants: the dissolution of iron oxides in the presence of phytosiderophores. We were particularly interested in the effects of diurnal root exudation of phytosiderophores and of the presence of other organic ligands in the rhizosphere of graminaceous plants on the dissolution mechanism. Phytosiderophores of the type 2ā²-deoxymugineic acid (DMA) were purified from the root exudates of wheat plants (Triticum aestivum L. cv. Tamaro). DMA-promoted dissolution of goethite under steady-state and non-steady-state conditions and its dependence on pH, adsorbed DMA concentration, and the presence of the organic ligand oxalate were studied. We show that dissolution of goethite by phytosiderophores follows a surface controlled ligand promoted dissolution mechanism. We also found that oxalate, an organic ligand commonly found in rhizosphere soils, has a synergistic effect on the steady-state dissolution of goethite by DMA. Under non-steady-state addition of the phytosiderophore, mimicking the diurnal exudation pattern of phytosiderophore release, a fast dissolution of iron is triggered in the presence of oxalate. To investigate the efficiency of these mechanisms in plant iron acquisition, wheat plants were grown on a substrate amended with goethite as only iron source. The chlorophyll status of these plants was similar to iron-fertilized plants and significantly higher than in plants grown in iron free nutrient solutions. This demonstrates that wheat can efficiently mobilize iron, even from well crystalline goethite that is usually considered unavailable for plant nutritio
Calcium isotope fractionation in alpine plants
In order to develop Ca isotopes as a tracer for biogeochemical Ca cycling in terrestrial environments and for Ca utilisation in plants, stable calcium isotope ratios were measured in various species of alpine plants, including woody species, grasses and herbs. Analysis of plant parts (root, stem, leaf and flower samples) provided information on Ca isotope fractionation within plants and seasonal sampling of leaves revealed temporal variation in leaf Ca isotopic composition. There was significant Ca isotope fractionation between soil and root tissue \Updelta^{44/42}\hbox{Ca}_{\rm root-soil} \approx -0.40\,\permille in all investigated species, whereas Ca isotope fractionation between roots and leaves was species dependent. Samples of leaf tissue collected throughout the growing season also highlighted species differences: Ca isotope ratios increased with leaf age in woody species but remained constant in herbs and grasses. The Ca isotope fractionation between roots and soils can be explained by a preferential binding of light Ca isotopes to root adsorption sites. The observed differences in whole plant Ca isotopic compositions both within and between species may be attributed to several potential factors including root cation exchange capacity, the presence of a woody stem, the presence of Ca oxalate, and the levels of mycorrhizal infection. Thus, the impact of plants on the Ca biogeochemical cycle in soils, and ultimately the Ca isotope signature of the weathering flux from terrestrial environments, will depend on the species present and the stage of vegetation successio
A balancing act: Evidence for a strong subdominant d-wave pairing channel in
We present an analysis of the Raman spectra of optimally doped based on LDA band structure calculations and the
subsequent estimation of effective Raman vertices. Experimentally a narrow,
emergent mode appears in the () Raman spectra only below
, well into the superconducting state and at an energy below twice the
energy gap on the electron Fermi surface sheets. The Raman spectra can be
reproduced quantitatively with estimates for the magnitude and momentum space
structure of the s pairing gap on different Fermi surface sheets, as
well as the identification of the emergent sharp feature as a
Bardasis-Schrieffer exciton, formed as a Cooper pair bound state in a
subdominant channel. The binding energy of the exciton relative
to the gap edge shows that the coupling strength in this subdominant
channel is as strong as 60% of that in the dominant
channel. This result suggests that may be the dominant pairing
symmetry in Fe-based sperconductors which lack central hole bands.Comment: 10 pages, 6 Figure
Raman-Scattering Detection of Nearly Degenerate -Wave and -Wave Pairing Channels in Iron-Based BaKFeAs and RbFeSe Superconductors
We show that electronic Raman scattering affords a window into the essential
properties of the pairing potential of
iron-based superconductors. In BaKFeAs we observe band
dependent energy gaps along with excitonic Bardasis-Schrieffer modes
characterizing, respectively, the dominant and subdominant pairing channel. The
symmetry of all excitons allows us to identify the subdominant
channel to originate from the interaction between the electron bands.
