783 research outputs found
Decreasing physical and verbal aggression in a brain injured nursing home resident
Following a traumatic brain injury, patients often suffer a series of psychological and psychiatric sequalae. This study presents the case of Mr. K, a 52-year-old brain-injured nursing home resident who exhibited problematic physical aggression and verbal abuse toward staff and residents. His problem behaviors were intertwined with an ethical issue involving a heterosexual relationship with another resident who also was brain injured. Following a functional assessment of antecedents and consequences, a differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) schedule was implemented. Specifically, the resident was rewarded with short-term and long-term reinforcers following periods of time during which behaviors other than the target behavior were emitted. Although the behavior plan was successful, it resulted in a more noticeable decrease in physically aggressive behaviors than verbally abusive behaviors. Implications include increasing awareness of use of behavior plans in nursing homes and of ethical and behavioral issues associated with sexuality among nursing home residents
RS1, Custodial Isospin and Precision Tests
We study precision electroweak constraints within a RS1 model with gauge
fields and fermions in the bulk. The electroweak gauge symmetry is enhanced to
SU(2)_L \times SU(2)_R \times U(1)_{B-L}, thereby providing a custodial isospin
symmetry sufficient to suppress excessive contributions to the T parameter. We
then construct complete models, complying with all electroweak constraints, for
solving the hierarchy problem, without supersymmetry or large hierarchies in
the fundamental couplings. Using the AdS/CFT correspondence our models can be
interpreted as dual to a strongly coupled conformal Higgs sector with global
custodial symmetry, gauge and fermionic matter being fundamental fields
external to the CFT. This scenario has interesting collider signals, distinct
from other RS models in the literature.Comment: 32 pages, 6 figures, latex2e, minor changes, references adde
Improved results for N=(2,2) super Yang-Mills theory using supersymmetric discrete light-cone quantization
We consider the (1+1)-dimensional super Yang--Mills theory
which is obtained by dimensionally reducing super Yang--Mills
theory in four dimension to two dimensions. We do our calculations in the
large- approximation using Supersymmetric Discrete Light Cone
Quantization. The objective is to calculate quantities that might be
investigated by researchers using other numerical methods. We present a
precision study of the low-mass spectrum and the stress-energy correlator
. We find that the mass gap of this theory closes as the
numerical resolution goes to infinity and that the correlator in the
intermediate region behaves like .Comment: 18 pages, 8 figure
Interactions between brown-dwarf binaries and Sun-like stars
Several mechanisms have been proposed for the formation of brown dwarfs, but
there is as yet no consensus as to which -- if any -- are operative in nature.
Any theory of brown dwarf formation must explain the observed statistics of
brown dwarfs. These statistics are limited by selection effects, but they are
becoming increasingly discriminating. In particular, it appears (a) that brown
dwarfs that are secondaries to Sun-like stars tend to be on wide orbits, a\ga
100\,{\rm AU} (the Brown Dwarf Desert), and (b) that these brown dwarfs have a
significantly higher chance of being in a close (a\la 10\,{\rm AU}) binary
system with another brown dwarf than do brown dwarfs in the field. This then
raises the issue of whether these brown dwarfs have formed {\it in situ}, i.e.
