3,761 research outputs found
Thermodynamic description of a dynamical glassy transition
For the dynamical glassy transition in the -spin mean field spin glass
model a thermodynamic description is given. The often considered marginal
states are not the relevant ones for this purpose. This leads to consider a
cooling experiment on exponential timescales, where lower states are accessed.
The very slow configurational modes are at quasi-equilibrium at an effective
temperature. A system independent law is derived that expresses their
contribution to the specific heat. -scaling in the aging regime of
two-time quantities is explained.Comment: 5 pages revte
Solvable glassy system: static versus dynamical transition
A directed polymer is considered on a flat substrate with randomly located
parallel ridges. It prefers to lie inside wide regions between the ridges. When
the transversel width is exponential in the
longitudinal length , there can be a large number of
available wide states. This ``complexity'' causes a phase transition from a
high temperature phase where the polymer lies in the widest lane, to a glassy
low temperature phase where it lies in one of many narrower lanes. Starting
from a uniform initial distribution of independent polymers, equilibration up
to some exponential time scale induces a sharp dynamical transition. When the
temperature is slowly increased with time, this occurs at a tunable
temperature. There is an asymmetry between cooling and heating. The structure
of phase space in the low temperature non-equilibrium glassy phase is of a
one-level tree.Comment: 4 pages revte
Transient Gamma Ray Spectrometer Measurements of Gamma-Ray Lines from Novae. I. Limits on the Positron Annihilation Line in Five Individual Novae
The Transient Gamma Ray Spectrometer (TGRS) on board the WIND spacecraft has
spent most of the interval 1995-1997 in a high-altitude orbit where gamma-ray
backgrounds are low. Its high-resolution Ge spectrometer is thus able to detect
weak lines which are slightly offset from stronger background features. One
such line is predicted from nucleosynthesis in classical novae, where
beta-decays on a time-scale of a few hours in an expanding envelope produce
positrons that annihilate to generate a line which is blueshifted by a few keV
away from the background annihilation line at 511 keV. The broad TGRS field of
view contained five known Galactic novae during 1995 January - 1997 June, and
we have searched the spectra taken around the times of these events for the
blueshifted nova annihilation line. Although no definite detections were made,
the method is shown to be sensitive enough to detect novae occurring on
ONeMg-rich white dwarfs out to about 2.5 kpc.Comment: 27 pp. + 10 figs., or offprint mailed by request to
[email protected]
A Spectroscopic Orbit for Regulus
We present a radial velocity study of the rapidly rotating B-star Regulus
that indicates the star is a single-lined spectroscopic binary. The orbital
period (40.11 d) and probable semimajor axis (0.35 AU) are large enough that
the system is not interacting at present. However, the mass function suggests
that the secondary has a low mass (M_2 > 0.30 M_sun), and we argue that the
companion may be a white dwarf. Such a star would be the remnant of a former
mass donor that was the source of the large spin angular momentum of Regulus
itself.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, ApJL in pres
Quenched complexity of the p-spin spherical spin-glass with external magnetic field
We consider the p-spin spherical spin-glass model in the presence of an
external magnetic field as a general example of a mean-field system where a one
step replica symmetry breaking (1-RSB) occurs. In this context we compute the
complexity of the Thouless-Anderson-Palmer states, performing a quenched
computation. We find what is the general connection between this method and the
standard static 1-RSB one, formulating a clear mapping between the parameters
used in the two different calculations. We also perform a dynamical analysis of
the model, by which we confirm the validity of our results.Comment: RevTeX, 11 pages, including 2 EPS figure
Objective surface evaluation of fiber reinforced polymer composites
The mechanical properties of advanced composites are essential for their structural performance, but the surface finish on exterior composite panels is of critical importance for customer satisfaction. This paper describes the application of wavelet texture analysis (WTA) to the task of automatically classifying the surface finish properties of two fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite construction types (clear resin and gel-coat) into three quality grades. Samples were imaged and wavelet multi-scale decomposition was used to create a visual texture representation of the sample, capturing image features at different scales and orientations. Principal components analysis was used to reduce the dimensionality of the texture feature vector, permitting successful classification of the samples using only the first principal component. This work extends and further validates the feasibility of this approach as the basis for automated non-contact classification of composite surface finish using image analysis.<br /
An assessment of validity and responsiveness of generic measures of health-related quality of life in hearing impairment
This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. This article is distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, provided the original
author(s) and the source are credited.Purpose: This review examines psychometric performance of three widely used generic preference-based measures, that is, EuroQol 5 dimensions (EQ-5D), Health Utility Index 3 (HUI3) and Short-form 6 dimensions (SF-6D) in patients with hearing impairments.
Methods: A systematic search was undertaken to identify studies of patients with hearing impairments where health state utility values were measured and reported. Data were extracted and analysed to assess the reliability, validity (known group differences and convergent validity) and responsiveness of the measures across hearing impairments.
Results: Fourteen studies (18 papers) were included in the review. HUI3 was the most commonly used utility measures in hearing impairment. In all six studies, the HUI3 detected difference between groups defined by the severity of impairment, and four out of five studies detected statistically significant changes as a result of intervention. The only study available suggested that EQ-5D only had weak ability to discriminate difference between severity groups, and in four out of five studies, EQ-5D failed to detected changes. Only one study involved the SF-6D; thus, the information is too limited to conclude on its performance. Also evidence for the reliability of these measures was not found.
Conclusion: Overall, the validity and responsiveness of the HUI3 in hearing impairment was good. The responsiveness of EQ-5D was relatively poor and weak validity was suggested by limited evidence. The evidence on SF-6D was too limited to make any judgment. More head-to-head comparisons of these and other preference measures of health are required.Medical Research Counci
Recent acquisition of Helicobacter pylori by Baka Pygmies
Both anatomically modern humans and the gastric pathogen Helicobacter pylori originated in Africa, and both species have been associated for at least 100,000 years. Seven geographically distinct H. pylori populations exist, three of which are indigenous to Africa: hpAfrica1, hpAfrica2, and hpNEAfrica. The oldest and most divergent population, hpAfrica2, evolved within San hunter-gatherers, who represent one of the deepest branches of the human population tree. Anticipating the presence of ancient H. pylori lineages within all hunter-gatherer populations, we investigated the prevalence and population structure of H. pylori within Baka Pygmies in Cameroon. Gastric biopsies were obtained by esophagogastroduodenoscopy from 77 Baka from two geographically separated populations, and from 101 non-Baka individuals from neighboring agriculturalist populations, and subsequently cultured for H. pylori. Unexpectedly, Baka Pygmies showed a significantly lower H. pylori infection rate (20.8%) than non-Baka (80.2%). We generated multilocus haplotypes for each H. pylori isolate by DNA sequencing, but were not able to identify Baka-specific lineages, and most isolates in our sample were assigned to hpNEAfrica or hpAfrica1. The population hpNEAfrica, a marker for the expansion of the Nilo-Saharan language family, was divided into East African and Central West African subpopulations. Similarly, a new hpAfrica1 subpopulation, identified mainly among Cameroonians, supports eastern and western expansions of Bantu languages. An age-structured transmission model shows that the low H. pylori prevalence among Baka Pygmies is achievable within the timeframe of a few hundred years and suggests that demographic factors such as small population size and unusually low life expectancy can lead to the eradication of H. pylori from individual human populations. The Baka were thus either H. pylori-free or lost their ancient lineages during past demographic fluctuations. Using coalescent simulations and phylogenetic inference, we show that Baka almost certainly acquired their extant H. pylori through secondary contact with their agriculturalist neighbors
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