278 research outputs found
Buckling and force propagation along intracellular microtubules
Motivated by recent experiments showing the compressive buckling of microtubules in cells, we study theoretically the mechanical response of and force propagation along elastic filaments embedded in a non-linear elastic medium. We find that embedded microtubules buckle when their compressive load exceeds a critical value
Polarization state of the optical near-field
The polarization state of the optical electromagnetic field lying several
nanometers above complex dielectric structures reveals the intricate
light-matter interaction that occurs in this near-field zone. This information
can only be extracted from an analysis of the polarization state of the
detected light in the near-field. These polarization states can be calculated
by different numerical methods well-suited to near--field optics. In this
paper, we apply two different techniques (Localized Green Function Method and
Differential Theory of Gratings) to separate each polarisation component
associated with both electric and magnetic optical near-fields produced by
nanometer sized objects. The analysis is carried out in two stages: in the
first stage, we use a simple dipolar model to achieve insight into the physical
origin of the near-field polarization state. In the second stage, we calculate
accurate numerical field maps, simulating experimental near-field light
detection, to supplement the data produced by analytical models. We conclude
this study by demonstrating the role played by the near-field polarization in
the formation of the local density of states.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Discrete structure of ultrathin dielectric films and their surface optical properties
The boundary problem of linear classical optics about the interaction of
electromagnetic radiation with a thin dielectric film has been solved under
explicit consideration of its discrete structure. The main attention has been
paid to the investigation of the near-zone optical response of dielectrics. The
laws of reflection and refraction for discrete structures in the case of a
regular atomic distribution are studied and the structure of evanescent
harmonics induced by an external plane wave near the surface is investigated in
details. It is shown by means of analytical and numerical calculations that due
to the existence of the evanescent harmonics the laws of reflection and
refraction at the distances from the surface less than two interatomic
distances are principally different from the Fresnel laws. From the practical
point of view the results of this work might be useful for the near-field
optical microscopy of ultrahigh resolution.Comment: 25 pages, 16 figures, LaTeX2.09, to be published in Phys.Rev.
Automated ventricular systems segmentation in brain CT images by combining low-level segmentation and high-level template matching
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Accurate analysis of CT brain scans is vital for diagnosis and treatment of Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI). Automatic processing of these CT brain scans could speed up the decision making process, lower the cost of healthcare, and reduce the chance of human error. In this paper, we focus on automatic processing of CT brain images to segment and identify the ventricular systems. The segmentation of ventricles provides quantitative measures on the changes of ventricles in the brain that form vital diagnosis information.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>First all CT slices are aligned by detecting the ideal midlines in all images. The initial estimation of the ideal midline of the brain is found based on skull symmetry and then the initial estimate is further refined using detected anatomical features. Then a two-step method is used for ventricle segmentation. First a low-level segmentation on each pixel is applied on the CT images. For this step, both Iterated Conditional Mode (ICM) and Maximum A Posteriori Spatial Probability (MASP) are evaluated and compared. The second step applies template matching algorithm to identify objects in the initial low-level segmentation as ventricles. Experiments for ventricle segmentation are conducted using a relatively large CT dataset containing mild and severe TBI cases.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Experiments show that the acceptable rate of the ideal midline detection is over 95%. Two measurements are defined to evaluate ventricle recognition results. The first measure is a sensitivity-like measure and the second is a false positive-like measure. For the first measurement, the rate is 100% indicating that all ventricles are identified in all slices. The false positives-like measurement is 8.59%. We also point out the similarities and differences between ICM and MASP algorithms through both mathematically relationships and segmentation results on CT images.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The experiments show the reliability of the proposed algorithms. The novelty of the proposed method lies in its incorporation of anatomical features for ideal midline detection and the two-step ventricle segmentation method. Our method offers the following improvements over existing approaches: accurate detection of the ideal midline and accurate recognition of ventricles using both anatomical features and spatial templates derived from Magnetic Resonance Images.</p
Long-term effects of cranial irradiation and intrathecal chemotherapy in treatment of childhood leukemia: a MEG study of power spectrum and correlated cognitive dysfunction
