4,523 research outputs found

    A Rare Presentation of Invasive Tuberculosis of the Central Nervous System in an Immunocompetent Patient in a Nonendemic Country.

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    We herein report a rare case of a 25-year-old immunocompetent male patient with disseminated tuberculosis of central nervous system (CNS), first presenting as multiple cerebral lesions with no meningeal involvement. Subsequent diagnostic workup disclosed extensive peritoneal involvement. A broad differential diagnosis was considered, including neoplastic and infectious diseases. The diagnosis was confirmed with positive PCR result for Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the biopsied mesenteric tissue. The patient was started on tuberculostatic regimen with favorable outcome. No acquired or hereditary immunodeficiency was documented. Disseminated tuberculosis in immunocompetent individuals is extremely rare. Genetic susceptibility factors have been reported in individuals with extensive forms of the disease and a high index of suspicion is required, as observed in our case.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Controlling Excitations Inversion of a Cooper Pair Box Interacting with a Nanomechanical Resonator

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    We investigate the action of time dependent detunings upon the excitation inversion of a Cooper pair box interacting with a nanomechanical resonator. The method employs the Jaynes-Cummings model with damping, assuming different decay rates of the Cooper pair box and various fixed and t-dependent detunings. It is shown that while the presence of damping plus constant detunings destroy the collapse/revival effects, convenient choices of time dependent detunings allow one to reconstruct such events in a perfect way. It is also shown that the mean excitation of the nanomechanical resonator is more robust against damping of the Cooper pair box for convenient values of t-dependent detunings.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

    Logarithmic growth dynamics in software networks

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    In a recent paper, Krapivsky and Redner (Phys. Rev. E, 71 (2005) 036118) proposed a new growing network model with new nodes being attached to a randomly selected node, as well to all ancestors of the target node. The model leads to a sparse graph with an average degree growing logarithmically with the system size. Here we present compeling evidence for software networks being the result of a similar class of growing dynamics. The predicted pattern of network growth, as well as the stationary in- and out-degree distributions are consistent with the model. Our results confirm the view of large-scale software topology being generated through duplication-rewiring mechanisms. Implications of these findings are outlined.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, published in Europhysics Letters (2005

    Evidence for a satellite RNA associated naturally with the U5 strain and experimentally with the U1 strain of tobacco mosaic virus

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    Isolates of tobacco mosaic virus strain U5 (TMV-U5) from native Nicotiana glauca plants induced the accumulation of a dsRNA (mol. wt. 0-6 × 10 6) in infected plants that was more abundant than the replicative form (RF) dsRNA of TMV (mol. wt. 4-3 X]06). Some but not all subcultures of such a field isolate obtained from single local lesions on N. tabacum cv. Xanthi-nc, had lost the ability to induce the 0-6 x 106 mol. wt. dsRNA. Co-inoculation experiments in N. silvestris established that the dsRNA could accumulate in plants infected with TMV-UI, but to a lesser extent than when associated with TMV-U5. A ssRNA (mol. wt. 0.3 × 106) was isolated from plants containing the dsRNA. This was not infectious by itself but became so when associated with TMV-U5 or TMV-U1, and then induced the accumulation of the 0.6 x 106 dsRNA. Plants infected with TMV-U5 isolates which did or did not induce the 0.6 × 106 dsRNA had identical symptoms. The host range of the 0.3 x 106 ssRNA was the same as that of the TMV strain with which it was associated in each of the 20 experimental hosts tested. Complementary DNA transcribed from purified 0.6 × 106 dsRNA did not hybridize with RF and other dsRNAs of TMV,U5, TMV-U 1, tobacco necrosis virus, potato virus X, citrus tristeza virus, and cucumber mosaic virus + CARNA 5, but the cDNA did hybridize with the 0.6 × l06 mol. wt. dsRNA and the 0.3 × 106 mol. wt. ssRNA found only in plants containing this dsRNA. The results indicate that the 0-6 × 106 dsRNA is the RF of a satellite RNA of TMV. Purified nucleoprotein from plants infected with TMV-U5 and the satellite RNA were infectious for the satellite RNA, but the nature of encapsidation of the satellite RNA has yet to be determined

