574 research outputs found
Recent results from systematic parameterizations of Ginsparg-Wilson fermions
The Fixed Point Dirac Operator and Chirally Improved Fermions both use large
numbers of gauge paths and the full Dirac structure to approximate a solution
of the Ginsparg-Wilson equation. After a brief review of the two approaches we
present recent results for quenched QCD with pion masses down to 210 MeV. We
discuss the limits and advantages of approximate parameterizations and outline
future perspectives.Comment: Lattice2002(plenary). References and Fig. 5 updated. Final version
submitted to the proceeding
Quenched QCD with fixed-point and chirally improved fermion
In this contribution we present results from quenched QCD simulations with
the parameterized fixed-point (FP) and the chirally improved (CI) Dirac
operator. Both these operators are approximate solutions of the Ginsparg-Wilson
equation and have good chiral properties. We focus our discussion on
observables sensitive to chirality. In particular we explore pion masses down
to 210 MeV in light hadron spectroscopy, quenched chiral logs, the pion decay
constant and the pion scattering length. We discuss finite volume effects,
scaling properties of the FP and CI operators and performance issues in their
numerical implementation.Comment: Lattice2002(chiral), 17 pages, 21 figures, (LaTeX style file
espcrc2.sty and AMS style files
Introduction of the chemical potential in the overlap formalism
We investigate the possibility of coupling a chemical potential only to the
physical chiral fermions on the lattice starting from the many body state
description of overlap fermions. After developing the formalism for a chiral
gauge theory, we focus our attention on the case of free fermions coupled to a
vector like chemical potential and discuss the issue of zero temperature
divergences.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, minor changes to v1, version to appear in JHE
Comparative study of nonlinear properties of EEG signals of a normal person and an epileptic patient
Background: Investigation of the functioning of the brain in living systems
has been a major effort amongst scientists and medical practitioners. Amongst
the various disorder of the brain, epilepsy has drawn the most attention
because this disorder can affect the quality of life of a person. In this paper
we have reinvestigated the EEGs for normal and epileptic patients using
surrogate analysis, probability distribution function and Hurst exponent.
Results: Using random shuffled surrogate analysis, we have obtained some of
the nonlinear features that was obtained by Andrzejak \textit{et al.} [Phys Rev
E 2001, 64:061907], for the epileptic patients during seizure. Probability
distribution function shows that the activity of an epileptic brain is
nongaussian in nature. Hurst exponent has been shown to be useful to
characterize a normal and an epileptic brain and it shows that the epileptic
brain is long term anticorrelated whereas, the normal brain is more or less
stochastic. Among all the techniques, used here, Hurst exponent is found very
useful for characterization different cases.
Conclusions: In this article, differences in characteristics for normal
subjects with eyes open and closed, epileptic subjects during seizure and
seizure free intervals have been shown mainly using Hurst exponent. The H shows
that the brain activity of a normal man is uncorrelated in nature whereas,
epileptic brain activity shows long range anticorrelation.Comment: Keywords:EEG, epilepsy, Correlation dimension, Surrogate analysis,
Hurst exponent. 9 page
Chiral Effective Lagrangian and Quark Masses
The status of lattice determinations of quark masses is reviewed (with the
exception of m_b). Attempts to extract the low-energy constants in the
effective chiral Lagrangian are discussed, with special emphasis on those
couplings which are required to test the hypothesis of a massless up-quark.
Furthermore, the issue of quenched chiral logarithms is addressed.Comment: Invited talk presented at Lattice2002(plenary), 12 pages, 3 figure
Patterns of Coupled Theta Activity in Amygdala-Hippocampal-Prefrontal Cortical Circuits during Fear Extinction
Signals related to fear memory and extinction are processed within brain pathways involving the lateral amygdala (LA) for formation of aversive stimulus associations, the CA1 area of the hippocampus for context-dependent modulation of these associations, and the infralimbic region of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) for extinction processes. While many studies have addressed the contribution of each of these modules individually, little is known about their interactions and how they function as an integrated system. Here we show, by combining multiple site local field potential (LFP) and unit recordings in freely behaving mice in a fear conditioning paradigm, that theta oscillations may provide a means for temporally and functionally connecting these modules. Theta oscillations occurred with high specificity in the CA1-LA-mPFC network. Theta coupling increased between all areas during retrieval of conditioned fear, and declined during extinction learning. During extinction recall, theta coupling partly rebounded in LA-mPFC and CA1-mPFC, and remained at a low level in CA1-LA. Interfering with theta coupling through local electrical microstimulation in CA1-LA affected conditioned fear and extinction recall depending on theta phase. These results support the hypothesis that theta coupling provides a means for inter-areal coordination in conditioned behavioral responsiveness. More specifically, theta oscillations seem to contribute to a population code indicating conditioned stimuli during recall of fear memory before and after extinction
A New Era in the Quest for Dark Matter
There is a growing sense of `crisis' in the dark matter community, due to the
absence of evidence for the most popular candidates such as weakly interacting
massive particles, axions, and sterile neutrinos, despite the enormous effort
