Reliability of Lower Limb Motor Evoked Potentials in Stroke and Healthy Populations: How Many Responses Are Needed?

Objective To determine the intra- and inter-session reliability of motor evoked potential (MEP) size parameters in the lower limb of patients with stroke, focussing on the number of MEPs collected and the method of measuring MEP size. Methods Transcranial magnetic stimulation was used to elicit MEPs in the soleus muscle of patients with stroke (n = 13) and age-matched healthy participants (n = 13) during low level muscle activation. Two sets of 10 responses were collected in the first session and a further 10 responses collected in a second session held 7 days later. Four MEP size measurements were made using 4, 6, 8, or all 10 of the MEPs collected. Intra- and inter-session reliability was examined using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and typical percentage error. Results Intrasession ICC statistics using 6 or more MEPs were >0.85 in the stroke group but intersession values were all <0.5. Reliability was best when measuring parameters from individual MEPs rather than averaged responses. Conclusions Reliability of intrasession MEP size is excellent in the lower limb of patients with stroke using as few as 6 MEPs but intersession reliability is poor. Significance Comparing MEP size measures across two or more sessions is questionable in the lower limb of patients with stroke

Parton Distributions for the Octet and Decuplet Baryons

We calculate the parton distributions for both polarized and unpolarized octet and decuplet baryons, using the MIT bag, dressed by mesons. We show that the hyperfine interaction responsible for the $\Delta - N$ and $\Sigma^0 - \Lambda$ splittings leads to large deviations from SU(3) and SU(6) predictions. For the $\Lambda$ we find significant polarized, non-strange parton distributions which lead to a sizable $\Lambda$ polarization in polarized, semi-inclusive $ep$ scattering. We also discuss the flavour symmetry violation arising from the meson-cloud associated with the chiral structure of baryons.Comment: 29 pages, 15 figure

A Study on the Transferability of Adversarial Attacks in Sound Event Classification

An adversarial attack is an algorithm that perturbs the input of a machine learning model in an intelligent way in order to change the output of the model. An important property of adversarial attacks is transferability. According to this property, it is possible to generate adversarial perturbations on one model and apply it the input to fool the output of a different model. Our work focuses on studying the transferability of adversarial attacks in sound event classification. We are able to demonstrate differences in transferability properties from those observed in computer vision. We show that dataset normalization techniques such as z-score normalization does not affect the transferability of adversarial attacks and we show that techniques such as knowledge distillation do not increase the transferability of attacks

Pion Content of the Nucleon as seen in the NA51 Drell-Yan experiment

In a recent CERN Drell-Yan experiment the NA51 group found a strong asymmetry of $\bar u$ and $\bar d$ densities in the proton at $x\simeq0.18$. We interpret this result as a decisive confirmation of the pion-induced sea in the nucleon.Comment: 10 pages + 3 figures, Preprint KFA-IKP(TH)-1994-14 .tex file. After \enddocument a uu-encodeded Postscript file comprising the figures is appende

Change in Sleep Duration and Type 2 Diabetes: The Whitehall II Study

OBJECTIVE Evidence suggests that short and long sleep durations are associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes. Using successive data waves spanning &amp;gt;20 years, we examined whether a change in sleep duration is associated with incident diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Sleep duration was reported at the beginning and end of four 5-year cycles: 1985–1988 to 1991–1994 (n = 5,613), 1991–1994 to 1997–1999 (n = 4,193), 1997–1999 to 2002–2004 (n = 3,840), and 2002–2004 to 2007–2009 (n = 4,195). At each cycle, change in sleep duration was calculated for participants without diabetes. Incident diabetes at the end of the subsequent 5-year period was defined using 1) fasting glucose, 2) 75-g oral glucose tolerance test, and 3) glycated hemoglobin, in conjunction with diabetes medication and self-reported doctor diagnosis. RESULTS Compared with the reference group of persistent 7-h sleepers, an increase of ≥2 h sleep per night was associated with a higher risk of incident diabetes (odds ratio 1.65 [95% CI 1.15, 2.37]) in analyses adjusted for age, sex, employment grade, and ethnic group. This association was partially attenuated by adjustment for BMI and change in weight (1.50 [1.04, 2.16]). An increased risk of incident diabetes was also seen in persistent short sleepers (average ≤5.5 h/night; 1.35 [1.04, 1.76]), but this evidence weakened on adjustment for BMI and change in weight (1.25 [0.96, 1.63]). CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that individuals whose sleep duration increases are at an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. Greater weight and weight gain in this group partly explain the association. </jats:sec