    Weak Pion Production off the Nucleon

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    We develop a model for the weak pion production off the nucleon, which besides the Delta pole mechanism (weak excitation of the Δ(1232)\Delta(1232) resonance and its subsequent decay into NπN\pi), includes also some background terms required by chiral symmetry. We re-fit the C5A(q2)C_5^A(q^2) form factor to the flux averaged νμpμpπ+\nu_\mu p \to \mu^-p\pi^+ ANL q2q^2-differential cross section data, finding a substantially smaller contribution of the Delta pole mechanism than traditionally assumed in the literature. Within this scheme, we calculate several differential and integrated cross sections, including pion angular distributions, induced by neutrinos and antineutrinos and driven both by charged and neutral currents. In all cases we find that the background terms produce quite significant effects and that they lead to an overall improved description of the data, as compared to the case where only the Delta pole mechanism is considered. We also show that the interference between the Delta pole and the background terms produces parity-violating contributions to the pion angular differential cross section, which are intimately linked to TT-odd correlations in the contraction between the leptonic and hadronic tensors. However, these latter correlations do not imply a genuine violation of time reversal invariance because of the existence of strong final state interaction effects.Comment: Typos corrected; comments adde

    Sustainable growth in complex networks

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    Based on the empirical analysis of the dependency network in 18 Java projects, we develop a novel model of network growth which considers both: an attachment mechanism and the addition of new nodes with a heterogeneous distribution of their initial degree, k0k_0. Empirically we find that the cumulative degree distributions of initial degrees and of the final network, follow power-law behaviors: P(k0)k01αP(k_{0}) \propto k_{0}^{1-\alpha}, and P(k)k1γP(k)\propto k^{1-\gamma}, respectively. For the total number of links as a function of the network size, we find empirically K(N)NβK(N)\propto N^{\beta}, where β\beta is (at the beginning of the network evolution) between 1.25 and 2, while converging to 1\sim 1 for large NN. This indicates a transition from a growth regime with increasing network density towards a sustainable regime, which revents a collapse because of ever increasing dependencies. Our theoretical framework is able to predict relations between the exponents α\alpha, β\beta, γ\gamma, which also link issues of software engineering and developer activity. These relations are verified by means of computer simulations and empirical investigations. They indicate that the growth of real Open Source Software networks occurs on the edge between two regimes, which are either dominated by the initial degree distribution of added nodes, or by the preferential attachment mechanism. Hence, the heterogeneous degree distribution of newly added nodes, found empirically, is essential to describe the laws of sustainable growth in networks.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl

    Nuclear effects in neutrino induced reactions

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    We discuss the relevance of nuclear medium effects in the analysis of some low and medium energy neutrino reactions of current interest. In particular, we study the Quasi-Elastic (QE) process, where RPA correlations and Final State Interactions (FSI) are shown to play a crucial role. We have also investigated the neutrino induced coherent pion production. We find a strong reduction of the cross section due to the distortion of the pion wave function and the modification of the production mechanisms in the nucleus. The sensitivity of the results to the axial NΔN\Delta coupling C5A(0)C_5^A(0) has been also investigated.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of Chiral Symmetry in Hadron and Nuclear Physics (Chiral07), Osaka, Japan, November 13-16, 200

    Theoretical study of neutrino-induced coherent pion production off nuclei at T2K and MiniBooNE energies

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    We have developed a model for neutrino-induced coherent pion production off nuclei in the energy regime of interest for present and forthcoming neutrino oscillation experiments. It is based on a microscopic model for pion production off the nucleon that, besides the dominant Delta pole contribution, takes into account the effect of background terms required by chiral symmetry. Moreover, the model uses a reduced nucleon-to-Delta resonance axial coupling, which leads to coherent pion production cross sections around a factor two smaller than most of the previous theoretical estimates. In the coherent production, the main nuclear effects, namely medium corrections on the Delta propagator and the final pion distortion, are included. We have improved on previous similar models by taking into account the nucleon motion and employing a more sophisticated optical potential. As found in previous calculations the modification of the Delta self-energy inside the nuclear medium strongly reduces the cross section, while the final pion distortion mainly shifts the peak position to lower pion energies. The angular distribution profiles are not much affected by nuclear effects. Nucleon motion increases the cross section by 15% at neutrino energies of 650 MeV, while Coulomb effects on charged pions are estimated to be small. Finally, we discuss at length the deficiencies of the Rein-Sehgal pion coherent production model for neutrino energies below 2 GeV, and in particular for the MiniBooNE and T2K experiments. We also predict flux averaged cross sections for these two latter experiments and K2K.Comment: 19 latex pages, 10 figures, 2 tables. Minor changes. Version accepted for publication in Physical Review
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