that has gone into searching for these particles. Here, we discuss what we have
learned about the nature of dark matter from past experiments, and the
implications for planned dark matter searches in the next decade. We argue that
diversifying the experimental effort, incorporating astronomical surveys and
gravitational wave observations, is our best hope to make progress on the dark
matter problem.Comment: Published in Nature, online on 04 Oct 2018. 13 pages, 1 figur
Shedding light on the performance of a pyrosequencing assay for drug-resistant tuberculosis diagnosis
BACKGROUND: Rapid molecular diagnostics, with their ability to quickly identify genetic mutations associated with drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical specimens, have great potential as tools to control multi- and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (M/XDR-TB). The Qiagen PyroMark Q96 ID system is a commercially available pyrosequencing (PSQ) platform that has been validated for rapid M/XDR-TB diagnosis. However, the details of the assay’s diagnostic and technical performance have yet to be thoroughly investigated in diverse clinical environments. METHODS: This study evaluates the diagnostic performance of the PSQ assay for 1128 clinical specimens from patients from three areas of high TB burden. We report on the diagnostic performance of the PSQ assay between the three sites and identify variables associated with poor PSQ technical performance. RESULTS: In India, the sensitivity of the PSQ assay ranged from 89 to 98 % for the detection of phenotypic resistance to isoniazid, rifampicin, fluoroquinolones, and the injectables. In Moldova, assay sensitivity ranged from 7 to 94 %, and in South Africa, assay sensitivity ranged from 71 to 92 %. Specificity was high (94–100 %) across all sites. The addition of eis promoter sequencing information greatly improved the sensitivity of kanamycin resistance detection in Moldova (7 % to 79 %). Nearly all (89.4 %) sequencing reactions conducted on smear-positive, culture-positive specimens and most (70.8 %) reactions conducted on smear-negative, culture-positive specimens yielded valid PSQ reads. An investigation into the variables influencing sequencing failures indicated smear negativity, culture negativity, site (Moldova), and sequencing of the rpoB, gyrA, and rrs genes were highly associated with poor PSQ technical performance (adj. OR > 2.0). CONCLUSIONS: This study has important implications for the global implementation of PSQ as a molecular TB diagnostic, as it demonstrates how regional factors may impact PSQ diagnostic performance, while underscoring potential gene targets for optimization to improve overall PSQ assay technical performance. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov (#NCT02170441). Registered 12 June 2014. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12879-016-1781-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users
Conjunctive Processing of Locomotor Signals by the Ventral Tegmental Area Neuronal Population
The ventral tegmental area (VTA) plays an essential role in reward and motivation. How the dopamine (DA) and non-DA neurons in the VTA engage in motivation-based locomotor behaviors is not well understood. We recorded activity of putative DA and non-DA neurons simultaneously in the VTA of awake mice engaged in motivated voluntary movements such as wheel running. Our results revealed that VTA non-DA neurons exhibited significant rhythmic activity that was correlated with the animal's running rhythms. Activity of putative DA neurons also correlated with the movement behavior, but to a lesser degree. More importantly, putative DA neurons exhibited significant burst activation at both onset and offset of voluntary movements. These findings suggest that VTA DA and non-DA neurons conjunctively process locomotor-related motivational signals that are associated with movement initiation, maintenance and termination
Growth Inhibition of Human Gynecologic and Colon Cancer Cells by Phyllanthus watsonii through Apoptosis Induction
Phyllanthus watsonii Airy Shaw is an endemic plant found in Peninsular Malaysia. Although there are numerous reports on the anti cancer properties of other Phyllanthus species, published information on the cytotoxicity of P. watsonii are very limited. The present study was carried out with bioassay-guided fractionation approach to evaluate the cytotoxicity and apoptosis induction capability of the P. watsonii extracts and fractions on human gynecologic (SKOV-3 and Ca Ski) and colon (HT-29) cancer cells. P. watsonii extracts exhibited strong cytotoxicity on all the cancer cells studied with IC50 values of ≤ 20.0 µg/mL. Hexane extract of P. watsonii was further subjected to bioassay-guided fractionation and yielded 10 fractions (PW-1→PW-10). PW-4→PW-8 portrayed stronger cytotoxic activity and was further subjected to bioassay-guided fractionation and resulted with 8 sub-fractions (PPWH-1→PPWH-8). PPWH-7 possessed greatest cytotoxicity (IC50 values ranged from 0.66 – 0.83 µg/mL) and was selective on the cancer cells studied. LC-MS/MS analysis of PPWH-7 revealed the presence of ellagic acid, geranic acid, glochidone, betulin, phyllanthin and sterol glucoside. Marked morphological changes, ladder-like appearance of DNA and increment in caspase-3 activity indicating apoptosis were clearly observed in both human gynecologic and colon cancer cells treated with P. watsonii especially with PPWH-7. The study also indicated that P. watsonii extracts arrested cell cycle at different growth phases in SKOV-3, Ca Ski and HT-29 cells. Cytotoxic and apoptotic potential of the endemic P. watsonii was investigated for the first time by bioassay-guided approach. These results demonstrated that P. watsonii selectively inhibits the growth of SKOV-3, Ca Ski and HT-29 cells through apoptosis induction and cell cycle modulation. Hence, P. watsonii has the potential to be further exploited for the discovery and development of new anti cancer drugs
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