Spinal manipulative therapy, Graston technique® and placebo for non-specific thoracic spine pain: A randomised controlled trial

Background Few controlled trials have assessed the efficacy of spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) for thoracic spine pain. No high quality trials have been performed to test the efficacy and effectiveness of Graston Technique® (GT), an instrument-assisted soft tissue therapy. The objective of this trial was to determine the efficacy of SMT and GT compared to sham therapy for the treatment of non-specific thoracic spine pain. Methods People with non-specific thoracic pain were randomly allocated to one of three groups: SMT, GT, or a placebo (de-tuned ultrasound). Each participant received up to 10 supervised treatment sessions at Murdoch University chiropractic student clinic over a 4 week period. The participants and treatment providers were not blinded to the treatment allocation as it was clear which therapy they were receiving, however outcome assessors were blinded and we attempted to blind the participants allocated to the placebo group. Treatment outcomes were measured at baseline, 1 week, and at one, three, six and 12 months. Primary outcome measures included a modified Oswestry Disability Index, and the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). Treatment effects were estimated with intention to treat analysis and linear mixed models. \ud Results One hundred and forty three participants were randomly allocated to the three groups (SMT = 36, GT = 63 and Placebo = 44). Baseline data for the three groups did not show any meaningful differences. Results of the intention to treat analyses revealed no time by group interactions, indicating no statistically significant between-group differences in pain or disability at 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months. There were significant main effects of time (p  < 0.01) indicating improvements in pain and disability from baseline among all participants regardless of intervention. No significant adverse events were reported. Conclusion This study indicates that there is no difference in outcome at any time point for pain or disability when comparing SMT, Graston Technique® or sham therapy for thoracic spine pain, however all groups improved with time. These results constitute the first from a fully powered randomised controlled trial comparing SMT, Graston technique® and a placebo

A lower limit on the dark particle mass from dSphs

We use dwarf spheroidal galaxies as a tool to attempt to put precise lower limits on the mass of the dark matter particle, assuming it is a sterile neutrino. We begin by making cored dark halo fits to the line of sight velocity dispersions as a function of projected radius (taken from Walker et al. 2007) for six of the Milky Way's dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We test Osipkov-Merritt velocity anisotropy profiles, but find that no benefit is gained over constant velocity anisotropy. In contrast to previous attempts, we do not assume any relation between the stellar velocity dispersions and the dark matter ones, but instead we solve directly for the sterile neutrino velocity dispersion at all radii by using the equation of state for a partially degenerate neutrino gas (which ensures hydrostatic equilibrium of the sterile neutrino halo). This yields a 1:1 relation between the sterile neutrino density and velocity dispersion, and therefore gives us an accurate estimate of the Tremaine-Gunn limit at all radii. By varying the sterile neutrino particle mass, we locate the minimum mass for all six dwarf spheroidals such that the Tremaine-Gunn limit is not exceeded at any radius (in particular at the centre). We find sizeable differences between the ranges of feasible sterile neutrino particle mass for each dwarf, but interestingly there exists a small range 270-280eV which is consistent with all dSphs at the 1-$\sigma$ level.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl

Bianchi type II,III and V diagonal Einstein metrics re-visited

We present, for both minkowskian and euclidean signatures, short derivations of the diagonal Einstein metrics for Bianchi type II, III and V. For the first two cases we show the integrability of the geodesic flow while for the third case a somewhat unusual bifurcation phenomenon takes place: for minkowskian signature elliptic functions are essential in the metric while for euclidean signature only elementary functions appear

Pressure Induced Change in the Magnetic Modulation of CeRhIn5

We report the results of a high pressure neutron diffraction study of the heavy fermion compound CeRhIn5 down to 1.8 K. CeRhIn5 is known to order magnetically below 3.8 K with an incommensurate structure. The application of hydrostatic pressure up to 8.6 kbar produces no change in the magnetic wave vector qm. At 10 kbar of pressure however, a sudden change in the magnetic structure occurs. Although the magnetic transition temperature remains the same, qm increases from (0.5, 0.5, 0.298) to (0.5, 0.5, 0.396). This change in the magnetic modulation may be the outcome of a change in the electronic character of this material at 10 kbar.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures include

Electronic Instability in a Zero-Gap Semiconductor: The Charge-DensityWave in (TaSe4)(2)I

International audienceWe report a comprehensive study of the paradigmatic quasi-1D compound (TaSe4)(2)I performed by means of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and first-principles electronic structure calculations. We find it to be a zero-gap semiconductor in the nondistorted structure, with non-negligible interchain coupling. Theory and experiment support a Peierls-like scenario for the charge-density wave formation below T-CDW = 263 K, where the incommensurability is a direct consequence of the finite interchain coupling. The formation of small polarons, strongly suggested by the ARPES data, explains the puzzling semiconductor-to-semiconductor transition observed in transport at T-CDW

Pressure-Temperature Phase Diagram of Antiferromagnetism and Superconductivity in CeRhIn5 and CeIn3 : In-NQR Study under Pressure

We report the novel pressure($P$) - temperature($T$) phase diagram of antiferromagnetism and superconductivity in CeRhIn$_5$ and CeIn$_3$ revealed by the $^{115}$In nuclear-spin-lattice-relaxation ($T_1$) measurement. In the itinerant magnet CeRhIn$_5$, we found that the N\'eel temperature $T_N$ is reduced at $P \geq$ 1.23 GPa with an emergent pseudogap behavior. In CeIn$_3$, the localized magnetic character is robust against the application of pressure up to $P \sim$ 1.9 GPa, beyond which the system evolves into an itinerant regime in which the resistive superconducting phase emerges. We discuss the relationship between the phase diagram and the magnetic fluctuations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Phys.Rev.B. Rapid

