472 research outputs found
Estrogen receptor alpha polymorphism is associated with pelvic organ prolapse risk
Estrogen and estrogen receptors are known to play important roles in the pathophysiology of pelvic organ prolapse (POP). We investigated whether estrogen receptor alpha (ER alpha) gene polymorphisms were associated with POP risk by conducting a case-control association study in 88 women with POP and 153 women without POP. Genotypes of the ER alpha (ESR1) gene polymorphisms (rs17847075, rs2207647, rs2234693, rs3798577, and rs2228480) were determined by polymerase chain reaction, followed by restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. There was significant difference between women with and those without POP in the distribution of the ESR1 rs2228480 genotypes evaluated. By using multivariable logistic regression, age and ESR1 rs2228480 genotype GA were significantly associated with POP risk. Although the sample size of women with POP studied is small, the present study shows that ER alpha genotype may be associated with POP risk
Observation of Target Electron Momentum Effects in Single-Arm M\o ller Polarimetry
In 1992, L.G. Levchuk noted that the asymmetries measured in M\o ller
scattering polarimeters could be significantly affected by the intrinsic
momenta of the target electrons. This effect is largest in devices with very
small acceptance or very high resolution in laboratory scattering angle. We use
a high resolution polarimeter in the linac of the polarized SLAC Linear
Collider to study this effect. We observe that the inclusion of the effect
alters the measured beam polarization by -14% of itself and produces a result
that is consistent with measurements from a Compton polarimeter. Additionally,
the inclusion of the effect is necessary to correctly simulate the observed
shape of the two-body elastic scattering peak.Comment: 29 pages, uuencoded gzip-compressed postscript (351 kb). Uncompressed
postscript file (898 kb) available to DECNET users as
SLC::USER_DISK_SLC1:[MORRIS]levpre.p
UV laser-induced high resolution cleaving of Si wafers for micro-nano devices and polymeric waveguide characterization
In this work we propose a method for cleaving silicon-based photonic chips by using a laser based micromachining system, consisting of a ND:YVO4laser emitting at 355 nm in nanosecond pulse regime and a micropositioning system. The laser makes grooved marks placed at the desired locations and directions where cleaves have to be initiated, and after several processing steps, a crack appears and propagate along the crystallographic planes of the silicon wafer. This allows cleavage of the chips automatically and with high positioning accuracy, and provides polished vertical facets with better quality than the obtained with other cleaving process, which eases the optical characterization of photonic devices.
This method has been found to be particularly useful when cleaving small-sized chips, where manual cleaving is hard to perform; and also for polymeric waveguides, whose facets get damaged or even destroyed with polishing or manual cleaving processing. Influence of length of the grooved line and speed of processing is studied for a variety of silicon chips. An application for cleaving and characterizing sol–gel waveguides is presented. The total amount of light coupled is higher than when using any other procedure
Velocity-force characteristics of an interface driven through a periodic potential
We study the creep dynamics of a two-dimensional interface driven through a
periodic potential using dynamical renormalization group methods. We find that
the nature of weak-drive transport depends qualitatively on whether the
temperature is above or below the equilibrium roughening transition
temperature . Above , the velocity-force characteristics is Ohmic,
with linear mobility exhibiting a jump discontinuity across the transition. For
, the transport is highly nonlinear, exhibiting an interesting
crossover in temperature and weak external force . For intermediate drive,
, we find near a power-law velocity-force characteristics
, with , and well-below ,
, with . In the limit
of vanishing drive () the velocity-force characteristics crosses over
to , and is controlled by soliton nucleation.Comment: 18 pages, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Measurement of the Nucleon Structure Function F2 in the Nuclear Medium and Evaluation of its Moments
We report on the measurement of inclusive electron scattering off a carbon
target performed with CLAS at Jefferson Laboratory. A combination of three
different beam energies 1.161, 2.261 and 4.461 GeV allowed us to reach an
invariant mass of the final-state hadronic system W~2.4 GeV with four-momentum
transfers Q2 ranging from 0.2 to 5 GeV2. These data, together with previous
measurements of the inclusive electron scattering off proton and deuteron,
which cover a similar continuous two-dimensional region of Q2 and Bjorken
variable x, permit the study of nuclear modifications of the nucleon structure.
By using these, as well as other world data, we evaluated the F2 structure
function and its moments. Using an OPE-based twist expansion, we studied the
Q2-evolution of the moments, obtaining a separation of the leading-twist and
the total higher-twist terms. The carbon-to-deuteron ratio of the leading-twist
contributions to the F2 moments exhibits the well known EMC effect, compatible
with that discovered previously in x-space. The total higher-twist term in the
carbon nucleus appears, although with large systematic uncertainites, to be
smaller with respect to the deuteron case for n<7, suggesting partial parton
deconfinement in nuclear matter. We speculate that the spatial extension of the
nucleon is changed when it is immersed in the nuclear medium.Comment: 37 pages, 15 figure
Hadronic Structure in the Decay
We report on a study of the invariant mass spectrum of the hadronic system in
the decay tau- -> pi- pi0 nu_tau. This study was performed with data obtained
with the CLEO II detector operating at the CESR e+ e- collider. We present fits
to phenomenological models in which resonance parameters associated with the
rho(770) and rho(1450) mesons are determined. The pi- pi0 spectral function
inferred from the invariant mass spectrum is compared with data on e+ e- -> pi+
pi- as a test of the Conserved Vector Current theorem. We also discuss the
implications of our data with regard to estimates of the hadronic contribution
to the muon anomalous magnetic moment.Comment: 39 pages postscript, also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
On the longitudinal contributions to hadronic tau decay
A number of recent determinations of using hadronic decay data
involve inclusive analyses based on the so-called spectral weights. We
show here that the OPE representations of the longitudinal contributions
appearing in these analyses, which are already known to be poorly converging,
have in addition an unphysical dependence which produces a significant
unphysical decrease in with increasing . We also show how, using
additional sum rule constraints, the decay constants of the excited resonances
in the strange scalar and pseudoscalar channels may be determined, allowing one
to evaluate the longitudinal spectral contributions to the sum rules.
Taking into account the very-accurately known and pole contributions,
we find that longitudinal contributions can be determined with an accuracy at
the few % level, and hence reliably subtracted, leaving an analysis for
involving the sum of longitudinal and transverse contributions, for which the
OPE representation is much better converged.Comment: 20 pages, no figure
Tau Decays and Chiral Perturbation Theory
In a small window of phase space, chiral perturbation theory can be used to
make standard model predictions for tau decays into two and three pions. For
, we give the analytical result for the relevant form
factor up to two loops, then calculate the differential spectrum and
compare with available data. For , we have calculated
the hadronic matrix element to one loop. We discuss the decomposition of the
three pion states into partition states and we give detailed predictions for
the decay in terms of structure functions. We also compare with low energy
predictions of meson dominance models. Overall, we find good agreement, but
also some interesting discrepancies, which might have consequences beyond the
limit of validity of chiral perturbation theory.Comment: 39 pages, Latex, including 8 Postscript figures. The complete paper
is also available via anonymous ftp at ftp://www-ttp.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de/
, or via www at http://www-ttp.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de/cgi-bin/preprint
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