1,498 research outputs found
Paradigm shift in public administration: Implications for teaching in professional training programs
10.1111/j.1540-6210.2009.02085.xPublic Administration Review69SUPPL.
Current whole-body MRI applications in the neurofibromatoses
ObjectivesThe Response Evaluation in Neurofibromatosis and Schwannomatosis (REiNS) International Collaboration Whole-Body MRI (WB-MRI) Working Group reviewed the existing literature on WB-MRI, an emerging technology for assessing disease in patients with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2), and schwannomatosis (SWN), to recommend optimal image acquisition and analysis methods to enable WB-MRI as an endpoint in NF clinical trials.MethodsA systematic process was used to review all published data about WB-MRI in NF syndromes to assess diagnostic accuracy, feasibility and reproducibility, and data about specific techniques for assessment of tumor burden, characterization of neoplasms, and response to therapy.ResultsWB-MRI at 1.5T or 3.0T is feasible for image acquisition. Short tau inversion recovery (STIR) sequence is used in all investigations to date, suggesting consensus about the utility of this sequence for detection of WB tumor burden in people with NF. There are insufficient data to support a consensus statement about the optimal imaging planes (axial vs coronal) or 2D vs 3D approaches. Functional imaging, although used in some NF studies, has not been systematically applied or evaluated. There are no comparative studies between regional vs WB-MRI or evaluations of WB-MRI reproducibility.ConclusionsWB-MRI is feasible for identifying tumors using both 1.5T and 3.0T systems. The STIR sequence is a core sequence. Additional investigation is needed to define the optimal approach for volumetric analysis, the reproducibility of WB-MRI in NF, and the diagnostic performance of WB-MRI vs regional MRI
Local Ferromagnetism in Microporous Carbon with the Structural Regularity of Zeolite Y
Magnetization M(H,T) measurements have been performed on microporous carbon
(MC) with a three-dimensional nano-array structure corresponding to that of a
zeolite Y supercage. The obtained results unambiguously demonstrate the
occurrence of high-temperature ferromagnetism in MC, probably originating from
a topological disorder associated with curved graphene sheets. The results
provide evidence that the ferromagnetic behavior of MC is governed by isolated
clusters in a broad temperature range, and suggest the occurrence of
percolative-type transition with the temperature lowering. A comparative
analysis of the results obtained on MC and related materials is given.Comment: To be published in Physical Review B (2003
Determination of oxygen stoichiometry in the mixed-valent manganites
The possible redox (oxidation reduction) chemical methods for precisely
determining the oxygen content in the perovskite manganites including
hole-doped La1-xCaxMnOy and electron-doped La1-xTexMnOy compounds are
described. For manganites annealed at different temperatures, the oxygen
content of the samples was determined by a redox back titration in which the
powder samples taken in a quartz crucible were dissolved in (1+1) sulfuric acid
containing an excess of sodium oxalate, and the excess sodium oxalate was
titrated with permanganate standard solution. The results indicate that the
method is effective and highly reproducible. Moreover, the variation of oxygen
content is also reflected in significantly affecting the electrical transport
property of the samples, which is mainly considered to be closely related to
introduce oxygen vacancies in the Mn-O-Mn network.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure. J. Magn. Magn .Mater (accepted
Diffuse Gamma Rays: Galactic and Extragalactic Diffuse Emission
"Diffuse" gamma rays consist of several components: truly diffuse emission
from the interstellar medium, the extragalactic background, whose origin is not
firmly established yet, and the contribution from unresolved and faint Galactic
point sources. One approach to unravel these components is to study the diffuse
emission from the interstellar medium, which traces the interactions of high
energy particles with interstellar gas and radiation fields. Because of its
origin such emission is potentially able to reveal much about the sources and
propagation of cosmic rays. The extragalactic background, if reliably
determined, can be used in cosmological and blazar studies. Studying the
derived "average" spectrum of faint Galactic sources may be able to give a clue
to the nature of the emitting objects.Comment: 32 pages, 28 figures, kapproc.cls. Chapter to the book "Cosmic
Gamma-Ray Sources," to be published by Kluwer ASSL Series, Edited by K. S.
