8,660 research outputs found
OBJECTIVE AND SOCIAL FACTORS AS DETERMINANTS OF TASK PERCEPTIONS AND RESPONSES: AN INTEGRATED PERSPECTIVE AND EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION.
The purpose of this study was to test the merits of an integrated perspective derived from the job characteristics and social information processing models of task design. We conducted a complex laboratory study, manipulating objective properties of a task, social information, and changes in both. Results suggested strong support for the integrated perspective. Implications for future theory and research are discussed
Human subjective response to steering wheel vibration caused by diesel engine idle
This study investigated the human subjective response to steering wheel vibration of the type caused by a four-cylinder diesel engine idle in passenger cars. Vibrotactile perception was assessed using sinusoidal amplitude-modulated vibratory stimuli of constant energy level (r.m.s. acceleration, 0.41 m/s(2)) having a carrier frequency of 26 Hz (i.e. engine firing frequency) and modulation frequency of 6.5 Hz (half-order engine harmonic). Evaluations of seven levels of modulation depth parameter m (0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0) were performed in order to define the growth function of human perceived disturbance as a function of amplitude modulation depth. Two semantic descriptors were used (unpleasantness and roughness) and two test methods (the Thurstone paired-comparison method and the Borg CR-10 direct evaluation scale) for a total of four tests. Each test was performed using an independent group of 25 individuals. The results suggest that there is a critical value of modulation depth m = 0.2 below which human subjects do not perceive differences in amplitude modulation and above which the stimulus-response relationship increases monotonically with a power function. The Stevens power exponents suggest that the perceived unpleasantness is non-linearly dependent on modulation depth m with an exponent greater than 1 and that the perceived roughness is dependent with an exponent close to unity
The role of interleukin-1 in neuroinflammation and Alzheimer disease: an evolving perspective
Elevation of the proinflammatory cytokine Interleukin-1 (IL-1) is an integral part of the local tissue reaction to central nervous system (CNS) insult. The discovery of increased IL-1 levels in patients following acute injury and in chronic neurodegenerative disease laid the foundation for two decades of research that has provided important details regarding IL-1's biology and function in the CNS. IL-1 elevation is now recognized as a critical component of the brain's patterned response to insults, termed neuroinflammation, and of leukocyte recruitment to the CNS. These processes are believed to underlie IL-1's function in the setting of acute brain injury, where it has been ascribed potential roles in repair as well as in exacerbation of damage. Explorations of IL-1's role in chronic neurodegenerative disease have mainly focused on Alzheimer disease (AD), where indirect evidence has implicated it in disease pathogenesis. However, recent observations in animal models challenge earlier assumptions that IL-1 elevation and resulting neuroinflammatory processes play a purely detrimental role in AD, and prompt a need for new characterizations of IL-1 function. Potentially adaptive functions of IL-1 elevation in AD warrant further mechanistic studies, and provide evidence that enhancement of these effects may help to alleviate the pathologic burden of disease
Surface Contribution to Raman Scattering from Layered Superconductors
Generalizing recent work, the Raman scattering intensity from a semi-infinite
superconducting superlattice is calculated taking into account the surface
contribution to the density response functions. Our work makes use of the
formalism of Jain and Allen developed for normal superlattices. The surface
contributions are shown to strongly modify the bulk contribution to the
Raman-spectrum line shape below , and also may give rise to additional
surface plasmon modes above . The interplay between the bulk and
surface contribution is strongly dependent on the momentum transfer
parallel to layers. However, we argue that the scattering
cross-section for the out-of-phase phase modes (which arise from interlayer
Cooper pair tunneling) will not be affected and thus should be the only
structure exhibited in the Raman spectrum below for relatively large
. The intensity is small but perhaps observable.Comment: 14 pages, RevTex, 6 figure
Bose-Einstein Condensation of Helium and Hydrogen inside Bundles of Carbon Nanotubes
Helium atoms or hydrogen molecules are believed to be strongly bound within
the interstitial channels (between three carbon nanotubes) within a bundle of
many nanotubes. The effects on adsorption of a nonuniform distribution of tubes
are evaluated. The energy of a single particle state is the sum of a discrete
transverse energy Et (that depends on the radii of neighboring tubes) and a
quasicontinuous energy Ez of relatively free motion parallel to the axis of the
tubes. At low temperature, the particles occupy the lowest energy states, the
focus of this study. The transverse energy attains a global minimum value
(Et=Emin) for radii near Rmin=9.95 Ang. for H2 and 8.48 Ang.for He-4. The
density of states N(E) near the lowest energy is found to vary linearly above
this threshold value, i.e. N(E) is proportional to (E-Emin). As a result, there
occurs a Bose-Einstein condensation of the molecules into the channel with the
lowest transverse energy. The transition is characterized approximately as that
