550 research outputs found
Computer simulation studies of the venous circulation
Analog simulation of human cardiovascular system with emphasis on venous circulatio
The study of human venous system dynamics using hybrid computer modeling
A computer-based model of the cardiovascular system was created emphasizing effects on the systemic venous system. Certain physiological aspects were emphasized: effects of heart rate, tilting, changes in respiration, and leg muscular contractions. The results from the model showed close correlation with findings previously reported in the literature
Guar gum and similar soluble fibers in the regulation of cholesterol metabolism: Current understandings and future research priorities
The hypocholesterolemic effects associated with soluble fiber consumption are clear from animal model and human clinical investigations. Moreover, the modulation of whole-body cholesterol metabolism in response to dietary fiber consumption, including intestinal cholesterol absorption and fecal sterol and bile acid loss, has been the subject of many published reports. However, our understanding of how dietary fibers regulate molecular events at the gene/protein level and alter cellular cholesterol metabolism is limited. The modern emphasis on molecular nutrition and rapid progress in ‘high-dimensional’ biological techniques will permit further explorations of the role of genetic polymorphisms in determining the variable interindividual responses to soluble fibers. Furthermore, with traditional molecular biology tools and the application of ‘omic’ technology, specific insight into how fibers modulate the expression of genes and proteins that regulate intestinal cholesterol absorption and alter hepatic sterol balance will be gained. Detailed knowledge of the molecular mechanisms by which soluble fibers reduce plasma cholesterol concentrations is paramount to developing novel fiber-based “cocktails” that target specific metabolic pathways to gain maximal cholesterol reductions
Visual motherese? Signal-to-noise ratios in toddler-directed television
Younger brains are noisier information processing systems; this means that information for younger individuals has to allow clearer differentiation between those aspects that are required for the processing task in hand (the ‘signal’) and those that are not (the ‘noise’). We compared toddler-directed and adult-directed TV programmes (TotTV/ATV). We examined how low-level visual features (that previous research has suggested influence gaze allocation) relate to semantic information, namely the location of the character speaking in each frame. We show that this relationship differs between TotTV and ATV. First, we conducted Receiver Operator Characteristics analyses and found that feature congestion predicted speaking character location in TotTV but not ATV. Second, we used multiple analytical strategies to show that luminance differentials (flicker) predict face location more strongly in TotTV than ATV. Our results suggest that TotTV designers have intuited techniques for controlling toddler attention using low-level visual cues. The implications of these findings for structuring childhood learning experiences away from a screen are discussed
Spatial Hypersurfaces in Causal Set Cosmology
Within the causal set approach to quantum gravity, a discrete analog of a
spacelike region is a set of unrelated elements, or an antichain. In the
continuum approximation of the theory, a moment-of-time hypersurface is well
represented by an inextendible antichain. We construct a richer structure
corresponding to a thickening of this antichain containing non-trivial
geometric and topological information. We find that covariant observables can
be associated with such thickened antichains and transitions between them, in
classical stochastic growth models of causal sets. This construction highlights
the difference between the covariant measure on causal set cosmology and the
standard sum-over-histories approach: the measure is assigned to completed
histories rather than to histories on a restricted spacetime region. The
resulting re-phrasing of the sum-over-histories may be fruitful in other
approaches to quantum gravity.Comment: Revtex, 12 pages, 2 figure
A Classical Sequential Growth Dynamics for Causal Sets
Starting from certain causality conditions and a discrete form of general
covariance, we derive a very general family of classically stochastic,
sequential growth dynamics for causal sets. The resulting theories provide a
relatively accessible ``half way house'' to full quantum gravity that possibly
contains the latter's classical limit (general relativity). Because they can be
expressed in terms of state models for an assembly of Ising spins living on the
relations of the causal set, these theories also illustrate how
non-gravitational matter can arise dynamically from the causal set without
having to be built in at the fundamental level. Additionally, our results bring
into focus some interpretive issues of importance for causal set dynamics, and
for quantum gravity more generally.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figures, LaTeX, added references and a footnote, minor
correction
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Properties of the Volume Operator in Loop Quantum Gravity I: Results
We analyze the spectral properties of the volume operator of Ashtekar and
Lewandowski in Loop Quantum Gravity, which is the quantum analogue of the
classical volume expression for regions in three dimensional Riemannian space.
Our analysis considers for the first time generic graph vertices of valence
greater than four. Here we find that the geometry of the underlying vertex
characterizes the spectral properties of the volume operator, in particular the
presence of a `volume gap' (a smallest non-zero eigenvalue in the spectrum) is
found to depend on the vertex embedding. We compute the set of all
non-spatially diffeomorphic non-coplanar vertex embeddings for vertices of
valence 5--7, and argue that these sets can be used to label spatial
diffeomorphism invariant states. We observe how gauge invariance connects
vertex geometry and representation properties of the underlying gauge group in
a natural way. Analytical results on the spectrum on 4-valent vertices are
included, for which the presence of a volume gap is proved. This paper presents
our main results; details are provided by a companion paper arXiv:0706.0382v1.Comment: 36 pages, 7 figures, LaTeX. See also companion paper
arXiv:0706.0382v1. Version as published in CQG in 2008. See arXiv:1003.2348
for important remarks regarding the sigma configurations. Subsequent
computations have revealed some minor errors, which do not change the
qualitative results but modify some of the numbers presented her
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