A Study of Off-Forward Parton Distributions

An extensive theoretical analysis of off-forward parton distributions (OFPDs) is presented. The OFPDs and the form factors of the quark energy-momentum tensor are estimated at a low-energy scale using a bag model. Relations among the second moments of OFPDs, the form factors, and the fraction of the nucleon spin carried by quarks are discussed.Comment: 29 pages revtex, 12 postscript figures, minor corrections, references update

Flavor and Charge Symmetry in the Parton Distributions of the Nucleon

Recent calculations of charge symmetry violation(CSV) in the valence quark distributions of the nucleon have revealed that the dominant symmetry breaking contribution comes from the mass associated with the spectator quark system.Assuming that the change in the spectator mass can be treated perturbatively, we derive a model independent expression for the shift in the parton distributions of the nucleon. This result is used to derive a relation between the charge and flavor asymmetric contributions to the valence quark distributions in the proton, and to calculate CSV contributions to the nucleon sea. The CSV contribution to the Gottfried sum rule is also estimated, and found to be small

Meson Cloud of the Nucleon in Polarized Semi-Inclusive Deep-Inelastic Scattering

We investigate the possibility of identifying an explicit pionic component of the nucleon through measurements of polarized $\Delta^{++}$ baryon fragments produced in deep-inelastic leptoproduction off polarized protons, which may help to identify the physical mechanism responsible for the breaking of the Gottfried sum rule. The pion-exchange model predicts highly correlated polarizations of the $\Delta^{++}$ and target proton, in marked contrast with the competing diquark fragmentation process. Measurement of asymmetries in polarized $\Lambda$ production may also reveal the presence of a kaon cloud in the nucleon.Comment: 23 pages REVTeX, 7 uuencoded figures, accepted for publication in Zeit. Phys.

Pions in the nuclear medium and Drell-Yan scattering

We investigate the modification of the pion-cloud in the nuclear medium and its effect on the nuclear Drell-Yan process. The pion's in-medium self-energy is calculated in a self-consistent delta-hole model, with particle-hole contribution also included. Both the imaginary and real part of the pion's and delta's self-energy are taken into account and related through a dispersion relation assuring causality. The resulting in-medium pion light-cone momentum distribution shows only a slight enhancement compared to the one of the free nucleon. As a consequence the ratio of the cross-section for Drell-Yan scattering on nuclear matter and nucleonic target is close to unity in agreement with experiment.Comment: 33 pages, Latex with epsf, figures included, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Probing Charge-Symmetry-Violating Quark Distributions in Semi-Inclusive Leptoproduction of Hadrons

Recent experiments by the HERMES group at HERA are measuring semi-inclusive electroproduction of pions from deuterium. We point out that by comparing the production of $\pi^+$ and $\pi^-$ from an isoscalar target, it is possible, in principle, to measure charge symmetry violation in the valence quark distributions of the nucleons. It is also possible in the same experiments to obtain an independent measurement of the quark fragmentation functions. We review the information which can be deduced from such experiments and show the ``signature'' for charge symmetry violation in such experiments. Finally, we predict the magnitude of the charge symmetry violation, from both the valence quark distributions and the pion fragmentation function, which might be expected in these experiments.Comment: 19 pages plus 5 figures, used eps