4,625 research outputs found
Higher order approximation of isochrons
Phase reduction is a commonly used techinque for analyzing stable
oscillators, particularly in studies concerning synchronization and phase lock
of a network of oscillators. In a widely used numerical approach for obtaining
phase reduction of a single oscillator, one needs to obtain the gradient of the
phase function, which essentially provides a linear approximation of isochrons.
In this paper, we extend the method for obtaining partial derivatives of the
phase function to arbitrary order, providing higher order approximations of
isochrons. In particular, our method in order 2 can be applied to the study of
dynamics of a stable oscillator subjected to stochastic perturbations, a topic
that will be discussed in a future paper. We use the Stuart-Landau oscillator
to illustrate the method in order 2
Two dimensionality in quasi one-dimensional cobalt oxides
By means of muon spin rotation and relaxation (SR) techniques, we have
investigated the magnetism of quasi one-dimensional (1D) cobalt oxides
CoO (=Ca, Sr and Ba, =1, 2, 3, 5 and
), in which the 1D CoO chain is surrounded by six equally spaced
chains forming a triangular lattice in the -plane, using polycrystalline
samples, from room temperature down to 1.8 K. For the compounds with =1 - 5,
transverse field SR experiments showed the existence of a magnetic
transition below 100 K. The onset temperature of the transition () was found to decrease with ; from 100 K for =1 to 60 K for
=5. A damped muon spin oscillation was observed only in the sample with
=1 (CaCoO), whereas only a fast relaxation obtained even at 1.8
K in the other three samples. In combination with the results of susceptibility
measurements, this indicates that a two-dimensional short-range
antiferromagnetic (AF) order appears below for all
compounds with =1 - 5; but quasi-static long-range AF order formed only in
CaCoO, below 25 K. For BaCoO (=), as decreased
from 300 K, 1D ferromagnetic (F) order appeared below 53 K, and a sharp 2D AF
transition occurred at 15 K.Comment: 12 pages, 14 figures, and 2 table
Comparison of manual and semi-automated delineation of regions of interest for radioligand PET imaging analysis
BACKGROUND
As imaging centers produce higher resolution research scans, the number of man-hours required to process regional data has become a major concern. Comparison of automated vs. manual methodology has not been reported for functional imaging. We explored validation of using automation to delineate regions of interest on positron emission tomography (PET) scans. The purpose of this study was to ascertain improvements in image processing time and reproducibility of a semi-automated brain region extraction (SABRE) method over manual delineation of regions of interest (ROIs).
METHODS
We compared 2 sets of partial volume corrected serotonin 1a receptor binding potentials (BPs) resulting from manual vs. semi-automated methods. BPs were obtained from subjects meeting consensus criteria for frontotemporal degeneration and from age- and gender-matched healthy controls. Two trained raters provided each set of data to conduct comparisons of inter-rater mean image processing time, rank order of BPs for 9 PET scans, intra- and inter-rater intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), repeatability coefficients (RC), percentages of the average parameter value (RM%), and effect sizes of either method.
RESULTS
SABRE saved approximately 3 hours of processing time per PET subject over manual delineation (p 0.8) for both methods. RC and RM% were lower for the manual method across all ROIs, indicating less intra-rater variance across PET subjects' BPs.
CONCLUSION
SABRE demonstrated significant time savings and no significant difference in reproducibility over manual methods, justifying the use of SABRE in serotonin 1a receptor radioligand PET imaging analysis. This implies that semi-automated ROI delineation is a valid methodology for future PET imaging analysis
Multicritical end-point of the first-order ferromagnetic transition in colossal magnetoresistive manganites
We have studied the bandwidth-temperature-magnetic field phase diagram of
RE(0.55)Sr(0.45)MnO(3) colossal magnetoresistance manganites with ferromagnetic
metallic (FM) ground state. The bandwidth (or equivalently the double exchange
interaction) was controlled both via chemical substitution and hydrostatic
pressure with a focus on the vicinity of the critical pressure p* where the
character of the zero-field FM transition changes from first to second order.
