Possible relationships between solar activity and atmospheric constituents

The large body of data on solar variations and atmospheric constituents collected between 1902 and 1953 by the Astrophysical Observatory of the Smithsonian Institution (APO) was examined. Short-term variations in amounts of atmospheric aerosols and water vapor due to seasonal changes, volcanic activity, air pollution, and frontal activity are discussed. Preliminary evidence indicates that increased solar activity is at times associated with a decrease in attenuation due to airborne particulates

Dust Storms in Space?

Primarily from the Pioneer 8 and 9 results, it is concluded that the flux of picogram sized dust particles near the earth's orbit has been constant to within the observational limits over three years of observation. In particular, since dust streams are not observed, they cannot explain microphone detected events. However, the possibility of rare events due to dust blown directly off a cometary nucleus (such as that reported for Comet Bennett) cannot be completely ruled out

Heparin and air filters reduce embolic events caused by intra-arterial cerebral angiography - A prospective, randomized trial

Background-Intra-arterial cerebral angiography is associated with a low risk for neurological complications, but clinically silent ischemic events after angiography have been seen in a substantial number of patients.Methods and Results-In a prospective study, diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) before and after intra-arterial cerebral angiography and transcranial Doppler sonography during angiography were used to evaluate the frequency of cerebral embolism. One hundred fifty diagnostic cerebral angiographies were randomized into 50 procedures, each using conventional angiographic technique, or systemic heparin treatment throughout the procedure, or air filters between the catheter and both the contrast medium syringe and the catheter flushing. There was no neurological complication during or after angiography. Overall, DW-MRI revealed 26 new ischemic lesions in 17 patients (11%). In the control group, 11 patients showed a total of 18 lesions. In the heparin group, 3 patients showed a total of 4 lesions. In the air filter group, 3 patients exhibited a total of 4 lesions. The reduced incidence of ischemic events in the heparin and air filter groups compared with the control group was significantly different (P=0.002). Transcranial Doppler sonography demonstrated a large number of microembolic signals that was significantly lower in the air filter group compared with the heparin and control groups (P=0.01), which did not differ from each other.Conclusions-Air filters and heparin both reduce the incidence of silent ischemic events detected by DW-MRI after intra-arterial cerebral angiography and can potentially lower clinically overt ischemic complications. This may apply to any intra-arterial angiographic procedure

Theory of Optical Tweezers

We derive a partial-wave (Mie) expansion of the axial force exerted on a transparent sphere by a laser beam focused through a high numerical aperture objective. The results hold throughout the range of interest for practical applications. The ray optics limit is shown to follow from the Mie expansion by size averaging. Numerical plots show large deviations from ray optics near the focal region and oscillatory behavior (explained in terms of a simple interferometer picture) of the force as a function of the size parameter. Available experimental data favor the present model over previous ones.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Wilson chains are not thermal reservoirs

Wilson chains, based on a logarithmic discretization of a continuous spectrum, are widely used to model an electronic (or bosonic) bath for Kondo spins and other quantum impurities within the numerical renormalization group method and other numerical approaches. In this short note we point out that Wilson chains can not serve as thermal reservoirs as their temperature changes by a number of order Delta E when a finite amount of energy Delta E is added. This proves that for a large class of non-equilibrium problems they cannot be used to predict the long-time behavior.Comment: 2 page

Modelling of optical traps for aerosols

Experimental observations suggest that there are differences between the behavior of particles optically trapped in air and trapped in a liquid phase. We present a modified version of Mie Debye Spherical Aberration theory to numerically simulate such optical system in attempt to explain and predict these effects. The model incorporates Mie scattering and focussing of the trapping beam through media of stratified refractive index. Our results show a geometrical optics approach cannot correctly describe our system and that spherical aberration must be included. We successfully qualitatively explain the observed phenomena and those of other authors, before discussing the limits of our experimental techniques and methods to improve it. We draw the important conclusion that when optically trapping aerosols the system does not behave as a true `optical tweezers', varying between levitation and single beam gradient force trapping depending on particle and beam parameters

Patient-Reported Side Effects of Intradetrusor Botulinum Toxin Type A for Idiopathic Overactive Bladder Syndrome

Objective: The aim of the study was a prospective assessment of patient-reported side effects in an open-label study after intradetrusor botulinum toxin injections for idiopathic overactive bladder (OAB). Patients and Methods: Botulinum toxin A injection was performed in 56 patients with idiopathic OAB. Patients were followed up for 6 months concerning side effects and patients' satisfaction. Results: Different types of side effects were assessed such as dry mouth (19.6%), arm weakness (8.9%), eyelid weakness (8.9%), leg weakness (7.1%), torso weakness (5.4%), impaired vision (5.4%) and dysphagia (5.4%). In all cases, symptoms were mild and transient. Urological complications such as gross hematuria (17.9%), acute urinary retention (8.9%) and acute urinary tract infection (7.1%) were noticed. In all cases, acute urinary retention was transient and treated with temporary intermittent self-catheterization. There was no statistically significant correlation between dosage and observed side effects. Patients' satisfaction rate was high (71.4%). Conclusion: Intradetrusor injection of botulinum toxin was associated with a high rate of neurourological side effects. In general, side effects were transient, mild and did not require special treatment. Copyright (C) 2010 S. Karger AG, Base

Fourier transformed picosecond synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator without spectral filtering element

An optical parametric oscillator for the infrared region pumped by a picosecond Ti:Sapphire laser is demonstrated. Fourier transform limited pulses of 15 and 10 ps, for signal and idler wavelengths respectively, have been obtained using a periodically poled stoechiometric lithium tantalate nonlinear crystal, without any spectral filtering. A complete experimental study of the influence of the cavity length detuning on the spectral and temporal dynamic of the output radiation is discussed