of a four dimensional gas, neglecting the interactions between the adsorbed
particles. The phenomenon is observable, in principle, from a singular heat
capacity. The existence of this transition depends on the sample having a
relatively broad distribution of radii values that include some near Rmin.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figure
Staggered fermions and chiral symmetry breaking in transverse lattice regulated QED
Staggered fermions are constructed for the transverse lattice regularization
scheme. The weak perturbation theory of transverse lattice non-compact QED is
developed in light-cone gauge, and we argue that for fixed lattice spacing this
theory is ultraviolet finite, order by order in perturbation theory. However,
by calculating the anomalous scaling dimension of the link fields, we find that
the interaction Hamiltonian becomes non-renormalizable for ,
where is the bare (lattice) QED coupling constant. We conjecture that
this is the critical point of the chiral symmetry breaking phase transition in
QED. Non-perturbative chiral symmetry breaking is then studied in the strong
coupling limit. The discrete remnant of chiral symmetry that remains on the
lattice is spontaneously broken, and the ground state to lowest order in the
strong coupling expansion corresponds to the classical ground state of the
two-dimensional spin one-half Heisenberg antiferromagnet.Comment: 30 pages, UFIFT-HEP-92-1
Gapless finite- theory of collective modes of a trapped gas
We present predictions for the frequencies of collective modes of trapped
Bose-condensed Rb atoms at finite temperature. Our treatment includes a
self-consistent treatment of the mean-field from finite- excitations and the
anomolous average. This is the first gapless calculation of this type for a
trapped Bose-Einstein condensed gas. The corrections quantitatively account for
the downward shift in the excitation frequencies observed in recent
experiments as the critical temperature is approached.Comment: 4 pages Latex and 2 postscript figure
Casimir energy and variational methods in AdS spacetime
Following the subtraction procedure for manifolds with boundaries, we
calculate by variational methods, the Schwarzschild-Anti-de Sitter and the
Anti-de Sitter space energy difference. By computing the one loop approximation
for TT tensors we discover the existence of an unstable mode at zero
temperature, which can be stabilized by the boundary reduction method.
Implications on a foam-like space are discussed.Comment: Submitted to Classical and Quantum Gravit
Anisotropy in the Cosmic Microwave Background at Degree Angular Scales: Python V Results
Observations of the microwave sky using the Python telescope in its fifth
season of operation at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica are
presented. The system consists of a 0.75 m off-axis telescope instrumented with
a HEMT amplifier-based radiometer having continuum sensitivity from 37-45 GHz
in two frequency bands. With a 0.91 deg x 1.02 deg beam the instrument fully
sampled 598 deg^2 of sky, including fields measured during the previous four
seasons of Python observations. Interpreting the observed fluctuations as
anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background, we place constraints on the
angular power spectrum of fluctuations in eight multipole bands up to l ~ 260.
The observed spectrum is consistent with both the COBE experiment and previous
Python results. There is no significant contamination from known foregrounds.
The results show a discernible rise in the angular power spectrum from large (l
~ 40) to small (l ~ 200) angular scales. The shape of the observed power
spectrum is not a simple linear rise but has a sharply increasing slope
starting at l ~ 150.Comment: 5 page
Induction of serine racemase expression and D-serine release from microglia by amyloid β-peptide
BACKGROUND: Roles for excitotoxicity and inflammation in Alzheimer's disease have been hypothesized. Proinflammatory stimuli, including amyloid β-peptide (Aβ), elicit a release of glutamate from microglia. We tested the possibility that a coagonist at the NMDA class of glutamate receptors, D-serine, could respond similarly. METHODS: Cultured microglial cells were exposed to Aβ. The culture medium was assayed for levels of D-serine by HPLC and for effects on calcium and survival on primary cultures of rat hippocampal neurons. Microglial cell lysates were examined for the levels of mRNA and protein for serine racemase, the enzyme that forms D-serine from L-serine. The racemase mRNA was also assayed in Alzheimer hippocampus and age-matched controls. A microglial cell line was transfected with a luciferase reporter construct driven by the putative regulatory region of human serine racemase. RESULTS: Conditioned medium from Aβ-treated microglia contained elevated levels of D-serine. Bioassays of hippocampal neurons with the microglia-conditioned medium indicated that Aβ elevated a NMDA receptor agonist that was sensitive to an antagonist of the D-serine/glycine site (5,7-dicholorokynurenic acid; DCKA) and to enzymatic degradation of D-amino acids by D-amino acid oxidase (DAAOx). In the microglia, Aβ elevated steady-state levels of dimeric serine racemase, the apparent active form of the enzyme. Promoter-reporter and mRNA analyses suggest that serine racemase is transcriptionally induced by Aβ. Finally, the levels of serine racemase mRNA were elevated in Alzheimer's disease hippocampus, relative to age-matched controls. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that Aβ could contribute to neurodegeneration through stimulating microglia to release cooperative excitatory amino acids, including D-serine
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