The Origin, Early Evolution and Predictability of Solar Eruptions

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) were discovered in the early 1970s when space-borne coronagraphs revealed that eruptions of plasma are ejected from the Sun. Today, it is known that the Sun produces eruptive flares, filament eruptions, coronal mass ejections and failed eruptions; all thought to be due to a release of energy stored in the coronal magnetic field during its drastic reconfiguration. This review discusses the observations and physical mechanisms behind this eruptive activity, with a view to making an assessment of the current capability of forecasting these events for space weather risk and impact mitigation. Whilst a wealth of observations exist, and detailed models have been developed, there still exists a need to draw these approaches together. In particular more realistic models are encouraged in order to asses the full range of complexity of the solar atmosphere and the criteria for which an eruption is formed. From the observational side, a more detailed understanding of the role of photospheric flows and reconnection is needed in order to identify the evolutionary path that ultimately means a magnetic structure will erupt

A global research priority agenda to advance public health responses to fatty liver disease

Background & aims An estimated 38% of adults worldwide have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). From individual impacts to widespread public health and economic consequences, the implications of this disease are profound. This study aimed to develop an aligned, prioritised fatty liver disease research agenda for the global health community. Methods Nine co-chairs drafted initial research priorities, subsequently reviewed by 40 core authors and debated during a three-day in-person meeting. Following a Delphi methodology, over two rounds, a large panel (R1 n = 344, R2 n = 288) reviewed the priorities, via Qualtrics XM, indicating agreement using a four-point Likert-scale and providing written feedback. The core group revised the draft priorities between rounds. In R2, panellists also ranked the priorities within six domains: epidemiology, models of care, treatment and care, education and awareness, patient and community perspectives, and leadership and public health policy. Results The consensus-built fatty liver disease research agenda encompasses 28 priorities. The mean percentage of ‘agree’ responses increased from 78.3 in R1 to 81.1 in R2. Five priorities received unanimous combined agreement (‘agree’ + ‘somewhat agree’); the remaining 23 priorities had >90% combined agreement. While all but one of the priorities exhibited at least a super-majority of agreement (>66.7% ‘agree’), 13 priorities had 90% combined agreement. Conclusions Adopting this multidisciplinary consensus-built research priorities agenda can deliver a step-change in addressing fatty liver disease, mitigating against its individual and societal harms and proactively altering its natural history through prevention, identification, treatment, and care. This agenda should catalyse the global health community’s efforts to advance and accelerate responses to this widespread and fast-growing public health threat. Impact and implications An estimated 38% of adults and 13% of children and adolescents worldwide have fatty liver disease, making it the most prevalent liver disease in history. Despite substantial scientific progress in the past three decades, the burden continues to grow, with an urgent need to advance understanding of how to prevent, manage, and treat the disease. Through a global consensus process, a multidisciplinary group agreed on 28 research priorities covering a broad range of themes, from disease burden, treatment, and health system responses to awareness and policy. The findings have relevance for clinical and non-clinical researchers as well as funders working on fatty liver disease and non-communicable diseases more broadly, setting out a prioritised, ranked research agenda for turning the tide on this fast-growing public health threat

Derivation of the statistics of quantum measurements from the action of unitary dynamics

[[abstract]]Quantum statistics is defined by Hilbert space products between the eigenstates associated with state preparation and measurement. The same Hilbert space products also describe the dynamics generated by a Hamiltonian when one of the states is an eigenstate of energy E and the other represents an observable B . In this paper, we investigate this relation between the observable time evolution of quantum systems and the coherence of Hilbert space products in detail. It is shown that the times of arrival for a specific value of B observed with states that have finite energy uncertainties can be used to derive the Hilbert space product between eigenstates of energy E and eigenstates of the dynamical variable B . Quantum phases and interference effects appear in the form of an action that relates energy to time in the experimentally observable dynamics of localized states. We illustrate the relation between quantum coherence and dynamics by applying our analysis to several examples from quantum optics, demonstrating the possibility of explaining non-classical statistics in terms of the energy-time relations that characterize the corresponding transformation dynamics of quantum systems.[[notice]]補正完

Electron spin polarization in field emission: calculation of the effects due to external fields

Eckstein W, Müller N. Electron spin polarization in field emission: calculation of the effects due to external fields. Applied Physics, A: Materials Science and Processing. 1975;6(1):71-77.In field emission experiments with spin polarized electrons a magnetic field is superposed on the electric emission field to define the preferred spin direction. The motion of the polarization vector in these fields was calculated for rays emanating from individual points of the emitter by integrating the equation of motion and taking into account relativistic terms. There is a slight shift of the polarization vector from its initial direction. If the initial polarization is aligned with the magnetic field and the emission tip is sufficiently well centred in the magnetic field, the tilting of the polarization vector for a beam of electrons starting not too far from the tip apex is less than 10

Nucleos(t)ide analogue treatment reduces apoptotic activity in patients with chronic hepatitis B.

Background: Reduction of necroinflammatory activity is a major goal of antiviral therapy of patients with chronic hepatitis B. Serum ALT does not detect all forms of cell death.Objectives: To analyze dynamics of novel serum cell death markers for apoptosis and necrosis in association with virologic response to nucleos(t)ide (Nuc) analogue treatment.Study design: Quantification of the M30-apoptosis neoepitope and the cytokeratin-18 (M65-necrosis) serum levels before and during treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis B with Nuc (n = 26).Results: Before treatment, M30-apoptotic activity was significantly correlated with M65-necrosis and fibrosis but not with serum ALT. During therapy with Nucs, cell death parameters M30-apoptosis, M65-necrosis, and ALT declined in association with virologic response. The most frequent cell death pattern was simultaneous decline of ALT and M30-apoptosis which occurred more frequently in patients with HBs-Antigen decline than in patients with HBs-Antigen increase during treatment (87.5% vs. 40.0%; p = 0.024). ALT decline in association with increase of M30 apoptosis was frequent in patients with HBs-Antigen increase during treatment (36.3%) but was not observed in patients with HBs-Antigen decline during treatment.Conclusion: Decline of cell death parameters in association with decline of HBV-DNA and HBs-Antigen indicates a reduction in overall cell death activity during Nuc treatment supporting the concept that response to Nuc therapy reduces necroinflammatory activity and progression of liver disease. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved

On the fundamental role of dynamics in quantum physics

Quantum theory expresses the observable relations between physical properties in terms of probabilities that depend on the specific context described by the "state" of a system. However, the laws of physics that emerge at the macroscopic level are fully deterministic. Here, it is shown that the relation between quantum statistics and deterministic dynamics can be explained in terms of ergodic averages over complex valued probabilities, where the fundamental causality of motion is expressed by an action that appears as the phase of the complex probability multiplied with the fundamental constant hbar. Importantly, classical physics emerges as an approximation of this more fundamental theory of motion, indicating that the assumption of a classical reality described by differential geometry is merely an artefact of an extrapolation from the observation of macroscopic dynamics to a fictitious level of precision that does not exist within our actual experience of the world around us. It is therefore possible to completely replace the classical concepts of trajectories with the more fundamental concept of action phase probabilities as a universally valid description of the deterministic causality of motion that is observed in the physical world.Comment: More compact version set in RevTex (15 pages), overview of the paper added to the introduction, along with additional explanations of the relation between statistics and the action of deterministic transformations in section II. Final version for publication in The European Physical Journal