Cheng and G. E. Romero. More details can be found at
http://www.gamma.mpe-garching.mpg.de/~aws/aws.htm
A Simulated Annealing Approach to Approximate Bayes Computations
Approximate Bayes Computations (ABC) are used for parameter inference when
the likelihood function of the model is expensive to evaluate but relatively
cheap to sample from. In particle ABC, an ensemble of particles in the product
space of model outputs and parameters is propagated in such a way that its
output marginal approaches a delta function at the data and its parameter
marginal approaches the posterior distribution. Inspired by Simulated
Annealing, we present a new class of particle algorithms for ABC, based on a
sequence of Metropolis kernels, associated with a decreasing sequence of
tolerances w.r.t. the data. Unlike other algorithms, our class of algorithms is
not based on importance sampling. Hence, it does not suffer from a loss of
effective sample size due to re-sampling. We prove convergence under a
condition on the speed at which the tolerance is decreased. Furthermore, we
present a scheme that adapts the tolerance and the jump distribution in
parameter space according to some mean-fields of the ensemble, which preserves
the statistical independence of the particles, in the limit of infinite sample
size. This adaptive scheme aims at converging as close as possible to the
correct result with as few system updates as possible via minimizing the
entropy production in the system. The performance of this new class of
algorithms is compared against two other recent algorithms on two toy examples.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figure
The effect of grain size on electrical transport and magnetic properties of La0.9Te0.1MnO3
The effect of grain size on structural, magnetic and transport properties in
electron-doped manganites La0.9Te0.1MnO3 has been investigated. All samples
show a rhombohedral structure with the space group at room temperature. It
shows that the Mn-O-Mn bond angle decreases and the Mn-O bond length increases
with the increase of grain size. All samples undergo paramagnetic
(PM)-ferromagnetic (FM) phase transition and an interesting phenomenon that
both magnetization and the Curie temperature decrease with increasing grain
size is observed, which is suggested to mainly originate from the increase of
the Mn-O bond length . Additionally, obviously increases with decreasing grain
size due to the increase of both the height and width of tunneling barriers
with decreasing the grain size. The results indicate that both the intrinsic
colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) and the extrinsic the extrinsic interfacial
magnetoresistance (IMR) can be effectively tuned in La0.9Te0.1MnO3 by changing
grain size.Comment: 15 pages,4 figures. Solid state communications 132(2004)83-8
Systematics of two-component superconductivity in from microwave measurements of high quality single crystals
Systematic microwave surface impedance measurements of YBCO single crystals
grown in crucibles reveal new properties that are not directly seen
in similar measurements of other YBCO samples. Two key observations obtained
from complex conductivity are: a new normal conductivity peak at around 80K and
additional pairing below 65K. High pressure oxygenation of one of the crystals
still yields the same results ruling out any effect of macroscopic segregation
of O-deficient regions. A single complex order parameter cannot describe these
data, and the results suggest at least two superconducting components.
Comparisons with model calculations done for various decoupled two-component
scenarios (i.e. s+d, d+d) are presented. Systematics of three single crystals
show that the 80K quasiparticle peak is correlated with the normal state
inelastic scattering rate. Close to Tc, the data follow a mean-field behavior.
Overall, our results strongly suggest the presence of multiple pairing
temperature and energy scales in .Comment: 14 pages, 2-column, Revtex, 5 embedded postscript figures, uses
graphicx. Postscript version also available at
http://sagar.physics.neu.edu/preprints.htm
Low root-to-root transmission of a tobamovirus, yellow tailflower mild mottle virus, and resilience of its virions
Tobamoviruses are serious pathogens because they have extremely stable virions, they are transmitted by contact, and they often induce severe disease in crops. Knowledge of the routes of transmission and resilience of tobamovirus virions is essential in understanding the epidemiology of this group of viruses. We used an isolate of the tobamovirus yellow tailflower mild mottle virus (YTMMV) to examine root-to-root transmission in soil and in a hydroponic growth environment. Root-to-root transmission occurred rarely, and when it occurred plants did not exhibit systemic movement of the virus from the roots to the shoots over a 30-day period. The resilience of YTMMV virions was tested in dried leaf tissue over time periods from one hour to one year under temperatures ranging from -80°C to 160°C. Infectivity was maintained for at least a year when incubated at -80°C, 22°C or at fluctuating ambient temperatures of 0.8°C to 44.4°C, but incubation under dry conditions at 160°C for >4 days eliminated infectivity. Exposure of virions to 0.1 M sodium hydroxide or 20% w/v skim milk solution for 30 min, treatments recommended for tobamovirus inactivation, did not abolish infectivity of YTMMV
Surface-enhanced Raman scattering measurement from a lipid bilayer encapsulating a single decahedral nanoparticle mediated by an optical trap
We present a new technique for the study of model membranes on the length-scale of a single nanosized liposome. Silver decahedral nanoparticles have been encapsulated by a model unilamellar lipid bilayer creating nano-sized lipid vesicles. The metal core has two roles (i) increasing the polarizability of vesicles, enabling a single vesicle to be isolated and confined in an optical trap, and (ii) enhancing Raman scattering from the bilayer, via the high surface-plasmon field at the sharp vertices of the decahedral particles. Combined this has allowed us to measure a Raman fingerprint from a single vesicle of 50 nmdiameter, containing just ∼104 lipid molecules in a bilayer membrane over a surface area of <0.01 µm2, equivalent to a volume of approximately 1 zepto-litre. Raman scattering is a weak and inefficient process and previous studies have required either a substantially larger bilayer area in order to obtain a detectable signal, or the tagging of lipid molecules with a chromophore to provide an indirect probe of the bilayer. Our approach is fully label-free and bio-compatible and, in the future, it will enable much more localized studies of the heterogeneous structure of lipid bilayers and of membrane-bound components than is currently possible
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