Below p* the first-order FM transition extends up to a critical magnetic field,
H_cr. It is suppressed by pressure and approaches zero on the larger bandwidth
side where the surface of the first-order FM phase boundary is terminated by a
multicritical end-point (p*~32 kbar, T*~188 K, H*=0). The change in the
character of the transition and the decrease of the CMR effect is attributed to
the reduced CO/OO fluctuations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Histological Course of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Japanese Patients: Tight glycemic control, rather than weight reduction, ameliorates liver fibrosis
金沢大学医薬保健研究域医学系OBJECTIVE - The goal of this study was to examine whether metabolic abnormalities are responsible for the histological changes observed in Japanese patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) who have undergone serial liver biopsies. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS - In total, 39 patients had undergone consecutive liver biopsies. Changes in their clinical data were analyzed, and biopsy specimens were scored histologically for stage. RESULTS - The median follow-up time was 2.4 years (range 1.0-8.5). Liver fibrosis had improved in 12 patients (30.7%), progressed in 11 patients (28.2%), and remained unchanged in 16 patients (41%). In a Cox proportional hazard model, decrease in A1C and use of insulin were associated with improvement of liver fibrosis independent of age, sex, and BMI. However, ΔA1C was more strongly associated with the improvement of liver fibrosis than use of insulin after adjustment for each other (χ2; 7.97 vs. 4.58, respectively). CONCLUSIONS - Tight glycemic control may prevent histological progression in Japanese patients with NAFLD. © 2010 by the American Diabetes Association
Pressure induced transition from a spin glass to an itinerant ferromagnet in half doped manganite Ln0.5Ba0.5MnO3 (Ln=Sm and Nd) with quenched disorder
The effect of quenched disorder on the multiphase competition has been
investigated by examining the pressure phase diagram of half doped manganite
Ln0.5B0.5MnO3 (Ln = Sm and Nd) with A-site disorders. Sm0.5Ba0.5MnO3, a spin
glass insulator at ambient pressure, switches to a ferromagnetic metal with
increasing pressure, followed by a rapid increase of the ferromagnetic
transition temperature Tc. The rapid increase of Tc was confirmed also for
Nd0.5Ba0.5MnO3. These observations indicate that the unusual suppression of the
multicritical phase boundary in the A-site disordered system, previously
observed as a function of the averaged A-site ionic radius, is essentially
controlled by the pressure and hence the band width. The effect of quenched
disorder is therefore much enhanced with approaching the multicritical region.Comment: 4 pages including 3 figure
Effect of psoriasis severity on hypertension control: a population-based study in the United Kingdom.
IMPORTANCE: Hypertension is prevalent among patients with psoriasis. The effect of psoriasis and its severity on hypertension control is unknown.
OBJECTIVE: To determine the association between uncontrolled blood pressure and psoriasis, both overall and according to objectively measured psoriasis severity, among patients with diagnosed hypertension.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Population-based cross-sectional study nested in a prospective cohort drawn from The Health Improvement Network (THIN), an electronic medical records database broadly representative of the general population in the United Kingdom. The study population included a random sample of patients with psoriasis (n = 1322) between the ages of 25 and 64 years in THIN who were included in the Incident Health Outcomes and Psoriasis Events prospective cohort and their age- and practice-matched controls without psoriasis (n = 11,977). All included patients had a diagnosis of hypertension; their psoriasis diagnosis was confirmed and disease severity was classified by their general practitioners.
MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Uncontrolled hypertension was defined as a systolic blood pressure of 140 mm Hg or higher or a diastolic blood pressure of 90 mm Hg or higher based on the blood pressure recorded closest in time to the assessment of psoriasis severity.
RESULTS: There was a significant positive dose-response relationship between uncontrolled hypertension and psoriasis severity as objectively determined by the affected body surface area in both unadjusted and adjusted analyses that controlled for age, sex, body mass index, smoking and alcohol use status, presence of comorbid conditions, and current use of antihypertensive medications and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 0.97; 95% CI, 0.82-1.14 for mild psoriasis; aOR, 1.20; 95% CI, 0.99-1.45 for moderate psoriasis; and aOR, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.08-2.04 for severe psoriasis; P = .01 for trend). The likelihood of uncontrolled hypertension among psoriasis overall was also increased, although not statistically significantly so (aOR, 1.10; 95% CI, 0.98-1.24).
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Among patients with hypertension, psoriasis was associated with a greater likelihood of uncontrolled hypertension in a dose-dependent manner, with the greatest likelihood observed among those with moderate to severe psoriasis defined by 3% or more of the body surface area affected. Our data suggest a need for more effective blood pressure management, particularly among patients with more severe psoriasis
Dipolar interaction between two-dimensional magnetic particles
We determine the effective dipolar interaction between single domain
two-dimensional ferromagnetic particles (islands or dots), taking into account
their finite size. The first correction term decays as 1/D^5, where D is the
distance between particles. If the particles are arranged in a regular
two-dimensional array and are magnetized in plane, we show that the correction
term reinforces the antiferromagnetic character of the ground state in a square
lattice, and the ferromagnetic one in a triangular lattice. We also determine
the dipolar spin-wave spectrum and evaluate how the Curie temperature of an
ensemble of magnetic particles scales with the parameters defining the particle
array: height and size of each particle, and interparticle distance. Our
results show that dipolar coupling between particles might induce ferromagnetic
long range order at experimentally relevant temperatures. However, depending on
the size of the particles, such a collective phenomenon may be disguised by
superparamagnetism.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
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