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Prophylaxis to prevent relapses in the central nervous system after childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) used to consist of both intrathecal chemotherapy (CT) and cranial irradiation (CRT). CRT was mostly abolished in the eighties because of its neurotoxicity, and replaced with more intensive intrathecal CT. In this study, a group of survivors treated with CRT before 1983 and another group treated without CRT thereafter are investigated 20–25 years later, giving a much stronger perspective on long-term quality of life than previous studies. The outcomes will help to better understand these groups’ current needs and will aid in anticipating late effects of prophylactic CRT that is currently applied for other diseases. This study evaluates oscillatory neuronal activity in these long-term survivors. Power spectrum deviations are hypothesized to correlate with cognitive dysfunction.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Resting state eyes-closed magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings were obtained from 14 ALL survivors treated with CT + CRT, 18 treated with CT alone and 35 controls. Relative spectral power was calculated in the δ, θ, α1, α2, β and γ frequency bands. The Amsterdam Neuropsychological Tasks (ANT) program was used to assess cognition in the executive functions domain. MEG data and ANT scores were correlated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In the CT + CRT group, relative θ power was slightly increased (p = 0.069) and α2 power was significantly decreased (p = 0.006). The CT + CRT group performed worse on various cognitive tests. A deficiency in visuomotor accuracy, especially of the right hand, could be clearly associated with the deviating regional θ and α2 powers (0.471 < r < 0.697). A significant association between decreased regional α2 power and less attentional fluctuations was found for CT + CRT patients as well as controls (0.078 < r < 0.666). Patients treated with CT alone displayed a power spectrum similar to controls, except for a significantly increased level of left frontal α2 power (p = 0.030).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The tendency towards global slowing of brain oscillatory activity, together with the fact that dementia has been reported as a late effect of CRT and the neuropsychological deficiencies currently present, suggest that the irradiated brain might be aging faster and could be at risk for early‐onset dementia. The CT group showed no signs of early aging.</p
A simple, reproducible method for monitoring the treatment of tumours using dynamic contrast-enhanced MR imaging
Dynamic contrast-enhanced MR imaging (DCE-MRI) may act as a biomarker for successful cancer therapy. Simple, reproducible techniques may widen this application. This paper demonstrates a single slice imaging technique. The image acquisition is performed in less than 500 ms making it relatively insensitive to respiratory motion. Data from phantom studies and a reproducibility study in solid human tumours are presented. The reproducibility study showed a coefficient of variation (CoV) of 19.1% for Ktrans and 15.8% for the initial area under the contrast enhancement curve (IAUC). This was improved to 16 and 13.9% if tumours of diameter less than 3 cm were excluded. The individual repeatability (the range within which individual measurements are expected to fall) was 30.6% for Ktrans and 26.5% for IAUC for tumours greater than 3 cm diameter. This approach to DCE–MRI image acquisition can be performed with standard clinical scanners, and data analysis is straightforward. For treatment trials with 10 patients in a cohort, the CoV implies that the method would be sensitive to a treatment effect of greater than 18%. The individual repeatability is well inside the 40% change shown to be important in clinical studies using this DCE–MRI technique
KiDS+GAMA:The weak lensing calibrated stellar-to-halo mass relation of central and satellite galaxies
We simultaneously present constraints on the stellar-to-halo mass relation
for central and satellite galaxies through a weak lensing analysis of
spectroscopically classified galaxies. Using overlapping data from the fourth
data release of the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS), and the Galaxy And Mass Assembly
survey (GAMA), we find that satellite galaxies are hosted by halo masses that
are dex (68\% confidence, detection) smaller than
those of central galaxies of the same stellar mass (for a stellar mass of
). This is consistent with galaxy formation
models, whereby infalling satellite galaxies are preferentially stripped of
their dark matter. We find consistent results with similar uncertainties when
comparing constraints from a standard azimuthally averaged galaxy-galaxy
lensing analysis and a two-dimensional likelihood analysis of the full shear
field. As the latter approach is somewhat biased due to the lens incompleteness
and as it does not provide any improvement to the precision when applied to
actual data, we conclude that stacked tangential shear measurements are
best-suited for studies of the galaxy-halo connection.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Angular Momentum of Early- and Late-type Galaxies: Nature or Nurture?
We investigate the origin, the shape, the scatter, and the cosmic evolution
in the observed relationship between specific angular momentum and
the stellar mass in early-type (ETGs) and late-type galaxies (LTGs).
Specifically, we exploit the observed star-formation efficiency and chemical
abundance to infer the fraction f_\rm inf of baryons that infall toward the
central regions of galaxies where star formation can occur. We find f_\rm
inf\approx 1 for LTGs and for ETGs with an uncertainty of about
dex, consistent with a biased collapse. By comparing with the locally
observed vs. relations for LTGs and ETGs we estimate the
fraction of the initial specific angular momentum associated to the
infalling gas that is retained in the stellar component: for LTGs we find
, in line with the classic disc formation
picture; for ETGs we infer , that can be
traced back to a evolution via dry mergers. We also show that the
observed scatter in the vs. relation for both galaxy
types is mainly contributed by the intrinsic dispersion in the spin parameters
of the host dark matter halo. The biased collapse plus mergers scenario implies
that the specific angular momentum in the stellar components of ETG progenitors
at is already close to the local values, in pleasing agreement with
observations. All in all, we argue such a behavior to be imprinted by nature
and not nurtured substantially by the environment
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