The structure and dynamics of young star clusters: King 16, NGC 1931, NGC 637 and NGC 189

In this paper, using 2MASS photometry, we study the structural and dynamical properties of four young star clusters viz. King 16, NGC 1931, NGC 637 and NGC 189. For the clusters King 16, NGC 1931, NGC 637 and NGC 189, we obtain the limiting radii of 7', 12', 6' and 5' which correspond to linear radii of 3.6 pc, 8.85 pc, 3.96 pc and 2.8 pc respectively. The reddening values $E(B-V)$ obtained for the clusters are 0.85, 0.65--0.85, 0.6 and 0.53 and their true distances are 1786 pc, 3062 pc, 2270 pc and 912 pc respectively. Ages of the clusters are 6 Myr, 4 Myr, 4 Myr and 10 Myr respectively. We compare their structures, luminosity functions and mass functions ($\phi(M) = dN/dM \propto M^{-(1+\chi)}$) to the parameter $\tau = t_{age}/t_{relax}$ to study the star formation process and the dynamical evolution of these clusters. We find that, for our sample, mass seggregation is observed in clusters or their cores only when the ages of the clusters are comparable to their relaxation times ($\tau \geq 1$). These results suggest mass seggregation due to dynamical effects. The values of $\chi$, which characterise the overall mass functions for the clusters are 0.96 $\pm$ 0.11, 1.16 $\pm$ 0.18, 0.55 $\pm$ 0.14 and 0.66 $\pm$ 0.31 respectively. The change in $\chi$ as a function of radius is a good indicator of the dynamical state of clusters.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc

Influence of impurity scattering on tunneling conductance in normal metal- d -wave superconductor junctions

Tunneling conductance spectra between a normal metal / d-wave superconductor junction under the presence of bulk impurities in the superconductor are studied. The quasiclassical theory has been applied to calculate the spatial variation of the pair potential and the effect of impurity scattering has been introduced by t-matrix approximation. The magnitude of a subdominant s-wave component at the interface is shown to robust against the impurity scattering while that for a subdominant $d_{xy}$-wave component is largely suppressed with the increase of the impurity scattering rate. The zero-bias conductance peak due to the zero-energy Andreev bound states is significantly broadened for the case of Born limit impurity compared with that of unitary limit impurity.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

Leading and higher twists in the proton polarized structure function at large Bjorken x

A phenomenological parameterization of the proton polarized structure function has been developed for x > 0.02 using deep inelastic data up to ~ 50 (GeV/c)**2 as well as available experimental results on both photo- and electro-production of proton resonances. According to the new parameterization the generalized Drell-Hearn-Gerasimov sum rule is predicted to have a zero-crossing point at Q**2 = 0.16 +/- 0.04 (GeV/c)**2. Then, low-order polarized Nachtmann moments have been estimated and their Q**2-behavior has been investigated in terms of leading and higher twists for Q**2 > 1 (GeV/c)**2. The leading twist has been treated at NLO in the strong coupling constant and the effects of higher orders of the perturbative series have been estimated using soft-gluon resummation techniques. In case of the first moment higher-twist effects are found to be quite small for Q**2 > 1 (GeV/c)**2, and the singlet axial charge has been determined to be a0[10 (GeV/c)**2] = 0.16 +/- 0.09. In case of higher order moments, which are sensitive to the large-x region, higher-twist effects are significantly reduced by the introduction of soft gluon contributions, but they are still relevant at Q**2 ~ few (GeV/c)**2 at variance with the case of the unpolarized transverse structure function of the proton. Our finding suggests that spin-dependent correlations among partons may have more impact than spin-independent ones. As a byproduct, it is also shown that the Bloom-Gilman local duality is strongly violated in the region of polarized electroproduction of the Delta(1232) resonance.Comment: revised version to appear in Phys. Rev. D; extended discussion on the generalized DHG sum rul

Bosonic Excitations in Random Media

We consider classical normal modes and non-interacting bosonic excitations in disordered systems. We emphasise generic aspects of such problems and parallels with disordered, non-interacting systems of fermions, and discuss in particular the relevance for bosonic excitations of symmetry classes known in the fermionic context. We also stress important differences between bosonic and fermionic problems. One of these follows from the fact that ground state stability of a system requires all bosonic excitation energy levels to be positive, while stability in systems of non-interacting fermions is ensured by the exclusion principle, whatever the single-particle energies. As a consequence, simple models of uncorrelated disorder are less useful for bosonic systems than for fermionic ones, and it is generally important to study the excitation spectrum in conjunction with the problem of constructing a disorder-dependent ground state: we show how a mapping to an operator with chiral symmetry provides a useful tool for doing this. A second difference involves the distinction for bosonic systems between excitations which are Goldstone modes and those which are not. In the case of Goldstone modes we review established results illustrating the fact that disorder decouples from excitations in the low frequency limit, above a critical dimension $d_c$, which in different circumstances takes the values $d_c=2$ and $d_c=0$. For bosonic excitations which are not Goldstone modes, we argue that an excitation density varying with frequency as $\rho(\omega) \propto \omega^4$ is a universal feature in systems with ground states that depend on the disorder realisation. We illustrate our conclusions with extensive analytical and some numerical calculations for a variety of models in one dimension