Consequently, the dominant channel driving superconductivity results from the
interaction between the electron and hole bands and has the full lattice
symmetry. The results in RbFeSe along with earlier ones in
Ba(FeCo)As highlight the influence of the Fermi
surface topology on the pairing interactions.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Thermodynamic properties of sea air
Very accurate thermodynamic potential functions are available for fluid water, ice, seawater and humid air covering wide ranges of temperature and pressure conditions. They permit the consistent computation of all equilibrium properties as, for example, required for coupled atmosphere-ocean models or the analysis of observational or experimental data. With the exception of humid air, these potential functions are already formulated as international standards released by the International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam (IAPWS), and have been adopted in 2009 for oceanography by IOC/UNESCO. <br><br> In this paper, we derive a collection of formulas for important quantities expressed in terms of the thermodynamic potentials, valid for typical phase transitions and composite systems of humid air and water/ice/seawater. Particular attention is given to equilibria between seawater and humid air, referred to as "sea air" here. In a related initiative, these formulas will soon be implemented in a source-code library for easy practical use. The library is primarily aimed at oceanographic applications but will be relevant to air-sea interaction and meteorology as well. <br><br> The formulas provided are valid for any consistent set of suitable thermodynamic potential functions. Here we adopt potential functions from previous publications in which they are constructed from theoretical laws and empirical data; they are briefly summarized in the appendix. The formulas make use of the full accuracy of these thermodynamic potentials, without additional approximations or empirical coefficients. They are expressed in the temperature scale ITS-90 and the 2008 Reference-Composition Salinity Scale
Link and subgraph likelihoods in random undirected networks with fixed and partially fixed degree sequence
The simplest null models for networks, used to distinguish significant
features of a particular network from {\it a priori} expected features, are
random ensembles with the degree sequence fixed by the specific network of
interest. These "fixed degree sequence" (FDS) ensembles are, however, famously
resistant to analytic attack. In this paper we introduce ensembles with
partially-fixed degree sequences (PFDS) and compare analytic results obtained
for them with Monte Carlo results for the FDS ensemble. These results include
link likelihoods, subgraph likelihoods, and degree correlations. We find that
local structural features in the FDS ensemble can be reasonably well estimated
by simultaneously fixing only the degrees of few nodes, in addition to the
total number of nodes and links. As test cases we use a food web, two protein
interaction networks (\textit{E. coli, S. cerevisiae}), the internet on the
autonomous system (AS) level, and the World Wide Web. Fixing just the degrees
of two nodes gives the mean neighbor degree as a function of node degree,
, in agreement with results explicitly obtained from rewiring. For
power law degree distributions, we derive the disassortativity analytically. In
the PFDS ensemble the partition function can be expanded diagrammatically. We
obtain an explicit expression for the link likelihood to lowest order, which
reduces in the limit of large, sparse undirected networks with links and
with to the simple formula . In a
similar limit, the probability for three nodes to be linked into a triangle
reduces to the factorized expression .Comment: 17 pages, includes 11 figures; first revision: shortened to 14 pages
(7 figures), added discussion of subgraph counts, deleted discussion of
directed network
Evolution of carbon fluxes during initial soil formation along the forefield of Damma glacier, Switzerland
Soil carbon (C) fluxes, soil respiration and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) leaching were explored along the young Damma glacier forefield chronosequence (7-128years) over a three-year period. To gain insight into the sources of soil CO2 effluxes, radiocarbon signatures of respired CO2 were measured and a vegetation-clipping experiment was performed. Our results showed a clear increase in soil CO2 effluxes with increasing site age from 9Ā±1 to 160Ā±67gCO2-Cmā2yearā1, which was linked to soil C accumulation and development of vegetation cover. Seasonal variations of soil respiration were mainly driven by temperature; between 62 and 70% of annual CO2 effluxes were respired during the 4-month long summer season. Sources of soil CO2 effluxes changed along the glacier forefield. For most recently deglaciated sites, radiocarbon-based age estimates indicated ancient C to be the dominant source of soil-respired CO2. At intermediate site age (58-78years), the contribution of new plant-fixed C via rhizosphere respiration amounted up to 90%, while with further soil formation, heterotrophically respired C probably from accumulated āolder' soil organic carbon (SOC) became increasingly important. In comparison with soil respiration, DOC leaching at 10cm depth was small, but increased similarly from 0.4Ā±0.02 to 7.4Ā±1.6gDOCmā2yearā1 over the chronosequence. A strong rise of the ratio of SOC to secondary iron and aluminium oxides strongly suggests that increasing DOC leaching with site age results from a faster increase of the DOC source, SOC, than of the DOC sink, reactive mineral surfaces. Overall, C losses from soil by soil respiration and DOC leaching increased from 9Ā±1 to 70Ā±17 and further to 168Ā±68gCmā2yearā1 at the <10, 58-78, and 110-128year old sites. By comparison, total ecosystem C stocks increased from 0.2 to 1.1 and to 3.1kgCmā2 from the young to intermediate and old sites. Therefore, the ecosystem evolved from a dominance of C accumulation in the initial phase to a high throughput system. We suggest that the relatively strong increase in soil C stocks compared to C fluxes is a characteristic feature of initial soil formation on freshly exposed rock
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