by fragmentation of a circumstellar disc; or have formed elsewhere and
subsequently been captured. We present numerical simulations of the purely
gravitational interaction between a close brown-dwarf binary and a Sun-like
star. These simulations demonstrate that such interactions have a negligible
chance () of leading to the close brown-dwarf binary being captured by
the Sun-like star. Making the interactions dissipative by invoking the
hydrodynamic effects of attendant discs might alter this conclusion. However,
in order to explain the above statistics, this dissipation would have to favour
the capture of brown-dwarf binaries over single brown-dwarfs, and we present
arguments why this is unlikely. The simplest inference is that most brown-dwarf
binaries -- and therefore possibly also most single brown dwarfs -- form by
fragmentation of circumstellar discs around Sun-like protostars, with some of
them subsequently being ejected into the field.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics and
Space Scienc
Hadron Production in Heavy Ion Collisions
We review hadron production in heavy ion collisions with emphasis on pion and
kaon production at energies below 2 AGeV and on partonic collectivity at RHIC
energies.Comment: 31 pages, 26 figures, accepted for publication in Landolt-Boernstein
Volume 1-23
Phase structures of strong coupling lattice QCD with finite baryon and isospin density
Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) at finite temperature (T), baryon chemical
potential (\muB) and isospin chemical potential (\muI) is studied in the strong
coupling limit on a lattice with staggered fermions. With the use of large
dimensional expansion and the mean field approximation, we derive an effective
action written in terms of the chiral condensate and pion condensate as a
function of T, \muB and \muI. The phase structure in the space of T and \muB is
elucidated, and simple analytical formulas for the critical line of the chiral
phase transition and the tricritical point are derived. The effects of a finite
quark mass (m) and finite \muI on the phase diagram are discussed. We also
investigate the phase structure in the space of T, \muI and m, and clarify the
correspondence between color SU(3) QCD with finite isospin density and color
SU(2) QCD with finite baryon density. Comparisons of our results with those
from recent Monte Carlo lattice simulations on finite density QCD are given.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, revtex4; some discussions are clarified, version
to appear in Phys. Rev.
Lepton Masses and Mixing in a Left-Right Symmetric Model with a TeV-scale Gravity
We construct a left-right symmetric (LRS) model in five dimensions which
accounts naturally for the lepton flavor parameters. The fifth dimension is
described by an orbifold, S_1/Z_2 times Z'_2, with a typical size of order
TeV^{-1}. The fundamental scale is of order 25 TeV which implies that the gauge
hierarchy problem is ameliorated. In addition the LRS breaking scale is of
order few TeV which implies that interactions beyond those of the standard
model are accessible to near future experiments. Leptons of different
representations are localized around different orbifold fixed points. This
explains, through the Arkani-Hamed-Schmaltz mechanism, the smallness of the tau
mass compared to the electroweak breaking scale. An additional U(1) horizontal
symmetry, broken by small parameters, yields the hierarchy in the charged
lepton masses, strong suppression of the light neutrino masses and accounts for
the mixing parameters. The model yields several unique predictions. In
particular, the branching ratio for the lepton flavor violating process mu^-
--> e^+ e^- e^- is comparable with its present experimental sensitivity.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure, references added, discussion on the
predictiveness of the model in the generic non-universal case added, to
appear in PR
Methylation-capture and Next-Generation sequencing of free circulating DNA from human plasma
Background
Free circulating DNA (fcDNA) has many potential clinical applications, due to the non-invasive way in which it is collected. However, because of the low concentration of fcDNA in blood, genome-wide analysis carries many technical challenges that must be overcome before fcDNA studies can reach their full potential. There are currently no definitive standards for fcDNA collection, processing and whole-genome sequencing. We report novel detailed methodology for the capture of high-quality methylated fcDNA, library preparation and downstream genome-wide Next-Generation Sequencing. We also describe the effects of sample storage, processing and scaling on fcDNA recovery and quality.
Results
Use of serum versus plasma, and storage of blood prior to separation resulted in genomic DNA contamination, likely due to leukocyte lysis. Methylated fcDNA fragments were isolated from 5 donors using a methyl-binding protein-based protocol and appear as a discrete band of ~180 bases. This discrete band allows minimal sample loss at the size restriction step in library preparation for Next-Generation Sequencing, allowing for high-quality sequencing from minimal amounts of fcDNA. Following sequencing, we obtained 37×106-86×106 unique mappable reads, representing more than 50% of total mappable reads. The methylation status of 9 genomic regions as determined by DNA capture and sequencing was independently validated by clonal bisulphite sequencing.
Conclusions
Our optimized methods provide high-quality methylated fcDNA suitable for whole-genome sequencing, and allow good library complexity and accurate sequencing, despite using less than half of the recommended minimum input DNA
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